Kiss Me Cowboy (Cowboys of Crested Butte Book 3)

by Heather Slade

  Tucker sat on the side of the bed. He only had to last a few more hours, maybe as long as a day or two, then he could escape.

  He didn’t know where he’d go yet. Maybe Mexico. That was his only plan for now. And when he got there, he’d leave Tucker Rice behind. He had no intention of taking his past with him, and that included his name.

  Yesterday, his parents told him Blythe was going to be okay. Her appendix ruptured in the accident, and that was why she’d been in surgery. She broke her right arm and right leg, both in several places. She would undergo surgeries to fix them when she was strong enough.

  She was alive, but he still had to leave. He didn’t have a choice. He got the message. For a brief moment, he had believed he could love again. And then, minutes after he’d allowed himself to hope, it was stripped away. Blythe lived, but he’d heard the warning loud and clear.

  The bones in Blythe’s right arm and right leg were shattered—multiple breaks and fractures in both. Her face was covered in cuts and abrasions from the truck window that had shattered the same way her bones had.

  She woke once and saw someone sitting by her bed. At first she thought it was Tucker, but closed her eyes again when she realized it was Jace.

  Her father told her Tucker was okay. He’d suffered a concussion and was expected to be released in a day or two. At least she thought that’s what he said. Everything was fuzzy. She couldn’t remember whether he’d actually said it or she dreamed it.

  When she woke again, Jace was gone and Bree was in the chair he’d been in.

  “Hey,” Bree said when she noticed Blythe’s eyes were open. “How are you feeling, Sleeping Beauty?”

  How did she feel? As though she’d been rolled over by a truck. But from what they told her, she’d been inside the truck when it rolled. Sleep was the only relief she could get from the pain.

  “Where’s Tucker?” she asked, without answering her sister’s question.

  “He was released today, sweetie.”

  Released. Maybe he’d come to see her later, or tomorrow. She let herself drift back into sleep. She’d see if someone could call him and ask, after she slept a little bit longer.

  Brooke and her husband came to the hospital a little while later, to say goodbye before they went back to Germany. When Brooke lectured her about how none of this would have happened if she hadn’t been with Tucker in the first place, Blythe’s response was simple. “Get out,” she’d said, turned her head, and closed her eyes.

  The only thing she wanted to know—and no one seemed to be able to tell her—was where Tucker was.

  “How’s she doing?”

  Blythe pretended to be asleep when she heard Jace talking to Bree.

  “She’s getting there. She’s stopped asking about him.”

  “We don’t know where he is,” Jace whispered.

  “What do you mean?”

  “He left the day after he got out of the hospital. It isn’t unlike him, but…”

  “Finish your sentence,” Bree insisted.

  “He usually checks in by now, and he hasn’t. My parents are worried sick. So am I, to be honest.”

  “Why would he leave? Doesn’t he care how Blythe is? For Christ’s sake, it’s his fault she’s here.”

  Blythe winced. It had been an accident. It wasn’t Tucker’s fault. She almost said so, but stayed quiet. She wanted to hear what Jace had to say if he continued.

  “That’s why he’s gone. It’s the second time this has happened.”

  “Come with me,” she heard Bree say. Blythe wanted to stop them so she could hear the rest, but something told her it was a story she didn’t want to hear. Instead, she turned her head and went back to sleep.

  Blythe was going home, but she’d be back in a week for surgery on her arm. Not long after, they’d operate on her leg. It had been explained to her more than once, but she was too groggy from the pain meds to understand much of what they were telling her.

  Instead of going to the house in Palmer Lake, the one she’d planned to share with Lyric, she went to her parents’ house. She felt bad, but with everything she still had in front of her, she’d need their help.

  Every morning, her parents pushed her to do physical therapy, which she hated. When Bree was with her, she’d let her slack off. Bree would spend the hour talking instead of making her do her exercises.

  “You have to have surgery again anyway,” she’d say. “You can do the physical therapy after.”

  Renie visited, but she didn’t bring Willow with her. She was afraid the little girl would be too rambunctious.

  “You could stay longer if you brought her. As it is, you have to leave an hour after you get here.”

  “I’ll bring her next time,” Renie would say, but she never did.

  Lyric, who had settled into the house in Palmer Lake by herself, came to see Blythe almost every day. She was able to do some RodeoChat work, until either the pain got so bad that she couldn’t concentrate anymore, or she’d take something for it that made her groggy.

  Jace came to see her almost every day, too. She never asked him about Tucker. She had no idea what he’d wanted to talk to her about before the accident, but it didn’t matter now. As he had before, he left. She didn’t blame him for the accident, but it hurt that he didn’t care whether she was okay or not.

  “How about a movie today, maybe get some lunch afterwards?” Jace tried to get her to go out, get some fresh air, but she didn’t feel up to it. Until her leg healed more, she had to use a wheelchair to get around. The cast on her arm went all the way from her shoulder to her wrist. It was uncomfortable, and it made her miserable.

  It didn’t seem to matter to Jace. He took her bad moods in stride, which only made her more irritated with him.

  “Listen, you don’t have to come see me. I’m fine. Aren’t you supposed to be out, chasing girls on the rodeo circuit or something?”

  When he laughed, Blythe wanted to punch him.

  “Billy and I will be headin’ out soon enough, and we’ll be chasin’ eight seconds more than girls, darlin’.”

  “Billy maybe, but you can’t convince me you aren’t gonna be hooking up with a buckle bunny or two.”

  “You been talkin’ to Lyric or somethin’?”

  As a matter of fact, she had. And it was Lyric who’d asked her why Jace was hanging around so much.

  “You two together again?”

  Again? No, they weren’t together again, because they’d never been together in the first place. How could Lyric even ask her that? She’d had sex with Tucker, for God’s sake. And honestly, being around Jace was becoming harder and harder. It hurt to look at him because, obviously, he reminded her of Tucker. They were twins.

  Whenever she thought about him, she got angry, and then she’d take it out on Jace. The meaner she got, the nicer he was. When he left, he’d kiss her forehead, or her cheek, and it drove her crazy.

  “I don’t want you to visit me anymore,” she would tell him at least every few days.

  It never stopped him. He might take a day or two off, but then he’d be back, as though nothing had been said between them.

  Blythe asked her mother to put a call in to her doctor. The medicine she was taking was making her nauseous, and she wanted to see if he could switch her to something else. Instead of calling in a different prescription, he asked Paige to bring her into the office.

  “Why does he have to make it so complicated? Has he ever been in a damn wheelchair? Does he have any idea how hard it is for me to come into his office? Why couldn’t he just call something in?”

  “I don’t know, baby.” No matter how nice anyone was to her, it irritated Blythe, and that included her mother.

  When the doctor asked her to pee in a cup, Blythe was ready to take his head off.

  “Is he kidding?” she asked after he left the examination room. “How in the hell am I supposed to do that?” She pointed to her right arm, the one in the cast, and then at her leg. “Somehow I’m s
upposed to be able to hold a cup and pee in it?”

  “I think you’ll need help, sweetheart,” Paige answered.

  “I spent the first two weeks needing to have someone help me every time I had to use the bathroom. I’m tired of it. Forget it. Let’s go. I’ll take Tylenol.”

  Paige wouldn’t budge and made Blythe give the doctor a urine sample. “You’ll get through this.”

  Blythe wished she’d asked Bree to come with her rather than her mother. Bree was easier on her. She might’ve even been able to talk Bree into giving the sample for her, so she didn’t have to.

  They’d been waiting for over a half hour when the doctor finally came back in. Blythe started to say something, but stopped when her mother put her hand on Blythe’s good shoulder and squeezed.

  He sat down on the stool and wheeled it closer to her.

  “Blythe, there’s something we need to talk about, and it’s fairly serious. Would you like your mom to step out?”

  “No, it’s okay. She can stay.”

  As if everything she was going through wasn’t serious enough. What now? Her leg wasn’t healing properly? She had to have another surgery? What did that have to do with peeing in a cup?

  Paige sat down. Why was her mother sitting down? And why did she look so pale? Blythe turned back to the doctor.

  “Well, what is it? Spit it out, for Christ’s sake.”

  “You’re pregnant.”

  Oh my God. That wasn’t what she’d expected him to say. Was he joking? Did he say that because she was being such a bitch? She looked into his eyes. It didn’t look like he was bullshitting her.

  “That’s impossible.”

  “Are you saying you haven’t had sexual relations in the last few months?”

  What was he saying? Her mother was in the room. “Yes, I have,” she answered as quietly as she could. “But I’m on the pill.”

  “Are you still taking it?”

  Well, no. She hadn’t been, not since the accident. But she also hadn’t had sex since the accident.

  “Do you remember when you stopped taking it?”

  She thought back. It was a blur. Between being with Bree when Zack died, and the funeral…all the traveling. Oh no. She couldn’t remember taking the pills with her to California. And then, with everything going on, she hadn’t remembered to take one since.

  “As I suspected,” he said without her needing to answer. “I would guess you’re close to two months along.”

  “More like three,” she answered. It didn’t take a genius to figure it out. She’d only been with Tucker one day…and night…and then the next day. Then they’d gotten into the accident. The math was easy.

  “It makes what we have to talk about even more urgent.”

  “What?”

  “Blythe,” he began. “You need to consider the trauma your body has been through in the last three months. You’ve had multiple surgeries, medications, x-rays…”

  “What are you saying?”

  “The fetus may have been compromised. We didn’t take any of the precautions we would’ve, had we known you were pregnant.”

  Compromised? What the hell did that mean?

  “There are tests we can run, certainly, but this early in the pregnancy, we can’t be sure any will be indicative of how the baby will be as we get closer to full term.”

  Blythe stopped listening. She was pregnant with Tucker’s baby.

  “I’m sure you’ll want to give it some thought. Give the office a call to schedule an appointment when you’ve decided what you’d like to do. You can also call this number if you have any questions.” The doctor wrote a phone number on the back of a business card and handed it to her. “That’s my private service. If you leave a message with them, I’ll call you back as soon as I’m able to.”

  “I’ve already made my decision.”

  “Blythe—”

  “It’s okay, Mom. It doesn’t matter what any test says, I’m having this baby.” It was Tucker’s baby, and she was having it. She rubbed her good hand over her belly.

  “There are things you should consider,” the doctor continued.

  “There isn’t anything for me to consider. I’ve made up my mind, and my decision is final.”

  “I have to warn you, there is still a chance the baby will abort itself and you’ll have a miscarriage. As I said, we have no way of knowing what kind of damage the fetus has sustained.”

  Damage. That’s what Jace had said about Tucker, that he was damaged. Blythe knew there was nothing wrong with their baby. The baby wasn’t damaged. No one could tell her otherwise.

  Blythe sent a text to Jace on the way home, asking him to meet her at the house. His truck was in the driveway when they pulled in.

  “Hey, you,” he said, walking up to her mother’s car. He reached in and picked her up.

  “You don’t have to carry me.”

  “I don’t? Gotta tell ya, it’s easier to carry you than it is to push that damn wheelchair.”

  He had a point.

  “Where were you?”

  “At the doctor.”

  He kicked the front door open with his foot and carried her over to the couch in the living room.

  “How did it go? Any news on the next surgery?”

  “No, but there’s other news.”

  “What’s that?”

  No point in beating around the bush. Maybe this news would push Jace and his parents to try harder to find Tucker.

  “I’m pregnant.”

  Jace felt the air leave his lungs. He wasn’t sure how long it took before he was able to take another breath. Blythe was pregnant. Jesus.

  “Nothing to say?” she asked.

  “Taking it in.”

  “Where is Tucker?”

  “I have no idea, Blythe. I wish I did.”

  “You better figure it out.”

  He heard her. She wanted him to find Tucker. He understood. He hoped and prayed he’d be able to. He had no idea where to even start.

  Todos Santos. Not deep enough into Mexico, but it was a starting point. Tucker got a job as a bartender, not that he needed a job from a cash standpoint, but he needed enough of a cover to blend in, so no one paid attention to him. There were studio apartments available for resort staff, so he had a place to live.

  He longed to paint, but he never stayed sober long enough to do it. He drank as much liquor as he poured for guests of the resort, yet it was never enough. When he felt the air leave his lungs, he poured another drink, sinking further into his drunken stupor. It didn’t matter what Jace was feeling, only that he prevented himself from feeling it too.

  Jace was outside in the driveway, making a phone call when Bree pulled up. He thought about pretending he was actually having a conversation with someone, but why?

  “Hi,” he said, giving her a head nod.

  “Hi,” she answered, looking as annoyed by him as she always did.

  “I guess Blythe is back, since you’re here.”

  Maybe he should’ve pretended he was talking to someone since she seemed even bitchier today than usual.

  “Who are you calling?”

  “My parents…” He’d actually thought about telling her it wasn’t any of her business, another thing he normally wouldn’t have said to anybody.

  “I can’t believe that you expect Blythe to believe you still don’t know where he is. Stop lying to her, Jace. Tell her the truth so she can move on with her life, without either you or your brother in it.”

  “I would expect that to be the last thing you’d want for her. Don’t you think she should have someone in her life to help her raise the baby—” Jace knew in an instant that Bree hadn’t known Blythe was pregnant, and he’d just put his big foot in it.

  “What are you talking about?”

  What could he say now? He’d already as much as told her. “Blythe is pregnant.”

  Bree stormed around him, went in the front door of the house, and slammed it behind her.

&nbs
p; “You’re sure you’re pregnant, and you’re sure you want to have this baby?” she asked Blythe after her sister told her about her appointment with the doctor.

  “Absolutely sure, Bree. I don’t care what anyone says. I know there isn’t anything wrong. I can feel it.”

  “You can feel the baby?”

  “Yes…no. I mean, I can’t feel it moving or anything. I just know. I know you don’t believe me, but…it doesn’t matter whether anyone believes me or not. I’m not changing my mind.”

  “I’m not saying you should. I asked if you were sure. I’m not trying to talk you in or out of anything, Blythe.”

  “Good.”

  “By the way, I stopped to see Lyric on my way here.”

  “Yeah?”

  “She asked me if I wanted to move in with her, at least temporarily.”

  “That’s a great idea! I feel terrible that I left her roommate-less, and while I’m going to miss seeing you every day, I do think it’s for the best. You’re here, but you’re not here, if you know what I mean.”

  Bree smiled and leaned in to hug Blythe.

  “I’m jealous though. I love that sweet house in the Palmer Lake Glen.”

  The house was built on the side of a hill, and behind it was a trail that went up Sundance Mountain to the reservoirs above the town, and had been the first place their family lived in when they moved to Colorado.

  The small town had once been a vacation spot for the Vail family, who did their best to gentrify it. In the 1920s, they established the Rocky Mountain Chautauqua Assembly, making Palmer Lake a destination point for many travelers.

  It had suffered from the drought in the last couple of years, and the town struggled to maintain its former glory, without much success. However, the beauty remained, making it one of the nicest places to live on the Rampart Range. The holiday traditions were a big part of what made Palmer Lake so special—and, despite the difficult economic climate, they remained.

  During the Great Depression, the town’s residents had erected a five-hundred-foot, five-point star on the side of Sundance Mountain, above the lake. Each year since then, the star was lit the entire month of December.