Free Getting Lucky (A Nugget Romance Book 5) by Stacy Finz

with budding breasts. He could look at her for hours and never get bored.
    It was in those days that Lucky started noticing things about Raylene that weren’t right. Bruises. Puffy eyes from crying. And how nervous she acted whenever her father’s name came up. Sometimes they’d ride together and Raylene would tell him things. Bad things.
    For as long as Lucky could remember, he’d been a protector. And Raylene reminded him of the baby sparrow he’d rescued the summer before. The bird had fallen from its nest and had been rejected by its mother. Grace at Nugget Farm Supply helped him build a new nest out of a box and straw and told him how to feed the hatchling with an eyedropper. That’s what he wanted to do for Raylene. He construed a plan to smuggle her out of the Rock and River to live with him and Cecilia, so he could take care of her.
    “He’d find me,” Raylene said. “And then he’d fire your mom and you would have to move away and I would lose you forever.”
    Ray Rosser didn’t have to go to the trouble. He made sure to keep them apart by merely asserting his power. In the beginning, his efforts to tear them from each other only made them closer. He and Raylene would sneak around after school—first at the park and later at the rodeo grounds on the high school campus. Eventually they gave each other their virginity in Lucky’s bedroom while Cecilia was at work. But Raylene’s overwhelming need to please her father ultimately won out. Publicly, she dated the boys Ray deemed acceptable. And eventually married the man Ray handpicked for her. Butch.
    “All right, all right.” Raylene put her hand on Lucky’s chest, pulling him from the past. “Let’s not fight. Just pay her off, Lucky, and make her sign something to go away.”
    He jerked his head back. “Katie is my daughter, my responsibility. I’m gonna cowboy up.”
    “What about us?” Raylene huffed.
    He’d known the news about Katie would upset her. Despite all Raylene had going for her, she’d always been insecure. Always afraid she wouldn’t be enough. Ray Rosser had made sure to make her that way.
    “Raylene,” he said, “it is what it is. Could you please try to be understanding? We’ve both got baggage.” He looked at her pointedly.
    She leaned against him and inched her hands up his shirt. “You’re right. And it was a long time ago. We’re together now and that’s what matters. What’s she . . . Katie . . . like?”
    “She’s sick with cancer.”
    Raylene’s eyes grew large. “Will she be okay?”
    “We don’t know. She needs a transplant.” And Lucky went on to explain Katie’s leukemia to Raylene.
    “How awful,” she said. “Thelma must be devastated. My heart goes out to her—the poor woman. Is she still as unattractive as she used to be?”
    Yeah , Lucky thought, a real bow-wow .

    Katie tried on her fourth outfit. Tawny didn’t know where she’d gotten such a vain daughter, but apparently it was of the utmost importance that Katie look her best for her new father.
    “Stick with the jeans and the heart sweater.” Tawny sat on Katie’s twin bed and watched the fashion show proceed. “Honey, he’ll be here in a few minutes and you still have to put away all these clothes.”
    “I don’t like these pants,” Katie said, staring over her shoulder in the full-length mirror on the back of her door.
    “Why? They look great.” They were jeans, for goodness’ sake.
    “They make my butt look bad.”
    “They do not. Now stop obsessing. You look beautiful.”
    “I’m changing back into the pink pants with the stars on the back pockets.”
    Tawny tried to stay patient, knowing how big a deal this must be for Katie. “Okay, but you better get the show on the road.”
    Katie tugged on the pink pants, gave herself one last assessing look in the mirror. “Now I have to change my sweater. The hearts don’t go with the stars.”
    Tawny had to keep from groaning. “How about the long-sleeved white top with