A Fallow Heart (Tommy Creek #2)(66)

Though Jo Ellen bit the inside of her lip with worry, she squeezed her brother’s arm reassuringly. “Well, excited as that little mama is, I think she’ll do everything the doctor tells her to do. She wants this baby, Grady.”

“I know. It’s just...” Suddenly, he reached out and grabbed her hand, gripping her fingers hard. “You’d come back, wouldn’t you? If things don’t…if she needs you again like she did the last time, you’d come back to be with her, right? Because I can’t…I can’t reach her when she’s in that place.”

Jo Ellen’s heart went out to him, wishing she could do more than what he asked, wishing she could keep his baby strong and healthy and alive for him. After she studied him intently, she turned her fingers under his to squeeze his trembling hand. “Of course I would, Grady. But what happened to her last time isn’t going to happen again. Have a little faith, okay.”

Like Cooper had said at the hospital, whenever you didn’t have any control over a situation, you just had to hope for the best and try not to worry about the worst.

His shoulders wilted with relief and he nodded just as Amy breezed back into the room.

“What do you think? Am I a natural or what?”

When she flashed the booties, Jo Ellen immediately made the appropriate noises. “Oh, how adorable. Amy, these are amazing.”

Jo Ellen oohed and awed while Grady rolled his eyes.

“I don’t know what she’s going to do with all those pink booties when it comes out a boy,” he grumbled, finally falling into the spirit of things. He grinned at his wife, but Jo Ellen noticed something strange in his eyes, desperation, as if he frantically searched for the woman he’d married and fallen in love with.

“She wouldn’t dare be a boy,” Amy reprimanded as she puffed the lace on a delicate pink bootie.

Jo Ellen realized then as she watched them, not only had Amy suffered emotionally after their last miscarriage, but their marriage had suffered too. It broke her heart to see her brother look so lost and afraid.

Puckering out her lip as if pouting, Amy added, “I want a little girl to dress up and that’s that.”

“It’s going to be a child, not a play doll,” Grady teased.

As Jo Ellen watched the two banter back and forth, she thought of Cooper. For some reason, she couldn’t wait to see him tonight so she could unload her new worries—her sister-in-law’s health, her brother’s marriage, their unborn baby’s chances of survival.

Cooper would listen. He’d understand. And then he’d make her feel better.





Chapter Eighteen


So, where are we going?”

As Cooper met Jo Ellen at her parked car where she’d agreed to meet him at the end of his driveway, he took her hand in the dark. “You’ll see.”

When he broke into a light jog, she laughed. “Why are we running?”

“Because…” He tightened his grip on her hand and kept his pace. “It’s fun.”

Jo Ellen rolled her eyes but chased it with a grin, adoring his enthusiasm as she tried to keep up. “Is it very far away?” she panted.

“Just around this bend here.”

She followed curiously as they passed a row of wind-block evergreens. Once he led her around the tree line, she found herself in a path between more trees, different trees.

“Oh,” she breathed out in delighted surprise, glad he’d slowed them enough to finally walk. “I had no idea you had an orchard on your property.”

“My dad planted it for my mom the year they married.”

She reached up and touched a leaf, trying to squint through the dark. “What kind of trees are these?”

“Pecan. I guess the first pie my dad ever tasted of my mom’s cooking was pecan. He took one bite at some church function and declared her the best cook ever. He always told me the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.”

Jo Ellen smiled. “That’s sweet.”

“Yeah,” he muttered, his voice bitter enough to make her glance at him.

But he didn’t return the look. He squeezed her fingers and crossed between a pair of pecan trees to lead her down another row where she finally caught sight of a faint glow ahead, flickering from the ground.

She focused on the light. As they moved closer, she realized it was his lantern from the night before, already set out and resting atop his sleeping bag he’d spread open. But what charmed her most was the wicker picnic basket sitting beside the lamp.

“A picnic?”

He shrugged, looking bashful.

Lips tipping up, she had to tease. “So, are you trying to find out if the way to a woman’s heart is through her stomach as well?”

He laughed, and then kissed her cheek before whispering in her ear. “Maybe.”

A thrill shot through her. Maybe. Oh God, she hoped so. And yet she didn’t. As dangerous as the thought was, she wanted to start a relationship with him…she just wanted it to work and last.

As they approached, he stepped over something in the grass. Jo Ellen glanced down to find a rope. Realizing it circled the entire blanket he had laid out, she burrowed her brow. “What’s with the rope?”

She expected—or maybe just hoped—to hear another romantic tale about how she’d roped his heart, but he shrugged. “That’s just to keep the snakes away.”