Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 70566 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 353(@200wpm)___ 282(@250wpm)___ 235(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 70566 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 353(@200wpm)___ 282(@250wpm)___ 235(@300wpm)
“You wouldn’t want to live with your mom?” I asked.
“No.” She scanned her eyes over the horizon. “This place is my happy place. I don’t want to live anywhere but here. I’m going to put my house right there.”
She pointed to a spot on the hill that I’d once wanted our house on.
It’d been a possibility, but this place had been vacant, and there was no reason to leave such a big house empty when it’d work perfectly fine.
“Are you now?”
She nodded. “We’re going to have a family compound going on. When I have kids, they’ll just cross that pasture right there to come hang out with you.”
I snorted out a laugh. “You just have it all planned, don’t you?”
“Don’t worry,” she teased. “I’ll marry someone that’ll help you with the ranch.”
“Gee, thanks.” I wrapped one arm around her waist. “I’m not stopping her this time, Joe.”
She wrapped her arm around my neck and squeezed. “I think it’s time.”
Six days later, Juliana moved out of the house and into an apartment in the city.
She filed for divorce within a month.
Six months after she moved out, our divorce was finalized.
Now, she had to work.
Since I had full custody of the girls, she had to send me child support—though I didn’t make her most of the time.
And, even worse, she was forced to work so much to support herself that she barely had any time off.
Joe told me that she hated it.
I figured she deserved it.
Especially after her lawyers had fucked me over so badly.
Karma was a bitch.
ONE
When I said I’m open to feedback, I meant you can give me a compliment.
—Denver’s secret thoughts
DENVER
Present day
“What am I doing here?” I asked the lawyer.
The lawyer, one of my least favorite people in the entire town, leveled his gaze on me.
“You’re here because you were mentioned in the will of Cantrell Cain.”
I blinked. “What?”
Cantrell Cain was my former neighbor.
He’d been struggling for years, cancer riddling his bones and organs, until he’d died last month by a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.
Luckily, I’d been the one to hear the shot and check out what I knew I’d find.
I say luckily because by me finding Cantrell, that meant that Georgina hadn’t walked in and found that.
That wasn’t something any kid should ever have to walk in and find.
Sighing, I took the seat closest to the door—because you never knew when you might need an exit—and crossed my hands over my belly and waited.
He pulled out a stack of papers, not unlike the stack he’d once given me before listing my soon-to-be ex-wife’s demands, and placed them in front of me.
I leaned forward and pulled them to me.
On top was a handwritten letter.
Under that was some legal mumbo-jumbo that made my eyes cross.
I started reading the note and felt my stomach drop.
Sinclair,
If you’re reading this, I finally did it.
I’m sorry I had to go out the way I did. I was tired, body and soul, and couldn’t do it anymore. Hopefully you aren’t too mad at me for timing it to where my little girl would be at school. I didn’t want her to find me like that.
I’m writing this letter to explain my reasoning, and I hope that one day you can make my Georgie understand why it had to be this way.
I’m ass-backward on property taxes. I convinced the tax assessor to let me have an extension. I explained that I would have a large lump sum coming my way for life insurance, and that you’d make sure that it got paid.
However, I’m really hoping that since I’m leaving the money to my girl, you’ll be able to pay the back property taxes on your own to keep the place. I don’t want her to use the hundred and fifty grand in my life insurance on the taxes. I want her to pay off some of her student loans with it.
I hate that I’m leaving you with such a debt to be paid, but if anyone can afford it, it’s you. Plus, this’ll give you access to all that water you’ve been dreaming about.
One last thing, take care of my girl.
She’ll be fightin’ mad at you since you’re getting the land. And, I hope, you’ll kick her out of the house, too. It’s not safe anymore. It just needs too much damn work, and she can do so much better.
Love you, man.
Thanks for helping these last few years.
Cantrell
“Shit.”
“Cantrell owes a considerable amount in back taxes,” Trent Sheperd, the shark of a lawyer that’d cost me a shit ton of money, said. “The tax assessor has agreed to give you a two-month extension to get it all paid.”
“How much is it?” I asked.
“One hundred and fifty grand.”
I winced. “Great.”
He gestured to the paperwork. “That shows how much is in the life insurance that Georgina is getting. It’s a little over one hundred and fifty K.” He leveled a look at me. “You staging that as a break-in helped her get that. He didn’t realize that if he killed himself, you didn’t get the payout.”