The broken boy - healed by innocence

He wasn’t you

*Faith*

I should have told him, should have prepared him. I deserve my mother's disapproving, narrow-eyed stare because Ma had insisted I needed to tell Cooper about Dee before we got to the ranch, but the right moment never arrived, or maybe I hadn't been looking for it. ‘I gave birth to a child out of wedlock’ isn’t something that easily slips itself into conversation. Or perhaps I simply feared his censure, his judgment. There had been a time when his opinion mattered more to me than breathing.

Suddenly, he claps his large hands together, making me jump, and spreads them out toward Dee. "Want to come to your uncle Cooper?"

His voice holds such tenderness, such devotion that he becomes once again the person I have always adored. All the anger and resentment I have been hoarding since his departure shrink somewhat, making me realize how silly I have been to think that he, of all people, would sit in judgment of me.

It has never been his way. When I was jealous of some of the other She-wolves and tried to enlist him in making fun of them, even when only in the quietness of sitting beneath the stars with no one around to hear, he refused to cooperate, to say anything unkind about anyone. "I ain't walking in their shoes."

Dee, who has yet to meet a stranger, is halfway out of my arms and into Cooper's before I can react, suspended between the two of us, joining us, reestablishing a bond I had feared had snapped with his leaving.

With a self-conscious chortle, I quickly release my daughter's legs, confident he has a firm grip on the precious child, and wouldn't let her fall. I don't want to consider how right it looks for Dee to be balanced on his lean hip, one of her thin arms slung around his neck, her brown eyes sparkling with glee, and her smile large enough to reveal nearly every tooth, including the gap where she has recently lost her first one.

"How old are you?" Cooper asks.

"Five." With her fingers and thumb splayed out, she fairly presses her palm to his nose, so he can easily count the years.

He grins, "Well, you're a big girl, aren't you?"

"Uh-huh." She bobs her head with enough force that her dark brown braids bounce against her shoulders. "How old are you?"

"Don't rightly know for sure. Somewhere north of thirty, I reckon." He says.

She laughs, the sweet, innocent tinkling of a child who has never known hurt. "You're funny."

With a grin, he reaches into his pocket and pulls out a sarsaparilla stick. "Want some?"

Dee nods enthusiastically. Even while holding my daughter, he manages to snap it in two and hand her a piece. My heart tightens so painfully with the memories of all the times he had shared his candy with me that I'm afraid tears are going to flood my eyes.

"Cooper Cooper, you know better than to go about spoiling your supper," Ma chides, the affection in her voice belying any scolding she may have meant to give.

"I will still be hungry enough to eat a horse. What about you, Dee?" He asks.

She shakes her head, taking the stick out of her mouth. "We don't eat horses. We eat cows. 'N chickens, 'n pigs, 'n rabbits."

"Do you now?" he asks, as though truly interested in her eating habits.

She nods. "Grampa once ate a snake." She scrunches up her face. "Yuck. I don't like snakes."

"Me either." Copper says.

"Well, no one will be eating snakes tonight," Ma says. "Come on. I'm sure the cook has dinner waiting on us by now."

"I need to see to the buggy and horses," Cooper says.

"Pete's handling that chore," Pa tells him before raising his arm toward the ranch hand who has already taken hold of the lead horse and is starting to move everything toward the barn.

Cooper turns, the smile he bestows on the aging man genuine, and I wish he had greeted me with that same glad-to-see-you grin. "Hey, Pete."

"Hey, Cooper. Glad to have you back." The man says back.

"Glad to be back." Cooper says.

Although I hear the truth in his tone, I can’t help but feel he might be a bit disoriented, discovering how very little remains the same since he left.

Ma slips her arm around his waist. "You’ve gotten skinny."

Not that skinny, I think. I can see evidence of his muscles filling out the sleeve of his jacket as he holds my daughter.

"You probably want to wash up after your trip," my mother continues. "Your old room upstairs is all ready for you."

A flicker of surprise crosses his face, no doubt because he moved out of the residence years before he left.

"Dee and I are living in your cabin," I say quickly, drawing his attention. With me, he shutters his emotions, so I can't tell what he's thinking… and that unsettles me. "If you’re staying, we can pack up and come back to the house."

"No, that’s fine. Stay where you are." He says softly.

I wonder if his answer means he is only going to be here temporarily. Fearing he might question me about the details of my life if I question him, I haven’t bothered to ask what he’s been up to since he left. I know he’s been herding cattle, but maybe he’s also met someone. However, if he had, wouldn’t he have brought her with him? "I will take Dee. She's all sticky now. Her face and hands could use a good scrubbing."

"Nooo!" my daughter cries, burying her face in the curve of his neck. "Save me, Uncle Cooper."

As though she has kicked him in the heart and is truly in some sort of danger, he appears stunned, a little shaken, uncertain as to how to handle the situation to best protect her.

"Don’t be such a silly goose," I say, working my arms around my daughter until we are forming a barrier between her and Cooper, until I can feel the firmness of his chest. Not skinny at all. I want to jerk back. Instead, I pry Dee free.

"I will take her," Ma says with an authority that has Dee going to her without any fuss at all.

I watch as my mother and father begin wandering toward the house, as Cooper saunters to the end of the porch where Pete had left his saddlebags.

Reluctantly, I follow him over, knowing I have things I need to say, if I could only find the right words. But I have been searching for them ever since I found out he was returning, and they still elude me.

"Who’s her father?" he asks flatly, reaching down, grabbing the bags, and slinging them over a shoulder before turning to face me.

I shake my head, "Just a cowboy with no plans to stay."

"He left you?" Anger slithers through his voice. Had he been here when I realized I was with child, he would have probably tracked the poor fellow down.

"We weren’t…" I shake my head, plant my hands on my hips, and kick the toe of my shoe into the ground. Finally, I lift my gaze and meet his. "It’s complicated."

He shakes his head, "No, it’s not, Faith. He was with you, he got you pregnant, and he just skipped out of your life? That’s not how it works."

"I didn’t want to marry him." I admit.

"Why the hell not?" He asks.

"Because he didn’t measure up." Because he wasn’t you.