The Stillwell Cowboys Book 2

I slipped in through the screen door, only making it halfway up the stairs before my mother emerged from the kitchen.

“Where are you sneaking off to, young lady?” she asked.

“I’m going up to my room,” I said, cursing under my breath at her sharp hearing and the creaky old stairs. “I’m not in the mood for company. That’s why I didn’t come to the kitchen to say hello.”

“Where have you been all day?”

“If you must know, I was helping Ethan get his girlfriend back.”

“Why would he ask you, of all people, for help?”

“It was my idea.”

“You need to move on, Cami,” she said. “Forget about that man.”

“I helped him get his pregnant girlfriend back. Obviously, I’m over him.”

“I worry about you, child.”

“I’m not a child, Ma.” I sighed. “I’m twenty-five.”

“You’ve been through a rough time, honey.”

“I’ll survive. I’m tough.”

I continued up the stairs before she launched into one of her mom lectures. I’d had enough of those the past few weeks to last me a lifetime.

I took out a wild stallion.

Not a man.

A horse.

One that I had no business riding, and I knew didn’t like me.

I was upset, and my foolish behavior almost cost me my womb, not to mention my life.

The horse threw me off. I lost the baby I didn’t know I was carrying, and they almost had to do a hysterectomy to stop the bleeding and save me.

But I came out of it with my super uterus intact, walking away with a broken arm and a few broken ribs.

The only permanent injury was my broken heart. I lost the man I’d been in love with as long as I could remember, and I lost his baby.

I made a beeline down the hall, closing my bedroom door firmly behind me, in case my mother decided she wasn’t finished nagging me.

My ma was great, but in small doses. And being trapped at home with her while I recovered was too much.

I was so glad I could drive again.

Too bad I had nowhere to go.

I got fired from my nanny job.

That tends to happen when you sleep with your boss and try to trap him with a pregnancy.

“I’m sleeping, Ma!” I yelled when I heard a knock on my door.

The door opened, but it wasn’t my mother. My best friend/sister-in-law hovered in the doorway, waiting for an invitation.

“Hey.” Dani sighed.

“What’s wrong?”

“Can I come in?”

“Is that Blue Curaçao?” I asked, glancing at the neck of the bottle sticking out of the shopping bag in her hand.

“Yeah.”

“You may enter.”

She busied herself setting up the contents of her bag on my dresser.

“I’m guessing it didn’t go well today,” I surmised while I watched her mix our favorite drink from our wild teenage years.

Nothing beat a Blue Lagoon. There was no teenage girl crisis that couldn’t be washed away with the delicious combination of vodka, lemonade, and Blue Curaçao. But it wasn’t powerful enough to solve big-girl problems.

She handed me a glass, and we settled with our backs against the headboard, sipping in silence.

“How’d it go today?” she asked.

I tipped my glass back, emptying it in one gulp.

“That good, eh?”

“Ethan is back together with his baby mama, and they’re all happy as pigs in shit at their pig roast.”

“Goody for them.” She snorted. “Refill?”

“You betcha,” I said, holding out my glass. “I’m guessing, since you’re drinking, that things didn’t go well at the fertility specialist down in Calgary?”

“Nope.”

“What happened?”

“They tortured me for two fucking days, then told me it’s all my fault we aren’t getting pregnant, and Clay has a robust sperm count.”

“I’m sure they didn’t say it was all your fault, Dani.”

“They said I have a deformed uterus, hostile cervical mucus, and a shit ton of scar tissue from when my appendix burst.”

“Is that all?”

“Very funny, Cami,” she muttered.

“Sorry,” I whispered, nudging her shoulder. “You know me, Dani. I always say the wrong thing.”

“The Stillwells didn’t invite you to stay for the party?”

“No.” I laughed. “Not that I would’ve wanted to anyway. Jasper gave me a ride home.”

“Jasper is hot.”

“All the Stillwell men are hot, Dani.”

“I know, but Jasper has that smoldering cowboy thing going on. Like, all he has to do is crook his finger, and the girls line up to spread their legs for him.”

“Not this girl.”

“What are you going to do with your life now?”

“No idea,” I sighed. “I spent the last six years caring for someone else’s family, and now they don’t need me anymore.”

“Why don’t you go to college?” she suggested, grabbing the bottle of vodka from the dresser.

I held out my glass while she topped up my drink.

“I’m not really interested in school,” I said.

“You can’t sit in this house and do nothing for the rest of your life, Cami.”

“Careful, Dani,” I warned. “You’re starting to sound like Ma.”

“Are you looking to get this bottle shoved where the sun don’t shine?”

“It was a joke,” I laughed. “There’s no need to start sticking bottles in places they don’t belong.”

She took a swig of vodka straight from the bottle before handing it to me. “Clay took off somewhere as soon as we got back.”

“What an asshole.”

“Yup.”

“I’m going to be alone for the rest of my life,” I moaned.

“No, you’re not,” she snapped. “Quit your whining.”

“I’ll never get over Ethan. I don’t think I could ever love another man like I do him.”

“He used you, Cami.”

“No, he didn’t.”

“You looked after his dying wife for five years. You were a mother to his kids. You kept his bed warm. And what did he do? He fucked another woman and knocked her up.”

“He actually got Jillian pregnant before he got together with me.”

“He knew you were in love with him, Cami. And he didn’t feel the same way. He had no intention of marrying you. But he still fucked you. That makes him a prick in my book.”

“Maybe,” I sighed. “But I still love him.”

“Do you think Clay will leave me?”

“Never, Dani. My brother loves you.”

“I can’t give him kids.”

“You could adopt.”

“Maybe,” she said with a shrug.

“Or you could hire a surrogate, like all the famous women have been doing lately,” I suggested.

“We don’t have that kind of money.”

“I could do it.”

“What?”

“I could carry your baby.”

“You’re talking crazy, Cami Cartwright.”

“Why?”

“Why would you want to put your body through that?”

“I don’t have anything else to do.”

“You’ve already had three pregnancies,” she said. “Rest your uterus until Mr. Right comes along.”

“He already came along, but he kicked me to the curb. I’m never going to have any kids of my own, Dani. Why let my super womb go to waste? I can carry all of your babies.”

“You’re drunk,” she laughed.

“I’m not going to disagree with that statement,” I snorted.

“What’s it like to be pregnant?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never stayed in that condition long enough to have much insight.”

“Your family doesn’t know about your abortion?”

“Just my mom.”

“I guess there’s not much point in telling them now,” she sighed. “Your dad was so mad when you had the miscarriage.”

“Which one?”

“Well, both of them, obviously. But I was talking about the one when you were nineteen, and you wouldn’t tell him who the father was.”

I had just started working as a nanny for Ethan and his late wife, Lisa. She was undergoing chemotherapy, and they had to travel to Calgary for treatments.

They hired me to look after their six daughters. I didn’t even know I was pregnant. But when I started bleeding, Lisa took me to the hospital.

“You know why I didn’t tell him, Dani.”

“I still don’t know how that happened,” she said. “Both guys wore condoms.”

“It obviously doesn’t take much for me to get pregnant.”

“They don’t know why you lost that baby?”

“No. The doctor said it’s pretty normal for women to have one for no reason that early on. I think I was only, like, three or four weeks. Barely pregnant at all.

“After I fell off the horse, they had a pretty good look inside me. Nothing was amiss. When I went for a check-up last week with my gynecologist, she said I was in good shape, womb-wise.

“No damage. I don’t even have any scar tissue or anything, which is amazing considering everything I’ve put my poor uterus through over the past several years.”

“I can’t believe some of the stuff we did back then,” she sighed, shaking her head. “What were we thinking?”

“We were a little wild,” I admitted, reaching over to give my bestie a side hug. “If my brother ever found out what we did that night, he would go ballistic.”

“Then let’s make sure we never tell him,” she declared.

“Can you imagine?” I giggled, snatching the bottle of vodka from her. “I think I’m drunk, Dani.”

“Me too,” she whispered.

“Hey, Clay,” I laughed. “One time, your wife and I had a foursome with two older guys we picked up at a bar in Red Deer.”

“Sh!” she hissed.

“I saw your wife’s pussy get nailed by a big cock.”

“Sh!” I laughed.

I took another gulp from the bottle, tossing it toward the end of my bed as we descended into a fit of laughter.

“Sh!” she giggled, pulling the blanket over our heads. “You’re too loud.”

“That was you, Dani.”

“Oh yeah.”

“Did you hear that?” I whispered.

“It sounded like someone opening the door.”

“Uh-oh.” She snorted when we heard heavy footsteps approaching. “That’s not your mom.”

“No, it’s not,” Clay announced, yanking the covers back. “What the fuck is going on in here?”

“Nothing,” Dani snapped.

“My wife and my sister are drunk.”

“And?” she challenged.

“Of course, Clay,” she sighed. “I’ve never cheated on you.”

“Me, either,” I said.

“Very funny, Cami.”

“What else did you hear?” I asked.

“Stuff that I wish I hadn’t, but sadly doesn’t really surprise me.”

“What are you saying, Clayton?”

“Nothing.”

“Are you calling me a whore?”

“No. Just drop it.”

“Your husband thinks I’m a whore, Dani,” I whined.

“No, he doesn’t.”

He gathered up the liquor bottles and headed toward the door. “You guys’d better sleep it off before dinner, or Ma will be pissed.”

“You’re such a good husband, Clay!” Dani called out.

“Fucking right, I am, Dani.”

“I love ya, babe!”

“Love you, too,” he said, returning to the side of the bed. He pressed a kiss to her forehead. “We’ll talk later. Everything is going to be fine. We’ll figure this out.”

“You’re so lucky,” I sighed after my brother left the room. “I wish I had a man who loved me like Clay loves you.”

“I’ll trade you,” she said. “You can have the loving husband, and I’ll take your uterus.”

“You don’t mean that,” I laughed. “And ew! I don’t want to be married to my brother!”

“I didn’t mean him, silly,” she giggled, reaching out to grab one of my boobs. “I want these too, as part of the trade.”

“You can have them,” I mumbled, my eyes falling closed. “Then maybe I could find a man who would want me for me and not my enormous tits.”