If he’d fathered the girl, he had a responsibility toward her. One he’d willingly accept. But it was about more than responsibility. He had to think about her lost years—all those years lost to the three of them. And the fact that after Reba’s death, she’d been through so much, including a hateful stepfather who’d given her dog—and her!—away. Then a year of neglect, of fielding the foster care system, finally managing on her own. At seventeen!

It was all so wrong.

Even if she belonged to J.P. or Eli, she definitely qualified as an honorary niece, and that was no small thing, either.

And if she didn’t belong to any one of them…well, she was still a mixed-up kid, apparently alone in the world and headed for trouble, if she wasn’t already in it up to her musical tattoo.

No getting around it, Carly needed help.

Cord rolled onto his side and reached out to take his phone from the charger on the nightstand.

It was 1:12 a.m.

He grinned.

Not too early to call J.P., he decided.

He pressed the appropriate key.

“Cord?” J.P. mumbled. “What the hell—? Do you know what time—?”

“I changed my mind,” Cord said cheerfully. “About meeting up for breakfast tomorrow, I mean. I’ll be at Bailey’s as soon as the chores are done.”

J.P. yawned loudly. “What about your client?”

“She’ll keep,” Cord replied. “You want to call Eli or shall I?”

“No need. He has breakfast at Brynne’s pretty well every morning, with or without us. You know that.”

“Right. Well, I’ll let you get back to sleep.”

“That’s mighty generous of you.”

“You gonna unfriend me, old buddy?”

J.P.’s chuckle was husky. “You should be so lucky.”

With that, he hung up.

CORD, STILL WIDE-AWAKE, propped himself up in bed, went through the contact list on his phone and found S. Fletcher’s email address. Waking J.P. in the middle of the night was one thing; waking a client was another.

Quickly, he thumbed out a message. Something has come up, he wrote, and I’ll be unavailable until around 9 tomorrow morning. We’ll start your training then. Sorry for any inconvenience. Cord Hollister.

He hit Send, and the phone made a cute little zipping sound.

He hated “cute,” but sometimes it couldn’t be avoided. More like, he always forgot to turn off all that cheerful shit.

Thinking maybe he could sleep now that he’d made a decision and acted on it, Cord switched off the bedside lamp and was about to set the phone aside again when it chimed, alerting him to a new message.

It was probably incoming junk mail, Cord figured, but he checked anyway.