Melissa almost chuckled as she watched Mabel struggle with herself. She’d been talking about those seeds for a week, ever since the hardware store owner had told her they’d arrived. She also hated to miss out on something with the kind of gossip potential that Melissa’s next confrontation with Cody was likely to have.
“Go,” Eli repeated, shooing her toward the door and taking the choice out of her hands. “I might not feel so generous again anytime soon.”
“Don’t doubt that,” Mabel retorted sourly.
Mabel got her coat and left, reluctance written all over her narrow, tight-lipped face. Cody inched a little closer to the soda fountain, as if an invisible barrier had been removed from his path.
“Melissa,” Eli called. “I’ll be in the storeroom, checking this morning’s delivery. Call me if you need me.”
“Traitor,” Melissa mumbled under her breath.
Cody had moved close enough by now to overhear. “Nice talk,” he commented. “He’s just doing you a favor.”
“Me?” She stared at him incredulously. “Oh, no. You probably paid him to get rid of Mabel and to disappear himself. I noticed the other night that you’d inherited Harlan’s knack for manipulation.”
Cody clearly wasn’t crazy about the comparison, but he let the charge roll off his back. “I’m not desperate enough to be paying anyone to give me time alone with you,” Cody said, his grin widening. “I’m still relying on my charm.”
“Take it somewhere else,” she muttered.
“Tsk-tsk, Me…liss…a,” he drawled, tipping his hat back on his head as he settled on a stool at the counter. “What does it take to get a little service around here?”
“More charm than you’ve got,” she retorted. “Or cold, hard cash.”
He plucked a twenty out of his wallet and set it on the counter. Then he winked. It appeared he was giving her a choice about which currency she wanted to accept. Melissa would have gladly taken the wink, if it meant she could shove that bill straight down his throat.
Since she couldn’t, she snatched the twenty, tucked it into her pocket and withdrew her order pad and pen. “What’ll it be?” she inquired in the same impersonal tone she used with other impossible customers.
Cody propped his elbows on the counter and leaned forward. “A kiss for starters.”
“You wish.” Her knees trembled despite the defiant retort. Why was it that temptation always entered a room right at Cody’s side? Shouldn’t she have been totally immune by now? Lord knows, she’d been lecturing herself on getting over him from the day he’d left town. Some of that advice should have taken by now. Apparently, though, it hadn’t.
“Then I’ll have a hamburger, fries and a shake,” he said.
The mundane order was a disappointment. Melissa cursed her wayward hormones as she slapped the burger on the grill and lowered the fries into the hot grease. She sloshed milk into a metal container and out of habit added two scoops of chocolate ice cream, even though Cody hadn’t specified the kind he wanted. Half of the mixture splashed out when she jammed the container into place on the automatic shaker.
“Nervous?” Cody inquired.
He spoke in a smug, lazy drawl that sent heat scampering down her spine. She scowled at him. “What on earth do I have to be nervous about? You’re the one who doesn’t belong here. You’re the one making a pest of himself.”
Sparks flared in his dark eyes. “Want me to ask Eli how he feels about you making a paying customer feel unwelcome?”
He didn’t have to. She already knew that Eli would have heart failure if he heard her trying to run Cody off with her rudeness. He’d already taken Cody’s side once today by slinking off to hide out in the storeroom to give them time alone. She’d never before noticed that Eli held Cody in particularly high esteem. His behavior must be part of some instinctive male support system that kicked in whenever one of them sensed that a woman might be getting the upper hand.
She turned her back on Cody, finished fixing his food, then set it down on the counter with a jarring thud.
He grinned at her. “Service with a smile,” he commented. “I love it. You earn a lot of tips this way?”
Melissa closed her eyes and prayed for patience. When she opened them again, Cody hadn’t vanished as she’d hoped. “Why are you in here?” she inquired testily. “Shouldn’t you be out roping cattle or something?”
“We have plans to make, remember?”
“I told you just to tell me when you wanted to see Sharon Lynn. I’ll make the arrangements so you can pick her up at my parents’ anytime.”
“Not those plans,” he said complacently, picking a pickle off of his hamburger and tsk-tsking her, apparently for not remembering that he hated pickles.
“Sorry,” she said without much sincerity. She should have dumped in the whole damned jar. “You could have eaten at Rosa’s.”
“I prefer the spice here,” he retorted. “Now let’s get back to those plans. I was thinking that a week from Saturday would be good.”
Melissa was surprised he wanted to wait that long before seeing his daughter again. Maybe his fascination was already waning. At this rate he’d be moving back to Wyoming in a month. Surely she could wait him out that long. She’d probably be a tangled heap of frustrated hormones, but presumably her sanity would still be intact.
“Sure, if that’s what you want,” she said more agreeably now that she knew he was likely to be out of her hair in no time. “I’m off on Saturday, so you can pick Sharon Lynn up at my place.”
“Not just Sharon Lynn,” he corrected. “Can’t have a wedding without the bride.”
Melissa dropped the glass she’d been rinsing out. It shattered at her feet. Eli poked his head out of the storeroom, saw the glass and shook his head.
“I hope to hell you two settle this quick,” the pharmacist said. “It’s costing me a fortune in
