6. Hailey

SIX

"Um, no, you most certainly are not." I made the mistake of taking the time to send a glare at Lolly, because mark my words, she was in so much trouble, while she stood there with some kind of wicked glee dancing over her face.

She actually had the nerve to mouth, You're welcome.

Only it gave the hulk of a man the time to turn on his heel and start striding up my driveway like he owned the place, all fresh tee and damp hair and ridiculously sexy bare feet.

Wearing clean jeans and smelling like cedar and soap and every bad idea that'd ever been had.

I snapped into action, hurrying behind him in an attempt to sway what I was sure weren't close to noble intentions, while my daughter started to trot alongside him, too, having no clue the devil was in our midst.

Because that's what he was.

Tossing out all those smirks and smiles.

Madison clapped her hands as she skipped along and sang, "Yay, we get our couch! That's really good news because the only thing we got to sit on is the floor, and we don't even have a TV."

"Well, you're in luck, Button, because you're about to have one."

Button?

Was he serious?

I increased my pace, growling under my breath, "I told you last night that I do not need your help, Mr. Cooper."

"Who said I was helping you out? I'm doing it for Lolly and Madison. They're the ones who asked nicely." He tossed it out from over his shoulder, that smirk riding on those ridiculous lips, the man dripping sex and salacious schemes.

He rounded to the back of the truck and tossed up the rolling door. Metal grated as it lifted, and he hopped into the high bed like it was nothing.

Exasperation kneaded beneath my skin. Flustered, I tried to think of a solution. How to get this man out of here without disappointing my daughter, but unfortunately disappointment was an inevitable part of life.

"Maddie, go inside with Lolly and make sure nothing is in the way of where the couch is going to go."

How I came up with that as a valid solution, I didn't know. Conceding to him bringing in the couch was a treacherous disloyalty.

But I needed to get her out of there because I didn't want her bearing witness to what was boiling inside me right then.

"On it, Mommy!" She gave me a salute before she turned to Lolly who was slowly making her way up the drive. Excited, she grabbed her hand. "Come on, Lolly! We got to make sure the house is super clean for the couch."

"Good plan, little one. I'll even whip up some tea." Lolly glanced at me, gray eyes gleaming.

God, she was such a schemer.

But she didn't know. I couldn't expect her to. She thought she was nudging me in the right direction when that direction was riddled with potholes and dead ends.

I silently counted to ten while they ambled up the walkway, and I waited until I heard the front door slam before I turned my attention to the man who was currently moving boxes out of the way to get to the couch.

I inhaled a shaky breath, trying to form some semblance of cool when I felt like the foundation I was trying to build was already crumbling beneath me. "I don't know what you think you're doing, Mr. Cooper."

He lifted a box over his head to place onto the top of five others he'd already stacked against the wall. The movement caused his tee to ride up over the waistband of his jeans. It revealed a swath of packed, chiseled abdomen, hip bones peeking out.

It should be a felony for one single man to be that hot.

Me even noticing was the true crime.

"Helping out a neighbor, is all."

I huffed as I hoisted a leg up so I could climb into the bed of the truck. "And I keep telling you I don't need your help. I have movers coming this weekend."

"That's not for four days." He kept moving my things around, freeing the couch that three minutes ago had been buried.

"Which is not going to hurt a thing. We have our beds. That's all we need," I said as I edged deeper into the truck.

He turned on me faster than I ever could have anticipated.

His proximity froze me to the spot. The man towered, so tall his head nearly touched the top of the trailer.

Nothing but a heaping stack of muscle and brawn and cruel intentions.

Only right then, he wasn't sporting that smirk, and something intense dimmed his grin just like it'd done when he'd touched my chin last night.

The same as I'd thought I'd sensed in his voice when he'd been talking to me in the stables.

He angled down, too close.

My stomach twisted and my knees quaked.

"I'm not sure about you, Ms. Wagner, but I'd prefer to keep that smile on your daughter's face rather than disappointing her. Especially when it doesn't cost me a thing to put it there."

I warred, my voice haggard with the way the air had gone dense, the oxygen too thick to breathe.

"She needs to learn that not everything is easy. That sometimes we have to wait. That sometimes things are hard and she's not always going to get her way."

"I'm sure life is going to teach her that lesson just fine." His teeth grated when he said it.

I got stuck there, by the pain that suddenly roiled in those gold-fired eyes, a dam opening and something I was sure he normally kept hidden gushing out.

I wondered if he could see to the depths of mine.

If it was real. This understanding that passed between us.

The truth that I would do anything to protect my daughter from all those things. From the pain and the wounds and the hurts, thinking that maybe I could prepare her for them, and when she understood they were coming, they might not sting so bad.

Or maybe I somehow foolishly thought if she experienced small ones, tiny knicks of disappointment, it would keep her from the gashes that cut so deep they'd never heal.

Maybe…maybe he did because he murmured, "As far as I'm concerned, we take the good when it's presented to us because there's going to be plenty of bad shit to come along. So how about you let me do the simple job of taking this couch inside your house, then you and your kid can snuggle up on it and watch a show tonight."

I couldn't breathe.

Couldn't speak.

I nearly fell on my ass when he suddenly took a step back, like whatever tether had stretched between us had been holding me up and it'd just snapped.

Then that smirk was back in full force. "Unless you want me to hang out for a bit, and once the two of them go to sleep, you can snuggle up on it with me."

There he was.

The player I knew him to be.

Careless and only out for one thing.

I scoffed around the chaffing at the edges of my heart. "You know that's not going to happen."

He shrugged, all kinds of casual as he went back to the last boxes remaining on the couch. "Suit yourself. Just was checking to see if you'd decided to take a little of the good when it's presented to you."

"You're awful sure of yourself," I gritted out.

He came my way with a stack of boxes in his hands, and he leaned in close to my ear. "Oh, darlin', you can be sure it'd be good."

Chills skated down my spine and lifted across my flesh. I wanted to be sick at the reaction.

His chuckle was dry as he wound around me and jumped down from the back of the truck, still balancing four boxes and slanting me one of those looks that shivered through my insides.

"And why don't we drop that whole Mr. Cooper bit and stop pretending like you don't know me, yeah?"

Then he turned and strode up my walkway with the boxes in hand, not bothering to look back.

I was only accepting the good when it was presented to me.

That's what I kept telling myself as Cody Cooper brought load after load into my house.

I had to wonder if he was doing it as some kind of penance.

It was bad enough that I'd given up the fight of letting him bring in the couch, but before he'd brought it in, he'd disappeared back over to his place and returned wearing boots and pushing a hand-truck, which he'd assured me could do the work of three men, and he was going to knock this job out lickity-split, before he'd rolled out the ramp and started in like he somehow thought it was his duty.

"That man is something, isn't he?" Lolly sat on that very couch where we'd placed it under the window and facing the wall where the TV now sat. She sipped at an iced tea as she watched Cody disappear back out the front door on what had to be about his twentieth trip.

His shirt clung to the small of his back from the sweat that slicked his skin and those jeans hugged an ass that had to be every bit as ripped as the rest of him.

He was most definitely something and every freaking thing that I couldn't want.

I had to remember that.

Even having him here sparked with betrayal.

Still, there was a gratitude that kept threatening to rupture through the barriers I was struggling to keep intact.

I scowled at my meddling grandmother. "And that man gave up his whole evening thanks to you."

I still wasn't letting on that I knew him. Lolly had to remain in the dark or else she was really going to start needling her nose into places that I couldn't let her go.

She waved an errant hand in the air. "Oh, he's happy to do it."

My gaze narrowed. "And you know this how?"

"All the whistling he's doing and the skip to his step is proof of that. Not to mention he can't wipe that smile from his face every time he looks at you."

"I'm pretty sure that man's smile is permanently tattooed on his face, and it doesn't have a thing to do with me."

Except something about that didn't ring true, and my thoughts kept flashing to the way his expression would dim and all that carelessness would fade away. When he'd suck me down into some kind of darkness that lurked in the deepest part of him, like he too would get caught up in that summer.

Like maybe it had mattered.

But this was Cody Cooper we were talking about.

The man couldn't seem to remain serious to save his life.

"You just go on telling yourself that," Lolly drawled, "but if a hottie like you moved in next door to me, I'd be smiling, too. I bet I know what would make him smile even wider." She wagged her brows.

I refused the visions that wanted to assail me. The ones that had forever wondered what that might be like. If that summer had gone down differently.

That was attraction for you.

Errant.

Inopportune.

No thought of the heart even though that was where you felt the strike of it.

"You're ridiculous, Lolly," I told her, forcing lightness into my tone.

"Nothing ridiculous about it."

"You and I both know it would be ridiculous to get tangled in the likes of that. That man would chew me up and spit me out, and then I'd be stuck living next to him for the next God knows how long. My life is too complicated right now. No use in adding fuel to the flames."

Flames that would likely consume, and there was no pretending that Cody wasn't gasoline.

All of it was the truth, not that I would ever let him touch me, anyway.

"Oh, but the chewing would be so nice." Lolly grinned.

I shook my head and stood as Cody came in pushing my nightstand on the hand-truck.

The air shifted the way it did, growing thick and somehow light, like the man was radiating the sun all while casting me in shadow.

"Where's this one go?" he asked, so casual, like his presence wasn't wreaking havoc on the brittle pieces inside me.

"You can leave it right there."

"Already have it inside. No point in that." His mouth tipped up at the side.

"Might as well show him to your room." Freaking Lolly, thinking she was cupid when she had no idea the type of arrows a man like him carried.

But whatever, he'd already forced his way inside. I might as well let him finish the job.

Awkwardly, I gestured toward the primary that was through the double doors on the other side of the kitchen. "Right in there."

"Ah, you've got the same room as mine." That golden gaze sparked in some kind of mischief, a silent affirmation that he'd caught me peeping on him last night.

So freaking embarrassing.

He guided the hand-truck down the little pathway between the kitchen and table before he disappeared through the bedroom door.

I itched, unsure, before I hurried to follow him.

He went directly for the right side of the bed, like he already knew that was the side I slept on, even though it was made.

He moved around to slide the nightstand off the hand-truck, his muscles straining and his tee shirt stretching over the definition of his back as he maneuvered it into place.

Then he straightened to his full height, dragging a massive palm up his face and through his hair as he turned to face me.

"That should do it," he said.

My teeth clamped down on my bottom lip, and I shifted in discomfort.

I couldn't stop staring at him.

A giant in the middle of my room.

Handsome as hell and dangerous to my sanity.

Blowing out the strain from my lungs, I wrung my fingers together. "I honestly don't know how to thank you."

Sure, he'd offered to do it.

Okay, insisted on it.

And even though I didn't want to be indebted to him, appreciation pulled heavy at my chest. It hadn't been an actual lie that I had movers set up for the weekend, only the movers were me.

"You don't have a thing to repay me for." His voice was gravel. A bait.

Uncertainty shook my head, suddenly unsure if there was a way to put a finger on him. If everything I thought I knew about him was true at all. "You just unloaded an entire truck. By yourself."

A hint of that arrogance curled through his expression, though there was something softly goofy about it, like he wasn't taking himself seriously when he raised his right arm out to the side and flexed it. "What do you think all these muscles are for?"

His stupid biceps bulged, and I fought the way my throat suddenly felt thick.

"I'm sure you get plenty of exercise doing the work you do."

"Among other things." The teasing insinuation was clear.

I bit down on the inside of my cheek.

Cocky. Freaking. Cowboy.

But there was no stopping the heat that crawled up my neck.

His features softened. "I was happy to help, Hailey. It's what any good neighbor would do."

He said my name the way he used to, and his gaze shifted into that soft familiarity he used to watch me with. He peered at me from across the room, the gold of his eyes glinting beneath the light that shined from the ceiling.

The air tugged hard as I stood there in the silence, no clue what to make of him all while knowing I shouldn't be putting in the effort to make anything of him at all.

I needed to stay away from him. Reject whatever old feelings were trying to climb their way out of the vat where I kept them sealed.

"Where's Maddie's father?" He asked it like he had the right to know.

Point-blank.

I choked over the question. Apparently, we weren't going for surface pleasantries.

"I left him three months ago." I forced it out around the lump in my throat, unable to keep the spite out of my voice.

"He's a prick, yeah?"

My laughter was raw, a shot of disgust and disbelief. "You could say that."

Leaving the hand-truck standing on its own, Cody took a step my direction.

Another then another until he was standing in front of me.

The air shivered and lashed, tension binding the space.

I stumbled back until I was pressed to the wall.

Intensity radiated from his flesh.

All the easiness had vanished.

I could almost feel something vicious pulse through his veins.

He leaned in, so close that I could smell him.

Spice and cedar and the earth.

"I can't stand the thought of some asshole doing you wrong." It rumbled from him like a threat.

Shivers raced, and I was worried he could feel the way I was shaking.

I'd been done wrong, but not in the way that he imagined.

"You don't even know me."

"I remember you. Sweet. Innocent. Kind. You had everyone on that ranch wrapped around your finger."

How could he say that after what had happened?

My lungs quaked. "I'm not that girl anymore."

Gold-hewn eyes blazed, and he reached out and touched the divot on my chin again.

A fire lit in my belly.

"Aren't you?"

"You don't know anything about me," I attempted again, the words ragged.

A smile wobbled on his face, somewhere between a grimace and a grin. "Then I guess I'm going to have to get to know you better, aren't I, Shortcake?"

My stomach clutched.

God.

Did he remember?

It didn't matter. It didn't matter.

I shook my head to jar myself out of the trance he had me under.

Defenses locked, I said, "I think it's probably time you went home."

He edged back, just a fraction, enough to memorize every line of my face. Then he went back to the hand-truck, grabbed it by the handle, and began to wheel it toward the door.

Unfortunately, that meant he had to come back my way. He got to within a foot of me, and he paused there, at my side, his voice so low as he muttered, "I'm sorry you lost her."

Without saying anything else, he walked out, while I remained nailed to the wall, unable to breathe or speak or move.

I startled when a shriek of joy suddenly carried through the house. One compliments of my daughter, her feet pounding down the hall. "Thank you, Mr. Cody, for getting all my very favorite things and putting all the boxes and my desk in my room! And we even got a couch. You are the very best neighbor I ever met, and I'm very glad I got a house next to yours."

Somehow, I managed to stagger to the doorway. It was just in time to see my daughter throw her arms in the air.

Without hesitation, Cody swept her up.

Lifted her high.

Made her squeal and giggle and laugh.

"It was my pleasure, Button." He set her on her feet and poked her in the belly.

She squealed again, shining all her belief and sweetness in his direction as she grabbed at her tummy. "You got me!"

Everything about him softened, and he knelt a fraction as he touched her nose. "Nah, Button, I think you got me."

Then he straightened and pushed out the front door without looking back.

I glanced to the side to find Lolly grinning victoriously, mouthing, You're welcome, again.

My gaze slid back to the door he'd disappeared through. Nerves rattling and something else vying for position.

Crap. I was in trouble.

So much trouble.

But I couldn't let a man like Cody Cooper get the best of me.

I would never commit a betrayal that great.