The Cowboy and His Baby. Sherryl Woods

town knew everyone else’s business. That’s what had made staying here after her daughter was born so difficult. She doubted there was a single soul that didn’t have their suspicions about the identity of Sharon Lynn’s daddy, but as far as she knew only her own parents and Cody’s brother Jordan and his wife knew the truth for certain.

      She wouldn’t have admitted it to Jordan and Kelly, but he had taken one look at the baby and guessed. She hadn’t been able to deny it. Jordan had vowed to keep her secret and, as far as she knew, he’d been true to his word. She was ninety-eight percent certain that he’d never told Cody. Harlan had instilled a deep sense of honor in all of his sons. That included keeping promises, even when extracted under the most trying conditions.

      She also had a hunch that if Jordan had told, Cody would have stormed back to Texas and raised a commotion that would have set the whole town on its ear. Or maybe that was just wishful thinking on her part.

      “You’d better get a move on, if you’re going to find a place in church,” Eli prompted, clearly not intending to let the matter drop. “It’s bound to be crowded. Folks around here think mighty highly of Harlan and his sons. They’ll be there for them, even if most of them found Mary a little high-falutin’ for their taste.”

      “I can’t leave here now,” Melissa hedged, taking another wipe at the already polished counter. “It’s lunchtime.”

      “And who’s going to be here?” he shot right back. “Everybody will be at the funeral. I don’t expect we’ll be doing much business. And you seem to forget that I was making milk shakes and sandwiches when you were still in diapers. I can handle things for the next couple of hours. If I make a mess of things, you can say you told me so when you get back.”

      He glanced over at Mabel and nodded in her direction. “Or she’ll do it for you,” he said with a sour note in his voice. “Now, go on. Do what you know is right.”

      Melissa didn’t question the sense of relief she felt at being nudged determinedly out the door. If Eli didn’t find it odd that she’d be going to the funeral, maybe no one else would, either. Maybe it would have been more noticeable if she’d stayed away.

      Bracing herself against the brisk January wind, she rushed down Main Street, glad that she’d chosen to wear a dress to work rather than her usual jeans and T-shirt. Obviously some part of her had known even when she’d dressed that morning that she would change her mind about going to the service.

      It was a dreary day for a funeral. Leaden clouds, practically bursting with rain—or, given the rapidly dropping temperature, more likely sleet—hung low in the sky. She tugged her coat more tightly around her, but gave up on keeping her long hair from tangling as the wind whipped it around her face.

      All the way to the church she tried to keep her mind off Cody and on the service that was to come. Her best efforts, however, were a dismal failure. She kept envisioning Cody, wondering how he was holding up, worrying how he and all of his brothers were doing and regretting more than she could say that she couldn’t take her place with them and offer the support she desperately wanted to give.

      She was so late that she planned to slip into the back of the church and stand in the shadows. Cody would never know she was there. The last thing she wanted to do today was add to his misery.

      She ran up the steps of the old church just as the bells were chiming in the tall white steeple. The sun peeked through the clouds for just an instant, creating a terrible glare. Going from that sudden bright sun outside into the church’s dimly lit interior, she was momentarily blinded.

      Apparently, whoever was hard on her heels was having the same problem because he slammed smack into her, his body rock solid as he hit her at full tilt. The contact almost sent her sprawling on the polished wood floor.

      “Sorry,” he said, gripping her elbows to keep her upright. “You okay, darlin’?”

      Melissa’s heart climbed straight into her throat. She would have recognized that voice, that automatic flirtatiousness, even if she hadn’t heard it for a hundred years. The firm, steadying touch was equally familiar and just as devastating. If she’d brushed against a live wire, she couldn’t have felt any more electrified.

      “Cody?”

      She spoke his name in no more than a whisper, but at the sound of her voice, he jerked his hands away as if he’d just touched a white-hot flame.

      “Excuse me,” he said, his voice instantly like ice.

      As if she were a stranger, he shoved past her to make his way to the front of the church. No, she corrected, if she’d been a stranger, he would have been less rude, more solicitous.

      Trembling from the unexpected face-to-face meeting, Melissa watched him stride up the aisle to join his father and his brothers in the first pew. In that single quick glimpse, she had seen new lines in his face. His sun-streaked, normally untamed hair had been trimmed neatly in the way his mother had always wanted it to be.

      It was his eyes, though, that had stunned her. Once they’d been filled with so much laughter. Naturally she had expected to find sorrow today in the dark-as-coffee depths. What she hadn’t anticipated was the cold antipathy when he recognized her, followed by an emptiness that was worse than hatred.

      Well, she thought despondently, now she knew. Cody hadn’t forgiven her. He’d looked straight through her as if he’d never known her, as if he’d never teased her or made love to her or shared his deepest, darkest secrets with her.

      “Oh, God,” she murmured in what could have been the beginning of a prayer, but instead simply died before completion. Their relationship was clearly beyond even divine intervention. She’d known it all along, of course, but she hadn’t wanted to believe it. The last flicker of hope in her heart died like a candle flame in a chilly wind.

      Though a part of her wanted to flee, she moved into the deepest shadows and stayed through the service, grieving not just for the woman lying in the flower-draped casket, but for the death of her own dreams.

      “You went to the funeral, didn’t you?” Velma Horton asked the minute Melissa walked through her mother’s doorway to pick up her daughter after work.

      “How did you know?” she asked, though it was easy enough to guess. The grapevine had probably been buzzing all afternoon and her mother was definitely tapped into that.

      Her mother sniffed. “You think I didn’t know why you wore that dress today. I know what you said, some nonsense about all your jeans being in the laundry, but I’m not a fool, girl. I knew you wouldn’t miss a chance to catch sight of Cody. So, did you see him?”

      “Briefly,” Melissa admitted.

      “And?”

      “And what? We didn’t talk.”

      “Then you didn’t tell him about Sharon Lynn.”

      Melissa shook her head. “He wouldn’t care,” she said with absolute certainty that was based on the way he’d looked straight through her for the second time in their lives.

      To her surprise, her mother breathed a sigh of relief and some of the tension drained out of her expression. “Good.”

      There were times, like now, when Melissa didn’t understand her mother at all. When Velma had learned her daughter was pregnant, she’d been all for chasing Cody to the ends of the earth and demanding he take responsibility for his actions.

      “I thought you wanted him to know,” Melissa said, regarding her mother with confusion. “There was a time you threatened to go to Harlan and demand that he drag Cody back here. You thought he owed me his name and his money. The only thing that stopped you was Daddy’s threat to divorce you if you did.”

      Velma rolled her eyes. “Your father’s got more pride than sense. Anyway, that was before Sharon Lynn was born, back when I didn’t know how you’d manage by yourself. Seems to me you’ve done just fine. There’s no sense in trying to fix what’s not broke.”