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“Don’t worry. The doc’s with your girl. I made him promise to stay with her until you were awake.” Cooper unfolded his hard-muscled body from the chair and crossed the room. Anna heard the scrape of porcelain and the tinkle and splash of pouring water. “I also made Katie stay and read aloud to your daughter, since at first I thought she was the cause of all this.”
“The cause?”
He handed her a tin mug with a half grin, lopsided and attractive. “I thought she’d shocked you with her outrageous propositions and that’s why you fainted.”
“Propositions?” She nearly spilled the water.
Cooper’s bigger fingers wrapped around hers. His skin’s heat scorched her and sent sparkling little frissons dancing up her arm.
“She does this to every woman she comes across. Tries to charm them first into going out to dinner with me. And then into marrying me, that little scamp.”
The rim of the cup brushed her bottom lip. His hand still guided hers. The cool water washed into her mouth, but she hardly noticed it. Cooper—he seemed to fill her senses—the whiskered days’ growth along his jaw, the scent of leather and pine, the rumbling richness of his voice. He was all she saw, all she felt rushing through her heated body.
“Katie?” The cool water hadn’t washed away the confused fog in her mind.
“Then the doc discovered the gunshot wound in your upper arm. You should have told someone before this. You’re going to be all right, but the doc had to give you a few stitches.”
She closed her eyes. “I didn’t mean to faint.”
“You were thinking of your daughter, not yourself.” When she looked up at him, she saw approval lining his face, and he nodded once.
“Mandy—”
“Lie back. She’s fine.” Cooper stepped away, but his warmth, his presence remained. She thought of all the trouble she was in and knew it was wrong to lean on him.
“Katie just wants a mother, but she shouldn’t have bothered you with your daughter hurt.” Cooper’s dark eyes shone with sadness. “I just hope you can find a way to forgive her.”
Confusion rang in Anna’s mind. What did she need to forgive? Katie only wanted to meet the woman her father planned to manry.
Or did he? Cooper Braddock was not acting as if he’d proposed to her. Polite, helpful, concerned. But not personal. It was as if he didn’t know who she was. He hadn’t even mentioned their future. And now he was walking away, as if they were perfect strangers.
“Maybe we could talk about the letters now.” Anna struggled to sit up. She’d been wrong to postpone discussing it.
Cooper turned, framed in the threshold, a powerful and handsome larger-than-life man any woman would want. “My deputies didn’t find letters in the wreckage, ma’am. I hope it wasn’t anything important.”
He quirked one dark brow, a silent question offering help. But nothing else. No recognition. No comment. And no evasion.
Anna didn’t understand. Surely, Cooper Braddock knew her full name. Surely, by mentioning the letters he would say something about their correspondence. Then Anna remembered Katie’s look of horror and jumbled words when her father walked in.
Realization hit her like a falling brick. Her too-many hopes fell. She’d made this perilous journey for nothing. She still had to worry if Dalton Jennings would somehow figure out where she was and follow her. Now there was no husband waiting, no man to marry, no one to help raise her daughter.
It was Katie who sent the letters. Katie who’d written of the need for a mother able to ride ponies and bake cookies for little Maisie. Katie who wrote with the unpracticed scrawl Anna had mistaken for an uneducated man’s handwriting. So many men in the area just didn’t have much schooling.
Tears burned in her eyes. She’d never felt at such a loss. She’d never felt so foolish.
“Lie still for a few hours more.” Cooper’s voice rumbled like thunder, but was gentle like spring sunshine. “Give yourself a chance to heal first. Then go to your daughter. She’s doing better.”
Better. Anna clung to those words.
Cooper sat down at the kitchen table and listened to the stillness of the house, of the night. He’d had a hell of a long day. Too damn long. And he was no closer to bringing down Corinthos.
He reached for the sugar jar to sweeten the cup of coffee he’d just poured when he heard the pad of little bare feet. “Katie, is that you?”
“Yes, Papa.” So sad.
“Wanna come keep me company?” He pulled out the chair next to him.
“I guess.” She dragged her feet.
“I’m a pretty good listener if you want to tell me what’s wrong.”
She plopped down on the chair, her hair disheveled, her nightgown wrinkled, her feet bare. A heavy sigh. “What about Mrs. Bauer?”
“She hurt her arm.”
“Does it hurt?”
“Probably.” He remembered the look on Katie’s face when Anna Bauer had fainted. “See what you get for trying to marry me off? It scares some women so bad they lose consciousness.”
“Oh, Papa.” Almost a smile. “It’s all my fault.”
“What is?” He tugged his chair around to face her. Something weighed mighty heavily on her conscience. “What did you do, Katie?”
“It’s my fault they’re hurt.” Another sniffle.
“Mrs. Bauer and her daughter? Why Katie, you didn’t rob the stage, did you?”
“No.”
“And you didn’t scare the horses that ran off with the coach, did you?”
“Papa, that’s not what I mean.” Exasperation blended with that sadness. “They’re all hurt because of me, and I can’t sleep.”
“Mrs. Potts said you didn’t eat anything for supper.
“I w-wasn’t hungry.” Sobs broke apart her words. “Oh, Papa, this is the baddest thing I’ve ever done.”
She flew into his arms before he could react, and he held her good and tight, relishing the rare moment. Katie never cried like this, always declaring herself too tough. Yet she felt frail, all bird-thin bones and heartbreak.
“You’re always in trouble, Katie,” he said lightly, his chest tight. He didn’t like his daughter hurting. “I bet it’s not so awful.”
“It is.” Her arms tightened around his neck. “You have to make it right, Papa.”
More soul-deep sobs rocked her body. “You gotta tell me what to do so it don’t hurt no more.”
His chest tightened. So many childhood troubles. He dug a handkerchief from his shirt pocket. “All this crying isn’t going to solve a thing.”
“Oh, Papa.” Katie blew, wiped, then refolded the hanky. “There’s only one thing to do.”
“Just one thing to fix the baddest thing you’ve ever done?” He tried to coax a smile from that serious mouth. And failed.
“You have to marry her.”
“Not that again.”
“But it’s the right thing!”
Cooper couldn’t imagine why she’d gotten all worked up over being without a stepmother. Katherine had been gone a long time, nearly half Katie’s life. They’d adjusted, moved on, tried to make a family with just the three of them. Katie knew he was never going to remarry. As a boy, he’d managed to endure being a stepchild, but his daughters would not be exposed to such a situation.
He swiped at two of Katie’s tears with his thumb. “How many times have we talked about this?”
“Probaby a million.” Another sob. “B-but Papa. It’s different now.”
“Why?” He brushed tear-wet curls from her brow.
“Because I wrote a letter and asked Mrs. Bauer to come here.”
“You what?”
“Maisie needs a mama. She needs one real bad.”
Cooper deposited Katie on the floor and bolted up from the chair. He hit the ground pacing. Anger flared. “Let me get this straight. You wrote a letter to a perfect stranger and asked her to come here?”
“To marry us.”
White-hot anger speared through him. “Katie, you’re right. This is the baddest thing you have ever done.”
Cooper spun at the back door and crossed the length of the room, fists jammed at his sides, his jaw clenched so tight his teeth ached. Nice little girls didn’t do the things Katie did. They didn’t climb trees and play in mud and race ponies. Or propose to innocent strangers.
Maybe it was because those other little girls had mothers.
Katie burst into tears again. “They got hurt and Maisie still doesn’t have a m-mama!”
Frustration, rage, defeat. It all melded together in his midsection and churned.. He wanted to punish her. He wanted to comfort her. He wished to hell and back Katie would learn to embroider or something ladylike and stop with the wild harebrained schemes.
“It is your fault that Mrs. Bauer and her daughter were on that stage.” He managed to keep his voice calm.
Harder tears.
“But you couldn’t have known they would come to harm.”
“I d-didn’t.” True sorrow shone in those eyes, the same color as his.
Cooper stared at his reflection in the dark window. “How did you find Mrs. Bauer in the first place?”
“I bought a newspaper advertisement.”
“You did what?” Renewed fury roared through him. He would never understand his daughter. She was too flighty, too headstrong, too—He didn’t know what, but it wasn’t a good thing. Little girls were supposed to be demure and polite, cute and neat—not muddy and outrageous. “You placed a request for a mother in a newspaper?”
Katie’s eyes still brimmed with tears. “No. I pretended to be you.”
“Anna Bauer thinks that I—” His knees buckled. Speechless, he simply stared at his daughter. The pony rides, the trousers, the mud, the disobedience and now this. Katie didn’t need a mother, she needed a warden and steel bars on the window.
Cooper held out his hand. “There’s no need to cry.”
She tipped up her tear-wet face. “You’ll fix everything, Papa?”
“Of course I will. I’m the sheriff. That’s my job.”
A smile nudged away the sadness and Katie’s fingers wrapped tightly around his. “I knew you would.”
All the trust in the world shone in those eyes. Cooper’s chest filled. How he loved his little girl. “Come, let’s get you back in bed.”
It was a sweet task, tucking the covers up to her chin, wishing her good dreams, waiting as she drifted off. His two little daughters, safe and snug.
A noise downstairs spun him around. With his five shooter strapped tight to his thigh, he started down the stairs. This part of Montana was isolated but saw its share of trouble. That’s why the good people of Flint Creek had hired him. He had promised to keep their families and their businesses safe from crime. It was a tall order, but Cooper Braddock was a man of his word.
“I saw your light on,” Laura’s voice called out to him before he strode into the kitchen.
“More problems with Katie.” He unbuckled his gun belt, the day’s work done.
“That’s nothing new. What is it this time?”
He studied his young sister’s pretty face, the concern so bright in her eyes. He knew Laura loved his daughters, but the emerald flashing on her left ring finger left no room for doubt. Laura would soon be married, starting a new life, making her own family. It was time to stop depending on her so heavily.
He laid the gun belt on the table with a soft clink. “She can’t sleep. Nothing to worry about.”
“With Katie, there’s a lot to worry about.” Those caring eyes twinkled. “Will you share your coffee?”
“With pleasure. If you can stand my bitter brew.”
“Let’s just say I’m used to your cooking, big brother.” She lifted the enamel pot from the stove, just as she’d done hundreds, maybe thousands of times. “What are you going to do when I marry?”
“About the girls?” He sat down at the table. Sighed. “I’ve tried not to think about it. I don’t think Mrs. Potts is going to stay without you here.”
“I think Mrs. Potts is ready to run screaming to Canada if Katie brings one more slimy creature into this kitchen, whether on purpose or not.” Laura’s fondness rang in her voice. She set her steaming cup on the table and sat across from him. Her gaze met his. “Cooper, those girls of yours need a mother.”
“They have me.” He lifted his chin.
“A father’s love is important, but you’re a man. You’re busy providing for your family, protecting the town and doing your job. A man has to do that, I know. You need to provide for your girls and that takes you away from them. I’m not faulting you.”
He rubbed his brow, tired. “Whatever my daughters need, they have my love. Not every man stands by his family.”
“You’ve made a fine home for them.”
Those tender words, brimming with understanding, hurt more than Cooper could admit. He’d worked hard to do right by his girls after Katherine walked away. To love them, provide for them. “I couldn’t have done so much without your help, Laura.”
“I’ve been glad to do it, Cooper.” Her lower lip wobbled. “I’m proud of you for taking a risk and doing what’s right for yourself and my two beautiful nieces.”
