by Silver James
“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.”
“How would you remember that?”
“I remember everything, Jolie.” His voice held no hint of teasing.
“Like what?”
“Like the way you look when you wake up. All doe eyed with your hair mussed. Like that giggle-snort thing you do when something hits your funny bone. Like the way you watch me, your eyelids half lowered, when I’m getting ready to kiss you.”
“Do not.”
“I’ll prove it.”
He pressed up from the lounge back, cradling her across his chest. She wanted to wipe the smirk off his face until he bent his head. Darn if he wasn’t right—her lids drooped and she watched him from beneath her lashes. His lips touched hers and her eyes closed all on their own. She didn’t fight. Her body was way past the fight-or-flight point. It was all about the shut-up-and-kiss now.
Jolie parted her lips, inviting Cord to deepen the kiss. He did. His fingers threaded in her hair and he angled her head so he could assault her mouth with heat and need. His. Hers. It no longer mattered. Her tongue danced with his, eliciting a soft groan from him. His arousal was impossible to ignore as she shifted her hips. Her core tightened, throbbing with the thought of having Cord buried there. She wanted him now as much as she ever had.
Her breasts ached, and she wished that he’d touch her there, that he’d run his thumbs over their peaks. She arched and rubbed against his chest, and thank goodness, Cord spoke her body language fluently. The hand in her hair dropped to press between her shoulder blades while his other hand cupped a breast. Air hissed from her lungs in a satisfied sigh. Her thighs tensed and she pressed her knees together as her center throbbed with need.
Then he broke the kiss. And set her away from him.
“What the—?”
“I’m sorry.” Cord swung his legs off the lounger and his fists curled up on his thighs.
“Sorry? I don’t understand you, Cord. What are you sorry for now?”
“For...this.” He refused to look at her. “I didn’t mean to...seduce you.”
“Seduce? Me? Seriously?” Her burst of laughter came out more like a snort. “I think it was mutual, dude.”
“No.”
“I beg your pardon? I seem to remember kissing you just as hard as you were kissing me.” She added, “Among other things,” in an undertone.
“This isn’t right, Jolie.”
“What?” Totally confused, she couldn’t decide if she was angry, amused or embarrassed.
“I want you. God knows I’ve always wanted you. But not like this.”
“Uh...what does that mean?” She leaned forward and to the side so she could see part of his face. What was he up to? Was this some game he was playing?
“I just think jumping into—” With one hand, he made a vague waving gesture between them. “I want to take it slow. Do it right this time.” Now he turned to face her, and the stark need on his face felt like a punch to her stomach.
“So what now?” Her voice quavered, and she prayed Cord didn’t pick up on it.
“Not sure, sunshine.” He cupped her cheek and leaned in to brush a gentle kiss across her lips. “I need to learn how to be a father. To CJ. We need to be friends. Not just—” He did that vague wave again.
Jolie studied his face. So many emotions congregated there she couldn’t read them all.
“What do you want?”
Cord looked away, stood and put distance between them as he stared out over the pool. “Time with CJ. Well, more time with CJ. And maybe time together. As a...well, the three of us. As...friends.”
He wouldn’t look her in the eye, and she was positive he was planning something. “I don’t trust you, Cord.”
A flash of anger consumed his expression for a moment before he controlled it. “That goes both ways, Jolie.”
His voice chipped at her walls like a sharp chisel. She opened her mouth to retort, and then snapped her jaw shut. Yeah, okay. He had every right not to trust her. She’d kept the biggest secret of their lives from him.
“You’re right. I’m sorry.” She drew her knees up to her chest and hugged them. “This is like doing the two-step through a minefield.”
“You got that right.” He stepped closer, but stopped just out of her reach. “Look, can we agree that we each hurt the other? Deeply. I really do want to move forward, Jolie. I can’t undo the past. I screwed up, okay? I know that. But all the apologies in the world won’t change a damned thing. Here’s what I want. I want the chance to make it right. To fix things.”
That was the very core of Cord. He was a fixer. The classic middle child. He negotiated. Smoothed over hurt feelings. Compromised. She’d loved that about him, once upon a time. She’d watched him protect the twins and Chance from their father, but she’d also watched him surrender to Cyrus’s demands. She didn’t want to admit that he hadn’t really changed all that much. Not in the fundamental things—an odd combination of protector and defeatist.
Though she wasn’t sure she was ready to trust him, she admitted he still had way too much boyish charm to be healthy, and he oozed his way through her defenses no matter what she did to thwart him. The fact her panties were damp testified to that.
“You’re insidious.”
His bark of laughter echoed through the covered patio. “Don’t forget incorrigible.”
“You’re definitely that, too. You just won’t stop, and then you slime your way back into my life.”
“Well, that certainly paints me in an attractive light.”
“And you know what else? You’re right. Sleeping with you would be a horrible idea.”
He looked amused now.
“Horrible, huh?” He glanced at her chest. She knew her traitorous nipples were peaked and obvious.
Folding her arms across her chest in self-defense, she nodded emphatically. “Yes. Horrible. I momentarily lost my mind. I swear you’re like one of those rainforest frogs with the poison skin. You kiss me and I lose all sense.”
“I figure that’s a good thing, sunshine.”
Her previous thoughts returned, swamping her with misgiving. “Don’t, Cord. I’m...I’m not ready for this.”
“Not ready for what?” He looked cautious now.
She waved her hand between them. “This. Us. You in CJ’s life. I don’t trust your father, Cord. I don’t trust that you’ll—”
“That I’ll what, Jolie?”
Now he looked angry, but she wasn’t ready to reveal her thoughts, to tell him that she didn’t trust him to choose her and CJ this time. She scrambled off the lounger and headed toward the door. “I’m going home.”
His laughter surrounded her, so rich and warm it tasted like s’mores on her tongue, and she wavered for a moment.
“Are you sure I can’t convince you to stay for the sleepover?”
“I am not sleeping with you, Cordell Barron. Not tonight. Not ever.�
�
Ten
Cord reread the report. Despite any conspiracy theories to the contrary, the stuff happening on the drilling rig—including his and Cooper’s injuries—appeared to be just unrelated accidents. Despite this information from Cash’s investigator, Cord wasn’t completely convinced. He couldn’t forget how J. Rand had warned him away from Jolie at first, even though they’d declared a truce of sorts in the talk they’d had later at the ranch. And while Jolie’s father wasn’t nearly as cutthroat as his own, Cord couldn’t completely shake the idea that the problems his company was facing were tied in somehow with Jolie’s return.
He set the folder aside and stared at the drilling run reports on his desk. Though Cooper wasn’t fully back on the job yet, Cord had been back in the office for about a week. But the view from his office window lured him away from work more often than not. The medical complex on the hill across town held too many memories. Bad—the pain of recovery and rehabilitation. And good—the serenity of waking up to find Jolie hovering at his bedside.
His phone buzzed and his assistant’s voice informed him that Cyrus was on the line and insistent. With a grimace, he stabbed the blinking light.
“I’m busy.”
“So am I. Did you really think you could hide it from me?”
Cord did not want to have this conversation. “Hide what?”
“Your bastard.”
Anger and adrenaline surged through him, making him reckless. “You mean my son?”
“Not until you file the paperwork, Cordell. Do it. Now. Or I will.”
The old man hung up before Cord could retort. His day had just turned into a big whole heaping pile of dog crap.
Business. He had to focus on BarEx. His private life was screwed at the moment even though he’d managed to work out a schedule of sorts with Jolie, giving him time with CJ—but not time with her. He was still kicking himself for calling a halt to their lovemaking that night. And now his old man knew about CJ. “You are all kinds of a fool, son,” he muttered.