Chapter Twenty-Three
“Miss Wilder…are you there? I know this is terrible and sudden news, but I need to know when you’ll be arriving. As his attorney and executor of the estate, I would prefer that we take care of this swiftly and accordingly… Miss Wilder?”
“I’ll be there. Give me the weekend to travel. I’ll keep in touch. Bye.”
He’s dead. The man who picked my mama up at a truck stop in Georgia one night, then fathered me thirty-three years ago—the man who let us live in his home, but acted like we were the help, died and left me everything.
He was like a ghost in the house. Sometimes he was there, most of the time he wasn’t.
When he was home, he always had a different woman with him.
I was his only child. Somehow my mama was the only one he ever got pregnant.
God’s mercy on a lot of unborn children I suppose.
The only mercy He ever gave me was my mama.
She named me after where she was from, in Brooks county Georgia.
I’ve never been, but she told me how beautiful it was with all its green grass and sunflowers.
When I was about six, my mom became really sad.
Not sure why? I was too young to dig for the reason, but I think it was my daddy.
I think she really loved him, but all we were to him was an obligation.
Some deep-seated guilt he held over what he’d done kept us around and fed.
But none of that matters now. My mama has been gone since I was a little girl, and now the man who hardly ever looked me in the eye is gone too.
I hear a throat clear at the bedroom door. “Everything alright? I don’t mean to listen in, but it sounded like…” I cut him off quick and hard like a punch to the gut.
“I’ve gotta go back to Texas.”
He takes a step back, his massive arm curling up as he smoothes his delicious beard with his very large, brawny hand.
Yep, I’ll say it. Even at a time like this.
Because now I’m mad for other reasons. He’s held me in those arms and I’ve felt that hand too.
Mad because I like it here. I enjoy living with my dangerously good looking boss and his family.
Sleeping in his sheets is like heaven, and I love his little girls too.
The thought of letting him go, right now, makes me sick.
“My father passed and left me everything. I’m his only kid, and that man on the phone was the executor of his estate.
He was a rich son of a bitch. Don’t know if he died with any of it, but whatever’s left is mine.
The lawyer says he needs me there as soon as possible.
I can’t drive—would you lend me one of your men? ”
“No way in hell.” His eyes darken as he steps closer. “I’ll drive.”