“I’d have to be stone-cold dead to not think you are sexy. I’ve already told you that I had a crush on you for five years,” she said. “I wouldn’t have wasted my time and energy on a cowboy who wasn’t good-looking.”
“Thank you, love.” He gave her another kiss on the forehead.
“Just stating facts…love,” she shot back and then asked, “Do you really think that love is more precious than gold?”
“Yes, I do,” Cody whispered in her ear. “A man can have empty pockets and still feel like a millionaire if he’s got love to spare like Chris is singing about. I see it in Jesse and Addy and have always seen it in my folks. If and when I ever find that kind of love, I’ll be a millionaire, even if I don’t have two dimes to rub together in my pocket.”
When that song ended, Cody brought Stevie’s hand to his lips and kissed her knuckles. “Thank you, Stevie, for the dances. Maybe someday, we’ll go over to the Rusty Spur and dance some leather off our cowboy boots.”
“Why would we go to a crowded bar when we’ve got music, a dance floor, and beer right here?” She sat back down on the sofa and picked up her beer.
Tex woke up, stretched, and hopped down off the sofa. He made his way to the kitchen, where he lapped up water from a bowl and ate a few bites of his dry food, then he flopped down under the table.
“Because I might want people to think we were out on a date,” Cody answered.
* * *
Had Stevie really heard Cody right? She wondered if maybe she ought to ask him to repeat what he’d said, then realized from the quizzical look on his face that he had indeed just said something about a date. She jerked her head around, almost choked trying to get the swallow of beer down, and gasped. “You’re asking me on a date?”
“Yes, I am, but from that reaction, I guess that I’m going to suffer from rejection.” Cody picked up his beer and took a long drink.
“You aren’t God, so you don’t know what I’m thinking,” she told him.
“Then you’re saying yes?” Cody asked. “But going out dancing was just a suggestion. If you’d rather go out to dinner and maybe to a movie, that’s fine with me. The snow is melting, and we’ve gotten word that the road from here to town will be clear by day after tomorrow. I want to spend more time with you.”
“After you broke up with me, I never thought you’d ever ask me out. But I would like to spend more time with you too, so once I’m back home, give me a call. You’ve got my number,” Stevie said.
Twenty years ago, if Cody Ryan had called her for a second chance, Stevie would have danced a jig around the floor. Her heart would have thumped right out of her chest, and sucking on lemons wouldn’t have been able to wipe the grin off her face. Ten years ago, when she came home and saw him at church that Christmas, if he had asked her out, even just for ice cream, she would have probably told him to drop dead and go to hell.
Time and life change the way we look at things. Those were some of her mother’s last words before she died.
You are so right, Mama, Stevie agreed now.
“I will call you, but how about Sunday?” Cody asked. “I’ll pick you up for church, and afterwards, we can go over to Paris for dinner, and then maybe take a long slow drive back home.”
“I’d like that,” Stevie answered as she recognized the piano lead-in for “Broken Roads” by Rascal Flatts. “Hey, this song could be Jesse and Addy’s theme song, couldn’t it?”
“It might be.” Cody flashed a brilliant smile. “Or who knows, in fifty years we might look back on tonight and think it’s about us. The only way we’ll ever know if every one of those long, lost roads has truly brought us back to Honey Grove is if we bury the hatchet and get to know each other better.”
“Think there might be a grander plan in all of this like they’re singing about?” Stevie asked.
“We can hope so,” he said and smiled.
She rolled the cold, sweaty beer bottle across her forehead. “Let’s watch a movie or reruns on television.”
“Reason?” Cody asked.
“Between the beer, the dancing with you, and you asking me out, I’m getting all emotional.” She was bluntly honest—the only way she knew how to be.
“Is that good or bad?” Cody asked.
Stevie was wondering if she would wake up tomorrow morning in her own house and discover that everything that had happened was just a dream. There had been no crazy winter storm. Her van would be sitting in the driveway with no flat tires, and she would realize that she hadn’t had a bad fall from a four-wheeler.
“It’s all good,” she finally answered. If this was a dream, she might as well enjoy it to the very end.
“I’m glad,” Cody said as he turned off the music, picked up the remote, and hit the guide channel. “Looks like we’ve got reruns of NCIS and Law and Order, or we can bring up Netflix and watch something there.”
“The Ranch,” Stevie said without hesitation.
“Yes!” Cody nodded and punched in the right buttons on the remote. “What season are you on?”
“Two,” she answered.
“I’ve been watching the third one, but I don’t mind going back and doing season two again.” Cody settled onto his end of the sofa.
How could he go from talking about a date on Sunday, to thinking about a television show? Stevie wondered. Her mind was still going around in circles, as she tried to figure out what she should wear to church, and how Addy and Mia would feel about her actually dating Cody. If the two of them decided that they didn’t like each other, would that interfere with Mia being her assistant? Or worse yet, would the ranch stop calling on her to do vet work for them? If Sonny quit using her services, then how many other ranches would stop calling on her?
“Want another beer?” he asked.
“Yes, thank you.” Her voice sounded strained in her own ears. “Maybe…” she started to say that dating might not be such a good idea.
“Maybe some pretzels?” Cody was already on his way back from the kitchen. “I was thinking the same thing.”
Don’t close the door when opportunity knocks, the voice in her head said. Didn’t you just tell him to face his fears? Well, take a dose of your own medicine.
“Yes,” she said again. “Pretzels would be great, and bring that package of chocolate kisses I saw in the pantry. I like salt and sweet together.”
“You can have as many of my kisses as you can handle,” Cody chuckled.
“Don’t promise what you can’t deliver.” Stevie flirted right back at him.
“Want to give that a try?” Cody returned with half a bag of chocolate and an unopened one of pretzels.
She held up the kisses. “See, only half a bag. I could put away two bags between now and bedtime. Oh!” She clamped a hand over her mouth. “You were talking about real kisses. This is a failure to communicate. I thought you were offering me as many of these as I could handle.”
“Sure, you were, but to clear things up…” Cody bent forward, tipped her chin up with his fist, and kissed her on the lips.