The knowledge of the kind of person Cody truly was still hurt. She’d once been his biggest supporter, certain that his crappy upbringing afforded him a bit of the chip on his shoulder he’d carried so proudly. She’d also believed she’d been the only one—aside from possibly his foster parents—who’d been able to see his real potential.
The fact that he’d ended up sleeping with her half sister instead of her, then raised complete hell on his way out of town, had actually surprised her more than it had anyone else. When Stephanie had informed Lee Ann and her mother months later that he’d declared he wanted nothing to do with his kids, Lee Ann had finally accepted that she’d been the idiot all along. He was the bad seed the majority of the townspeople had declared him to be.
And now he was coming back. No way had he redeemed himself, no matter what he’d done with his life since.
Her mother studied her with a mixture of understanding and regret, then gave an encouraging—though just barely—smile. “If that’s what you want.”
“It is.” Lee Ann gave a decisive nod, glad to know she had her mother’s support but also slightly irked with the tone eking out along with her mother’s words. It was almost as if she were implying that Lee Ann always had to have her way. And that simply wasn’t the case. It was purely the fact that if she didn’t watch out for the girls, no one else would.
Stomping feet on the outside steps snagged Lee Ann’s attention. The girls were home. She narrowed her eyes at her mother. “This conversation is on hold.”
With a loud clatter, Kendra and Candy London tumbled through the door, backpacks, gym bags, and preteen awkwardness windmilling in with them. “Grandma!”
The girls dropped everything to give brief hugs to their grandmother, as if they didn’t see her every day. Not only did Reba live next door, but whenever Lee Ann had photography appointments outside the home studio she’d added on a few years before, the girls stayed with their grandmother. And with Grandma they got away with everything. This accounted for their always being thrilled to see her.
Two sets of identical brown eyes faced Lee Ann, and a tiny shiver lit down her body as she recalled how very much those eyes matched Cody’s. “You got a job tonight?”
Laughing, Lee Ann once again attempted to push Cody from her mind, and returned to the cinnamon rolls she’d been making before she’d gotten sidetracked. “Sorry, squirts,” she said, calling them by the nickname she’d used since they’d been toddlers. “You’re stuck with me tonight.”
Good-natured groans came from both before they turned back to their grandmother. As Lee Ann spread melted butter on the dough, she fought back the clawing fear over what might happen if Cody insisted he wanted to get to know his daughters. Unless he proved himself completely inept, she knew that she couldn’t keep them from him. More aptly, she couldn’t keep him from them. She’d never be able to live with herself knowing that their father had been within spitting distance and she hadn’t so much as introduced them.
Of course, that was assuming he wanted anything to do with them. He also had to prove that over the last thirteen years he’d learned to think of those other than himself. Because whether he was here in town or not, she would not do anything to put the girls’ hearts at risk. She knew too much about what that kind of pain could do to a person.
She picked up the cinnamon and sugar mixture and sprinkled it over the butter. She couldn’t help but play over the times in the past when the girls had asked about their father. The first had been when they were four. A child at their day care always got picked up by his father, and they’d finally asked about it. Telling them they simply had no father had been good enough at that point.
The subject had come up additional times over the years, mostly out of curiosity. Each occasion she’d given them a bit more of the truth. He’d chosen to move somewhere else. He was working in a different part of the country. He couldn’t do what he wanted and stay in Sugar Springs at the same time.
She had never mentioned that she’d twice looked him up. The first time she’d gotten nowhere. The girls had just turned one and she still couldn’t believe he was the type of person who’d turn his back on his offspring. No matter what he’d done to hurt her, she would have put that aside if he’d changed his mind and wanted to be involved in the kids’ lives. She’d searched for him on the Internet but found nothing.
The last time they’d been three. She’d found a phone number registered to his name in Indiana and had almost called him that night. After a couple glasses of cheap wine long after the kids had gone to bed, she’d come close to convincing herself that Stephanie had lied. Not about him being the father. No, she’d walked in on that particular episode and had seen it with her own two eyes.