Lady Luck (Colorado Mountain #3)(143)

He made good money and they could have a good life even if she didn’t work. He didn’t just put the money he got from selling the Skyline down on the house but also earnings from a couple of games. Therefore, he bought every upgrade the new build came with and still the mortgage was low. But they had three vehicles, all of which had taxes, plates and insurance that were a bitch, not to mention their development was a nice one that attracted a certain income bracket not only because property values were high due to its seclusion and views but also because the HOA fees were near crippling. It made for nice, well-kept landscaping and meant the roads were cleared quickly when it snowed but it also was a monthly whack.

He knew his wife was setting up house, making a home for him and for her, something neither of them had ever had, settling them into a nest where they’d feel safe that was theirs together. He also knew she was acutely aware that his life had been interrupted and she was running to catch up so he wouldn’t walk into their home every day and be reminded of the time he lost.

And even after his outlays on informants, furniture and vehicles, he still had a f**kload of his earnings from Vegas and a healthy bank balance due to his overtime, but his woman was off the pill and if her parts worked and his did too, the amount of sex they had, she’d be knocked up soon and, as far as he knew, babies didn’t come with government checks to cover their upkeep for the first eighteen years.

Lexie was social and she loved her job because it allowed her to be social with every bitch in town. The pay, however, was shit. She essentially made spending money but not the way she spent.

Therefore, she had to slow down.

The problem with this was, he didn’t have the heart to tell her to do it mainly because she was right that morning after his mama came home. He wanted her to have her every heart’s desire, not just because he had to make up to her what he’d done, just because he wanted to give her that.

So Ty had a decision to make. Suck it up and continue to work overtime so he could give his woman her every heart’s desire or have a chat with his wife.

He was also uncertain how to respond to her appearance because he knew with it and the huge-ass grocery shop she did yesterday as well as the massive bouquet of pink and ivory roses that was in the vase on the dining table and the banging around she’d been doing in the kitchen all morning that made the house smell like brownies (first) then garlic, that she was going all out for their afternoon visitor.

And Ty didn’t know how to feel about that.

Because their afternoon visitor was his father.

It was Sunday after their drama-filled Monday and Ty’s phone rang on Wednesday morning at nine o’clock sharp.

Irving Walker had taken a day and a half to think about it, pull up the courage and he was on the line asking Ty hesitantly how he was doing and even more hesitantly if he wanted to meet for a drink.

Ty had flat out said no.

“If I’m gonna be around you, you’re not gonna be around booze,” he told his Dad.

“I can do that,” his father replied quickly.

Too quickly.

Ty didn’t like it. Before he was sent down he had little to do with his parents and what he did have to do with them, he didn’t do it. His mother frequently showed to ask for money and his father infrequently showed drunk off his ass to bitch about his mother.

While he was involved in his shit storm, however, they had completely disappeared. After he went down, a couple of years in the joint, his father started writing. Ty hadn’t read his letters. He also didn’t save them. After he received five in the same amount of months and returned zero, they stopped coming.

“You wanna explain the recent love you and Mom been showin’?” Ty asked.

“Ty –” Irving Walker started.

“If you can call it love,” Ty cut him off to say. “Got a wife, a good one. She loves me, she’s got my back. Her people show, meet me for the first time, find out my recent history, they’re laughing and drinkin’ cocktails in my kitchen within ten minutes. My parents show, in five minutes Lex is so pissed, she’s throwin’ sass and then she’s on the phone with me ranting. Like I said, I got a wife, a good one who loves me which means I love her and can’t say I’m particularly thrilled about the fact that my parents piss her off and set her ranting. I try to shield her from that shit, not have it show up in my driveway.”

“You know your Ma,” Irv told him.

“Yeah, and I know you. Lex told me you weren’t smashed. A miracle.”

His verbal bullet hit true and he knew it when Irv spoke.

“Ty,” pause then, quietly, “son.”

Ty waited. That was all he got. It was more than he ever got before but it was not enough.

So he went on, “I’ll tell you, not because you deserve to know but because, you can pull your shit together to be a better f**kin’ grandfather than you were a father, then I’ll want my kid to have that because you’re the only shot my kid’ll have at a grandfather and you can take from that that Lexie and I are tryin’. But this love you and Mom are showin’ does not end with me handin’ cash over so she can blow it on smokes and you can drink it.”

Irv was quiet a moment and it was a long moment.

Then he said softly but with feeling that trembled in his voice, “Burned in me, what was done to you.”

It was Ty then that was quiet.