Rough Country (Tannen Boys 3)

Once I’ve stuffed as much burger into my belly as I can—okay, maybe more than I should’ve—I gather my courage, stuffing it into every nook and cranny of my soul not filled with ground beef. I lay a ten on the table for Olivia and put my phone in my pocket, wishing I could capture the look on Hank’s face when he sees me.

But I already know I’ll memorize it with my eyes. In that look, I’ll know if this is going to work. My heart races with hope that it will.

I walk up to the bar, between two stools, and wait for his eyes to drag away from the television. “What can I getcha?” he asks in the same run together, one-word way Olivia did. It’s something they both must do dozens of times every day.

I smile even though my lips are shaking and my knees are knocking. “Hi, Uncle Hank.” As I say it, the words sound foreign. I always called him ‘Unc’, but I’m not sure if he’d welcome that familiarity after all these years.

Those blue eyes narrow dangerously before they pop wide open and he grins. “Willow? Well, I’ll be damned!”

I return his smile, that hope blooming quickly and spreading warmth through my body.

“Get over here and give me a hug, girl.” The order is accompanied by a wave of his arm toward the opening in the bar. He comes around quicker than I would’ve thought he could, wrapping me up in a squeezing embrace that lifts me clean off the floor to spin me around.

Hell, he’s unexpectedly spry for an old guy.

“You are a sight for sore eyes, honey. What are you doing here?” He sets me down, petting my hair and scanning my face like he thinks it’s entirely possible that I’m a mirage.

“Needed a change, I guess you could say. And I thought of you . . . and Great Falls.”

That part’s not a lie, at least. I did think of him in a bent old photograph kind of way. The way you remember someone from years ago, when they seemed larger than life because you were just a kid.

Unc, because that’s who he is to me, chuckles, the sound rougher than sandpaper. Smoke. I remember he used to smell like clove cigarettes that brought to mind the Christmas crafts with oranges we did at school as gifts for our mom. I wonder if he still smokes now? I didn’t smell it on his hug, though.

“Well, I reckon Great Falls is a might bit different for a city girl. Have a seat and tell me everything.”

That sounds ominous to my ears. I swallow, knowing I can’t tell him everything, but I can tell him a lot. And I want him to tell me things too, like his version of why I never saw him after I turned fourteen. I’ve heard Mom’s version, and I heard Grandpa’s curse-laden one a time or two, but never Unc’s. Then again, does it even matter now?

He gestures to the end of the bar, following me over. I sit, my legs dangling until I rest my feet on the crossbar. Unc more perches than sits on his stool, but he bends a knee and places his boot on the crossbar too, taking pressure off his leg. Oh, I remember that now. He always had a hip-rolling gait that made me think of a cowboy swagger, but Mom told me it was because he had an old injury that flared up sometimes. I’d preferred my story to hers back then, and I want to believe it even now, though the signs of arthritis are in his bony hands too.

His eyes narrow ever so slightly, and my reprieve is over. I’ve practiced this. I know what to say, so I launch into my prepared speech.

“It really is so good to see you, Unc.” I test out the affectionate nickname and he doesn’t so much as flinch. “I don’t know how much you’ve kept up, but my mom and dad are good, driving each other crazy, but they wouldn’t have it any other way. Oakley is as all right as a pain in the ass older brother can be. He’s an accountant, got married last year, and probably has a five-year plan for home ownership, two-point-five babies, and a Labradoodle named Daisy.”

I smile even as I’m smack talking my brother. He’s the sore thumb in our family, rebelling against Mom and Dad’s creative, hippie hearts and souls by going full suit and tie. He even carries a briefcase. Shudder.

“And what about you? Last time I saw you, you were in middle school, wearing paint splattered overalls with your head buried in a sketch book. You still drawing?” Unc seems genuinely interested, but the nostalgia of the image he paints isn’t the warm fuzzy of a happy memory. Those were hard days where my awkwardness made me a weird outsider, Mom hadn’t understood why that was a bad thing, and I struggled to become ‘normal’, whatever that meant. News flash, I failed on that mission spectacularly.