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

night.”
    Lucky blew out a sigh. “I suspect not. But you should’ve looked out for yourself. And from what I can tell, you could’ve used my help over the years.”
    “I didn’t need your stem cells until now. Katie went into remission after the chemo. We were fine until two months ago. That’s when the cancer came back. The doctors thought radiation might work. It didn’t.”
    “I’m sorry.” He started to reach for her hand and seemed to think better of it. “I wish I had known. I could’ve been there for her. And from the looks of things, you could’ve used my money and my support.”
    “I don’t need your money. I have a thriving business.”
    Lucky cocked his brows. “Your car and house tell a different story.”
    “There was a time, Lucky Rodriguez, when my car and house would’ve been more than you could’ve dreamed of.”
    He flinched. “That may have been true once upon a time, but not anymore. Okay, assume for the sake of argument that you didn’t need me. Did it ever occur to you that you were depriving me of a daughter, or your daughter of a father? And how about my mother of a grandchild?”
    Tawny sighed. “You think your mother would’ve celebrated the news that on the same day you were accused of raping the richest girl in town, you knocked up poor Thelma Wade? That sure would’ve helped the Rodriguez reputation, don’t you think?”
    “You know damn well I didn’t rape Raylene.”
    “I know it, you know it, Raylene knows it, but what about the rest of the town if the mighty Rossers had decided to press charges? Or run your mother out of Nugget? And don’t think for one minute if they’d known about you and me that night, they wouldn’t have done it just to be vindictive. Because those people are mean as snakes.” And what about Katie having to live down the allegations that her father was a rapist?
    “Raylene would’ve told the truth,” he said.
    “Yeah, because she was so good at standing up for you at the time.” And if Raylene had known that Lucky was screwing around with Tawny, she would’ve called for a lynch mob just out of jealousy.
    “She was a kid, Tawny. Afraid of her abusive old man.”
    That girl wasn’t afraid of anyone, but far be it from Tawny to tell him. Clearly Lucky still had a soft spot for the viper.
    “Maybe I was wrong, Lucky. Maybe I should’ve tried harder to tell you. But I was eighteen at the time and scared to death.”
    “What’s your excuse for when you were twenty, twenty-five, or twenty-eight . . . while your daughter was sick?”
    He wasn’t going to let her off that easy, and Tawny probably deserved his anger. But she’d done what she thought he would’ve wanted. Kept her mouth shut.
    “What did you tell Katie . . . about her father?” Lucky asked.
    “The truth. That he didn’t know about her and that I couldn’t find him.” At least half of it was accurate.
    “And she’s okay with that?”
    “She’s nine, Lucky. The last four years of her life she’s had bigger things to think about.”
    “If that paternity test comes back positive . . . so help me. My old man ran out on my mother and me. I won’t be that man. I won’t be him, Tawny. I’ll want a part in Katie’s life. A big part.”
    Tawny closed her eyes. For so long it had been just the two of them. Katie was all Tawny had in the world. But if Lucky was the solution to getting her daughter’s health back, she’d gladly pay the piper. Even if it meant sharing the most important person in her life with the man who could do the most damage to her heart.
     
    Jake Stryker hung a U-turn on Main Street and flashed his lights. Twenty-one years with LAPD and he’d been reduced to issuing traffic citations. He laughed at the absurdity of it. But honestly, life had never been better. No smog, no traffic, no pissed-off ex-wives showing up on his doorstep, and no homicide scenes so bad that they drove him to the bottom of a bottle.
    He had a good job working for the