Tucker's Crossing (4 page)

“What’s wrong with loafers?”

“You’re on a ranch. In the middle of Texas. Wearing softer hide than the cows.”

“Visited a lot of cattle ranches in San Francisco, did you? Between all your dinner parties and Save the Arts soirées, I’m surprised you found the time.”

He sounded so—mean. Shelby crossed her arms, to show him she could be mean too, and to hide her cute and totally inappropriate summer dress. Thankfully, she’d left her equally unsuitable city-girl shoes upstairs.

Cody stepped closer with that easy gait of his, which was more of a stroll than a strut. Stopping right in front of her, he left just enough space to keep them a world apart.

“What the hell were you thinking?”

Now that she was clothed, she wasn’t sure if she should go for the hey-now-that-you-don’t-have-a-gun-pointed-at-me-it’s-great-to-see-you attitude or hide under the table. Since cowering in front of an intimidating man was something she’d sworn never to do again, she gave him what she hoped was a hard look. “That I was hot and needed a shower. Didn’t expect Jesse James to come riding through.”

“Yeah, well, you could have gotten yourself shot.” He sounded furious, which she’d take any day over controlled and unaffected.

“You wouldn’t have shot me. You engaged the safety the minute you saw it was me.”

“That’s just because I’m good. Someone else might not have bothered to ask questions first.” His tone softened, and his hand came up to cup her face. His touch was reverent and gentle, almost as if he needed real, tangible proof that she was really there.

Heat gathered along the path his fingers took. Not prepared for the overwhelming electricity that surged between them, and knowing how easy it would be to lose herself to him, Shelby turned her head.

“Don’t.”

“Don’t what, Shelby Lynn?”

“Don’t you try to sweet-talk your way out of busting into a lady’s bathroom. What if Ms. Luella had been in there? Lord, Cody, you scared me half to death. And do you apologize for your behavior? No. You scold me like I am some misbehaving child who—”

“You’re still scared.”

“I am not.”

“Then why are you rambling?”

“I’m not rambling.”

“Yes, you are. You always ramble when you get nervous.”

It 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. Once again it was all going to hell where Cody was concerned. Why couldn’t he ever just do what she needed him to do? Because he was a Tucker!

“Then what do you want?”

Was there ever a more loaded question? Cody wasn’t even sure he knew the answer.

Up until he saw Shelby, standing naked and fresh from the shower, he knew exactly what he wanted. To come back here, to his family’s ranch, and fire every son of a bitch who’d stood by while his dad wailed on his kid brother. Then somehow finish out his sentence so he could return to his life in Austin.

But now, after seeing Shelby, here in this house, standing in the middle of his childhood, everything changed.

He wanted to make sure she was okay, see if she’d finished nursing school, know if Preston had broken her heart the way she’d destroyed his. He wanted to run his hands down her body and see if her lips still tasted as sweet as he remembered. He wanted to go back and force himself to be the kind of man that she deserved.

Oh, Cody wanted. Too bad they were things a man like him didn’t have the right to want, let alone possess.

“I want to know what the hell you’re doing in my mom’s kitchen.”

Hurt swelled in her eyes and he wanted to feel good for putting it there, but it only served as a reminder of how he’d lost her to begin with.

“I live here.”

Had he heard her right? “Run that by me again. I thought you said you lived here.”

“That’s right.”

Now it was his turn to pale. “How long?”

“A couple of years ago, your dad,” she stumbled, “I mean, Silas got ill. He needed a nurse. I needed a job. So I applied.”

“You lived here! With my dad!” The thought of Shelby here, with Silas, in this house, didn’t sit right. Hell, it gave him new fuel for nightmares. It was just one more betrayal to add to the list. “What were you thinking?”

“Just what I said, your dad needed a nurse and the job came with a place to stay.”

Running a hand through his hair, he tortured himself with every horrible situation that he could possibly think of involving a fragile, genuine woman like Shelby and his beast of a father. In less than two seconds he’d come up with enough to make him sick.

Done with the conversation, Cody headed for the back door. He needed space to decompress before he snapped and air that didn’t remind him of his failures.

“Cody—” Shelby panicked.

He was leaving. Just like before, only this time she would be forced to actually watch him walk out the door. Her hard-laid plans would all be for nothing. And that was not acceptable. Too much was at stake.

“Oh, no you don’t.” Stubborn determination threw her into motion. Storming across the tile floor, she yanked him to a stop, forcing him to face the problem head-on. “Don’t you dare walk out on me. We aren’t even close to being done here.”

Every muscle in his arm tightened under her grasp. Cody spun around in a defensive motion. He was amped and ready to strike. Anyone else in her situation would fear for her life, but not Shelby. And that said something about
him
.

Cody might be a massive wall of raging testosterone, but he was also the gentlest man she’d ever known. In their time together, she’d never felt anything but utterly adored and protected. Even loved. Right up until he walked out.

“Let go,” he ordered.

“Not until we talk.”

“I mean it, Shelby Lynn. Let. Me. Go.”

That was the problem, she couldn’t.

“And what if I say no?” Bold words for a woman who needed his cooperation.

Without taking his gaze from hers, he issued a single command: “Don’t push me, Shelby Lynn.”

Shelby let go, but sent him a threatening glare. “Oh, I haven’t even begun to start pushing.”

To her dismay, there was no change in his expression. He crossed his arms, looking relaxed in his Armani button-up, totally unaffected by her threat. Here she was, ready to burst into tears and he was disciplined as always, which put a burr in Shelby’s temper.

“Is that right?” Nope, not even a smile.

“You don’t scare me, Cody Tucker.”

Whoa. That got his attention. Cody stood staring at her, his face so full of disbelief and pain that she staggered back a few feet. Did he actually think she was afraid of him? Maybe she didn’t want to know.

With a curse, Cody stalked toward her too fast for her to react, eating up the distance between them in two forceful steps, fury radiating off his every inch. Shelby couldn’t have moved even if she’d wanted to, which she wasn’t entirely sure she did.

Cody clasped her face between his hands, and leaned down toward her, filling up more and more of the room until all she could see were his eyes, his lips stopping only a scant inch from her mouth, electricity filling the minuscule space.

“Damn you, woman. Why can’t you ever just let things be?” His words danced against her lips. Their bodies brushed, their breath mixed, and then they were kissing. Hot, hard kisses that were somehow heart-shatteringly soft.

And just like that, her world shifted on its axis. She could have pushed him back and screamed her outrage. But he felt too good. Too right. One touch and the sky was down, the floors flopped, and she was falling into the past.