Read Online The Cowboy and His Baby by Sherryl Woods - Free Book Online

stared at him incredulously. “And your loyalty was with her and not me?”
    â€œWhy the hell do you think I’ve done everything in my power to get you back here? I didn’t want to lay this on you when you were in Wyoming. I wanted you here, so you could see for yourself. I didn’t want you to accuse me or her of making it up just to get you back here.”
    Cody wasn’t buying it. “No, you were more concerned with keeping your promise to a woman who betrayed me than you were with doing what was right—giving me a chance to know my own child.” He turned on his heel and headed for the door, the box of kittens in tow. “I can’t believe you would do something like this. Maybe family loyalty doesn’t mean anything once you’re a big corporate executive. Is that it, big brother?”
    â€œCody, you have it all wrong,” Kelly protested when she came back into the kitchen. Obviously she had overheard the tail end of the argument.
    â€œI don’t think so,” he snapped, shooting her a look of regret. “Don’t expect me at the baptism, after all. In fact, forget you even know me.”
    Kelly called out after him. He heard the screen door slam behind her, then Jordan murmuring something he couldn’t quite make out. Whatever it was, though, it silenced her. When he looked back as he drove away, he saw them standing on the porch staring after him. He was sure it was only his imagination, but he thought he saw his brother wiping something that might have been tears from his cheeks.
    He slowed the car momentarily and closed his eyes against the tide of anguish washing through him. Melissa had done it again. She had come between him and his family. He vowed then and there it would be the last time. This time he wouldn’t run. He wouldn’t let her control his destiny as he had before.
    Forgetting all about his resolve to let his temper cool, an hour later he was in town, pounding on the Hortons’ front door. Ken Horton, wearing a robe and slippers, opened it a crack. At the sight of Cody, he swung it wider, a welcoming smile spreading across his weathered face. Cody could see Velma’s panicky expression as she stared over her husband’s shoulder.
    â€œCody, what on earth?” Horton grumbled. “You trying to wake the whole neighborhood?”
    â€œWhere’s Melissa?”
    â€œShe’s not here,” he said as his wife tugged frantically on his arm. When he leaned down, she whispered something in his ear, something that wipedany lingering expression of welcome from his face. “Go on home, Cody.”
    â€œNot until you tell me where she is.”
    â€œDon’t make me call the sheriff.”
    â€œDon’t make me pound the information out of you,” Cody shot back belligerently.
    Ken Horton regarded him sympathetically. “Boy, go on home and get some sleep. If you’ve got things to talk over with Melissa, do it in the morning, when you’re calmer.”
    Despite his earlier promise to himself to think things through clearly, Cody realized he didn’t want to be calm when he talked to Melissa. He wanted this rage to keep him focused, to keep him immune to the sight of her. He wanted to have this out with her while he was hot with anger, not lust.
    â€œIf I have to knock on every door in town, I’m going to talk to her tonight,” he swore.
    â€œThere’s nothing you have to say, nothing you need to know, that won’t be settled just as readily in the morning,” Horton repeated, still calm, still intractable.
    Cody considered it as much as an admission that he and Melissa had serious issues to resolve, such as his relationship to that baby. He gathered from the warning look Horton shot at his now tearful wife that they didn’t entirely agree on whether Cody had the right to know the truth.
    â€œWhere can I find her in the morning?” he asked finally, resigned