“And just what message did Preston relay?” His voice was edged with a dangerous shot of emotion that Shelby had never witnessed before.
“That you never planned on marrying me and a kid was never a part of the deal.”
“Is that so?” Cody’s words were long and lethal, but his hand absently slid down to rest where Jake had grown, palming her now-flat stomach, his thumb making circles around her belly button. “What else did he say?”
“That he found you at some bar, told you to man up and you got mad. He came home with a fat lip and a black eye.”
Cody’s fingers stilled. “And you believed him?”
Shelby shook her head. “Not at first. But when you never came back . . .” Shelby choked on the memory. She stood, needing to pace. “I called, left messages, but you never called me back. A few months later I got a call from your number. I thought you were calling about Jake, that you’d changed your mind, but it was Silas. He’d found your cell in the driveway, so he charged it and listened to my messages. He actually came to see me at the hospital when Jake was born.”
A heavy feeling of sadness surrounded Shelby. For some reason, she always felt guilty talking about Silas with Cody, which was silly because without him, Shelby never would have been able to leave Preston. “I know your relationship with your dad was strained, but he was a good friend to me when I didn’t have any.”
Cody let out a difficult breath, shoving his hands in his front pockets. “I lost my phone the night I went and got Beau. I never got your messages. I did erase your e-mails though, because I was hurt and pissed. But I didn’t punch Preston. I met him at that bar and he told me you never wanted to see me again.”
“That’s a lie.”
Cody’s gaze dropped to hers, and she couldn’t help but see the truth shining there. “I would have
never
left you alone or abandoned my son. Ever.”
Oh God. What had she done?
Shelby grabbed onto Cody to keep from falling. Her legs were buckling under the reality of the situation and the impact of their loss. She met his gaze and something unspoken, so gentle and sad, passed between them, breaking down her last wall.
“He lied. It was all a lie. And I believed him and kept you from your son. I’m so sorry.” The last word came out on a sob.
Cody nodded in understanding, then pulled her close. “Me too.”
She should have looked harder, hired someone to find him, been more aggressive. Shelby had loved him more than life, was willing to give him everything she had. Apparently, everything but her trust. And she knew why.
In the time they were together, Cody never once said he loved her. He’d shown her in every way possible, but he’d never voiced the three words that she had so desperately needed to hear. Which, in part, had given weight not only to her insecurity, but Preston’s story.
“What do we do now?” Shelby buried her face in his chest, trying to get control of her emotions. Her arms circled his waist and he ran his hands up her back, massaging the nape of her neck.
They had made lives for themselves, separate from each other. His in Austin, hers in Sweet Plains, and both of them had ten years of baggage and a son stuck in the middle.
Cody kissed the top of her head. “We’ll figure it out.”
He sounded so confident, she found herself believing him. She also found herself dangerously close to falling for him again and didn’t know what she was going to do about it.
It was nearly supper time when Cody saw the cloud of dust coming down the road. Lifting a hand to shield his eyes from the sun, he unfolded his long legs from his mama’s swing and walked to the edge of the porch. He watched Shelby’s powder blue, nondescript economy car, which he had the sinking suspicion was the same one she’d had when they dated, slow to a stop.
Shelby looked out the windshield, squinting through the late-afternoon sun and gave a cute little wave. Cody waved back and the smile that tore across Shelby’s face was enough to scramble a man’s mind.
JT, on the other hand, did some scrambling of his own. Right out of the backseat, grabbing his gear and all but shattering the windows when he slammed the door. He stormed past Cody’s new truck, which wasn’t as impressive to a nine-year-old as Cody had hoped, and up the walkway. Damn, not even a glance at the one-ton bribe.
“Jacob Tucker, you know better than to slam the door,” Shelby called as she exited the car, her voice thin.
“Yes, ma’am,” JT ground out, sullen defiance coating his every stomp as he stormed up the steps. And without so much as a “howdy,” JT blew past him, his face distorted into an emotion Cody knew well. Disappointment.
“Whoa, slow down, partner. How was the last day of school?” Cody said, ruffling his hair, a total dad thing to do. He was surprised at how natural the gesture came, how great it felt. Maybe he could do this.
JT ducked his head and shot Cody the biggest screw-you look in the history of fathers and sons. Then again, maybe not.
“What happened?”
“I blew it, that’s what happened. And it’s not like I’m gonna get any better!” JT spit out, tossing a scowl at Shelby and his gear in a pile by the back door, before tearing into the house.
“It’s not you,” Shelby offered. Her smile was now gone, exposing the exhaustion she bravely tried to disguise under her forced cheer. “He just had a bad day is all.” Her tired voice was heavy with compassion as she reached out to gently brush his knuckles with the tips of her fingers. The innocent contact scorched his skin.
Cody took her bag, slung it over his shoulder and held open the screen door. Shelby looked up at him and smiled. Too much humidity had left her hair a riot of curls, her scrubs a wrinkled mess, and her makeup nonexistent. She looked tired, rumpled, and sexy as hell.
“Always the gentleman.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She breezed past him, enough spice, vanilla, and woman mingling with the air that Cody had to will himself to stand down. But the way her scrubs-clad ass swayed from side to side as he followed her into the family room wasn’t helping his situation.
Shelby collapsed onto the couch, leaning her head back. Her limbs went limp with exhaustion. Her lids slid closed. And just when Cody thought she’d actually fallen asleep, her eyes opened, red and weary.
“Seems Jake made a couple of bad passes, so his coach said he was starting Ryan in next week’s game. He’s been begging me to help him with his throw, but I know about as much about football as Luella does manners.” A small frown that about melted Cody’s resolve touched her lips.
Even though it was still in the triple digits, Cody wanted to tuck a blanket around her and hold her while she slept. Then tell her JT would get over it, and remind her what an amazing mom she was.
“Maybe I can toss the ball around with him later. Run some drills.”
“Really?” She gifted him with a smile so full of wonder it was enough to bring a man to his knees. She quickly blinked away the emotion filling her eyes, and for the first time in this entire mess, Cody was able to look past the situation, and realize how difficult it must have been for her raising Jake alone.
He watched the way her chest rose and fell, the steady rhythm of a body preparing for sleep. Moving his mama’s porcelain rooster aside, he took a seat on the end of the coffee table right in front of Shelby, the wood groaning under his weight.
“We need to talk.”
Damn, that’s not what he’d meant to say.
Her brows knit together and her lower lip trembled. She dropped her eyes to study her lap, her shoes, the floor, anything but him. A closer inspection revealed pale skin, pulled taut across her mouth in duress, and bruising circles under her red-rimmed eyes that came from more than a lack of sleep.
“Cody, look.” Her voice came out strangled. “About the other day. I shouldn’t have just thrown that on you, I should have given you more time. And then last night, finding out about what Preston did, how you didn’t know about Jake—” She wiped at her cheeks. “It’s okay. I get it.”
“Ah, hell,” he drawled, as the tears he knew she’d been holding in all day finally spilled over her lashes. Pulling her into his lap, he tucked her head under his chin, not wanting to see the look of rejection that had flashed across her beautiful face just now. He’d thought of nothing but getting her back in his arms since he’d walked her to her car last night. This, though, was not how he’d imagined it.
He shaped the back of her head with his hand, then glided it through the dark mass of hair, letting his fingers slowly follow the length to its end, only to do it again. Her body shook with tiny tremors and Cody was reminded how small she was compared to him, how fragile.
“I’m sorry. I’m not usually this much of a crier,” she sniffled, her hands fisting in the fabric of his shirt. “I’m just so tired. I haven’t really slept much in the past few days and ended up filling in for a friend this morning.”
Cody didn’t doubt for a second that she was tired. But the way she held her body and the strength of the tears told him it was more than that. Knowing Shelby, she’d probably analyzed every single thing he’d ever said or done to her, trying to make sense of how they got here. And how things would end up.
He knew, because he’d spent the last night doing the same thing, trying to figure out how to make this work. None of it made sense. Aside from the whole business with his mother’s ghost, what hurt most was that Shelby hadn’t trusted him enough to confront him about their baby. Her mistrust had cost him years that he could never get back with JT.
He knew it was hypocritical to hold that against her, since he’d pretty much done the same thing. But Cody had walked away because, at the end of the day, it was the right thing to do. Yet here she was, asking him to marry her, and once again he was going to do the right thing—he was going to say yes. Not because of some damn contract, but because his son deserved a family.
“Then I picked up Jake,” she added, unaware of the direction Cody’s thoughts were taking him. The fact that she couldn’t read him, told him she was beyond exhausted. “Cody, he was so upset over that ass of a coach.”
Shelby’s hands flew up to cover her mouth, a light flush painting her cheeks the prettiest pink he’d ever seen. Damn, she was cute.
Cody’s lips tugged up at the corners, partly because of the emotions running through him over the simple act of discussing their son, as if it were something they’d done every day since he was conceived. But mostly over that dirty word, a word he’d heard plenty, but never out of the pretty mouth of his Shelby.
Cody took a second to let the rightness of those words sink in.
His Shelby.
He also became aware of how right she felt in his arms. Not to mention the way her delectable backside nestled against him, making his jeans a little too snug and tempting his fingers to enter into dangerous territory.
One sniff of her sweet scent and memories of his hands all over her smooth body flooded his mind. Every nerve ending and muscle cowboyed up at her slightest movement, begging him to shift her closer, slip the V neck of her scrubs over her shoulder and taste her skin.
“Listen,” Cody said, cupping her face, and needing to take this back to a safe place. But one look at those beautiful eyes filled with longing—a longing for him, for all the things she wanted but he couldn’t give her—and he was lost. He felt himself falling into her horizon, blue as the Texas sky, and decided, come hell or high water, he’d be that man, the kind of man Shelby and JT deserved.
He wasn’t sure what that meant, but he’d figure it out.
“I like your new truck.”
“Yeah?” Cody was way too happy over the fact that she’d noticed it. And liked it.
She nodded. “It’s more you. And Jake will love it when he’s not so mad. He tried hard pretending he didn’t see it. But he did.” Shelby’s gaze dropped to his lips and he felt her breathing change. “And I like your jeans. And your hat. And the fact that you dumped the loafers.”
He shifted her closer. “I don’t dress like a city boy all the time. But shit kickers and Stetsons don’t scream educated, boardroom barracuda.”
“Yeah,” she whispered. “Well, I like the country Cody better.”
Damn, he was going to kiss her. Worried that if he did, they’d wind up naked. Not totally a bad idea. But they needed to talk. And once he saw her naked, there would be no talking.
The clearing of a throat caused Cody to lift Shelby up off his lap like it was charged. And in a way it was. She straightened her clothes, which made no impact on the rumpled blue cotton boasting bunnies with stethoscopes or her confusion over his obvious distress about getting caught almost kissing.
“Hey, Dylan,” she said, her eyes dropping to study the tops of her work shoes.
“Shelby.” Dylan tipped his hat, a flush crawling up his neck.
Cody watched the interaction between the two with growing interest—and irritation. Was this kid one of the ones willing to give up his best horse? Cody sure as hell hoped not. He was beginning to like Dylan and would hate to fire the guy.
Dylan gave Shelby a quick once-over, further pissing Cody off. Shelby didn’t notice the ogling. But Cody did.
Now it was his turn to clear his throat, finally getting Dylan’s attention. Not that Cody blamed him. Logan was dead-on when he’d said Shelby was a beautiful woman. At least the kid had the decency to look embarrassed when he met Cody’s eyes, aware he’d been caught drooling.
“Sorry to interrupt.” Again with the throat-clearing. “But there’s something you need to take a look at outside.”
“Now?” Cody demanded, respecting the kid a little more for not flinching.
“Yup.”
“Is everything all right?” Shelby asked, standing. Her tired eyes suddenly took on a spark. Why, he wasn’t sure, but that it was over an injustice to his land pleased him.
Hold up. When did he start thinking about this place as his?
Dylan looked at Cody before answering. “Everything’s fine. Just having a hard time with the irrigation system.”
“Oh, is that all,” she said, her words slightly slurred. Waving her hand dismissively, Shelby sank down into his dad’s recliner, her body practically disappearing into the overused cushions.