She regarded him with conditioned wariness. “What?”
“Bring Sharon Lynn out to White Pines this weekend,” he coaxed persuasively. At the flare of panic in her eyes, he pulled out his strongest ammunition—her fondness for Harlan. “I think seeing her would do Daddy a world of good. With Mother gone, he needs something positive in his life, something to cheer him up. You should have seen the look in his eyes this morning when I told him she was mine.”
The hint of wariness in her eyes fled and was promptly replaced by astonishment. “You told him?”
“I did. But it wasn’t news. He’d figured it out the first time he saw her, the same as Jordan had.”
Her mouth gaped. “And he didn’t do anything about it? I’m amazed he didn’t haul your butt straight back here or offer to set up a trust fund for the baby or something.”
“Frankly, so am I. Maybe he’s learned his lesson about manipulating.”
Melissa’s expression was every bit as skeptical as his own had to be. “Okay,” he said. “He probably has a scheme we don’t know about yet. Even so, are you willing to take a chance? Will you bring her out? It’s time she learned something about her father’s side of the family.”
He was playing to her sense of fairness and it was clearly working. He could practically read her struggle with her conscience on her face.
“I’ll bring her,” Melissa finally agreed with obvious reluctance. “On one condition—no tricks.”
Cody regarded her innocently. Now that he’d gotten her basic agreement, he could go along with almost anything she demanded. “What kind of tricks?”
“No preachers lurking in the shadows. No wedding license all signed and ready to be filled in.”
He feigned astonishment, even though he thought she might actually have a very good idea, one that hadn’t even occurred to him until just that minute. “Would I do that?”
“In a heartbeat,” she said. “And even if you had an attack of conscience, Harlan wouldn’t. No conspiracies, okay?”
“Cross my heart,” Cody said, already wondering if there was some way to pull off such a wedding.
Melissa’s gaze narrowed. “Why doesn’t that reassure me?”
“And you accused me of a lack of trust,” he chided.
“I’m not the one whose brother threw a surprise wedding in place of a rehearsal,” she said, reminding him of the sneaky trick Jordan and Kelly had pulled on his parents to avoid the out-of-control celebration his mother had planned for their wedding. The whole town had gossiped about that little stunt for weeks.
“I’m glad you mentioned that,” Cody taunted. “It does give me some interesting ideas.”
“Cody Adams, I am warning you…”
“No need, sweet pea. I’m not fool enough to take a chance on getting rejected in front of my family and the preacher. When you and I get married, it’ll be because you’re willing and eager.”
“‘When,’ not ‘if’?” she chided.
“That’s right, darlin’. Only the timing is left to be decided,” he declared with far more confidence than he felt. He unloaded the last of their packages under Melissa’s irritated scrutiny. Apparently, though, his certainty about their future had left her speechless. He considered that a hopeful sign.
“See you on Saturday,” he said, escaping before he had a chance to put his foot in his mouth. “Come on out about eight. You can have breakfast with us.”
Besides, he thought, if Melissa was there by eight, that gave him most of the day to convince her to have a wedding at sunset.
* * *
Melissa debated bailing out on her day at White Pines. Handling Cody was tricky enough without having to worry about Harlan’s sneaky tactics at the same time. Still, she couldn’t very well deny Harlan the chance to get to know the granddaughter he’d just officially discovered he had.
That was what ultimately decided her, or so she told herself as she dressed Sharon Lynn in bright blue corduroy pants, a blue and yellow shirt, and tiny sneakers. She brushed her hair into a halo of soft curls around her face.
“Ma? Bye-bye?”
Proud of Sharon Lynn’s expanding vocabulary, she nodded. “That’s right, my darling. We’re going to see your daddy and your granddaddy.”
Sharon Lynn’s face lit up. She reached for the new toy duck that was never far from sight. “Da?”
Melissa shook her head at the instant reaction. Obviously Cody had had an incredible impact on his daughter in just one visit. Did he have that effect on all women or just those in her family? She tickled Sharon Lynn until she dissolved into a fit of giggles.
“Yes, Da,” she told her approvingly. “We’re going to see Da.” And she, for one, was nervous as the dickens about it. Sharon Lynn clearly had no such qualms.
When Melissa pulled her car to a stop in front of the house at White Pines, she drew in a deep, reassuring breath, trying to calm her jitters. It was going to be just fine, she told herself, even as she fought the overwhelming sense of déjà vu that assailed her.
How many times had she driven out here, filled with hope, anxious to spend time with the man she loved, only to leave bitterly disappointed by his refusal to commit to anything more than a carefree relationship? Everything had always seemed more intense out here, the air crisper and cleaner, the terrain more rugged, the colors brighter. Similarly, her emotions had always seemed sharper, too—the bitter sorrow as well as the blinding joy.
Once she had dreamed of this being her home, the place where she and Cody would raise a family. Now with the snap of her fingers and a couple of “I do’s,” her dream could come true. But Cody’s proposal, forced only by the existence of a child for whom he felt responsible, had tarnished the dream. She doubted it could ever recapture its original, innocent glow.
“Da, Da, Da!” Sharon
