The Unclaimed Baby

Was he a would-be robber, checking to make sure she was all alone before seizing every penny in the cash register? Her imagination roared off down a frightening path.

Let him try, she thought fiercely, thinking of the gun that Justin had insisted she keep in the store if she was determined to hang around here alone until all hours of the night. She was a better shot than most of the family and not a one of them missed what they aimed for. Of course, there wasn’t much cash worth killing over. She’d taken most of it to the night-drop at the bank just before the new pharmacist had left for the evening.

She scowled up at the man, saw then the exhaustion in his eyes, the stubble on his cheeks, the sensuality of a mouth beginning another slow curve into a disarming smile that softened the harsh angles of his face. What she missed was any hint of a real threat. Whatever this man’s story, it seemed evident to her that he meant her no harm. His concern struck her as genuine, as impulsive and automatic as his smile.

Satisfied, she met his grin with one of her own and briskly wiped away the last traces of her tears with an impatient swipe.

“I was just debating whether to close up,” she said, turning back inside and heading for the lunch counter, which was her domain even though she owned the whole place now. A few months back she’d hired a pharmacist and a teenager to work the rest of the store once Doc Dolan had retired and headed off to the Gulf Coast of Texas. “I didn’t expect anyone to be out on a night like this. You startled me.”

“Sorry. I’ve been on the road all day. When I saw the sign and the lights on, I was thinking more about my empty stomach than I was about whether I might scare you to death. If you need to close up, I can go somewhere else.”

Sharon Lynn heard the underlying thread of disappointment in his voice and watched his gaze settling on the stale doughnuts left over from morning. She could toss those in a bag, give them to him with a takeout cup of coffee and he’d be on his way. The idea held no appeal, not when it would mean empty, lonely hours ahead. These days she was eager to snatch a few moments of companionship wherever she could find it.

“I’m in no rush,” she said quickly. “I still have some soup that’s hot and I can rustle up a hamburger or a grilled cheese and fries. I doubt you’d find anyplace else in town open on a night like this. Los Piños tends to shut down early when the weather’s bad. Nobody likes driving on the icy roads.”

“What about you?”

“I don’t drive,” she said and left it at that. She hadn’t been behind the wheel of a car since the night of the accident. In fact, she’d moved into her cousin Dani’s old house in town, just so she could walk to work. When she wanted to go out to visit the family at White Pines, there was always one relative or another around who could take her. There was no place else she needed to go.

She ladled up a bowl of homemade vegetable soup and set it on the counter in front of him. “Now, what else can I get for you?”

“A couple of cheeseburgers and fries, if you’re sure you don’t mind.”

Mind? Not if it would keep her here a few minutes longer, provide a welcome distraction from her grim memories. Her inability to shake them earlier indicated tonight they were going to be worse than usual.

“Coming right up,” she told him. Her innate curiosity and friendliness kicked in. “What brings you to Los Pin˜os?”

“A job,” he said. “My name’s Cord Branson. I’ve heard there’s an opening on a ranch around here. It’s a place called White Pines. Maybe you know the owners.”

Sharon Lynn grinned and relaxed, the last of her fears vanishing. “I ought to. White Pines belongs to my grandfather, Harlan Adams. My father—his name’s Cody Adams—and my brother, Harlan Patrick, run it.” She held out her hand. “I’m Sharon Lynn.”

“Well, I’ll be a son of a gun,” he said, grasping her hand in his and holding it just a shade longer than necessary, long enough to remind her of that earlier tingle of awareness.

“First I meet a beautiful lady and then I find out she’s related to the folks I hope to work for,” he said. “Looks like this is my lucky night, after all. Do you mind telling me about the place?”

“Of course not.” She described the ranch with the affection of someone who’d grown up roaming its vast acreage. “You’ll never see any place more beautiful, if you don’t mind land that’s a little rugged. Grandpa Harlan inherited it when the house was crumbling and the herd of cattle had dwindled down to almost nothing. His daddy wasn’t meant to be a rancher, I suppose. At any rate, now it’s one of the biggest operations in the state.”

“But you don’t live out there?”

“No, I stay right here in town now to be close to the store.”

“Don’t you miss it?”

Sharon Lynn grinned. “There’s hardly time for that. There’s always something going on out at White Pines. I’m back there practically every weekend for one celebration or another or just for an old-fashioned barbecue if granddaddy starts getting lonely for a little commotion.”

She caught the faintly wistful expression on his face. “What about you? Did you grow up on a ranch?”

“If you could call it that. It was probably every bit as bad as you say White Pines was way back when, but every time my daddy had a chance to make a real go of it, he squandered the money on booze. After he was gone, I sold the place to get a stake so I could move on to someplace where I could learn how a real ranch was run. I drifted a bit through Montana and Wyoming before heading south. Once I crossed into Texas, I kept hearing about your granddaddy and White Pines.”

“Well, you picked the right place. Nobody knows more about ranching than Grandpa Harlan and my daddy, or Harlan Patrick, to hear him tell it.”

She caught herself. “Just listen to me. I’m going on and on. Maybe you’d like to finish your meal in peace. I’ve got things I could do in the back.”

“No, indeed. Don’t even think of it. I’ve been on the road for days now. I’m glad of the company and the conversation, especially when the company’s as pretty as you and the conversation’s fascinating.”

The words were all glib charm, but as he met her gaze and smiled slowly, Sharon Lynn felt another of those quick little quivers in the pit of her stomach. Cord Branson was a very disconcerting man, more direct than most she’d met, outside of her brother and her cousins. He was certainly less subtle than Kyle, who had tended toward shyness.

She gazed into those devilish eyes with their golden sparks and something told her that she was in more danger now than she would have been if the only thing he’d wanted was to rob the place.

Cord wolfed down two of the best hamburgers he’d had in ages and tried to remember what it was that had brought him to Los Pin˜os. He knew better than most that a man didn’t get anywhere in life, if he let himself get distracted.

And yet, he couldn’t help thinking that Sharon Lynn Adams would be a damned fine distraction. He’d never seen a woman with more sorrow written all over a face that was meant for angels. He had watched with amusement as she’d run the gamut of emotions when he’d first walked through the door. He’d seen the tiny flicker of fear, the fierce resolve and then the quiet, ingrained compassion that made her take him in and feed him despite the probable inconvenience. He thought he’d also noted a hint of relief in her expression, but, unable to imagine the origin of that, he’d dismissed it.

He pegged her age at late twenties and, after glancing at her ringless fingers, wondered why no man had snapped her up. Even in the past few minutes he’d seen that she was easy to get along with and even easier on the eye. To say nothing of being an Adams. From everything he’d heard, that counted for something in these parts. Maybe for too many men that was all that counted and she’d simply gotten used to warily fending them off.

He enjoyed watching her work, the quick efficient movements, the sway of hips a little on the generous side. Even more, he liked the ready rise of color in her cheeks when he teased and the way her laughter sounded when he finally managed to coax it out of her with one of the worst jokes either of them had ever heard. He’d found himself lingering long after he’d finished his meal, drinking more caffeine than his body needed if he was to get any rest at all tonight. Still, the coffee had been an excuse. He wasn’t looking forward to going back out into the cold night or to leaving her.

“Do you have a place to stay?” she asked eventually, when a glance at the clock and the discovery that it was after ten clearly startled her. “There’s a motel outside of town, but on a night like this it’s probably full and I’m not sure you ought to risk driving that far on the icy roads.”

“No problem. Unless you think the local law enforcement will object, I’ll just find a place to pull my truck off on the side of the road and sleep in back,” he said. “I’ve got a nice warm sleeping bag and I’m used to roughing it.”

Even as he said it, she was shaking her head. “No way. I won’t have your freezing to death on my conscience. If you truly don’t mind roughing it, you can sleep in the back room here. The floor’s hard as a rock, but the sleeping bag ought to help and at least you’ll have heat.”

“I couldn’t.”

“Of course you could.”

He frowned at her. As generous as it was, the offer filled him with concern. He didn’t like thinking of her taking that kind of risk with other strangers. “You know,” he chided, “it’s possible that you’re entirely too trusting.”

She shrugged off the suggestion. “That’s the way folks around here are. First impressions count for a lot, and I can see you’re a decent man.”

Cord regarded her with blatant amusement. “I thought you said first impressions counted?”

“They do.”

“Your first impression of me was that I was here to rob you.”

A guilty flush confirmed his guess.

“Okay, yes,” she admitted, “just for a second, I did wonder. Most people would have been inside on a night like this, unless they were up to no good.”

“But you don’t wonder anymore?”

Her gaze met his, blue eyes the exact shade of wildflowers searching his face. “Not anymore,” she said at last, giving his hand a brief, reassuring pat.

He told himself later that it wasn’t the way his pulse leapt when her fingers grazed his that mattered. It wasn’t the unexpected yearning that came over him looking into her eyes. It was the fact that she said those two simple words with such quiet confidence that made him fall in love with her. It had been a very long time since anyone on earth had believed in Cord Branson.

Before he could get lost in the wonder of that, a heavy thump against the back door startled them both. Sharon Lynn whirled in that direction, but Cord was faster. “You stay put. I’ll check it out.” He gestured toward the back room. “Where’s the door? Through there?”