Carl downed some more beer. “You know how many times Perri’s pushed me away just to take me back?”
“So now you’re saying I’m a bitch like you?”
He grinned. “Just saying where’s there a chance, there’s hope, right?”
I gulped down some more beer. “Yeah. I do know one important thing, though.”
“What?”
I pointed to the cabin in the distance. “No matter what happens with Aspyn, I’m gonna be there for my daughter, and that means sometimes I’m gonna need to watch her.”
“Yeah, makes sense. What about it?”
“I can’t have her in a small place like that. I’m gonna need a bigger place.” I finished off my beer and put the can on the ground.
Carl snorted. “Big deal. Just buy a place, then. You know you’re going to stay, so no reason not to.”
A grin spread across my face. “My dad’s old place. I drove by it the other day to check on it. You were right. It’s still for sale.”
“There you go, bro. There you go.”
Carl’s smile disappeared, and a worried look appeared on his face. He turned away. “I’ve got something else I wanted to ask you.”
“What?”
“It’s just, with you being here, it’s shown me I can keep this place going,” Carl said. He lowered his can to the ground. “And it can even do better with a little more space and animals.”
“Yeah, I guess. What about it?”
“Need more land for the cows and horses to graze,” Carl said. He pointed to the far distance. “The McMillians are selling their land. It’s right next to mine. I just don’t have all the capital I need.” He looked back over at me. “You could be my partner. I didn’t want to ask you before because I didn’t think you were staying.”
“Your partner?”
“Yeah, we’d need to hire a few more people,” Carl said, “but if I knew we were going to have good cattle sales at the end, it wouldn’t be a big deal. You’d help me out, and you could work a good, solid job supporting a good, solid business.” He leaned back and slapped his hand against the wall of his house. “Hell, bro. Your daughter would have an inheritance like I did.”
I stared out into the distance toward the horizon. The sun had started to set, painting the sky orange-red. Everything Carl had said felt right. More than that. It felt true.
What did I have to go back to? What reason did I have to stay? Everything seemed obvious, and that tightened my stomach. I still might not be able to get Aspyn back. I didn’t know how I’d feel if that was the case.
“I’ll think it over, Carl,” I said. “It’s a lot to think over.”
He smiled. “Take your time. I’m not going anywhere, and neither are you.”
Chapter 17
Aspyn
Now that the truth was out in the open, the rest of the week passed in a flash. Since I wasn’t worried about avoiding Alex, I wasn’t so stressed out. I could concentrate on work, and, most importantly, Kadie.
While the old high school gang wasn’t exactly all hanging out together yet, no one had to lie or hide either. I didn’t know if I felt good about the whole thing as much as relieved. From what Perri had told me, Carl was in a much better mood, at least.
I still felt a bit sick to my stomach over forcing him to hide the truth from Alex. I’d have to buy his beers at the Mustang for a while as a way of making it up to him. Maybe even for the rest of the year.
By Friday, I was ready to take the next step. I’d called Alex that morning to ask him to stop by my mama’s to talk with Kadie again. We’d not really talked much about how we might introduce him as her father, but I figured it wasn’t like a 2-year-old was going to ask too many hard questions.
There was no rush as far as that went. I mostly wanted her to get used to having him around. The only man up until then she was regularly seeing was Carl.
Standing outside in Mama’s backyard, I watched Kadie play with some blocks on a blanket in the shade. A few other kids ran back and forth playing tag.