They had three more months for her to steal their hearts.
“I say we go celebrate,” Grandpa Harlan said, when the gavel had fallen and they’d left the courtroom.
“No,” Sharon Lynn said, casting a pleading look toward Cord. “I want to take her home. Just the two of us.” She turned to the rest of the family. “You don’t really mind, do you?”
“Of course not,” her mother said.
Cord grinned. “Then that’s what we’ll do, darlin’. You all will excuse us, won’t you?”
Despite everyone else’s agreement, her grandfather regarded them with a troubled expression, but Janet stepped in and touched his hand. To Sharon Lynn’s relief, that was all it took to silence him.
Cord turned to Janet and took her hand in his. “Thank you. You were terrific in there today. The legal profession lost a real treasure when you decided to retire. We owe you.”
“You don’t owe me a thing,” Janet protested. “The past few months, we’ve all come to love that little baby and to think of her as one of us. She deserves the life and the love the two of you could give her.”
Sharon Lynn could hardly wait to get away from all the worried looks. She knew that everyone was wondering how she would have taken it if things had gone differently in the courtroom. Truthfully she didn’t know what she would have done if she hadn’t been walking home with the baby in her arms and Cord at her side. The sun broke through as they walked, as if God were giving them His blessing on today’s outcome. For now that would have to be enough. If she looked too far into the future, she’d never leave the house. She’d stay right there where she could keep a close eye on the baby hour after hour, savoring every memory in case it turned out to be all she had.
As soon as they were home, she put the baby down for her nap, then wandered into the kitchen to find Cord staring out the window, a cup of coffee cooling in his hand. He jumped when she whispered his name.
“Sorry, darlin’,” he said, turning to her and putting the cup on the table to reach for her. “I was at least a million miles away.”
“I could see that,” she said, hesitating for only a heartbeat before stepping into his embrace. “Where’d you go?”
“I guess I moved ahead in time, rather than going to a different place.”
“To July?”
He nodded. “It will only be harder if the decision goes the other way, then.”
“It won’t,” Sharon Lynn insisted, struggling against tears. “It can’t.”
“If I were a betting man, I’d say you’re right, but it’s the outside chance that worries me.”
“We can’t think about that. I won’t believe for a single instant that we’re not going to get custody of Ashley.”
“But what if we don’t?” he persisted. “Will you be able to live with that?”
“I don’t know what I’ll do,” she confessed candidly, then searched his bleak expression. “But that’s not all that’s troubling you, is it?”
He gave her a weary, halfhearted smile. “When did you start reading my mind?”
“I don’t know about reading your mind, but your face is transparent. Sometimes I look into your eyes and it almost breaks my heart.”
“Why is that?”
She drew in a deep breath and confronted the issue that they occasionally alluded to, but never discussed. “I know you love me. You’ve shown it in a thousand different ways. And you’re scared to death that if the baby is taken away, our marriage will be over.”
He shot her a rueful look. “On the nose. That baby is what brought us together, what’s keeping us together.”
It was time—way past time, probably—for her to own up to the feelings that had been growing for so long now, time to risk putting her heart on the line again. But could she do it?
“Ashley’s not the only thing,” she insisted.
“What then?”
She searched her heart and came up with an answer that was as honest as she could make it, but in the end she settled for a safer half-truth.
“I care about you, Cord. How could I not? Look at all you’ve done for me. Look at how much you love Ashley, the way you are with her. You’re a wonderful man, as decent and kind as anyone I’ve ever known.”
“High praise, considering the quality of the men in your family.” He sighed. “But you still can’t say it, though, can you?”