Lady Luck (Colorado Mountain #3)(144)
Irv kept talking. “Burned in me over five years.”
Ty still didn’t respond.
Irv finished it and he did it on a whisper. “I can be a better grandfather.”
Ty sucked in breath. Then he said, “All right, Dad. I’ll talk to Lexie, see if she’s comfortable with you bein’ in our house. I know one thing though, Mom doesn’t show. I’m protective of my wife, she’s protective of me and I do not want Mom rilin’ her up and she will just by showin’ her face. Lexie’s still pissed and unless Mom gets her head outta her ass, Lexie won’t get unpissed. She knows what was done to me and she’s sensitive to anything that might get at me. Keep Mom away.”
“It’ll be just me,” Irv assured him quickly.
“I’ll talk to Lexie, let you know.”
“You… you,” he said, still talking quickly then he paused then, “You done good with her son. She’s not hard to look at but that’s not what I mean. She… she…” another pause, then quietly, “It’s good you got one with sass. Back then… years ago… Reece… your Ma,” another pause then, “Way people were, the way they were knowin’ she was with me, her folks, anyone… shit they said, way they looked at her… at us…” Ty heard him blow out a sigh. “She couldn’t take it.”
Ty stood still and stunned.
Christ, thirty-six f**king years and his father was sharing.
What the f**k?
Irv continued, “She got pissed at me ‘cause there were too many a’ them to get pissed at. Even your Ma, way she is, doesn’t have enough vinegar to sustain bein’ pissed at the world so she focused. Shoulda let her go, let her be but felt I owed it to her since I knocked her up and f**ked up her life.”
“You wear a full body coverall when you were datin’ her?” Ty asked.
“What?” Irv asked back.
“Dad, she made her choice, you didn’t make her make it. She couldn’t live with it, that’s on her. You didn’t owe her shit, not puttin’ up with her anger for-f*ckin’-ever, not dealin’ with her shit by poisoning your body, not makin’ your sons put up with it.”
“It was gone by the time you could process it, son, but loved her once and she loved me. She got bitter and wears it on her face but back then… you hooked yourself a beauty, Ty, but back then your Mom was nothin’ to sneeze at and, I know you won’t believe it, not now, but she was funny, shit, boy, made me laugh so damned hard, thought I’d bust a gut anytime I was with her.”
Ty stared unseeing out of the door of the garage, hearing this information, shit he did not know, shit he could barely believe that was still, f**k him, shit that was good to hear and he replied, “Spent five years learnin’ a lot, most especially that every breath is worth something. So, I won’t piss this away and not tell you I don’t appreciate, no matter how late it is, you sharin’ with me. But I’ll point out, it’s still f**kin’ late. I rotted for five years –”
Irv interrupted him with, “I wrote you –”
Ty cut right back in. “Yeah, but didn’t see you in the courtroom, Dad. Didn’t see you before I went down, when that shit was swirlin’ around me, not once and before that, when I did, every time I did, you were shitfaced.”
“And that’s what I’m explaining.”
Fucking shit, this was enough for now, he was done.
So he moved it that way. “Lexie wants you in our home, you can explain it more when I’m not at work.”
“She said I could come if I called and didn’t bring Reece,” Irv said softly.
“Yeah, but I give a shit about my wife and what she’s feelin’ so you’re just gonna have to wait until I confirm.”
A pause then, “I’ll wait, Ty.”
“And I’ll call, either way.”
“’Preciate it, son.”
Ty pulled in breath. Then he finished with, “She lets you in, when you come and spend time and then forever, you treat her like crystal. Her life has been shit and she’s got no blood family. The family she made for herself means the world. She makes you her family, you do not f**k her. You f**k her, we’re done. That’s it. Done. Are you with me?”
“I’m with you, Ty.”
“Right. I’ll call.”
“I’ll be waitin’.”
And, obviously, Lexie said yes and she did this about point two five seconds after he finished telling her about the phone call.
Which led them to now.
His wife, tricked out for a visit from his father who didn’t give him much but a few knocks and a lot of nothing until he had a telephone conversation with him a few days before.
Their Monday had been dramatic, their week not uneventful. Nina Maxwell, his new attorney who he and Lex had gone to meet on Thursday, was a very pretty blonde with two young children, a law degree, an excessive amount of energy and more sass even than Lexie.
This meant Peña had heard from her twice. It also meant the Attorney General’s office had heard from her daily and not just the one in Colorado but also the one in California. And it further meant that, along with communications they got from Samuel Sterling, the ACLU had heard from her. She was all over it. So, lastly, this meant that the Attorney General’s office had not f**ked around in locating the communications Misty had sent and contacting Chace Keaton to obtain a sample of Misty’s handwriting which, Nina reported, the man had delivered to Denver himself. They also contacted Misty’s friend in Maryland and obtained a sworn statement that not only did she receive the documents from Misty with instructions of what to do with them, she’d also received frequent and increasingly frantic phone calls from a firstly anxious then downright terrified Misty including one warning her she’d be receiving the documents and getting her assurance that she would follow through should something untoward happen with Misty.