A Fallow Heart (Tommy Creek #2)(31)

He crinkled his eyebrows, frowning at her. She flushed slightly, realizing she’d just confessed she’d somewhat kept track of him over the years. This time, she glanced away.

“I had to put my business on hiatus until Mom and Dad are…settled.”

With a sigh, she shook her head, knowing this was exactly what he would say before she even asked her question. Irrational anger clutching her tight, she scowled. “You are just bound and determined to sacrifice your entire life for something other than yourself, aren’t you?”

He pierced her with a sharp, penetrating stare. Then his eyelids quivered before he rumbled out the words, “Well, being that it’s my life, I figure I can sacrifice it for whatever I deem important.”

“Even if the recipient of that sacrifice doesn’t deserve it?” she charged, drilling her gaze right back into him.

She had no idea why she was challenging him, or why she grew so instantly upset to learn he’d ditched his business to help his parents. Cooper had been the one and only person to hold her hand and stand up for her when everyone else in the world had turned away. He was the last man on earth she should censure.

But it felt as if the years had melted away and they were still staring at each other in her parents’ living room. “I can still help you with the baby, Jo Ellen.” he’d promised so adamantly. “Whatever I have to do, I’ll do it.”

She just couldn’t handle learning he’d yet again thrown his entire future away, all his dreams, for another life-altering sacrifice.

The adult, present-day, hunky Cooper blinked at her. “You don’t think my parents deserve it?” he asked, sounding confused and a little insulted.

Jo Ellen flushed, horrified. “Oh my God,” she gasped, covering her mouth. “I didn’t mean it that way at all. I’m sorry. I just…I was talking about…” She blinked rapidly when she realized what she’d actually been referencing.

His brown gaze settled, filled with kind understanding…a sentiment she knew she hadn’t earned. “S’okay. I know what you’re talking about.”

Utterly uncomfortable, she cleared her throat and lifted her hand to poof at her hair, but dropped her fingers when she realized she’d been about to display a nervous gesture.

Cooper sent her a forced grin that had no doubt broken women’s hearts all over Tommy Creek. “Honestly, it’s no sacrifice at all.” He patted his stomach, drawing her attention back to his steely abs. Seriously, was he hiding sock rolls under there? “My mother’s keeping me well fed over the whole ordeal.”

Dexter, bless his soul, cleared his throat, and spoke loudly enough to break up their conversation. “Speaking of well fed.” He rubbed his wife’s belly and grinned.

“Hey,” Lexi muttered, clearly offended, though she flushed when Dex dabbed at a spot of barbecue sauce on the corner of her lip with his thumb. “Do you want me to give birth to a weak, puny, little son, or what?”

“No, ma’am, I most certainly do not.” To appease her, he picked up her next piece and held it to her mouth, manually feeding her.

As she watched Alexa tear off a piece of pork with her teeth, Jo Ellen swallowed down her loneliness. To make matters worse, Bran cuddled up to Emma Leigh and herded her to a pair of barstools on the other side of Dex and Lexi.

Jo Ellen knew she should follow them, but for some reason, her gaze lifted to the man beside her.

His expression matched her mood. He must not like being a single in a group of pairs any more than she did. But when he looked at her, every other couple in the room seemed to melt away.

He shifted, moving his legs to tuck them under then bar instead of stretching them out to the side where he’d been resting his boot heels on the rungs of the seat next to him.

“Need a seat?” he asked, offering her the free stool.

God, she couldn’t sit so close to him. Her hormones were already twitching as if someone had just fed them speed. But she certainly couldn’t be rude and turn him down either. Lowering her gaze, she seated herself and timidly demurred, “I’m sorry.”

He chuckled and leaned toward her, stirring her hair with his breath. “I think the correct sentiment is actually supposed to be thank you, not sorry.”

She shivered, inhaling the light scent of roasted peanuts, before she glanced up. With his long legs wedged under the bar the way they were, his large body looked crowded and uncomfortable. Her first impulse was to move, give him back his room to stretch. But her skin felt hot and prickly, her stomach stirred with a feminine awareness she was glad to learn she still possessed. For the last few years, she’d grown afraid the ability to feel arousal had died off inside her.

But it stirred now, waking up organs that hadn’t seen use in too long, making them stretch and yawn and glance around to see who’d awakened them. Unable to help herself, she shifted on her stool to ease a breath closer to him.

“Thank you,” she repeated dutifully, though she no longer remembered what she was thanking him for, him giving over his second stool for her to sit on, or him awakening a long-dormant part of her so she could grow ultra-aware of him as a man.

Her lips were so dry as she spoke they stuck together a little. She licked them and a shocking jolt speared up the insides of her thighs when Cooper’s whiskey-pale gaze lowered to her mouth. He nodded and smiled, his eyes lifting to hers only to flicker back down. He looked as if he wanted to lean in and kiss her.