Her heart dropped to her stomach, her head going light with possibilities. If that were true, it changed everything, it meant that . . .
“No, he knew,” Shelby said, cutting off that particular train of thought before it grew wings.
“How can you be sure?”
“A man who meets his son for the first time, a child he knows nothing about, would have questions, accusations. He’d be so mad, he’d explode. He only exploded when I gave him the contract and he informed me, in a really mean way I might add, that he wasn’t the least bit interested in anything the contract offered.”
What she didn’t know was if he meant being a dad to Jake or if it was just her he found so unappealing. She remembered the look he’d given her after she’d kissed him and dropped her face into her hands. “Oh, Gina. I must have looked like the biggest fool on earth. Begging a man to marry me, who would obviously rather have a root canal.”
“Maybe it’s time to just let him go, Shell.”
“I can’t,” she mumbled miserably through her hands. She had given her heart fully to Cody the day they’d met and no matter how hard she tried, couldn’t figure out how to get it back. And Jake wanted a daddy so much she could feel his ache as if it were her own. Maybe it was.
Gina let go of Shelby and sat back, forcing her to look up. “Have you thought of what you’ll do if Cody runs off again? Of how that would affect Jake?”
Yes, she had, incessantly. It had kept her awake since the day he’d shown up at the ranch.
A pounding shook the front door, followed by something that sounded like raccoons mating. Gina walked over to the cabinet, pulled out the whiskey, pouring a healthy dollop into her mug, then took a swig straight from the bottle. The knocking started again—gaining in volume and urgency.
“Aren’t you going to get that?” Shelby asked.
“Nope.” Gina took another sip before replacing the cap, as if she thought ignoring the racket would make the person go away. More pounding. This time with the force of a four-letter word.
“It could be an emergency.”
Gina’s eyes took on a suspicious twinkle and a slow, sly smile spread across her face. “You know what, you’re absolutely right, I should get the door. Two days ago I would have let it go—or grabbed my gun.”
Gina stood to answer the door. With her hand on the knob she turned to Shelby. “But now, well, you should have taken me up on my offer for a little nip in your morning joe.”
Of course, Shelby had no idea what her snarky comment meant and there wasn’t enough time to decipher its meaning. The door opened and there—with her flapping apron, rolling pin, and a basketful of her corn bread muffins—stood Mrs. McKinney. Her greeting was to palm a muffin off the top of the pile, pull back for the windup, and with all the styling of Cy Young, let it fly. It shot over Gina’s head, narrowly missing Shelby, a vase, and a lamp, before lodging itself in the Sheetrock. “I want to report a crime!”
“Destruction of property with yeast and poor manners?” Gina asked, picking at her cuticles.
“Breaking and entering, and sabotage with intent!” Mrs. McKinney waved her rolling pin dangerously close to Gina’s head.
“Please, come in,” Gina said, all light and breezy as if the woman hadn’t just used a muffin as a throwing star.
Mrs. McKinney clutched her basket to her chest as they made their way to the kitchen. Gina even poured her a cup of coffee before taking a seat.
“What are you going to do about this?” Mrs. McKinney took out a muffin and shoved it in Gina’s face. “They’re like cinder blocks. The entire batch. It’s criminal!”
“Overcooked muffins are criminal?”
“I’ve never overcooked anything in my entire life,” she snapped, lifting the basket and dumping a dozen or so muffins on the counter. They landed with a solid thud. “That—that woman, broke into my diner and sabotaged my baked goods.”
“You said as much. But I am a prosecutor.”
“Then prosecute!”
“I’m afraid any complaints must first be lodged through the sheriff’s office.” Gina paused, took the muffin and examined it. Giving it a little nibble, she rolled the dough around in her mouth like it was a fine wine, then grimaced. “Bitter. And fruity.”
“Well, that’s what happens when you use too much baking powder. And olive oil!” Mrs. McKinney sounded affronted. “And I already went to the sheriff. He said I had to take it up with the cook-off chair.”
An ugly picture began to form in Shelby’s mind. It didn’t take a genius to put two and two together, especially when Gina was all but beaming at Mrs. McKinney’s last words.
“Well, it just so happens that Shelby here”—Gina clapped Shelby firmly on the back—“is the newly appointed cook-off chair.”
Mrs. McKinney eyeballed Shelby. “Now isn’t that convenient. The new chair lives out at The Crossing.”
Shelby shifted in her seat. Mrs. McKinney made a small clucking noise that echoed her lack of confidence in the newly appointed chair, and gripped her rolling pin tightly when she spoke. “Is that going to present a conflict, sway your judgment any?”
“No, ma’am,” Shelby said, wondering how, if at all, she was going to pull this off. She had yet to recover from the embarrassment of proposing to Cody. Jake was desperate for a daddy. And Gina had suckered her into judging a contest she had no business judging.
Now she had somehow landed herself in the middle of a war that had been brewing in Sweet Plains since the year Mrs. McKinney hog-tied a judge to the church flagpole and took that blue ribbon by force. A ribbon that had, until that year, always borne the name Ms. Luella Puckett.
“Good, because in my family, messing with a woman’s pantry is grounds for a good old-fashioned lynching,” she insisted. “But seeing as there’s an officer of the law here—”
“—County prosecutor—” Gina corrected.
“—I’d settle for disqualification. For life.”
“Um . . . wow . . . okay, what proof do you have to support this, um . . .” Shelby turned to Gina for help, while she took another gulp of her Jack-and-joe. “Claim?”
With her chin tipped so high in the air she was in serious danger of high-altitude poisoning, the woman extracted a plastic bag, full of white powder, and tossed it on the counter. With less confidence in her entire being than Mrs. McKinney possessed in her slightly stubbled upper lip, Shelby opened the bag.
Slowly, dread inhibiting each move, Shelby stuck her finger in the flour and brought it to her lips. Mrs. McKinney looked as sour as the mixture, half flour and half baking powder, tasted, and instantly she knew where the second half had come from. Not to mention the olive oil.
“And who do you believe is responsible for this um . . . crime?” Shelby asked, remembering the tins of evidence, and already knowing whom Mrs. McKinney would—correctly—finger.
“Luella Jean Puckett, that’s who!”
Once inside the police department, Cody passed the help desk, and headed toward the sheriff’s office—all the while carrying his mama’s old brush—and swore. The sheriff would probably take one look at his so-called evidence and laugh him out the door, and Cody’s story would end up the butt of every bar and honky-tonk in a seven-county radius.
Realizing he’d flown off half cocked, Cody turned around, intent on heading back to the ranch before anyone could ask him what he was doing there. Two steps from the door and he realized it was too late. Not only had the sheriff spotted him, he and his . . . alligator-hide? boots were headed on over.
Cody took one look at the easygoing grin and laid-back stride, and smiled. Seemed his old high school buddy, Logan Miller, had made quite a place for himself in Sweet Plains. But sheriff? Who would have thought?
How did a guy who buried the school flagpole under forty-three truck tires—four belonging to the principal and eight to the mayor—end up as an officer of the peace?
Logan’s eyes widened in surprise as he got closer, no doubt as shocked to see a Tucker back in Sweet Plains as Cody was to see his old friend on the right side of the law. Then his grin hitched up into a lopsided smirk as if amused that Cody was trying to hightail it out of there.
“Cody Tucker,” Logan drawled, sticking his hand out.
“Guess some things do change in Sweet Plains,
Sheriff
Miller,” Cody said, taking in his uniform and emphasizing the title. He took Logan’s proffered hand, but became unsettled when Logan pulled him in for a side hug. The contact felt foreign and a lump formed in his throat.
Cody didn’t do friends. Hadn’t since Preston and Shelby.
“Naw, you’ve just been away too long.” Logan ushered him into his office and closed the door before Cody could make up some excuse and leave. The twitch in Logan’s cheek said he expected him to do just that. “Can I get you something? Coffee? Soda?”
“No, thanks.” Cody took a seat in the barrel chair across from Logan. He noticed his friend wore no ring, but there were dozens of photos of a blond, pigtailed cutie-pie scattered around his office.
“Sidney. My daughter. Just turned four and is about the most precocious thing on the planet.” Cody found himself envious of the natural affection in his friend’s voice when he spoke of his daughter. It was the way a father who knew his child sounded.
“She’s responsible for these atrocities.” Logan leaned back in his chair and kicked his feet up on the desk, showing off the ugliest boots Cody had ever seen. And the guy was actually smiling about wearing them. “What she lacks in style she makes up for in sweet.” Logan eyed the portrait, and then dropped his feet to the floor with a thud.
Cody wasn’t surprised his friend took to parenting easily. Logan had had great role models growing up. He was probably as good a dad as Mr. Miller had been.
A quick shot of guilt pushed at Cody. He and Logan had not only been friends but, growing up, Cody had spent more time at the Millers’ house than he had his own. When he left Sweet Plains for college, he’d cut off all contact with everyone. It was the only way he knew how to move on, to become something different from his old man.
His brothers had done the same. Now he wondered if they’d done the right thing. Folks like Logan and his parents were a big part of the reason Cody had managed to hold it together long enough to make it through school.
“How’s the family?” Southern etiquette demand that he ask, but the minute the question left his lips, he wanted to yank it back. As asking in Texas was a two-way thing.
“Dad retired a few years ago. Spent most of his first year driving Mom nuts. So she bought him an RV. Said he could hit the open road a few weeks a month or get himself a divorce.”
Cody laughed, surprised at how good it felt. “Let me guess, he bought himself a campground membership?”
“Pops always was a smart man.” Logan’s smile tightened, the open, carefree guy vanished, leaving behind the offensive guard who back in high school had always had Cody’s back. On and off the field. “Went to your dad’s funeral.”
“Why?”
Logan and his parents hated Silas. Mr. Miller, on occasion, had given Silas a talking-to when Cody had been younger. Not that it made a difference, but the neighborly act left Cody feeling like someone out there cared about what happened to him.
“On the off chance you decided to show up, figured you’d need someone at your back.”
“Thanks,” Cody said, feeling old emotions rise up and strangle him.
“Look, talking about family and shooting the shit isn’t what brought you here. What’s going on?”
Cody pulled out the hairbrush and handed the bag to Logan. “Someone’s been sneaking into the ranch.”
“On the property?”
“Inside the house. They left this.” Logan tilted the bag and inspected the brush, raising a questioning brow and making Cody wish he could disappear into the woodwork. “It was my mom’s. It wasn’t there when I went to bed. When I woke up this morning it was sitting on my nightstand. There’ve been other things, too,” Cody added, filling Logan in on the bottle of Jack, but leaving out the part about smelling his mama’s perfume.
“Maybe Shelby or Ms. Luella left them there by accident.”
Cody didn’t want to talk about Shelby. For so long she had been just his. No one in his family had known about her, not even his brothers. And he’d liked it that way. She was a part of his life that wasn’t tainted by being a Tucker.
Now that she was living here, everyone in his hometown knew about her. It was like he had to share her with a part of his life he would rather forget. His Shelby had somehow become a part of this world he had desperately tried to escape.
And she might be the one trying to chase him out of town.
“Wait, you said this was on your nightstand this morning?” Logan asked, cutting into Cody’s thoughts. “So it couldn’t have been Shelby. She was at the hospital late last night and then at Gina’s. She’s been there for the past couple days.”
Cody hated the idea that Logan knew more about her comings and goings than he did. Were they involved? It shouldn’t matter, but it did.
Logan held up his hands and leaned back in his chair. “Whoa there, I know that look. And no, I’m not seeing Shelby. Her friend, Gina, was my wife’s sister, and lives across the street from me. Sometimes Shelby stays there when she knows she’ll be too tired to make it back to The Crossing.”
Cody noticed the way Logan’s voice strained at the mention of his wife. He found himself thinking he should know why Logan wasn’t wearing a ring and referred to his wife in the past tense. He also told himself what a selfish bastard he’d been to cut out on everyone without so much as a good-bye.
“But the question here, Cody, is—are
you
?”
“Seeing Shelby?” Cody’s jaw tightened. It was nobody’s business but his and Shelby’s what they were or were not. “It’s complicated.”
Logan tossed the latest edition of the
Sweet Plains Tribune
on his desk. “You might want to uncomplicate it then.”
Cody spun it around and there on page three, nestled between S
TOLEN
T
IRE
S
WING
AT
R
IVERSIDE
B
APTIST
C
HURCH
and W
HITE
B
ULL
W
REAKS
H
AVOC
ON
M
APLE
S
TREET
, was a photo of Shelby, standing in his mama’s kitchen, looking as mouthwatering and sweet as the plate of cupcakes she was holding.