To her annoyance, amusement sparkled in Cody’s eyes. “I don’t have a thing to hide, sweet pea. Want me to tell you about Janey?”

Melissa did not want to hear about the gorgeous creature with the exotic features, elfin haircut and sad, sad eyes. Cody had probably broken her heart, too.

“I can see that you do,” Cody said, taking the decision out of her hands. “First of all, yes, Janey is from Wyoming. Second, I had no idea she was coming. Third, our relationship—then and now—most definitely is not what you think it was.”

“Yeah, right,” Melissa said sarcastically.

“Fourth,” he went on as if she hadn’t interrupted. “Her father was my boss, Lance Treethorn.”

He leveled his gaze straight at her, until she felt color flooding into her cheeks. “Fifth, and most important, she is a fifteen-year-old kid.”

Melissa stared at him. “Fifteen,” she repeated in a choked voice. “Cody, that’s—”

He cut her off before she could finish the ugly thought. “What that is, is a shy, lonely teenager with a crush on the first guy who didn’t slobber all over her due to adolescent hormones,” he insisted adamantly.

Melissa wanted to believe him. In fact, she did believe him. Cody was far too honorable a man to do anything so despicable. Harlan might have raised stubborn, willful, overly confident sons, but he’d instilled a set of values in them that was beyond reproach. She was the one who ought to be horsewhipped for even allowing such a thought to cross her mind.

She moaned and hid her face in her hands. “God, I’m sorry.”

Cody shrugged. “Well, she does look older than she is. That’s been her problem. The guys ahead of her in school think she’s a lot more mature than she is and try to take advantage of her. She’s coped by hiding out at the ranch.”

“And you were kind to her, so she developed a crush on you,” Melissa concluded, feeling like an idiot. “Why didn’t you do something to put a stop to it?”

“For one thing, I had no idea it would go this far. The most overt thing she ever did before was leave food for me. She bakes a brownie that makes your mouth water.”

Melissa grinned. “You always were a sucker for brownies.”

“It was the first thing you learned to bake, remember? You were twelve, I think.”

She remembered all right. Even back then she’d been trying to woo Cody by catering to his every whim. She wondered if it was ever possible to get beyond past history and truly have a new beginning. She’d been facetious when she’d snapped earlier that they couldn’t go back far enough to start over, but maybe it was true. Maybe there was no way to ever get past all the mistakes and the distrust.