Page 120 of Wild Abandon

Since I took over a few years ago, we’ve turned Russet Ranch around. Me, Crystal, and Ed. Yep, the old man is still going strong, especially since Crystal convinced him to get his hip replaced. Every day, he’s out in the rose garden, cutting flowers to place around the ranch. There’s a vase in every room of our home, too. They don’t bother me. After all, they’re magic.

“See you tomorrow, boss,” Jose, one of my workers, calls out to me when we arrive at the garage.

After the equipment is away, most of the guys take off for the day while others stick around for maintenance work.

As for me, I’m ready to go home.

I whip off my shirt, which is sticky with sweat, and walk the hundred yards to the house I built when I brought Crystal back to Napa.

It’s a small house but a good one. White with green shutters and a wraparound porch.

I run up the front steps and stop by Willie Mays, who’s having what could be his seventh snooze of the day. “Hey, pal, I have thirty minutes to shower and shave before dinner. You coming in?”

Willie slightly lifts his head. Then, it falls back to his paws, and he goes back to sleep. He’s old for a rottweiler, so if he wants to spend his final days sleeping on a porch, so be it. I give him a rub on the head and walk inside.

My favorite things about the house are the smells—mahogany floors, cookies, and the distinct smell of cherries. Yes, a family lives here. My ball cap and sweatshirt are hanging by the door, Crystal’s cello is resting against the living room wall, and a child’s toys are scattered about.

That would be Austin.

I didn’t have Crystal back six weeks before she got pregnant. It was an accident, but I meant what I said. I was ready for my life to start, and, by God, did it start.

Walking over to the mantel above the fireplace, I grin at a photo of Austin. Auburn hair, olive-green eyes, and a wicked smile. His hands and face are covered in red because he got into a barrel of grapes. Austin is a wild child. Two and a half years old, and he’s ready to get into everything.

If I didn’t know better, I’d think Ed was teaching him how to cause mass destruction wherever he went, just to mess with us. Every time the kid gets into trouble, Ed laughs and eggs him on. The two are incredibly close. As close as a grandfather and a grandson could be.

The day Austin was born, Ed welcomed him into the world with open arms. He’s done so much for me, but welcoming Crystal and Austin into his life was the greatest gift Ed could have given me.

Anyone looking from the outside would think our family was odd. A man living on the same ranch with his sick daughter’s husband and his new girlfriend, the mother of his child. It’s not normal, but none of us are. We’re creating our own modern family, especially since Crystal and I never married. How could we? I was still married to an amazing woman who had stolen my heart on a dare.

Ellie.

I look to the photo next to Austin’s. It’s the picture of Ellie and me on the day we met, the day we married. I’ll never regret the years we spent together, and I’ll always wish her life had ended differently. But things happen for a reason, and I’ve learned to just go with it.

Ed and I kept our promise and continued to visit Ellie on a rotating schedule. I asked Crystal to come a few times, but she thought it was too disrespectful. She always said it was unfair that she’d already taken so much of Ellie’s life, that the time Ellie had with us was too precious even if she didn’t know we were there. I never argued, and I enjoyed my days reading beside her.

I didn’t know what to do when we got the call that Ellie had died in her sleep. Part of me was devastated. Even though she hadn’t been here mentally, there was something comforting about her being here physically.

An ashamed part of me was relieved. She now had the peace I’d yearned for her to have.

I didn’t know what to do with these conflicting feelings, and I felt like a weak man if I voiced either of them.

Ed was quiet for a few weeks as well. We kept our distance. Even Crystal knew enough to let us mourn on our own terms. The first time we’d lost Ellie, we’d both broken down. It had taken four years to turn us around. We really could have gone either way.

But we did okay, Ed and I. We made it through the funeral and into our new lives without Ellie with our hearts still intact and our tempers in check.

The entire time, Crystal waited patiently for us.

Crystal.

The third picture on the mantel is the one I took of her the day we went wine-tasting for the first time. I was falling in love with her. To think I put a wee-wee pad under her while she slept, and she still fell in love with me? I still mess with her sometimes. Whenever she drinks, I place one on the bed. Not because I think she’s gonna piss herself. I just like to hear her yell at me as she comes barreling down the stairs in the morning, her hair a mess and her arms flailing about. She’s cute when she’s mad.

I still can’t believe she actually came back with me. I was sure she’d have put up a bigger fight. But when you are as devastatingly handsome as I am, who can resist?

I laugh at my own joke.

Honestly, what the hell was she thinking?

She once told me she’d rather live a half-life with me than a full one without me. Well, if this is half-living, then I can’t imagine what living life to the fullest is.