Several of the teenagers sprang to their feet and rushed to clean up the mess. Cody couldn’t have moved if his life had depended on it. Apparently Melissa couldn’t, either. Not even the swirl of activity at her feet caught her attention. He felt as if he’d been punched in the gut.
This definitely wasn’t the reaction he’d been praying for. In fact, it was exactly the opposite. He’d wanted to look into those soft, sea green eyes of hers and feel eighteen months of hurt and anger boiling into a fine rage. Or, better yet, he’d wanted to feel nothing at all.
Instead it appeared his hormones were very glad to see her. Obviously they had a different sort of memory pattern than his brain.
“Missy, are you okay?” one of the boys asked worriedly. He scowled in Cody’s direction.
“Fine,” she murmured.
The youngster, who looked all of fourteen, clearly wasn’t convinced. Just as clearly, he had a big-time crush on Melissa. “Is he a problem?” he inquired, nodding toward Cody.
Apparently the boy’s itch to slay dragons for her got her attention as nothing else had. She jerked her gaze away from Cody and smiled at the teenager.
“It’s okay, David. Cody and I have known each other a long time.” She patted his shoulder. “Thanks for cleaning up the glass, you guys. Your sodas are on me.”
“Nah, you don’t have to do that,” David said, pulling money out of his pocket and leaving it on the counter. “Right, guys?”
The other boys dutifully nodded and pulled out their own cash. Unless costs at Dolan’s had risen dramatically, they were very generous tippers, Cody noted as all of the teens departed.
“See you tomorrow,” David called back from the doorway. He lingered uncertainly for another minute, as if he couldn’t make up his mind whether Cody was to be trusted. When Melissa shot him another reassuring smile, he finally took off to catch up with his friends.
“Quite an admirer,” Cody said. “I think he was ready to mop up the floor with me.”
“David is just testing his flirting skills. I’m safer than those girls in his own class. He knows I won’t laugh at him.”
“Maybe you should. Better to hurt him now than later,” he said with unmistakable bitterness.
Melissa looked as if he’d struck her. “I’m not going to hurt him at all. He’s just a boy, Cody.” She straightened her spine and glowered at him. “Look, if you came in here just to hassle me, you can turn right around and go back wherever you came from. I don’t need the aggravation.”
Cody grinned at the bright patches of color in her cheeks. Melissa had always had a quick temper. He suddenly realized he’d missed sparring with her almost as much as he’d missing making love with her.
“Actually, I came in for a milk shake,” he said, coming to a sudden decision to play this scene all the way through. He propped his elbows on the counter. He waited until he’d caught her gaze, then lowered his voice to a seductive whisper. “A chocolate shake so thick, I’ll barely be able to suck it very, very slowly through the straw.”
The patches of color in Melissa’s cheeks deepened. She twirled around so fast it was a wonder she didn’t knock a few more pieces of glassware onto the floor with the breeze she stirred.
With her rigid back to him, Cody was able to observe her at his leisure. Her snug, faded jeans fit her cute little butt like a glove. That much hadn’t changed, he noted with satisfaction. With every stretch, the cropped T-shirt she wore kept riding up to bare an intriguing inch or so of a midriff so perfect that it could make a man weep. Her long dark hair with its shimmering red highlights had been scooped up in a saucy ponytail that made her look a dozen years younger than the twenty-seven he knew she was.
And, to his very sincere regret, she made him every bit as hard now as she had as a teenager. He squirmed in a wasted effort to get more comfortable on the vinyl-covered stool.
When she finally turned back, she plunked his milk shake onto the counter with such force half of it sloshed out of the tall glass. Apparently she wasn’t entirely immune to him, either, and she wasn’t one bit happier about the discovery.
She grabbed up a dishrag and began scrubbing the opposite side of the counter, her back to him. Given the energy she devoted to the task, the surface was either very dirty or she was avoiding him.
“So, how’ve you been?” Cody inquired, managing the nonchalant tone with supreme effort.
“Fine,” she said tersely, not even glancing around.
He frowned. Why the hell was she acting like the injured party here? She was the one who’d cheated on him. Getting her to meet him halfway became an irresistible challenge.
“How are you, Cody? It’s been a long time,” he coached.
She turned and glared. “Why are you here?” she demanded instead.
He could have shot back a glib retort, but he didn’t. He actually gave the question some thought. He considered the teasing he’d gotten from Jordan and Luke. He considered his own undeniable curiosity. He even considered the size of his ego, which had found being cheated on damned hard to take. The bottom line was, he had no idea what had drawn him across the street and into the drugstore.
“I don’t know,” he finally admitted.
Apparently it was the right answer because her lush, kissable mouth curved into a smile for the first time since she’d spotted him at the counter.
“You mean to tell me that there’s something that actually stymies the brilliant, confident Cody Adams?”
He nodded slowly. “It surprises the dickens out of me, too.”
She leaned back against the counter, her elbows propped behind her. It was a stance that drew attention to her figure, though Cody doubted she was aware of it.
“You planning on sticking around?” she asked.
“A few more days, just till Daddy’s got his feet back under him again.” It was the same response he’d given everyone who’d asked. Now that he was right here with Melissa in front of him, though, he wondered if she might not be the one person who could change his mind.
At the mention of his father, her expression immediately filled with concern. “It must be horrible for him.”
“It is.”
“And the rest of you?”
“We’re doing okay. Mostly we’re worried about Daddy. He adored Mother. It’s going to be lonely as hell for him with her gone.”
“I’m surprised you’re not staying, then.”
He shook his head. “There’s nothing for me here anymore,” he said automatically, refusing to concede that he had evidence to the contrary in the tightening of his groin at the first sight of her.
She actually blanched at his harsh words. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, looking shaken. “What about White Pines? You always loved it. You were building your whole future around running that ranch.”
She was right about that. He’d fought tooth and nail to get Harlan to trust him with the running of the ranch. He’d spent his spare time building his own house on the property just to make the point that, unlike Luke or Jordan, he never intended to leave. Then in a matter of seconds after catching Melissa with Brian, he’d thrown it all away.
Now, rather than addressing his longing to be working that land again, he shoved those feelings aside and clung instead to the bitterness that had sent him away.