irked her that he could still read her. He didn’t know her anymore, had given up his right to know her. “I’m not that naive college girl anymore.”
“Is that right?” His eyes slid down her, stopping to rest at her breasts, and the blatant male appreciation in his appraisal caused her nipples to bead under her bodice, which went to show how very stupid hormones could make her.
He gave a low whistle. And if there was any lingering doubt that he had failed to notice, Cody locked eyes with Shelby, his mouth kicking up into that easy grin of his—the one that had stolen her heart. The one that said, “Gotcha,” and reminded her of late nights filled with making love, and lazy days spent in tangled sheets.
“My, my, my, you’re right about that. You surely have grown up,” he drawled, purposely turning on the Southern charm.
“Yeah, well last time you saw me you were so busy burning rubber out the door, I wasn’t sure you even had the time to get a good look,” Shelby blurted and instantly wanted to suck the words back into her mouth and swallow them whole. The last thing she needed was him knowing just how much he’d hurt her. How much he still got to her.
Yeah, good luck with that.
Their relationship had been explosive from the start, the connection instantaneous. A shy glance over her biology notes had turned into dinner at Joe’s Chicken and Waffles and ended with leftovers for breakfast. Cody never really left, moving his things in little by little until their lives were so intertwined no one knew what was whose.
Then he left. And although his best friend had relayed Cody’s message explaining why, things were still unsettled, achingly intertwined. They always would be.
“Yeah, well last time I saw you, you were wearing a ring.”
“Not for a couple of years now.” Shelby lifted her hand and wiggled her naked finger.
“Is that right?” Cody said again, this time with a healthy dash of smugness. “Preston always was an idiot.”
Her friends had thought she was crazy to leave a man like Preston Van Warren. On paper he was perfect, rich and handsome and funny, with a charisma and family name that drew people in and hooked them. Too bad it had taken Shelby so long to realize that under all that easy charm was a controlling bully who took joy in degrading his wife.
“Thanks,” she whispered, feeling ridiculously happy that someone else in the world knew what a jerk her ex was.
Cody’s body went taut, as if he were waiting for the whistle to blow and the game to begin. Closing the gap, he pressed her back into the counter. Their bodies nearly flush, he lowered his head, his lips close enough to taste. Her blood pounded with anticipation—and fear—causing her ears to ring loudly.
“You’re smokin’.” Cody’s voice sounded low and seductive, a proposition.
Shelby felt her stomach heat and wondered if Cody wanted to kiss her as badly as she wanted him to kiss her. Then she smacked herself for wondering and reminded herself that he’d come back because of the will, not her. Right?
Cody pressed all the way forward, his chest hard against her nipples, and for one gut-lurching, heart-stopping, totally terrifying moment, she thought he was actually going to kiss her.
He rested his hands on the counter’s ledge, caging her in and whispered, “I was referring to the oven. But I’m willing to go there, too.”
Shelby swallowed. The light pink in her cheeks turned a mortifying red. “Don’t you dare try to flirt with me!”
“Honey, when I’m flirting, you’ll know. There’ll be no trying about it.” But the cocky grin he wore told her that he was flirting. And her body was all for it.
“You’re just trying to intimidate me into leaving.” Shoving against the wall of his chest, she scrambled to open the oven, and prayed for the strength not to stick her head inside and close the door. “Pick a new strategy. That one won’t work.”
She grabbed the oven mitts. “Ms. Luella would kill me if I burned her corn bread. She’s practicing for the cook-off. She added oil from a habañero and water imported from the Rockies. She thinks it’s her way to get one up on the competition.” She was rambling again, dang it.
“What are you doing?” he asked, any signs of that earlier charm gone.
“Taking the bread out of the oven.” She waved the golden brown loaf in his face, wafting toasted cornmeal and honey throughout the room.
“That’s not what I meant and you know it.”
She did know. Her time was up. But when she turned around, ready to tell him why she was here and what she wanted, she found Cody taking in the room. The lines around his mouth were now deep, pale ridges.
Panic moistened her palms. Had he seen the agreement? No. He wasn’t even looking at the papers. He was staring through the table at something only he could see.
Surrounded by six empty chairs, each situated in front of its own gingham place mat, the farm-style table sat with its gerbera daisy–filled mason jar, looking like it was built for laughter-filled family meals. But for Cody, it must have been another reminder of anything but. Not what she wanted him focused on right now.
“Today must have been hard,” Shelby started, trying to voice what she knew he never would. Guys like Cody thought being strong meant hiding the hurt, and the longer he hid, the longer the healing would take. And Shelby was running out of time. “I mean, coming home after your dad—”
“You have no idea about how hard today was . . . or what my dad was like.” Cody’s face contorted at the word. He was building walls faster than she could backpedal, securely shutting her out.
“I know,” Shelby began. “When you didn’t show up to the funeral . . . I just wanted . . . I needed to know that you were okay.”
“You should have thought about that before you ran off and married Preston.”
Shelby stepped back, not by design, but because she needed space. The only person who ever mentioned Preston was Silas. And he was dead. Well, and Gina. But hearing his name come from Cody took her back to a time she’d rather forget. “You didn’t give me any choice.”
Instead of shouting back, condemning her for marrying his best friend and costing him his job, like any other hot-blooded Texan would do, Cody merely shrugged, making it painfully clear that whatever heartache she’d suffered over their breakup had been one-sided. Hers. To him, it had been no big deal.
“Why don’t you sit down and I’ll put on a pot of coffee,” she said, feeling ridiculous for offering to serve him in his own house. But she needed him to hear her out and she refused to deliver her news with him towering over her.
“I don’t want to sit down.”
“Look, there’s some pie in the fridge—”
“I don’t want pie.”
“I have sweet tea.”
“I don’t want any damn tea.”
Shelby wanted to cry.
