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Authors: Stella Bagwell

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She looked up at him and her eyes welled with tears. “I don't understand, Coop. What does it mean? Why are you here?”
He sat down beside her and she was suddenly so overwhelmed with his closeness and the look of longing on his face that tears fell from her eyes and she dropped her forehead against his chest.
“Oh, darling! Emily, don't cry,” he whispered as his hand made gentle circles on her back. “I didn't come back to make you cry.”
Emily tilted her head up at him. “Why did you come back?”
“Because it's where I belong.”
The unexpectedness of his words dried her tears. “What about your rodeo life? Don't you want to get back to it?”
Cooper shook his head, then circling his arms around her, he pulled her close against him.
“I haven't needed the sport for a long time now. I only kept doing it because it was all I had.”
Her wet eyes searched his and suddenly she could see what a lonely life he'd lived these past years he'd been away. She wanted desperately to make up for all he'd lost, to fill his days and nights with love. “I'm so glad you came back, Cooper.”
With his thumb and forefinger holding her chin, his gaze continued to probe her face. “Are you really, Emily? I've been so...blind and crazy. How can you trust me now? I left you once before and today—”
Shaking her head, she placed her fingertips against his lips. “Cooper, it's time you realized how much I love you. I regret all those years we missed being together, but I want you to know I'll never blame you for them. I'll never throw them in your face. Please believe that, Coop.”
Doubt filled his gray eyes. “When I first came back you hated me.”
“I don't know that I hated you. I don't know that I could hate anyone. I like to think I'm like my mother, Rose. She doesn't have the capability to hate anyone. But when you first came back I hurt every time I looked at you. All those years I'd believed you had deserted me. That you had just used me for your own amusement.”
Cooper groaned as he imagined how hurt and betrayed she must have felt. “And when did you finally decide it hadn't really been that way?”
“Little by little I began to think I might have been wrong. But until Daddy opened my eyes I don't think I fully realized exactly what had happened back then.”
Curious now, he straightened her away from him but still held firmly to her shoulders. “Your father? He talked to you about us?”
She nodded. “My father and I talk about everything. And he's never guided me wrong. He said that...” Clutching the rose in one hand, she reached for his hand with her free one. “You won't get angry if I tell you?”
He chuckled and Emily's heart soared at the wonderful sound.
“How could I get angry? You told me you loved me. That makes everything bearable.”
Oh, Mother, you're wonderful, Emily thought. To Cooper she said, “Daddy believed Kenneth was a manipulator. He said from the time you two boys were very young, your brother worked you and your father against each other. So by the time you had grown into a man, the resentment was already in place. You believed your father hated you and adored Kenneth.”
“Well, William Dunn did have a reason for hating me. My being born caused my mother to die. At least he thought so.”
“You can't really believe that, Coop. Your mother died from negligence and circumstance.”
Cooper looked down at Emily's fingers wrapped tightly around his. It amazed him how much strength he could draw from such a tiny hand.
“You know Emily, for all these years I tried to tell myself you were the one who initiated your marriage to Kenneth. I didn't want to believe my own brother betrayed me in such an underhanded, backstabbing way. It took coming home to open my eyes. But I guess it took driving away this afternoon to really make me take a look at things. Kenneth wanted to get me out of the way—first because he wanted the ranch for himself and second because he wanted you. All that bragging he was doing about my riding skills was probably sticking in his craw. But I fell for it,” he said with a self-deprecating snort.
“Only because you'd been made to feel unworthy. You were shut out from the ranch. You had nothing else but your riding.” Shaking her head regretfully, she added, “Don't forget, I fell for his lies, too. And I spent ten years living a mistake.”
Cupping his hands around her face, he brought his lips against her forehead. At that moment Emily was sure she'd never been given a sweeter kiss.
“I guess we both made mistakes,” he said. “But we shouldn't have to go on paying for them.”
“We're not going to, Coop. I understand you've had your doubts about putting the past behind us. But we can. The three of us can be a real family...if you want us.”
His-fingertips traced a gentle pattern across her cheeks. “I want it more than anything. But, Emily, just wanting a family isn't going to make me husband or father material. It scares the hell out of me to think of disappointing you or baby Harlan. There's going to be times I'll probably say and do all the wrong things and I—”
She pressed her cheek against his as joy surged through her like the golden rays of a rainbow. “You'll learn as you go,” she whispered, “just like I'm going to learn to be a wife to you and a mother to our son.”
He pulled his head back to look at her. “Our son?”
She nodded. “You do want Harlan Cooper to be your son, don't you?”
“Oh, Emily, I... while you were pregnant all I could think was that you were carrying Kenneth's child when it should have been mine. The baby you lost, my baby—whatever you thought then, I would have wanted it. And last night when I held Harlan Cooper for the first moments after he was born, it was like some sort of phenomenon came over me. It no longer mattered whose blood flowed in his veins. He felt like
mine.
I wanted him to be
mine.
Can you believe me?”
Certain her heart was going to burst with happiness, Emily flung her arms around his neck. “He is yours, darling. You'll always be his one and only father. And more than anything, I want to give you another child—to make up for the one we lost so long ago. Would you like that?”
Humbled by the sheer wonder of her love, he could hardly speak. “You would go through that much pain again to have our child?”
She smiled at him as only a woman could smile at the man she loved and wanted. “I would go through it again. And again. For you, Coop. Don't ever doubt my love.”
Cooper didn't know why God had blessed him so or why He had allowed his life to come full circle. But he was certain of one thing, he would never take the happiness he'd been given for granted.
“So when do you think you're going to feel recuperated enough to marry me?”
“Now. Today,” she answered quickly, then giggled at the shocked expression on his face. “What's the matter? Getting cold feet already?”
He tugged her closer and placed a long heated kiss on her lips, leaving Emily in no doubt as to what lay in store for her.
“We don't want to get married in a hospital room,” he murmured once the kiss had ended. “We want to get married on the Diamond D with lots of flowers and food and your family all around us.”
She'd never expected anything so sweet and sentimental from him. Apparently she still had a lot to learn about Cooper Dunn and she was going to love every minute of it.
“Next week is Valentine's Day. It would be the perfect date for a wedding. What do you think?” she asked, the corners of her lips tilting provocatively up at him.
“I think I'll start counting the minutes,” he said, his voice growing husky as once again his face dipped toward hers.
A brief knock on the door interrupted Cooper's intentions to seal their wedding date with a kiss. Instead both of them turned their heads to see a nurse and the baby swaddled in a blue receiving blanket entering the room.
The young woman smiled cheerfully at Emily and Cooper. “Which parent wants to hold this little guy first?”
The question had Cooper glancing expectantly at Emily, who in turn pointed a finger back at him.
“Daddy does,” Emily told her.
The nurse placed the baby boy in the crook of his arm and as Emily watched him cradle their son against his broad chest, she knew Cooper had really and truly come home to stay.
 
 
And the Murdocks live on! Look for Charlie's story
in the fall of 1998, when the Texas Ranger gets
caught by a single mom!
ISBN : 978-1-4592-6618-6
 
THE RANCHER'S BLESSED EVENT
 
Copyright © 1998 by Stella Bagwell
 
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the editorial office, Silhouette Books, 300 East 42nd Street, New York, NY 10017 U.S.A.
 
All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.
 
This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
 
® and TM are trademarks of Harlequin Books S.A., used under license. Trademarks indicated with ® are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Canadian Trade Marks Office and in other countries.

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