“Isn’t that enough?”
“I love her, bro. I want more. I-She …” He grunted and shrugged.
“What?”
“Nothing. I’ll ask her eventually. Every man does.” He shrugged.
We locked gazes for a moment, and then I nodded.
“I didn’t know it was so serious,” I said.
“Yeah, well, there it is.” Carl frowned. “I don’t know how to get her to see it. She’s so stubborn. Damn if I don’t love that about her most of the time, but it’s screwing me over me now.”
“What are you gonna do about it?”
“I’ll deal with it. Been dealing with it for years now. It’s just …”
“What?”
He averted his eyes. “Nothing.”
“What?”
“Nothing,” he snapped and then rubbed the back of his neck. “Sorry. I’m being a little bitch. Maybe I’m jealous how you got Aspyn and a kid already.”
“Sure, but I’m not dating Aspyn, and Kadie was …” I couldn’t bring myself to say she was a mistake. A mistake or accident. Those words would make it sound like I didn’t want her. “She wasn’t planned.”
“So what are you even doing about her?” He measured the length of the doorframe and wrote it down.
I hadn’t even thought about it. The length would matter concerning what kind of furniture we could get into the place and individual rooms. Nice furniture hadn’t been something I’d worried about since leaving Livingston. That was yet another thing I’d thought would weigh me down.
“I’m not sure,” I said. “We haven’t really talked about it much. She doesn’t want lawyers involved, so that’s a good thing. I’ve made it clear I’m sticking around.” I shrugged. “I don’t want to push her too much. Things are okay, I think.”
“Yeah, I get it. I get it.”
I looked over my notepad. The list was pretty manageable, but it also wasn’t that short.
“I’m gonna have to paint this place and then buy furniture,” I said. “So I’ll need to stay in the cabin until then.”
“It’s fine. I’m more excited about getting the land ready for more horses and cattle. I don’t care where you stay.”
A wide grin appeared on his face, and I couldn’t help but grin back.
Carl had the right idea. We should worry about what we could deal with, the problems right in front of us. I wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon. Aspyn would have plenty of time to come around.
Chapter 21
Aspyn
“Where we going, Mama?” Kadie asked from the back seat. She tried to bounce a little, but her straps didn’t give her much range of movement.
“To see Alex,” I said, keeping my eyes on the road. The problem with the country roads was that you never knew when some animal might run out in the middle of the road or when some escaped cow might be sitting in the middle, relaxing and waiting to get hit by your car.
I’d seen more than a few cars totaled because of unfortunate encounters with animals in my life.
“Alex’s nice,” my daughter said. “He played blocks with me. We made towers. Mine was better.”
I smiled into the rearview mirror. “He did play with you, sweetie. That he did. You’re right. That was very nice of him.”