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Cammie gasped as she woke to see her hospital room full of blue roses. Vases of them dotted every surface, and petals of the beautiful flowers speckled her bed and the floor. She sat upright, her heart beating in overdrive.
Lucky!
The door opened, and she turned toward it. The smile on her face died, though, as the wrong Masters walked in.
“Anybody ever tell you that you sleep like the dead?” Chance asked as he and Kenzie stepped closer to her bed. “I didn’t think we’d be able to get all these flowers in here without you waking, but you might as well have been in a coma.”
Her heart sank as realization kicked in and she felt the aftermath of having allowed herself to foolishly believe Lucky had returned to her. He’d apparently told Chance about the blue roses, and his brother had thought he was doing a nice gesture to make her feel better before she headed into surgery later that morning. Unfortunately, all he’d done was pour salt into an already gaping wound.
“Why do you look sad?” Kenzie asked, frowning before turning to her husband. “I don’t think she likes the roses.”
“Nonsense. Lucky said she loves blue roses.”
“Well, why is she so unhappy? Oh, I know!” Kenzie’s face brightened. She and her husband shared a chuckle before she turned toward the open door. “Hey, cowboy! I think she only likes these roses when you come with them!”
Catching on, Cammie turned her head toward the doorway, gasping as her husband, dressed in a white T-shirt and gray sweatpants, hobbled in on crutches, a bandage marring his forehead, scratches and bruises marring the rest of him. Her hand flew to her mouth. “Oh my gosh! What happened to you?”
“Stubborn bastard got himself jacked up,” Chance explained. “Then left the hospital he was in against doctor’s orders. Fortunately, he’s just ornery enough to stay conscious despite head trauma and broken bones.”
“Thanks for the recap,” Lucky muttered, frowning at his older brother, as he stopped next to the bed and looked down at her. “I’m sorry I didn’t get here sooner.”
“We’ll leave you two alone now,” Kenzie announced, grabbing Chance’s arm and ushering him out of the room.
Lucky smiled down at her. “I know you’re pissed at me, but I couldn’t stay away. I had to be here for your surgery. I have to be here when you wake up, to know you’re all right.”
She shook her head, unsure where to start. Staring at the black and blue marks dotting his skin, she started with the obvious. “What happened? I just knew that one of those broncs would—”
“Actually, it was a deer that got me,” he cut her off, grinning. “I was rushing back here to get to the hospital. It was raining hard, and the deer jumped out in front of me.” His face grew serious. “I was on my way back to you, Cam.”
“Oh.” She covered her mouth to stifle the sob threatening to tear out of her. “I thought you’d just left me, and all this time you were... Why didn’t you tell us? Why didn’t you try to reach us?”
His gaze fell away. “I failed you. I failed you when I left you alone here to go make money, and I failed you when I tried to rush back and ended up in the hospital, racking up hospital bills for myself when I should have been taking care of yours.”
“Oh, Lucky, the job with your brother gave us insurance. You didn’t fail to provide for me.”
“But I failed to take care of you.” His eyes held a sheen of water as he took a deep breath and swallowed hard. “The experimental medicine that wasn’t covered by insurance. You got started on it late because I was too stubborn to take the money my father offered, and now you need a transplant. A good husband would have seen to it his wife was taken care of, no matter what it cost him to do so. I didn’t do that for you. I tried to take care of everything myself, and look what happened.”
“Yes, look what happened. The medicine is experimental so even if I’d started taking it earlier, there’s still a chance it wouldn’t have worked, but Lucky, you found me a kidney. You swallowed your pride and saved me.”
His gaze quickly snapped to hers and his jaw dropped open.
“I know, Lucky.” She nodded toward her cell phone resting on a nearby cart. “I found a story online last night about how your father had canceled important events to have surgery. He’s going to donate a kidney to someone, the wife of a family friend.”
“Family friend? That’s a good one. I should have known that son of a bitch would use the surgery to promote himself and get votes.” Lucky growled and shook his head before dropping his gaze to her side. “But as long as it gets you your kidney, I can live with it. How are you doing?”
“Thanks to you, I’ll soon have a new kidney and medication that’s keeping my disease under control,” Cammie answered, voice shaky. “I know it took a lot for you to ask your father for anything, but...”
“But what?” he asked after she trailed off into an uncomfortable silence.
“Why did you keep it a secret that you’d done it? Why didn’t you get in touch with us?” Noticing the strain on his face, Cammie scooted over and patted the mattress.
“Because believe it or not, asking him to help wasn’t half as hard as facing you.” Lucky hobbled closer, propped the crutches against the wall, and lowered himself onto the bed next to her. He had to lift his broken leg with his hands to get into the bed all the way. “I actually thought the noble thing to do would be to give you your freedom, allow you to find someone more worthy of a good woman like you. But selfish bastard that I am, I didn’t want to let you go. I just couldn’t do it. So I waited in that hospital. I just waited to see if you would make that decision for me.”
Cammie’s heart sank, her hands trembled, and she gripped the bedrail to control the shaking. “You want a divorce? That’s why you’re here now?”
He shook his head. “I want you happy. I want to do right by you. If you want rid of me, I’ll leave, because it’s what you want. But if you have it in your heart to forgive me for being a chicken-shit poor excuse of a husband, I’ll stay forever and do whatever it takes to earn you. Whether you send me away or keep me, one thing’s for sure. I will never love anyone like I love you, Cammie.”
Tears spilled down her face as she soaked in the words she’d longed to hear for so long. “You really love me? Even knowing there’s no baby?”
“It was never about you possibly being pregnant,” Lucky assured her. “It was...” He licked his lips, searching for words. “It was the way you made me want to be a good man. I’ve never gotten close to a woman before, always scared I wouldn’t be good enough and too damn lazy to even try. But you put something in me, Cam, a desire to be a better man, to be a husband and a provider... and that’s what I was still trying to do when I left for the circuit. I thought I was doing the right thing. Earning money was the only thing I could ever do right for my mother. It’s what I thought I was supposed to do for anyone I cared about.” He shrugged his shoulders in a gesture of defeat. “I’m sorry, Cam, but I don’t really know what I’m doing. This is all so new for me.”
Cammie straightened, wiping her tears away. “I believe I once told you I would help you with that.”
“Yeah, you did.” He smiled. “I wasn’t a good student, but if you’ll give me another chance, I promise to work harder.”
“Harder than swallowing your pride and asking the man you hate more than anyone in this world to get me a kidney? Harder than knowing that man’s own kidney ended up being a match and will be a part of me? I know it was all an exchange for your silence while he runs for mayor. I know it was a major sacrifice for you to make.” She touched her husband’s cheek, gently, so as not to hurt the bruised flesh. “Just promise me you’ll stay, no matter how hard or scary it gets.”
“I’ll stay, and I don’t care whose kidney you get as long as it keeps you alive.” He reached out and thumbed away a spot of wetness on her cheek. “Just teach me how to stop making you cry.”
“I can’t do that,” she said, bracing her hands on the mattress beside him so she could lean in without adding any weight to his injured body. “A good husband sometimes makes his wife so happy she cries.”
“Teach me how to do that,” he asked.
“You’ve already done it,” she said softly, fresh tears falling as she pressed her lips to his, claiming the kiss she’d been afraid she’d never get again. “You did it the moment you came back to me, the best present ever.”
“I owed you one. You gave me the greatest gift ever the day you became my family.”
Cammie’s hand instantly went to her belly. “Lucky, the transplant will make me better, but with the drugs I’m going to have to keep taking... the doctors say there’s no guarantee I’ll be able to have children. Even if I could get pregnant, it would be an enormous burden on my body to carry a child.”
“Hey, it’s all right.” He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “If we’re meant to have children, we’ll have children. If you want to adopt, we’ll adopt, or if you don’t feel up to it, we can just raise dogs.” He smiled warmly. “As long as I have you, my world is complete.”
Cammie gazed at her husband, the man she once thought she’d never have, the man who had come back to stay with her, completing their vow to stay together through sickness and in health.
She smiled. “My world is complete too. Now, let me get this surgery over and get healed up enough so we can go home and figure out just how you’re going to make love to me with that cast on.”
Lucky laughed, a real laugh that reached his sparkling blue eyes. “Well, if that’s what a good husband does, ma’am, I’ll be happy to oblige, but I think you’re going to need more time than you think to heal.”
They laughed together as they settled into each other’s arms. Cammie noticed a small lump in the pocket of Lucky’s sweatpants. “What’s that?”
“I couldn’t show up without a gift,” Lucky explained as he withdrew a small blue box and handed it to her.
Cammie smiled. “You’re a gift enough.” She opened the box and gasped, her gaze landing on the bright sparkling diamonds surrounding a rose made of sapphires. “I told you I liked my ring just fine.”
“And I told you that you should have something better.” Lucky reached over and removed the gold band from the box and slid it down her ring finger, where it lined up perfectly with the thin gold band she already wore. “There. Now you look like the queen you are.”
Tears spilled down Cammie’s cheeks. “See, I told you a good husband makes his wife cry.”
“And he kisses the tears away,” Lucky said, leaning over to do just that. “Now, get some rest.”
“Only if you’ll stay here and rest with me. Oh, Lucky, you look awful.”
He laughed. “Thanks.”
“You know what I mean. You have to be in pain, and you’re walking around with broken bones.”
“Hobbling, you mean.” He shifted around so he could lie down next to her more comfortably. “I’ll stay here with you until they kick me out. How’s that?”
“Acceptable, but I doubt they’ll kick you out. They’ll probably take one look at you and bring in another bed.” Cammie snuggled as close to him as she could without putting pressure against his body, and threaded her fingers through those on the hand he reached over to her. After a moment of lying there together in comfortable silence, fear crept to the surface from where she’d been forcing it down to put on a brave face in front of her friends and family. “Lucky, there’s a chance I could die during the surgery or my body could reject the kidney later and I could die then.”
His body stiffened for a moment, then relaxed on an exhale as he squeezed her hand. “You won’t die, Cammie. No angel would come for you knowing I’ll break through Heaven’s gate to bring you back, and I’ll bring hell and damnation with me when I do.”
Cammie smiled. “I believe you’d really do that.”
“I damn sure would. Now get some rest, sweetheart. We both need to rest and build our strength back. We’re going to get through this.”
“All right.” She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, pushing through her fears to rest. The day of her surgery would come soon enough, and she had no choice. It had to be done. She only hoped that if she didn’t survive it, Lucky wouldn’t find a way to blame himself.
****
“I NEVER THOUGHT I’D have to tell a man on crutches to sit down.”
Lucky glanced over at where Kenzie sat next to Chance in the waiting room, but didn’t stop pacing. Even if he had to use crutches to do so, pacing was the only thing keeping him from completely bugging out.
“There’s no use,” Chance told her. “Lucky’s always been a pacer when he gets anxious, or a knee bouncer. He bounces his knee right now, he’s going to snap something. Just let him pace... or whatever it is you can call what he’s doing.”
“What’s taking so damn long?” He caught the undercurrent of fear in his voice and was thankful he’d somehow kept it under control in front of Cammie. Despite voicing her own fears, he’d kept from succumbing to his anxiety about the operation until they had wheeled her back for it. He’d stayed strong and confident for her, but now that he knew she was back there somewhere, her body open and getting cut into and who-knew-what-else, he couldn’t keep a handle on it.
“It’s going to take some time, bro. They’re taking an organ out of one body and putting it into another. That’s something you don’t want a rush job on.”
“Obviously,” he snapped at his brother, then bit out a curse. “Sorry. I’m a little edgy.”
“Really? Hadn’t noticed. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I kind of want to sneak you in a beer so you’ll mellow out.”
Lucky whipped his head over to where his brother sat, caught his grin, and laughed. The tension that had been suffocating him just a moment before broke and he pulled in a full breath without his chest aching. “Thanks. I needed that laugh.”
He hadn’t even wanted a drink since the accident that had put him in the hospital, and had no intention of picking up another bottle. Finding out his heavy drinking had made him a poor prospect for donating a kidney to save his wife’s life had turned him off the seductive poison.
“She’ll be fine, Lucky.” Kenzie gave him a warm smile. “She’s got us and the whole town praying for her. There’s power in that.”
Lucky nodded, wanting to believe. Truth was, he’d never been much of a believer in anything but himself, had been let down too much in life, and feared the universe might decide to make him regret that disbelief now. He’d prayed for the first time in years that morning, and hoped the door hadn’t closed to him after so many years of not even trying to open it. If it had, he at least hoped the other prayers sent up for Cammie had gotten through. Cammie didn’t deserve to pay for his shortcomings.
“Excuse me.”
Lucky planted his crutches into the carpet and turned around to face the owner of the feminine voice that reeked of money and sophistication, and sucked in a breath as his gaze collided with that of a thin older woman in a black pencil skirt and blazer over a burgundy silk blouse. She stood just inside the doorway to the waiting room and the air seemed to grow colder around her.
“Are you Lucky Masters?”
Lucky nodded, and swallowed, his mouth gone dry at the recognition of who stood before him.
“May we speak privately, please?”