Winter's Proposal

by Sherryl Woods

  “That baby inside says otherwise.”

  “I’ll have to remember that,” he said, grinning. “If I just whisper your name in your ear, you’ll do anything I ask, is that right?”

  She frowned, probably at the sudden provocative note in his voice. He knew she didn’t want him to guess how easily he got to her. She was going to fight him tooth and nail.

  “That was then,” she said staunchly, confirming his guess. “This is now and the tide has turned, cowboy.”

  He readily accepted the challenge in her tone. “Is that so, Me...liss...a?” He deliberately drew her name out. Before she could react to the teasing, he lowered his head and dropped a quick kiss on her parted lips. “See, it still works.”

  The startled, slightly dazed expression on her face almost tempted him to try again. That brief brush of his mouth over hers had been just enough to tantalize him. Memories of warm, moist kisses and stolen caresses slammed through him, turning teasing into something very, very serious.

  How had he ever walked away from her? Why hadn’t he stayed and fought, just as she’d demanded earlier? Had it been the gut-deep sense of betrayal that had driven him all the way to Wyoming? Or had it simply been the even more powerful fear of the commitment to which fighting for her would have led? He’d never thought of himself as a coward, but suddenly he was taking a long, hard look at his actions in a whole new light.

  “Cody?”

  He blinked and gazed down into her upturned face. Before he could question himself, he scooped his hand through her silky hair to circle the back of her neck. With his gaze fixed on her turbulent sea green eyes, he reclaimed her mouth, lingering this time, savoring, remembering.

  He felt her hands on his chest, tentative at first, then more certain as she slid them up to his shoulders and clung. Her body fit itself neatly, automatically, into his, the movement as natural as breathing and far, far more exciting.

  Cody couldn’t believe he had ever walked away from this. He couldn’t imagine how he had lived without the sweetness of her kisses or the heat of her body pressed against his. The swirl of sensations was overpowering, demanding...and totally inappropriate for a sidewalk in plain view, he realized as a passing car honked and the teenage driver shouted out encouragement.

  Melissa backed away as if she’d been burned. Her face was flaming with embarrassment. A warning flashed in her eyes, turning them the shade of soft jade in sunlight.

  “That can’t happen again,” she stated emphatically.

  “It can and it will,” Cody said with just as much certainty. “Count on it.”

  Alarm flared in her expression. “No, Cody, this isn’t about you and me anymore.”

  “Sure it is, darlin’. It always was.”

  “No!” She practically shouted it, as if volume might make her edict clearer. “You and I are over. You saw to that.”

  Cody dropped his own voice to a seductive growl. “We’ll see,” he taunted.

  “Dammit, Cody, do you or do you not want to see your daughter?”

  “Of course I do,” he said, amused that she seemed to think the two concepts were diametrically opposed. “Meeting Sharon Lynn has absolutely nothing to do with my intentions toward you.”

  “Yes, it does,” she said stubbornly.

  “You’re not keeping me from my daughter,” he responded emphatically. “And you’re not going to put up much resistance, once I set my mind to winning you back.”

  A scowl darkened her face. “You are the most arrogant, most infuriating man on the face of the earth. It’s too late, Cody. You couldn’t win me back if you courted me from now till we’re both tottering around in orthopedic shoes.”

  A grin tugged at his lips. “Is that a challenge?”

  “That’s a guarantee.”

  Chuckling at her sincere conviction that she could win a test of wills with him, he took her hand and headed for the house.

  “You don’t have a chance, sweet pea,” he told her solemnly as he ushered her inside, where Velma was waiting, her gaze wary. He lowered his voice to taunt one last time, “You don’t have a snowball’s chance in hell.”

  Melissa never responded because her mother spoke up just then.

  “You brought him,” Velma said, her tone accusing.

  “You knew I would,” Melissa told her mother. “Where’s Sharon Lynn?”

  “Down for her nap,” she said, a note of triumph in her voice. “There’s no need to wake her.”

  Cody was aware of the undercurrents between mother and daughter. Clearly, Velma was angry about his presence. Once again he had the sense that she feared him having any contact at all with his child.

  Melissa shot him a vaguely apologetic look. “I’ll get her,” she said.

  He fell into step beside her. “Don’t wake her. I’ll come with you. Let me just look at her for now. Your mother’s right. There’s no need to wake her yet.”

  If he had expected the suggestion to gain Velma’s approval, he failed. He should have saved his breath. An expression of doom on her face, she trailed along behind them. He had the feeling she would have thrown herself across the threshold to the bedroom if she’d thought it would keep him away from her granddaughter.

  He couldn’t waste time worrying about Velma, though. From the instant he stepped into the room his gaze was riveted to the child asleep in the crib. She was sleeping on her stomach, her legs drawn up under her, her butt sticking up in the air. He couldn’t imagine the position being comfortable, but she was sleeping soundly.

  Awestruck, he moved closer to the crib. Melissa stayed a few steps behind him. Her mother never budged from the doorway. He studied the tiny, balled-up fists. Her skin looked soft as down and her light curls feathered around her face like wispy strands of silk. Her mouth curved like a miniature bow of pink. She was perfect. Adorable.

  An overwhelming surge of protectiveness spread through him. This was his daughter. His! He’d seen Luke with the newborn Angela. He had watched Jordan hold J.J., but he had never guessed the depth of emotions that his brothers must have been feeling. He’d never experienced anything like it before in his life.

  “She’s so beautiful,” he whispered, his voice choked.

  “She has your eyes, your hair,” Melissa said quietly.

  “And your mouth,” he noted. “I had no idea.”

  “No idea about what?”

  “That it was possible to create anything so perfect.”

  Melissa laughed softly. “You haven’t seen her throw a tantrum yet.”

  He turned toward her and grinned. “Ah, so she has your temper, too?”

  “Oh, no,” Melissa protested. “You’re not blaming me for that. Every ounce of stubbornness she possesses she got from you.”

  Gazing directly into her eyes, he slipped an arm around her waist and pulled her close. “Thank you.”

  “For?”

  He wasn’t certain how to explain all that he was grateful to her for. For having the baby, even without him in her life. For keeping her healthy and safe. For loving her. So many things.

  “For our daughter,” he said simply.

  “Oh, Cody,” she whispered, tears welling up in her eyes and spilling down her cheeks.

  “Shh, darlin’, don’t cry,” he said, pulling her close. “You’re not alone anymore.”

  To his astonishment, he realized that after the loneliest year and a half of his life, he was no longer alone, either. He was just a visit to the preacher away from having a family of his own. And nothing or no one was going to stand in his way.

  6

  Still awestruck, Cody was knee-deep in mental wedding plans before he and Melissa walked out the front door of her parents’ house. He was so caught up in thinking ahead to the day when Melissa and Sharon Lynn would move into his old house out at White Pines, that he almost forgot to ask Melissa
to have dinner with him that night so he could officially propose and go over the details.

  “Both of you,” he told her as they stood in front of the drugstore a few minutes later. “You and Sharon Lynn. We’ll go to DiPasquali’s. I’ll pick you up at your folks’ place after you get off work.”

  Her lips set in a stubborn expression he knew only too well.

  “Was there an invitation in there somewhere or did you mean it to sound like an order?” she asked.

  He supposed they could quibble all morning over the difference, but he didn’t see much point to it. They had far bigger issues to worry about, like setting a wedding date in the next week or so. Now that he’d seen his daughter, nothing was going to keep him from her. The prospect of instant parenthood scared the daylights out of him, but he was eager to get started, anxious to make up for lost time. He considered Melissa part of the package, of course.

  “An invitation, of course,” he said, wise enough to pacify Melissa. He wanted her in a receptive frame of mind tonight. He didn’t want her stubborn streak kicking in. “Would you like to have dinner with me tonight at DiPasquali’s?”

  “I think your daughter is a little young for pizza.”

  Based on the spark of amusement in her eyes, she might have been teasing, but Cody took her comment seriously. He hadn’t thought of that. In fact, what he really knew about babies would fit on the head of a pin. That was easily corrected. He would buy a book on parenting at the first opportunity. He was going to be the best-prepared father on the face of the planet, even if he was getting a late start.

  “There must be something on the menu there she can eat,” he said. “Or is there someplace that would be better?”

  “DiPasquali’s is fine,” Melissa soothed. “I’ll feed her first. She can chew on a slice of bread while we eat. She’ll be perfectly content. She loves to eat out. She gets a lot of attention.”

  “Fine, whatever,” he murmured distractedly, already thinking ahead to what he needed to accomplish between now and dinnertime.

  He wanted to buy an engagement ring. And that book on parenting, of course. If he couldn’t find one in town, maybe Luke or Jordan would have one he could borrow. He needed to call Lance Treethorn and tell him he wouldn’t be returning to Wyoming. And he should sit down with his father and work out an arrangement for taking over his old duties at White Pines. Harlan would probably be relieved to be sharing the workload again.

  “Cody?”

  “Hmm?” He glanced up and caught Melissa’s serious expression. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. I’m just glad you want to be part of your daughter’s life.”

  He stared at her, uncertain what would have made her ever suspect he’d do otherwise. “Well, of course, I do.”

  Melissa shrugged. “I wasn’t sure how you were going to feel. And Mother, well, she had this crazy idea you were going to fight me for custody.”

  Cody couldn’t imagine why he would have to fight for custody. He was going to claim his daughter and Melissa. If he’d known about the baby eighteen months ago, he would never have left for Wyoming in the first place. The incident with Brian might never have happened. He and Melissa would have been married. Custody arrangements would never have become an issue. At least, he finally understood Velma’s reaction to him.

  “That explains why she’s been looking at me as if I’m about to steal the silver,” he said.

  “Yes.”

  “Well, she can stop worrying. We’ll settle everything tonight.” He leaned down and dropped a kiss on Melissa’s lips. “See you later.”

  “Settle everything?” she repeated, a note of anxiety in her voice. “Cody!”

  He turned back.

  “What does that mean, we’re going to settle everything?”

  He smiled. “Not to worry, darlin’. We’ll talk about it tonight.”

  * * *

  “Exactly what did he say?” Velma fretted as Melissa bathed her daughter and got her ready for their evening with Cody.

  “He said we’d settle everything tonight.” She grabbed Sharon Lynn’s rubber duck in midair as her daughter hurled it from the tub.

  “What does that mean?”

  Melissa sighed. “I don’t know what it means, Mother. I suppose I’ll find out shortly.”

  “I don’t like it. I think your father and I should be there to protect your interests.”

  “I doubt Cody intends to pluck Sharon Lynn out of her high chair at the restaurant and carry her off into the night,” she said as she toweled her daughter dry. “Anything other than that, I can cope with just fine on my own.”

  “What if he does decide to take her?”

  “He won’t,” Melissa repeated, not sure how she knew with such conviction that Cody wouldn’t do something so outrageous. “Stop worrying. I can handle Cody.”

  “You couldn’t handle him two years ago,” her mother commented. “What makes you think things are so different now?”

  Melissa thought carefully about that before she answered. She used the struggle to get Sharon Lynn into her red corduroy pants and a cute little flowered shirt to buy some time.

  “I’m stronger than I was then,” she said eventually. “I’ve had almost two years to see that I don’t need Cody Adams in order to survive. Sharon Lynn and I are doing just fine on our own.”

  Her mother regarded her skeptically. “Are you saying you’re immune to him now?”

  The kiss they’d shared on the front walk burned its way into her awareness. “No,” she admitted. “I can’t say that.”

  Velma groaned. “I knew it. I knew it the minute I saw the two of you playing kissy-face on the front walk.”

  “We were not playing kissy-face,” Melissa retorted, blushing just the same. “Maybe you and Mabel have the same vocabulary after all.”

  “Mabel saw you kissing, too?”

  “No, she just accused me of making goo-goo eyes at him way back in junior high.”

  “If only you’d limited yourself to that,” Velma said dryly.

  Melissa frowned. “If I had, we wouldn’t have Sharon Lynn,” she reminded her mother quietly.

  Velma retreated into silence after that. She was still looking anxious when Cody arrived to pick them up. Melissa had a feeling she had her father to thank for keeping her mother from racing down the driveway after them. He appeared to have a tight grip on her elbow and a glint of determination in his eyes as he waved them off.

  The ride to DiPasquali’s took only minutes. It was a wonder they didn’t crash into a tree, though. Cody couldn’t seem to take his eyes off his daughter. Sharon Lynn returned his overt inspection with shy, little peek-a-boo smiles. Apparently she’d inherited her father’s flirtatious nature, too, Melissa thought with some amusement. Cody was clearly captivated. She should have been pleased, but the doubts her mother had planted kept her from fully relaxing and enjoying the way father and daughter were bonding.

  At the small Italian restaurant where both she and Cody were well known, they were ushered to a back booth amid exclamations over Sharon Lynn’s outfit and Cody’s return. Melissa didn’t miss the speculative looks sent their way by customers who knew their history only too well.

  Though a high chair was set up at the end of the table for the baby, Cody insisted she was just fine beside him in the booth. Sharon Lynn stood on the vinyl seat next to him, bouncing on tiptoes and patting Cody on the top of his head.

  He circled her waist with his hands and lifted her into the air, earning giggles and a resounding kiss for his trouble. Melissa watched the pair of them with her heart in her throat. When Sharon Lynn climbed into Cody’s lap, studied him seriously for a full minute, then cooed, “Da,” Melissa felt the salty sting of tears in her eyes.

  Cody’s mouth dropped open. “Did she just call me Da?”

  Apparently sensing approval, Shar
on Lynn repeated the sound. “Da, Da, Da.”

  “She knows who I am,” he whispered incredulously.

  Melissa hated to disappoint him, but she knew that her daughter tended to call every man that. Besides, she refused to admit that she had tried to teach Sharon Lynn that very word while showing her a snapshot of Cody. She seriously doubted her daughter had actually made the connection between that blurry picture and the man holding her now.

  She almost told him not to get too excited over it. Sharon Lynn might not even remember to connect that word with him tomorrow. The look in Cody’s eyes kept her silent. He clearly wanted to believe that he and his child had made some sort of cosmic connection.

  As she watched the pair of them, something shifted inside Melissa. Her earlier doubts fled. Maybe there really was some sort of instinctive bond between father and child. She wasn’t sure what to make of this softer, gentler Cody. He had always been filled with laughter, but there was something incredibly sweet and tender in the way he teased his daughter and kept her giggling. Pride shone in his eyes at everything she did.

  “She’s brilliant,” he declared every few minutes over the simplest accomplishments.

  Sharon Lynn was clearly basking in the praise and the attention. Melissa held her breath, wondering just when exhaustion would overtake her daughter and turn that cheerful demeanor into far more familiar crankiness and tears. She couldn’t help worrying about how Cody would respond to his child then. Would he turn tail and run again the instant the newness of this experience wore off, just as he had abandoned a long string of women once he’d tired of them? She was torn between anticipation and panic as she waited to see how the rest of the evening would play out.

  They made it through their pizza without calamity striking. Sharon Lynn yawned a few times, grabbed a handful of the mushrooms Melissa had removed from her slice and squished them. When Cody tried to wipe her hands, she began sobbing as if she were being tortured.

  Cody stared at Melissa helplessly as Sharon Lynn batted his hands away. “What did I do?”