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Challenge accepted, woman. Challenge fucking accepted.
I let Willow give me the directions to her place, even though I already know where she lives. The whole town knows where Hank’s niece lives because she’s the biggest news to happen to Great Falls in ages. Tapping on the steering wheel to practice a riff I’ve been playing with, I watch as she runs inside to grab her ‘good camera’, as she called it. She reappears a few minutes later, camera bag slung across her chest, wearing a fresh shirt and a new slick of lip gloss on her pale pink lips.
I see you getting gussied up for this. She wants this as much as I do. Well, maybe not that much . . . yet. But we’re getting there.
Slow and steady, Tannen.
For all her sweetness and open-hearted conversation with the bar folks, Willow is skittish with her real self. She’d give you the shirt off her back, help you on the side of the road, or listen to you wax poetic about your problems, but share her truth? Not likely, and not easily.
But that’s exactly why I want it. I want to earn it, straight from her lips, when she lets me inside her heart.
She climbs back in the truck, and I catch a whiff of something floral and light. She perfumed for me too. The parallel makes me smile. I showered so I didn’t smell like manure for her, and she’s spritzing on girly stuff so she doesn’t smell like beer for me.
I drive us through town, giving the tour I promised. “In the middle of the town square is the courthouse. Judge Myson’s been on that bench for longer than you and me together have been alive. He’s old-school, believes in working off your debt to society and paying back your neighbors.”
She catches something in my tone that clues her in. “Speaking from experience?”
I lift one shoulder casually, amused but not hiding anything. “Nothing serious. Me and Chief Gibson might’ve had a little chat with Myson in my younger days. Nothing that couldn’t be solved with painting a fence or plowing a few fields, though. You?”
She laughs. “No. Probably the worst thing I’ve ever done was protest environmental toxins at a corporate headquarters or something.”
“That sounds serious,” I tell her honestly. “The environment a passion of yours? From your dad?”
She shrugs, sort of a yes-no all at once. “I was a kid. I was just along for the ride because holding a sign and marching around with Dad all day sounded like fun.”
I can see that. Little Willow, blonde hair streaming wild behind her as she marches around yelling words too big for her little girl brain, but I have no doubt she was able to define each and every one of them better than Merriam-Webster.
“Hopefully, we can manage to find a little more fun than that,” I say, pulling into the drive-through of a burger joint. “This won’t be nearly as good as Ilene’s cooking, but I figure you didn’t get dinner yet. We can take it with us where we’re going.”
“Where’s that?” she asks curiously.
“It’s a surprise,” I tease, expecting her to argue and demand to know where I’m taking her. But she just settles into the seat a little deeper, looking cozy and relaxed as can be.
I like that. A lot.
People always have expectations and assumptions about me. That I’m scary because of my last name, that I’m soft because of my music, that I’m down to fuck because of my face. None of that is totally true. Yeah, I can scrap, had to in order to survive with my brothers and our old issues with the Bennetts. Don’t mean I look to start fights. Yeah, I have a soft side, but it’s not all I am. And yes, I like to fuck, but I’m not a manwhore. I ain’t a monk, either. I’m more complex than all of that shit.
But Willow seems to be taking me as I come, the same way she does everything—people at the bar, every day, and whatever brought her to Great Falls. I’m definitely curious about that, but she hasn’t said a word so I’m leaving that question alone for now.
I order us a two-pack of burgers, fries, and chocolate milkshakes, then glance over for her approval. We’re good. I pay at the window, noting that Esme is gawking into the truck as she hands over the food. The grapevine will be lit up like a Christmas tree before we get halfway through town as Esme makes sure that everyone knows she’s the one who spotted Bobby Tannen and Willow Parker grabbing a bite of dinner on their way to ‘only God knows where’ to do ‘only God knows what’.
Too bad she’s too late since everyone at Hank’s already knows.
Willow takes the food from me, and I set the shakes in the cup holders before setting off for our tour.
