Luckiest Cowboy of All--Two full books for the price of one

by Carolyn Brown

  Jessa flinched.

  “Easy, son,” his father reprimanded. “Why don’t we all go inside? We can tell you what the doc said. Get everything sorted out.”

  But Lance didn’t seem to be in the place to sort anything out at the moment. He still paced in front of Jessa’s truck, back and forth, staring at the ground.

  She glanced at Luis. “Can you give us a minute?”

  Luis hesitated, as though worried what Lance might do or say. But she could handle it. She could handle him. If they were alone, she could remind him of the connection they’d built. Just last night he’d said maybe he could learn to love, learn to let someone love him. He was still that man. He might be angry, but he was still the same Lance who’d taken her on a picnic in the mountains. “It’ll be fine,” she assured Luis, shooing him toward the front door. “We’ll be in soon. Then we can all talk through this together.”

  The man nodded silently, but the look he gave his son sent a clear message. Be careful. Then he walked up the steps and disappeared into the house.

  The hard slam of the screen door seemed to shake Lance out of his daze. He spun to face her, his face still flushed with anger, his eyes hard and distant. And who could blame him? She’d just unloaded this horrible news on him, without warning. He had to be in shock. Had to be reeling the same way she had in the doctor’s office.

  She approached him slowly. “I wanted to tell you,” she said, reaching for his hand so she could thread their fingers together. “But I had to respect Luis’s decision. He didn’t want to distract you before Worlds. And it was his news to tell you. Not mine.”

  Lance yanked his arm away. “I didn’t spend last night with him,” he snapped. The ice in his tone sent her back a step. Her arms fell to her sides. She was losing him. Or…she’d already lost him. “I’m sorry. Maybe we should go inside—”

  “We don’t need you here for this discussion,” he said, turning his back on her.

  “Lance.” She followed him up the steps. “Please. I was only doing what he asked me to do. I want to stay. I want to help.” She touched his arm, tried to bring him back to her. “We can get him through this. The doctor said there are treatment options. Things that will slow the progression.”

  Shrugging away from her touch, he assessed her from behind a curtain of apathy. “Go home, Jessa. You’re not a part of this family.”

  The words drove into her, sharp and cutting. And he knew. He knew exactly what kind of damage he’d just inflicted. Because she’d told him. What she wanted most in the world, what mattered to her more than anything in life. Loving and being loved. Those family connections she’d longed for to anchor her but had never managed to build.

  Tears stung, but she would not give him the satisfaction of seeing them fall. “You’re right. I’m not part of this family.” Instead of shying away like he obviously wanted her to, she marched right to him, piercing his eyes with hers. “But I could’ve been.” Her own anger hummed through her, building into a pressure that made her unbreakable. “And you know something, Lance? You would’ve been damn lucky to have me.” She started to walk away, but whirled back to him. “You can think about that while you’re alone in Vegas,” she snapped. Then she hurried to her truck and drove away before her strength crumbled.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Instead of following Jessa like he knew he ought to, Lance hunched over and leaned his elbows on the porch railing, letting his forehead fall to his hands. All this time, he’d thought the forgetfulness, the shaking, the weakening physicality in his father was simply old age. But he’d been wrong. He’d ignored the signs, the symptoms. His own hand trembled some as he kneaded his forehead, trying to force it all to sink in. His father had Parkinson’s. A label. A disease that would slowly eat away at him until there was nothing left…

  Pain shot through his chest, then traveled down his arms, forcing his hands into fists. He was half-tempted to put one of those fists through the wall.

  Before he could, the door banged open and Luis poked out his head.

  “Where’s Jessa?” he asked, glancing toward the empty spot where her truck had been parked before Lance’d gone and run her off.

  He straightened, but his shoulders bore the weight of a new burden. “She went home.” Because he’d been an asshole. He’d directed the brunt of his anger and shock at her. He turned to his father, trying to block out the image of her wounded eyes.

  “You mean you sent her home,” his father corrected.

  “I was blindsided,” he muttered. All afternoon, the fears and possibilities had stewed somewhere deep inside him while he’d sat on the porch waiting for Luis and Jessa to get home. Then when he saw her, without warning, it’d all boiled over, the venom spilling onto Jessa. He’d let the familiar feeling of betrayal get the best of him.

  Luis stepped out onto the porch, his thumbs hooked through his belt loops. “She loves you, ya know. I’ve never been lucky enough to have a woman look at me the way Jess looks at you.”

  “I know.” But he was completely unworthy of it. This little tantrum only proved he could never give her what she deserved. God, he wanted to try, though.

  “I know it was a shock to hear it that way.” Luis lumbered over to the old bench he’d made with his own two hands. He sat with a wince. “You don’t need all this hoopla right now. I wanted to wait until after Worlds.”

  Lance sat beside him, letting himself notice the age spots on Luis’s hands, the arthritic hunch to his shoulders. Truth is, he didn’t want his father to get old. Didn’t want him to get sick. He was the only one who’d stuck around, who’d stuck it out with him all these years and he couldn’t imagine it. Couldn’t let himself picture that day when his dad would take his last breath.

  Emotion clogged his throat, but he didn’t bother to clear it away. “How long have you known?”

  Luis stared out at the mountains. “A while. Doc’s been running tests over the past couple months.”

  “And you kept it to yourself.” That hurt more than anything else. The fact that he hadn’t trusted Lance with it. Or that he hadn’t thought Lance would consider it important enough to put his training on hold. But maybe that was on him. Maybe he’d focused so much on winning that he’d made his father believe he wouldn’t care. “You should’ve told me. I would’ve helped you. I would’ve taken you to the appointments.” He would’ve sat by his side today while he heard the news. Instead, Luis had chosen Jessa. Maybe that was it, what had set him off. He’d chosen Jessa and Lance couldn’t deny she’d been the better choice.

  “I did what I thought was best.” Luis turned to him, his expression donning that fatherly disappointment. “And you had no right to take it out on Jessa. She’s done nothing but help this family.”

  “I know.” Regret had already pooled in his gut, making him feel full to the gills, even though he hadn’t eaten since breakfast. “But maybe it’s better we end it now. Jessa deserves more than I can give her.” Naomi was right. He was too screwed up to do this. He had one foot in, but kept one foot out, just in case. And when things got hard, he found an excuse to be an asshole to keep distance between them.

  “That’s a copout,” Luis muttered. He’d always been one to call it like it was. “You’re a better man than I ever was. You love someone, you gotta make it work. You gotta work hard, face up to the troubles, and get past ’em. Trust me. I wish I would’ve made the effort.”

  Before he could ask what Luis meant, Levi’s truck rumbled into the driveway.

  Right. He’d forgotten he’d called in his brothers. He turned to his dad. “I should warn you. When I found out you’d gone to Denver with Jessa, I called in backup. Told them to meet me here as soon as they could.”

  “Swell,” his father muttered, rising as though preparing to face the music.

  “What’s the emergency?” Lucas asked, stomping the mud off his boots as he made his way up the steps.

  When Lance had finally gotten ahold of them, he’d learned the two
slackers had gone fly-fishing.

  “Yeah…who up and died?” Levi asked, obviously annoyed he’d been interrupted before he’d caught the big one.

  Lance cringed. “No one died.” Yet. But his brother was gonna have to grow up for this conversation. It wouldn’t be easy for either of them to hear. Especially seeing as how they’d both missed out on the last ten years of their father’s life.

  Silence ate away at his ears, but he had no idea where to start.

  “We ought to go inside, sit down,” Luis said, plodding to the door. He held it open, and one by one, they headed to the same kitchen table they’d sat around every night for their meat-and-potatoes dinners growing up. Lance took a chair next to Luis while Levi and Lucas faced off on the other side of the table.

  Once they’d all sat, Luis didn’t waste any time getting right to it.

  “Parkinson’s?” Levi’s voice had shrunk and he almost sounded like a little kid again.

  Lucas said nothing, simply stared at Luis as though he was waiting for him to continue.

  But the man was a stubborn old ox. He didn’t even want to tell them what the doctor said. So Lance broke the silence. “What’s the treatment?” He steeled himself, but that was all he really wanted to know. Needed to know.

  “Not sure, yet,” Luis said, looking neither worried nor confident. “The doc gave me some information. He wants to have a meeting to discuss treatment options in a couple of weeks.”

  The color had finally started to come back to Levi’s face. “Parkinson’s isn’t bad, right? It’s not fatal.”

  “Nah.” Their father dug into the wood with his fingernail. “Might make it harder for me to get around. Harder to think clear, to remember things.” He shot them an ornery grin. “Hell, that’s been happening for years.”

  Not funny. None of this was funny. There was plenty Luis wasn’t saying. Lance could tell. He knew a few things about Parkinson’s. One of his old high school teachers had been diagnosed a few years after Lance’d graduated. Far as he remembered, the man had suffered complication after complication until he’d passed away.

  “What can we do?” Lucas finally spoke. The terrified look in his eyes reminded Lance of the day they’d sentenced him to prison.

  “Nothin’. Not right now, anyway.” Luis took a minute to look at each one of them. “I’m sorry I kept it from you. But I wanted to be sure. Before I went and got everyone all riled up.”

  “It’s okay, Dad.” Levi’s eyes steeled with determination. “Truth is, we’ve been keeping something from you, too.”

  Tension gripped Lance’s neck. This was it. The conversation he’d dreaded for years. But he nodded at his brother. It was time. Long past time. “A lot longer than a couple of months,” he added.

  Lucas seemed bent on fading into the background, but they had to do this. And now was as good a time as any.

  Luis sat straighter, his posture apprehensive. “I don’t understand.”

  “Lucas didn’t set the fire that night. I did,” Levi said directly.

  Their father’s head shook. He clearly didn’t believe them. “But you were only fourteen. And Lucas confessed.”

  “Because we worked out a plan,” Lance cut in. He was so ready to be done with this. To put the past behind them so they could be family for whatever time they had left. “Levi’d already been in enough trouble. We were afraid of what juvie would do to him. So Lucas said he’d take the blame instead. He had the cleanest record.” It had made so much sense at the time.

  “Why?” Their father was raking his hand through the tufts of white hair that were already sticking straight up on his head.

  Levi’s jaw tightened. “You were meeting Maureen Dobbins there. And I was so pissed off.” He cut a glance to Lance. They’d all been pissed off. Levi was the one who’d caught Luis kissing Maureen in the stables, but they’d all been angry about his frequent indiscretions. They’d heard the rumors around town. And Maureen was married. To the rodeo commissioner.

  Levi wouldn’t look at any of them. “I thought Mom would come back. So I wanted to destroy it. The place you met up with Maureen. To make you stop.”

  Their father stared at the table, hands flat and motionless against the wood. “I’m sorry.” His voice cracked, nearly breaking the words. “I’m so sorry, boys.” An expression of stunned anguish drew Lance’s hand to his father’s shoulder.

  “I didn’t know how to be what you needed,” Luis uttered. “I didn’t know how to be what she needed. I couldn’t hold it all together.”

  “Doesn’t matter now,” Lucas insisted. “Things are different. You’re different.”

  “We’re all different,” Lance threw in. And maybe that meant things could change now.

  Luis seemed to shut everything else out as he gazed at his middle son. “All these years…” It was barely over a whisper. “I was so hard on you…”

  Lucas slipped out of his chair and knelt in front of their father. “It’s okay. You didn’t know. I don’t want you to think about it now.”

  The old man couldn’t seem to lift his head.

  “You did your best.” Lance waited until Luis looked at him. “Things might not’ve been perfect, but we knew you wanted us. We knew you loved us. We never had to question that.” Didn’t matter what happened, Luis wouldn’t have left them. He never would’ve walked out on them. And in Lance’s book, that made him a saint.

  “None of us care about the past.” Lucas went back to his chair. “Time to move on, focus on you. Figure out how we can get you the best treatment available.”

  A breath lifted Lance’s chest. Hope. He breathed it in. Six months ago, he would’ve been on his own with this. But now his brothers were home. They could navigate it together.

  “I don’t deserve you boys.” Luis’s eyes were all watery. “But I sure am glad to have you.”

  “I know a couple of doctors back in Oklahoma,” Levi said, pushing back from the table. “I’m gonna call them and see if they have any recommendations for a good neurologist. We need the best.”

  “And I’m gonna call the McGowens. Let them know I’ll be delayed for a while,” Lucas said, already pulling out his cell.

  After they’d stepped out, Luis faced Lance. “Why’d you keep the truth from me all these years?”

  That was a no brainer. “To protect you.”

  “Some secrets are meant to protect, son,” Luis said with a resolute quietness. “Sometimes that’s all you can do for the people you love. Try to protect them. Even if it backfires on you.”

  Ouch. Nothing like tasting the truth of your own words. He slumped against the chair back. “I had no right to get so angry at her.” Jessa had the best intentions. Always. She’d already proven that more than once. “Shit.” He rested his forehead on the table, trying to formulate some kind of plan for how to take those words back, how to convince her he wanted her around. To be a part of this family.

  A hell of a lot of time passed, but nothing came to him.

  “Got a lead,” Levi said, coming back to the table.

  Lucas joined them, too. “They said to take all the time I need,” he said, brushing a hand over Luis’s shoulder. “We’ll do whatever we have to do. You’re not gonna go through this alone.”

  A long-forgotten sting pricked Lance’s eyes.

  “I made a lot of mistakes,” Luis said, looking around at his sons. “But you boys…you’re the only thing I did right.”

  “Come on.” Levi rose from the table. “Let’s head downtown. Beer’s on me.”

  They all stood, but Lance hung back. “Actually, I have somewhere else I’ve gotta be.”

  A knowing look bounced between the others.

  “Good luck, man.” Lucas whacked him on the back.

  Luis only shook his head. “Trust me. He’s gonna need it.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  We’ll always have Paris.

  God, was there a more tragic phrase in the English language?

  Jessa blubbered
into the wad of Kleenex she’d fisted in her hands. “Isn’t this the best movie ever?” she asked, reaching over to pat Ilsa’s head.

  On the couch next to her, the pig was too busy rooting her mouth around a bowl of fresh salad to actually watch the movie. A few days on antibiotics and the pig couldn’t stop eating.

  Jessa turned her attention back to the television. On a normal night, Casablanca drew a sort of dreamy-eyed teary sadness, but tonight it moved her. Lance’s words had embedded themselves in her heart. She heard them play over and over. Even one of her favorite movies of all time hadn’t drowned them out. And maybe it wasn’t so much the words as what hid behind them. He’d wounded her on purpose, and she didn’t understand, couldn’t fathom, ever doing that to someone.

  She wrapped her father’s old wool blanket tighter around her shoulders, needing to feel that connection with him. With someone. The past few weeks of her life had been so wonderfully sweet. She’d actually felt like a part of the Cortez family. But that was her fault. She’d let herself read too much into it, let herself hope for something she knew she’d likely never have.

  Headlights cut across the windows outside. She paused the movie and popped to her knees on the couch, stomach quaking with that familiar hunger Lance teased out in her. All it took was one thought of seeing him and suddenly her stomach groaned as though she hadn’t eaten for two weeks.

  Sure enough, his truck parked along the curb in front of her house.

  Damn it! She slouched down trying to hide herself from those windows. “Quiet, Ilsa, baby,” she hissed. She couldn’t face him right now! Her eyes had nearly swollen shut from the tears. How pathetic was that?

  The dreaded knock came at the door and Jessa scrunched herself down farther into the couch.

  “Jessa?” Lance called.

  She didn’t move. Didn’t even breathe. Maybe he’d take the hint that she didn’t want to talk to him. Except she did want to talk to him. She really did. Her heart thrummed and her palms grew warm. But that was why she had to ignore him. If she let things go any further with him, he’d break her. He’d hurt her and she’d never recover.