The Rancher's Blessed Event. Stella Bagwell

door she looked back at him. The moment her eyes connected with his, warm, sweet memories flooded her mind and brought searing tears to her throat. She wanted to run straight to him and cry her heart out against his chest. It was a shocking, reckless feeling that overwhelmed her with guilt. Yet it was there inside her just the same.

      “I just wanted to say... I’m very sorry about Kenneth.”

      And so was she. For so many reasons. “Me too, Cooper.”

      She left the barn and Cooper turned back to his horses. And in that moment he realized he’d never felt more alone in his life.

      

      Fifteen minutes later he found Emily in the kitchen. She was still in the robe and cowboy boots, but thankfully the rifle was nowhere in sight.

      Shrugging out of his jacket, he hung it and his hat on a peg by the door, then turned and let his eyes drink in a room that had once been so much a part of his life. Other than the curtains on the windows and the Formica table being replaced with a wooden one, it looked the same as Cooper remembered.

      Though the room was bare now he could easily imagine what it had looked like two days ago when they’d buried his brother. The kitchen had probably been crammed with friends and distant relatives. All sorts of food dishes would have lined the cabinets and tables. There had surely been lots of tears and hugs meant to comfort, and talk about what a good man Kenneth had been, and how tragic it was for him to have been killed in the prime of life.

      Cooper was actually glad he hadn’t been here. He could do without all those people with their endless questions and pointed looks. Without having to ask, he knew people around here considered him the black sheep of the Dunn family. The prodigal son who’d waited too late to come home.

      “I’m making cocoa. Would you like a cup?” she asked, breaking the silence.

      The room was cold. He drew closer to her and the cookstove. “Yes. It’s been a few hours since I’ve eaten.”

      Not trusting herself to look at him, she motioned with her head toward the refrigerator. “There’s plenty of leftovers if you want to dig them out.”

      In other words she wasn’t going to bother feeding him. Well, Cooper hadn’t expected her to go out of her way to see to his comforts. But he had planned on her being a little bit warmer than this.

      “The cocoa will be enough,” he told her.

      Her eyes remained fixed on the saucepan of milk as she stirred it back and forth with a hypnotic rhythm. In the brighter light of the kitchen, Cooper could see the lines of fatigue on her face, the deep bruises of lost sleep beneath her eyes.

      He’d expected to find her grieving. After all, Kenneth had been her husband for nearly ten years. Yet the longer he studied her, he decided she was more weary than anything.

      “I was in east Texas yesterday. Before that, Montana. I’m sorry I missed Kenneth’s funeral.”

      Emily doubted the sincerity of his words. Yet he was here now. She should at least give him credit for making any sort of appearance, she decided.

      “The eulogy was very nice. The church was packed—even some of my old accounting clients came—and I’ve never seen so many flowers.”

      Her voice was wooden and Cooper wondered if she was deliberately making it so to keep from breaking down in front of him.

      “I’m glad for that much at least. Can you tell me what happened? The message I got only stated that Kenneth had been killed by a fall from a horse. Is that right?”

      The cocoa was bubbling around the edges. Emily carried the pan over to the cabinet counter and filled two large mugs. At the end of the table she placed a mug for him, then sat down with her own.

      “You know how Kenneth never would let a horse get the better of him,” she began. “But this one was mean all the way through. I’d begged him to get rid of it but—” Her eyes on the mug in her hands, she shrugged. “He didn’t listen to me.”

      Cooper joined her at the table. “Was this a green horse he was breaking?”

      It seemed incredible to Emily that she was sitting here talking to him as if he’d never really been away. As if nothing had ever happened between them. Down through the years she’d imagined him coming home so many times and how it might feel to see him again. Yet none of her imaginings came close to the strange mixture of pain and joy surging through her at this moment.

      “No. It wasn’t a young horse he was just breaking,” she answered. “He used the gelding to work cattle and ride fence line. But the animal was temperamental and Kenneth had to watch him every second. The day he...I’d gone into Ruidoso and he’d planned to go check on a bull he’d been doctoring. We don’t really know what happened. It appeared the horse spooked for some reason and started bucking. Kenneth fell and it snapped his neck.”

      Cooper drew in a deep breath, then let it out slowly. His brother had always been a good rider. But even the best of horsemen got caught off guard at times. He knew that as well as anyone.

      “Are you the one who found him?”

      She shook her head. “I was out looking for him. Along with my dad and Uncle Roy and several of his deputies. Daddy was the one who found him.”

      He sipped the cocoa and rubbed a hand through his dark hair. “It’s hard to picture Kenneth not being able to handle a horse. He was always so good with them.”

      In spite of Cooper’s long absence from the Diamond D, Emily could see he was feeling a loss for his brother. Her heart almost softened toward him. Almost, but not quite.

      “It wasn’t really the horse that killed him. It was the liquor,” she said bluntly.

      Cooper’s gray eyes narrowed on her pale face. “Liquor? What are you talking about? My brother never drank.”

      Glancing away from him, she lifted the mug of cocoa to her lips. After she’d managed to take a couple of swallows, she asked, “How do you know?”

      Rage at the loss of his brother, his home, and all that had happened ten years ago surged up in his craw like bitter acid. “Kenneth was your husband, but he was also my brother,” he said stonily. “I knew him.”

      The bit of compassion she’d felt for him a moment ago vanished. “Yeah. Back when? Before you became a big rodeo star? Well, I’m sorry, Cooper, but the brother you knew wasn’t the one that fell from a horse and broke his neck.”

      Something flickered in his gray eyes. Doubt? Guilt? Whatever it was sliced into Emily like the edge of a rusty razor.

      “What are you trying to say? Had Kenneth become an alcoholic?” he asked.

      She realized what her words were probably doing to him. Cooper had always looked up to his older brother. From what he’d once told her, Kenneth had been a steadying influence to him after their parents had died. Then later, when Cooper had decided to try his hand at bronc riding, Kenneth had urged him on like a proud papa. If either of the Dunn brothers had possessed a wild streak, it had been Cooper, not Kenneth.

      Emily’s blue eyes were suddenly snapping with anger as she looked at him and it dawned on Cooper this was the most emotion he’d seen on her face since he’d arrived.

      “No. Kenneth wasn’t an alcoholic, but it was in the makings. I told him not to ever get on that horse if he’d been drinking. But he did anyway. A man with drunk reflexes shouldn’t be on a gentle nag, much less a loco cow horse.”

      Cooper felt physically ill. When the news of Kenneth’s death had reached him all he could think was what a senseless way to die. But now—what Emily was telling him made it far worse. “You know for a fact Kenneth had been drinking? You’d said you were gone to Ruidoso. You couldn’t have seen him.”

      Emily pushed aside her unfinished cocoa and got up from the table. “The autopsy report stated there was enough alcohol in his