Rough Country (Tannen Boys 3)

I shrug modestly. “We’ll see how busy it is next weekend when I play again. I always figure it’s going to be a show for one, just me and Hank in the place, and I’m shocked anybody else shows up to listen.”

Brody coughs, muttering under his breath, “Bullshit.”

Mama Louise isn’t fooled by that fake cough, though. “Language.”

Willow laughs, and I feel her relax now that no one’s paying her direct attention. Well, no one besides me. I can’t help but be focused on her every move, every nuanced flash of emotion across her face as I measure every inch of space between us.

“It’s such a beautiful night. Let’s take our plum cobbler out back,” Mama Louise suggests.

Allyson and Cooper hop up to clear the table, and we all hand them our plates. The rest of us help put up the few bits of leftovers, wipe down the wood table until it shines, and dish up the cobbler into bowls.

Out back, the sun has fully set and the moon is rising high, bright and white against the indigo sky pricked with sprinkles of stars. We make our way to the circle of congregated wood chairs and stools that Brutal and Cooper have built over the past few months and settle in to eat.

“Mmm,” Willow moans when she eats her first bite of cobbler with melted homemade vanilla ice cream. My own spoon freezes halfway to my mouth, wanting to hear that sound again . . . without everyone else around. Willow must feel my gaze on her because she blinks and looks my way sheepishly. “What? It’s good,” she whispers.

“It is.” My agreement isn’t about the plum cobbler at all.

Shayanne jumps in, “This? This ain’t nothing, just a quickie cobbler. Jam plus fruit plus biscuits plus sugar butter. It cooked up while we were chopping up the veggies for the roast and was done before we were. Ain’t that right, Mama?”

Mama Louise nods, spooning another bite into her mouth and watching me and Willow much more closely than Shayanne is. I see the little smile on Mama Louise’s face, though, and that makes me feel like she’s onboard with my thoughts about Willow. I don’t need her to be, considering I’ll do what I want either way, but her approval will make things a whole lot easier when Willow is here. And I’m hoping she’ll be here a lot.

The evening cornhole tournament begins, and I’m immediately challenged by Cooper because we haven’t played in a bit. “You’re going down, Uncle Bobby! Six feet under,” he taunts.

A laugh tries to burst out, but I fight it down, glaring at Cooper instead. We have a stare-off, something the pipsqueak is getting better at, much to Allyson’s dismay, until Brutal says, “Let’s go, boys. The rest of us want to play tonight too. Ain’t got time for your trash talking, dick measuring pre-game ritual.”

I snicker, fighting valiantly not to laugh, but I lose the battle when Mama Louise says with a long-suffering sigh, “Could we not talk about penises tonight, please?”

At least I’m not the only one because everyone else has a moment of shock at Mama Louise, the one who always corrects our language, popping out with ‘penis talk’ like it’s no big deal. Technically, it’s the anatomically correct term, but I can definitely say that she’s not the type to use the term unless it’s talking about one of the farm animals.

The laughter is enough to get the game rolling, with Mama Louise already in the lead without picking up a single beanbag. Cooper kicks my ass, as we all expected he would, me included. “Good game, kid,” I tell him, ruffling his hair. He might win at cornhole, but I can still irritate him a bit in return. It’s good for him, keeps him from getting too big for his britches. For now.

When I try to find Willow’s eyes, I see she’s behind her phone again. She lowers it slightly and smiles. She tilts her head toward Mama Louise. “She said it was okay.”

I sit back down beside her and whisper in her ear, “I told you, sweetheart. You can take all the pictures you want, of anything you want. Especially me.”

The games rage on, cobbler long forgotten and no one paying any attention to Willow or her phone’s camera. She’s turned it on silent and is capturing my family in a way I’ve never seen them. It’s interesting to silently sit back and watch her work, to see how she frames things to give them an intimacy that evokes emotion even through the screen.

She captures Mark and Katelyn talking, their faces close together and the love readily apparent. She snaps away when Cooper loses and flops into the grass in exaggerated pained defeat. She clicks the moment when Sophie and James have a silent conversation, agreeing that they’re ready to go to bed, complete with a yawning Cindy Lou in James’s lap.