LITMIR.BIZ

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do I measure up, sir?”

      Harlan threw back his head and laughed. “Oh, you’ll do well enough, I imagine.”

      “Are we talking about ranching now or something else?”

      Before he could reply, a woman with black hair threaded with silver and the angled cheekbones of Native American ancestry swept into the kitchen, snatched the mug from in front of Harlan Adams and poured the contents into the sink, even as she gave Cord a smile.

      Despite the look of longing he cast at the emptied mug, Harlan Adams’s gaze softened as he looked at the woman. “Cord, this is my wife, Janet. She has a sixth sense about when I’m straying from the straight and narrow. It’s a damned nuisance.”

      Janet Adams smiled at Cord and touched her husband’s cheek. “I don’t intend to lose you, old man, not if I have to spy on you twenty-four hours a day.”

      The affection between the two of them stirred a yearning inside Cord. He wanted what they had. He wanted to have someone in his life who cared enough about his well-being to defy him when it mattered, someone who would treasure every minute they managed to snatch as they grew old together.

      Once more an image of Sharon Lynn came to mind. Judging from her grandfather and father, the years would be kind to her. He could envision sharing them with her. The prospect had taken him by surprise the night before, but it was growing on him now. It seemed as natural as breathing, as inevitable as the sunrise.

      “I’d best be getting back to Cody now,” he said.

      “He has chores for me.”

      Harlan barely pulled his gaze from his wife, but he said, “Welcome to White Pines. We’ll be seeing a lot more of you around here, son.”

      As he headed back to Cody’s office, Cord kept hearing the echo of that one word—son. He supposed Harlan Adams referred to a lot of men in that same easy, casual way. He couldn’t possibly have guessed how much it would mean to Cord to be accepted so readily.

      Or how soon Cord intended to make the ties between them real and deep by marrying his granddaughter. Then, again, he recalled the expression on Harlan Adams’s face earlier when they’d been talking about Sharon Lynn. He was a wise man. Maybe he’d already been able to read what was in Cord’s heart.

      Chapter 4

      Sharon Lynn was falling in love. With every hour that passed, she grew more and more enchanted with the baby she and Cord had discovered in the alley behind Dolan’s. The little angel rarely fussed and had a smile that could light up the world.

      Because of the weather, she’d had the baby to herself the rest of Saturday and all day Sunday. It had been surprisingly easy to fall into the baby’s rhythm, frightening to realize how easily her heart could be stolen.

      In a few short hours, it began to seem totally natural to have a child tucked into the crook of her arm as she went about her other chores. Old lullabies she hadn’t thought of in years came back to her as she held the baby and rocked her to sleep.

      As the time flew by, she began to dread the ringing of the phone. Each time she answered, she expected it to be Justin with word on the baby’s family, with an announcement that someone was coming to claim the child. She couldn’t help wondering how she would cope with that inevitable end.

      On Friday night, the baby had needed Sharon Lynn to survive. By Sunday, she worried that maybe it was turning the other way around. Finding the baby on her doorstep was giving her, at long last, a reason to live.

      But such a tenuous reason, she warned herself, one that could be snatched from her at any moment. Yet how could any woman defend herself against loving a beautiful, helpless child?

      There were limits, though. Even she could see that. It was one reason she resisted the temptation to name the baby. Surely the child already had a name. She had to. It wasn’t Sharon Lynn’s place to choose another, even if it meant calling her nothing more than sweetie or little one. It was awkward and frustrating at times, but it was the way it had to be.

      When the phone rang at nine o’clock on Sunday night, she jumped. At the sound of Justin’s voice, her heart slowed to a dull thud.

      “Everything okay over there?” he asked.

      “Of course. Have you found out anything?”

      “Nothing. Still no reports of a missing baby. It’s as if she appeared out of nowhere.”

      “Maybe she’s just a gift from heaven,” Sharon Lynn said quietly, unable to hide the wistfulness.

      “Maybe this was meant to be.”

      “Don’t go there,” Justin warned. “Please don’t go there. Not yet. We’re just in the early stages of the investigation. Anything could happen.”

      She sighed. “I know.”

      “What do you intend to do about work tomorrow?”

      “I’m taking her with me, of course.”

      It was Justin’s turn to sigh heavily. “I figured as much. Lizzy called. She says she has a portable crib and a carrier out at her place that you can use. I’ll pick them up first thing in the morning and drop them off at Dolan’s.”

      “Thanks, Justin. You’re an angel.”

      “I hope you still feel that way when this is all over.”

      “No matter what happens, I won’t blame you. I promise.”

      “I’ll see you in the morning.”

      After she’d hung up, Sharon Lynn went in to check on the baby and stood for a long time just watching her sleep. She was so innocent and trusting and yet already in her young life, she had been betrayed in the cruelest way of all. Was she aware of that on some level? Would it affect her for the rest of her life? Or did she only know that there was someone now keeping her warm and fed and safe? She certainly seemed to be sleeping peacefully enough.

      As the night wore on, Sharon Lynn envied her that. She tossed and turned, knowing that the day ahead would be chaotic, that it would be filled with unanswerable questions and maybe with heart-wrenching loss. The weather had saved her from the visitors and the questions all weekend, but she wouldn’t be so lucky come morning. It wasn’t in the Adams genes to let something like this pass unnoticed.

      Sure enough, not only was Justin on the doorstep when she arrived at Dolan’s, but her mother and grandmother were there right on his heels. Her aunts and her cousins followed at a head-spinning clip.

      Thanks to Lizzy’s contributions, the baby was settled into a portable crib behind the lunch counter where every single Adams could ooh and aah over her, along with half the town. By noon Sharon Lynn was so sick of advice, so tired of warnings about getting attached that she was ready to scream. She would have thrown everyone out and locked the doors, but Dolan’s was a business and the novelty of an abandoned baby on the premises had the lunch counter busier than it had been in weeks.

      By two, things had finally settled down again. Patsy Driscoll had gone home after pocketing more tips than she usually did in a week. Sharon Lynn finally had a chance to hold the baby herself.

      “You charmed the socks off of them,” she informed the gurgling child. “Little wonder. You’re every bit as cute as any Adams baby I’ve ever seen and, believe me, there are a lot of them.”

      “Hey, are you maligning my descendants?” Grandpa Harlan inquired as he slid onto a stool next to her, his gaze locked on the baby.

      Sharon Lynn sighed. “I should have known you wouldn’t be able to resist coming into town to see her for yourself.”

      “Why should I be the only one left out?” he inquired.

      “Because she’s a baby, not a circus sideshow.”

      “You upset because everyone’s interested or because they’re all

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