When We Met: A Small Town Single Dad Romance

by Shey Stahl

  “Hey,” he mumbles, his attention on his phone in his hand. “You hear from Morgan yet?”

  “Not you too,” I groan.

  He eyes me carefully. “What?”

  “I already know about him and Lil.”

  “What about them? I was asking because he borrowed my Jeep last night.”

  “Oh, well, you might not want it back.”

  His brows scrunch together as he pockets his phone. His curiosity turning to annoyance. “Why?”

  “I don’t know. Ask him.” We part ways, and he heads inside the office to microwave his own lunch. Or to ask Lillian where his Jeep is.

  I climb up onto the excavator where Sev is and lean into the window with my burrito. “Where ya headin’, darlin’?”

  “Kansas,” she says, intent on the shop doors, both hands on the controls. “Wanna go wit me?”

  “I’d go anywhere with you, sweetheart.” Holding onto the machine with one hand, I balance the paper plate on my knee and kiss her cheek. “What’s in Kansas?”

  “A secret spell I needs.”

  I laugh. Last week she tried to tell me she needed a lock of my hair and my left eyeball so she could make me a wife. I kindly told her that’s not how they’re made. My kid is fucking bizarre, and I keep thinking she’s going to put a spell on me someday or turn her sister into a frog. “Ready to go pick up sissy?”

  “I miss her.” Remember when I said they didn’t get along? They don’t. But they’re also inseparable at times. She drops her hands from the controls and reaches for the burrito, and knocks the plate away once she steals my lunch. “Yuck. It cold.”

  “Well, then stop stealing my lunch.” I take it from her. “Get down from here. We gotta go get sissy and stop by the ranch.”

  She’s down before I am and grabs her coat. “Can we get lunch?”

  Shaking my head, I reach for my keys and finish my burrito. “You ate waffles, a donut, a sandwich, and half a bag of chips. How are you still hungry?”

  Walking beside me, she slips her hand into mine. “I not know. I like to eat.”

  Ain’t that the truth.

  I tell Lillian I’ll be back later this afternoon and avoid any conversation with her.

  “I don’t like Tanner. He’s mean to me.”

  “Who’s Tanner?” Turning down the radio warning us about the storm, I eye Camdyn in the rearview mirror, pulling down the long dirt road that leads to our family’s ranch.

  “This boy at school.” She has her dirt-covered bear in her hands now and not hanging the damn thing out the window. “He pulled my hair today.”

  “I hate boys,” Sev adds. I doubt Sev will date, and if she does, he’ll have piercings everywhere, blue hair, and I guarantee you I won’t approve of him.

  My jaw tightens. “Did you punch him in the face and tell him to keep his hands to himself?”

  “Daddy, no.” Camdyn smirks, her eyes lighting up when she sees where we’re heading. “I can’t hit boys.”

  She’s right. She can’t. And I’m glad she understands hitting another person doesn’t solve anything, but then again, if a little boy is laying his hands on my daughter, he’s going to meet her fucking dad real soon. “If he pulls your hair again, tell him imma have some words with that boy.”

  “I’ll tell how mean you are,” Camdyn says, snorting in a fit of giggles with Sev, who laughs too, despite probably having no clue what we’re talking about.

  I reach back, tickling Camdyn’s knee. “Nobody messes with my girls.”

  To say I’m a protective dad is an understatement.

  Pulling up to the front entrance of the Grady Ranch, you notice the big G on the gate first, and then the No Soliciting sign. Underneath the bold black letters?

  We are too broke to buy your shit.

  We already voted.

  We know God.

  Go away.

  A smile cracks my tough exterior. Morgan and I made that sign out of steel, and for the last ten years, it's greeted about a thousand cowboys through these gates and a few bible sales men who met the end of a shot gun and turned around just as quickly.

  My dad lives in the main house on the thirteen-hundred-acre ranch. From the outside, his home looks like a lodge, but I assure you, Bishop Grady is a simple man and lives his life the same. Material possessions are not something he needs. You’re not going to find extravagant Italian imported wood floors or exotic custom wood finishes. What you will find is a home built by a man who worked hard for every penny earned—a wraparound porch he spends his evenings on and a massive stone fireplace my brother and I hand built with him.

  The entire Grady family lives on the ranch. I live on the south side of it near the property line and the repair shop. Morgan lives on the east side near the ranchers. And Aunt Tilly, she lives on the west side near the shooting range.

  “Nana Lee!” Camdyn yells, rushing toward my dad’s house, the wind whipping around even more than earlier. It blows so hard Camdyn stumbles and falls into the dirt.

  Without a second thought, she picks herself up, dusts off her knees, and keeps running.

  Lara Lynn, or Nana Lee as the girls call her, is my dad’s wife. Not my mother though. I love her as though she is, but still, not my biological mother.

  My mom? Shit. That’s a story for you, but not one that’s told around here. In fact, she’s never mentioned by my dad, and Morgan, he acts as if she didn’t exist at all.

  Do I remember her?

  Probably more than my girls will remember Tara.

  My first memory of her is on the bathroom floor, naked, surrounded by her own blood and vomit. She’d been drunk and fell through the shower door. I remember freaking out thinking she was dead, but at the time, I had no idea how deep her vice with alcohol really was. And though I’ve struggled with it myself at times, as has Morgan, she had an attachment to it I never understood.

  My second memory of my mother? My dad sending his fist through the dining room wall and telling her to leave. She’d drove Morgan and me around all day, blitzed out of her mind, and then to a bar where he found us sitting alone. She’d left and gone to a different bar and forgotten we were with her.

  She left that night, and two days later, a police officer showed up at the door to say she’d died in a car accident. I don’t remember ever asking about her, and I know Morgan hasn’t. Dad raised us on his own, and he did a damn good job.

  I think we turned about pretty good, but you’re about to meet Morgan, so I’ll let you be the judge of that.

  Sev runs after the chickens and around the side of the house. “Don’t pick that chicken up!” I yell after her. I don’t want her covered in chicken shit if she’s riding in my truck.

  “I won’t!” she yells over her shoulder, probably lying.

  My kids are like the animals around here once you let them outside. Free-range. Chickens, goats, cows, cats, dogs, you name it, they’re on the ranch and roam as they please. If you see a pigmy goat ramming its head into your tires, you know you’re at the Grady Ranch. Don’t believe me?

  Take a look at my truck. One’s already ramming the shit out of it like it’s his job to fuck shit up.

  I step toward Lara Lynn and zip my jacket, the wind hitting my face with an icy slap. “You seen Morgan around?”

  She picks up Camdyn, brushing the red dirt off her jeans. “He’s in the back field bringing the herd in. Storm’s coming tonight.”

  I heard about the storm. It’s been all over the radio. Blizzard conditions. Winds. Typical shit here for winter.

  Remember when I said I don’t like riding horses? I might not have said it, but it’s the truth. Don’t care for them.

  I had this horse growing up. Crank. He was a little motherfucker. Any time you entered his stall, he’d try to kick you, and he loved to run and buck with you on him. Try getting a saddle on him, and he’d try to bite you, and when you tried to herd cows with him, he’d cut the opposite direction and send you sailing through the air if you weren’t payin
g attention.

  But Crank, this fucker, he sent me to the hospital with sixty stitches in my head. I was seven and riding my dad’s champion cutting horse for the first time. There I was, on the horse and riding comfortably when my dad gets off his to open the gate so we could get the horses to the back pens. That’s when Crank decided he didn’t want to go and took off back down our driveway. I don’t know why, but in that moment, I forgot everything I knew about horses and started screaming bloody murder for my dad. “Pull back on the reins!” he kept yelling at me, but I’d lost the reins in my freak out. Crank cut sharp at the corner of the barn, and I went flying into that fresh gravel. Right on my head.

  Then, as if I needed more trauma with horses, Morgan and me took a couple out on a trail ride when I was probably, I don’t know, fourteen. He was eighteen. Long story short, we got lost after six hours on the horses and decided to take a break. I thought he was watching the horses, he thought I was, and they decided since they weren’t tied up and hated our guts for a six-hour ride through the desert, they’d take off. And if you ever chase a horse, guess what, they run from you. I was in good shape, as was Morgan, but not enough to catch those horses. I got close enough to pull Dexter’s tail, the one I’d been riding, but that only made him take off even faster.

  An hour later, we’d made it into the city limits of Amarillo and had to stop and ask if anyone had seen two horses. We found this older Chinese couple, clearly not from Texas, standing on the sidewalk like they’d seen a ghost. Panting and barely able to catch my breath, I asked, “You seen two horses by chance?”

  The man blinked slowly. They didn’t speak English. We eventually found them in the middle at the hardware store, sampling the grass selection in the outdoor garden area.

  Oh, and then there was the time one projectile shit on me. I’ll leave those details out because, believe it or not, I have a weak stomach.

  Needless to say, I don’t get on them unless I absolutely have to.

  Hopping in the side by side, I take it out to the back fields. I pass by the bunk house where the cowboys stay. My dad has about fifteen guys working this ranch, along with my brother and me. We do everything from raising mares and livestock to breeding. It’s been a fully operational ranch for over a hundred years, and when you’re here, it feels like you’re in the middle of nowhere.

  It’s because you are. Texas makes everyone feel like that. And the fucking wind doesn’t help.

  Rubbing water from my eyes, I nod to Preston, one of the ranch hands. He does the same, thankfully forgetting our interaction the last time I saw him. Tipping his hat, I notice he’s sporting a black eye from our disagreement the other night. I couldn’t tell you what it was about. Probably a poker game.

  Believe it or not, I don’t start a lot of fights, despite my reputation for doing so. Finishing them? That’s another story. I was brought up with the understanding that you don’t start fights. But if someone takes a swing at you, fair game.

  I do know Preston threw the first punch… after some instigating on my part.

  What does all that have to do with anything?

  The Grady boys have three traits.

  Prideful. Aggressive. Hardworking.

  And that explains Morgan Grady. What doesn’t describe him?

  A cheater. That’s not him, which makes me question what happened last night, despite me wanting to stay out of his drama.

  I find him where Lara Lynn said he’d be. Back field repairing a fence that got knocked over. Like I said, the wind never stops here, and fixing fences happens a lot. If it’s not the wind, it’s a bull, a steer, or anything else that decides it doesn’t want to be contained here.

  Like wives. Sometimes I can be a real vindictive shit.

  Shutting off the engine to the side by side, I step out. Morgan looks up from underneath his black cowboy hat, a look of disappointment and annoyance plastered to his face. I look up to Morgan. Always have. He’s taught me everything I know about ranching and has my back, even when I’m wrong.

  Standing in front of him, I shove my hands in the pockets of my jacket, turning away from the wind. There’s a cow staring at me, more than likely responsible for this part of the fence being down. “Don’t involve me in your drama.”

  Morgan stands straighter, tipping his head toward me, and drops the barbwire he has in his hand at his feet. “What are you talking about?”

  “You know.” I raise an eyebrow, watching the cow try to eat Morgan’s pant leg. “Your shit with Lil.”

  Pushing on the cow’s head, he tries to move it away from him, but it’s been my experience that cows never listen. They do whatever the fuck they want. To prove my point, look at it. It’s licking the side of his face.

  Morgan frowns at the cow. “Knock it off.” He blows out a heavy breath, frowning, and wipes his sleeve over his cheek. Shifting his weight, he removes his gloves, shaking his head. “Fuck. I can’t even explain it.”

  “Hopefully you have a better answer for your wife.”

  He sighs, staring out at the field, dark brown eyes that hold regret scanning the land we’ve called home our entire lives. “I don’t though.”

  “Do you not want to be with Carly?”

  “It’s not like that. I love Carly, and I didn’t want to hurt her. I just… I can’t resist Lil. I never have been able to. Last night was… I don’t even know. Fucking tequila.”

  I laugh. “It’s always made you crazy.”

  “You’re telling me.”

  His senior year in high school, he got shitfaced on tequila and went streaking on the football field during the homecoming game. Graduation, he drove his truck through the side of our barn, and when he turned twenty-one, finally able to legally drink it, he did and decided riding a bull buck naked would be a good idea. He can’t father children. That’s how that played out.

  Moral of this story? Morgan shouldn’t drink tequila.

  Straightening his posture, he kicks his boot against the fence post he repaired. “I feel like shit.”

  Reaching up, I adjust my beanie cap on my head over my ears. “Are you going to tell her?”

  “She’s going to find out.”

  “If she hasn’t already.”

  He sniffs, rubbing his hand over his running nose and then the side of his face. He chews on his bottom lip and then regards me once more. “She asked me for a divorce the other day.”

  “Carly did?”

  He nods.

  “So that’s why you drank tequila?”

  Another nod. “Still… I shouldn’t have with Lillian.”

  “No, you shouldn’t have.” It makes more sense now though. Morgan loves Carly. “Was Carly serious, or was this a ‘you’re always working and I’m lonely’ plea?”

  He considers my question, as if he’s trying to recall the conversation in his head. “No. It’s real. She told me two weeks ago she wanted a divorce. This morning there were divorce papers on the counter for me to sign.”

  “Whoa.” My conversation with Tara flashes in my head.

  “Sign the papers, Barron. Stop sending them back.”

  “Honey, I want you out of my life just as badly at this point, but until you give me what I want, you’re staying married to me.”

  I turn my head toward him. “Had you been fighting?”

  “Every goddamn night,” he hisses, reaching inside his jacket for a flask. “For about the last year.”

  I watch him down a shot, and then another. “That’s not tequila, is it?”

  “Fuck no.” He looks over at me, screwing the cap back on and sending it my way. “Now I wonder what the fuck’s the point in telling her. She made up her mind on it already without talking to me about it.”

  I take my own shot and hand it back to him. “I suppose so.” But then my thoughts immediately shift to Tara. I snort, my anger surfacing. I’ve been here. For the last three goddamn years. “I don’t understand women.”

  Morgan laughs, the sound low and rough, much like his p
ersonality. I bet you their talk went something like this: “I’m lonely, Morgan.”

  And he probably replied with: “Well then, go out and do something. I got work to do.”

  While I wear my heart on my sleeve under a steel trap, I wonder if Morgan even has a heart somedays. But even now, I can tell Morgan’s torn up.

  “What are you going to do?”

  His shoulders rise with a shrug. “Give her what she wants and hope she doesn’t take my ass to the cleaners when she finds out about Lil.”

  Unease works through me. I know Morgan signed a prenup. Dad made him when he came home from college with a girlfriend we didn’t know anything about and a tattoo of her name on his chest. He’d probably been drinking tequila.

  He motions to the barn. “I gotta get three more sections of fence fixed. You stoppin’ by tonight?”

  “Nah, it’s spaghetti night with the girls. You comin’ by?”

  “Yeah.” He smiles at my Thursday night tradition with the girls. “But I’ll be late tonight.”

  It started about a year ago, but every Thursday, Morgan and I have dinner with the girls, and for now, until they turn into moody teens, it’s the highlight of their week. Next to Sunday dinner with my dad and Lara Lynn.

  I take off back to the house, knowing I still need to stop by Earl’s place before the storm hits. And then I need to be back here to help get the herds in closer and hay out.

  Ripping through the tight trail we have that leads back toward the house, I think about Tara again. I certainly wasn’t drunk on tequila when she told me it was over. Working a lot, I suppose so, but how can you fault a man for providing for you? Isn’t that what every woman wants? A hardworking man willing to give you anything?

  What the fuck do I know though. I’m twenty-four, haven’t been laid in three years, and I’m raising two kids on my own.

  I should have done this years ago.

  KACY

  Road trips are my jam. I love the gas station food that I’m sure will give me acne and drinking slushies. Hello, never had one before and I’ve been missing out. Are you thinking, what the fuck? You’ve never had a slushy? Where’d you grow up? Guam? For all I know, Guam has slushies. That’s how sheltered my life has been.