“He’s back.”
Chilly November air whipped over Lee Ann London as her mother hurried through the kitchen door and slammed it shut behind her, the action rattling the copper-bottomed pots hanging above Lee Ann’s head. Continuing her methodic motions with the rolling pin, she tucked her smile away and focused on the dough. “Hey, Mom. Who’s back?”
“I should have said coming back,” she bristled.
“Okay, who’s—”
The thud of a heavy coat hitting the floor cut Lee Ann off midquestion and pulled her attention from the kitchen island.
Reba London’s eyebrows puckered as she stood still in the middle of the room, concern etching her blue eyes and turning them a shade darker, erasing the natural twinkle normally found there. Agitation had her wringing her hands together. Over-the-top drama was one thing with her mother, but her stiff posture indicated this was actually serious.
Lee Ann pushed the rolling pin to the side and wiped her fingers on her apron. She propped her hands on her hips and studied the helpless expression on her mother’s face. Rarely did anything cause Reba such distress these days. Nothing had in ages. Not since those first few years of the two of them figuring out how to make ends meet as they’d struggled to care for the twins.
At the thought of the girls Lee Ann had been raising since birth, she glanced at the clock. Five o’clock. They would be home soon. Candy from basketball practice and Kendra from cheerleading. And then another thought struck. She hadn’t seen her mother this agitated since the day her half sister had proclaimed the kids’ father was...
Lee Ann froze, an icy path slicing over the back of her neck. No.
She blinked and shook her head once, determined to shove aside the face that had popped to mind. Just because her mom’s look reminded her of that day so long ago didn’t mean she was talking about him being the one who was coming back to town. He hadn’t stepped foot in Sugar Springs, Tennessee, in over thirteen years. It would make no sense for him to be there now.
But what if he was?
Her chest tightened. The thought was insane. Of course he wouldn’t have decided to come back after all this time. There was nothing more for him there today than there had been all those years ago. Certainly not the possibility of having anything to do with the girls he’d turned his back on.
Reba took a hesitant step toward Lee Ann but stopped. She twisted the large flower-petal ring around her finger, hitched her mouth in an unattractive twist, and slowly nodded her head.
After several long seconds of silence as Lee Ann gave her mother a hard stare, the anxiety on the woman’s face shifted and began to falter, allowing in a bit of her “everything will work out” look. She lifted one shoulder in a half shrug. She didn’t seem exactly sold on the idea but more as if she was trying to convince both herself and Lee Ann that it had to be the case.
“Mom?” Lee Ann couldn’t control the tremor in her voice.
Reba squared her shoulders, going for brave, but her eyes were as worried as Lee Ann had ever seen them. Sharp prickles worked their way over Lee Ann’s scalp. She closed her eyes. She did not want to hear his name.
“Who, Mom?” she asked. “Who is coming back to town?”
A tiny pause, then words spoken so quietly they were almost indecipherable. “Cody Dalton.”
Pain jabbed the back of Lee Ann’s eyelids. The bastard. He had no business coming back there and disrupting their lives. She opened her eyes and moved with controlled motions until she sank into a kitchen chair, where she proceeded to stare straight ahead, focusing on the bare branches intertwined outside the kitchen window instead of the images of Cody currently daring to flit through her mind.
Okay, fine, she could deal with this. Nothing was insurmountable. The fact was she’d dealt with far worse before—those times being his fault, too, of course. She inhaled a breath into her lungs, deep enough to expand her chest as she continued to get herself under control, then she let it out slowly with the backward countdown from ten.
There was an easy solution. She simply had to keep him the heck out of their lives.
He hadn’t wanted to be there before, so there was no reason she should open the door and let him come strolling in today. As she worked through the ins and outs of living in a town with less than six hundred people, she knew there was no way they could keep completely out of each other’s path, but she would do everything possible to limit the run-ins. Her mom perched on the seat beside her and reached out a hand to pat Lee Ann on the back as if she were a child.
“Why is he back?” Lee Ann asked. “And why now?”
Had he experienced some lightbulb moment that made him suddenly develop the urge to be the father he’d never wanted to be before? She gritted her teeth at the thought. His children were only a few weeks shy of becoming teenagers. It wasn’t as if missing the first thirteen years of their lives was going to endear him to them.