Getting Lucky (A Nugget Romance Book 5) (6 page)

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 the 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.

She got up to clear the table while Katie and Lucky went into the living room to watch TV. As she loaded the dishwasher, Lucky came up behind her.

“You think we could talk outside for a few minutes?”

“Sure,” she said. “Let’s go inside my studio.” Tawny told Katie where they’d be and led Lucky through the kitchen door and backyard. In the studio, she flipped on the heat, motioned for Lucky to take a seat on one of the try-on benches, and sat across from him. “What’s up?”

“I think it went well, don’t you?”

“Yes. She likes you. Please don’t disappoint her.”

“Tawny, one of the things you and I have to get straight is that I’m dependable. You’re the one who decided to keep me out of Katie’s life. So stop acting like I’ll turn tail. What I came out to talk about is Katie’s health. I called my agent and he’s hunting down the best leukemia docs in the—”

Tawny cut him off. “How very nice of you and him, since Katie’s oncologist and hematologist are some of the world’s leading experts. Do you think I’m a country bumpkin, who can’t take proper care of my daughter?”

“Ah, for Christ’s sake, don’t go getting coiled up like a rattlesnake, Tawny. All I’m saying is that you’re no longer on your own. I’m here to help take the load off.”

She put her face in her hands. “I know, I know. It’s just that I’ve been doing it her whole life, Lucky, and I don’t want to be second-guessed.”

He pulled the bench close enough to hers so that they were touching knees. “I get it. That’s not what I’m doing. I swear. But from here on out, I’m your hazer.”

She smiled at him, knowing that
hazer
was a rodeo term for a steer wrestler’s right-hand man—the rider who bookends the animal while it’s running pell-mell across the arena, so the bulldogger can wrestle it to the ground.

“Seriously, Tawny, I’ve got a lot of time to make up for. And that’s gonna start with back child support.”

“You’re not still mad?” She couldn’t believe what an about-face he’d done.

“Hell yeah, I’m mad. Don’t mistake this”—he waved his hand between them—“for me forgiving you. I’ll probably never forgive your halfhearted effort to reach me. And my mother . . . you’re on her shit list. I think the only other people on that list are my deadbeat dad and Ray Rosser.”

And Raylene, if Cecilia was smart. How could Lucky possibly see that woman after all she’d done to him? Tawny tried to squeeze the picture of Raylene with Lucky out of her head. His personal life wasn’t any of her concern.