Love Me (Coopers Creek Book 1)

by Bronwen Evans

  Cautiously, Emily undid the paper with wild turkeys printed on it and opened the box. A bunch of legal documents lay inside. A life insurance policy, a deed, will, and papers for a bank account.

  Emily was baffled. “What is all this?”

  Tyler said, “This is me showing you just how serious I am about you, how completely in love with you I am, and how much I want to share everything in my life with you. That I believe that we’re truly partners in every way.”

  “Okay.”

  “This is a life insurance policy on me, of which you are the beneficiary,” he said, holding it up. “This is the deed to our house.” He unfolded it and pointed to a section. “Your name is now on the deed. See?”

  Emily nodded, but stared in disbelief. “You put my name on the deed?”

  “I think I just said that.” He grinned mischievously at her. “This is my will, and aside from all of the business stuff, which is too complicated to go into, you’re the beneficiary of that, too. This is our bank account, which you’re now on. Well, you will be once we go to the bank to sign the papers.”

  “I don’t understand. Are you dying or something?” Panic threatened to swallow her up.

  Tyler took her hands. “No. I’m fine. I’m just trying to show you that you’re not just an employee and that our relationship isn’t just an arrangement. I’ll never, ever try to cut you out of Hayley’s life again—or mine. That’s what this is all about.” He pulled out another document. “These are the custody papers for Hayley. Simon signed them yesterday and you and I have to sign them, too.”

  Emily tried not to get her hopes up, but Tyler was making a compelling case. “I have to sign them?”

  “Yeah. The question is whether or not your signature is going to have to be modified later on.” He opened the documents and showed her where her name was printed. “It has you listed as joint petitioner and states that you and I will jointly make all decisions about Hayley’s care. Essentially, I’m putting it in writing that you’ll always be in Hayley’s life, and I hope my life, too.”

  Emily couldn’t believe it. She knew that Tyler didn’t fool around when it came to business and legal matters. He was actually making it official. “What did you mean about my signature needing to be changed?”

  Tyler got down on one knee and pulled out the ring he’d wanted to give her the night on the Bluff. “Emily, I love you more than anything except that little girl upstairs and the future children I want to have with you.

  “I know how much I screwed up in the past, but that’ll never happen again. I want to spend the rest of my life with you.” He became forceful. “Therefore, we’re getting married because I can’t live without you. I know damn well you love me and can’t live without me, either. So I’m going to put this ring on your finger and we’re going to tie the knot and live happily ever after. Got it?”

  Emily did indeed understand. Immeasurably moved that he’d gone to such lengths to prove himself to her, she said, “Yes. I get it. I love and need you, too. I can’t think of anything more wonderful than sharing the rest of our lives together.”

  Tyler took her left hand and slid the diamond ring on her third finger. It shimmered in the light and Emily gasped over its beauty. “It’s gorgeous.”

  She was surprised when Tyler’s eyes filled with tears. “It was Mom’s engagement ring. She gave it to me when I graduated from college to give to the woman I fell in love with. You’re the only woman I’ve ever loved, Emily, and the only woman I’d ever put that ring on.”

  “I’m so honored that you would give me her ring, Ty.” She kissed him as she also grew misty-eyed. “I’ll always cherish it.”

  Pulling her into his arms, he said, “And I’ll always cherish you.”

  “I believe you. I believe in you.”

  Tyler met her gaze. “I’ll never give you a reason to doubt me ever again. Just love me.”

  Lowering his lips to hers, he gave Emily a passionate kiss that heated her all the way to her toes. Wrapping her arms around his neck, Emily responded to him as her heart soared with joy and love.

  Epilogue

  Tyler and Emily were married in mid-January at the Cooper’s Creek Methodist Church. It was a large wedding since they invited many of his business associates and employees. They’d also invited Dr. Wright, Dr. Burnette, and Dr. Zimmerman since they’d been instrumental in Hayley’s continued improvement.

  Although she still became tired, her memory loses were infrequent and she was able to do some schoolwork every day. Slowly, she was reintroduced to physical activity and chased around the chocolate Spoodle puppy they’d gotten for her as promised at Christmas. Her doctors were confident that with a little more time, Hayley would make a full recovery.

  The sale of the Cooper’s Creek Medical Center to Horizon Enterprises would become finalized in February. The company had already started making plans to improve the facility and find qualified specialists.

  Chase was having a blast getting all of the marketing in place to attract investors and staff, and had convinced Ric, Tyler, and Emily to name the children’s neurology department the Hayley Children’s Neurological Center. He’d also gotten them to let Hayley star in the TV and radio ads for the department. She was excited about going to L.A. for commercial shoots.

  They’d tried to lure Dr. Wright away from Denver Memorial, but he was happy where he was. However, he did agree to consult in the building of the department and to put feelers out to some of his colleagues who might be interested in heading it up.

  As for Tyler, there were times when he couldn’t believe how good his life was. The man who’d never wanted to be tied down to one woman or have kids was now very happily married to the woman of his dreams and the father of an adorable little girl.

  Hayley had won out about calling Tyler and Emily Mommy and Daddy and truth be told, both of them loved it. Simon had come to terms with it and was simply content to be in Hayley’s life.

  Thrilled with her roles as wife and mother, Emily had never been happier. Her work was going well and she’d also started writing her own romance book. She did however, worry about Ric. He’d seemed tired at Thanksgiving and exhausted at Christmas. She told Tyler not to work him so hard, but Tyler said he wasn’t. Something was making her brother unhappy but when she tried to talk to him he said everything was fine. Maybe she was being over sensitive. Just because she was so happy she wanted everyone else to be. Ric was big enough and old enough to look out for himself.

  But he was her big brother and she loved him. You can’t help worrying about those you love.

  *****

  Right after the first of February, Tyler had gone upstairs to get ready for bed. Emily was already there, working sitting up in bed, as she often did. She said that it was her favorite place to work.

  When he entered the room, he saw a giftwrapped box lying on his side of the bed. “What’s this?”

  Emily closed her laptop and gave him a Cheshire Cat grin. “You’ll have to open it to find out.”

  He picked up the box and shook it, but it didn’t make any noise. He gave Emily a questioning look, but she wasn’t giving anything away. Unable to stand the suspense any longer, he ripped the paper off and opened the box.

  “It’s a T-shirt,” he said.

  He lifted out the white garment and his jaw dropped when he read it. “Baby Daddy” was printed on the front in black letters with a large arrow pointing up towards the collar. Stunned, he couldn’t speak as he looked at the T-shirt and then at her.

  Emily laughed and clapped her hands over his amazement.

  Happiness and love flooded Tyler as he looked at his wife. My pregnant wife. He let out a shout of joy and jumped onto the bed where he took Emily in his arms and kissed her until they were both breathless and laughing.

  “We’re having a baby,” he said in awe. “When? How far along are you?”

  They’d wanted to start trying for a baby right away so Emily had stopped her birth control right after
they’d gotten engaged on Thanksgiving.

  She caressed his slightly stubbly jaw. “He or she will arrive in early September. It seems like you’re happy about this,” she teased him.

  “Ecstatic, is more accurate,” he said. “Do you have any idea how much I love you?”

  “I think I do just a little bit.” She held her thumb and forefinger close together. “I love you, too.”

  Tyler’s suggestive smile made Emily’s heart beat faster. “You know, just because you’re pregnant doesn’t mean that we have to stop practicing. We have to be ready to make the next one.”

  Emily laughed. “Whoa, there. One baby at a time, GQ.”

  He groaned at her use of Brooke’s nickname. “Okay. We’ll have this one and then work on the other four.”

  “Four?”

  Her incredulous expression made him laugh as he released her and picked up her laptop. He put it over on the bureau, laid his new T-shirt on top of it, and undressed. Then he put the Baby Daddy T-shirt back on.

  “I’m going to make love to my Baby Mama with this on,” he said crawling over to her.

  Emily giggled as he hugged her and nuzzled her neck. “You think so, huh?”

  “Yeah.” Drawing back to look in her eyes, he said, “Emily Jeffries, love of my life, will you make love with your Baby Daddy.”

  “Yes, Tyler Jeffries, love of my life, I will.”

  He stopped and kissed her gently. “Thank you for loving me.”

  “How could I not, when you are so easy to love.”

  As the two people who’d found their way back to each other made slow, gentle love that night, their bond deepened into a powerful love that would stand the test of time. No one knew what the future held, but they would get through whatever life threw at them together, now and forever, because love was always enough.

  Sneak Peek at Heal Me, Coopers Creek #2

  Chapter One

  “Hang on! I’m coming!”

  Ric added a curse under his breath, he hated these bloody crutches. As slow as a hobbled horse, Ric swung his way to the front door as fast as his mastery of his crutches would allow. Reaching it, he yanked it open and stared into a gorgeous pair of chocolate-brown eyes, the painful path to the door instantly forgotten.

  “Dr. Donoghue?” Well, hell yes! He almost wanted to buy a dog himself.

  “Yes. You must be Ric Stanford.”

  The woman’s beauty rendered him mute for a moment. Then he mentally shook himself and smiled. “Yeah. Sorry it took me so long to get to the door. I had to dodge around Coco’s, uh, accidents.”

  He moved back to allow her entry into the house.

  “That’s okay. You can just call me Kate,” she said. “Where is she?”

  “I penned her in the laundry room so that she didn’t keep puking all over the place. It’s this way. Just watch out for landmines.”

  As he led her through the living room and dining room, Ric was careful not to catch one of his crutches on anything. Clumsy and crutches went hand in hand, not the image he wanted in front of this beauty.

  “Don’t worry about me. I’m used to dealing with that sort of stuff. Occupational hazard and all that,” Kate said.

  Ric smiled. “I just didn’t want you to slip and fall on dog crap. One of us on crutches is enough. I really appreciate you making a house call like this. I still can’t reach Emily. Her phone must’ve died and I can’t drive since I’m on pain meds.”

  As they reached the kitchen, Ric stopped and grimaced at the small pile of dog poop on the hardwood floor. “Damn, that reeks.”

  Having grown up riding and taking care of horses, Ric could handle the smell of shit, but Coco’s stank worse than anything he’d ever encountered before.

  Kate sat her bag on the kitchen table and took out some Latex gloves. “Believe it or not, I’ve smelled worse.”

  “You’re kidding?”

  Kate shook her head a little and smiled. Ric noted that her pink, Cupid’s bow lips were devoid of lipstick or gloss. It didn’t look like she wore makeup at all. However, Kate wasn’t in need of cosmetics to enhance her natural beauty.

  Rich, chestnut-brown hair hung down past her shoulders and thick, black lashes framed her dark eyes. High cheekbones, a straight, pretty nose, and a lightly tanned complexion combined to create one of the most arresting female faces that Ric had ever seen.

  “I’m going to collect a sample so I can do a culture back at the clinic.”

  “Okay.”

  Ric watched her take out a collection kit. She crouched down in front of him and Ric took advantage of the opportunity to check her out. Her light blue jeans were faded and there was a ragged tear in the right knee. She wore beat-up tan cowboy boots and a red-and-black heavy men’s flannel jacket. The jeans fit her like a glove, showing off her shapely legs and heart-shaped ass. A tomboy. A very sexy tomboy.

  I wouldn’t mind climbing into the hayloft with her. He snapped his gaze away from her as she stood up, instead looking at the clock on the wall.

  “Where’s the laundry room?” Kate asked as she deposited her specimen in a Ziploc bag and shut it.

  “Right through here.” He hobbled through a doorway and down a short hallway. Putting a hand on the doorknob, he said, “I don’t know what we’re going to find.”

  Kate laughed. “You make it sound like a murder scene.”

  The slightly throaty sound and her sparkling eyes sent a jolt of awareness through Ric and he smiled back as he opened the door. Coco, a chocolate Spoodle puppy, bounded out of the laundry room, catching him off-guard when she jumped up at him.

  Four months old now, Coco was growing rapidly and she was strong. One of Ric’s crutches slid out from under him and he fell back against the wall. It jarred his broken ankle, sending pain lancing through the offended joint.

  “Fuck!”

  Kate grabbed his left arm to help steady him.

  Coco was oblivious to Ric’s plight and wagged her tail furiously as she sniffed Kate’s legs.

  “Are you okay?” Kate asked, meeting his eyes.

  Ric stood six-two and he judged Kate to be around five-eight or five-nine; tall for a woman. Her grip on his bicep was firm and her hands were strong, yet feminine. She smelled like hay, horse, and lilac. Hunger stole through him as he glanced at her full lips. It had been a few weeks without a woman and Kate was doing all sorts of nasty things to his libido.

  Realizing that she was expecting an answer, Ric pulled it together. “Yeah. I’ll live.”

  She didn’t move and their eyes locked for a few moments. Then she seemed to come back to herself with a start. “I’ll get your crutch.”

  Before she bent to retrieve it, Ric saw that she was blushing and smiled to himself. Either his pain meds were making him loopy or they’d shared a moment of mutual attraction. He hoped it was the latter.

  “Are you sure that you’re all right?” she asked as she handed him the crutch.

  “Yeah. I’m just glad there was a wall there. It’s the strangest thing.” He smiled self-deprecatingly. “You’d think a champion roper would have more coordination on these things. I guess I need more practice.”

  Kate’s mouth curved upwards in response to his smile. A dimple in her right cheek winked at him and he was fascinated by it. “Take your time. You don’t need to break anything else. I’ll examine Coco in the kitchen. Why don’t you go sit down? There’s really nothing you can do to help me.”

  “You sure?”

  Kate nodded. “Positive. I’ll hold Coco until you get settled.”

  “Thanks.”

  Ric’s ankle throbbed as he carefully made his way to the living room. He felt bad for leaving Kate to deal with Coco, but she was a veterinarian, so she was used to subduing excited animals. He went over to the recliner he’d been set up in and sat down in it. Some of the pain in his ankle was alleviated when he raised the footrest.

  A bottle of hydrocodone sat on the stand by the chair. Ric hated taking the pain meds, but the two
fractures hurt like a bitch at times and the drug at least took the edge off and helped him sleep. Sighing, he took two out of the bottle and took them with the homemade lemonade Emily had left him early that afternoon.

  He heard Kate talking to Coco out in the kitchen. The slightly smoky timber of her voice was pleasant to the ear and she had a great laugh. Did she have a boyfriend? Was she married? He hadn’t noticed if she wore a ring. Although he might be a womanizer, Ric was no homewrecker.

  Secretly a romantic, he firmly believed in fidelity and wouldn’t even think of getting involved with someone who was in a committed relationship. After seeing how happy his sister and her husband Tyler were, Ric had been thinking more about settling down himself. He loved his niece, Hayley, to death and he wanted a whole passel of kids of his own. Trouble was, finding the right women. He knew the pain that came of bad choices. He’d loved a woman once who’d led him a merry dance. When he finally gave up on her, she got herself killed and he still wondered if he could have done more….If somehow he might have saved her..

  Natural beauty, Kate, was definitely not a ‘wildcat’ the type of women his sister accused him of dating to protect himself from hurt. She’d pointed out that he’d never fall in love with that sort of woman.

  While he definitely found the sexy vet attractive, he instinctively knew she was not the type of woman who indulged in one night stands, and he definitely wasn’t sure he was ready for more just yet. He was enjoying New York. Enjoying the fast pace of the investment world and the respected place his firm, Horizon Enterprises held in it.

  Kate was the type of woman Emily would try to fix him up with. If Emily didn’t love this puppy so much he’d almost imagine her setting this scenario up.

  His morose musings were interrupted by Kate’s reappearance. “Well, the good news is that Coco will be fine.”

  “What about the blood in her poop?”

  Kate cocked her head. “Are there any trashcans around that Coco can get into?”

  Ric gave her a startled look. “Yeah. All over the house. Uh oh. Are you saying she’s eaten something she shouldn’t. What did she eat?”