Getting Lucky (A Nugget Romance Book 5) Read Online Free

since their relationship would leak out anyway. And the conjecture about why he’d left all those years ago would start all over again. Nothing he could do about that.
    “Are you hungry?” Cecilia asked.
    “I could eat.” He smelled pot roast.
    Sure enough, she ladled him a large portion of beef and potatoes from the pot on her stove. As long as Lucky could remember, there had always been something good simmering in that pot.
    “What are you doing?” Lucky watched her chop vegetables.
    “Making you a salad to go with it. You need greens.” She put a bowl and a bottle of dressing in front of him on the big center island.
    “Thanks, Ma. So Jake Stryker, huh?” He was still digesting that piece of news.
    “We’re friends. Don’t make more of it than it is. How’s progress on the cowboy camp?”
    Lucky let out a long sigh. “Slow, if you want to know the truth. I wanted to be up and running by June, and here it is September. And now some writer from Sports Illustrated is coming up to interview me. It seems like every time I turn around there’s a new distraction to keep me from my goal.” Like today. “And in December I’ll have to leave for Vegas.” For the Professional Bull Riders Inc. Built Ford Tough World Finals.
    “ Ay Dios mio , you’re getting too old to be banged around like that.” He knew she was talking about the concussion he’d suffered in Billings. Between the head injury and the cracked ribs, he’d been slow to recover.
    “It’ll probably be my last world championship for the PBR. I’d like to go out a winner.”
    “You are a winner.” She kissed him on the cheek. “You don’t need another one of those buckles to prove anything.”
    “No, but another one would go a long way to putting my cowboy camp on the map. Not to mention that the money would help pay the bills.”
    Cecilia creased her brows. “Are you having money troubles?”
    He laughed. “Nope. Not even close. But you can never have too much green.”
    “I think you feel that way because you grew up poor. But if you ever need money, Lucky, I could sell the house.”
    Lucky eyed the grand kitchen. He’d bought her the rancher because her whole life she’d worked hard, taking other people’s orders in order to care for him. Now it was her turn to be taken care of. “Don’t be crazy, Ma. I have enough for a lifetime.” He pulled her in for a hug. “The pot roast is good.”
    “I’m glad you like it.” She sat next to him.
    “Did you know that Thelma Wade changed her name to Tawny?” Lucky tried to sound casual.
    “Of course. She did it when she opened her boot business.”
    “Boot business?”
    “You don’t know? She makes beautiful custom cowboy boots. A lot of celebrities wear them, even rodeo stars. I would’ve thought you knew.”
    Well, that explained Tawny’s fancy boots, the ones Lucky had so admired. But it didn’t explain why she was driving a piece-of-crap Jeep from the 1990s. “I ran into her today and got the impression she wasn’t doing too well.” God, he hated lying to his mother.
    “Her little girl is very sick. Leukemia.”
    Shit!
    “She has a kid, huh? I hadn’t heard she was married.”
    “She’s not. I don’t believe Katie’s father is in the picture.”
    “You know the guy?”
    “No. That’s always been a bit of a mystery, but no one’s business but Tawny’s.”
    “You’ve met the little girl, though?” Lucky asked.
    “Maybe once or twice. They spend a lot of time in the Bay Area for Katie’s treatments. I didn’t know you and Tawny were back in touch. What a crush she had on you when you two were little. Used to follow you around like a lamb. Such a nice girl, and you barely gave her the time of day,” Cecilia chided. Lucky knew the subtext, though. You were too busy getting into trouble with Raylene Rosser .
    “We just happened to run into each other. I barely recognized her, though,” he said as calmly as he could, but was starting to panic. What if the kid