“No.” He swallowed hard. “What’s her name?”
“Sharon Lynn.”
He repeated it softly, just to hear how it sounded on his tongue. “I like it.”
“I’m not sure she’ll tolerate being called by both when she gets a little older, but for now that’s what we call her. My father tends to call her Pookie. I’m trying to break him of the habit. I will not have my child go through life being nicknamed Pookie. Missy is bad enough.”
He smiled at her and barely resisted the urge to reach over and brush a strand of auburn hair from her cheek. “I never called you Missy.”
“For which I was exceedingly grateful. That’s probably why I let you get away with so much.”
“You never let me get away with a thing,” he protested.
“That baby inside says otherwise.”
“I’ll have to remember that,” he said, grinning. “If I just whisper your name in your ear, you’ll do anything I ask, is that right?”
She frowned, probably at the sudden provocative note in his voice. He knew she didn’t want him to guess how easily he got to her. She was going to fight him tooth and nail.
“That was then,” she said staunchly, confirming his guess. “This is now and the tide has turned, cowboy.”
He readily accepted the challenge in her tone. “Is that so, Me…liss…a?” He deliberately drew her name out. Before she could react to the teasing, he lowered his head and dropped a quick kiss on her parted lips. “See, it still works.”
The startled, slightly dazed expression on her face almost tempted him to try again. That brief brush of his mouth over hers had been just enough to tantalize him. Memories of warm, moist kisses and stolen caresses slammed through him, turning teasing into something very, very serious.
How had he ever walked away from her? Why hadn’t he stayed and fought, just as she’d demanded earlier? Had it been the gut-deep sense of betrayal that had driven him all the way to Wyoming? Or had it simply been the even more powerful fear of the commitment to which fighting for her would have led? He’d never thought of himself as a coward, but suddenly he was taking a long, hard look at his actions in a whole new light.
“Cody?”
He blinked and gazed down into her upturned face. Before he could question himself, he scooped his hand through her silky hair to circle the back of her neck. With his gaze fixed on her turbulent sea green eyes, he reclaimed her mouth, lingering this time, savoring, remembering.
He felt her hands on his chest, tentative at first, then more certain as she slid them up to his shoulders and clung. Her body fit itself neatly, automatically, into his, the movement as natural as breathing and far, far more exciting.
Cody couldn’t believe he had ever walked away from this. He couldn’t imagine how he had lived without the sweetness of her kisses or the heat of her body pressed against his. The swirl of sensations was overpowering, demanding…and totally inappropriate for a sidewalk in plain view, he realized as a passing car honked and the teenage driver shouted out encouragement.
Melissa backed away as if she’d been burned. Her face was flaming with embarrassment. A warning flashed in her eyes, turning them the shade of soft jade in sunlight.
“That can’t happen again,” she stated emphatically.
“It can and it will,” Cody said with just as much certainty. “Count on it.”
Alarm flared in her expression. “No, Cody, this isn’t about you and me anymore.”
“Sure it is, darlin’. It always was.”
“No!” She practically shouted it, as if volume might make her edict clearer. “You and I are over. You saw to that.”
Cody dropped his own voice to a seductive growl. “We’ll see,” he taunted.
“Dammit, Cody, do you or do you not want to see your daughter?”
“Of course I do,” he said, amused that she seemed to think the two concepts were diametrically opposed. “Meeting Sharon Lynn has absolutely nothing to do with my intentions toward you.”
“Yes, it does,” she said stubbornly.
“You’re not keeping me from my daughter,” he responded emphatically. “And you’re not going to put up much resistance, once I set my mind to winning you back.”
A scowl darkened her face. “You are the most arrogant, most infuriating man on the face of the earth. It’s too late, Cody. You couldn’t win me back if you courted me from now till we’re both tottering around in orthopedic shoes.”
A grin tugged at his lips. “Is that a challenge?”
“That’s a guarantee.”
Chuckling at her sincere conviction that she could win a test of wills with him, he took her hand and headed for the house.
“You don’t have a chance, sweet pea,” he told her solemnly as he ushered her inside, where Velma was waiting, her gaze wary. He lowered his voice to taunt one last time, “You don’t have a snowball’s chance in hell.”
Melissa never responded because her mother spoke up just then.
“You brought him,” Velma said, her tone accusing.
“You knew I would,” Melissa told her mother. “Where’s Sharon Lynn?”
“Down for her nap,” she said, a note of triumph in her voice. “There’s no need to wake her.”
Cody was aware of the undercurrents between mother and daughter. Clearly, Velma was angry about his presence. Once again he had the sense that she feared him having any contact at all with his child.
Melissa shot him a vaguely apologetic look. “I’ll get her,” she said.
He fell into step beside her. “Don’t wake her. I’ll come with you. Let me just look at her for now. Your mother’s right. There’s no need to wake her yet.”
If he had expected the suggestion to gain Velma’s approval, he failed. He should have saved his breath. An expression of doom on her face, she trailed along behind them. He had the feeling she would have thrown herself across the threshold to the bedroom if she’d thought it would keep him away from her granddaughter.
He couldn’t waste time worrying about Velma, though. From the instant he stepped into the room
