Sugar Springs (20 page)

She turned to the girls, almost pleading with her eyes for them to understand the dilemma they were putting her in.

“Tell me something first,” she began.

“What?” Candy asked while Kendra sighed and rolled her eyes.

“It’s been a couple days now since you learned about Cody. Are you still okay with it?”

Candy shrugged nonchalantly, trying for unaffected. “Yeah, it’s cool. Just...weird, you know?”

Lee Ann looked at Kendra for her opinion on the matter.

“I’m not weirded out at all,” her other daughter stated. “I love it.”

“And you’ll be okay when he leaves in a few weeks?”

The question took a bit of the air out of Kendra, and both girls glanced in Cody’s direction, as did Lee Ann.

“He’ll come back and see us sometime though, right?” Candy asked, her tone sounding both scared and confused, very much how Lee Ann often felt about the whole situation.

She nodded, praying she was giving the right answer and silently swearing that if he didn’t, she would hunt him up and personally beat some sense into him. “He cares about you. I can tell. So I can’t see why he wouldn’t come back to see you on occasion.”

Except, not all men remembered their kids once they left.

As they all watched him, each of them fell into her own sort of trance. The girls were dreaming about a father who stuck, but Lee Ann couldn’t help but dream of a little more. She had once believed in him so much. She found her hopes sliding in that same direction again, and in more ways than simply fatherhood.

Her danged pulse had forgotten how to behave when he was around.

Candy stepped closer and pressed a hand lightly to Lee Ann’s. “We’re happy you two like each other, Mom. Joanie told us how she didn’t think you’d ever gotten over him.”

“Excuse me?” The words jerked her out of her silly fantasy. Her best friend, the one who’d been giving Cody the evil eye and grilling him all night at the dinner table, had told these two that she still had feelings for him?

Kendra nodded. “We can tell, too.”

Lee Ann narrowed her eyes. “What can you tell?”

“We’re almost thirteen, Mom.” Kendra propped her hands on her hips. “We can tell when two people really like each other.”

Candy peeked at Cody as he made his way back toward them. “He’s checked out your butt, too, like you just did his.”

Oh, crap
. Knowing the two of them, they’d probably share that same information with Cody if she didn’t get them away from there. She glanced over at the store they wanted to go into. There were some cute tanks and robes in there. Surely they could find something appropriate for someone their age.

“Fine,” she said. “You can go buy something for your birthday, but we’re dropping this other conversation. You can each buy
one
item. But nothing too grown-up, or I’ll return it myself.”

Both girls grinned with happiness, and the air whooshed from her lungs. She’d swear they were looking more and more like their father every day.

“Here you go.” Cody stopped at the table and handed Lee Ann her shake. He narrowed his eyes at the girls’ bright faces. “What did I miss?”

Kendra opened her mouth.

“
Nothing
,” Lee Ann interjected.

Kendra laughed out loud as she reached for one of the chocolate shakes.

Candy grabbed hers and they both scampered away, each competing to be first to the store. Candy won, but then Kendra kicked her in the back of the knees, knocking her to the floor, and hurried around her.

Cody shook his head. “It’s bad enough I don’t understand women, but teenagers? Not sure I should even try.”

A smile stretched across Lee Ann’s face when the girls both suddenly straightened as if realizing they were going into a grown-up store and needed to act the part. She was so lucky to have them. She turned to Cody and discovered he was smiling as well, as he watched them, too. “Don’t waste your time trying. If they catch on you’re on to them, they’ll immediately change. It’s an inner sensor.”

He lowered himself to the seat at a ninety-degree angle to hers, groaning with the movement, his arm brushing over hers as he settled into place. The unpredictable weather of Tennessee had heated the day to a balmy seventy-five, calling for short sleeves, but with his touch she found herself wishing for a sweater to keep his skin from hers. She also wished she couldn’t see the tattoo he had peeking out from below his sleeve. It was bad enough at his neck.

She had a hard time stopping herself from rolling up the material to see what he’d marked his body with underneath.

Dipping her head to the straw, she peeked through her lashes, catching Cody studying her. She still had reservations about everything, but the day had been so casual and easy, she couldn’t help but relax. Around a mouthful of ice cream, she asked, “What?”

“Just wondering if you’re enjoying yourself.” He took a sip of his own shake. Strawberry if she had to guess. “You think the girls are?”

She saw the uncertainty in his eyes and guessed he wasn’t aware she could read him so easily. He was worried the girls would rather he wasn’t there. Their habit of ignoring the two of them couldn’t have helped allay his misgivings. Strangely, this made her want to reach out and touch him the way he kept finding excuses to touch her.

“They’re having a blast.” She didn’t comment on her own enjoyment. “They’re glad you’re here even though it’s not cool to act like it.”

He drank quietly as they both watched the girls flip through a rack of conservative robes, she and he both lost in their own thoughts. When he spoke, his voice was low but determined. “I don’t know how exactly this is going to work yet, but I won’t just walk away.”

Like her father had done to her? “You’ll leave at the end of the year.”

“Yes, but it doesn’t end there. I’m their father, though Lord knows I have no idea what that fully means yet. But I do know I’ll keep in touch, be there for them as much as possible. And I’ll stop in when I can. They can also travel with me some when they’re out of school.”

Panic yanked Lee Ann to her feet. For some reason, she hadn’t even considered he’d want them to go with him. She glared down at him. “Their home is here, Cody.”

“I’m not suggesting anything permanent. Simply the occasional trip. They’ll get to see part of the country and have new experiences.”

The milkshake sat heavily in her stomach all of a sudden. “And who will take care of them while you work? No, it’s not possible. They need the stability I’ve provided for them. You’ll have to visit them here.”

Brown eyes burned into hers. He stared at her for several long seconds, his jaw tight, before he blinked and dropped his gaze to the table. “This isn’t about you and me.”

“I know that!” Her raised voice got the attention of the family at the next table, and she brought it back under control. “I’m the one who’s raised them all their life. I know what’s good for them. I know what they need.”

“Do you? Or do you just know what would be easiest for you?”

“Easiest for me?” Anger quickly rose to the surface as her pulse pounded behind her ears. She pasted on a small smile and nodded at a passing couple, then continued talking through gritted teeth. “Don’t talk to me about easy for me. I’m the one who was left here.
Alone.
No help with the bills, while raising my sister’s children. Your children. While you were out making a life for yourself.”

He closed his eyes. “I knew nothing about it, Lee Ann. We’ve covered this.”

“I know.”

He cut his eyes up at her, a skeptical crease covering his forehead from one side to the other.

“I do, I know,” she continued. “I believe you. No matter how much easier it would be to believe Steph and tell you to get the heck out—”

“You couldn’t do that even if you wanted to.”

She paused. “Couldn’t do what? Tell you to get out of their lives?”

“
Make
me get out of their lives.”

They stared at each other, him sitting calmly in his seat, her still standing, fear trickling through her, until she finally broke eye contact. She turned and watched the girls and crossed her arms over her chest as she took several deep gulps of air. This whole thing scared her to death.

“Don’t hurt them,” she finally whispered, almost pleading. “Please don’t hurt them.”

He waited for her to look back at him before he answered, and when he did, his voice was clear, his gaze unwavering. “I swear I won’t.”

But he might. She could still remember the night her father had left. That was a pain she would do anything to keep her kids from ever feeling. Words died out as they sat there; she didn’t know what else to say. The situation with him and the girls would play out however it was going to, and all she could do was be there to pick up the pieces when needed.

“I won’t hurt you again, either, Lee.”

Her eyes watered, upsetting her even more. The last thing she wanted was to cry in front of the man. She didn’t want his pity, and she certainly didn’t want him realizing just how hard her life had been those first few years. They were all fine now. As long as he didn’t mess it up too much.

He patted the seat she’d vacated. “Sit back down. Let’s talk, get to know each other again. It’s been a long time.”

She shook her head. “You don’t need to know me.”

“Wouldn’t it be best for them,” he said, nodding toward the store that the girls had disappeared into, “if we got along?”

Yes, but that was such a grown-up, parent thing to say that she refused to answer him.

While she continued standing there brooding, a hand reached out and wrapped around her wrist and tugged until she finally gave in and lowered to her seat. She probably looked silly standing, anyway. Especially with him still sitting.

“Tell me about college,” he said, his voice low and deep, and she couldn’t help but want to answer just to keep him talking. “Did you get to go at all?”

She nodded. “I finished my first semester right before the kids were born. I didn’t go back in January.”

“And your scholarship?”

Lee Ann glanced over at him but then just as quickly lowered her gaze. Unintentionally, she fastened on to his lips. She couldn’t let him see into her soul at that moment. He was fully aware how hard she’d worked for that scholarship. He would know what it had meant to give it up. “Was no good to a single mother of twins.”

The sound of strangers talking and kids squealing was the only thing she heard for what seemed like a full minute. She had the strongest urge to lift her eyes to Cody’s so she could see what he was thinking, but it was best not to look. She did not want him seeing how dropping out of college had crushed her.

“Your mom may not have been the best mother in the world, but she raised you okay.” His lips, as they moved, were mesmerizing. “You could’ve asked her to take them. You could’ve given them up as Steph had originally planned.”

“I couldn’t.” She moved her straw up and down in the lid. The squeaking of plastic against plastic finally allowed her to break free from his pull and slide her gaze away from him. How could she make him understand? “No matter what, she had been my sister. This was my chance to be close to her.”

And my last chance to be close to you.

It hadn’t mattered how often she’d tried, how much she’d attempted to attain perfection; she’d never been good enough. Not for either of them.

Cody leaned toward her until their arms brushed. “You’d never told me just how bad it was between the two of you. I knew there were problems, but...”

But not so much that her sister would seduce him just to hurt her?

“I know.” She stretched her hands flat over the table and shrugged. What did it hurt to admit the truth? Facts were facts. “She hated me from the day I was born.”

He touched a finger to the side of her chin and turned her face to his, sliding his warm touch along her jawbone. His dark eyes roamed over her face before locking on to her eyes. “I’m sorry your sister wasn’t worthy of you, and I’m sorry you had to postpone your dreams. But thank you for taking care of my girls. I would hate myself even more if they’d ended up in the system like I was.”

She gulped. “I couldn’t have lived with myself if I’d done it any other way.”

And that was the truth. Knowing the childhood Cody had experienced and the unhappiness that had come with it, she could not have risked that happening to his girls, no matter what she’d had to give up because of it.

The moment was suddenly way too serious. She moved back out of his reach and glanced toward the store. “I heard
Keri gave birth early this morning. Word is it was a quick labor, and they’re both doing well.”

A low chuckle hit her ears. “Changing subjects on me, Lee?”

She shivered with the easy way he said her name. “You bet. We should focus on having fun. Not dwelling on what can’t be changed.”

That chuckle sounded again, and she couldn’t fight the urge to look over at him. But when she did, she knew it had been a mistake. The heat twinkling back at her indicated that his idea of fun just might not be the same as hers.

Then again...She glanced at his mouth, noticing the tiny pink drop of milkshake now clinging to his upper lip...Maybe they both knew exactly what fun could be.

Crap!
She’d gone there again. She had to stop doing that.

She returned her gaze to the girls and decided to bring up another subject that, though it might not be fun, did need to be discussed. Reaching into her bag, she pulled out the check he’d given her two days before and slid it across the table to him. “I can’t accept this. It’s too much.”

He didn’t pick up the check.

She nudged it closer. “Come on, Cody. Take it. I can’t accept more money from you than I make in a year. Keep it for a college fund if you insist on using it on them, but I don’t need it.”

“I don’t recall asking if you needed it.”

“Well, I don’t.” She pushed it to the edge of the table, directly in front of him. “Take it.”

His hand finally moved, but instead of picking up the check he simply pushed it back across the table to her. “How about you quit the diner instead? Pursue the career you put on hold.”