Cooper's Wife

It wasn’t much farther.

“Is that you, Coop?” His brother’s voice.

“Where the heck have you been?” The muscles in Cooper’s arms and back burned with fatigue. He kept climbing, but tipped his head back just enough to see the worry lining his younger brother’s face. “Don’t just stand there being useless. Help me up.”

“Useless. That’s me.” Tucker could grin even in a crisis. He curled both gloved hands around the rope and pulled.

Cooper handed the child up into her mother’s arms. Tucker helped him over the lip of the cliff.

“She’s hurt.” Sorrow rang in the woman’s voice.

The tiny girl looked blue and wasn’t breathing right. He couldn’t help but fear the worst. The woman, white-faced with fear, cradled her daughter tight in her arms. She kissed the girl’s forehead, the love for her child as unmistakable as the sun. It was a priceless emotion his wife had never managed to feel for their girls. He liked knowing some mothers did.

“Sheriff.” One of his deputies crested the bank. “Corinthos got away.”

Turning away from the mother and child, he began coiling the rope. “I shot him myself. He must have mounted and rode off.” Cooper mopped his brow with his forearm. “We’ve got wounded. We see to the girl first.”

The woman knelt beside her daughter on a bed of clover, checking her wounds. “Is there a doctor close?”

“No, ma’am.” Cooper untied his stallion. “We’re just lawmen. We feared there might be problems with the stage today. This pass is notorious for trouble.”

She took a breath. Worry crinkled the corners of eyes as deep as a summer sky. “But Mandy needs a doctor. I think she may have broken her arm, maybe her ribs. She isn’t breathing well.”

“I can see.” Cooper left the stallion standing and took a look. “Are you hurt, little lady?”

The child looked up with teary eyes and nodded. No sniffle, no whimper. Her lips were slightly bluish. Her breath came rapid and shallow.

“You’re a brave girl, too.” He knelt down on one knee, broad shoulders braced. He was all strength, but tenderness, too. “You must get that from your mama.”

Anna’s heart ached. So many cuts and bruises on the girl. She tore a strip of petticoat and covered a nasty gash on the child’s forearm. “How far away are we from a town?”

“Quite a ways.” The sheriffs low, rumbling voice sounded warm as sunshine. He pulled a clean and folded handkerchief from his shirt pocket and tore it into strips. Those big blunt-shaped hands deftly tied a neat bandage at Mandy’s wrist.

“You’re good at this, Sheriff.”

“I have little girls of my own who are always getting one scrape or another.”

Oh, that smile. As scared as she was for Mandy, Anna couldn’t help noticing the sheriffs handsome smile. And on a closer look, he had a handsome everything. From the strong straight blade of his nose—not too sharp, not too big—to the chiseled cut of his high cheekbones, to the square jaw sporting a day’s dark growth, he was quite a man.

“Owie.” Mandy bit her lip, trying to hold back her tears like a big girl.

“Let me see, pumpkin.” Anna gently pulled Mandy’s bandaged arm away from her chest. When she loosened a few buttons on the now ragged dress, she saw a horrible bruise marking her skin. But it was the sight of the left side of her little chest rising when her right side did not that terrified Anna. Something was dreadfully wrong.

“Tucker.” Calling to one of the deputies, the mighty sheriff strode away.

Would Mandy die? Fear condensed into a tight, hard ball in her stomach. Her hands trembled as she used a thin stick from the ground as a splint. She wrapped the last strips from her petticoat around Mandy’s broken arm, trying to keep hold of hope.

“I’m going to ride her into town.” Cooper squinted against the midday sun. “With the trouble she has breathing, I don’t figure we have a lot of time. My mount is the fastest.”

“I’ll go with you. Just give me a minute—”

“You’ll only slow me down.” Apology rang low in his voice.

“No, I’m not leaving her.” Anna held her daughter tight.

“You have to, ma’am. I can get her to a doctor faster than anyone can.”

“But Mandy needs me.”

“She needs medical care.”

It was as if she were on that cliff again, knowing there was nothing she could do to stop the coach from breaking apart. She could not let a stranger care for her daughter. Yet Mandy needed a doctor. Immediately. And this man could provide it.

He said he was a father. And it was true that he’d braved the chff to rescue Mandy. Judging by the breadth of those strong shoulders and the honor shining like a promise in his eyes, Anna decided she had to trust him. Mandy would die without help.

Her decision was already made, even though it was hard to let go. “This little girl is my entire life.”

“I know.” He produced a warm blanket to wrap around Mandy. “Flint Creek is the first town on the other side of this pass. The doc’s clinic is the third building on your left past the hotel. Tucker will take you there.”

Anna’s knees wobbled with the worst kind of fear. But the badge pinned to the sheriff’s vest glinted in the sunlight. When he mounted his powerful horse, he looked heroic enough to topple any foe, right any wrong.

Anna wiped the wet hair from her eyes. She prayed he would make it to town in time.

Chapter Two

“How’s the little girl?” Tucker strode through the jailhouse door, trail dust thick on his hat brim and boots, and everything else in between.

“She’s still alive. I hope the doc can keep her that way.” Cooper closed his eyes, unable to block out the remembered image of tiny Mandy so blue and struggling hard to breathe. “How’s the mother?”

Tucker swept off his hat. “She’s a widow. Imagine that. She told me so herself on the ride down here. Yep, Mrs. Bauer sure is pretty, don’t you think?”

“I don’t need anyone to play matchmaker, especially not you.” Cooper thumped his brother on the shoulder. “I take it the rest of my deputies are on their way?”

“Yep.” Tucker followed him out onto the late-day street. “It took a while to find the gold shipment. We thought it had gone over the cliff, too. The men will be bringing it to town soon and they’ll need help. I was just going to head back. Are you coming?”

“Yes. I hope we’ve seen enough trouble from the Corinthos gang for one day.” Evening scented the air. The sun was fast sinking toward the horizon. Cooper’s gaze focused on the doc’s clinic down the street. He thought of the woman and child inside. He thought about how lucky they were, how lucky all of them were.

Anna brushed back gossamer curls from her sleeping daughter’s forehead. The dim light of the room in the back of the doctor’s clinic cast just enough glow to see by. But not enough to ward off the many fears that increased as each hour passed.

“My wife made you a supper tray.” The door whispered open on its leather hinges. The faint rattling of dishes filled the quiet room, then footsteps as the doctor strode across the floor. He set the meal on a low table. “I hope you like beef stew.”

“I’m sure it’s very good.” Anna straightened in her chair, careful of her hurting arm. Her stomach grumbled, but she wasn’t in the mood to eat. Not until she knew Mandy would be all right. “Thank your wife for me.”

“You need to keep up your energy if you’re going to care for your girl. So you eat, and let me check on my littlest patient.”

His kindness touched her, made her ache deep inside. When she had explained she couldn’t pay the bill because her savings had been stolen, the doctor told her not to worry. Now he was treating Mandy with care and skill.

She watched him listen to Mandy’s breathing, saw for herself the uneven rise and fall of her chest. He’d said a punctured lung could be fatal, but there was some hope.