Must Be Wright (The Wrights 3)

She disappeared into the house, and Wyatt let out a long breath. He couldn’t remember the last time he felt this overwhelmed.

Gypsy returned wearing a jacket and carrying a thick blanket. She tossed him his keys and started toward the passenger side of his truck.

“I can’t leave. Belle—”

“She fell asleep in front of the TV with Cooper. She won’t even know you’re gone. Miranda said she’d watch them for a bit.” She tossed the blanket in the back. “Get in.”

He followed her to his truck and slid behind the wheel. “Where are we going?”

“My thinking spot. It’s where I go whenever I have a problem I can’t figure out. And I think you’ve earned a break today.”

As long as he was with her, he’d go anywhere.

Gypsy directed him along a dirt road on the property. They climbed a small grade, and at the top, the land fell away, leaving a stunning night view of the Nashville skyline. Gypsy directed him to turn around and back the truck in.

He turned off the truck, got out, and wandered toward the tailgate, taking in the view. “Holy shit. Why aren’t all the houses up here? This view is incredible.”

Gypsy rounded the tailgate, pulled it open, and jumped in, grabbing the blanket she’d tossed in the back. The night was cool, but not cold, and the air was still. Gypsy spread the cushy blanket out in the truck bed, and Wyatt’s mind veered off track and straight toward getting the curvy, sassy woman he’d been into for years naked.

Gypsy obviously had other thoughts, because she sat on the edge of the tailgate, letting her feet swing. “Marty always planned to build here. The trailer he lives in was only meant to be a temporary place while he built his house. But life got in the way, like it usually does.”

“Speaking of life getting in the way,” he said, “I’ve been meaning to ask you what’s going on with the bar. You manage that thing to within an inch of its life, yet you always seem to be struggling.”

“It’s been rough from the start.” She flattened her hands behind her on the truck bed. “Marty is an amazing man, but he sucked at the business end of the bar. Once I took it over, I realized what a mess the books were. Turned out he owed several vendors quite a bit in back pay. They didn’t bug him about it because they’d become friends with him over the years and they knew he was an honorable guy. Knew they’d get their money sooner or later. It’s taken me a long time to keep up with the current needs while paying off the past needs, but I’m finally there.”

“What did Marty say about it?”

She shook her head. “I didn’t ask. He gave me a fair deal on the bar, and I may have paid for the materials to have Miranda build me the house, but he lets me live on his property rent-free. A little hard to complain about things in that situation. The debts weren’t malicious or underhanded. He just couldn’t keep up with the popularity of the bar, and I’ve had a firsthand look at how ominous that is. I’ve finally gotten myself to a place where I can afford a manager, which will help me breathe. And Cooper’s finally at an age where I can send him to some fun camps. Those two things will allow me to work for a few hours during the day and be home with Cooper at night. I won’t be the first line of defense anymore when someone doesn’t show up or the bar gets so busy, I have to come in as backup.”

“Things are always more complicated than they look, aren’t they?”

“That’s for sure.”

Wyatt sat next to her and took a deep breath of the cool air. “Man, just sitting here makes me feel like a weight has been lifted.”

“That’s always how I feel here.” She lay back, looking up at the sky. “But I come out here more for the stars than the view.”

Wyatt looked up, surprised to see a dense swath of bright stars. “Oh, wow.” He lay back, shoulder to shoulder with her. “I can’t remember the last time I saw a sky like this.”

They fell into comfortable silence, but thoughts continued to race across Wyatt’s mind. He didn’t know how much time had passed before he shook his head and said, “I keep trying to fit Belle into my life like a puzzle piece, but it keeps becoming a game of Tetris. And I always sucked at that game.”

“I think that’s your first problem. You’re trying to fit Belle into your life when you should be trying to fit into hers.”

He turned his head and looked at her. Lying side by side in the dark night felt wildly intimate, and he couldn’t help but wonder if she felt the same. “What do you mean?”

“I mean it might be easier to figure out how to manage this if you put Belle at the center of your life instead of touring. You line out all Belle’s requirements, figure out what her days look like, and then you work your life around that.”

“You may as well be speaking Greek, sugar.”

“It’s what I’ve had to do to make the shift I wanted for Cooper. While I was struggling with the bar, it was always at the center of my universe. I fit my life and Cooper’s life around what the bar needed. If I needed to go in to cover, I pushed Cooper off on a relative. If I needed to work during the day, I brought him with me and made him entertain himself. If I needed to work on business stuff at home in the afternoon or evening, I’d put him in front of the television.”

“Okay, don’t hit me, but that sounds…normal.”

“It may be normal for many people, but it’s not the way I want to raise my son. Having Cooper at the center of my life looks completely different. The camp is not only a hell of a lot of fun for him, but it teaches him how to socialize before I put him in preschool this fall. He’ll learn all sorts of things I could never teach him, and he’ll make friends and learn about relationships with other people. By working while he’s in camp having fun, I’m freeing myself up to give him all my attention when we’re together.”

Wyatt was speechless. Her dedication blew him away.

“Hiring a manager is just as important as his camps,” she said. “A manager will eliminate some of the busywork the bar creates, but more importantly, I’ll be able to stay home with Cooper at night. I can be the one giving him baths and reading to him before bed. I can be the one he wakes up to, the one who makes him breakfast. That’s designing a life around my kid, not fitting my kid into my life.”