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Chapter Nine
“Hey, Mom, somethin’ wrong?” Cody asked on the way home from his friend’s house.
“Not really,” Dani lied, her fingers sweaty around the steering wheel, her teeth sinking into her lip as she drove the pickup out of Martinville.
Cody shrugged and stuck out his lower lip thoughtfully. “You looked kind’a worried.”
“Don’t I always?” she teased, but the joke fell flat. She tried to lighten the mood by ruffling his hair, but Cody moved his head to avoid contact.
“Come on. Somethin’s buggin’ you. I can tell.” He slid down in the seat and propped his knees against the dash of the pickup while glancing at his mother. “Caleb Johnson did something again didn’t he?”
“Not that I know of,” she said with a sigh. “Okay, Cody, I guess I’ll have to level with you.”
“’Bout time.”
Bracing herself for an emotional reaction from her son, she said, “I was going to wait until we were home, but you may as well hear it now: Your dad is back in town.”
Cody didn’t move a muscle, just stared at her with round brown eyes. “You saw him? When?”
“Earlier. He stopped by the house looking for you. He’ll be back for dinner.”
“Tonight?”
“Tonight.”
Letting out a piercing whoop that any coyote would envy, Cody pounded his fist against the seat of the truck and grinned from ear to ear. “I told ya, didn’t I? I told ya that he was comin’ home.”
“That you did,” Dani admitted, turning the old truck into the drive. The pickup bounced its way up the lane. “You never lost faith.”
“This is great!” Cody said, beaming and hardly able to sit still.
When Dani parked the old truck near the side of the house, Cody reached for the door handle and climbed down, but Dani took hold of his arm. “Cody—”
“Yeah?” He swiveled his head around, his bright teeth and dark eyes flashing eagerly.
She had trouble finding the right words, but her face was lined with concern. “Look, I don’t want to burst your bubble, but I just don’t want you to be disappointed. Don’t expect too much of your father.”
Cody jerked his arm away from her and gestured dismissively. “He’s back, Mom. That’s all that matters. And if you weren’t so hung up on Chase McEnroe, you’d be happy, too.”
“Chase has nothing to do with this.”
“Like hell!”
“Cody!” But the boy was off, dashing across the gravel and beating a path to the back door.
Dani lifted the two sacks of groceries she’d bought before she’d picked up Cody and walked inside the house. Setting the bags on the counter, she listened to the sound of the shower running and Cody’s off-tune singing.
“I hope I’m up to this,” she thought aloud, placing the meat and vegetables in the refrigerator. Feeling that the dinner with Blake was sure to be a disaster, she put the rest of the groceries away and started preparing the meal. The first step was lighting the barbecue on the back porch. After seeing that the charcoal was burning, she came back inside, noted that the shower had quit running and started cutting greens for a salad.
Cody, wet hair gleaming, was back downstairs in fifteen minutes. He was wearing some of the new clothes they’d purchased in Butte and a smile as wide as his face. “What can I do to help?” he asked.
“Here, why don’t you slice the loaf of French bread?” She took a deep breath and added, “Look, I wasn’t too crazy about what you said to me earlier.”
“What?”
“You know what. Just try to control your temper, okay?”
“Okay,” the boy agreed sullenly, looking out the window before grabbing a knife and slicing the loaf.
