Lady Luck (Colorado Mountain #3)(149)

Her head tipped to the side and her eyes grew unfocused like she was thinking about it and he then understood why he couldn’t read her. She didn’t know what to think.

Then she decided what to think and her eyes focused again on his.

“It’s surprising,” she said quietly. “But, I don’t know, weirdly, it’s good to know what happened, who was behind it. But it doesn’t breathe life into Ronnie and even if it did, it wouldn’t matter. That’s… it’s…” She swallowed, shut her eyes tight for a second, opened them and continued, “All that is gone. All those years, all that feeling I had for him and now this is just, it’s just…” she trailed off but lifted her hands to wrap her fingers around his wrists and she finished, “Ty, it’s strange to feel this way but it’s just… news.”

Ty stared at his wife. She was over it. She was over Rodriguez. She’d moved on.

With him.

His fingers squeezed her neck and he bent to touch his mouth to hers. When he pulled back he dropped a hand but used the other one to wrap around the back of her neck and tuck her face in his throat. Both her arms moved to curve around his middle.

Once she settled she sighed.

Then she asked, “Does Angel have Shift?”

“They’re lookin’.”

She nodded.

Ty kept talking. “Dad’s here, Ella calls, you take all the time you need. I’ll keep him busy.”

She nodded again.

“Lex, we’re close,” he assured his wife with a squeeze at the back of her neck. “Pretty soon, these hits’ll stop comin’.”

Yet again, she nodded.

A knock came at the backdoor, Lexie tensed and so did Ty.

His Dad.

Jesus, God, he hoped his father had his shit together and this did not mean another hit.

Her arms slid from around him so she could pull down her skirt.

“You good?” he asked. “I can ask him to –”

She shook her head then pulled her face out of his neck to tip it back to give him a small grin she wasn’t committed to but she was trying. It wasn’t a blow, she wasn’t suffering but the news was not good, her family was going to have a past loss made fresh again, she was going to have to deal with that and she wasn’t looking forward to it.

Then she whispered, “I made brownies.”

Ty studied her face. Then he grinned back.

Then he set his wife aside, got up and went to go let in his father.

* * * * *

His father showed up sober. Nervous but sober. And his nerves didn’t fade no matter that there were flowers in a vase, Lexie was tricked out, she’d made some snack where she’d baked cups of rolled out pieces of bread she’d cut the crusts off of and then filled with some sausage, mushroom, olive, cream, garlic and cheese stuff that tasted the shit then offered up homemade brownies with a thick layer of chocolate frosting she’d served with ice cream. She was saying plainly that Irv was welcome, this visit meant something to her, she wanted to make it nice but Irv still didn’t get it and relax. Lex went all out being Lex, smiling, joking even touching, his arm, his hand.

Irv did not loosen up.

Ty acted as normal, not overtly welcoming but not hostile either. Watchful but not tense. He wasn’t going to go all out like his woman was doing.

This was Irv’s penance, whatever was going on in his head that wouldn’t let him relax, Ty was not going to bust his ass to let him off paying it. One visit where he’s sober, one phone call where he pulled up the courage to share was not going to buy his father that.

Ty would wait and see and give it to him when he earned it.

When Lexie’s phone rang, Ty took over with his father and Irv wound up tighter. It was then Ty saw that Lexie actually was helping his father relax, it was Ty he was worried about winning.

This didn’t change his manner but when his wife wandered to the front deck for privacy, Ty explained her absence completely and honestly, laying it all out about Lexie, her dead parents, her dick of a grandfather, her being taken in by the Rodriguez family, her relationship with Ronnie, most, if not all, of the path that led her to Ty and her recent news. He did this in an effort to make his father understand why his wife was crystal and should be treated as such.

From the look on his father’s face when he was done speaking, he figured Irv got it.

She was gone awhile. When she came back, she got Irv another soda and led him onto the deck. It was then Ty decided he had business he needed to see to and he was going to let his wife get to know his father without him there as a physical reminder of just how bad Irv f**ked up.

When he told her he needed a few minutes, she nodded.

He made his excuses to his Dad, walked up the stairs, went to the office, closed the door, pulled his phone out of his back pocket, sat in the swivel chair and dialed Julius.

“My man,” Julius greeted.

“You don’t f**k around,” Ty replied and heard a deep chuckle, Julius knew what Ty was talking about. Ty kept talking. “You know I appreciate it. What I need to know is if I got debts to pay.”

“Welcome to the jungle,” Julius stated.

“Come again?”

“You were forced to live in a zoo, Walk, a controlled jungle that has guards and bars. But outside that, you mighta skirted the real jungle but you didn’t live in it. LA has a jungle, Dallas too. And in the jungle, it’s survival of the fittest.”