Tucker's Crossing Read Online Free PDF Page A

oven mitts. “Ms. Luella would kill me if I burned her corn bread. She’s practicing for the cook-off. She added oil from a habañero and water imported from the Rockies. She thinks it’s her way to get one up on the competition.” She was rambling again, dang it.
    “What are you doing?” he asked, any signs of that earlier charm gone.
    “Taking the bread out of the oven.” She waved the golden brown loaf in his face, wafting toasted cornmeal and honey throughout the room.
    “That’s not what I meant and you know it.”
    She did know. Her time was up. But when she turned around, ready to tell him why she was here and what she wanted, she found Cody taking in the room. The lines around his mouth were now deep, pale ridges.
    Panic moistened her palms. Had he seen the agreement? No . He wasn’t even looking at the papers. He was staring through the table at something only he could see.
    Surrounded by six empty chairs, each situated in front of its own gingham place mat, the farm-style table sat with its gerbera daisy–filled mason jar, looking like it was built for laughter-filled family meals. But for Cody, it must have been another reminder of anything but. Not what she wanted him focused on right now.
    “Today must have been hard,” Shelby started, trying to voice what she knew he never would. Guys like Cody thought being strong meant hiding the hurt, and the longer he hid, the longer the healing would take. And Shelby was running out of time. “I mean, coming home after your dad—”
    “You have no idea about how hard today was . . . or what my dad was like.” Cody’s face contorted at the word. He was building walls faster than she could backpedal, securely shutting her out.
    “I know,” Shelby began. “When you didn’t show up to the funeral . . . I just wanted . . . I needed to know that you were okay.”
    “You should have thought about that before you ran off and married Preston.”
    Shelby stepped back, not by design, but because she needed space. The only person who ever mentioned Preston was Silas. And he was dead. Well, and Gina. But hearing his name come from Cody took her back to a time she’d rather forget. “You didn’t give me any choice.”
    Instead of shouting back, condemning her for marrying his best friend and costing him his job, like any other hot-blooded Texan would do, Cody merely shrugged, making it painfully clear that whatever heartache she’d suffered over their breakup had been one-sided. Hers. To him, it had been no big deal.
    “Why don’t you sit down and I’ll put on a pot of coffee,” she said, feeling ridiculous for offering to serve him in his own house. But she needed him to hear her out and she refused to deliver her news with him towering over her.
    “I don’t want to sit down.”
    “Look, there’s some pie in the fridge—”
    “I don’t want pie.”
    “I have sweet tea.”
    “I don’t want any damn tea.”
    Shelby wanted to cry. Once again it was all going to hell where Cody was concerned. Why couldn’t he ever just do what she needed him to do? Because he was a Tucker!

Chapter 3
    “Then what do you want?”
    Was there ever a more loaded question? Cody wasn’t even sure he knew the answer.
    Up until he saw Shelby, standing naked and fresh from the shower, he knew exactly what he wanted. To come back here, to his family’s ranch, and fire every son of a bitch who’d stood by while his dad wailed on his kid brother. Then somehow finish out his sentence so he could return to his life in Austin.
    But now, after seeing Shelby, here in this house, standing in the middle of his childhood, everything changed.
    He wanted to make sure she was okay, see if she’d finished nursing school, know if Preston had broken her heart the way she’d destroyed his. He wanted to run his hands down her body and see if her lips still tasted as sweet as he remembered. He wanted to go back and force himself to be the kind of man that she deserved.
    Oh, Cody wanted.