through the opened loft doors behind him.
“Humph!” She snorted her indignation, turned on her heel and stormed out of the barn, comforting herself with the knowledge that she had tried to make amends. She had apologized to him, even though she knew she had not been at fault, and had called for a truce. She certainly would not accept any responsibility for the behavior of such an overbearing jerk. A little tremor darted through her body as she recalled her dream, the dream that had seemed so real.
Cody watched from the loft doors as she headed back toward the house. Her stride was purposeful and direct, each step hitting the ground with a thud that he imagined he could almost hear. Then the thought hit him. He glanced at his watch. He needed to hurry if he was going to prevent her from disturbing Buck.
A couple of months ago Buck started taking a short nap before lunch. The short nap had gradually become longer and longer, then became a midmorning nap, an afternoon nap and an evening nap. There was no reason for him to continue to get up as early as he did. Cody had tried to get him to sleep later in the morning, but to no avail. Cody had not belabored the point. Buck had spent his entire life rising before dawn.
Cody understood Buck’s need to feel that he was still capable of making a contribution to the daily work effort. For a man like Buck Winslow to be denied his feeling of usefulness was tantamount to denying him a reason to go on living. And Cody wanted to do everything he possibly could to see to it that Buck would be around for as long as possible. He flashed on the unexpected way Buck had seemed to perk up around his daughter. The thought left as quickly as it had arrived. Cody climbed down from the hayloft and hurried toward the house. He went straight to the office, irritation growing inside him to the point where it shoved aside whatever tender feelings he might have momentarily harbored toward Melanie.
Melanie again found herself watching her father as he slept, only this time he was stretched out in the recliner in the living room. The nap she had stolen in the hayloft had somewhat cleared the fuzziness from her sleep-deprived brain. She needed to dig out some straight answers. Exactly what was wrong with her father and what involvement and authority did this Cody Chandler person have in her father’s business affairs? He projected an air of authority far beyond that of hired hand, even that of ranch foreman.
She could not imagine her father as either weak or vulnerable. He had always been in charge of everything around him. Nothing happened on the ranch that he did not know about. She remembered him as an unemotional, pragmatic man. The ranch had always come first in his life. He had been fair with his employees, but his family was a different matter. She had been hurt on more than one occasion when he had turned his back on her and walked away when she had tried to talk to him. He had never allowed any tenderness or softness to show through. If that side of him existed at all, she had never been aware of it. But seeing him now…again she was struck by how frail he appeared. Was Cody Chandler nothing more than an opportunist taking advantage of a sick man?
Melanie Winslow was confused. Very confused. For some unknown reason she found herself experiencing the very foreign sensation of feeling protective toward her fatherprotective of this cold, overbearing man with whom she had a relationship that could be described at best as adversarial.
She shook her head to clear the strange thoughts. Sleep. She needed more sleep. Obviously she was not thinking clearly. She turned around and left the living room. She would find Cody Chandler and get some answers from him. Then she would put a call in to Henry Sanderson.
Henry had been Buck’s attorney for more years than Melanie was old. She furrowed her brow in thought. That is, assuming Henry was still her father’s attorney. It was possible that he, too, was no longer connected with the ranch or her father, just as Tom Collier was no longer on the scene.
Was this all some sort of plot engineered by Cody so that he could get his hands on her father’s ranch? Was he really some sort of slick con man? Good grief! Get a grip on yourself, Melanie. Next you’re going to be imagining subterfuge behind every rock and tree. She tried to put her thoughts into some sort of logical reality. Her father was obviously in bad health and not capable of performing the hard work connected with a large cattle ranch. It was necessary for him to delegate a lot of the authority and responsibility. Even without the tour that Cody seemed determined to give her she could see that there had been lots of changes since she was last there. Things looked very prosperous.
Melanie turned to leave the living room and immediately ran into Cody in the hallway leading from the office. She fixed him with a determined stare, refusing to give credence to the tremor of excitement caused by his presence. “I want a word with you.”
He folded his arms across his chest and carefully scrutinized her stance and her physical challenge. He took his time answering her, noting the way she kept clenching and unclenching her jaw. “I thought we were already having words.”
She refused to be put off by his aggressive manner. “So far those words have consisted of you barking orders. Now it’s time for you to start answering some questions.”
He stepped aside and made a sweeping gesture with his arm, indicating the front door. “Outside.” It was only one word, but it was said with total authority—once again he was issuing orders.
She hesitated for a moment, glanced back at her father sleeping peacefully in his recliner, then walked out onto the front porch.
Cody leaned back against the porch railing and tucked his hands into his jeans pockets. He studied her nervousness for a moment before speaking. “All right, what do you want answered?”
“First, I want to know about my father’s health.” Some of the antagonistic edge disappeared from her voice as her inner fears seeped through. “How bad is he?”
“He’s dying.” The words were said in a flat tone of voice as Cody made every effort to control the emotion welling inside him.
Mel blinked a couple of times, then swallowed quickly several times as she tried to force down the sick feeling. “What…” She gulped in some cool air. “What do you mean?”
“I mean exactly what I said—he’s dying. What part of that don’t you understand?” He was fully aware of the harshness of his words but did not seem to be able to say it any other way. He had already been through it all with Buck—the anger, the denial and the eventual acceptance. It had been a year ago that the physical deterioration began to take its toll and Cody had written the letter to Buck’s daughter. And now here she was, a year later, making demands as if she actually had some sort of concern or involvement.
She stumbled backward, the shock of Cody’s words hitting her as sharply as if he had reached out and slapped her. She had seen with her own eyes how her father had been reduced to a shell of his former self. Somewhere deep in her subconscious she had suspected the truth, but she had not been prepared for the reality to hit her so abruptly. Was this how it would end? Would her relationship with her father remain unresolved? For a fraction of a second it was herself she felt sorry for—for the possibility that she might have waited too long and was now too late to change things.
“What…when…” She tried to force a calm to her words. “How much time does he have? What is he dying of?”
Her genuine shock and obvious sorrow managed to pierce the wall Cody had purposely constructed between himself and this woman, of whom he disapproved yet at the same time found very enticing. He steeled himself against the emotional pull that reached out from her and tried to take hold of him.
“As to when, the doctor says he’s already on borrowed time. In fact, he said Buck should have been bedridden a couple of weeks ago.” He saw the color drain from her face and the
