A Fallow Heart (Tommy Creek #2)(78)

“It’s dead, dear,” his mother confirmed.

He lifted his face and blinked. “Pardon?”

Eyes twinkling with mischief, Loren motioned toward his plate. “I swear, I lobbed off its head and even plucked the feathers before serving it. The bird is most definitely deceased. You don’t have to stab it repeatedly to make sure.”

“Oh.” He set the fork to the side of his plate and picked up his glass of tea. After taking a sip, he set the cup down only to run his finger along the condensation dripping down the side. “I guess I’m just not hungry tonight.”

“Mmm. I noticed.”

Unable to bear the idea of even idle chitchat, he slid his chair back and pushed to his feet. “I think I’ll eat this later.”

She watched him as he found a roll of plastic wrap in a drawer and sealed his plate before slipping it into the refrigerator.

“Sleeping in the hayloft again tonight?”

Gut bursting with white-hot agony, he winced, then shook his head. “No. I…I think I’ll head to my room and read a spell before turning in.”

His mother’s spoon froze midway to her creamed asparagus. “Already? But it’s only—”

“I want to get up early,” he cut her off. “The corn’s ready now. Time to start the harvest. If I wait any longer, the entire crop will burn up in this heat.”

She slowly set her spoon down and studied him from behind her thick glasses, looking devastated. “You’re starting tomorrow? You mean, you’re not even going to attend your class reunion?”

Hell no.

He ducked his face. “Got work to do. I’ve been playing around too much lately as it is.”

When she didn’t respond inside five seconds, he started for the exit.

“Did you even tell her how you feel about her?” she finally asked, her quiet voice stopping him in his boots. Sharp, piercing anger flooded his veins. He twisted around and came a couple feet back into the kitchen before he halted and half turned away again, commanding himself not to flee.

He wanted to rage at her; how dare she ask him such a thing? Did she want him to end up like his father, trapped with a woman who held his heart, always knowing she loved another?

“I…I can’t…” Unable to talk to her about it, he stalked toward the arched escape before his emotions, which were already too close to the edge, slipped right over into uncontainable.

His mother sighed. “Cooper, I love you.”

The weary concern in her voice had him jerking to a stop and squeezing his eyes closed. He couldn’t shut off the part of himself that loved her back. She was his mother.

Silently, he waited for her to continue. When she didn’t, he glanced back. “But?”

With a smile, Loren shook her head. “But nothing. I love you and am very proud of the man you’ve become. I just want you to be happy.”

Happy? He’d been happy yesterday. Hell, he’d been happy this morning. But happy seemed to come with a price bigger than he wanted to pay. Happiness ended and left a man broken and worse off than he’d been before he was ever happy.

When his mother continued to sit and watch him, he shook his head and eased back to the table. “What? That’s it? No words of wisdom?” he demanded, needing just that. “No cryptic old saying that’ll confuse me more than help me?”

She chuckled. “The heart wants what the heart wants. And you have a good heart. I’d pamper it a little and give it what it wants if I were you.”

He slumped into the chair beside her. “And your heart still wants that soldier who died in the war?”

A blank, startled expression crossed her face. “Good Lord, no. What…how…sit down, Cooper,” she said right before she noticed he already was.

He sent her a strange look when she reached out and grasped his hand hard. “Is this why you’re so upset? It’s not because I…I gave myself to another—”

“No!” he rushed to say before his mother could actually speak those words aloud. Damn, he didn’t want to think about his mother giving herself in any way, to any man, especially one who wasn’t his father. “I…I don’t care about that at all. I mean, it was a shock, yeah but, Jesus, Mama. Do you love Dad at all?”

Her mouth worked like a gasping fish that had been yanked from the water. “Love him?” she finally repeated. “Of course I love him; with all my heart. I fell for him the moment I read the letter he wrote me. Why do you think I kept such an incriminating piece of evidence all these years? It is the sweetest thing I have ever read.”

Cooper blinked rapidly, combating a rash of tears. “So…?”

“Cooper, your father is my heart and soul. I feel like half a person without him here. The years I spent with him were the best years of my life. Why do you think I’m so adamant about you going after Jo Ellen. I want you to experience the same joy.”

Emotion clogged his throat. Realizing his mother really had loved his father, changed things somehow. And it confused him on a totally different plane, leaving him feeling as if he was starting all over from step one.

“She’s going back to Dallas, Mama. On Sunday.” He tried to explain why he shouldn’t chase after her and beg her to forgive him for being an ass, but the excuses sounded empty to his own ears. “She loves her life there. I’m not…If I told her how I felt, it wouldn’t change anything. She wouldn’t stay. We lead entirely separate lives. And I just feel…if I said something to her, I’d only make her miserable. She hates it when she knows she’s hurt someone, hates loose ends and unresolved situations. I don’t want her having any kind of regret whenever she thinks back on me. I want her to remember the fun we had.”