Page 16 of Brett and Rowdy (Gomillion High Reunion #5)

Chapter Nine

“ A re you going to go to the dinner, Daddy? What if you get an award?”

Rowdy snorted and stretched out on the sofa. “For what, sweet pea? Farthest traveled? Oldest child?”

Brett was going to go home and change and shower, and then they were all going to figure out what to do for supper.

“Daddy! It’s your reunion; how can you not care?”

“Maddie! I have talked to every single person I liked in high school today.” He’d had sex with one of them.

“Well… That’s weird.”

“Nope.” He shook his head. “It’s weird for you because you went to school with all the same people all the way up. I didn’t.”

“Yeah. How mad were you when your mom moved here?”

He shrugged. He’d been absolutely livid. He’d walked away from her and her asshole of a husband twenty years ago and never looked back.

“I was a teenager, kiddo. I contemplated mayhem. In the end, though, I just bided my time.” And then he’d gone home where he belonged.

Of course, riding the rodeo maybe hadn’t been his smartest move, but hindsight was better than no sight. Or something silly like that.

She chuckled. “I bet you did. You can have a temper, Daddy, but you always get right in the head pretty quick.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.” He didn’t mind that one bit.

“It is. You don’t have Momma’s temper. She gets mad and she just stays that way.”

“Yeah, and I wonder whose temper you’ve got…” His girl could be a firecracker if some idiot shoved her over the edge.

Maddie whapped him on the shoulder, good and hard. “Hey! You know me, Daddy. I am absolutely even-keeled, the most gentle young lady you’ve ever seen in your whole life.”

He didn’t point out that he hadn’t seen her that way in fifteen years. “You know, God will strike you down for lying, child.”

He loved his little girl beyond all reason. However, gentle was a term that absolutely, one hundred percent, did not apply to his little girl.

“Yeah, well, what you gonna do?” She snuggled into his side. “I can’t believe my room is packed, that I finally get to come home next week.”

“Tell me about it.” He’d been waiting on this for most of his life. It broke his heart for Ash, because that woman was going to miss Madison like crazy, but he was excited. “Your pappy can’t wait to have you all to himself.”

“I think Kody will argue with that. He’s been calling every day, asking if I’m ready.”

He chuckled and shook his head. “Pappy’s going to keep you pretty damn busy.”

“Good.” She sounded so damn satisfied. “I swear, I’m going to work so hard and help make the ranch even better. I want to make you proud, Daddy.”

Proud? He couldn’t breathe with it sometimes, how honored he was to be her father. “Oh, baby. Every day. Every single day.”

She hugged him tight, and then they just sat together for a minute, Barney snoring softly. He thought maybe Maddie had dozed off, but then she spoke again, “I still think it’d be kind of neat, you know, at some point to go and see all my people, all my friends when they’re adults.”

He had to fight the urge to snort. “I hate to be the one to break this to you, child, but guess what? You’re an adult.”

“God, when you say that out loud, it makes no sense. I don’t know. I sure don’t feel like an adult. I mean, did you, Daddy?”

He didn’t pretend not to know what she was asking about. “No, I don’t think so. I have felt like an adult a couple of times, I think, through my life, but for the most part, I’m just a fuckup, baby.”

“No, you’re my daddy.”

He nodded and found the Dr Pepper he was drinking, unscrewing the top.

“Yes, well, unfortunately that does not stop me from screwing stuff up. Still, I don’t think any of us thinks that we’re grown-ups.

I don’t think a single one of us has got this down.

I think we all just toodle along and pray for the best, and when we get it, we feel like we’re adults, and when we don’t, we feel like we’re awful. And you know, that’s that.”

“Well, that’s kind of sad. I mean, you’re old, Dad. You mean to tell me you don’t know things?”

Mouthy girl. “Sure, I do. I know all sorts of things. But the simple fact is that I don’t know everything.”

“Well, who does?”

“Your pappy. Your pappy knows everything, and I tell you what, his daddy? My grandpa? There was nothing that man didn’t know. It was amazing. He could sing birds down out of the trees.” He had to smile, because he could imagine his own abuelito, the man’s smile just like his daddy’s.

“Oh, that’s kind of cool.”

“Yeah, he knew how to farm. He knew how to raise cattle. He had sheep.” He leaned back, warming to his story. “I can remember when I was little. We’d go over to the ranch where he was, because, you know, at that point, he lived in the big ranch house and we lived a few acres away.”

“In the baby house!”

He nodded. “Your pappy built it for us—him and me and granny.” He closed his eyes, winging a prayer up to her, just because.

“He would go and he had these churro sheep like we have at the ranch now, and he’d shear them.

And then my abue would take that wool, and she would wash it and work with it and make yarn.

Then, even neater, she wove amazing blankets. ”

She bounced next to him. “Like the one that’s hanging up in the main room over the fireplace? The one with the birds?”

“Yep, just like, no? They were beautiful, and she would just say, oh mijo , they’re just blankets. But they were special, you know?” And they made him a little misty to think about.

“So that’s cool, yeah? I’d like to bring something like that back, you know? Like, we could have people come in and do weaving exhibitions and stuff. That’d be a reason for people to come to the ranch.”

“I swear to God, girl, you are your pappy’s granddaughter, through and through.

” Rowdy was more traditional. He didn’t think about all the different things that you could do to make money on the ranch.

He just sort of ran things like they’d been run for years.

He loved that she was interested in digging in deep and making things work.

“So this Brett guy…”

Oh, Lord.

“You’re so into him.”

“Am I?” Shit. He didn’t really want to go into this. It was all so weirdly old and new, and he didn’t know for sure how Brett was dealing.

“Yeah, it’s cool. Little weird, little creepy.”

“Well, thank you, I think.” Creepy?

“No, seriously, Daddy. You are totally allowed to be into an old guy from South Carolina. You know, I’m into a guy from New Mexico. I’m experienced in being in a long-distance relationship. I can give you a ton of advice.”

Yeah, that wasn’t going to happen… “No, you can’t. You’re going to be busy working and being careful, little girl, about getting yourself in a family way.”

“In a family way, Daddy? It’s pregnant.”

“Don’t say that word.” He knew that would distract her from Brett.

“What? You know I have sex. I have?—”

“Oh, no!” He covered his ears with his hands. “Don’t! Somebody help? My child is being mean to me.”

She started giggling.” You are a giant goofball.”

It still worked.

“Absolutely. Never ever-ever say the word pregnant to me again until you actually are, in like ten years. After you’ve been married for a long time, so that you know that you want to be with him forever. I’m not one hundred percent sure I approve of that boy, still.”

That earned him another whap. “Oh, Daddy, you like him and you know it.”

He did, but it was his job—to pretend that he didn’t in case one day she might get married to him and he wouldn’t want anybody to think he was all right with that whole situation.

“So now that you’ve changed the subject, what about Brett?”

She got the stubborn from him. “He and I were a thing back in high school, and we had a big fight, we broke up between our junior and senior year, and we never talked again.”

“Just boom, you just never—like you didn’t even hash it out.”

“We’re not girls.” What had there been to say? “No, we just?—”

“What do you fight about?”

That was an easy question to answer. “I wanted to go home to New Mexico. He didn’t want to come to New Mexico. He was mad that I wouldn’t think about staying in South Carolina, and he said he wanted to break up. I told him cool, and that was that.”

“And then Momma got pregnant.”

“Yes. And then your momma came to me afterward, later in that summer, and explained the situation. And then? Ta-da, we had a you.”

“Daddy. Do you know how wild that is?”

He shook his head, grinned. “Believe it or not, child, I do have an idea, yes, of exactly how wild that is.”

She squeezed his hand, hard. “I know that it was hard and stuff, but I’m really glad you’re my daddy. I wouldn’t want to know what to do without you.”

“Well, you aren’t without me, so you don’t have to worry about it.” Rowdy had fucked up a number of things in his life, in fact. He was fairly sure that when push came to shove, that was what he was going to be famous for—fucking shit up.

But his little girl? That wasn’t one of them.

“I really think you should go to the dinner and dance, Daddy.”

“Why? Is this about your momma wanting to go? I mean, she could take Dan with her.” Because he didn’t want to.

“I mean, I think Momma wants to go. I think Momma wants to just kind of be like, ‘hey, you assholes, I’m not a fuckup.’”

“Watch your mouth.” He still hated hearing her drop the f-bomb.

He swore he could hear her eye roll. “Daddy, I’m twenty-one.”

“Yes, and I’m your father. Watch your mouth.”

“Okay.” She was pouting, he could hear it.

“And also, your momma is not messed up. Your momma is amazing. She doesn’t have anything to prove to these whack-a-doos. Nothing. You know, if she wants to go, we’ll go. You know me; I won’t be mad.” Bored, not mad.

“I do know you. Thanks, Daddy.”

“You’re welcome, baby girl.” He leaned on her, just like she leaned on him, and he hoped like hell Ash didn’t really want to go to the damn thing.