Cook County: Lucky in Love (9 page)

First, he was going to grab a condom out of his wallet, and second, he was going to give her the night of sweet, gentle lovemaking she should have had her first time. Then he was going to hold on to her all night long…maybe even longer.

****

Cammie’s eyes fluttered as she slowly came awake, thanks to the ray of sunlight slipping through the blind and shining straight into her face. She stretched out her limbs, gasping as red hot pain burst from her ankle to shoot straight up her leg.

“Morning, baby,” Lucky’s thick morning drawl brushed over her ear as his arms came around her waist from behind.

She blinked back tears as his soft lips tickled her shoulder and started on a trail that went down her arm before dropping to her waist and thigh. She couldn’t let on that she was in pain. It was too early for him to know about her illness.

Cammie held her breath as he slid lower under the covers, kissing her hot flesh. She glanced at her arms, thankful there were no red bumps or lines. No tell-tale signs. She only had to ignore the pain in her ankles and he wouldn’t know anything.

As he slowly made his way lower, her skin started to sting where he planted his kisses. She bit her lower lip as tears stung her eyes.

Suddenly, Lucky stiffened and muttered a curse before sitting up, his eyes wide as he pulled the cover off of her.

“My God, baby. What’s wrong with you?”

Cammie looked down at her body and saw what had scared him.

Her right ankle was swollen to twice its size.

Chapter Eight

A sob tore out of her throat as she quickly pulled the cover back over her, hiding the swollen ankle along with the red, rash-covered shin it was attached to. The other ankle wasn’t swollen yet, but judging by the ruddy color, it would soon be if she didn’t take her medicine.

How could I have forgotten?

“Cammie, what’s going on? Why do your legs look like that?”

“Ugly?” she blurted before she could stop herself. She knew he wasn’t being insensitive, but she was under full attack by insecurity. She’d been so careful to hide her disease. No one except Grandma Opal and her doctor had ever seen the physical signs of her illness, and Lucky was the last person she’d wanted to see her like this, sick and imperfect.

“Never that.” Lucky leaned forward and cupped her face with one of his rough-skinned but gentle hands. “You could never be ugly, but I gotta admit…my stomach’s in knots right now. I’m no doctor, but I know that isn’t good. What is it, honey, and what can I do to make it better?”

Tears cascaded faster down Cammie’s cheeks and she scrubbed at them in vain. She hated asking for help, admitting weakness. This wasn’t the way she wanted Lucky to see her, but there was no way she could get out of bed by herself judging by the pain shooting through her leg.

“Can you run me a hot bath?” she managed to get out after taking a deep breath to halt her sobbing. “The hot water helps with the pain.”

Lucky stared at her for a long moment, a hundred questions in his eyes, before nodding and quickly pulling on his jeans that had been tossed aside the night before and leaving the room.

Cammie used the bed sheet to blot her watery eyes as she heard him starting the bath for her. She’d barely ceased crying when he returned and swept her up into his strong arms and carried her, silently, into the bathroom. Wordlessly, he lowered her into the bathtub and grabbed the scrunchie she kept on her spacesaver.

“What else do you need?” he asked as he secured her hair with the scrunchie, making a simple ponytail to keep it dry.

“My medicine,” Cammie answered reluctantly as she sank down into the tub, welcoming the wet heat that quickly set to work, easing the pain in her lower body. It wouldn’t be enough, though. She needed to take the blasted pills. “In the medicine cabinet.”

Lucky crossed over to the sink to retrieve the medication. Cammie cringed as she heard his quick intake of breath. She didn’t even want to think what thoughts were going through his mind as he took in all the pill bottles. “The brown horse pills. I need two.”

He glanced at her with eyes full of sorrow before turning back to peruse the shelves. It took him a moment, but he managed to find the big pills and shake two out of the bottle before replacing it and closing the cabinet, hiding the sight of all those pills. Unfortunately, she feared the image would stay in his mind.

“I’ll get you a glass of water.”

Fresh tears fell in silence as Cammie watched him walk away. The very air had shifted the moment he’d laid eyes on her swollen ankle and taken in the rash marring the bottom of her legs. The sad way he’d looked at her after seeing the various pills she’d been prescribed didn’t give her much hope. She was no longer Cammie May, she was Sick Girl. She feared the man who Cammie May was gaining ground with would run like hell away from Sick Girl.

He returned with a glass of water and sat on the edge of the tub before handing it and the pills over. The tub now full, he reached over and twisted the faucets to stop the flow of water. “I’ve only seen one other person with that many pills,” he said solemnly as he straightened back up and watched her swallow down the large pills, hand held out for the glass. “My mother popped every pill she could get her hands on when she was out of stuff to snort or inject into her system. I know that’s not you, though.”

Cammie handed back the glass and waited for him to set it on the spacesaver and face her again before admitting, “I’m sick.”

“I gathered that.” He swallowed hard. “When I saw those pills…I had a flashback of my mother, but I quickly squashed that thought. My next thought…” His eyes glistened as he studied her. “I remembered Ladies Night at Hell’s Belle, and your story about your friend. You weren’t talking about a friend, were you?”

Cammie shook her head.

“Why, Cam? Why didn’t you tell me you were the one sick?”

“Would you be here now?” She sniffed as her nose and eyes burned with the threat of more tears. “I wanted a night to be young and free, to go for what I wanted, and I wanted you. I wanted a chance to be with you and know it was because you wanted to be with me. Who would want to be with someone sick like me?”

“Are you dying?”

“We all are, aren’t we?”

“You know what I mean,” he snapped before closing his eyes and breathing deeply, visually calming himself. “You said something about a kidney transplant.”

“My kidneys aren’t in great shape,” she admitted. “Doc’s put me on a new medication that he’s hoping will stop the damage from worsening.”

“Stopping further damage is good, but will it improve the condition of your kidneys?”

Cammie shook her head. “He doesn’t think so. There are some experimental drugs he’d like to try on me for that, but they’re expensive, and not covered by insurance, not that my insurance is all that spectacular anyway.”

“Experimental?” Lucky’s forehead wrinkled with deep thought. “How safe are experimental drugs?”

“Doc Hollis wouldn’t let me try anything if he thought it would hurt me,” Cammie said, despite having wondered the same thing herself.

“Not if he knows what he’s talking about. What do you have, Cam? Is Doc Hollis the best doctor to be treating you?”

“I have a rare autoimmune disease, similar to lupus,” Cammie explained. “You know we only have two doctors in Cook County, and Doc Hollis is the best of the two.”

“There are specialists in Denver. I can take you there.”

“Can you pay?” Cammie snapped, “because I sure can’t.” She rested her head along the back of the tub and let out a frustrated sigh. “I’m sorry, Lucky. I’m not mad at you. I’m just sick of…being sick.”

“It’s okay.” He offered her a small, very forced smile. “You have every right to be upset. Cammie, if…” He licked his lips, seeming to mull over his words. “We weren’t very careful the first time we slept together. How bad will it be for you if you’re pregnant?”

“It won’t be good,” she answered honestly, voice shaking a little. “For me or the baby.”

“And you wouldn’t even consider—”

“No, I would not consider an abortion,” she cut him off. “Not even to save my life. It’s against everything I believe in.”

“I can’t take any more death,” Lucky said softly, just barely above a whisper.

Unsure what to say to that, and unsure whether he meant he couldn’t take her death or the death of a baby they may or may not have conceived, she didn’t respond.

“It’s all right. We’re gonna get you through this.” He leaned down and kissed her forehead. “Got any bacon and eggs? I can fix us up some breakfast while you soak.”

She blinked, not expecting the sudden change in topic. “Yeah. That’d be good.”

“All right. I’m gonna get the food going. Call me if you need anything.”

She watched as Lucky left the bathroom, her mind reeling. Lucky Masters, self-professed eternal bachelor had just made a statement that sounded very much like he was planning on standing by her side in her time of need. Surely she was reading too much into his words, hearing what she wanted to hear.

****

“Well, this is a switch, getting a call from
you
to meet at the bar,” Chance commented as he pulled out the chair opposite Lucky’s at a table in the darkest, most private corner of Hell’s Belle. “Usually the call is coming from Rho, and you’re in the background cussin’ up a storm about how you don’t need your dickhead brother swinging by to change your diapers.”

Lucky looked up from the bottle he’d been twirling around in his hand. “I say crap like that?”

“Oh yeah. You’re a real sweetheart when you’re all liquored up.” Chance settled into his chair and leaned back, eyeing Lucky curiously. “You don’t look drunk, and you’re not surrounded by a fortress of empty beer bottles. The surprises keep on coming.”

“Maybe there’s hope for me yet.” Lucky set down the bottle he’d barely taken two sips out of, and leaned forward. “When Mark Calhoun was alive, every ranch hand in the county wanted to work for him. They said he took good care of his people, had good insurance for them.”

“He did take care of his ranch hands. You remember working for him during the summer in your teens.”

“Have you and Kenzie continued taking care of the ranch hands, maintained a good insurance policy?”

“Yeah.” Chance frowned. “What’s this about, Luck?”

“If I agree to come work for you, I’ll have insurance coverage, right?”

Color seeped out of Chance’s face. “What’s wrong, bro? Tell me it’s not cancer.”

Lucky blinked, let his brother’s words process, and quickly shook his head. “No, I’m fine. Healthy and strong as a bull.”

“Fuck.” Chance rubbed a hand down his face as he visually collected himself. “Give me a friggin’ heart attack, why don’t ya? What the hell, Luck? What’s going on?”

Lucky licked his lips, took a moment to reconsider what he was planning. He’d run various scenarios through his head all day, and this was the one that seemed the best way to help Cammie. On the other hand, he feared he might do something to hurt her emotionally. The woman had suffered enough, was still suffering. She didn’t need any more trauma in her life.

“Luck? What’s up, man?”

“I’m going to ask Cammie to marry me,” he blurted before he lost the nerve, and braced himself for Chance’s reaction. None came. He lifted his gaze from the table to see his brother staring at him. “Well?” he prodded. “Say something.”

“Why?”

“Why say something?” Lucky asked, confused.

“Why are you marrying her?” Chance leaned forward. “You slept with the woman and freaked out, locked yourself in that shithole-trailer for days, somehow managing to avoid alcohol poisoning before showing up to my wedding drunk.” He shook his head. “If you couldn’t walk down the aisle with her at my wedding without being drunk, how in the hell are you going to walk down the aisle with her at your own wedding?”

Lucky nearly groaned aloud at the thought of putting on the same type of production Chance and Kenzie’s wedding had been. He sure as hell wasn’t putting on another damn suit.

“It’s too soon to know if she’s pregnant, so that can’t be the reason.” Chance narrowed his eyes. “Why are you asking about health insurance?”

Damn. He should have known his protective mama-bear of a brother would pick up on there being something wrong. Well, he’d bluffed his way through more than a few poker games, surely he could bluff through this. “Shouldn’t a man provide for his wife? If I’m going to marry Cammie May, it makes sense I’d have a good health insurance policy to take care of her, for when there
are
babies on the way.” Not that he was planning on having any babies with Cammie. He’d deal with it if he’d already made that grave mistake with her, but from now on there was no way he was risking a pregnancy.

Chance stared him down before picking up the barely touched bottle of beer and taking a swig. “You know I want you to work with me, and the health insurance is good. It’s definitely a better set-up than risking your neck bronc-busting for a living.” He frowned. “You are quitting the rodeo, aren’t you?”

Lucky shrugged. “Plenty of married cowboys.”

“Plenty of unhappy women married to cowboys,” Chance muttered. “Honestly, Luck. I’d rest a lot easier myself if you never stepped into an arena again. Nearly getting killed can change your opinion on things.”