Getting Lucky (A Nugget Romance Book 5) Page 6

  Jake checked the back of the store for Raylene. As soon as she’d gotten off the phone, he’d spied her perusing the magazine rack as if she didn’t have a care in the world. Now she sat in a heap on the floor, crying.

  Ah, Jesus.

  “You okay, Ms. Rosser?” He strode to the back of the store, hoping her ride would come soon. He still had to drive through the backcountry while he was on patrol. And frankly, he didn’t need this crap.

  “Do I look okay?” she slurred, putting her face in her hands. “I’m disgusting. I bet you would be shocked to know that there was a time when people thought I’d make something of myself . . . something really good, like a movie star or a veterinarian.” She let out a bitter laugh. “Instead, I’m a loser.”

  “Nah, you’ve just had too much to drink,” Jake said. “It’ll all look better in the morning.”

  “I doubt it. But th-th-thank you.” She sobbed uncontrollably, and suddenly Jake felt sorry for her. Not only had she done a one-eighty, but black mascara ran down her face, making her look pitiful—and a little crazy. “My husband, Butch, had an affair on me with my best friend, Barb.

  “Butch and Barb . . . Barb and Butch,” she mimicked to herself. “My father actually thinks I should take him back. He doesn’t think I can do better.”

  Philandering was a sticky subject for Jake. He definitely wasn’t worthy to give advice on the topic. Fortunately, Lucky came through the door and Jake didn’t have to respond. Lucky bobbed his head at Griff and headed straight to Raylene.

  He acknowledged Jake with a similar nudge of his chin. To Raylene, he said, “Give me your goddamn keys.”

  Jake watched Lucky march out the door and move Raylene’s truck to the street. When he came back in, he muttered that he was sorry for any inconvenience.

  “You got here fast,” Jake said. The old Roland camp was a ways out of town.

  “I stayed the night at my mother’s.” Lucky scowled, and stuffed the contents of Raylene’s purse back into her bag. Then he pulled Raylene up by the elbow. “We’ll get out of your hair now.”

  Jake saw them get into Lucky’s Ram and drive away. It looked like Cecilia had been right. No other reason Raylene would make Lucky her get-out-of-jail-free card unless they were seeing each other, which left Jake in an awkward position. Did he tell Cecilia or not? Because his guess was that there was no way Lucky would be telling her.

  Ah, family drama. With three divorces under his belt, Jake had had enough to last a lifetime. It looked like he was in for some more.

  “What the hell is with you, Raylene?” The woman smelled like a distillery and looked like a prostitute.

  “Lucky”—she nuzzled her head underneath his neck—“I love you so much.”

  Lucky pushed her away. “I need to drive. You coming home with me, or am I taking you to the Rock and River?”

  She let out a high-pitched giggle and hiccuped. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  “Because you’re tanked or because you’re with me?”

  “I’m not so very drunk,” she said, and Lucky rolled his eyes. “Daddy doesn’t like you.”

  “Well, I don’t like your daddy.” In fact, Lucky hated his guts. “So I guess I’m taking you home. My home.”

  “I don’t like your trailer,” Raylene whined.

  “I don’t really care, Raylene.” Because right now, he didn’t like her. He had enough problems: his daughter’s illness, his mother’s disappointment, and Tawny’s reluctance to let him be a full-fledged father to Katie. He sure the hell didn’t need his girlfriend going out on the town, drunk as a skunk, dressed like a pole dancer.

  “Why are you being so mean to me?” Lucky could see her pouting as the moonlight filtered into the cab of his truck. “You’re acting like Butch. He treated me worse than a dog.”

  “Where have you been all night?” He couldn’t stand the thought of her driving drunk.

  “Reno, with my girlfriends. God, Lucky, you act like I’m not allowed to have any fun. You don’t know what it was like being married to Butch.”

  “Can we not talk about Butch for once?” Lucky pulled to the side of the road and slammed on his brakes. “You drive back from Reno like this?”

  “No, Hannah drove.” Hopefully, Hannah had been sober. “Then why were you at the Nugget Gas and Go?”

  “We met in the square and went in Hannah’s car. When she dropped me off, I didn’t have enough gas to get back to the Rock and River. Why are you interrogating me? What are you, jealous?”

  “No, Raylene. I don’t want you killing someone, or yourself. Jesus, you’re twenty-eight and you’re acting like you’re in high school.” He eyed her trashy getup and frowned.

  “I’m probably having a midlife crisis after Butch,” she said, and Lucky could hear remorse in her voice. And maybe shame.

  Still, he was unable to let it go. “You’re lucky Jake didn’t arrest you for DUI, Raylene. I know you’re going through a rough patch, but you’ve got to pull it together, baby. Okay?”

  “Okay,” she said, sounding so sad that it made him sorry for yelling at her. “Lucky, you ever wonder what would’ve happened if we’d gotten married?”

  Lucky closed his eyes. Every damn day. “Yeah,” he said softly.

  “Remember that time in ninth grade when we planned to run away to Los Angeles together?” She laid her head on his shoulder.

  He grinned in the darkness. “I remember.”

  “We had it all worked out. We’d save up and get an apartment and look for jobs. Me as an actress, you as a stunt man.”

  “We sure were idiots back then.” Lucky chuckled.

  “No, we weren’t. We just had big dreams.” She let out a long sigh. “At least one of us made them come true.”

  The cab of his truck got quiet. He supposed Raylene had never realized her dreams. Unless you counted marrying Butch and working in an accounting office, she hadn’t accomplished any of the things they used to talk about. Raising horses had been one of them. Raylene had concocted this fantasy about buying a ranch in Wyoming, training wild horses, and winning the Extreme Mustang Makeover. They used to lie for hours underneath the giant redwood near her barn, planning their lives together. Man, he used to love to listen to her talk.

  “Lucky?”

  “Hmm?”

  “That night you left, I wanted to die.”

  Then why didn’t you tell the truth? “It was a long time ago, Raylene.” He kissed her. “Let’s go home now.”

  Tomorrow, he’d break the news to her about Katie. That wouldn’t be pretty, but Raylene needed to hear the truth. Tawny had already told Katie but had put Lucky off for another day. Katie hadn’t been feeling well enough for his visit, or so Tawny had claimed. He’d stayed at his mom’s house, hoping Tawny might change her mind.

  Today, he was going over there come hell or high water. But in the meantime, Raylene needed to know before the news spread through Nugget like a brush fire.

  In the morning he made coffee and waited for Raylene to wake up. By now, her parents had probably put out a missing person alert—and Jake had probably told his mother about the scene Raylene had made at the Gas and Go and how Lucky had been the one to pick her up. He dragged his hand through his hair. Hell, they were both nearly thirty and still worried about the wrath of their parents. Kind of pathetic. He wondered if Katie would be the same when she grew up.

  A kid. Holy hell, he had a kid. The idea of it still blew his mind. Sometime soon he wanted to go through his ma’s old pictures and see if there was a family resemblance. He wanted Katie to look at the photos too. It was important to him that she know where she came from. There was so much to learn about her. What kinds of foods she liked, how she felt about animals, the activities she enjoyed. Like did she have a favorite sport? And then he thought about the leukemia. And it kicked him in the gut like a sucker punch.

  He needed to talk to Pete about the cancer. The agent had good contacts. Lucky shot him off an email and went into t
he bedroom to rouse Raylene. The woman burned daylight.

  “Hey, Ray, time to get up, baby.”

  She sat up, took his coffee mug, and sipped a few times. “You kicking me out?”

  “No, but I’ve got things to do. And we need to talk.”

  “At least let me brush my teeth.” She scooted out of the bed with just her birthday suit on and went into the bathroom. Lucky thought she looked good. Toned and tanned. He just wished she’d cover it up for the rest of the world.

  A short time later she came out wearing his shirt. “What do we need to talk about?”

  “I’ve got a daughter, Raylene.”

  She laughed, looked at him, and stopped. “You’re not joking, are you?”

  “Nope.”

  “Is that what one of your buckle bunnies is claiming? You should just ignore it. She’s probably trying to get money out of you.”

  “It’s not like that, Raylene. She’s here. In Nugget. My daughter’s nine.”

  Her face went white. “What are you talking about?”

  “Thelma Wade. She goes by Tawny now. Her daughter, Katie.”

  “Thelma Wade? The girl who looked like a skinny boy with a bowl haircut and had the really weird green eyes? The one who dropped out of high school?” She scrutinized him like she still thought it might be a joke. “You had sex with Thelma Wade?”

  “That’s how babies are made, Raylene.”

  Raylene got to her feet. “Were you sleeping with her while you were sleeping with me?”

  “You mean while you were sleeping with me behind Zach’s back.”

  “Oh my God.” Raylene started throwing on her clothes from the night before. “You were so jealous of Zach and me that you screwed Thelma Wade? What, you couldn’t do better?”

  Okay, now she was just being spiteful. The fact was, half of Raylene’s popular girlfriends had thrown themselves at him, but none of them had been as nice to him as little Thelma Wade. He’d hooked up with her on the worst night of his life and she’d talked him off the ledge and helped him plan his exit strategy. That night, the woman had been his guardian angel.

  “Raylene, when the hell you planning to graduate from high school? It’s been a freaking decade. Grow up already! I just found out that I have a daughter and somehow you’ve made it all about you.”

  “What did you expect, Lucky? I loved you and you cheated on me.”

  “Cheated on you? We weren’t even together. Your father made sure of that.”

  It started the summer of his twelfth birthday. Lucky began accompanying his mother to the Rock and River Ranch. Ray immediately put him to work cleaning tack. Five dollars a saddle and two dollars a bridle. If Lucky worked hard and fast he could earn thirty to forty bucks in a day. That’s how he and Raylene came to be.

  One sweltering July morning she snuck into the barn while he hefted Ray’s show saddle onto a sawhorse. Without speaking a word, Raylene started removing the saddle’s buckles and stirrups.

  “I’ve got that,” Lucky protested loudly. “What are you doing?”

  She put her finger to her lips and in a low voice so no one would hear, she said, “I’m helping you. You could do twice as much tack with four hands instead of two.”

  At first, he bristled at her effort. It seemed dishonest that she would do half the work and he’d get all the money. And somewhere at the back of his mind he knew Ray wouldn’t like it. This was not a job for the daughter of the manor.

  But in the end, having her company won out. Soaping tack was a tedious chore, and Raylene entertained him with a steady stream of chatter. He’d never known a girl who could talk so much. And boy, was she pretty. All bright eyed and rosy skinned, with budding breasts. He could look at her for hours and never get bored.

  It was in those days that Lucky started noticing things about Raylene that weren’t right. Bruises. Puffy eyes from crying. And how nervous she acted whenever her father’s name came up. Sometimes they’d ride together and Raylene would tell him things. Bad things.

  For as long as Lucky could remember, he’d been a protector. And Raylene reminded him of the baby sparrow he’d rescued the summer before. The bird had fallen from its nest and had been rejected by its mother. Grace at Nugget Farm Supply helped him build a new nest out of a box and straw and told him how to feed the hatchling with an eyedropper. That’s what he wanted to do for Raylene. He construed a plan to smuggle her out of the Rock and River to live with him and Cecilia, so he could take care of her.

  “He’d find me,” Raylene said. “And then he’d fire your mom and you would have to move away and I would lose you forever.”

  Ray Rosser didn’t have to go to the trouble. He made sure to keep them apart by merely asserting his power. In the beginning, his efforts to tear them from each other only made them closer. He and Raylene would sneak around after school—first at the park and later at the rodeo grounds on the high school campus. Eventually they gave each other their virginity in Lucky’s bedroom while Cecilia was at work. But Raylene’s overwhelming need to please her father ultimately won out. Publicly, she dated the boys Ray deemed acceptable. And eventually married the man Ray handpicked for her. Butch.

  “All right, all right.” Raylene put her hand on Lucky’s chest, pulling him from the past. “Let’s not fight. Just pay her off, Lucky, and make her sign something to go away.”

  He jerked his head back. “Katie is my daughter, my responsibility. I’m gonna cowboy up.”

  “What about us?” Raylene huffed.

  He’d known the news about Katie would upset her. Despite all Raylene had going for her, she’d always been insecure. Always afraid she wouldn’t be enough. Ray Rosser had made sure to make her that way.

  “Raylene,” he said, “it is what it is. Could you please try to be understanding? We’ve both got baggage.” He looked at her pointedly.

  She leaned against him and inched her hands up his shirt. “You’re right. And it was a long time ago. We’re together now and that’s what matters. What’s she . . . Katie . . . like?”

  “She’s sick with cancer.”

  Raylene’s eyes grew large. “Will she be okay?”

  “We don’t know. She needs a transplant.” And Lucky went on to explain Katie’s leukemia to Raylene.

  “How awful,” she said. “Thelma must be devastated. My heart goes out to her—the poor woman. Is she still as unattractive as she used to be?”

  Yeah, Lucky thought, a real bow-wow.

  Katie tried on her fourth outfit. Tawny didn’t know where she’d gotten such a vain daughter, but apparently it was of the utmost importance that Katie look her best for her new father.

  “Stick with the jeans and the heart sweater.” Tawny sat on Katie’s twin bed and watched the fashion show proceed. “Honey, he’ll be here in a few minutes and you still have to put away all these clothes.”

  “I don’t like these pants,” Katie said, staring over her shoulder in the full-length mirror on the back of her door.

  “Why? They look great.” They were jeans, for goodness’ sake.

  “They make my butt look bad.”

  “They do not. Now stop obsessing. You look beautiful.”

  “I’m changing back into the pink pants with the stars on the back pockets.”

  Tawny tried to stay patient, knowing how big a deal this must be for Katie. “Okay, but you better get the show on the road.”

  Katie tugged on the pink pants, gave herself one last assessing look in the mirror. “Now I have to change my sweater. The hearts don’t go with the stars.”

  Tawny had to keep from groaning. “How about the long-sleeved white top with the ruffle down the front?” The days were getting cooler as September slipped into October, and Katie was so susceptible to getting colds. Tawny wanted to keep her warm.

  By some divine miracle Katie took Tawny’s advice and pulled the white shirt over her head, dashed into the bathroom to brush her hair and back into the room to hang up the pants and shirts strewn across the bed
.

  “Do you think he’ll like me?” Katie asked as she propped Lucky’s doll against the row of pillows on her bed.

  “He already likes you.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because how could anyone resist you.”

  Katie rolled her eyes heavenward as if to say You only think that because you’re my mom. Together, they heard the knock and Katie quickly checked herself in the mirror while Tawny answered the door.

  There, in a black Stetson, black jeans, and a pair of black snakeskin cowboy boots, Lucky stood, holding a big bunch of gerbera daisies. Katie had gotten lots of flowers during her many hospital stays, but Tawny would always think of these as her daughter’s first bouquet, and felt her eyes mist.

  “Come in,” she told Lucky, and whispered, “Katie’s nervous.”

  “Me too,” he said, but looked calm as an August weather forecast. She figured when you rode two-thousand-pound bucking bulls in front of large crowds, you didn’t let people see you sweat.

  Katie emerged from her bedroom. She was too old to hide behind her mother’s legs like she used to do at four, but Tawny knew she wanted to.

  “I made lunch,” Tawny said to ease the tension. “I thought we could sit and you two could get to know each other.”

  “Sounds like a good idea,” Lucky said, and handed Katie the flowers. “These are for you.”

  For the next two hours they talked, looked at Katie’s baby pictures, and Tawny watched Lucky Rodriguez wrap her daughter’s heart around his pinky. She supposed it shouldn’t have come as a surprise, since fifteen years ago he’d done the same with her heart.

  “Should I call you Lucky or Daddy?” Katie asked, beaming at him across the table.

  “You should call me Daddy.” Lucky beamed right back, clearly as smitten with Katie as she was with him.

  And in that moment, Tawny knew, regardless of her ambivalence over the situation, Lucky was in their lives now—at least Katie’s.