The realization left her feeling shaken. Though Cord did his best to cheer her up over a spaghetti dinner, she barely touched her food. Only because the baby was content in her carrier on the seat beside her did she manage to resist the urge to sweep her up and cling to her.
“You’re a tough audience,” Cord grumbled when yet another of his attempts to coax a smile from her fell flat.
“Sorry,” she apologized halfheartedly. “I’m not very good company.”
“Maybe I’m just not enough of a distraction.”
The rueful comment did exactly as he’d apparently intended. Her gaze met his for the first time all evening. As their gazes clashed, she realized that Cord could be a very fine distraction if only she’d let him. There was an unmistakable sizzle between them, though she’d done everything in her power to ignore it.
“Don’t sell yourself short,” she muttered. “You could distract a saint.”
He grinned. “Now that’s a promising remark. Are you actually flirting with me, Sharon Lynn?”
“Absolutely not,” she insisted as if horrified, though she had to swallow a laugh at his blatant enthusiasm for the idea. There were some things about which Cord Branson was totally transparent...and others about which he was totally inscrutable.
He looked disappointed now. “I wish you would do a little flirting now and again. It might be good for you.”
“For me?” She all but hooted at that, then asked, “What’s the matter. Can’t you take being resistible?”
“I can take it. I’m just not crazy about it.” His expression sobered. “At least not where you’re concerned.”
“Don’t,” she protested, when it seemed the conversation had taken too serious a turn.
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t go there,” she scolded. “And don’t pretend you don’t know what I mean.”
He seemed duly chastened by that. “Okay, then, no more teasing, even if it does make you smile.”
“Other things can make me smile.”
“Name one. I’ve been telling jokes all evening and nothing.”
She grinned. “Maybe that should tell you something about the quality of your jokes.”
He shook his head. “Now you’re resorting to insults. I’m crushed.”
“It would take a bulldozer to crush your ego.”
He reached across the table and took her hand in his. Before she could blink, he’d lifted it to his lips and brushed a kiss across her knuckles. Her knees actually went weak at that. She’d always thought that was just a romantic notion that never actually happened. Now she knew better.
“You’re wrong about that,” he insisted. “You can do it with a word.”
Something in his voice told Sharon Lynn he was telling the raw, unvarnished truth, that she had the power to shatter him with nothing more than a word. It was a power she didn’t want and yet, on some level, somewhere deep inside, the knowledge filled her with a kind of satisfaction.
“Cord...” she began, but didn’t know how to go on.
“It’s okay, darlin’. There’s nothing to be said about the truth. It just is.”
The only thing he might have said that would have troubled her more was that he loved her. Gazing into his eyes, she had to wonder if that admission might not be right around the corner. What worried her even more was the awareness that a part of her yearned for the moment when he’d say it.
* * *
Over the next few days Cord did his best to keep Sharon Lynn distracted while they waited for the blood test results or the appearance of Hazel Murdock. He wasn’t sure which he dreaded more. The blood test could confirm the woman’s claim to the baby, but her appearance in Los Piños would mean that she was serious about taking Ashley home with her. How would he be able to bear it? How would Sharon Lynn?
She would be devastated. She was already as jittery as the proverbial cat on a hot tin roof. He’d seen her startled expression every time a female stranger had walked into Dolan’s. There was no mistaking the flare of panic in her eyes when a middle-aged woman she didn’t know offered to hold the baby while Sharon Lynn prepared her meal.
“She’s fine in her crib,” Cord overheard Sharon Lynn saying emphatically as he walked in.
“Oh, but I don’t mind at all,” the woman insisted, starting around the counter to pick up the baby.
“No!”
Sharon Lynn’s voice was so harsh that the woman instantly looked affronted and Ashley began to wail. Cord stepped in to smooth things over. He scooped the baby up and was rewarded with a