He smiled, and Sherry swore she’d never seen anything sexier.

* * *

She didn’t hear from Cody all day Saturday, which was disappointing. She’d hoped he’d taken her words to heart and understood what she’d been trying to say.

Yes, she wanted to be courted the way women had been courted for centuries. But she also wanted to be loved. Cody was more afraid of love than he was of marriage.

Late that night when she was in bed reading, she heard something or someone outside her bedroom window. At first she didn’t know what to make of it. The noise was awful, loud and discordant. Several minutes passed before she realized it was someone playing a guitar, or rather, attempting to play a guitar.

She pulled open the blinds and looked out to see Cody standing on the lawn, crooning for all he was worth. Whatever he was singing—or thought he was singing—was completely unrecognizable to her.

“Cody!” she shouted, jerking up the window and poking her head out. “What on earth are you doing?”

He started to sing louder. Sherry winced. His singing was worse than his guitar-playing. Holding up the window with one hand, she covered her ear with the other.

“Cody!” she shouted again.

“You wanted romance,” he called back and then repeatedly strummed the guitar in a burst of energy. “This comes straight from the heart, just like you wanted.”

“Have you been drinking?”

He laughed and threw back his head, running his fingers over the guitar strings with hurried, unpracticed movements. “You don’t honestly think I’d try this sober, do you?”

“Cody!”

The sound of a police siren in the background startled Sherry. It was the first time she’d heard one in Pepper. Apparently there was some kind of trouble, but Sherry didn’t have time to think about that now, not with Cody serenading her, sounding like a sick bull.

“Cody!”

“What’s the matter?” he shouted. “You said you wanted romance. Well, this is it. The best I can do.”

“Give me a minute to get dressed and I’ll be right out.” She started to lower the window, then poked her head out again. “Don’t go away, and quit playing that guitar!”

“Anything you want,” he said, strumming even more wildly and discordantly than before.

Lowering the window didn’t help. Cody knew as much about guitar-playing as she did about mustering cattle. Pulling on jeans and a light sweater, she slipped her feet into tennis shoes and hurried out the door. Fortunately the siren, too, had stopped.

As she came out onto the porch, she was gratified to realize he’d stopped playing. It wasn’t until she’d reached the bottom step that she noticed the police car parked in front of the clinic.

Hurrying around to the side of the building, she encountered Cody and a sheriff’s deputy, whose flashlight was zeroed in on her romantic idiot.

“Is there a problem here?” Sherry asked. She hadn’t met this particular deputy, but the name tag above his shirt pocket read Steven Bean.