Secretive Stranger

“You come first, too. But…” Sophie gulped. “I never dreamed Cord would actually bring you here. I mean, yesterday was awful. I was traumatized times ten, talking off the top of my head about how much I needed family. But I was just having a meltdown. I didn’t mean it, Cate. I know you and Lily both have your jobs, your lives, and you can’t just take off. This’ll all get resolved. It has to get resolved. I just…”

Her voice trailed off when she suddenly saw Cord in the doorway.

She forgot the welts on her back. Forgot being trapped in the closet yesterday. Forgot just about everything… but him. He looked wrinkled and worn, as if he’d slept in his jeans, hadn’t brushed his hair in hours.

He looked so good that her heart melted like Jell-O. He’d actually gotten her sister. He’d yelled at the cops for her. He’d been caretaking her as if…well, as if he adored her. As if she were the treasure and he was her personal pirate.

“Oh, no,” Cate said, with an exasperated glance at the two of them. “No lovey-dovey crap while I’m here. You-” the royal finger waggled at Cord “-out in the living room. And you.” The royal finger motioned back to her. “You eat. While your Mr. Pruitt and I are going to have a little chat together.”

Cord had the amused sensation of being herded by a magpie. Sophie’s sister couldn’t tip the scales much past a hundred pounds soaking wet, but when it came to protecting family, she was a downright lioness.

“What in the hell have you gotten my little sister involved in?”

Cord walked past the living room, which looked as if a cyclone had blown through it, aimed for the kitchen. His Georgetown place hadn’t seen this much chaos since he’d moved in two years before. And as far as answering Cate, there wasn’t a lot of point. He’d covered the whole story when she arrived in the middle of the night.

She’d third-degreed him until well past 4:00 a.m., after which she went shopping for groceries and started cooking. Neither had had any sleep, but Cate was still pumping adrenaline. Cord took one look at the kitchen and just shook his head. He didn’t know he even had this many dishes. She was close to a one-woman riot.

Cord wasn’t sure whether to start with a broom or a shovel.

“You don’t know about Sophie,” she railed at him. “She used to be this effervescent little pain in the butt. Full of herself. Laughing, stealing all the attention, throwing tantrums if she didn’t get her way. Just a god-awful baby sister. But after the fire, when we all lost each other…you just can’t imagine. This old couple took her in. They loved her, but only on their terms. They only wanted a quiet little girl, someone who never caused trouble, never made noise. She changed. She changed to accommodate who she had to be, so she’d have a home, so she’d be loved. Are you hearing me?”

“I’m hearing you,” Cord said. He had to give her credit. She barreled into the mess right next to him. She even took on the egg-crusted pan.

“I didn’t know all that. But when Lily and I finally reconnected and tracked Sophie down again, she was a shell. All closed up. Well-behaved. Damn it. She’s still well-behaved. Are you hearing me?”

The deaf could have heard her. She was cute, Cord thought. Not as striking as Sophie. Not as subtle. Not the woman who made his heart thud and pound and race. But he wouldn’t mind if she were the aunt for his kids.

Not that he was thinking about marriage.

First he needed to keep Sophie alive long enough to ask her.

Staying alive himself might be handy, as well.

Cate took the sponge out of his hand, all but pushing him away from the sink. God knew, he was willing to help clean up. She’d been making a feast to tempt Soph. But apparently to Cate a kitchen was a kingdom. It wasn’t about work. It was about power. Who knew?

“Now, let me tell you how this is going to be,” Cate said. “I’ll get around to leaving after a day or so. If. If you make sure my sister is in no more danger. I don’t care how or why, I just want the murderer or thief or whoever’s been behind all this stuff behind bars. And as long as you swear that you’ll keep Sophie safe, I won’t even ask what your intentions are-”

“My intentions are less than honorable, and have been from the minute I met her.”

“Oh. Well. That helps some.” Cate was clearly mollified for a moment. “In spite of all this mess, I have to admit, she does seem…happier. Even a little zesty. Impossible. Even moments of silliness.”

“I take it these are good qualities?” Cord wasn’t sure.

“Damn good. But if I have to come back here, I’m bringing Lily. And believe me, you don’t want to mess with the pair of us. If you can’t get the job done, just say it straight right now. I’ll take her with me.”

Cord had enjoyed the whole exchange, but he had to get serious before it went too far. “She stays with me.”

Cate’s chin tilted up. “That’s not up to you.”

“Yeah, it is,” he said quietly. “She’s not leaving my sight. I’m as unhappy about her being threatened as you are. But as much as you love her, you don’t know about the people we’re dealing with. She stays with me.”

Cate took a step toward him, her eyes narrowed as if she were just warming up to a good, long, down-and- dirty argument-when both of them heard the bedroom door open. Sophie padded in barefoot, carrying the tray. Her eyes lit up when she spotted the two of them together.

“Oh, good,” she said. “I was hoping you two would have a chance to get to know each other.”

“Don’t you worry,” Cate said.

“Yeah, we’re getting along like a house afire,” Cord assured her.

Sophie thankfully believed them. Her sister being there was better than a shot of joy juice, as far as Cord could tell. The two chattered nonstop, talking at the same time, arguing at the same time, sat on his deck draped in blankets, sat hip-to-hip for a three-hanky romance movie that night.

Cord talked to Bassett. To Ferrell. To a security company. Hunkered in front of a laptop with one of his brother’s portable hard drives, then on the Net, searching for anything on the names they already had, trying to find more evidence, more information, anything new linking someone to his brother’s death or Sophie’s break-ins.

Through those quiet calls and work, he watched her with her sister nonstop. How she moved. When she winced. When she smiled. How she was doing, really doing. The caretakers-that’d be him and Cate-completely fell down on the job by nine that night, both crashing in the living room before some stupid chick flick was even halfway over. Cate, of course, hadn’t slept the night before.

Cord almost forgot. He hadn’t slept, either. And he only caught a couple hours that night, because he was up and at it after a few-hours crash.

He met Cate, bleary-eyed, at dawn the next morning. It was a meeting of the minds by the coffee machine. “She’s insisting I go home,” Cate told him.

“I think you’ve been exactly what the doctor ordered. She needed you.”

“Of course she did. Sometimes a woman needs another woman-especially a sister. But I see her laughing and all. I see she’s okay. Not-” there was Cate’s royal finger wagging at him again, even though it was a wobbly waggle before she’d had her first dose of caffeine “-that I’m any less worried.”

“I’m worried, too. Hell. I wish I were being targeted instead of her.”

“I don’t get it all. But someone sure as hell thinks she knows something important about your brother-that you don’t know. That no one else apparently knows. This has to get solved, Cord.”

“I know.”

“I’m thinking-I’ll get a flight out Saturday morning. I don’t mind leaving. As long as I can trust you.” Cate handed him his mug, took hers. “Which I do. Sort of. To a point.”

Cord wanted to laugh. Cate trusted him to the exact point he trusted himself. Sophie needed no more dangerous events. Ever. For the rest of her life.

Particularly since she hadn’t done a single thing wrong-except for being a damn fine woman with a little too much nonjudgmental kindness and compassion for others.

Like toward him, for instance.

They took Cate to the airport on Saturday morning, hit a store for food, headed back to his place. If he hadn’t already trekked into town both days to make sure the damn cat was fed and watered, Sophie would undoubtedly have pushed to return to the brownstone…but Cord knew she was not ready for that yet. Plus, he needed to fill her in on a number of things.

First, though, while he carried the two grocery sacks from the car, she volunteered to make dinner-but