Free Lucky in Love by Kristen Brockmeyer Page B

with a blanket of his own. He switched off the flashlight and pulled out his phone to set the alarm. "Get some sleep," he said. "We're going to be in Vegas by tomorrow night, and this is your last chance for some uninterrupted shut-eye."
    I nodded, even though he couldn't see me.
    It wasn't the biggest bed and Chance wasn't the smallest guy, and I could feel his heat radiating down my right side. My heart twisted a little—he was so close, but really, really far away at the same time.
    "Chance," I whispered after a few minutes, staring up toward the ceiling.
    "Yeah?"
    "Why didn't you come back?"
    "When?" He sounded half-asleep already.
    Seriously? I thought, my temper sparking. "Uh, after high school?"
    I felt him turn, looking toward me. "Lucky," he said slowly. "I explained everything in my letter."
    Now it was my turn to be surprised. "There was no letter," I said. "Jack told me you went to visit your grandma in Alabama before you started classes at Columbia, and for months after, every time I asked him, he just told me he hadn't heard from you and you must've found a girlfriend there."
    "Jack always was an asshole." Far from sounding shocked, or even annoyed, Chance just sounded reminiscent. Meanwhile, the mercury in my internal thermostat was about to explode and spray fury everywhere. "I gave a letter to him to give to you before I left. You really had no clue I had enlisted?"
    The haircut. The mention of IED's—not IUD's. The tracery of scars networking his forearm and the one I didn't remember that cut through his eyebrow. Hell, even his posture was different.
    I sat up suddenly. "You're in the army?" I yelled.
    Chance just folded his hands behind his head. "Was. And I was a Marine, actually. I've been out a year or so now. I wondered why you never wrote back—I just assumed you were still mad because I hadn't told you I was talking to a recruiter."
    My eyes narrowed. "Okay, so Jack never gave me the letter—which he will be answering for—but why did I get a 'Dear John,' anyway? Why—" I almost brought up our first and last time together, but stopped myself. "Why a letter? You couldn't tell me in person?"
    Chance sighed.
    "It was years ago, Lucky. I was a kid. We had this thing going on." He, too, verbally danced around the elephant in the camper with us. "And you had all these stars in your eyes…."
    "Oh," I bit out. "So you just assumed I'd tie you down and you wanted to get on with your big, fun adventure of life."
    "Would you have wanted to wait around for me?"
    "You idiot," I said, slamming my fist into his stomach in an awkward punch. To my horror, tears lurked in my voice and I swallowed them back. "Of course I would have waited for you. I loved you." Crap, I had not meant for that to slip out.
    He sat up, rubbing his stomach.
    "Okay, that was high school love, which never lasts. Don't try to guilt me into believing you've been waiting around all this time for me. Every time I talked to Jack, he couldn't wait to update me on all the guys you'd been seeing. You didn't even wait a month after I was gone. I mean, come on. Kenny Switzer?"
    That startled a laugh out of me. "Oh, you should have known right then he was lying. Kenny Switzer was dating Addy. Jack couldn't stand Kenny Switzer. And neither could I, for that matter. All he ever talked about were soybeans. Remember, he was FFA and his plans after high school were to move to Nebraska and farm? And, not that I'm anti-ginger or anything, but his head looked like a house on fire."
    Now Chance was starting to look pissed and I felt a little better. For sure, my brother had a lot to answer for. And he would pay. Oh, how he would pay.
    "Matter of fact," I added. "Kenny married Kelly Harrison—remember her? They did move to Nebraska, and I saw on Facebook that they have four adorable kids with hair just like his."
    "Well at least someone's happy," Chance snarled.
    Ironically, my mood brightened as his turned foul. Sure, my brother had probably screwed us