Cody Walker's Woman

Even less did she like realizing that she still found him attractive. Three years and a lot of pain hadn’t changed that at all. Her hands curled until her nails bit into her palms. This was insane.

“I was asked,” he said finally, “to evaluate the land that was purchased for a ski resort. Take a look at what problems we might face.”

“That’s going to be hard under all this snow.”

“Some of it will be.” He’d been sitting with his arms outflung, one on the arm of the couch, the other along its back. Now he rubbed his chin, sweeping her with his gray eyes.

“You’re a little thinner,” he remarked.

She battled an urge to tell him he had no right to comment on her appearance. None at all. Instead she chose to change the topic. Letting him get under her skin would be a mistake. “There’s been talk of a ski resort forever. It hasn’t happened yet. The land just keeps getting resold. Any reason to think it’s going to be different this time?”

At that he smiled faintly. “Well, I’m on the job.”

It was an old joke he’d always made, but now bitterness made her wonder if it was a joke at all. Maybe his ego really was that big. “Oh?”

He gave a slight shrug. “I’m checking it out, is all.”

“It’ll die like it always does. The county doesn’t have the money to expand the airport to handle more than a few executive jets.”

“The company I’m working for is planning on doing the airport as well.”

The county could use the jobs and the tourist income. It would change things around here, although whether for the good remained to be seen. But she was in no mood to be thinking about the entire county. All she could think about was that if this project went ahead, Luke would be around for months, if not a year or more.

Longer than he’d been around at any point in their marriage. Wow. Didn’t that say everything?

“How are you doing?” he asked after a moment.

“Fine.” Short and unrevealing. What was he expecting? A heart-to-heart?

“Still in nursing?”

“Of course.”

He nodded. “You always loved working with patients.”

Nothing to say to that, either. She was definitely not enjoying the tension.

A sound from the attic above caught her attention and she looked up. “Another raccoon?” she said more to herself than him.

“Want me to look?”

“No. I have someone who takes care of that for me.” She couldn’t climb ladders because she had a bad knee. Wrapping it properly allowed her to work, but climbing? Not since she’d been knocked off her bicycle by a careless motorist.

“Is it a common problem? Raccoons in the attic?”

“It happened last fall. Jack, the guy who takes care of it for me, put up some chicken wire to keep them out, but it might have worked loose.”

“Raccoons are pretty smart. They could figure it out.”

“Probably.” This conversation was pointless. He must have come for some reason other than to warn her that he’d be around. “Luke, what’s the real purpose of this visit? Not to talk about raccoons.”

He rose from the couch, and she recognized that they were about to get to the meat of the matter. He could never hold still while discussing something important. Funny that she remembered him so well when she had spent so long trying to forget him.

“As much as it hurt when you left me, I can live with it. What I can’t live with, even after all this time, is you thinking I’m a liar and a cheat.” He faced her, and his gray eyes seemed to flame. “I never lied to you and I never cheated on you.”

He’d said that before. “You think I want to beat this horse all over again?” she demanded, rising to her feet. “It’s dead. It’s in the past. We went our separate ways.”

“Because you believed I lied to you. That I cheated. And that matters to me.”

God. How was she supposed to handle this? Old hurts were returning, opening wounds she had thought healed. All because...because why? “What difference does it make whether I believe you now?”

“It does.”

Bald, uncompromising, no excuses or wiggle room.