Leaving Dry Creek

De: Larry Wood

Narrado por: Virtual Voice

Book 4 in the Jed Cooper Saga, Leaving Dry Creek finds Cooper, marshal of Dry Creek, married to the beautiful Katie Lowry, the town doctor, and the couple is expecting a baby. Bigotry against Cooper's African-American deputy, Meshack Moses, flares up, reminiscent of the racial intolerance that culminated in the murder of Cooper's own family three years earlier, but Cooper successfully deals with the prejudice without resorting to violence. Katie takes sick, threatening both her health and that of her baby. Emma Sherwood, the erstwhile preacher's wife, puts her national temperance lectures on hold and returns to Dry Creek to take care of her friend, Katie, but the presence of the earthy, magnetic Mrs. Sherwood in his home makes Cooper uncomfortable. Marshal Cooper must deal with a renewed threat from Duke Bartlett, older brother of two of the men who helped kill Cooper's family three years ago. The charge of murder against Bartlett for killing storekeeper Oliver Garrett is dropped for lack of evidence and witnesses, and he comes back to Dry Creek to open a gambling hall. Cooper's beloved Katie dies giving birth to a baby girl, and Emma Sherwood stays on to take care of the baby in accordance to Katie's prior request. Although Emma living with Cooper without the benefit of matrimony provides fodder for the local gossips and although Cooper finds himself drawn to the mesmerizing woman, their relationship remains one of friendship only. Cooper kills Bartlett in a showdown when he goes to re-arrest the murderer after a missing witness turns up. Prior to her death, Katie urged Cooper to run for sheriff of Geary County, and he is elected in a close ballot. As he prepares to take office several months later, Emma announces that she is going back to the lecture circuit because she no longer feels needed since Katie's parents are now helping out with their granddaughter's care. Cooper intercepts Emma on her way to the stagecoach office and beseeches her to stay, not just for the baby but for him. They declare their love for each other and unleash a passion that has steadily built between them ever since they first laid eyes on each other three years earlier. They leave Dry Creek together to live at the county seat, where Cooper will serve as sheriff and from where Emma will have access to rail service so that she can periodically return to her evangelical and temperance work.