Shoulda Been a Cowboy (Rough Riders #7)(94)

“Maybe next time I could remember to put them in the truck for you when we go somewhere,” Anton offered.


“That would be great. I can’t seem to remember shit like that.” He looked up at Domini expecting her to spear him with a dark look because he’d cursed again.


“Wait a minute. What did you mean by last time?” Domini repeated. “What happened?”


“Cam fell down on the back deck. I got his crutches and helped him up. Then he showed me his fake leg.”


Her mouth dropped open. “You fell? Why didn’t you tell me?”


Cam exchanged a look with Anton. “Because it was no big deal and us guys gotta have some secrets. Plus, I was in a lot of pain and cussin’ up a storm. And I know you don’t want me swearing around him.”


“True. So maybe you’d better give us a minute alone, young secret keeper and crutches fetcher,” Domini said to Anton.


“Aw, I don’t think he’s gonna swear that much,” Anton said.


“Maybe I’m going to swear at him,” Domini replied coolly.


Cam muttered, “Shit.”


Anton raced off.


Smart kid.


Domini didn’t bat an eye as she removed his stump from the socket. “Keely has a point, Cam. You’ve been having issues with the fit since before we got married.” She peeled the socks off. “You’re using five socks? Instead of two?”


“The damn sleeve is really slippery lately. I need the extras to mop up the sweat but it doesn’t help and it still hurts like a bitch.”



“You in pain now?”


“Yeah.”


“How bad?”


“It’s been worse.”


Domini rattled off a Russian phrase.


Hell, she only swore in Russian when she was really pissed. He attempted to remove his stump from her hands. “Let me do this. I…you know my family ain’t ever seen me—”


“Vulnerable?” she supplied. “The injured war hero Cameron McKay has a chip on his shoulder the size of his missing leg, when it comes to letting his family see his stump.”


Cam’s mouth dropped open in shock.


But his wife wasn’t finished. “I can see how you’d hate all the love, support and help they’ve offered you. That has to suck.”


“Domini—”


She got right in his face. “I understand that you don’t want to show your stump to the world at large. But these people—” she gestured to the group watching them very closely from afar, “—aren’t the world at large. They care about you. They always have, they always will. What don’t you get about that?”


“You sent Keely away,” he pointed out.


“I’m not talking about Keely. Besides, if I wouldn’t have told her to back off, you would have.”


True.


“Your inability to let your family see, just once, what the damn war did to you physically, makes you emotionally handicapped, and that is way worse than losing your damn leg.”


A hot wave of shame washed over him.


What could he say? Domini was exactly right. Yet, no one had dared say it to him before now. Ballsy, this soft-spoken woman he married.


He turned his head, but instead of facing away, he looked toward the family members who hadn’t gone far after the directive from his suddenly bossy wife.


In truth, his family never had gone far. They’d rallied around him from the second he’d been back on American soil. Never complained when he’d banned them from the hospital. Understood when he claimed the need for privacy. Had they resigned themselves to the fact he’d never be the man he was?


You aren’t the man you were and maybe that’s not such a bad thing.


Talk about a day for epiphanies.


Domini touched his face. “You mad at me?”


He kissed the inside of her wrist. “Yeah, I hate that you’re right. So what do I do? Lay here and let them file over and gawk at me like…” I’ve always feared they would?


The pack of dogs chasing a squirrel brought Ky running past. He skidded to a stop. Behind Ky were the rest of his nephews. His whole body stiffened as he braced himself for their stares. And questions. And disgust.


Ky peered at his stump without apology. “So did it hurt when they chopped it off?”


“I don’t remember, but it hurt afterward.”


Gib asked, “Didja cry?”


“Yep.”


“I prolly woulda cried too,” he said solemnly.


Out of the mouth of babes.


Thane edged closer to the prosthetic. “Is that a robot leg?”


“Sort of.”


His hazel eyes went wide. “Like in Transformers?”


“If it was like in Transformers, Uncle Cam could turn his leg into an arm,” Ky chided.


Before Cam answered, Gib said, “Wouldn’t it be cool if he could turn it into a machine gun?”