Secretive Stranger

“You owe me an apology,” she told George Bassett. “In fact, you owe me a million apologies.”

“I know. We’re sorry.”

“You should be sorry. Not the royal we. You. Specifically, you. Thinking I was guilty of something, without even asking me! Asking Cord to spy on me! What’s the matter with you? How could you be in that job without having any judgment about people? Obviously, Cord didn’t know anything. He wasn’t living here, had no possible way to know what his brother was doing-”

“We…I…know that, ma’am. Listen, I just need a statement from you, and then I can leave you alone. We’ll all leave-”

“I haven’t heard my apology. And you almost let my cat out!”

“I’m sorry. And I’m sorry about the cat, too.”

“You think that’s enough? I’ve been scared out of my mind.”

“I’m sorry. Very, very sorry.”

She sniffed, but then seemed to relent. “Okay. I guess I’m sorry, too.”

“For what?” Bassett’s jaw dropped, as if disbelieving he’d opened his mouth. “Never mind. I don’t care what you’re sorry for. It doesn’t matter.”

“I don’t think it does, either. Because I wasn’t really tampering with anything important. I just-”

“Sophie.” Cord figured he’d better interrupt before she spilled the story of her altering the pictures of Jan. He still didn’t know how she’d done that, and wasn’t sure he wanted to know. “If you’ll just give Bassett three minutes, that’s all he needs. Then he’s gone. Then everybody’ll clear out of here and be gone. If more comes up later, we can deal with it some other day.”

Sophie was a lot more worried about the splinter. “What happens if soaking it doesn’t loosen up this sliver?”

“Then we give you another glass of wine.”

“Okay. Where’s Caviar?”

“Snoozing on top of the refrigerator.”

Still, it took forever. Bassett was a pencil pusher, wanted to fill in every detail right that minute, and spare people were still traipsing in and out from having to accumulate evidence. When the door was finally closed for the last time, Cord headed back for the bathroom with a sterilized needle behind his back.

“I’m too tired to do it now,” Sophie said.

“Okay. Let’s just have a look,” he said.

She sighed. “I’m not good with stuff like this. I don’t do needles. I don’t do pain. And I’ve had it with stress of any kind. I’m not kidding, Cord.”

“I understand. I know. I won’t touch it. I’ll just look, okay?”

“You won’t touch?”

“Right. I’ll just look.” What a baby. Although he understood why she was freaked, when he finally got a close look at the sliver. The spear of wood stabbed into the tender side of her foot was almost an inch long. Three inches at least, according to her. It wasn’t the splinter that was the real problem, he suspected.

He suspected the splinter was just the temporary, unwitting scapegoat for all her pent-up emotions that day.

He hooked her bare wet foot in his lap, an operation conducted with her sitting on the kitchen nook table, and him on the chair-with the cat now sitting on the table with her, to supervise. He saw the sliver. Saw it was going to come out just fine. If she just sat still.

She let out a howl worthy of a five-year-old child.

And that, of course, was when he could finally reach for her.

The instant he held out his arms, she vaulted into them. And that was it. She never said another word. She just held on and held on and held on.

Or maybe that was him-holding on so tight he could barely breathe, because that’s how it seemed. He really doubted that he could breathe without her ever again. All the details that made up Sophie Campbell, from the scent of her hair, to the texture of her skin, to the weight of her, to his terror of almost losing her-there was nothing else in his life but her. Not then. Not, he suspected, for the next hundred years.

“I love you,” he said fiercely. “Love you, Sophie. Like I never loved anyone. Like I never dreamed I could feel love.”

She reared back, framed his face in her hands. “You’re honest to the core, Cord. I knew you weren’t spying on me. That you didn’t suspect me. I was just…scared.”

“You had reason to be scared. We had a lot of people trying to play us off each other. A lot of people trying to protect themselves in ways that interfered with the two of us.”

She whispered, “I lied.”

“Yeah?”

“About walking away when it was all over. The mess with Jon is over, Cord. But you’re not leaving me.”

“I know.” He took a kiss…then gave one.

She inhaled that first kiss, then took one back.

She closed her eyes on a long, soft sigh and settled into his arms. She’d had everything good in her life ripped from her. He was just beginning to understand how that built both her vulnerability and her strength. She’d fight with everything she had, past right or wrong, past danger or rules, to guard those she loved. Like him.

“Sophie?” Eyes closed, he rubbed his cheek against hers, sought her sweet mouth again. “I’ll be there for you. Through bad times and good. I’ll keep you safe.”

She smiled against his lips. “Just love me, Cord. That’s the only kind of safe that matters to me.”

That, he thought, was easy.

Epilogue

When Sophie climbed out of the car, she took one look at Cord’s face and had to laugh. “Come on, you. How scary can this be?”

“Very scary,” he muttered, and tugged at his shirt collar as if it were choking him.

“I’ll be there to protect you.”

“That’s good,” he said. “Very good. But I’m just saying, this may not go well. I’m not good in situations like this.”

“Neither of us has ever been in a situation like this,” she reminded him, and clamped an arm in his. They walked up to the door and knocked. While they were waiting for an answer, she rose up and gave him a swift kiss for courage.

The woman who answered the door was a tall, slim brunette, wearing jeans and a sweatshirt. She looked at Cord first, and her eyes widened.

He didn’t seem to notice her for more than a second. The cherub in her arms was wearing pale pink overalls and pink socks. The baby had barely enough curly dark hair to support the matching pink bow, but she was a solid chunk in her mother’s arms. Still, the baby took one look at Cord-who should have been a complete stranger to her-and raised her arms.

“I’m afraid she’s not shy,” her mother said, laughing.

Cord took the baby, more or less because the cherub threw herself into his arms. He shot Sophie a look of frantic alarm, but she could see in two shakes that Cord and his niece were going to get along like a house afire.

Naturally, it would take a while to develop a relationship with the niece he’d never known he had. And the details of helping with support, now that Jon was no longer around to provide for the child, would all have to be worked out. But this initial meeting was just to…well, to reach out.

Cord had more blood family than he’d known before. And his brother may have been an unforgivable scoundrel