Cowboy Baby Daddy

“Mama said a swear,” Kadie said and giggled.

Aspyn stomped over to our daughter and pulled her away from me, her eyes full of fire.

I stared at her, confused. The whole thing made no sense to me. I mean, I knew plenty of women who had problems with their man not pulling his weight and being too poor, but getting mad because your man had cash was a strange-ass reaction.

I’d never known she was so hung up on money. She’d never been when we were younger. I decided it was a good thing I hadn’t told her the truth earlier.

“Is it true?” Aspyn snapped, yanking me out of my thoughts.

“Yeah, if you add it all up, I guess, technically, yeah, I’m a millionaire.” I shrugged. Sounded kind of silly when I said it out loud like that. “Just barely, though.”

She rolled her eyes. “Oh, just barely? How sad for you.” She shook her head. “How did this even happen? Did you win the lottery or something?”

I shook my head. “Only the worst kind of lottery. The accident, when they investigated it, they figured out a lot of safety procedures hadn’t been followed. They gave me a big-ass settlement. The family of the guy who died got way more.”

“Daddy and Mama said a swear,” Kadie said after taking a slurp of her juice.

I wanted to pat her on her head, but Aspyn had pulled her out of arm’s reach.

“And I’d been saving my money anyway,” I continued. “I never had more than a tiny little apartment and didn’t go out much, do much, or see much. Just put it all away. I didn’t really start investing it until the last few weeks, though. I don’t know why. It just seemed weird, I guess. No planning for the future until I had a reason.” I sighed. “So all that saving plus the settlement, yeah, it put me over the top.” I did a little swagger step, trying to lighten the mood. “Guess I’m the millionaire next door.”

Aspyn snatched the cup from Kadie and handed it to me. I took it, eyeing her. Her face was completely red at this point, and she was shaking with rage. “So you’ve been lying to me this entire time?”

“I wasn’t done, Mama,” Kadie whined.

“We’re leaving, sweetie,” Aspyn said.

“Why? What is even going on with you?” I said. “Why is it such a bad thing that I

have money? I’m still the same man I’ve always been.”

“Bullshit. I don’t even know you,” she hissed. “Was that your plan, all along? Ghost me and then come back and buy your way back, Mr. Money Bags?”

“No, no, no. I told you everything about why that happened. I—”

Aspyn picked up Kadie and all but ran from the room. I rushed after them.

“Aspyn, wait!”

Our daughter waved at me, and I waved back. I wanted to shout, but Kadie hadn’t seemed to have realized that her mother was angry with me. The last thing I wanted was to get my daughter upset.

Kadie and her mother were through the front door before I could even begin to understand what had happened.

Chapter 35

Aspyn

A little white lie never hurt anyone, so I called in sick to work the next morning, and then I asked Mama if I could stay over at her house. I turned off my phone, figuring anyone who wanted to call me would think I was sleeping. It was hiding, not only from Alex, but Perri, Carl, and even Joe.

Not that it’d take much for someone to track me down if they really wanted, but I figured this was enough to keep Alex and my friends out of my hair for at least one day.

I’d slept a good part of Tuesday, so maybe my little lie about being sick had become truth in a way. Now, as dinner moved closer, I lay in the guest room bed staring up at Mama’s popcorn ceiling and wondering how the builders got it to look like that. My ceiling at my own house was boring and flat.

It turns out there’s not a lot to do otherwise when you’re trying to avoid everyone and stay off your phone. Mama didn’t have cable TV or a computer, so it wasn’t like there was even much to watch. I wished I’d least had enough smarts to go the library to pick up a book before I started my little stint in fake witness protection.

The sad part was I wasn’t even sure why I was hiding. To know that, I’d first have to know why I freaked the hell out when I found out Alex was loaded. I thought I knew, but something about that seemed wrong, like I was missing something else big and obvious.

I’d told Perri I was worried about how Alex was paying for everything, worried that he was borrowing too much money. I’d convinced myself I was helping the man to destroy himself financially. Then I went and found out the guy would have to start buying new cars left and right to even have a chance of hurting his bank account.