Page 34 of A Cowboy Holiday
“Slow down, Axe. If I know anything about kids, Phoebe will be bummed if you pick her up too soon.”
“I know, but I still have to get her home to get dressed and go to pre-K. She’ll be late at this point.”
“She’s five. I doubt she’ll miss anything.”
“Hmph.” I buttered a slice of wheat toast and took a bite.
“I don’t know how you do it all on your own. Raising a kid and juggling two jobs must be challenging.” His tone was light, but I was instantly on guard.
I paused midchew and eyed him warily. I had a feeling I was being fed and pumped for information, and I didn’t like being manipulated.
Tanner didn’t blink.
What was it about this guy? It didn’t usually take much to scare off most folks—a glare, a scowl, a blank stare. Tanner just speared egg onto a piece of buttered toast and chomped it, his gaze fixed on me.
“Yeah,” I conceded, still glaring. “It can be tough.”
“You look like you want to skewer me on a kebob.” He snickered. “I’m not grilling you. I’m just a naturally curious person, and I don’t think it’s weird to want to know a little about the guy who fucked you silly. More coffee?”
Tanner slid off his stool to grab the carafe and refilled our mugs while I fought an internal battle that didn’t seem to have a purpose.
I polished off a slice of bacon and dabbed the corners of my mouth with a napkin. “What do you want to know?”
He considered me thoughtfully, then blurted, “Is her mom out of the picture?”
“Yeah. She died in a car accident, eight months pregnant with Phee.”
Tanner paled. “Oh, my God. I’m so sorry. I?—”
“It’s okay.”
“No, it’s not. I don’t know what to say. That’s heartbreaking. Your wife?—”
“We weren’t married.” It was a brush-off, and it might have worked if I could have come up with a distraction, but pushing him away felt like too much work. “Melanie was my…friend.”
“Your girlfriend?”
“No…my friend that I occasionally slept with.” I rubbed my bearded jaw as I raked my teeth over my bottom lip. “We’d had a relationship years ago—ten years ago, maybe. I was a bouncer at a club where she danced, and we hit it off. I moved from Denver to Vegas somewhere in there, but if I happened to be in town, we hooked up.”
“Ahh.”
“You’d have liked her. Everyone did. Mellie was fun and vivacious. She was a five-foot-two, beautiful blond who swore like a sailor and could drink anyone under the table. She quit dancing eventually and became a bartender. She said the tips weren’t as good, but she had a plan to ease out of the club circuit and settle down, start a family.”
“With you?”
“No, not me. I’m not that guy. For anyone,” I huffed, shaking my head. “And it’s not like we were in love. We were friends who…”
“Fucked,” Tanner supplied.
I inclined my chin. “And I had my own shit going on. I had a big falling out with my family while I was in college. We’re talking huge. Think of the Christmas from hell and crank it up twenty notches. I won’t go into detail, but the gist or maybe the result is…I don’t do family. At all. I had no intention of ever becoming a husband, let alone a dad.”
“What happened with Mel?”
I took a deep inhale and slowly released it. “She moved to Vegas with her friend Kitty about six and a half years ago. I was working as a bouncer at a club off the strip part-time and finishing my veterinary degree. She called me, but this time she didn’t just want to hook up. She asked if I’d put in a good word at the club for her and Kitty. They both needed extra cash. She was doing well, though. She’d gotten a real estate license and only wanted to bartend part-time. Suddenly, we were living in the same town, working at the same crappy joint till we’d established ourselves. We had a goal in common, and…yeah, we hooked up. Often. But it wasn’t love. It was friendship, and it was easy. Until the day she asked if I’d be a sperm donor.”
Tanner lifted his mug to his lips. “Obviously, you agreed.”
“I didn’t. I said no, and I was pretty damn serious. But drunk me was never the sharpest tool in the shed. That guy forgot to wear a condom and chose to believe that my usually vigilant fuck-buddy was still using birth control.” I shrugged and rolled my eyes. “I’d already moved on to Seattle when Mel called to tell me the news. She was pregnant, I was the dad, but not to worry, she had it under control.”