A Fallow Heart (Tommy Creek #2)(24)

It was probably best he hadn’t been on the list, anyway; she wasn’t sure how she would’ve braced herself for this moment.

The last time she’d seen Travis, he’d just broken up with her in the hallway of Tommy Creek’s high school. The next week, her parents had carted her off to Reno. Though she and Emma Leigh had returned for holidays and vacations, she hadn’t left the house much during her brief trips home, cocooning herself inside her old bedroom, trying to mentally and physically recover from her miscarriage, and pretty much stay away from everything she’d left behind.

After graduating, she’d moved to College Station where she’d attended Texas A & M. After that, she’d gone back to Tommy Creek only for short visits on special occasions, and she never left her parent’s farm when she did.

She’d made it a point not to keep in contact with old classmates…especially the ones who’d broken her heart. She’d done so many stupid things in her youth, made so many stupid decisions; she honestly didn’t want a reminder of any of it.

Yet, here stood one of the biggest, staring at her expectantly, waiting for an answer.

She shook herself back to the present. “I’m hosting Mr. Sheffield’s party. I doubt you’re aware of it, but I’ve started a hosting service to—”

“Actually, I have heard of it,” Travis said. “The rent-a-hostess is making a huge splash through the society circles. But I had no idea that was you.”

Even though he called her tireless occupation the exact term it was, she found it to be demeaning to the profession she’d been working eighty-hours a week for the past three years to perfect when coming from him. Still, she displayed a tight-lipped smile and nodded graciously. “Tell me. How have you been? When did you come to Dallas?”

As he had ten years ago, Travis eagerly gushed about himself. “I’m in the mayor’s office as part of the campaign planning staff. There are a couple of strong challengers looking to unseat the incumbent in the next election. We’ve been working around the clock to come up with a new platform.”

Pretending interest, Jo Ellen lifted her eyebrows. “Really? You’re planning for the next election already? How dedicated y’all must be.”

“Oh, we start getting ready for the next election as soon as the votes are cast from the last.”

“My goodness. I had no idea so much work went into such things. Sounds like you have a very important job.”

Instead of continuing his spiel, Travis frowned as if he thought she sounded as fake as she was pretending to be. “Jo Ellen, I know things weren’t great between us the last time we saw each other, but you’re treating me like a stranger.”

Weren’t great?

That was such a mild term for how she remembered it. After she told him she was pregnant and he broke up with her, his parents then went and offered her parents a thousand dollars for her to have an abortion. No, she wouldn’t have classified that under ‘not great.’ More like horrific.

She smiled at him faintly. “I’m working, Travis.”

Though she used his first name to placate him, he still scowled. “I’m not part of your job description, dammit. Talk to me.”

Frank irritation seized her before she managed to flash her polite smile, the effort felt as if she was stretching the flesh on her cheeks, like pulling on a pair of tight, latex gloves. “This is the wrong time and place for me to have a personal conversation.”

“Then when? Where? I want to see you again. There are too many unresolved issues between us. I want…I want to make amends.”

Amends.

The word filtered through her like butterfly wings, fluttering hope into her system and beating madly through her pulse.

She looked at him—looked at him as she would not like the perfect hostess to look at any guest attending one of her employers’ parties. But he was right. Too many unresolved issues lay between them. And she couldn’t hide from them forever. She wanted to be able to think about the past without feeling sick to her stomach with shame. She wanted to resolve all the unsettled problems so she could continue with the rest of her life without the slightest hitch of remorse.

She wanted those amends made.

After a quick, uncertain tug on her lip with her teeth, she asked, “Are you going to the class reunion next week?”

He frowned, clearly confused. “Class reunion?”

“Our ten-year class reunion is next week at Tommy Creek’s high school.” She rolled her eyes as if she believed it to be a silly event, which actually she did. “I know Em and I missed out on most of our senior year, but they invited us anyway. Will I see you there?”

“I…” His face appeared absolutely befuddled. “I hadn’t even planned on it. But…” Intense hazel eyes latching onto her, he said, “If you’re going, then I will most definitely see you there.”

She nodded and was never so glad to hear the doorbell gong. Squeezing Travis’s arm with an affectionate grasp, she started past him. “Then I’ll talk to you there. Now, if you’ll excuse me…”

As she moved away, she felt him watching her, his stare burrowing into the back of her spine. Doom settled around her, and it wasn’t because she had to open the door to let in more heat.

She was going to return to Tommy Creek. She was going to return to her past, and to Travis, and everything else she’d been emotionally running from for the past ten years.