Her emotions were raw. Coming back to White Pines had been far more difficult than she’d anticipated. Part of that was because she felt Mary Adams’s death here in a way it hadn’t struck her even at the funeral. Some of it had to do with Harlan’s warmhearted welcome and the obvious delight he was taking in getting to know his new granddaughter. Most of it, though, undeniably had to do with Cody.
At White Pines she was on his turf. Like Harlan, he reigned over the operation of this ranch as comfortably as she served burgers at Dolan’s. His self-confidence radiated from him in this environment. It always had.
Cody might have been wickedly flirtatious and carefree in his social life, but when it had come to work he’d been mature and driven to prove himself to his father. His early success as a ranch manager had smoothed away any insecurities he might have had living in Harlan Adams’s shadow.
Cody’s command of this privileged world, combined with seeing how easily Sharon Lynn had been accepted into it as Cody’s child, had caused her to rebel. Earlier, as Sharon Lynn had taken a few faltering steps with Cody’s help, Melissa had had this awful, selfish feeling that Cody was benefiting from having a daughter without having done anything to deserve it beyond making her pregnant in the first place.
He hadn’t coached her through labor. He hadn’t walked the floor with Sharon Lynn in the middle of the night. He hadn’t fretted and cried trying to figure out a way to calm her, all the while convinced he was a failure at parenting. He hadn’t been there to panic over the sight of the blood from that cut she had described to him earlier.
No, he had simply waltzed back into their lives and expected to claim his parental rights by flashing his charming grin and dispensing toys like some cowboy Santa. Well, she wouldn’t have it. She wouldn’t let it be that easy. He was going to have to earn a right to be a part of his daughter’s life...and of hers.
That decided, she was troubled only by the realization that her demands were vague, that even she might not recognize when Cody had paid the dues she expected. Should she have a checklist? A timetable? Or would she finally know somewhere deep inside when she was through punishing him for being absent when she’d needed him the most?
“You okay?” Harlan asked, coming out of the house and studying her worriedly.
“Fine,” she said, fighting not to take her annoyance at Cody out on his father.
Harlan was innocent in all of this. She had seen for herself the toll his wife’s death had taken on him and she was glad that bringing Sharon Lynn here had given him some pleasure. She was sorry that she had so stubbornly resisted the temptation to announce to all the world long ago that her child was Cody’s, just so that Harlan and Mary might have had the chance to know their grandchild from day one. The irony, of course, was that everyone in town had known it anyway.
“If you’re so fine, how come you’re sitting out here in the cold all by yourself, looking as if you just lost your last friend in the world?” Harlan asked.
“I didn’t lose him,” she said dryly. “I’m thinking of killing him.”
Harlan’s blue eyes twinkled at her feisty tone. “Ah, I see. Cody can be a bit infuriating, I suppose.”
“There’s no supposing about it. He is the most exasperating, egotistical...”
“Talking about me?” the man in question inquired.
He spoke in a lazy drawl that sent goose bumps dancing down Melissa’s spine despite her resolution to become totally immune to him. Obviously she still needed to work harder on her wayward hormones.
“Which part clued you in?” she inquired. “Exasperating or egotistical?”
Harlan chuckled at the exchange, then promptly clamped his mouth shut in response to a dire scowl from his son. “Sorry,” he said insincerely. “You two want to be left alone, or should I stick around to referee?”
“Stay,” Melissa encouraged just as Cody said, “Go.”
“Thank you, Melissa,” Harlan said, winking at her. “I think I’ll stay. The show promises to be downright fascinating. This time of day, good entertainment’s hard to come by. Nothing but cartoons on TV.”
“Daddy!” Cody warned.
“Yes, son?”
“We don’t need you here,” Cody insisted rudely.
“Speak for yourself,” Melissa shot back.
Cody strolled closer until he was standing practically knee-to-knee with her. He bent down, placed his hands on the arms of the chair and said very, very quietly, “Do you really want him to hear our private, personal, intimate conversation?”
The gleam in his eyes was pure dare. Melissa swallowed hard. Surely Cody was just taunting her. She couldn’t imagine him saying anything to her that Harlan shouldn’t hear. And the truth of it was, she wanted Harlan here as a buffer just to make sure that the conversation stayed on a relatively impersonal track. She didn’t trust those slippery hormones of hers. They were liable to kick in when she least expected it.
She shot a defiant look at the man who was scant inches from her face. “Yes,” she said emphatically.
Cody appeared startled by the firm response. His lips twitched with apparent amusement.
“Suit yourself, Me...liss...a.”
The breath fanning across her cheek was hot and mint-scented. The glint of passion in his eyes sent her pulse skyrocketing. She tried to avoid that penetrating look, but no matter how she averted her gaze she seemed to lock in on hard, lean muscle. Temptation stole her breath.
She saw the precise instant when Cody’s expression registered smug satisfaction, and it infuriated her. It galled her that she responded to him, annoyed her even more that he clearly knew it.
She gathered every last ounce of hurt and resentment she’d ever felt toward him to slowly steady her pulse. With careful deliberation she lifted her glass of tea to her lips and took a long, deep swallow. She kept her gaze riveted to his as she drank, determined to show him that this latest tactic no longer had the power to rattle her. He would not win her over with his easy charm.
Yet even as she did, even as uncertainty and then a flash of irritation darkened Cody’s eyes, she quaked inside and prayed he would back off before she lost the will for the battle. She was weakening already, her palms damp, her blood flowing like warm honey.
Just when she was sure she could no longer maintain the calm, impervious facade, Cody jerked upright, raked a hand through his hair and backed off.
“Score one for Melissa,” Harlan said softly, his voice laced with laughter.
Cody whirled on him. “Daddy, I’m warning you...”
Harlan’s dark brows rose. “Oh?”
Cody frowned. “Dammit, how come you two are in cahoots?”
“Not me,” his father protested, his expression all innocence except for the sparkle in his eyes that was quintessential Harlan. “I’m just a bystander.”
“An unwanted bystander,” Cody reminded him.
“Speak for yourself,” Melissa retorted once again.
Cody scowled down at the two of them for another minute, then muttered a harsh oath under his breath and stalked off. Only when he was out of sight did Melissa finally allow herself to relax.
“Whew! That was a close one,” Harlan said, grinning at her. “Another couple of seconds and the heat out here would have melted steel. Scorched me clear over here. You sure have figured out how to tie that boy in knots.”
To her amazement, he sounded approving. “Shouldn’t you be on his side?” Melissa inquired.
“I suspect Cody can take care of himself,” he observed. “I’m just relieved to see that you can, too.”
Melissa met his amused gaze and finally breathed a sigh of relief. She grinned at him. “It’s about time, don’t you think?”
“Way past time, I’d say,” he said, and reached over to pat her hand. “You want some advice from a man who knows Cody just about as well as anyone o
n earth?”
“I suspect I could use it,” she agreed, wondering at the turn of events that had truly put her and Harlan Adams in cahoots, just as Cody had accused. Maybe Harlan’s wisdom would be more effective than his wife’s advice had been.
“Despite all these centuries that have passed, the caveman instinct hasn’t entirely been bred out of us men,” Harlan began. “Now I know that’s not so politically correct, but it’s the truth of it. A man needs to struggle to claim what he wants. It builds up his passion for it, makes him stronger. Call it perversity, but things that come too easily don’t mean so much. Don’t ever tell ’em I said so, but I made every one of my sons fight me to earn the right to become his own man. They resented me at the time, but in the end they were better for it.”
Sorrow flitted across his face as he added, “Except maybe for Erik. He wanted to please too badly. I made a serious miscalculation by forcing him to work in ranching, one I’ll regret to my dying day.”
Listening to his philosophy about men, Melissa wondered if Mary Adams had put up much of a struggle. Her adoration of Harlan, her catering to his every whim, had been obvious to anyone who knew the two of them. Given Mary’s advice to her about making Cody jealous, Melissa suspected she had given her husband fits at one time.
“Did Mary make you jump through hoops?” she asked.
“She did, indeed,” Harlan told her, chuckling even as his expression turned nostalgic. “I knew the first minute I laid eyes on her that she was the woman I wanted to marry. She was smart as the dickens, beautiful and willful. She claimed later that she fell in love at first sight, too. She didn’t let me know it for a good six months, though. In fact, for a while there I was convinced she couldn’t stand to be in my presence. It was a hell of a blow to my ego.”
He shook his head. “My goodness, the things I used to do just to earn a smile. That smile of hers was worth it, though. It was like sunshine, radiating warmth on everyone it touched. For thirty-six years, I was blessed with it.”
“You’re missing her terribly, aren’t you?” Melissa said softly.
“It’s as if I lost a part of myself,” Harlan admitted, then seemed taken aback that he’d revealed so much. He drew himself up, clearly uncomfortable with the out-of-character confidences. “Enough of that now. You didn’t come all the way out here to listen to me go on and on.”
“May I ask you a question?” Melissa asked impulsively.
“Of course you can. Ask me anything.”
“Did you know Cody had asked me to marry him?”
“He told me.”
“Did he also tell you I’d turned him down?”
Harlan nodded.
She looked over at this man who had always been so kind to her, who’d treated her as a daughter long before she had any ties to his family beyond her hope of a future with his son. Did she dare ask him what she really wanted to know, whether Cody loved her for herself or only as the mother of the daughter he was so clearly anxious to claim? She hedged her bets and asked a less direct question.
“Was I wrong to say no?”
Harlan regarded her perceptively. “Are you afraid he won’t ask again?”
She drew in a deep breath, then finally nodded, acknowledging a truth that was far from comforting.
“What would you say if he does?”
“Right now?”
“Right now,” he concurred.
She thought it over carefully. Given the unresolved nature of their feelings, she would have to give him the same answer. “I’d tell him no,” she admitted.
“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 as she’d been, Cody and his family had the power to beat her. “There has to be another way,” she said.
He nodded. “There is.”
“What? I’ll do anything.”
His mouth curved into a mockery of a smile. “You make it sound so dire. The alternative isn’t that awful. You just have to marry me.”
The conversation she’d just had with Harlan echoed in her head. She couldn’t marry Cody, not under these circumstances, especially not with him trying to blackmail her into it. What kind of a chance would their marriage have if she did? None. None at all.
She forced herself not to react with the anger or counterthreats that were on the tip of her tongue. Reason and humor would be more successful against the absurdity of what he was suggesting.
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