With that, she walked out of the room, leaving Lucky to his thoughts.
Get the hell over it.
He almost laughed at the woman’s fiery attitude, but thinking of that reminded him of Cammie’s own fire. Did she still have that fire? Or had he broken her when he’d failed to show at the hospital?
He sighed heavily. So many things to figure out.
He glanced down at his battered body and sighed heavier. Well, there wasn’t much else he could do but think.
Chapter Sixteen
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. 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 managed to do 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 door. “Hey, cowboy! I think she only likes these roses when you come with them!”
Catching on, Cammie quickly turned her head toward the door, 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 managed to find a room here.”
“Thanks for the recap,” Lucky muttered, frowning at his older brother before stopping next to the bed. “Sorry I’m late.”
“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 God.” 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. A good husband would have seen to it that you were 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. You found me a kidney. You swallowed your pride and saved me.”
His gaze quickly snapped to hers; his jaw dropped open.
“I know, Lucky.” She nodded toward her laptop resting on a nearby chair. “I found a story online last night about how your father had canceled important events to have surgery. He was donating a kidney to someone.”
“I should have known that son-of-a-bitch would use the surgery as a way to promote himself.” Lucky shook his head before dropping his gaze to her side. “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 him 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 in 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. “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. 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 chickenshit 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. “You really love me? 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…but when things got hard I left. I thought I was doing the right thing.” 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 give me his kidney?” She touched her husband’s cheek, gently, so as not to hurt the bruised flesh. “Just promise me that you’ll stay, no matter how hard or scary it gets.”
“I’ll stay.” 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 legs. “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 pres
ent 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.”
“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 cats.” 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 health.
She smiled. “My world is complete, too. Now, let me get this surgery over, and you 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.”
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 are a gift enough.” She opened the box and gasped, her gaze landing on the bright sparkling diamonds. “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 diamond studded 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.
A word about the author...
A multi-published author of contemporary and paranormal romance, Crystal-Rain Love resides in the south with her three children and a multitude of pets. She enjoys hiking, writing, reading, spending time with her children, and rocking out to David Cook, after whom Cook County was named.
To learn more about her, find her on the web:
www.facebook.com/crystalrainloveauthor
www.twitter.com/crystalrainlove
www.crystalrainlove.com
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