A Fallow Heart (Tommy Creek #2)(62)

Warmth spread through her. Juggling the loaded plate and thirty-two ounce cup of iced tea Loren had piled on her, she trooped to the large opened barn doors and peered in, only to find him on the ground floor, standing half in and half out of a combine with his torso buried inside its guts. Her heart fluttered in her chest as she silently watched him work.

“Snack time,” she called.

He jolted and whacked his head on the inside of half-lifted hood.

She winced. “Sorry.”

Rubbing his noggin as he ducked out from under the raised engine cover, he stared at her, and then glanced at her filled arms before pressing his lips into a hard line. “My mother sent you.”

She wrinkled her brow as she approached. “You weren’t kidding when you said she keeps you well fed.”

“No, I wasn’t.” He hurried to relieve her of the cup and plate. “Thanks.”

“Is…is everything okay between you and Loren?” she asked the hesitant question as she watched him drain half of his iced tea.

Lowering the cup, he sent her a look that flickered with warning but immediately disappeared.

“Yeah. Fine,” he said, his voice flat with emotion, telling her things were far from fine. But if he didn’t want to talk about it, she wasn’t going to press. She had other issues to discuss.

He jerked his gaze away. “Have a seat,” he offered, motioning toward a pile of two huge tractor tires stacked on top of each other and lying on their sides.

She smiled at the faux seating and settled down. He eased beside her and ate a cookie as they sat silently, each staring at the combine before them.

Squeezing her hands together in her lap, Jo Ellen studied the combine with more attention than she’d ever given a piece of farm equipment before. Cooper’s presence filled the rest of her senses until she remembered what he’d been doing before she had interrupted him.

She frowned with worry. “Is it broken?”

“Naw,” he said around a mouthful. “I was just doing a checkup. The corn will be ready to pick soon, probably early next week if not before then. So I switched out the header this morning to prepare, and I figured I might as well tinker some more, make sure nothing looks like it might break its first day out.”

She nodded, staring up at the overgrown tractor. “These things are bigger than I realized. They seem enormous far away, but they’re even taller in person.” She stood to approach it. “I don’t think I’ve actually been this close to one before.” The tires alone stood as tall as she did.

Cooper set his plate of cookies down, wiped the crumbs off on his thighs and wandered up beside her. “Want to climb up and check out the inside of the cab?”

She shrugged. “Sure.”

When she reached for the railing of the ladder, however, he reared back, glancing at her legs. “You’re wearing a skirt,” he said as if he’d just then noticed.

“I know.” She stepped up onto the first rung. “I wasn’t paying much attention when I packed for my trip here and I ended up shoving more skirts than shorts into my bags.”

He grasped her waist, steadying her, when she took her second step. The heat from his fingers scorched her.

“Are you sure you can climb wearing this thing.” With another glance at her bare exposed legs, he eyed her like a hungry buck spying a doe during the rut.

Belly quivering with a vivid reminder of the night before, she nodded. “Of course. It’s a loose-enough skirt I can move freely.”

He sucked in a breath, making her realize how seductive a person could take her comment. Unable to stop herself, she flashed him a knowing grin over her shoulder and turned away, titillated by the knowledge he could see up her skirt if he wanted to. Once she managed to finagle her way over the wheel at the top of the ladder and into the heart of the mechanical beast, she glanced back to watch him. He followed but remained on the outer landing as she entered the cab and peered around her. “Wow. Everything on the ground looks so small from up here. I’d never be able to operate something this huge.”

He chuckled and wedged his shoulders into the small cab with her, keeping his lower half outside. “You grow used to it after a while.”

Jo Ellen sat in the driver’s chair, allowing him room to squeeze in with her, but when he didn’t, she sighed. “Cooper, I came to apologize.”

He paused from picking at a clump of dirt off the metal floor and lifted his face. After studying her, his features lit with his famous heartbreaking grin. “Of course you did. And what unforgivable offense do you think you committed against me this time?”

Her shoulders slumped. “I realize what I said this morning didn’t sit well with you. And I just want you to know I didn’t mean to hurt—”

He reached out and set his fingers over her knee, hushing her. “Jo Ellen. Believe me, you don’t have any reason to apologize. You did nothing wrong.”

“But you didn’t even kiss me goodbye,” she argued.

His white teeth flashed. “Is that what this is about?” he asked before he let out a chuckle and eased closer. The look in his eyes had her belly tightening. “You came back for your goodbye kiss?”

She swallowed—gulped was more like it. “N-no. Of course not,” she rasped, but now that he mentioned it, “I certainly wouldn’t turn one down though.”