A Fallow Heart (Tommy Creek #2)(64)

His lashes fluttered as he tipped his head enough to meet his lips with hers. “Whenever you want. Tonight.”

“Tonight,” she agreed, then wrapped her arms around him and kissed him breathless.

“Or you could just stay until then,” he coaxed, talking against her mouth. “Keep me company while I tinker on this old thing. Then maybe I could show you what the hayloft looks like in the daylight.”

Without letting her answer, he fused them back together, kissing her long and lazily, making her body stir to life.

Euphoric about seeing him again later and aroused from even hearing the word hayloft, she whimpered. It took her quite the effort to force herself to pull back. “I can’t stay the whole day. I’m sorry, I promised my sister-in-law I’d stop by this afternoon and visit her and Grady before I leave town. I was actually on my way there when I passed your place and decided to drop in to say hi.”

He studied her before his lips tipped up in a grin. “Well, feel free to drop in and say hi anytime.” He lightly traced her face with the tips of his fingers. “I think I could become addicted to the way you say hi.”

Jo Ellen glowed. As Cooper took her hand and walked her back to her car, they laced their fingers together in such a sweet, platonic way, she blushed when she thought of their saucy, totally non-platonic make out session in his combine.

A giggle crawled up her throat. She couldn’t believe she wanted to giggle. Jo Ellen Rawlings hadn’t giggled since she was a schoolgirl, probably since she’d gotten pregnant at eighteen and suffered a devastating miscarriage. But Cooper Gerhardt made her giggly.

He kissed her at the driver’s side door of her car, which had her smile stretching wider.

“Tonight,” he promised, brushing his forehead against hers as he toyed with her fingers as if he was loath to let go of her quite yet.

She bit her lip. “Tonight.”

“Let’s make it a true rendezvous.” A conspiring gleam glittered from his whiskey gaze. “Why don’t you meet me at midnight at the end of the lane? I know just the spot to take you.”

Though her cheeks heated from the sensual assault his words take you had on her, she narrowed her eyes, trying to look suspicious. A second later, she giggled and agreed, “Okay.”

He pressed another soft kiss to her mouth before letting go of her hand, making contact with every inch of her fingers before they finally broke contact. When he turned and started away, she panicked.

Unable to leave him just yet, she said his name on a hushed question. “Cooper?”

When he turned back, her heart surged up into her throat, momentarily rendering her speechless. Instinctively, she knew he’d always answer whenever she called to him. That knowledge was comforting as much as it was overwhelming.

He arched a curious eyebrow, reminding her she’d initiated this.

“I have a confession,” she blurted out the first thing that sprang to her mind.

He took a curious step toward her and paused. “Okay.”

Jo Ellen licked her lips. “Uh…y-yesterday, when I first got here, I saw you…through the window. I spied on you as you took your shirt off and rinsed away the sweat under the well water faucet.”

Cooper stared at her. Then he grinned and leaned in closer, murmuring her name just as she had his a few moments before. “Jo Ellen?”

She bit her lip. “Yes?”

He winked. “I saw your car when I pulled up. Why do you think I took my shirt off?”

Heaving in a huge breath, she flushed. From the glitter in his gaze and after what they’d just done in the combine, she found herself aroused, ready, and eager for him. Impatient for midnight.

What in God’s name was wrong with her?

Stamping another quick kiss to her lips, he opened her car door and helped her slide behind the wheel. After he put her inside, he tapped the glass in farewell, and took a step back. She smiled at him through the window and started her car.

When she pulled away and glanced into her rearview mirror, he continued to stand where she’d left him, staring after her. A lump formed in her chest. Dear Lord, she wanted to wheel back around and return to him.

This was so not a good sign. It was already happening. She was letting herself slip. She just hoped landing wouldn’t shatter her as badly as getting involved with Travis had.





Chapter Seventeen


As Jo Ellen pulled to a stop in front of her brother’s house, she wiped all Cooper-related worries from her head, pushing them into the back recesses of her brain, refusing to even think on them. Patting out the wrinkles in her skirt, she flushed when she found a smear of dirt on her hip. She batted it away as she hurried to the front porch.

The main entrance opened before she reached it, and Grady’s wife, Amy, flew outside, her arms open wide.

“There you are! We were wondering when you’d get here.”

Amy wrapped her in an encompassing hug, and Jo Ellen focused on her sister-in-law, relieved she looked so well.

The last time she’d seen Amy, Amy had just suffered a miscarriage. She’d been pale and drawn inside herself, refusing to acknowledge—much less smile at—anyone. It was good to see her finally recovered.

She chattered like the old Amy as she led Jo Ellen into the new house Grady had built for her only a few years before.