“Then there’s your answer,” he reassured her. “Look, I don’t claim to know what happened between you and Cody that made him run off to Wyoming, but it’s plain as day to me that it wasn’t a simple misunderstanding. You keeping that baby a secret from him proves that. Feelings that complicated take time to sort out. Take as long as you want, just don’t shut him out of your life in the meantime. Silence and distance aren’t the way to patch things up.”
Harlan’s warning was still echoing in her head when she finally went in search of Cody. He was right, the lines of communication did need to remain open, for Sharon Lynn’s sake, if not her own.
She suspected Cody was either in the barn or had taken off for his own place nearby. His father had promised to look in on Sharon Lynn and to entertain her if she awakened from her nap.
When she didn’t find Cody in the barn, she set off across a field to the small house Cody had built for himself in defiance of his father’s order that he should strike out on his own and work some other ranch, maybe even start his own as Luke had. Every board Cody had hammered into place, every shingle he had laid on the roof had been a declaration that he intended to stay and claim his share of White Pines.
Melissa had watched him night after night, at the end of long, backbreaking days running the ranch. She had helped when she could, bringing him picnic baskets filled with his favorite foods on the evenings when he’d skipped supper to keep on working until the last hint of daylight faded.
She had observed his progress with her heart in her throat, waiting for him to ask her opinion on the size, the style, the color of paint, anything at all to suggest he intended it to be their home and not just his own. Though he had seemed to welcome her presence and her support, those words had never come.
Even so, she had been there with him when the last detail was completed, when the last brushstroke of paint had covered the walls. Though she had only spent a few incredible, unforgettable nights under that roof, she had always felt as if this was home. It was the place Sharon Lynn had been conceived.
As she neared the low, rambling white structure with its neat, bright blue trim, she thought she heard the once-familiar sound of hammering. She circled the house until she spotted Cody in the back, erecting what appeared to be a huge extension off what she knew to be the single bedroom.
The sight of that addition didn’t snag her attention, however, quite the way that Cody did. He had stripped off his shirt, despite the chill in the air. His shoulders were bare and turning golden brown in the sun. A sheen of perspiration made his muscles glisten as they were strained and tested by his exertion.
Sweet heaven, she thought, swallowing hard. He was gorgeous, even more spectacularly developed than he had been the last time she’d seen him half-naked.
“Cody,” she whispered, her voice suddenly thready with longing.
She heard the loud thwack of the hammer against wood and something softer, followed by an oath that would have blistered a sailor’s ears. The ladder he was on tilted precariously, but he managed to right it and climb down without further mishap.
His gaze riveted on her, he muttered, “Damn, Melissa, don’t you know better than to sneak up on a man when he’s halfway up a ladder?”
She knew his testiness had more to do with his injured thumb than her unexpected presence. She grinned at him. “I’ve been in plain view for the last half mile. You would have seen me if you were the least bit observant.”
“I’m concentrating on what I’m doing, not scanning the horizon for visitors.”
“Just what is it you’re doing?”
“Adding on.”
She gave him a wry look. “That much is plain. What are you adding on?”
“A room for my daughter.”
Surprise rippled through her. “Isn’t that room Harlan’s prepared good enough?”
“I want her to have her own room in my home,” he insisted, giving her a belligerent look that dared her to argue.
“Seems like a lot of work for an occasional visit.”
He climbed down from the ladder and leaned back against it, his boot heel hooked over the bottom rung behind him. His chin jutted up belligerently. It should have warned her what was coming, but it didn’t.
“We’re not talking an occasional visit, Melissa,” he declared bluntly. “I expect to have her here a lot. You’ve had her for more than a year. I’m expecting equal time.”
A year, here with Cody? Away from her? A sudden weakness washed through her. “You can’t be serious,” she whispered, thinking of the warning her mother had given her at the outset. Had Velma been right, after all? Would Cody bring all of the Adams influence to bear to get custody of his child?
“Dead serious,” he confirmed, his unblinking gaze leveled on her.
This was a new and dangerous twist to Cody’s driven nature. Clearly he intended to go after his daughter with the same singleminded determination he’d devoted to securing his place at White Pines.
“Cody, she’s not a possession,” she said in a tone that barely concealed her sudden desperation. “She’s a little girl.”
“A little girl who ought to get to know her daddy.”
“I’ve told you—I’ve promised you—that we can work that out. I don’t want to prevent you from spending time with her, from getting to know her, but to bring her to a strange house, to expect her to live with a virtual stranger…I won’t allow it, Cody. I can’t.”
“You may not have a choice,” he said coldly. “I don’t want to get lawyers involved in this, but I will if I have to.”
Melissa had no trouble imagining who would win in a court fight. As good a mother
