nodded. “That’s better. I also know that he’s been a real godsend to Sharon Lynn in this crisis. Dani and Justin have both told me how he stuck by her all day yesterday, when she was jittery as a June bug waiting for news about that baby’s mama.”
“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?”