Colorado 03 Lady Luck (58 page)

Lexie was social and she loved her job
because it allowed her to be social with every bitch in town. The
pay, however, was shit. She essentially made spending money but not
the way she spent.

Therefore, she had to slow down.

The problem with this was, he didn’t have
the heart to tell her to do it mainly because she was right that
morning after his mama came home. He wanted her to have her every
heart’s desire, not just because he had to make up to her what he’d
done, just because he wanted to give her that.

So Ty had a decision to make. Suck it up and
continue to work overtime so he could give his woman her every
heart’s desire or have a chat with his wife.

He was also uncertain how to respond to her
appearance because he knew with it and the huge-ass grocery shop
she did yesterday as well as the massive bouquet of pink and ivory
roses that was in the vase on the dining table and the banging
around she’d been doing in the kitchen all morning that made the
house smell like brownies (first) then garlic, that she was going
all out for their afternoon visitor.

And Ty didn’t know how to feel about
that.

Because their afternoon visitor was his
father.

It was Sunday after their drama-filled
Monday and Ty’s phone rang on Wednesday morning at nine o’clock
sharp.

Irving Walker had taken a day and a half to
think about it, pull up the courage and he was on the line asking
Ty hesitantly how he was doing and even more hesitantly if he
wanted to meet for a drink.

Ty had flat out said no.

“If I’m gonna be around you, you’re not
gonna be around booze,” he told his Dad.

“I can do that,” his father replied
quickly.

Too quickly.

Ty didn’t like it. Before he was sent down
he had little to do with his parents and what he did have to do
with them, he didn’t do it. His mother frequently showed to ask for
money and his father infrequently showed drunk off his ass to bitch
about his mother.

While he was involved in his shit storm,
however, they had completely disappeared. After he went down, a
couple of years in the joint, his father started writing. Ty hadn’t
read his letters. He also didn’t save them. After he received five
in the same amount of months and returned zero, they stopped
coming.

“You wanna explain the recent love you and
Mom been showin’?” Ty asked.

“Ty –” Irving Walker started.

“If you can call it love,” Ty cut him off to
say. “Got a wife, a good one. She loves me, she’s got my back. Her
people show, meet me for the first time, find out my recent
history, they’re laughing and drinkin’ cocktails in my kitchen
within ten minutes. My parents show, in five minutes Lex is so
pissed, she’s throwin’ sass and then she’s on the phone with me
ranting. Like I said, I got a wife, a good one who loves me which
means I love her and can’t say I’m particularly thrilled about the
fact that my parents piss her off and set her ranting. I try to
shield her from that shit, not have it show up in my driveway.”

“You know your Ma,” Irv told him.

“Yeah, and I know you. Lex told me you
weren’t smashed. A miracle.”

His verbal bullet hit true and he knew it
when Irv spoke.

“Ty,” pause then, quietly, “son.”

Ty waited. That was all he got. It was more
than he ever got before but it was not enough.

So he went on, “I’ll tell you, not because
you deserve to know but because, you can pull your shit together to
be a better fuckin’ grandfather than you were a father, then I’ll
want my kid to have that because you’re the only shot my kid’ll
have at a grandfather and you can take from that that Lexie and I
are tryin’. But this love you and Mom are showin’ does not end with
me handin’ cash over so she can blow it on smokes and you can drink
it.”

Irv was quiet a moment and it was a long
moment.

Then he said softly but with feeling that
trembled in his voice, “Burned in me, what was done to you.”

It was Ty then that was quiet.

Irv kept talking. “Burned in me over five
years.”

Ty still didn’t respond.

Irv finished it and he did it on a whisper.
“I can be a better grandfather.”

Ty sucked in breath. Then he said, “All
right, Dad. I’ll talk to Lexie, see if she’s comfortable with you
bein’ in our house. I know one thing though, Mom doesn’t show. I’m
protective of my wife, she’s protective of me and I do not want Mom
rilin’ her up and she will just by showin’ her face. Lexie’s still
pissed and unless Mom gets her head outta her ass, Lexie won’t get
unpissed. She knows what was done to me and she’s sensitive to
anything that might get at me. Keep Mom away.”

“It’ll be just me,” Irv assured him
quickly.

“I’ll talk to Lexie, let you know.”

“You… you,” he said, still talking quickly
then he paused then, “You done good with her son. She’s not hard to
look at but that’s not what I mean. She… she…” another pause, then
quietly, “It’s good you got one with sass. Back then… years ago…
Reece… your Ma,” another pause then, “Way people were, the way they
were knowin’ she was with me, her folks, anyone… shit they said,
way they looked at her… at us…” Ty heard him blow out a sigh. “She
couldn’t take it.”

Ty stood still and stunned.

Christ, thirty-six fucking years and his
father was sharing.

What the fuck?

Irv continued, “She got pissed at me
‘cause there were too many a’ them to get pissed at. Even your Ma,
way she is, doesn’t have enough vinegar to sustain bein’ pissed at
the world so she focused. Shoulda let her go, let her be but felt I
owed it to her since I knocked her up and fucked up her
life.”

“You wear a full body coverall when you were
datin’ her?” Ty asked.

“What?” Irv asked back.

“Dad, she made her choice, you didn’t make
her make it. She couldn’t live with it, that’s on her. You didn’t
owe her shit, not puttin’ up with her anger for-fuckin’-ever, not
dealin’ with her shit by poisoning your body, not makin’ your sons
put up with it.”

“It was gone by the time you could process
it, son, but loved her once and she loved me. She got bitter and
wears it on her face but back then… you hooked yourself a beauty,
Ty, but back then your Mom was nothin’ to sneeze at and, I know you
won’t believe it, not now, but she was funny, shit, boy, made me
laugh so damned hard, thought I’d bust a gut anytime I was with
her.”

Ty stared unseeing out of the door of the
garage, hearing this information, shit he did not know, shit he
could barely believe that was still, fuck him, shit that was good
to hear and he replied, “Spent five years learnin’ a lot, most
especially that every breath is worth something. So, I won’t piss
this away and not tell you I don’t appreciate, no matter how late
it is, you sharin’ with me. But I’ll point out, it’s still fuckin’
late. I rotted for five years –”

Irv interrupted him with, “I wrote you
–”

Ty cut right back in. “Yeah, but didn’t see
you in the courtroom, Dad. Didn’t see you before I went down, when
that shit was swirlin’ around me, not once and before that, when I
did, every time I did, you were shitfaced.”

“And that’s what I’m explaining.”

Fucking shit, this was enough for now, he
was done.

So he moved it that way. “Lexie wants you in
our home, you can explain it more when I’m not at work.”

“She said I could come if I called and
didn’t bring Reece,” Irv said softly.

“Yeah, but I give a shit about my wife and
what she’s feelin’ so you’re just gonna have to wait until I
confirm.”

A pause then, “I’ll wait, Ty.”

“And I’ll call, either way.”

“’Preciate it, son.”

Ty pulled in breath. Then he finished with,
“She lets you in, when you come and spend time and then forever,
you treat her like crystal. Her life has been shit and she’s got no
blood family. The family she made for herself means the world. She
makes you her family, you do not fuck her. You fuck her, we’re
done. That’s it. Done. Are you with me?”

“I’m with you, Ty.”

“Right. I’ll call.”

“I’ll be waitin’.”

And, obviously, Lexie said yes and she did
this about point two five seconds after he finished telling her
about the phone call.

Which led them to now.

His wife, tricked out for a visit from his
father who didn’t give him much but a few knocks and a lot of
nothing until he had a telephone conversation with him a few days
before.

Their Monday had been dramatic, their week
not uneventful. Nina Maxwell, his new attorney who he and Lex had
gone to meet on Thursday, was a very pretty blonde with two young
children, a law degree, an excessive amount of energy and more sass
even than Lexie.

This meant Peña had heard from her twice. It
also meant the Attorney General’s office had heard from her daily
and not just the one in Colorado but also the one in California.
And it further meant that, along with communications they got from
Samuel Sterling, the ACLU had heard from her. She was all over it.
So, lastly, this meant that the Attorney General’s office had not
fucked around in locating the communications Misty had sent and
contacting Chace Keaton to obtain a sample of Misty’s handwriting
which, Nina reported, the man had delivered to Denver himself. They
also contacted Misty’s friend in Maryland and obtained a sworn
statement that not only did she receive the documents from Misty
with instructions of what to do with them, she’d also received
frequent and increasingly frantic phone calls from a firstly
anxious then downright terrified Misty including one warning her
she’d be receiving the documents and getting her assurance that she
would follow through should something untoward happen with
Misty.

And she’d followed through.

With a man with the kind of money and
influence of Samuel Sterling and an increasingly interested ACLU at
her back, Nina wasn’t accepting any bullshit or delays. Still, she
was getting them and this likely had to do with the fact that
Internal Affairs in Colorado and California were trying to hold her
back while they sorted their shit.

Nina Maxwell might be the pretty blonde
mother of an infant and toddler who, in person, was very sweet and
fucking funny, but when she was not dealing with him but for him,
she was making it clear she didn’t give a fuck about IA
investigations, she gave a fuck about a half black man who had five
years stolen from his life and deserved a clear name and
restitution, not when they got around to getting their shit sorted
but yesterday, and the woman was a pit bull.

Therefore, Ty was lying on the couch
watching a game, not wound up about his future, Lexie’s future and
the future of their children. Peña was on it. Tate was on it.
Julius’s boy was on it. Fucking Chace fucking Keaton was on it.
Samuel Sterling was
all over it.
The
ACLU were sticking their noses in it. And Nina Maxwell was living
and breathing it.

So he was lying on the couch, drinking a
soda, watching a game and wondering if he had enough time to make
his wife
and
himself come
in the enjoyable effort of planting his seed in her womb before his
father showed.

And, lying on that couch, drinking a soda
and watching his woman in that dress and shoes with her tanned
skin, round ass and long fucking legs on show as she nervously
fluffed, arranged then rearranged toss pillows, Ty made his
decision.

And that decision was, two birds, one
stone.

So he put his soda on the coffee table, put
one foot to the floor, did an ab curl and lunged.

He caught Lex at the waist in mid-fluff of a
pillow. She cried out in surprise, dropped the pillow, hit him
front to front, he fell back then rolled so he was on top.

Then he yanked her skirt up to her
waist.

“Ty,” she breathed, eyes big and on him.

“New dress?” he asked, his hands moving
around her waist, back, down and into her panties.

“Uh… yeah,” she whispered, her hands moving
to his chest and resting there like she didn’t know whether to push
or something else.

He rolled his hips with intent and she
spread her legs either because his hips were giving her no choice
or because she wanted it. Either way, he felt his cock start to get
hard.

“Ty.” It came again, breathy and her fingers
curled into his tee.

He pulled his hands out of her panties,
sliding them down the backs of her thighs then, when he got to the
backs of her knees, he yanked up. Hard.

And he did this while asking over her gasp,
“New shoes?”

“Ty –”

He cut her off. “New shoes, baby?”

“What are you…?” He ground his hips into
hers, she trailed off and whispered, “Yes. New shoes.”

He dropped his face close to hers and one
hand went to the side of her neck, one hand slid up to trace the
edge of the leg of her underwear as he spoke.

“
Mama, I want you to have everything you
wanna have.
Everything,
” he
paused as his fingers made it between her legs, one slid in and
pulled the gusset away and he watched her eyes heat as her lids
dropped halfway and her lips parted. “But,” he went on softly,
dipping his head so his mouth was a breath from hers, “you gotta
slow up. We got attorney fees and, all this effort,” he slid his
finger lightly through her wet, “could mean a baby soon.” He
brushed his mouth against hers, feeling her breath had escalated
and he whispered, “This dress is the shit, baby, and you look
fuckin’ good in it. I know what you’re doin’, for me, my Dad
comin’. But you don’t gotta be you all tricked out. You just gotta
be you. He’s gonna like you. He
already
likes you. The thing you gotta get is the effort
is his to make
you
like
him
. Not my mama
goin’ all out to make
him
like
her.
”