Chapter 10
CHAPTER TEN
Cody had been using a metal rake to tear out a section of weeds next to his tomato plants. Weeding was an endless evil in every gardener’s life, and most especially in organic gardening since no herbicides were ever used. It was hard, back-breaking work that made the sweat roll down his temples even in this cool autumn weather, and that was despite the fact that he went out of his way to stay in shape.
At least, when it came time to harvest everything, it would be worth it
The stem of a particularly stubborn root refused to come up, so he dropped down to his knees to drag it out with his gloved hand when his phone buzzed in his pocket. Still kneeling, he tugged off his glove and retrieved it just in case the text could be coming from his son. He’d always make himself available for Gabriel regardless of whatever else might be going on.
Yet, as soon as he glanced at the screen, Cody saw that it wasn’t Gabe at all.
Erika : Cody, I know I should’ve returned your messages long ago, and I’m sorry.
He squinted down at it, wondering for a heartbeat if he might be imagining or even dreaming this. But the letters on his screen remained.
Erika : I have no excuse for being out of touch for so long, especially considering how many messages you sent. But I wanted to let you know that I appreciate you spending time with me at Sweet Everything that evening. I didn’t mean my lack of communication to throw shade on you.
He read that last message twice, then sent her one of his own.
Cody : Are you all right?
Erika : I’m fine. Just wanted to apologize.
For ghosting him. For ignoring and avoiding him. But Cody wasn’t one to hold grudges. Especially not if she’d give him another shot. It might be risky to lead with this, but boldness had served him well in the past.
Cody : Does that mean you’d be game for another date night?
He thought about it. Erika had lived here in Rocky Ridge all her life. What if he offered to take her away from the place where she’d expended so much blood, sweat, and tears? Even temporarily?
Cody : How about at Billings? I haven’t been there other than the airport, but I hear they have quite a few amenities.
She didn’t hesitate to respond.
Erika : That’s true. Lots to do in Billings.
Cody : Is that a yes?
This time thirty seconds passed before he received anything back from her.
Erika : That’s a yes.
Right there in the garden spot he’d so diligently tended, he pumped his fist and whooped out loud, garnering him a few stares from ranch hands within earshot. He didn’t care, though. He didn’t care one bit.
Cody : How about Saturday afternoon at four, so we’ll have plenty of travel time? If you give me your address, I’ll come pick you up.
Her next text was nothing but her address, which totally worked for him. He and Erika Cantrell were going out again.
As thrilled as he felt to have a second chance with her, though, his nervousness had ramped itself up to an eleven. It was stupid when he thought about it. He was fifty years old, not some pimply teenager. Yet he couldn’t seem to dispel his anxiety. Maybe it was because this woman had already pseudo rejected him once after he’d had his hopes up about her.
But that was what dating was. It was asking and getting a “no.” It was trying on someone for size and finding out more often than not that they weren’t quite the right fit. The difference here was that he suspected that Erika Cantrell might just fit him to a T.
It wasn’t only that they’d shared a delightful handful of hours together at that dessert shop. It was that he felt as if he already knew her somehow, this sense that if given the opportunity, they’d discover how compatible they were and how successful they could be going forward.
Maybe.
Even compatible couples could fall apart, a fact he knew only too well.
So, he suppressed the most outlandish of his hopes and kept things limited to a simple nice time out in the nearest bigger town. He could do that much.
Still, when she whisked her way out of her cute little cottage and toward his pickup, causing him to jump out and open her door, he’d had to stop himself from reaching for her hand. She’d brought all that lovely jasmine scent with her, and he inhaled it deliberately, filling his nose and lungs with it.
He’d seen her in scrubs and in her ankle-length bridesmaid’s dress from Callie and Zeke’s wedding, but today she wore a dress that only went to her knees. Its red shade complimented her waist-length dark hair and slim figure. The skirt had this swishy quality to it—he didn’t know the correct term—that meant with every move she made it floated around her like fluff from a dandelion.
Cody felt not a desire, but a need to touch her hand, to make contact with just a little bit of that soft skin of hers. He felt stunned at the power of the impulse, but he didn’t obey it.
Not now. Not yet.
“Your carriage awaits,” he said, being purposely cheesy as he opened her door with a bow. His Durango was five years old and even had a ding on the fender from Gabe running into it with his bike a few years back, but it would do.
He told her more jokes on the drive to Billings, and soon had her cracking up. It did his heart good to hear that laughter, to catch glimpses of that smile of hers as they zoomed along. See, this wasn’t going to be difficult. Not at all. He convinced himself he’d been worried over nothing.
Once they pulled into their first destination, Erika peered up at the sign created with loopy scripted letters.
“For the Love of Swing? Let me guess, the building is full of swing sets? If it is, I’m going to warn you right now that don’t want you doing any flips out of the seats. That sort of behavior leads to nothing but fractures and concussions.”
He grinned at her while raising an eyebrow. Cody loved it when she used her medical jargon. “No swing sets inside, though a lazy porch swing would be right up my alley. No, this is a dancing place. You’ll have to excuse me for being a little rusty.”
Cody had learned swing dancing while he and Stacey had been engaged. She’d wanted them to dance at their wedding—which they had—and he’d felt surprised at just how much he’d adored going out on a dancefloor and performing all the steps.
Taking Erika out on that floor and holding her in his arms had been better than receiving gifts at Christmastime for Cody. It’d been so long since he’d felt something so powerful building between him and another woman, and her uncertainty aside, having her swirling and twirling around him now was his idea of heaven.
She teetered a bit early on since she was unfamiliar with the dance steps, but as they continued on, she became better and better. She had a natural feel for movement, and as much as he loved being her partner, he knew he’d love it almost as much if she’d been out there by herself as long as he could watch her.
Turned out that the sign on the building was slightly misleading because after an hour of swing, the band mixed things up and played a mixture of country line dancing music, classic rock tunes, and even square dancing. Erika wanted to sit out the square dancing, for which Cody felt grateful. He’d never so much as tried it, and it looked pretty complicated from where he sat.
A slow ballad started and he took her hand to lead her to the middle of the dance floor. He gently pulled Erika closer to him, letting all their steps evaporate into a simple swaying embrace. He’d never had her pressed up against him like this, and if the world had decided to implode at that point, he would’ve died ecstatically happy for the chance to share such a moment with her.
Cody gazed down at her as she peeked up at him, her face so close he could make out the individual lines of the starbursts in her eyes, that he brushed his lips against her temple, then her brow line.
“Are you having fun?”
“So much.”
He smiled at the acknowledgement. Some of her hair fell into her face, and with each hand, he tucked those loose tendrils behind either ear, his focus lowering to her mouth. Her lips. Almost of their own accord, his own lips dropped to hers, and when she kissed him back, he closed his eyes, relishing the sensation of her warm lips on his, on their breathing becoming one.
Something glided sideways behind his ribcage, like a gear sliding into place with a noticeable clunk , and as he lengthened their kiss, he knew he and Erika could have endless possibilities together. Being with her had something to it he’d never experienced before. He couldn’t even identify the exact feeling, only that he needed it to go on, needed it to continue.
Only as vigorous movement surrounded them did Cody realize that the band had switched back to swing dancing, and that the song they’d chosen was a fast one. Considering how rapidly everyone else was cascading around them, he wasn’t sure how he’d missed it.
That had been some kiss, so potent it’d been like having horse blinders on.
“Want to take a break? Maybe have some dinner?”
She nodded. “That sounds great.”
He took her to an Indian place since she’d never had any, warning her about the spice. “Curry has its own distinct flavor. I recommend not choosing anything on the menu that has a chili pepper beside it. Not unless you like burning holes through your tongue.”
She chose one of the milder versions of the dish, and he went with one only slightly hotter. His first bite was magnificent, just the right amount of heat and a rich flavor.
“What do you think?” he asked her, genuinely curious. Sometimes trying a new flavor palette could be more than someone bargained for.
“Um, I like it. I think.”
“It’s different isn’t it.”
“It is.”
She took another bite, chewed and looked into space as if considering how to describe it.
“Want a taste of mine?” He scooted his dish over toward hers. Without him having to ask, she nudged hers over toward him. Cody tried hers and found it to be right up his alley.
“Ooh, I like yours better,” she announced.
“Have it if you want. I like yours better. How about we swap?”
They did, his fingers brushing hers as they did. Her hands were so soft. So smooth. If it wouldn’t be too forward, he would take her hand and rub the back of it to his cheek just to test how it felt against his skin there.
He didn’t dare to voice this thought out loud, though.
After dinner, they wandered into a couple of attractions there including a historic mansion and museum that showcased lots of information and novelties about Yellowstone, the famous national park they were not far from. In fact, Cody pictured taking Erika there for a future excursion since there was so much to do, and he was sure the nature and landscapes had to be impressive based on the photos he’d seen online.
The park was on his bucket list.
He bought her a souvenir brown teddy bear wrapped around a little coffee mug displaying an image of the rim rocks, a famous formation in Yellowstone. She smiled at the surprise, even hugging it to her.
“I haven’t had a teddy since I was little, but I love it.”
Cody almost walked on air from her praise alone, especially when she unfastened the Velcro on the bear’s paws from the ceramic cup and connected it to her purse strap.
Everything was going so swimmingly that once they hopped in his truck to head for home, Cody let himself relax. The road trip date had been successful. The dance club had been a hit, and so had dinner, and downtown Billings. He was batting a thousand and didn’t want this streak of his to ever end.
It was as they were making their return journey that the mood shifted. They’d been talking back and forth, all he could see of her was provided by the faint illumination offered by his dashboard, when she began to grow quieter and quieter.
Figuring she might be getting sleepy—they both worked early hours and neither of them were anywhere near their twenties anymore—he left her alone. He popped the radio on to a station with easy listening music. If she dozed off, he’d wake her upon their arrival.
But when she sighed, audibly and forlornly, he checked in with her.
“Everything okay over there?”
“Oh, don’t mind me.”
He raised a teasing eyebrow at her even though he didn’t know if she could make it out in the dim interior of his cab. “I’ve never minded you.”
“I was just wishing…” Wishing. Wishing sounded promising.
“Wishing what?”
“Never mind.” She waved him off. “Really. I shouldn’t have said anything.”
She had to tell him now.
“No, really. Wishing for what? You can be open with me.”
“I’m wishing I hadn’t kissed you on that dancefloor. It was inappropriate.”
“I believe I initiated that kiss,” he prodded her. He didn’t like the flat tone of her voice. “Do you wish I’d done it elsewhere? Like your front porch, maybe?”
He hoped that was all she meant, but she stayed silent. Not only that, she remained that way until the wordlessness between them stretched and strained, building tension that became this awkward invisible wall. A barrier he didn’t know if he should penetrate.
Cody was tempted to change the subject to something lighter, to gently knock down the new barrier she’d just erected, but he didn’t know how to accomplish the feat without making everything worse. Only after the pause reached a point of being painful did she speak.
“Sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.” He could almost hear the two additional words of, “out loud” in spite of her not saying them. “I shouldn’t have mentioned it tonight. Not after we’ve been having such a nice time.”
That didn’t mean she was taking it back.
“But you mean it. You regret kissing me,” he said, needing clarification. Had she just experienced a totally different afternoon and evening than he had? He’d noticed nothing troubling. Nothing at all.
Erika sighed. “It wasn’t the kiss. The kiss gave me the tingles. No, it was…” She trailed off, and he caught the gist. Or he thought he did. He sincerely hoped to be wrong as he brought up his supposition.
“Is this about your late husband?”
“Blake,” she provided. Like he cared right now.
“Yeah, him?” There was a bite in his tone that he didn’t know if he’d managed to disguise.
She must’ve picked up on it, too, because her next query was, “Would it be so unforgivable if it is?”
Unforgivable, no. But bad? Yes.
“You told me he’s been gone a very long time, though.”
“So?” she sounded defensive.
So? Was she serious?
“How am I supposed to compete with that, Erika? You sound like you’re still in love with him, as if he’s still this massive part of your life.”
Her back stiffened, probably her hackles rising. Well, she could just join the club. “What’s so wrong about that? I’ll always love him. And who asked you to compete with him, anyway?”
Cody blinked at her through the darkness, then twisted his head back to keep his eyes on the road. His heart raced, and when he heard the subtle crack of his steering wheel, he released his grip on it enough to keep himself from causing his vehicle any damage.
He felt stunned and blindsided as the lights of Rocky Ridge glowed in the ever-shrinking distance. Maybe he should’ve believed her when she seemed so hesitant to date him. Then again, it might not even be him in particular. Any man when cast up against this flawless vision of Blake would come up short in her sight. No other man could possibly win her over. She’d just made that abundantly clear.
It was Cody who maintained the silence this time. Because what could he say? What could he do to fight her love for another man’s ghost? How could he battle his memory when it would always be untouchable?
No, it appeared that Erika Cantrell wasn’t ready to date anyone else despite the evidence to the contrary he’d been collecting these past several hours. So, Cody might as well accept the inevitable.
He drove through the streets and lanes of the small Montana town, not even inquiring anything of her when he couldn’t tell if they should turn left or right. He simply made an educated guess and hoped for the best. He could always plug her address into the GPS on his phone if it became necessary.
Cody didn’t think talking to Erika anymore to be the best of ideas.
If he’d thought there’d been tension before, that was nothing to what pressed against him now. Still, he kept his lips sealed, even if those lips had so recently been locked with hers. He pulled up into her driveway. When she bolted out of the truck without another word, he didn’t chase after her, didn’t even move from his seat.
It was only after she’d closed herself up in her house and he’d gunned his engine to get out of there that he caught a glimpse of something unusual. He recognized that the coffee mug he’d bought for her—the one attached to the stuffed bear—still sat in the cup holder of his middle console. Erika had left it behind, just like she’d left him behind.
Cody braked at the stop sign at the end of her road, blinking at the thing, at the evidence that everything had changed so quickly. How had the chemistry he’d been certain was there dwindled to nothing? Like a spark that had been stamped out with no warning.
Slowly, he lowered his foot to the accelerator again contemplating how it appeared that whatever might’ve been between him and Erika seemed to already be over. Almost before it began.