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“Well?”
Lucky shrugged his shoulders as he studied the horses in the corral. “I see a few that look good and strong. You know I’m more of a bronc buster than a breeder, right?”
“You’ve been a ranch hand for more than a few breeders,” Chance reminded him.
Lucky grunted. He couldn’t seem to talk his way out of this. He didn’t need this pressure right now. What if he picked horses that were poor quality, and Chance’s investment went down in flames? Hadn’t he failed at enough? There was too much going on in his life for him to suddenly try being a damn horse breeder.
He was already venturing into unknown territory with Cammie. What the hell did he know about being a husband? Who had been a freaking role model there? They’d never had fathers. The majority of ranch hands he’d worked for had cheated on their wives or treated them like crap. The few good role models he had were ones he’d caught on television what few times he actually watched anything, and he was sure that being a good husband was a lot easier when you only did it for a thirty-minute duration each week.
And what if Cam was pregnant? Being a good father was a scarier thought than being a good husband. He knew what it was like to be born to a worthless scumbag. If he had a child, he would live in constant fear of letting him or her down.
“What’s rolling around in that head, Luck? Aside from the normal rocks,” his brother quipped. “Seriously, man. You look like hell. You could pack clothes into those bags under your eyes.”
“I’m sure you and Kenzie haven’t been spending all the hours of your nights sleeping since you got married.” Lucky rubbed his tired, grainy eyes.
The nightmares had been nonstop since he’d married Cam, and the fact that she was being affected by them made him feel even guiltier, making it that much harder for him to get any quality sleep. He’d considered sleeping on the couch so she could have some peace at night, but how in the hell could he expect to make a marriage work if he couldn’t even get through the first week without sleeping apart from his wife? Besides, Cammie already appeared hurt each time he suffered the nightmare and refused to share the details with her. She’d only see him sleeping downstairs as him brushing her off.
“You know you can’t bullshit with me, bro, and as sour as your ass is when something’s bothering you, things can’t be too great with Cammie. She’s not used to your moods yet.”
“What the hell are you now? My therapist?”
Chance grinned. “Why not? You were mine not so long ago.”
“Talk you into marrying a woman and all of a sudden you’re all fluff and puff,” Lucky muttered as he inclined his head to the left, signaling for his brother to follow him to the other side of the corral where a picnic table sat.
“I’m having the nightmares,” he said as he sat on top of the table.
“That sucks,” Chance commented, joining him. “I thought you had all that under control.”
“Yeah, well... the nightmare changed a little.”
His brother eyed him curiously. “How?”
“Everything’s the same until I walk into the bathroom. It’s no longer Sylvie in the bathtub. It’s Cammie.”
“Shit.” Chance removed his Stetson long enough to rake a hand through his dark hair. “Maybe it’s time to talk to someone about this, Luck.”
“A quack? Hell no.”
“Have you told Cammie about—”
“How am I supposed to do that?” Lucky scoffed. “How do you tell a woman you keep seeing her dead in your nightmares? It’ll freak her the hell out and she’s got enough prob—” Lucky caught himself before he told his brother about Cammie’s health issues.
“Problems with what?” Chance asked, looking off into the distance, his jaw set.
Lucky knew that look. His brother knew there was a lot more going on than he was being told, and he wasn’t happy about it. And he wasn’t about to quit gnawing on that bone until he picked it clean.
“Nothing, bro. Forget about it.”
“You know me better than that, and you know I know when you’re holding out on me.” Chance turned his head to do his eagle-eye stare. “If you won’t talk to someone who is qualified to help, then talk to me. Don’t let it fester inside until your only escape is at the bottom of a bottle. Cammie deserves better than that.”
“Cheap shot, asshole,” Lucky grumbled, earning a chuckle from his brother. “I can’t tell you. Believe me, I want to, but it’s Cammie’s deal, and she swore me to secrecy. Would you tell me something about Kenzie if she asked you not to?”
“Dammit.” Chance shook his head. “We’re brothers. We’re not supposed to have secrets.”
“Still, you wouldn’t tell me something if Kenzie asked you not to, would you?”
“No, I wouldn’t. Damn women,” he muttered. “The more you love them, the more they drive you crazy.”
****
CAMMIE TURNED THE STOVE off and removed the stew from the hot burner as she heard Lucky’s truck pull up in the driveway. She smiled at the way she could pick the sound of it apart from any other noises wafting in from the outside.
“Did you and Chance get some good horses today?” she called out while scooping rice into bowls after the front door opened and closed.
She knew the concept of helping Chance with his new horse-breeding venture didn’t exactly thrill Lucky, but she hoped he would grow to like it as he gained more confidence in his ability to help run such a business. It was good work, he could be with his family, and it would keep him near to her. Maybe that was greedy of her, but she didn’t relish the idea of staying behind while he spent time on the circuit, earning a living off a career that included risking broken bones or worse.
“We got a few. I hope they were good choices,” he said as he entered the kitchen. “Just got done settling them in at Chance’s.”
“Looks like the breeding business is a go then,” she said, turning to find Lucky slumped down in a chair at the kitchen table, eyes heavy and face drawn. “Hopefully you can get some sleep now.”
Lucky only grumbled something unintelligible as she set his beef stew and rice in front of him and joined him with her own bowl.
“Looks good,” he commented before taking a bite.
“It’s just something I threw together,” she mumbled, not mentioning that she’d been too tired after her shift at the diner to cook him a proper meal. She prided herself on cooking homemade food for him from scratch, using her family’s recipes, but tonight all she could manage was rice and beef stew from a can.
“How attached are you to this house?”
Cammie paused, spoon halfway to her mouth, as she replayed Lucky’s unexpected question in her mind. A knot started to form in her stomach. “Do you want to move? We agreed we would keep this house. You said you liked it.”
“The house is fine. It’s a really nice house.” Lucky shoveled in another bite of stew, chewed and swallowed before pushing his bowl away. “I just want to make sure you’re safe. Chance offered me a cabin on the ranch. It’s small, but we can add on if you want. It might be awhile before we can afford to, but it’s an option.”
“A cabin on the ranch?” Cammie pushed her bowl away too, no longer hungry. “This was my grandmother’s house. She raised me here after my parents died. Why would I give this up for a cabin on Chance and Kenzie’s ranch? And what’s unsafe about this house?”
“The house itself is fine,” Lucky explained, leaning forward. “But what happens if you get really sick while I’m gone? What if you can’t get to a phone? If we lived on the ranch, and Chance and Kenzie knew to check on you—”
“Check on me?” Cammie quickly stood and scooped up the bowls. She fumed as she raked the remaining stew out into the garbage before depositing the dirty dishes in the sink. “I’m not an invalid.”
“I never said you were.” Lucky came up behind her and reached for the dishrag in her hand. “I’ll do the dishes.”
“No!” Cammie held the rag tighter. “I can do the dishes. I can cook. I can clean. I can do everything a normal person can do. I don’t need to be looked after like a baby.”
Lucky stared at her for a long moment before turning away to walk to the refrigerator. He took out a bottle of lemonade and popped the cap before leaning back against the fridge and took a long draw. “I didn’t mean to upset you, Cammie. I just want to make sure you’re safe when I’m gone.”
Cammie looked over her shoulder as she rinsed off the dishes and placed them in the drying rack. As relieved as she was that he’d chosen lemonade over alcohol, relief was short-lived. “What do you mean by gone? Gone where?”
He looked at her, blinking, as if she’d just asked something very obvious. “The rodeo. I have to get back out on the circuit.”
“You have to get back out on the circuit?” Cammie wrung the dishtowel she’d been drying her hands with so tight, if it were a living being she would have choked the life out of it. “You have a job with your brother, and it’s a good job! You have this house, nearly paid for. Why do you have to go back out on the circuit?”
“I spoke to the doctor, Cam. The medicine you’re on now, the crap that insurance will cover, it isn’t working. Insurance won’t cover the experimental drugs he wants to try, and it’s expensive as hell!”
“You’re selling the trailer,” Cammie pointed out. “That will bring in money.”
“That piece of crap trailer isn’t worth much, Cam. We need a large amount of money and we need it now. We can sell this house, move into the cabin on Chance’s ranch, and with what I bring in on the circuit, we’ll have enough.”
“It’s not guaranteed you’ll make anything. What if you don’t win the purse?”
“I have to try.” Lucky finished the lemonade and tossed the bottle into the recycling bin. “You’re getting worse. I see the way you limp at the end of the day, the way you wince and hold your side when you think I’m not looking.”
“It’s not that bad.”
“I’ve heard you whimper at night when you go to the bathroom.”
She turned away. Painful urination was one of the signs her doctor had warned her about. One of the symptoms she was supposed to report immediately, but she hadn’t yet. She was still in her twenties and recently married. Now wasn’t the time for her kidneys to fail.
Lucky’s hands came around her waist as he embraced her from behind. “You’re my wife. It’s my job to take care of you. I can’t have you living in pain while we scrape pennies and dimes together. I have to get back out on those broncs and provide for you the only way I know how.”
“I don’t want to be a burden.”
The doorbell chimed, saving Lucky from a response, one Cammie feared she might not want to hear. What if he agreed she was a burden? Worse, what if he asked for a divorce? She unwound herself from his hold and rushed to the door as quickly as her throbbing legs would take her. She opened the door and her jaw dropped open.
The last person she would have expected to visit her home stood in front of her.