Worse, he was getting to her. Despite her best intentions, she was responding to his teasing, to the allure of his body. She could not let that happen. Steering totally clear of him, however, seemed to be the only way she was likely to be able to avoid succumbing to that seductive appeal. Now seemed like a good time to make a break for it.
All she had to do was get through the checkout line and race home before he caught up with her. She could barricade the door. Or maybe just hide out in a bedroom until he was convinced she wasn’t home.
She tossed a six-pack of soft drinks she didn’t need into the cart, just in case Cody wasn’t as far away as she hoped. She had to leave the store with more than a quart of milk or he’d know that this trip had been nothing more than a ploy to avoid being alone with him.
She had rounded the last aisle and was heading for the cashier when she spotted him. He was positioned in front of the baby food, studying labels with the intensity of a scientist in his lab. Apparently, though, he wasn’t so absorbed that her presence escaped his notice.
“Which of these does Sharon Lynn like?” he asked, holding up competing brands of strained peas.
“Neither one.”
His brow knit worriedly. “Doesn’t she have to eat vegetables?”
“Yes, but she’s past the baby food. She has her first baby teeth. She can chew soft food.” She regarded him oddly. “Do you really care about this?”
“Yes,” he said succinctly, and replaced the peas. “Fill me in on everything.”
Melissa shrugged. “Okay. She can eat the junior brands. Like these,” she said, plucking a couple of jars off the shelf. “There are some foods that don’t have to be specially prepared. She can eat the regular stuff. Peas, for example.”
To her surprise, he seemed to be taking in every word as if she were delivering a fascinating treatise on something far more significant than baby food. In the past he’d reserved that kind of attention for very little besides ranching.
“What are her favorite foods?” he asked, studying the larger jars intently.
“Ice cream and French fries.”
Cody stared at her. “That’s her diet?”
“No,” she said patiently. “Those are her favorites.” She gestured to the junior baby food. “This is what she gets most of the time. When I have time, I even blend some myself from fresh fruits and vegetables. She’s particularly fond of squishing bananas.”
Cody eyed the jars of carrots and meats and fruits, seemed to struggle with his conscience, and then turned his back on them. “Let’s go.”
“Where?”
“To the ice cream section,” he said as grimly as if he were going into battle and the enemy had pulled a last-minute tactical switch. “I’m not bringing home jars of that disgusting-looking liver or those limp little bits of carrot if she’d rather have ice cream.”
“Cody, I do feed her. You don’t need to stock my refrigerator, especially not with ice cream.”
He stopped in his tracks and turned to face her. “Don’t you see, this isn’t about you. It’s about me and my daughter. You’ve had her to yourself for thirteen months. Now I want a chance to be important in her life.”
“By stuffing her with chocolate-fudge ice cream?”
Instead of taking her well-intended point, he seized on the tiny sliver of information she’d imparted about their daughter. “Is that her favorite? I’ll buy a gallon of it.”
He sounded relieved to know that he wouldn’t have to resort to another round of guesswork and label-reading. In fact, he was loping off to the frozen food section before Melissa could gather her thoughts sufficiently to argue with him.
Okay, she told herself, it was only a gallon of ice cream. So what? It wasn’t as if he could buy their daughter’s affection or ruin her health with one extravagant gesture of chocolate fudge.
She had a feeling, though, that this was only the beginning. Cody was not a man to do anything by half measures. His retreat to Wyoming, abandoning not only her but his beloved home and family, was a perfect example of that. He could have straightened everything out between them with a few questions or even by hurling accusations and listening to explanations. Instead he had leapt to a conclusion and reacted by impetuously fleeing to another state.
He was doing much the same thing now that he had discovered he had a daughter. He wanted to be in her life—completely—right this instant. He wanted to marry Melissa…right this minute. The concepts of moderation or patience had obviously escaped him.
She sighed as he appropriated the shopping cart. The two half gallons of chocolate-fudge ice cream had turned into four. And she didn’t like the gleam in his eyes one bit as he turned the cart on two wheels and headed straight for the shelves of diapers.
She’d been right. He was going to take over and she had a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach that there would be very little she could do about it.
* * *
Cody realized he had almost lost it there for a minute at the supermarket. He’d wanted to sweep entire shelves of baby food into the shopping cart.
As it was, in addition to the ice cream, they had left the store with five, giant economy-size packages of disposable diapers, a new toy duck for Sharon Lynn’s bath, five storybooks he could read to her at bedtime and an astonishing selection of her favorite juices. Melissa had just rolled her eyes at the startled checkout clerk.
“New father?” the girl had guessed.
“New enough,” Melissa had replied.
Let them make fun, Cody thought. He didn’t care. This was the first step in his campaign to make himself indispensable to Melissa and his daughter.
“Where to now?” he asked when they’d piled all those diapers and the rest of the shopping bags into the back of his
