Cody’s expression remained undaunted. “Then I’ll wear a jacket to tend the grill and we can eat inside.”
“You never give up, do you?”
“Never,” he agreed softly, his gaze locked with hers. “Not when it’s something this important.”
“What is it that’s important, Cody?” she asked, unable to keep a hint of desperation out of her voice. “What?”
“You, me, Sharon Lynn,” he said. “I want us to be a family, Melissa. I won’t settle for anything less this time.”
She heard the determination in his voice. More important, she heard the commitment. He sounded so sincere, so convinced that a family was what he wanted.
“Will you come?” he asked again. “You and Sharon Lynn?”
Melissa sighed. She’d never been able to resist Cody when he got that winsome note in his voice, when that thoroughly engaging smile reached all the way to his dark and dangerous eyes.
“What time?”
“Five-thirty?”
“We’ll be there.”
“My house,” he said. “Not the main house.”
Thoughts of making love in that house flooded through her. Melissa shook her head. “No,” she insisted. “Let’s have dinner with Harlan, too.”
“Scared, Me…liss…a?”
“You bet, cowboy. You should be, too.” She lowered her voice. “The last time we were alone in that house, we made love and we didn’t take precautions. I’m not risking that again.”
Cody grinned. “Hey, darlin’, that’s something I can take care of right here and now,” he offered. “I’m sure Eli can fix me right up.”
Melissa’s cheeks flamed at the prospect of having Eli and Mabel know any more of her business than they already did. “Cody, don’t you dare. Besides, we decided that sleeping together only complicated things.”
“Did we decide that?”
“You know we did. We have dinner at Harlan’s or you can forget it.”
“Okay, darlin’, I’ll let you win this round,” he said, startling her with his lack of fussing. “See you at five-thirty.”
It wasn’t until she arrived at White Pines that she discovered the reason for Cody’s calm acceptance of her edict.
“Where’s Harlan?” she inquired suspiciously the minute she stepped into the too silent foyer of the main house.
Cody’s expression was pure innocence as he gazed back at her. “Oh, didn’t I mention it? Daddy’s gone to spend a few days with Luke and Jessie.”
With Sharon Lynn already happily ensconced in her father’s arms, with a huge stack of ribs just waiting to be barbecued, Melissa bit back the urge to turn right around and flee. This round, it appeared, had gone to Cody.
Chapter Fourteen
For the next two months, Cody won more rounds than he lost, much to Melissa’s chagrin. Though she’d turned down his proposals every time he made them, he took the rejections in stride. He just redoubled his efforts to change her mind. Her resistance was in tatters. Her senses were spinning just at the sight of him. She was clinging to the last shreds of pride and determination she had left.
There were moments, she was forced to admit, when she couldn’t even remember why she was so staunch in her conviction that marrying Cody was positively the wrong thing to do. He had done absolutely nothing since his return to indicate that he wasn’t thoroughly absorbed in his relationship with her and their child. He was sweetly attentive to her. He doted on Sharon Lynn.
And still, for reasons she was finding harder and harder to fathom, she kept waiting for some other woman to come between them, for some blowup that would send Cody racing away from Texas, away from them. It didn’t seem to matter that his roots at White Pines ran deeper than ever. He’d left his home and her once before. She never forgot that, wouldn’t let herself forget it.
She put more obstacles in their path to happiness than championship hurdlers had ever had to jump. Cody, just as determinedly, overcame each and every one, without criticism, without comment. He just did whatever was asked of him.
The truth of it was that his thoughtfulness and consideration were beginning to wear on her. She figured it was an indication of the depths of her perversity that she longed for a good, old, rip-roaring fight.
She was already working herself into a confrontational state when she reached her mother’s after a particularly exhausting day at work, only to find that Sharon Lynn wasn’t there.
“What do you mean, she’s not here?” she demanded, staring at her father. Her mother was nowhere in sight, which should have been her first clue that her life was about to turn topsy-turvy.
“Cody came by,” her father admitted. “I let him take her.”
“You what?” Her voice climbed several octaves. Was everyone in town on Cody’s side these days? She’d thought for sure at least her parents would stick up for her. Instead her father had joined the enemy camp.
“Why would you do that?” she asked plaintively.
Her father regarded her with amusement. “He’s the child’s father, for starters. He wanted to spend some time with her. He said he’d drop her off at your house and save you the trip. I guess he didn’t tell you that, though.”
“No, he did not,” she snapped. “Which is a pretty good indication of why Cody Adams is not to be trusted.”
“If you ask me, he’s been jumping through hoops to prove he can be trusted. Why don’t you give the guy a break?” He patted her cheek. “Come on, ladybug. You know you want to.”
“I can’t,” she said simply.
“Why not?”
“Because he’ll leave again at the first sign of trouble.”
“He left before, because you provoked him into it. I can’t say I blame him for being furious about finding you out with Brian. Going out with him was a danged fool idea to begin with.”
Melissa’s anger wilted. “I agree, but Cody should have stayed and talked to me. He shouldn’t have run.”
“Don’t you think he knows that now?” her father inquired reasonably. “Don’t you think if he had it to do all over again, he would make a different choice?”
“I
