The Rancher's Blessed Event. Stella Bagwell

and never coming back.

      It was the stinging pain in her hand that finally jolted Emily back to reality. Instantly, anger and horror swept across her face. She’d slapped him!

      Rubbing the wounded spot on his jaw, Cooper eyed her flushed cheeks. “So there is life in you after all.”

      Oh God, he didn’t know. He couldn’t know!

      Pressing her hand over her mouth, she ran to the bathroom and prayed he wouldn’t hear her retching.

      Chapter Two

      On the edge of a windswept break, Cooper reined the gray to a halt and gazed out at the snowy mesa floor. Many times in the past he’d ridden to this very spot where the sagebrush grew belly high to a horse and a lone pinon pine stood sentinel over the ranch below.

      However, this morning Cooper felt no joy as he looked down at the home that had been in the Dunn Family for more than a hundred years. The Diamond D was not the same. Not physically nor spiritually and the knowledge saddened him greatly.

      He hadn’t expected it to touch him like this. Hell, it had been years since he’d been on the place. He’d figured once he’d seen it again, the old ranch wouldn’t mean that much to him. After all, it had always been Kenneth’s baby. Their father had seen to that. William Dunn had never hidden the fact that of his two sons he considered Kenneth to be the better rancher. It was one of the main reasons Cooper had worked so hard to succeed at bronc riding. He’d never felt as if he really had a place of importance here on the ranch. Yet in spite of all that, it cut something deep inside him to see the home place like this. So shabby. So empty.

      Pushing his coat collar up against the falling snow, Cooper nudged the gray down the bluff and back toward the house. Smoke was spiraling up from the old rock chimney, signaling him that Emily had just stoked up the fire.

      Unconsciously his fingertips touched the spot on his jaw she’d slapped. The memory of her anger this morning put a wry smile on his lips. Emily was still Emily after all, and he wondered how she was going to react when he told her what he planned to do.

      Almost a half hour later, Cooper found her in the living room in front of the fireplace. The rocking chair she sat in was an old oak one that had belonged to his mother. The back was high and the arms and legs carved. Though he’d never known his mother, others had told him the chair had been a favorite of Laura Dunn’s and it comforted Cooper somehow to see Emily in it now.

      “The snow is getting heavier,” he said as he grew near her and the warm fire.

      She glanced up from the blue jeans she was patching to see him shedding a heavy sheepskin coat. Snow still clung to his shoulders and the brim of his hat His nose and cheeks were reddened by the cold wind. She wondered why he’d bothered to go out on such a nasty morning.

      “It’s only the end of October,” she replied. “I hope this isn’t a forewarning to what the rest of the winter is going to be like.”

      Taking a seat in a stuffed armchair a few feet away from her, his eyes wandered over the room. Other than being run-down, it really hadn’t changed much in appearance, either. The ceiling was low and traversed with dark oak beams, the walls white plaster, the floor Spanish tile. The house was typical hacienda style and in its early years had once been regarded as a showcase. Now it needed money and a complete refurbishment. As did everything else he looked at on the place.

      His eyes coming to rest on her face, he said, “I didn’t see much hay stacked away in the barn. Is that all you have?”

      She nodded. “That’s it. Kenneth didn’t want to bother planting an alfalfa crop.”

      His features twisted with confusion. “What the hell did he plan to feed this winter?”

      Emily grimaced and placed her mending on the floor beside the rocker. “When our alfalfa ran out, he’d planned on buying more hay from Daddy. It would be cheaper that way. Especially with Daddy giving us a generous cut.”

      “That doesn’t sound like Kenneth.”

      Her expression both wry and sad, she glanced over at him. “No. Not the Kenneth you used to know.”

      “For as long as I can remember the Diamond D raised its own alfalfa. It was one of the reasons why the ranch did so well.”

      She looked back at the fire while thinking how ironic to hear Cooper repeating all the old arguments she’d given Kenneth. “I know. But the tractor has been giving us lots of problems. Kenneth figured by the time we fixed it, then counted the cost of fertilizer, labor and baling, we’d be better off not raising a crop of hay.”

      Scooting to the edge of the chair, Cooper leaned toward her. “I’m going to tell you flat out, Emily. This place looks like hell. What’s been going on?”

      Emily had figured that once daylight came, and Cooper had the chance to look around the place, he was going to be appalled. The ranch looked nothing like the one he’d known before he left for the rodeo circuit.

      Rising from the rocker, she stood with her back to the warmth of the fire. “You’ve been here a few hours and you want to hear in one short explanation what’s happened to the ranch,” she said dryly.

      Cooper’s gray eyes drifted up and down the length of her. She was a tall woman and from the looks of her, age hadn’t added any extra pounds to her slender frame. If anything, she appeared thinner. But it was difficult for Cooper to really tell much about her shape beneath the baggy jeans and sweater she was wearing.

      “Do you not want to tell me? Or do you just not know? Which one is it?” he asked.

      He sounded outraged and Emily stared at him in disbelief. “In the ten years you’ve been gone, you’ve never wondered or worried about the ranch’s condition. Don’t you think your display of concern is a little late in coming?”

      Her sarcasm made Cooper want to go to her and shake her. But her fragile appearance stopped him. He got the feeling if he touched her, she just might break.

      “Ever since Dad died, the Diamond D has been in Kenneth’s hands. That’s the way he wanted it,” he said quietly. “My brother would have never let it get in this condition without a reason.”

      Lifting her eyes to the ceiling, Emily let out a long sigh. “A reason? Why not several reasons?”

      “Okay. So there was more than one. Tell me.”

      Her mind said she didn’t owe this man any explanations. He’d forfeited everything when he’d walked away. Yet when she looked at him, her heart interfered with her thinking. Kenneth had been his brother and this had been his home. It couldn’t be easy for him to find them both gone.

      “Cooper, the ranch’s decline happened over years. Little by little Kenneth seemed to lose interest. And then all sorts of problems kept popping up, like broken-down vehicles, sick cows, bad weather. The list goes on. But I guess the plummeting price in the cattle market is what finally broke the place.”

      His brows shot up. “The ranch is broke?”

      She supposed that was hard for a man like him to imagine. Through the gossip grapevine and what little bit of sports news she caught on TV, she knew Cooper Dunn had made plenty of money these past ten years riding broncs in the PRCA. He was a champion, a celebrity figure in the world of rodeo. His finances had done nothing but grow.

      “Let me put it this way. The ranch isn’t making money.”

      “How many cattle are you running now?” he asked.

      “A hundred and fifty head.”

      The amount was so paltry she might as well as said none. He looked at her and the disgust on his face brought a flush of anger to her cheeks.

      “I know it sounds and looks bad,” she told him, “but when you have a bad streak of luck—”

      “You get up and fight back,” he