Page 50 of The Woman By the Lake

Riggs’s were not stormy. Not at all.

Enough about Storm.

“Have things evened out?” I asked.

He nodded and took another sip.

“Do you think she got pregnant on purpose?”

His expression turned thoughtful, and he said, “With Storm, no clue. With me, I come prepared.” He gave me a wolfish grin. “And I’m active.”

I did an eye roll and replied, “I noticed.”

“So I’m sure to keep that covered and it’s never happened before or since,” he carried on. “Not sure, with how it went down between us, how she’d have managed it. Though, the coincidence of it happening twice gives a man pause.”

It gave a woman pause too, that woman being me.

“Do you think she’s going to do it again?” I asked.

This time, he shook his head. “I think Angelica learned her lesson when she didn’t have someone around to help with diapers and grocery shopping and baths and midnight feedings, and she also had a six-year-old to look after. But who knows? She’s also still at The Hole, The Halfway Inn and The Squirrel’s Nest a lot. So maybe not.”

“How do you manage with being away so much?” I asked, then quickly added. “It’s not my business, so?—”

Riggs cut me off. “Nadia, we’re becoming friends, am I right?”

He was right, and I was glad to have a friend close, especially one like Riggs, who would rush out of his house because he was worried I was showing there upset about something.

But there was another part of me that felt something else.

I tamped that down and answered, “You’re very right.”

“So, you can ask. And the answer is, once I started taking jobs out of town, I paid her more. Not enough she can cut back hours or some stupid shit like that, but enough to make absolutely certain Ledger doesn’t do without when I’m gone. And we have a deal. I see him as much as I can see him, and that means, for the most part, he comes and stays with me when I’m home. Also, on my Sunday’s off, no matter where I am, I drive back to MP, even if I can only spend an hour or two with him. That way, he knows his old man will bust his hump to have time with him, so he knows, every week, his dad is thinking about him through that week. And when I get back, he’s mine.”

“That’s very sweet.”

“That’s being a dad.”

That hit me, hard, and I could see from the gentle look on his face he felt it for me, and considering his history, with me, and this was why he instantly went on.

“Fortunately, I left when he was four, too early for him to remember his mom and dad living together, which was why I picked that age to leave. But it was also when he was starting to put things together, so his whole life is being shuttled back and forth. It’s what he knows. It’s all he knows.”

“Does that bother you?”

“Knowing him now, it’s impossible to believe I had these thoughts, but it can’t be denied, I did. I didn’t want a kid. Which means I didn’t want him. That’s history, and maybe one day when he’s a grown man he’ll consider it, put it together, but put himself in my shoes and know where my head was at. By then, I hope like fuck I put in the work that’ll show I couldn’t imagine life without him, and I love him to my soul, so he’ll get it, and it won’t wound him. All that said, warning, I’m gonna get crass.”

I nodded for him to go on.

He went on.

“His mother is a knockout, not as gorgeous as you, but she’s a fine-looking woman, but she was only a decent lay. I had no intention of going back for more, because what I got wasn’t all that good. So I definitely had no intention of having a relationship with her. This means it is what it is. Life is like that. Shit happens, you deal the best you can trying not to harm anyone in the process, and no matter what it throws at you, you keep going.”

“You keep going,” I whispered, focusing on that rather than his not as gorgeous as you comment.

And it was a good thing to focus on.

More wisdom from Doc Riggs.

“Yeah,” he whispered back.

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