Secretive Stranger

Epilogue

When Sophie climbed out of the car, she took one look at Cord’s face and had to laugh. “Come on, you. How scary can this be?”

“Very scary,” he muttered, and tugged at his shirt collar as if it were choking him.

“I’ll be there to protect you.”

“That’s good,” he said. “Very good. But I’m just saying, this may not go well. I’m not good in situations like this.”

“Neither of us has ever been in a situation like this,” she reminded him, and clamped an arm in his. They walked up to the door and knocked. While they were waiting for an answer, she rose up and gave him a swift kiss for courage.

The woman who answered the door was a tall, slim brunette, wearing jeans and a sweatshirt. She looked at Cord first, and her eyes widened.

He didn’t seem to notice her for more than a second. The cherub in her arms was wearing pale pink overalls and pink socks. The baby had barely enough curly dark hair to support the matching pink bow, but she was a solid chunk in her mother’s arms. Still, the baby took one look at Cord-who should have been a complete stranger to her-and raised her arms.

“I’m afraid she’s not shy,” her mother said, laughing.

Cord took the baby, more or less because the cherub threw herself into his arms. He shot Sophie a look of frantic alarm, but she could see in two shakes that Cord and his niece were going to get along like a house afire.

Naturally, it would take a while to develop a relationship with the niece he’d never known he had. And the details of helping with support, now that Jon was no longer around to provide for the child, would all have to be worked out. But this initial meeting was just to…well, to reach out.

Cord had more blood family than he’d known before. And his brother may have been an unforgivable scoundrel without a conscience or a heart…but this baby was an angel.

They left somewhere around an hour later. Cord said nothing as they walked to the car, only crooked an arm around Sophie’s shoulder and squeezed. It was only a week before Christmas now, and the neighborhoods were all lit up with lights and decorations. None, Sophie felt, sparkled as much as the ring on her left hand, but conceivably, she was a tiny bit prejudiced about that.

“Hey, Soph,” Cord said as he started the car. “You want one of those?”

“One of what?” she asked.

“One of those little people. Babies. You know.”

An early Christmas present for next year, she thought…Who could beat that?