Best of Cowboys Bundle

by Vicki Lewis Thompson, Barbara White Daille, Judy Christenberry, Christine Wenger, Shirley Rogers, Crystal Green, Nina Bruhns, Candance Schuler, Carole Mortimer

  His hands shook as he opened the note, read it, then carefully refolded it and stuck it in his shirt pocket. Anger burned at his gut and he had a deep need to shout his frustration.

  He could have understood Faith’s leaving him because of the condition of the ranch, or out of fear that he could adequately provide for her. But for her to abandon what they had together because she couldn’t have kids was unacceptable.

  “Damn fool woman.”

  Did she honestly think he was that shallow? Did she really believe that he wanted kids more than he wanted her?

  He took a deep breath, then another as his words came back to haunt him. After they’d made love last night, he’d asked her to marry him, then immediately started talking about them having a family together.

  He shook his head at his own stupidity. He’d just the same as told her that’s why he wanted to marry her. But if she thought he was going to let a little thing like her not being able to have a baby stop him from being with the only woman he’d ever loved, she was in for a big surprise.

  Pulling his cell phone from the holder on the side of his belt, he punched in Brant Wakefield’s number. After he’d explained what he needed, Cooper ended the call, then descended the steps and walked out to the barn.

  “Whiskers, I have a job for you,” he said when he spotted the old man standing outside of Penelope’s stall.

  “What’s that, boy?” Whiskers asked, his tone cautious.

  “For the next two weeks, I need you here to cook meals for about five men.”

  “That sounds fair ’nuff,” Whiskers said, nodding. “What you got planned?”

  “I’ve got a pasture to fence, a house to rewire and plumbing to put in.”

  Whiskers looked shocked. “That’s it? You ain’t gonna—”

  When the old geezer’s voice trailed off, Cooper almost laughed. He could tell that curiosity was about to kill Whiskers. The man couldn’t figure out why Cooper wasn’t more upset about Faith’s leaving.

  Taking pity on his old friend, Cooper explained, “After I get this place in shape, I have a little trip to take.”

  “A trip?” Whiskers’s face lit up brighter than a Christmas tree full of lights. “And jest where you goin’, Coop?”

  Cooper grinned. “I thought I’d take a ride up to Illinois and see if I couldn’t find myself a good woman to settle down with.”

  Whiskers laughed. “I was beginnin’ to wonder ’bout you, boy.”

  “I don’t give up that easy,” Cooper said, shaking his head. He smiled at the man whose meddling had helped him find the woman of his dreams. “I know what I want. And I’m damned well not afraid to go after her.”

  Twelve

  “I ’m what?!”

  “I said you’re pregnant, Ms. Broderick.”

  Faith stared at the woman in total disbelief. “That’s not possible. My ex-husband and I tried for over a year and we never could get pregnant. And I know he wasn’t the one with the problem. He and his wife have a child now.”

  “In some cases the harder a couple tries, the less successful they are,” Dr. Shelton said, smiling. “Sometimes all it takes is for them to relax and stop worrying about becoming pregnant.”

  Faith thought back on her marriage. Once she and Eric had made the decision to try to have a baby, he’d started keeping graphs and charts of everything from her temperature to the best time of the month for them to make love. And with each month they were unsuccessful, it added more stress and tension to their relationship.

  The doctor handed her a prescription for prenatal vitamins as she rose to leave. “I want you to cut out caffeine, get plenty of rest, eat well-balanced meals and take these.” She patted Faith’s shoulder. “Congratulations. I’m sure once the shock wears off, you’ll be very happy.”

  As Faith got dressed, a thousand different things ran through her mind. She was going to have a baby. Unbelievable!

  She’d attributed her feeling lousy for the past couple of weeks to missing Cooper, and of second-guessing her decision to leave the Triple Bar ranch every minute of every day since she’d come home.

  A warm happiness suffused her whole body. She was pregnant with Cooper’s baby. She wanted to shout it from the rooftops.

  Walking out to the car, she stopped in the middle of the parking lot as a disturbing thought intruded. What if he was so upset with her that he never wanted to see her again?

  Fear began to take hold. It had been over two weeks and she’d heard nothing from him. Not a phone call. Not a letter. Nothing.

  What if he’d decided she wasn’t the woman he wanted after all? Had her judgment once again proven faulty?

  She took a deep breath and shoved her doubts aside. She may have been wrong about many things in her life and misplaced her trust in several people, but in her heart, she knew she wasn’t wrong about Cooper.

  In her note to him, she’d asked that he not try to contact her. Maybe he had just been respecting her wishes.

  Getting into the driver’s seat of her grandmother’s car, she pulled the visor down and gazed into the vanity mirror. She didn’t look any different than she had this morning when she was getting ready for her doctor’s appointment. But in the past forty-five minutes her whole life had changed. Forever.

  She was having a baby. Cooper’s baby.

  For the first time in two weeks she felt a bubble of hope begin to rise within her.

  Cooper pulled the rental car away from the Williamson County Airport and, following a map, easily found the little town of Carterville. He was glad he’d made the decision to fly instead of drive the nine-hundred-plus miles to Faith’s grandmother’s place. It would have taken him more time than he was willing to waste and been one more day without Faith in his arms.

  Less than five minutes after he drove into town, he was standing on the front porch of Faith’s grandmother’s home, knocking on the door.

  When an older lady answered the door, he smiled. “Is this where Faith Broderick lives?”

  Her gaze raked him from the top of his Resistol to the soles of his boots before she nodded. “You must be Cooper Adams.”

  Hoping it was a good sign that Faith had mentioned him to her grandmother, his smile turned to a grin. “Yes, ma’am. I sure am.”

  “I’m Faith’s grandmother, Penelope Hudson,” she said, shaking his hand.

  “Is Faith home, Mrs. Hudson? I need to discuss some things with her.”

  She shook her head. “I’m sorry. Faith is gone right now, but she should be back soon.”

  “Would you mind if I waited for her, ma’am? It’s really important that I talk to her.”

  The woman smiled pleasantly for the first time since he’d knocked on the door. “Why don’t you come in and have a cup of coffee, son? It’ll give us the chance to get acquainted.”

  “I’d like that, ma’am,” Cooper said as he stepped through the opened door. “I’d like that a lot.”

  When Faith returned from the doctor’s office, a car she’d never seen before blocked the drive. She fleetingly wondered who could be visiting, but as she parked her grandmother’s Buick along the curb in front of the house, she forgot all about the visitor’s identity. She had more important things on her mind.

  She needed to call the airlines and reserve a seat on the first available flight to Amarillo. Then, while she packed, she’d need to decide on what she wanted to say to Cooper when she got there.

  Mentally ticking off the things she’d need to accomplish before she left, she opened the front door, dropped the car keys on the antique library table in the living room, then walked straight to her bedroom. She heard voices and the sound of laughter coming from the kitchen, but she couldn’t tell who was talking or what they were saying.

  It didn’t matter. She had too much on her mind to worry about who was visiting or what they were discussing. At the moment all she could think of was getting back to Cooper, trying to decide what she would say to him, and hoping that he loved her enough to give
them a second chance.

  But first things first. She had to find her datebook with the phone number of the airline so she could book her flight. Searching her desk and nightstand, her impatience mounted. It was nowhere to be found. Where could she have put it?

  Maybe she’d left it in the living room. She hurried down the hall to search the end tables. No luck there.

  “Nana, have you seen my datebook?” she called as she pulled out the couch cushions to see if it had slipped between them.

  “Is this what you’re looking for?” a rich baritone asked from behind her.

  Whirling around, Faith gasped. She couldn’t believe her eyes. There stood Cooper casually leaning one shoulder against the door frame, his arms crossed over his chest. In one hand he held her datebook.

  “When…did you get here?” she asked, feeling as if she might hyperventilate.

  He checked his watch. “About half an hour ago.”

  Her heart thumped against her ribs and she took a deep breath in an effort to calm herself. His presence dominated the room, and although she’d have never believed it possible, he seemed even more overwhelmingly masculine than ever before.

  “Faith, honey, I’m going to the library,” her grandmother said, breezing past them on her way to the door. “I just remembered that I promised Phyllis that I would help her sort through some books for the book fair.” Turning to Cooper, she smiled. “There’s plenty of coffee left if you’d like another cup.”

  Faith watched Nana scoop the car keys off the small table by the door and walk out, leaving her alone with Cooper.

  What was she going to say to him?

  She’d thought she’d have several hours to plan what she wanted to tell him first, to prepare herself for seeing him again. But with him standing there looking so handsome, so undeniably male, she could barely remember her own name.

  “I could use more coffee,” he said, handing her the datebook. He turned to go back into the kitchen. “You want some?”

  “No, thank you,” she said, remembering the doctor’s warning about caffeine. Feeling completely off-center, she tossed the planner onto the couch and followed him.

  She watched him walk to the coffeemaker on the counter beside the sink. Pouring himself a cup, he leaned back against the counter, crossed his feet at the ankles and took a sip. “You look tired, darlin’. Why don’t you sit down?”

  Her knees turned to rubber and her heart skipped a beat at his use of the familiar endearment. Deciding it might not be a bad idea to sit down before she melted in a puddle at his big booted feet, she sank into a chair at the table.

  Not knowing what to say, she asked, “How is Penelope?”

  He shrugged. “She’s doing pretty well, all things considered.”

  Alarmed, Faith sat up straight. “What do you mean? Has something happened to her?”

  “No.” He shook his head, then pinned her with his piercing blue gaze. “She’s doing fine if you take into consideration that she’s been abandoned twice.”

  “Twice?”

  Nodding, he set his cup on the counter, then walked over to stand in front of her. “The first time couldn’t be helped. Her momma got stuck in the mud and died before anyone found her. But the second time was an entirely different story.”

  Faith gulped. “I…I’m sorry. At the time I didn’t think how it would affect Penelope.”

  He pulled out the chair across from her and sat down. “There were a lot of things you failed to think about, darlin’.”

  Leaning back, he looked deceptively relaxed. But she could detect the underlying tension in the tone of his voice, the tiny lines at the corners of his eyes.

  “I did what I thought was best,” she said, defensively. “I know how much you love children and I didn’t want to deprive you of—”

  “You don’t know squat,” he said, cutting her explanation short. “Where do you get off deciding you know what’s best for me? Don’t you think I’m capable of making those decisions for myself?”

  Taken aback, she stammered, “Well…I…I—”

  Sitting forward, he reached across the table to take her hand in his. “What makes you think I’d rather have children than have you, Faith?”

  Speechless, she shook her head.

  His smile was so tender it took her breath. “Don’t you know that you can’t miss what you’ve never had?” He rubbed his thumb over the back of her hand, sending a shiver up her spine. “But I have had you. And I can’t live without you, darlin’.”

  “But—” For the first time since she’d seen him, the hope that had formed earlier when she was leaving the doctor’s office began to grow.

  He shook his head. “No ‘buts’ about it. As long as I have you, it doesn’t matter to me if we can’t have kids. It’s you and your love that I need. Kids would have been an extension of that love, but it wouldn’t have been the reason for how I feel about you.” He smiled. “If you’d like, someday we can check into adoption. Or if we feel the need from time to time for some real chaos in our lives, we’ll borrow Jenna and Flint’s kids for a day or two.”

  “There’s something you need to know, Cooper.”

  She watched his jaw tighten and his eyes narrow. “Do you love me?”

  “Yes,” she said without a moment’s hesitation.

  “Then there’s not another damned thing that matters, darlin’,” he said firmly. “I love you and I want you with me for the rest of my life.” He lifted her hand to his mouth and brushing her palm with his lips, added, “I came to take you back to the Triple Bar Ranch where you belong.”

  Tears suddenly flooded her eyes and ran down her cheeks as she left her chair and hurled herself into his arms.

  Cooper wasn’t sure whether to take her emotional outburst as a good sign or not. But at the moment she was in his arms and that was all that mattered.

  Holding her close he stroked her hair and murmured what he hoped were soothing words as her emotions ran their course. When her sobs quieted, he lowered his head to kiss her, but leaning back, she shook her head.

  “You’re wrong, Cooper.”

  “You won’t go back to Texas with me?” Was she reluctant to return because she thought life on the ranch would be as primitive as it had been two weeks ago? “If you’re worried about the living conditions, you can stop. You wouldn’t recognize the place now. For the last two weeks I’ve worked my butt off to get it into shape.”

  “Cooper, darling, I’m not worried about that.” The smile she gave him just about knocked his size thirteens right off his feet. “There’s something else we have to discuss,” she said, placing her hand on his cheek.

  “What do you want to talk about?” he asked huskily. The feel of her soft hand touching him, caressing him, sent a shaft of desire straight through to his core. He’d like nothing more than to rip their clothes off and prove to her that they belonged together, to once again make her his.

  “Since I left Texas, circumstances have changed.”

  Fear jolted him out of his sensual daydream. “You want to fill me in on what’s different?”

  He watched her take a deep breath before meeting his eyes. “I told you that I’d been married before.”

  “Yes, but what has that got to do with—”

  She held up her hand. “Let me explain.”

  As he nodded that he would keep quiet, the fear within him intensified. Was she trying to tell him that she had reconciled with her ex-husband?

  “When Eric and I were married, we tried for over a year to get pregnant with no luck. Then just before we were scheduled to go in for testing, I confided in my best friend that I thought Eric might be sterile.” She shook her head. “That’s when I found out that my husband and best friend had been having an affair and he wasn’t the one with the fertility problem.”

  “He’d gotten her pregnant?” If Cooper could have gotten his hands on the jerk at that moment, he would have cheerfully choked him for hurting Faith.

  She nodded. “Er
ic said that he never meant for it to happen, but since it had, he wanted to marry Charlotte so he could be with the child I obviously couldn’t give him. That’s why I quit teaching. We were all teachers at the same school. I just couldn’t face being with them day after day and not think about what they had that I couldn’t.”

  Anger burned in Cooper’s gut at the betrayal Faith had suffered at her husband and best friend’s hands. But he didn’t understand what that had to do with circumstances changing between them. “What has that got to do with us, darlin’?”

  She rose from his lap to pace the floor. Something had her as nervous as a priest in a harem.

  “Since it was clear that I was the one with the fertility problem, I didn’t see the need to keep the appointment for the testing.” She bit her lower lip. “At that point in my life, I just couldn’t face having a doctor confirm what I already knew.”

  He nodded. “That’s understandable.”

  Taking a deep breath, she turned to face him. “But I was wrong, Cooper.”

  His scalp tingled and he sat up straight in the chair. “About what?” he asked, slowly.

  She laughed nervously. “It seems I’m not only capable of becoming pregnant, I am pregnant.”

  He left the chair so fast it fell over backward on the floor. Cupping her cheeks with his hands, he tilted her face up to meet his gaze. “Darlin’, are you sure?”

  “Yes. That’s why I was gone when you arrived. I had a doctor’s appointment.”

  Groaning, Cooper pulled her into his arms and held her close. “I love you with all my heart and it wouldn’t matter to me if you couldn’t get pregnant.” He took a deep breath as emotion tightened his chest. “But I’d be a damned liar if I told you I wasn’t the happiest man alive right now, just knowing that you’re carrying my baby.”

  Her arms wrapped around him like she’d never let him go, she asked, “Does the offer still hold?”

  “The offer?” Confused, he leaned back to look down at her. “What are you talking about, darlin’?”