She studied him intently. “Or have you? Are you taking all the anger you don’t dare express against me because of Sharon Lynn and projecting it on to Jordan?”

She saw by the way his jaw worked and his gaze evaded hers that she’d hit the nail on the head. She sighed. “Don’t do this, Cody. Don’t let what happened between us come between you and Jordan. Please,” she pleaded.

When he didn’t respond, she gave up. “Just promise you’ll think about what I said, okay?”

“Yeah,” he said tersely. “I’ll think about it.”

With great reluctance, Melissa finally conceded it was the best she could hope for. For now, anyway.

12

Sometime well after midnight, Melissa woke to the sound of Sharon Lynn whimpering. She tumbled out of bed, flipped on the hall light and raced into the baby’s room.

Sharon Lynn was tossing restlessly. Her skin was dry and burning up.

“Oh, baby,” Melissa soothed as she scooped her up. “Are you feeling bad? Come with Mommy. I’ll get you some water and check your temperature.”

She had barely made it into the kitchen and flipped that light on when the front door burst open, scaring her half to death. She grabbed the frying pan and peeked through the kitchen doorway, prepared to do battle with a lunatic. Instead it was Cody, his clothes rumpled, his hair tousled, who stood in the foyer.

“Cody, what on earth?” she demanded, trying to slow the pounding of her heart. She set the frying pan down, though she wasn’t entirely convinced he couldn’t do with a good whop upside the head for scaring her so badly.

“What’s going on?” he asked, casting worried looks from her to the baby and back. “I saw the lights come on. Are you okay?”

She ignored the question and tried to figure out what he was doing at her house in the middle of the night. The last time she’d seen him he’d been sitting at the bar in Rosa’s. He’d declared his intention of starting his night on the town right there, clearly implying he intended it to end in someone’s arms. She’d choked back her fury and tried to exit with some dignity, when all she’d really wanted to do was have a knock-down, drag-’em-out brawl with him. She was still itching for a fight, as a matter of fact, but right now Sharon Lynn’s condition took precedence.

“Where have you been?” she asked, pleased that she was able to sound so cool when she was seething inside.

“On the porch,” he admitted, taking his feverish daughter from her arms. As soon as he touched her, alarm flared in his eyes. “Good heavens, she’s burning up. Have you taken her temperature?”