The Cowgirl's Little Secret(14)

"I think about you all the time, Jolie. Always have." The soft intake of her breath made him pause. Silence loomed between them until he added, "You had every right to hate me. Hell, I hated myself. Still do. I was a fool, Jolie."                       
       
           



       

"You broke my heart." Her whispered words escaped before she could stop them. He looked as if she'd ripped him into jagged pieces like a glass shattering on concrete.

"I know." He inhaled a ragged breath and combed tense fingers through his hair. "But you got your revenge. You broke mine."





Nine

Jolie balled up her fist, ready to slug Cord. How dare he make this all about him? He'd left her, shredded her heart and her self-esteem. Walked off laughing at her for being the foolish girl she was. She thought back over the things he'd revealed tonight-whether he meant to or not.

Like air hissing out of a tiny hole in a balloon, her anger leaked away.

She sat up and folded her legs tailor-style. Rubbing eyes still swollen from her crying jag, she really hoped she had no more tears left. Things were headed into unmapped emotional territory tonight. Her own feelings were hot and raw, and she desperately wanted to put off this inevitable conversation. But she'd been waiting a lot of years.

"Why, Cord?"

His shoulders hunched as he scrubbed at his face with the heels of his hands. "Short answer? My old man. He hates J. Rand. Hell, Cyrus hates just about everyone he's ever come in contact with."

His explanation felt too much like an excuse, and Jolie wasn't going to let him get by with it. "What's the long answer?"

Cord pushed off the lounger and paced toward the pool. He stood at the edge, hands shoved into his hip pockets. Jolie shivered, cool night air invading the space he'd vacated. She grabbed the chenille wrap draped nearby and tossed it around her shoulders.

"Jolie, all I ever wanted was you. That day in high school, standing there joking with Chance, Cooper and Boone? I looked up. Saw you. And damn if my world didn't come to a screeching halt." He glanced over his shoulder, saw what she'd done and moved to put another log in the fire pit. He poked until the log caught. "Then Boone told me who you were." One shoulder lifted in an apologetic shrug. "Your father's name was pretty much a nightly cussword at the Barron family dinner table. I was seventeen and our old man ruled the roost with an iron fist."

Jolie considered what she knew of Cyrus Barron but didn't speak.

"You were...beautiful. And I wanted you like I've never wanted anything in my life."

"Then why did you date so many girls?"

"I couldn't have you." He shrugged both shoulders. "That simple and that complicated. No one else compared to you. I know. I think I dated every girl in the school before I graduated. And then I started over in college. But you weren't there where I could see you every day. Where I could-" He snapped his mouth shut.

"Where you could what, Cord?" Her voice sounded soft to her own ears but somehow he heard her.

"We used to have a mimosa tree in the backyard of the house in Nichols Hills. I'd sit under that thing in the spring." He half turned away from her and stared out across the ranch. "I took a chain saw to it in college."

"I...I don't understand."

"Mimosa, Jolie. You smell like mimosa."

She barely resisted the urge to sniff her skin as the implications became apparent. "But we were dating. We were together all the time. And it was good between us. I need to know, Cord. Why did you break up with me?"

"Why did you fall into my lap at that frat party to begin with?"

"I asked you first."

"I've been answering your questions, Jolie. I think it's time you answered some of mine. Why?"

Jolie tugged the wrap tighter and considered what to say. "Easy answer? I was drunk and I had a crush on you. Had since that day in high school."

"And the hard answer?"

"Forbidden fruit." A half smile tugged the corner of her mouth. "While not a nightly topic, your family made it into conversations at my house, too." She laughed, but the sound was dry and brittle. "You know, if you'd been the Cord Barron everyone told me you were, I think that one night would have been the end of it. If you'd taken me to bed and said goodbye in the morning, that would have gotten you out of my system. But, oh, no. You couldn't do that. You had to be all noble and stuff. You took me back to the sorority house. You held my hair while I puked my guts up. You tucked me into bed, kissed me on the forehead and left." Tears sprang up behind her closed eyelids. "Damn you, Cord. Why couldn't you have been a jerk?"                       
       
           



       

The cushion beside her dipped, and before she could protest, Cord's arms wrapped her in their strength. He lay down and pulled her with him, cuddling her so that her head rested on his shoulder. She sniffled, but determined to continue, she added, "You made me fall in love with you and then you just...left. 'It's over,' you said. No explanation. Those two words and then you walked out the door."

"I spent the next week dead drunk." His voice grated the words.

"Why, Cord?"

"I told you, my old man. He...ah, hell, Jolie. He found out. About us. I still don't know how."

Something twisted deep inside her as Cord's words confirmed her suspicions. She curled her fingers into the placket of his shirt. "Tell me."

"He called me into his office. Made me stand there while he canted back in that big ole leather desk chair of his, hands folded across his ribs. There was a cigar burning in the ashtray and he wouldn't look at me." He gulped a couple of breaths. "When he finally looked at me...I... Dammit, Jolie, I wished he'd gotten out of his chair and decked me. It would have hurt a whole lot less than the look he gave me."

Her eyes burned and she closed them, hoping to hide the moisture threatening to spill. No more tears, she commanded her heart.

"I'd disappointed him, he told me. Worst son ever. All the typical BS he trots out. Every last one of us has had that manure thrown our way. But this time...this time was different. I can't say why, but it was."

Jolie rubbed her cheek against his chest, partly to smear away the tears but partly to see his expression. Cord's eyes were open, but he was staring at some spot in the redwood-planked roof above them. One hand rubbed back and forth along the curve of her hip, but she didn't think Cord was even aware of the caress. His face looked drawn and tense.

"He took me down a couple of floors, showed me the office for the CEO of BarEx. Then he said, 'Your name should be on that door, but it won't be now. You see her again, I'll strip you of your name, of your inheritance, of everything you ever dreamed of.'" Cord's voice broke on the word dreamed.

She stretched so she could place a gentle kiss on the point of his chin.

"I figured I could work to finish school. In the oil patch. And then go to work for just about anybody. But, oh, no. He had it all figured out. Promised I'd never work for any oil company. If I couldn't work, I couldn't have my dream."

Cord kissed the top of her head and settled her just a little bit closer with a gentle squeeze of his arm. His hand covered hers on his chest and pried her fingers from his shirt so he could lace his fingers through them. "I wanted to marry you and have a family. But I couldn't do that without a job. Or so I thought. I was young and dumb and a coward."

She opened her mouth to say that her dad would have hired him, but the words didn't come out. She thought about it. They'd been sneaking around and she had never lied to her father-until Cord. At the time, there'd been a downturn in the oil and gas business. Prices were down, the government was tightening regulations, leases were hard to come by. There would have been no way her father would hire the son of his biggest rival.

"So I ran. The night I broke up with you, Cooper drove me to the nearest liquor store and I spent about five hundred bucks. I skipped classes for a week. Coop and Chance took turns babysitting. They made sure I didn't do something stupid."

"I hated you."

"Yeah, I figured." He inhaled, held it and then exhaled slowly. "I sort of hated myself."

Neither of them spoke, and the night thickened around them. A log in the fire pit popped. Off in the distance, a mockingbird trilled a lonely warble. He spread the chenille throw out so it covered both of them.

"If you start snoring, I'm leaving."

"I don't snore, Jolie, but you do."

"Do not!" She thumped his chest with their entwined fists for emphasis.

"And you make these little mewling noises. Like a kitten." He continued to tease her.

"Liar."

"Truth."