Curtis
CURTIS
Also by Nicole Edwards
The Alluring Indulgence Series
Kaleb
Zane
Travis
Holidays with the Walker Brothers
Ethan
Braydon
Sawyer
Brendon
The Club Destiny Series
Conviction
Temptation
Addicted
Seduction
Infatuation
Captivated
Devotion
Perception
Entrusted
Adored
The Coyote Ridge Series
Curtis
The Dead Heat Ranch Series
Boots Optional
Betting on Grace
Overnight Love
The Devil’s Bend Series
Chasing Dreams
Vanishing Dreams
The Devil’s Playground Series
Without Regret
The Pier 70 Series
Reckless
The Sniper 1 Security Series
Wait for Morning
Never Say Never
The Southern Boy Mafia Series
Beautifully Brutal
Beautifully Loyal
Standalone Novels
A Million Tiny Pieces
Inked on Paper
Writing as Timberlyn Scott
Unhinged
Unraveling
Chaos
Naughty Nice Holiday Books
2015
CURTIS
A Coyote Ridge Novel
NICOLE EDWARDS
Nicole Edwards Limited
PO Box 806
Hutto, Texas 78634
Copyright © Nicole Edwards, 2016
All rights reserved.
This is a self-published title.
Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
Curtis
– A Coyote Ridge Novel
is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Cover Image:
©
kjolak
| 123rf.com (front cover image - 12022832);
Ebook Format Image:
© kjolak | 123rf.com (14284060); © 100ker | 123rf.com (12494733); © Viktor Kunz (19053287)
Cover Design:
© Nicole Edwards Limited
Editing:
Blue Otter Editing www.BlueOtterEditing.com
ISBN (ebook): 978-1-939786-59-3
ISBN (print): 978-1-939786-60-9
Contemporary Romance
Mature Audience
Dedication
To Jack DeNormandie
Without you, this book wouldn’t have been written. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for sharing so much of yourself with me. (And thank you for Chancy, too)
PROLOGUE
“Pop!”
Curtis Walker glanced around, looking for the face of the person calling him. He recognized the voice, but for the life of him, he couldn’t place it. The last few hours had left him jittery and frustrated, making it damn near impossible to think about anything except his wife.
Lorrie.
God, baby, please be okay.
His chest hurt so much that it was difficult to breathe. His lungs felt ten times too small. As though a band was cinched tightly around his ribs, squeezing, suffocating.
Damn it.
He needed air. Needed … something.
A firm hand touched his shoulder, and he focused long enough to realize his oldest son was standing at his side.
Shit. Where am I?
“Dad? You okay?”
No. No, he wasn’t. Not even a little bit.
Then it all came back to him in a rush of noise and light mingling with the stench of disinfectant and disease. He was in the emergency room waiting area because they had taken Lorrie back for some tests. He remembered the nurse had kindly asked him to wait out here because he was a nervous wreck and he was making the doctor uneasy. At first, he’d considered arguing—for a brief moment, even throwing a punch at the surly doctor—but when he’d looked down at his wife, so pale, so weak, lying in that bed, her lips thin, eyes dim from the pain she was enduring, he had relented.
And yeah, damn it, he was a fucking nervous wreck. How could he not be? His wife was sick. Sicker than he’d ever seen her in her life, and he’d been by her side through plenty of illnesses over the past fifty plus years they’d been together.
“Where’s Mom?” Travis asked, his tone gruff, his face a stony mask of concern.
Curtis met his oldest son’s gaze, those hard, blue-gray eyes identical to his own. “Tests,” he forced out, noticing that Travis’s wife, Kylie, his husband, Gage, and their daughter, Kate, were with him.
“Dad, you need to sit down,” Curtis’s daughter-in-law stated firmly, her hand curling around his arm as she led him toward one of the empty chairs.
He hadn’t even realized he was standing.
Shit.
He needed to pull himself together.
Although he towered over Kylie by a solid foot, outweighed her by God only knew how much, it seemed she had more strength in her hand than he had in his entire body.
Lorrie.
“Breathe,” Kylie stated delicately. “Just breathe.”
Not so easy when there were ten tons of emotions sitting on his chest. Not knowing what was going on with Lorrie made it damn near impossible to function, but he forced himself to draw air into his lungs, exhaling slowly.
“Where’re your brothers?” Curtis asked Travis, doing his best to clear the fog from his head.
“They’re on the way. I called them as soon as I hung up with you. Did the doctor say anything before they sent you out here?”
Curtis shook his head. Hell, he couldn’t remember half of what the doctor had said. “Something about infection…”
Travis’s hand was once again on Curtis’s shoulder, giving him comfort. “From the kidney stone?”
“They said that shouldn’t have caused it.” In layman’s terms, the stone was gone, so technically it was no longer an issue.
Oh, God.
Curtis put his hands on his face, tried to gather his composure, but it was futile. The riot of emotion was tearing him apart. He just needed to be by Lorrie’s side. It was the one place on earth that he belonged, and they had sent him away. Banished him to the godforsaken waiting room.
He knew Lorrie would be fine on her own, but he wasn’t so sure he’d be fine without her.
“Hey, Trav. Pop.”
Curtis looked up to see more of his boys coming toward him. Ethan and his husband, Beau, along with Kaleb and his wife, Zoey. Not far behind were Sawyer and his wife, Kennedy. He knew the rest would be along shortly, especially if Travis had told them that their mother was sick.
“What sort of tests are they doing?” Kylie asked, her hand gently resting on his forearm.
“Blood tests and a CT scan.” At least that was what he thought they’d said. He really wasn’t sure.
“What happened?” Kennedy questioned.
Curtis sat up straight, gripped the arms of the chair, and took another deep breath. He tried to ignore the incessant pounding of his heart as he looked at his daughter-in-law, then around at the others. “She woke up this mornin’, said she felt horrible. She couldn’t eat, and if she tried, she couldn’t hold anything down. Her temperature was one-oh-three…” God, she’d looked so pitiful. It had broken his heart to realize he couldn’t do a damn thing to help her, either.
Ethan squatted down in front of Curtis, placing his hand on Curtis’s knee. “When did this start?”
“When she went to bed last night, she said she didn’t feel well. Thought maybe she was coming down with the flu.”
“The flu?” Ethan frowned. “But she’s been better since Friday?”
Curtis nodded. “For a bit, yes. Then this morning, her skin was kinda ashy. Finally, she told me to get her to the hospital.” That was when he’d known it was bad. Lorrie hated hospitals, so for her to suggest it meant there was a serious problem.
“Be right back.” Travis patted Curtis’s shoulder, then headed over to the nurse’s desk as more people moved toward him.
Braydon and Jessie, Brendon and Cheyenne, Zane and Vanessa. Now all his boys and their significant others were there, along with his nephew, Jared, and Jared’s son, Derrick. Not far behind them, Curtis saw his sister, Maryanne, and her husband, Thomas.
Looked as though word had gotten out.
“I need to see her,” Curtis mumbled to himself, not thinking about all the people who where there watching him lose his shit.
“You will,” Kylie assured him. “Travis’ll make sure of it.”
“She’ll be okay, Pop,” Ethan said, his voice low. Curtis heard the concern in his boy’s tone, though. He knew everyone was as worried as he was. Lorrie was the backbone of their family. Without her…
No, he wasn’t going to think about that. She was going to be fine.
She
had
to be.
Lorrie Walker felt like crap warmed over. Her entire body hurt and she had no idea why. It was as though every fiber of her being was being pricked with tiny needles, then squeezed with pliers. She couldn’t stop vomiting, either, but they’d given her something to help with that, or so they’d said. The only thing she wanted to do was sleep until she could wake up and be well again.
They’d been poking and prodding her for the past couple of hours in an attempt to figure out what was going on with her body, but no one seemed to know. And the worst of it was, they had sent Curtis out into the waiting room because he’d been looming over them, making the medical staff nervous. She hadn’t wanted him to leave, but she knew it would be best for the doctors and for Curtis if he didn’t have to sit and watch.
Now that the CT scan had been done and she’d given more blood than she’d thought she had in her veins, Lorrie was settled into the bed, and they had promised they would go get him, but twenty minutes had passed, and she could hardly keep her eyes open. Still no Curtis.
When the bubbly blond nurse walked in, Lorrie shifted her legs, trying to get comfortable. “Is my husband coming?”
“Oh, right. I’m so sorry, Mrs. Walker. I’ll go get him in just a minute. You should probably get some rest in the meantime.”
For most of her sixty-seven years, Lorrie had been described as kindhearted. Non-confrontational. Loving even. And yes, she was usually all of those things, including the easygoing woman everyone suspected her to be, but there were a few things in the world guaranteed to set her off. One surefire way was if someone messed with her boys. Another was when it was clear they were trying to keep her away from Curtis—or vice versa. At that point, the gloves came off and a different side of her came out. A side most people didn’t want to see.
This nice young woman should’ve been warned. Too late now.
“You need to go get him,” Lorrie said, keeping her tone as polite as she could while she breathed through the pain that was currently tearing apart her insides.
“We will, Mrs. Walker. Just close your eyes and rest.”
Lorrie smiled, and based on the way the nurse was looking at her, she knew it wasn’t a pleasant one. “I’m only gonna say this one time. And it’s more of a warning for you than anything else. If my husband finds out that you’re purposely keeping him away from me, the outcome is going to be unlike anything you’ve
ever
seen before.”
And heaven help them all if her boys were out there, too.
The men in her life did not take kindly to someone attempting to keep her away from them. Especially Curtis.
The woman’s smile faltered, her forehead creasing. “We understand, but—”
“No, I really don’t think that you do.” If she did, she wouldn’t be standing there gawking at her.
“We thought it might be best if you got a little rest without him here.”
Lorrie plastered a fake smile on her face. “I highly suggest you don’t tell
him
that.”
Lord have mercy.
Was it that difficult to understand?
Thankfully, the nurse nodded and rushed out of the room. Within a couple of minutes, Curtis was walking in, his face hard, his beautiful blue-gray eyes reflecting the fear she’d expected to see in them. She hated that he worried so much, but the truth was, she was worried, too. Never had she felt like this before, and she couldn’t even pinpoint exactly what the problem was. She hurt
everywhere
.
“What did they say?” Curtis asked, his voice deep but soft as he leaned over and kissed her forehead.
“Something about high white blood cell counts from the preliminary tests,” she told him, trying to remember exactly what they’d said. She was having a hard time focusing as it was. Nodding toward the IV in her arm, she continued, “They’ve put me on antibiotics while they wait for more tests to come back.”
Curtis eased into the chair beside her bed and rested his hand over hers.
“I’m so tired,” she told him.
“I know, darlin’. Close your eyes and rest. I’m right here.”
“You won’t leave me?”
“Not in this lifetime.”
Knowing he meant every word, Lorrie succumbed to sleep, instantly drifting off, knowing Curtis would keep her safe. Just as he always had, since that very first day...