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Authors: Stella Bagwell

BOOK: The Rancher's Blessed Event
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“Yes! I think you quickly forgot me and your home!”
A feral smile spread his lips, making his white teeth gleam in the darkness. At that moment Emily thought of him as a lone wolf, angrily baring his teeth to keep anyone or thing from entering his territory.
The pads of his fingers moved over her swollen lips. “I haven't forgotten anything about you, Emily. Not this. Or this.” His hand slid to the hard mound of her breast, then lower still to the intimate V between her thighs. “Or this,” he added hoarsely. “And I thought you loved me back then. But hell, I can see now that you didn't even know me! When I got the news you'd married Kenneth it literally made me sick. A part of me died and I'll never get it back.”
He rolled away from her then and with tortured eyes Emily watched him struggle to bring his angry breaths back to normal.
“You hate me,” she said with certain finality.
“Hate you?” He laughed harshly. “Right now I want you like hell. But I won't have you. You took that right away from me years ago.”
So he was never going to forgive her for marrying Kenneth. Somehow she'd known he couldn't. Or wouldn't. Deep down inside her she just hadn't wanted to accept it.
Tears were burning her throat, scalding the back of her eyes, but pride managed to keep them at bay. “So why do you care if I'm cold or tired or hurting? What the hell difference does it make to you if I'm alone on the ranch when I go into labor?”
His expression unmoving, he looked at her. “One Dunn woman already lost her life in childbirth. I don't want two on my hands.”
So that was it, Emily thought sickly. His show of concern wasn't really for her at all. It was an atonement of sorts for his mother's death. He wasn't even thinking of the miscarriage she suffered with his child.
Her chest heavy with pain, she turned away from him and prayed for sleep to come.
Chapter Eight
“N
o, Mother,” Emily said into the phone. “I don't want Daddy to go to the trouble of bringing a tree all the way over here. He has enough to do as it is.”
“But, darling, it's Christmas! You always put up a tree,” Rose argued with her daughter.
Emily's gaze traveled around the living room of the old ranch house. For the past week she'd slowly dug out decorations from the closet. The fireplace mantel was now graced with pinecones, red candles and gold tinsel. A papier-mâché reindeer and Santa Claus sat on the coffee table. On a table near the windows, she'd arranged a small nativity scene her parents had given her as a gift many years ago.
The ranch house looked a little more like Christmas, but it didn't feel like the season of love and goodwill to Emily. Since their trip to Roswell a little over a week ago, Cooper had become a polite stranger to her. He was eating and sleeping under the same roof as she, but that was where it began and ended. He talked to her only when it was necessary or when she forced him to and even then he kept their conversations brief and to the point.
“I know it's nearly Christmas and I don't have a tree,” Emily spoke into the phone. “But I have most of my decorations out. And besides, it's just me and Cooper here and he couldn't care less.”
Picking up the antipathy in her daughter's voice, Rose said gently, “But you care. That's the whole point. And I want this Christmas to be special for you.”
How could it be special? Emily wondered. Sometime during the past few months, she'd allowed herself to do the unthinkable. She'd fallen in love with Cooper all over again. Since the realization had struck her that night in Roswell, it was all she could think about. She was headed for a terrible heartache and she didn't have a clue as to how to stop it.
“Oh, Mother,” she said with a sigh, “I don't think I can ever remember a Christmas—so bleak. I almost wished it were over because I—well, I just wished it were over.”
“Emily!” Rose scolded softly. “You should be ashamed. You have a healthy baby growing inside you. There's no greater gift than that. And you've wanted a child for so long.”
Emily felt a desperate urge to cry but she swallowed her tears. She didn't want to upset her mother. Rose probably wouldn't understand, any more than Emily, why she felt so melancholy. After all, it wasn't like she'd ever expected Cooper to love her. She'd had ten years to accept that he didn't. Why should it be bothering her so now?
“You're right, Mother. I should be ashamed and I am. This baby means everything to me. Without it...I don't know if I could go on.” A sad smile tilting the corners of her lips, she pressed her hand against the persistent kick against her stomach. “I only wish that—”
“You only wish things could be different with you and Cooper. Aren't I right?”
Sighing, she leaned up and pushed aside the antique lace curtain. It was getting dusky outside and she hadn't yet heard Cooper come in. “Yes. I hate to admit it, Mom. Especially—” She broke off suddenly as her eyes focused on the gray horse and rider in the distance. “Oh my Lord, I can't believe it!”
“What is it, Emily? Has something happened to you?” Rose very nearly shouted when Emily failed to say more.
“It's—Cooper and he has a tree! I'll call you back later, Mother!”
By the time Emily had jerked on a pair of boots and a coat, Cooper had reached the backyard. She raced down the steps and out to where he'd dismounted the gray and was slipping the loop of his lariat from the tree trunk.
“Where ever did you find it? You have to ride miles to the south to find ponderosa on this place!”
Cooper rolled up the lariat and tossed the stiff coils over the saddle horn. A quick glance at Emily's face told him he'd never seen her looking so excited. She was practically dancing on her toes.
“I know.”
Stepping closer, she leaned down and fingered the prickly green needles. “It smells wonderful!” She turned back to him. “You rode all that way? Just for a tree?”
Her expression said he'd shocked her. Cooper had to admit he'd surprised himself by going to such lengths to get a Christmas tree. He hadn't intended to. Considering they weren't a couple who could take joy in sharing holiday traditions, he'd figured it would be better to let the holiday pass without making a fuss. But day after day this week, he'd watched Emily dragging out those damn decorations, trying to give the old homestead a little holiday cheer. He couldn't bear to be a scrooge when she seemed content to make do with so little.
“When your dad was here yesterday I asked him if you usually put up a tree.” Shrugging, he glanced back at the spindly pine. “I'd forgotten just how few trees are on this ranch. I had to drag it for such a long way, it's probably bald on the backside.”
Emily wouldn't have cared if it was nothing but bare branches. Cooper
was
thinking about Christmas! Suddenly the approaching holidays didn't seem gloomy at all!
“If you'd driven into Ruidoso and bought the most beautiful blue spruce you could find, I wouldn't have liked it any better.”
She was reading too much into it. Just as Cooper had been afraid she would. But this was the season for giving. And a tree was such a simple thing. Not like a jewel or a scent, or even a kiss.
Cooper stood the pine up on its trunk and measured the height against his own. It towered at least three feet above the crown of his gray hat. “Looks like it will fit in the living room without having to cut any more off the trunk.”
“Oh, it will!” she exclaimed, then her face puckered as she remembered something. “But, Cooper, the stand is broken. What are we going to put it in? To stay green it will need to be watered.”
He thought for a moment. “There's a galvanized foot tub in the feed room. I'll fill it full of soil and rocks.”
“I'll go find it.” Emily took one step toward the barn only to have Cooper grab her by the upper arm.
“I'll get the tub,” he insisted. “You go back in the house and find the decorations for the tree. You do have some, don't you?”
“Yes,” she answered with an eager nod. “I'll get them out and we can decorate after supper.”
We
? Cooper had no intentions of helping her drape garland and icicles, but he said nothing. The smile on her face made it impossible for him to burst her bubble right now.
More than an hour later after the two of them had eaten stew and apple cobbler, Cooper planted the tree in the galvanized tub and pulled the whole thing into the living room to the spot Emily had chosen. However, as soon as he satisfied himself the tree was going to remain upright and steady, he went back to the kitchen for a second cup of coffee.
Emily wasn't surprised by his quick exit and she did her best not to let it bother her. She told herself he'd gone to a lot of trouble of getting the tree. That was far more than she'd ever expected from him.
From a large box of decorations, she dug out a half dozen strings of twinkling lights and painstakingly untangled them. Afterward, she plugged them in a nearby socket to make sure they were all still working.
Happy to see the bulbs were burning, she carried the lights over to the tree and began working them around the bottom branches. Everything went fine until she was down to the last two strands of lights and her arms were at least three feet too short to reach the top branches. What was she going to do? Go ask Cooper for help? No. She wasn't going to force him into sharing this Christmas ritual with her. She'd rather do it herself.
Glancing around the room, Emily spotted a wooden straight-back chair that would work nicely as a step stool. She pushed it over to the tree and climbed carefully onto the seat.
“What in hell do you think you're doing?” Cooper asked harshly as he suddenly walked back into the room.
Having grown accustomed to his unexpected outbursts, she glanced calmly over her shoulder. “I'm putting the rest of the lights on the tree,” she said with exaggerated patience. “I couldn't reach the top.”
Crossing the space of the room in three long strides, Cooper took hold of her hand. “That's too bad. Because you're getting out of that chair right now.”
She rolled her eyes with frustration. “Cooper, I always put the lights on. You have to do them just right to make the tree look pretty.”
“You might always make them look pretty, but not this year. Now come on. Get down.” He tugged on her hand and with a groan of resignation she stepped off the chair and safely onto the floor.
“Now what am I going to do?”
He took the chair and placed it a couple of feet away from the tree. “Sit here and drink this.” He handed her the remainder of his coffee. “And tell me what to do. I don't know anything about decorating a Christmas tree, but I'll try.”
Emily knew he didn't want to string Christmas lights, but he was willing to try just to keep her out of the chair. Was it really thoughts of his mother that made him this way with her? she asked herself for the thousandth time. He seemed so intent on keeping her safe and healthy, it almost made her believe he actually cared about her and possibly even the baby. But in the next breath, she told herself she was crazy to think such things. Cooper Dunn didn't love her. She wasn't really sure he'd ever loved anyone or that he even knew how.
“There's nothing to tell. Just wrap the cord in and out around the branches,” she instructed him. “Like those I've already put at the bottom.”
Cooper examined the lights she'd already placed on the tree, then went to work with two remaining strands. While he awkwardly wrapped and poked the electrical wire, Emily sipped his coffee and watched.
“Have you never decorated a Christmas tree before, Cooper?” she asked after a moment.
He shook his head. “As long as I lived here we never had a tree in this house.”
Kenneth had already told her as much and Emily figured that's how things had always been in the Dunn house without a mother around and a father as hard as rawhide. She hated to think what it had been like for him growing up with a father who had never considered his wants or needs. And a brother who hadn't had enough gumption or love to stand up for him.
“What about the woman with the little boy? Didn't she celebrate Christmas?”
Nonplussed, he glanced over his shoulder at her. “What woman?”
Had there been that many? With a frown of disgust, she said, “The woman you had a...relationship with.”
Why would Emily remember something like that, Cooper wondered, when he could barely remember it himself. “I... wasn't around her during the holidays,” he answered with faint annoyance.
“Oh. I guess not with the National Finals Rodeo always being in December,” she said thoughtfully.
With a little snort, he turned back to the tree and the lights. “No. The Finals weren't the reason. I...we just no longer had any connection with each other. But if I were guessing, I'm sure she had a Christmas tree and the whole nine yards. She would do anything for that little boy of hers.”
“Most mothers would,” she told him, then realized he could hardly know about such things. He'd never had a mother's love or soft touch to comfort him or even spoil him from time to time.
“Yeah,” he said, “But this child was spoiled rotten. After a few hours with him it was easy for me to swear off women and children.”
Emily's baby suddenly gave a rapid succession of kicks as though it could hear Cooper's negative remarks. Yet Emily herself wasn't surprised by his attitude. Basically he'd told her all this before and after three months of living with the man she could plainly see he had no desire to be a husband and a father. Maybe his feelings did partly stern from his bad relationship with his own father and the experience he'd had with his girlfriend's spoiled child. But in the innermost part of her, Emily knew his problem was really with her and Kenneth. He felt betrayed by the both of them. And the fact that she'd lost his baby only made him resent this one even more.
Rising from the chair, she placed the empty cup on a nearby end table and picked up a small box of glass ornaments. As she hung the brightly colored balls from branch to branch, Cooper glanced curiously down at her.
“Aren't you going to give me a long lecture about being heartless and twisted? Aren't you going to tell me how much I'm missing in life by not having a family?”
Not bothering to look up at him, she said, “No, Cooper. I've learned my opinion or feelings leave about as much impression on you as a pile of horse biscuits. You're going to do what you want to do and to hell with anyone else.”
He'd never heard her talk this way. As though he were a hopeless cause and could never be reformed. Not that Cooper needed or wanted to be reformed. But up until their cattle buying trip to Roswell a few days ago, he'd held the suspicion she was still holding out hopes he would stay on the Diamond D with her after the baby was born.

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