“You were wonderful last night,” he said softly. “Not only were you good with Sharon Lynn, but you kept me from freaking out.”

Her lips curved slightly. “Having you here helped me, too,” she said, surprising him.

“Why?”

“Staying calm for your benefit kept me from freaking out myself,” she admitted.

He stared at her in astonishment. “You were scared?”

“Terrified,” she admitted. “But I knew I couldn’t let you see it or you’d have insisted on borrowing your father’s plane and flying us all to some critical care hospital in Dallas in the middle of the night.”

“You’ve got that right.” He grinned. “We’re quite a pair, aren’t we?”

“Just typical parents, Cody.”

The simple words were no more than the truth, yet Cody felt as if he’d just heard something terribly profound spoken for the first time. He was a parent, a certified grown-up, with responsibilities he couldn’t slough off. Responsibilities, in fact, that he actually yearned to accept.

He wanted more Sunday mornings just like this one, waking up to the sound of his daughter making some sort of commotion to get attention, fixing breakfast for all three of them, sitting at the kitchen table across from Melissa. He renewed his vow to himself to do everything within his power to convince Melissa they ought to be a family.

After they’d eaten and after he’d cleaned up most of the scrambled egg Sharon Lynn had managed to rub into her hair or fling halfway across the kitchen, he sat back with a sigh of pure contentment.

“Don’t get too settled,” Melissa warned, a teasing note in her voice. “Your daughter needs a bath. I think I’ll let you do the honors since that egg she’s smeared everywhere was your doing.”

“You sound as if that’s punishment,” he said. “What’s the big deal?”

“You’ll see,” Melissa retorted a little too cheerfully to suit him.

She ran the inch or so of bathwater into the tub, then left him to it. It didn’t take long for Cody to figure out why she’d had that smug expression on her face when she’d exited the bathroom.

Sharon Lynn really loved water. She loved to splash it. She loved to scoop it up by the handful and dribble it all over him. She loved to throw her toys into it, sending yet more splashes into the air.

She wasn’t quite so crazy about soap. She wriggled and squirmed, trying to get away from him. Slippery as an eel, she evaded capture until she’d managed to soak him from head to toe. In fact, he was fairly certain that he was wetter and soapier than she was.

Melissa chose that precise moment to reappear. He heard her chuckling as he tried to towel his daughter dry.

“You find this amusing?” he inquired softly.

“Mmm-hmm,” she admitted. “I sure do.”