“He should have been working,” Cody repeated defiantly.
His father frowned. “Since when is work more important to us than family? I’d think you’d be grateful he was there for your girl when she needed somebody to stand by her.”
“If that’s all it was,” Cody said, “I would be grateful.”
“You have any reason to believe otherwise?” Harlan asked. “I’m talking hard, cold facts, not crazy suppositions.”
“No, but—”
“Until you do, then, I’d suggest we all settle down and get back to work.”
Cody sighed heavily. “Yeah, fine.”
Cord couldn’t let the matter rest so easily. He met Cody’s gaze evenly. “You sure that’s what you want?”
“Yes,” Cody said with obvious reluctance.
Harlan Adams beamed. “There, now. Isn’t that better?”
“Yeah, right,” Cody said. “I just pray we don’t all live to regret it.”
“You won’t,” Cord assured him quietly. “I guarantee it.”
His temper still hadn’t cooled. He doubted Cody’s had, either. The truce between them wasn’t likely to last. But it had bought him some time.
Time to prove his intentions were honorable. Time to convince Sharon Lynn that they had a future and that that property of hers had nothing to do with it.
When her brother slid onto a stool at Dolan’s late that afternoon, Sharon Lynn was surprised. Usually Harlan Patrick headed out to be with Laurie Jensen the minute his work was done. She automatically filled a glass with ice and his favorite soda, then put it down on the counter in front of him.
“I haven’t seen much of you around here lately,” she commented. “What brings you by?”
“I just felt like it. Is that a problem?”
She frowned at his tone. Normally he was the most affable man in the world. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing, dammit.”
“Well, you don’t have to bite my head off,” she snapped right back. “You came in here. I didn’t chase after you just to pester you.”
He raked a hand through his sun-streaked hair and mumbled an apology.
“What was that?”
“I said I’m sorry, blast it all. Can’t you hear, either?”
She slapped down the rag she’d been using to wipe the counter and walked out from behind it. She grabbed his elbow and spun him around until they were face-to-face.
“Listen here, you big jerk. If you and Laurie had a fight, you don’t get to come in here and take it out on me.”
“Who says I had a fight with Laurie?”
“I can’t think of another thing that would send you running in here behaving like a bear with a thorn stuck in his paw. Am I right? Did you two argue?”
“You could say that, though it’s hard to argue with a woman who won’t listen to a damn thing you have to say.”
She saw the flash of genuine hurt in his eyes and said more soothingly, “You two fight all the time. Is there some reason this time is different?”
“She’s left,” he said succinctly.
Sharon Lynn stared at him in shock. “Left? To go where?”
“Nashville.”
“She actually left?” she repeated incredulously. “She didn’t just threaten to go?”
“I said she left, didn’t I?”
“Okay, okay. I just can’t believe she finally did it.”
“Neither can I,” he said in a bemused, betrayed tone that came close to breaking her heart.
For all of his jovial, devil-may-care attitude, Harlan Patrick had loved Laurie Jensen deeply. Always had. Probably always would. But her desire for a singing career had stood between them for a very long time. Harlan Patrick had never taken it seriously enough. Everyone in the family had warned him about that, but he’d been so sure Laurie would give up singing for a life with him.
Sharon Lynn sat down on the stool next to him. “You know she loves you,” she reminded him.
“Just not enough to stay here and marry me.”
“She’ll be back. Country music is a tough business. Stand by her, be there for her. There’s no guarantee she’ll make it. Let her take her best shot. That’s the only way to get it out of her system.”
He regarded her bleakly. “She’s good, though. Really good,” he admitted. “What if she makes it? What if she becomes this huge success and never comes back? What if someone else comes along and makes her forget all about the cowboy she left behind in Texas?”
“Don’t you think you’re selling yourself short? You’re every bit as handsome and sexy as any man she’s likely to meet.”
Harlan Patrick gave her a lopsided grin. “And you’re biased as hell, but, thanks, anyway. Even so, you know what they say about out of sight, out of mind.”
“You could have gone with her,” Sharon Lynn reminded him. “That was always an option. You’ve got that business degree Daddy insisted on. The two of you could have learned the music business together.”
“I might have a business degree, but the ranch is all I care about. It always has been.”
“Is it more important than Laurie?”
“No, of course not, but—”
“But you’ve always gotten your own way and you can’t believe it didn’t work out the way you wanted this time, too.”
“Hey, whose side are you on?”
“Yours, but you are stubborn, just like all the rest of us. Maybe one of us should learn to bend once in a while.”
Harlan Patrick gave an exaggerated shudder as if the very idea of compromise were repugnant to him. Sharon Lynn grinned. “Not an option, huh?”
“Not this time.” His gaze met hers. “Let’s change the subject. This one’s depressing. How are things with you and the cowboy?”
“Cord?”
“You know any other cowboys?”
“A whole slew of them,” she reminded him.
“Okay, smart-aleck. Yes, Cord.”
“You’ve probably seen him more recently than I have. You tell me.”
Harlan Patrick grinned. “Let’s just say he survived his first big-time run-in with Daddy.”
“He fought with Daddy? Because he was late this morning?”
“I don’t think that was it.”
“What, then?”
Her brother looked vaguely uneasy. “I wasn’t there.”
“But you heard. The men out there are worse than a bunch of old ladies when it comes to gossip.”
“Daddy seemed to disapprove of the amount of time he’s been spending with you. He apparently asked straight-out if it had anything to do with Cord trying to get his hands on Kyle’s ranch.”
Sharon Lynn stared at him in shock. A queasy sensation began in the pit of her stomach. “Daddy asked him that?”
“That’s what I heard.” He gave her a penetrating look. “Is that what he’s after, sis?”
“No, of course not,” she said indignantly. “The subject of Kyle’s ranch has never even come up. I don’t even know if he’s aware that I own it.”
“If he wasn’t, he is now. Could be that Daddy has succeeded in planting the idea in his head. It would be mighty convenient for him if he could take it off your hands for a pittance of what it’s worth.”
She scowled at him. “That’s insulting, to me and to Cord, especially since you know perfectly well that I made a deal with the foreman out there.”
Harlan Patrick grinned. “That’s pretty much what he told Daddy, too. He threatened to quit.”
“He didn’t do it, though, did he?” The idea of Cord leaving the area bothered her more than it should have. Whether he went or stayed shouldn’t matter, but it did. The prospect of him leaving a place he’d wanted so badly to work was all the more troubling if he was being virtually forced to go by her overly protective father. “Harlan Patrick, tell me exactly what was said out there.”
“You sound worried, sis? Would it really bother you if he did leave?”
She ignored the quest
ion. “Did he go through with it or not?” she persisted.
Harlan Patrick’s smirk indicated he found her response telling enough. “No,” he reassured her. “Granddaddy busted in on them and saved the day. They’re operating under a cease-fire for the moment.”
Sharon Lynn barely contained a sigh of relief. She would step in, too. Smooth things over.
Harlan Patrick regarded her knowingly. “Don’t even think about getting into the middle of this, sis.”
“Why not?”
“It’ll only convince Daddy he’s right to worry and it’ll be a slap at Cord’s pride. He doesn’t need you fighting his battles for him.”
“Amen to that,” Cord said, joining them. He gave Harlan Patrick a curt nod. “You’ve told her?”
“I thought she should know,” her brother said defensively.
“You’re right, she should,” Cord agreed, “if only so she can make up her own mind whether or not to trust me.”
“But I do,” Sharon Lynn insisted.
Cord smiled. “Thanks, darlin’.”
“As for the ranch—”
“I don’t want to discuss the ranch,” Cord retorted grimly. “Not ever. I’ve heard about as much about that ranch today as I care to. I won’t have it getting in between us.”
She was pretty sure she saw a new level of respect in Harlan Patrick’s eyes as he gave Cord a nod, then kissed her goodbye.
“Later, sis. See you in the morning, Cord.”
“Harlan Patrick?” she called after him.
“Yes?”
“Things will work out with Laurie. They always have before.”
“I hope you’re right, but something in my gut tells me this time is different. She’s never put quite so much distance between us before.”
“Uncle Jordan’s plane can cover a piddly little distance like that in no time.”
His expression brightened for the first time since his arrival. “So it can,” he murmured thoughtfully. “And it just so happens, I have a pilot’s license.”
“See there. There’s always hope.”
He walked out whistling, looking a whole lot happier than he had when he’d come in an hour before.
“His mood’s improved,” Cord noted. “You must have a magic touch.”
“Not really. Used to be I had a tendency to always look for the silver lining in all the clouds. For a while now I’d forgotten how.”
Cord grinned. “But it’s coming back to you.”
She gazed straight into his eyes and nodded. “Yes, lately it’s been coming back to me.”
Chapter 10
Even though he’d told Harlan Adams he would put it behind him, the fight with Cody kept gnawing at Cord. He was silent through most of the evening with Sharon Lynn, pitching in to help her with dinner, sitting across the table from her, but unable to make himself say what was on his mind. She kept casting worried glances his way, but she didn’t try to pry.
“Did Lizzy come by today to draw the baby’s blood?” he asked eventually, just to fill the silence.
She gave a little nod, clearly no more eager to talk about that than he was to bring up the fight with her father. “How long will the typing take?” he asked anyway.
“She should be calling any minute,” Sharon Lynn said with a nervous glance toward the phone. “She promised to check with the lab before she left the hospital.”
Knowing that only added to the strain already filling the air. The tension was thick enough to turn a sun-baked rattler jittery. They fell silent and stayed that way.
After dinner, with the baby already asleep, Cord knew it was time to either go or stay. And, if he stayed, he was going to have to get into the substance of his argument with Cody. Sharon Lynn had already heard just enough from her brother to deserve a complete explanation from him.
As she put the last dish away in the cupboard, she turned to face him. “We’ve been avoiding it all evening and it hasn’t worked. You might as well tell me exactly what happened out at White Pines today,” she said. “I’ve heard some from Harlan Patrick. I’m going to hear the rest eventually, anyway.”
He didn’t even bother trying to pretend that he misunderstood. “Just how much did Harlan Patrick tell you?”
“That Daddy’s afraid you might be after Kyle’s land,” she said bluntly. “Just so you know, I meant what I said earlier. I don’t believe it for a minute.”
Well, that was certainly to the point, Cord thought ruefully. “That’s about it. I don’t know what else I can say.”
“I don’t understand how he could even accuse you of such a thing. You didn’t even know that property belonged to me.” She hesitated, her gaze fixed on his face. “Did you?”
He thought he heard a tiny hint of uncertainty in her voice. It made him angrier than ever at Cody for indirectly giving her a reason to distrust him.
“No,” he said flatly. “I’m curious about something, though. Why didn’t you tell me about it yourself? Maybe if you had, we could have gotten the issue out in the open a long time ago.”
“To tell you the truth, it never even occurred to me,” she confessed with a sigh. “That property means nothing to me. I hardly even think of it as mine. Kyle had changed his will the morning of the wedding. Even if he hadn’t, I probably would have inherited it because as of that night I was his wife, his only family.”
Cord had been so caught up with Sharon Lynn, the baby and his new job, that he hadn’t even checked into the ranch. What would have been the point? He didn’t have the money to buy a bag of dirt at the moment, much less a ranch.
“Have you kept it up and running?” he asked.
She nodded. “Kyle had a good foreman out there and plenty of hired hands. I saw no reason to close it down. I let the foreman and his family move into the main house. I told him we’d keep it going for a year and see how it went. I even promised him a chance to buy me out, if he decided he wanted to.”
“So that land’s spoken for, anyway, right?” Cord hoped his disappointment wasn’t obvious. It was for the best that it wasn’t available, not when its very existence could have put a huge stumbling block between them.
“We didn’t put it in writing, if that’s what you mean, but we made a verbal agreement. In my book, that’s binding enough.” She studied his face. “Does that disappoint you?”
He forced a smile. “Darlin’, I’ve never pretended I didn’t want a ranch of my own someday. And it’s true that I’d heard there was one nearby that a widow might be willing to sell. I swear to you, though, that I had no idea you were that widow, not until you told me about the accident and Kyle. Then it all added up.”
“But you didn’t say anything,” she said pointedly.
“Because I’m a very long way from being able to buy so much as an acre of land, from you or anyone else, and until I can, what’s the point of talking about it? If your land is all but sold, it’s for the best. I don’t want it coming between us. I don’t want you to ever have any reason not to trust me. When the time comes, I’ll buy my own land and I’ll pay a fair price for it.”
She regarded him with obvious regret. “If only I’d known—”
“Stop that,” he said, cutting her off. “Even if you had known I was going to turn up, the foreman out there has more right to your husband’s ranch than I would have. What you’ve done is exactly the right thing.” He grinned. “Maybe it’ll even get your father off my back, once he knows.”
“I’ll tell him,” she said, her expression brightening. “That ought to put an end to it. I won’t have him making any more ridiculous accusations where you’re concerned, not when you’ve been so kind to me.”
“I’ll tell him, but don’t blame him for any of this. He’s your father,” Cord said, surprised to find himself defending Cody’s behaviour. “He has every right to look out for your best interests. Much as I hate to admit it, that’s exactly what I would have done if our positions had been reversed.”
Sharon Lynn seemed amused b
y his passionate declaration. “Did you tell him that when you two were fighting?”
“You can laugh if you want to, but yes. In so many words, that’s exactly what I told him.”
She looked surprised. “You did?”
“Haven’t you noticed, darlin’? I’m a reasonable man. I can see more than one side to things, even when a man’s all but accusing me of trying to use his daughter to get what I want in life.”
“I had no idea men were capable of a thing like that,” she said dryly. “Or are you just a remarkable man?”
“Maybe I’ll just let you go on thinking that I’m unique. It’ll work in my favor in the end.”
She directed a look his way that was oddly shy. “You don’t need any extra brownie points with me. You’ve already earned enough to last a lifetime.”
He could feel his smile spreading slowly across his face. “In that case, maybe I’ll cash one in.”
“Oh?”
“Come here, darlin’.”
He knew it was reckless, knew it was more than a little dangerous, but still he beckoned her over to where he was sitting on the sofa, then patted the space right next to him. She hesitated, seemed to consider the request, then moved slowly across the room. After another hesitation, another quick search of his face, she sat.
“Closer,” he urged.
Her gaze narrowed. “What are you up to?”
“I told you. I’m cashing in one of those brownie points.”
“I’m not sure it works that way,” she protested.
“We can make it work any way we want it to,” he countered. “This is between you and me. We set the rules, right?”
“I suppose.”
He pointed to a spot on his cheek, right where he’d been told often enough that there was an intriguing dimple. “Now, how about a little kiss right here?”
She went absolutely still at the request. There was a fleeting instant of panic in her eyes before it gave way first to resignation and then to what he interpreted as bold anticipation. She reached over and touched the same spot on his cheek with the tip of her finger.
The Unclaimed Baby Page 11