The Cowboys pregnant fiance

Chapter 16

Optimism was a strange thing.

As Cody drove back to Sherilyn's condo that night it got a hold of him as it never had before maybe because of that meeting with Davis and Vicky Jackson. Or maybe because everything was starting to come together for Cody and it all had taken was time....and the right woman.

When he took a detour on a side road in the opposite direction of where they were supposed to be headed Sherilyn seemed bewildered.

"Are you lost?" she asked.

"No."

"Are you just plum crazy then?"

"I guess I am." He smiled steering onto a gravel driveway.

It didn't take long for the light from his cabin porch to appear over the slight hill.

As he pulled up to his rented home Sherilyn slid him a glance.

He said, "This is where I live."

"The Bat Cave?"

"Something like that."

From her seat she inspected his domain the aged plank walls the windows that looked like an old man's dimmed closing eyes.

"For a while," she said. "I thought maybe you didn't live anywhere."

"That's because I have never brought anyone here before."

The words meant more than they seemed. He wasn't just giving her a tour. He was ready to let her in.

Step by step, bit by bit, he was getting nearer to... He couldn't say what it was just yet but it was becoming clearer everyday. It was just a matter of when he'd prepared to let her all the way into his life, with the darkest areas of himself bared.

She opened the truck door and got out before he could help her as he always did. But that showed him, didn't it? Sherilyn could handle herself.

She could handle a lot, if he would only give her the opportunity.

Climbing up the porch steps she said. "I'm getting a real cabin in the woods feeling but without the woods."

Around them the moon swamped the long bladed grass of a field and he looked at it with a fresh gaze.

The gaze Sherilyn had given to him.

"I chose this place because it was off the beaten path." he said.

"Huge surprise." she smiled back at him from the porch as she waited by the doorway.

He hadn't locked up so he opened the screen allowing her to open the actual door and do the honors of going in first.

As she crossed the threshold a thrill grabbed him. He'd never thought he would see the day when someone like Sherilyn would be there in a place he had only called his own.

But as soon as he hit the lights she looked perfectly at home standing amid the sparse furnishings that had come with his cabin, a sofa two mismatched recliners and a hickory end table holding a tacky lamp that someone had made out of a cowboy boot probably a joke. Behind her the stone fireplace waited and when she laid eyes on it she took In a long breath.

"Its perfect." she said. "I always wanted a fireplace . They're so rustic."

He leaned against the wall content to watch her. "What kind of house are you used to?"

"Rented condos just like the one I am in now. My mom and in hers for years before she died. Brett was going to buy it for me but..."

"You wouldn't have been happy living in a place someone gave to you Sheri. If there is one thing I've learned about you its that you don't mind making your own way."