It was a wishy-washy answer if ever Melissa had heard one. “Do I?” she shot back. “How? Just because you’ve been here a few months now and haven’t taken off?”

He raked his fingers through his hair. “Yes.”

“Not good enough, cowboy,” she said, exiting the storeroom and emphatically closing the door behind her.

Mabel and Eli were suspiciously close to the door, though their attention seemed to be thoroughly engaged in their work. Of course, Mabel was sweeping the exact same spot she’d swept not fifteen minutes earlier and Eli was dusting off a shelf, a task that usually fell to Mabel.

“I’m leaving,” she announced, grabbing her purse and heading for the door.

Mabel trailed her outside. “Don’t be a fool, girl. Marry that man and put him out of his misery.”

“I can’t,” Melissa said, sounding pretty miserable herself.

“Why the devil not?”

“He’s only thinking about the babies. He’s not thinking about us at all.”

“If that’s all he cared about, he could file for joint custody, pick them up on Friday afternoons and send you a support check,” Mabel countered. “I don’t hear him talking about doing any of that. He’s talking about marriage, has been ever since he got back into town.”

“Because it’s the right thing to do,” Melissa insisted stubbornly. “The Adams men are nothing if not honorable.”

Mabel shot her a look of pure disgust. “Maybe you ought to be thinking about doing the right thing, too, if that’s the case. Those babies deserve a chance at a real home. Cody’s willing to give them that. Why can’t you?”

Mabel’s words lingered in her head as she walked over to pick up Sharon Lynn. They echoed there again and again as she fought every single attempt Cody made to persuade her to change her mind.

She told herself she wasn’t the one making things difficult. All it would take to make her change her mind was three little words—I love you. They were about the only words in the whole English language that Cody never, ever tried.

15

From the instant he discovered that Melissa was pregnant again, Cody tried to persuade her to marry him. He coaxed. He wooed. He pitched a royal fit on occasion and threatened to hog-tie her and carry her off to the justice of the peace.

For six solid months he did everything but stand on his damned head, but Melissa seemed to have clothed her heart in an impenetrable sheet of armor. He surely didn’t remember the woman being this stubborn. The whole town was watching the two of them as if they were better than any soap opera on TV. He found it mortifying to be chasing after a woman who acted as if he didn’t even exist.