LITMIR.BIZ

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flow. Now the white cotton fabric was cold and damp She wanted to be near the fire.

      She was struggling to stand when the man returned and saw her intentions, so he helped her to her feet and led her to the sofa. Again she was struck by his size and solidity. She told herself if she were smart, she’d be afraid of him. But Katherine had never been any too intelligent where men were concerned, as evidenced by her current predicament. And for some reason, in spite of his size and demeanor and the fact that he was a complete stranger, this man didn’t frighten her at all.

      “Where did you come from?” she managed to ask him as he settled her on the sofa. “How did you know I was here?” She couldn’t quite stop herself from asking further, “Did…did William send you?”

      The man had turned his back to her and was busying himself with what looked like a very substantial first-aid kit. “Who’s William?” he asked, though his mind didn’t seem to be on the question.

      “My…my husband. Did he…are you here because of him?”

      The man shook his head, but still seemed to be preoccupied with making the proper preparations for bringing her son into the world. “Nope,” he said. “It’s just sheer, dumb luck that linked us up, lady. Sheer, dumb luck.”

      She was about to ask him to elaborate on that, but a faint pain rippled up inside her again, and she squeezed her eyes shut, clenching her teeth together in an effort to ease the ache a bit.

      “How long has the power been out?” the man asked her when he spun back around to look at her.

      She dropped her hand to her belly, rubbing at another, less intense, contraction. “I don’t know. It was still daylight when my water broke—about four, four-thirty maybe. What time is it now?”

      The man turned his wristwatch toward the dim glow of the flashlight. “Just past nine. You’ve been in labor for five hours?”

      Katherine thought for a moment. The pains hadn’t really started until some time after her water broke, but for the life of her, she couldn’t quite remember now how long. “I don’t know,” she said again.

      The man dropped to his haunches before her, bringing his face level with hers. She was able to tell a little bit more about him when he was up close this way, the growing light from the fire illuminating one side of his face, but not much more. At least one good cheekbone, she noted. And at least one vivid green eye. And a pair of lips, one half of which anyway, that were full and beautiful and still managed to be very, very masculine.

      He started to extend his hand toward hers, then seemed to think better of it, and wove his fingers together on one knee. “What’s your name?” he asked her.

      She opened her mouth to tell him the truth, then realized the truth was in fact a lie. She wasn’t Katherine Winslow. There was no Katherine Winslow. William had made her that with his farce of a wedding. Without him, she had no idea who she would be now. So she told the man, “I’m Katie Brennan.” It was what she had been called in her other life, a million years ago. And it seemed to suit her now.

      “Katie Brennan,” the man repeated.

      He smiled, and for the first time in what seemed a very long time, Katie felt a warming sense of relief seep into her. This time when he reached out for her, he carried through, taking her hand in his.

      “Nice to meet you, Katie,” he said. “I’m Cooper. Cooper Dugan. And, like I said, I’m a paramedic. But I’ll be honest with you. I’ve never delivered a baby before. I mean, I know what to do—pretty much—but I’ve never actually…” His voice trailed off when he seemed to detect her growing sense of misgiving. “Is this your first?” he asked quietly.

      She nodded, her sudden conviction about feeling safe faltering a little with his announcement.

      He nodded back. “Then I guess we have something in common.”

      She was about to say something else when the pains flared up again, bursting out of nowhere with even more intensity than before. Katie cried out, crushing with what she was sure was bruising strength the hand that Cooper Dugan had offered her in comfort.

      It was going to be a long night.

      She didn’t realize she had spoken her thought aloud until Cooper nodded in agreement and said, “Yeah, it sure is.”

      She watched as he reached behind himself for his jacket, plucked a two-way radio from one pocket, and spoke into it. “Patsy,” he said with a sigh, “this is Coop. Better take me off the dispatch list. I’m going to be, um, indisposed for a little while.”

       Two

      Eventually, night became morning. And by the time it did, the blizzard had tapered off into an almost magical-looking snowfall, the power in Katie’s house had come back on, and Cooper had helped to deliver a bouncing baby boy.

      The knowledge of that startled him still.

      In spite of the restoration of electricity, a fire continued to crackle happily in the fireplace, and the lights were dimmed low. He sat in his ancient blue jeans and Kmart special T-shirt on the floor of Katie’s big, expensive town house, amid more opulence and luxury than he’d imagined was possible. And he ignored it all to stare instead at a sleeping mother and child for whom he felt, at least partially, responsible.

      He thought about the tradition that other cultures embraced, about how when a person saved another person’s life, he became responsible for whomever he’d rescued. He supposed the same must hold true when a person brought another person into the world to begin with. That was the only reason Cooper could conceive why he felt such a strong tie to the little guy tucked safely and snugly in his mother’s arms.

      He studied the baby’s mother, too. For some reason, Cooper also felt responsible for Katie Brennan now. She lay on the floor with her upper back and head supported by a pile of pillows, naked amid a tangle of sheets. Purple crescents smudged her eyes, and her dark hair was shoved back from her forehead m a heap of wet snarls. He knew nothing about her other than her name and address. Yet he couldn’t quite chase away the sensation that he was bound to her irrevocably.

      His gaze dropped to the ring encircling the fourth finger of her left hand. Studded with diamonds, it was the kind of wedding band a man gave to a woman he intended to keep forever. Certainly, it was a far cry from anything Cooper could ever hope to afford for a woman himself, regardless of how much he might love her. Katie Brennan was obviously a woman accustomed to a way of life vastly different from his own.

      Not that it mattered, he told himself. The woman was married, after all, and tied to her husband with a bond far more significant and lasting than the one represented by the ring on her finger. She had a child. Her husband’s child. And nothing on earth could shatter a bond like that.

      Cooper cupped a hand to the back of his neck and rubbed hard. Long night hadn’t begun to describe what he and Katie had just been through. And if he was this tired, he could only imagine how she must feel after a grueling session like that. She’d screamed, and he’d hollered, and they’d both sworn like drunken sailors. She’d pushed and shoved and heaved and cried. He’d cajoled and threatened and bribed and heartened. And sometime just before the sun began to stain the sky with pink and yellow, Andrew Cooper Brennan had been born.

      It had been Katie’s idea—no, her demand—that her son carry Cooper’s first name for his middle one. Andrew, she said, had been her father’s name. And when Cooper had asked how her husband was going to feel about his son carrying a stranger’s name, Katie had smiled sadly through her exhaustion and told Cooper he was less of a stranger to her than her husband was. Before he’d had a chance to get her to clarify that, she’d drifted into a sound slumber, and he’d decided she must have been touched with a bit of postpartum delirium and hadn’t known what she was talking about.

      Not for the first time since she’d fallen

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