chief suspect in a major crime and he were the bad-cop interrogator.
“Are you out of your mind?” he demanded.
She frowned at his tone and his attitude, but she knew better than to start a shouting match that would draw the whole family into the kitchen. “I don’t think so,” she said blandly.
Justin looked incredulous. “Are you telling me you’re in love with him?”
The point-blank question startled her. If she was at least half in love with Cord, it hadn’t had time to register yet. Still, she raised her eyes to level a look at her cousin. “Why else would I be marrying him, if I weren’t?”
“What about Kyle?”
She knew the question wasn’t asked out of any deep-seated loyalty to her late husband. But Justin knew how devastated she’d been by Kyle’s death. He’d been on the scene the night of the accident and there for her afterward. She supposed it was natural for him to wonder at her sudden leap into the arms of another man. Compared to Kyle’s courtship, Cord’s had set a stunning, record pace.
“Kyle is dead,” she reminded Justin quietly. “I can’t change that.”
“But that relationship built up over time. The two of you didn’t rush into marriage.”
“I’ll say,” she murmured. She forced a smile. “Justin, Kyle and I waited and waited and waited to get married. Look at all the time we wasted.”
“So that’s it? You’re rushing into this because you’ve suddenly concluded that life’s too short and you have to grab on to it while you can?”
“Something like that.”
“Bull. That’s not who you are.”
She regarded him with a touch of defiance. “Maybe it’s not who I was, but maybe it’s who I am now.”
“I don’t believe it,” he insisted stubbornly.
“Whether you choose to accept it or not, I am marrying Cord. The sooner the better.”
“There’s more to it. There has to be.”
“Such as?”
“I don’t know, but I’ll figure it out. I’m a cop and every instinct tells me this isn’t the stars-in-your-eyes love-match you two are pretending it is.” Suddenly he looked as if he’d been struck by a bolt of lightning. “The baby. Of course. That’s it, isn’t it? This is about the baby.”
He searched her face, then moaned. “I knew it. Cord as much as asked me if you’d have a better chance at keeping her if you were married. Oh, sweetie, don’t do it.”
She saw no point in trying to deny it, not when the truth was likely written all over her face. She reached up and touched his cheek. “I have to, Justin. It’s the only way. In fact, you were the first one to mention that it would make a difference if I were married. Cord just picked up on that.”
“Dammit, Sharon Lynn. Use your head. It’s not the only way. Grandpa Harlan has influence around here. He’ll use it if he has to.”
She sighed heavily. “I know he would, but that’s not what I’m going to do. Cord and I are in this together. He loves that little girl as much as I do. This marriage is what we want to do, Justin. Leave it be, please. Don’t tell another soul. Promise me.”
He looked torn by her plea. “You’re certain? You’re absolutely, positively certain you’re willing to take such a drastic step?”
She was anything but. Still, she managed a smile. “Absolutely.”
She had no choice. She had to believe that this crazy, impulsive marriage plan could work. Whatever Cord’s motivations, it had to work. She couldn’t bear to think of losing the baby she had come to think of as her own. She didn’t allow herself to think about what marrying Cord and living with him would mean at all, because that would have stirred up too many things she wasn’t prepared to deal with.
After their talk Justin appeared somewhat reconciled to her engagement, but that left at least one more major hurdle to get past: her mother.
Even more so than Sharon Lynn’s father, Melissa Adams was capable of probing beneath the surface to get at the truth of things. Where her father blustered, ranted and raved, her mother was more subtle. But she was a more than even match for any Adams when it came to being stubborn. She’d resisted Sharon Lynn’s father for a very long time, even though Sharon Lynn had already been born and, in a thoroughly untimely twist, Harlan Patrick had been on the way.
Oh, yes, Melissa Adams was a tough cookie and she was still there when most of the others had left. How