Lucky in Love

by Kelly Elliott

  I shrugged. “I guess she liked what she saw.”

  He rolled his eyes and huffed. “Well, I can tell you one thing, I’m bigger.”

  Shaking my head, I stared at him. “Is it a contest?”

  Roger smirked. “Do I really need to answer that?”

  Lucy walked back into the small room with a wheelchair. “I need to take you for your ultrasound, Mr. Carter.”

  Roger stood, and I pointed to him. “No, you are not coming.”

  “Dude, I think I’ve seen enough of your penis to last me another thirty-four years.” Then he faced Lucy. “You never did tell me if you were single.”

  Her cheeks turned red. “I am.”

  A smirk appeared on my brother’s face. “Then let me give you this.”

  He pulled out his business card and handed it to her. Her brows rose slightly when she read the card.

  “What kind of lawyer are you, Mr. Carter?”

  He winked. “The kind that makes a lot of money.”

  She giggled as she pulled the curtain back and proceeded to take me toward the elevator.

  “I’ll be waiting for your return!” Roger called out. “Oh, and I’ll be waiting for you too, Truitt.”

  When the elevator doors closed, I turned to Lucy. “Don’t call him, Lucy.”

  She chuckled. “And why not, Mr. Carter?”

  “He will wine and dine you with one goal only.”

  “What’s that?”

  “To sleep with you.”

  The doors to the elevator opened as she leaned down and whispered into my ear, “I’m totally okay with that.”

  I smiled and shook my head. If there was one thing my brother and I were good at, it was picking up women. Neither of us had ever had a serious relationship, much to my parents’ dismay. Our mother constantly nagged us about how old she was getting and how she wanted grandkids. The irony is that she was hardly around when we were kids and was still busy all the time. I found it hard to believe grandkids would change that.

  For some reason, my mother thought my brother and I were getting too old. I was thirty-two and Roger was thirty-four. Both still in our prime, if you asked us. Besides, I never could find anyone who would measure up to the one girl I compared every woman to. The one girl I let get away.

  The moment I was pushed into the room and saw the tech who would be doing the ultrasound, I wanted to cry.

  “Does this hospital not believe in hiring men?” I snapped as the tech smiled and motioned for me to change into yet another fucking gown. After I changed, I stepped out of the small changing room and she told me to lie on the table.

  “I’ll make this quick and easy for you, Mr. Carter.”

  “I’ve heard that before.”

  She chuckled.

  “Honestly, the pain is going away. I don’t think this is needed.”

  The tech gave me a reassuring grin. “Doctor Turner thinks it is needed.”

  With a sigh, I waited as she got everything ready. Warm liquid was spread over my balls. I stared up at the ceiling and tried to think of anything that wouldn’t turn me on.

  My grandmother in a bathing suit. Puppies. Roger. My dad when he falls asleep after Thanksgiving lunch. The pain I felt when the branch hit me in the balls and dick.

  The way she was moving that damn thing around was not helping. I jerked my head up and looked down at her. Did she just touch my cock?

  “Are you almost done?” I asked, while I watched her look at the machine, her brows pulled in slightly.

  “Yes, almost,” she said, looking back at me and then down at my stiff cock again. I really needed to get laid and soon. It hadn’t been that long, had it? A month? Maybe two? Maybe six?

  The tech cleared her throat and I closed my eyes. “Do you have to move it around so much?”

  “Almost done.”

  The room was dark, and I tried to focus on the machine. Maybe looking at my balls on there would make my dick realize he wasn’t about to have any fun.

  Finally, she was done.

  “All finished. I’ll get this sent over to the radiologist right now to read the results.” She turned on the light and started to wipe off my balls. I nearly choked on my tongue.

  Her eyes lifted and met mine. A blush hit her cheeks and she softly said, “For what it’s worth, I think you’re okay.”

  I forced a smile. “In my defense, you were all over my junk.”

  She nodded and gave me grin. “You’re not the only man who has been turned on during an ultrasound, Mr. Carter. You don’t need to be embarrassed.”

  I scrubbed my hands down my face and groaned. “What I need is for this day to be over.”

  Saryn

  I STEPPED UP onto the massive covered porch and smiled.

  Home. Why had I ever wanted to leave?

  The large oak door opened, and my mother rushed outside. “They’re here! Will, they’re here!”

  With a smile, I set Liliana down. My mother rushed forward and scooped my three-year-old daughter up into her arms. Liliana squealed in delight and laughed as Mom covered her in kisses. Daddy walked up and took me into his arms and held me tight.

  “I always said he was a bastard.”

  With a chuckle, I drew back and looked up at him. “Yes, you did.”

  He shrugged. “I don’t want to say I told you so, but, I did. Even when walking you down the aisle, I told you so.”

  “You did, Daddy. And I didn’t listen because I thought I was in love, but what I was really doing was running away. I took the easiest way out.”

  Daddy gave me a nod. “You said it, not me.”

  He turned and looked at my mother and Liliana. “Well, we got something amazing out of the jerk, at least.”

  “The only good thing about him it seems,” I replied.

  “Oh, Saryn, sweetheart!” my mother said as she handed Liliana to Daddy and then wrapped me up in a warm, tight hug.

  “I told you he was an asshole,” she whispered.

  Laughing, I gave her a squeeze and then let her go. “Can we all just agree that I was wrong and married him for all the wrong reasons?”

  My mother pressed her lips together tightly and regarded me for a moment before she smiled and said, “Let me grab my phone so I can record that. I think I’m going to need it in the future.”

  With a roll of my eyes, I shook my head. “I’m starved, and I know Liliana is, too.”

  “I’ve got lunch waiting for the two of you! Let’s go in,” Mom said as she wrapped her arm in mine and we followed my father and Liliana into the house.

  “How did Liliana do on the drive?” Daddy asked.

  “Great! I was honestly surprised. I only had to stop two times, once for gas and once for us to get out of the car and stretch our legs. We stopped at a park, and after that Liliana was exhausted. She slept for the last two hours of the drive.”

  With an exasperated sigh, my mother said, “That drive from Dallas is awful. I hate it.”

  I let out a humorless laugh and said, “Me, too, and knowing I’ll never be making it again makes me happier than you know.”

  She looked at me with a serious face. “And he gave up all rights to her?”

  I nodded. “Yep, which really shouldn’t surprise me, but I have to admit it did.”

  Mom shook her head. “I never did like that boy.”

  “I’m beginning to think I didn’t either. Maybe I was in love with the idea of love.” I lowered my voice, so Liliana couldn’t hear me. “Tim is in love with his dick and how many women he can put it in.”

  With wide eyes, my mother pointed her finger at me. “A well-bred southern lady doesn’t say that sort of thing.” She leaned closer and whispered, “Unless we’re alone and out of earshot of kids and men. I taught you better, Saryn.”

  Laughing, I kissed her on the cheek. “Yes, you did, Momma. He brings out the worst in me.”

  Daddy was slipping Liliana into her highchair as Momma quickly started cutting up the lasagna she had made
. She pointed to the refrigerator and said, “Get out the salad and dressing, will you, honey?”

  “Yep.”

  My father walked up to me and kissed me on the forehead. “You and Liliana are better off without him, sweetheart. You’re home now and it’s a brand-new start.”

  I smiled and gave him a reassuring nod. It wasn’t like I was sad. Far from it. Six months after we got married, I’d caught Tim in a lie. He’d told me he was working late, and I had seen him sitting in the window of restaurant with a pretty blonde who couldn’t have been more than twenty-one. He said it was a work thing, and he’d been nervous that if he told me he had to wine and dine some young executive I would worry. I wanted to believe him, but a small part of me knew he was lying. My heart had been broken by a boy in high school, one of my brother’s friends, and Tim had been there to help mend my broken heart. The whole reason I’d followed him was to avoid staying in Boerne. To avoid the heartache I truly never did get over. Deep down inside, I think Tim knew I never got over the hurt Truitt Carter caused me.

  Tim and I had dated since high school. We dated through college, both of us going to Texas A&M: me getting my degree in nursing, and Tim getting a degree in marketing. He’d gotten a job in Dallas, and the moment we graduated, we moved five hours away from our home town. In my mind it was a good thing. There was nothing in Boerne for me anymore.

  But I ended up more miserable than I thought I would. I hated Dallas, while Tim thrived in the big city. We lived in a nice house in the suburbs, did the whole neighborhood potlucks and fancy business dinners when Tim’s job required it. I worked at one of the hospitals as a labor and delivery nurse, then moved to the NICU. I thought I could make our relationship work. I fought for us to be happy, but, at some point, it became clear to me we were far from happy together.

  After living in Dallas for two years, I told Tim I didn’t think things were working and that I was going to move back to Boerne. He dropped down on one knee and asked me to marry him. My first thought was to say no…boy, how I should have gone with my gut. I didn’t though, and we got married at twenty-five. Two years later, I was pregnant with Liliana.

  To be honest, we hadn’t meant to get pregnant. We went on a trip to Ireland, a last-ditch attempt on my part to see if things would work out. We both knew our marriage was failing. Tim worked all the time and I found myself living practically alone.

  Then the rumors of his roaming eyes, hands, and dick, eventually made their way back to me. I told Tim we needed to separate, he said we needed a vacation. I ended up getting pregnant in Ireland when I stupidly forgot my birth control pills. I thought it would be okay. It was the first time we’d had sex in months, and the sad part was, we only made love once in Ireland. Both of us drunk. Talk about luck of the Irish.

  I was scared to death when I found out I was pregnant. I was having a baby with a man I could hardly stand to be around. I was angry with myself for always letting Tim talk me into giving our marriage one more chance.

  I knew the real reason it wasn’t working. There was a ghost between us. I was in love with someone I fell for at fourteen years of age. Someone I dreamed of having a life with. Someone I dreamed of while still married to my husband. Deep down inside I felt like I was cheating on Tim. It was probably the reason I ignored all the signs that he was the one actually cheating.

  I tried for two-and-a-half years to make it work, for Liliana’s sake. But when I came home early from a girls’ trip and caught Tim in our bed with his secretary while our daughter was in her room napping, that was the end. I filed for divorce. Tim didn’t argue, said he didn’t want the life of a husband and father, especially with a woman who never gave him her heart. I, of course, threw it back at him, saying he never gave me his. That was when he told me he couldn’t give his heart to someone who pined for an old high school crush.

  Tim really was an asshole. When he signed away his parental rights, I had to admit it felt like a punch in the gut. How in the world would I explain to my daughter that her dirty, rotten, low-life, cheating father didn’t want her?

  I sighed as I let the memory of that day filter back in. Sitting in the law office, the papers slid over to me to sign. I had given eleven years to him. And he signed it all away without a single hesitation.

  After I signed, our eyes met.

  “You realize what you’re doing, right?” I asked.

  He stared at me for a moment before he replied, “Yes.”

  “From this moment on, you’ll never see Liliana.”

  Something washed over his face: panic, regret, doubt, maybe?

  “It’s for the best,” he said.

  Once I packed up our things and had a mover bring the few possessions I was taking to my parents’, I loaded up my daughter in the car and set off for Boerne, Texas. A part of me couldn’t help feeling that Tim had signed Liliana away for a deeper reason.

  What man walks away from his own child?

  My father’s voice brought me back to the present. “Hey, you okay?”

  “Yeah, I’m still trying to figure out how Tim could give up his daughter so easily.”

  Momma looked up, and my parents exchanged a brief look.

  “What do y’all know?” I asked, placing the salad in the bowls Momma had set out, and then setting the large bowl on the table and crossing my arms.

  “Well,” my mother said, giving Liliana a small piece of lasagna she had cut up into small pieces.

  She handed Liliana a spoon, but my daughter’s fingers dove into the food instead. She shoved a handful of her favorite meal into her mouth, raised her brows and said, “Mmm.”

  Momma smiled proudly, then focused back on putting slices of lasagna on each plate.

  “Momma?” I repeated, my voice a bit more intense.

  “Fine, I spoke with LouAnne when I was at my monthly quilting meeting.”

  I rolled my eyes. “LouAnne? Tim’s cousin?”

  “She’s some relation to the Ackermans. I never did like that last name, by the way. I’m so glad you went back to your maiden name.”

  With my hands, I motioned for her to keep going.

  “She told me that Tim was fixin’ to come into a large inheritance once his granddaddy died. He’s very sick and not likely to live more than a few months. By large, I mean, at least a million dollars. He was in oil and all.”

  My mouth dropped open. “That bastard!”

  “Told you so,” Daddy said as he poured all of us, except for Liliana, a glass of sweet tea.

  “He didn’t want her to get any of it,” I said.

  Momma gave a humorless laugh. “Baby girl, he didn’t want either one of y’all getting your hands on it. Little does he know, you’re to inherit a lot more money than that.”

  My folks were well known and loved in Boerne. My granddaddy’s granddaddy founded one of the largest cattle ranches in the county. Daddy still runs it, although he does more than ranch the land. There is a small vineyard on the west side of the land, a pecan orchard on the south side, and cattle that roam the rest of it. My brother Ryan works the ranch, but also does a dude ranch in the fall. When we were younger, my father started the dude ranch as a favor for a few of his business friends in Austin and San Antonio. They wanted some place different for their team building retreats, and Daddy joked about having them come out and work our ranch for two weeks. And work it they did, along with having a bit of fun in the process as they pretended to be cowboys. In all, our family owned close to ten-thousand acres. The Ciblo Creek ran throughout the entire ranch, making it one of the prettiest places on Earth. One of my favorite spots was up on a hill that overlooked a pasture that had the creek running through it.

  “I didn’t want his money, and Liliana doesn’t need it either!” I spat out.

  “Tim probably thinks the ranch will go to your brother Ryan. That you won’t have any part in it.”

  “What about the store?” I asked. “I know Tim hadn’t forgotten about your store.”

  My mother o
wns a boutique in town. The small area of shopping that runs through Boerne is known as the Hill Country Mile: a mile of locally owned stores that run down Main Street and attract tons of tourists to town.

  “Maybe he doesn’t realize how much money gets pulled in from that little shop, or the other two storefronts that people rent from us,” Momma said, giving me a wink.

  “He can have his money. I wouldn’t have wanted it anyway. I’m just glad it’s over and done with. My heart breaks for Liliana, though.”

  The three of us turned and looked at my daughter. The entire lower half of her face was covered in sauce. She smiled and shoved more lasagna into her mouth, oblivious to the conversation.

  “She’ll be fine,” Daddy said, taking a bite of food and chewing. Once he swallowed, he went on. “You’ll meet another fine young man who will love you and Liliana like you deserve to be loved. I mean, look at her, she looks like she doesn’t give two shits about her low-life of a father.”

  “Daddy! Do not curse in front of her,” I said with a chuckle.

  He rolled his eyes. “She has no idea what I’m saying.”

  “She does, and she will repeat it. She’s three, not three months.”

  “Bullshit,” Daddy mumbled.

  Liliana shoved more food into her mouth and said, “Bullchit.”

  Giving me father a glare, I pointed to her. “See!”

  Both my mother and father laughed hysterically, which only made Liliana keep saying the word.

  “Bullchit! Bullchit!”

  “That’s enough, Liliana, that’s a bad word. We don’t say bad words!” I reprimanded.

  My daughter laughed and pushed her hands through her brown, curly hair. I groaned.

  I focused back on my father. “I have no intention of looking for a replacement anytime soon. The only things men care about are themselves, and they only think with their D.I.C.K.S.”

  With a wink in my direction, my mother said, “Spoken from a scorned woman who needs time to heal.”