Chapter 14
Chapter
Fourteen
Malcolm had a three-room painting job that starting at eight-thirty Monday morning that he’d scheduled weeks ago, so Iggy spent the morning buzzing around and preparing for his uncle’s return alone.
The errands required a lot of driving back and forth from Fort Collins, which wasn’t the best thing for his sore ass.
But the discomfort was also a wonderful reminder of his long, sensual night with Malcolm.
Long, sensual, loud night that they wouldn’t be able to repeat for a while, not with Uncle Howie coming home, and Malcolm living in his sister’s backyard.
Iggy wasn’t ready to start imagining him and Malcolm getting a place of their own yet, especially not when Howie would need help for the foreseeable future.
But eventually, Howie would want to return to work at the saloon, which would leave the trailer empty for hours at a time…
Thoughts for another day.
The trailer was set up as best as Iggy could manage, with a commode in Uncle Howie’s bedroom, a few items for at-home physical therapy, including a borrowed rollator, and a wheelchair in the back of the station wagon.
The discharge nurse told Iggy to be waiting at the pickup area at eleven-thirty, and Iggy was right on time.
Howie stared up at the bright sunshine for as long as he could, while the orderly helped Iggy assist his uncle into the car.
Then Howie insisted on them keeping the windows down the entire drive to Chance.
“Missed the fresh air,” Uncle Howie said more than once.
Laurel was waiting on the patio when Iggy parked behind the saloon.
She didn’t make a production of their arrival, or offer to help Iggy assist Uncle Howie into the wheelchair.
They did good on their own, and hopefully, Howie could transition to the walker soon.
He just needed more physical therapy and to get his strength back.
If botulism did one thing, it was sap the sufferer of their energy.
“Great to see you home, boss,” Laurel said once they’d joined her on the patio. “We’ve been holding down the saloon, but it’s not the same without your bad jokes.”
“You know all my bad jokes well enough to tell ‘em yourself,” Uncle Howie replied. He fist-bumped her, which Iggy found goofy and sweet. “I hear that one’s been slinging drinks.” He jacked his thumb at Iggy. “Any good?”
“Customers haven’t complained yet.”
“Good, good.”
Inside, the pair discussed bar business while Iggy prepared a simple lunch from the rest of last night’s rotisserie chicken and sides. He didn’t pay much attention until Uncle Howie asked Iggy to sign a few papers.
“If you’re gonna be working at my bar,” Uncle Howie said, “you’re gonna get paid like a regular employee. No more volunteering, you hear?”
Iggy stared at the W-2 form, already filled out with his personal information, including his Social Security number. His uncle still had that memorized all these years later? “Are you offering me a job? For real?”
“Sure am, son. And not just for insurance and such. I, uh…it’s been nice having you home.”
“I’ve enjoyed being here.” And not only because he’d reconnected with Malcolm—a fact he hadn’t revealed to his uncle in any great detail yet.
Iggy had fun at the saloon, he enjoyed being around the other employees, and he had truly missed Howie.
Maybe not the town as much, but he was working on that. He’d only been back a week.
How the hell had so much happened in only a week?
“Can you afford to hire me?” he asked instead.
Uncle Howie’s bushy eyebrows furrowed, and he cut his eyes at Laurel, as if to say he didn’t want to discuss money in front of her.
Seemed odd, if she was his assistant manager, and he trusted her to handle things while he was sick.
Iggy dropped it and signed the forms so Howard Donohue could officially hire him on at the Saddle Up Saloon.
After lunch, Laurel excused herself to file the paperwork and open the saloon for happy hour. Iggy cleaned up the table and tossed their paper plates. Uncle Howie had parked his wheelchair by the couch, angled to look out the big windows facing the rear of the saloon.
“I trust Laurel,” Uncle Howie said right as Iggy hung up the damp dishcloth he’d used to wipe down the table. “But some stuff’s family only.”
Iggy turned from the sink and approached the couch, uncertain from Howie’s tone if he’d done something wrong or not. “I’m sorry. With your medical stuff going on, I don’t want to stress your finances if you can’t afford to hire me.”
“Wouldn’t’ve offered if I couldn’t afford it. Come sit.”
He did, perching in the middle of the couch, close to Uncle Howie without touching. His belly wobbled but Uncle Howie’s expression was contemplative, not angry.
“I’m not tryin’ to trap you back here or nothing,” Uncle Howie said.
“I don’t know your finances anymore than you know mine, and I don’t want you sittin’ around, gettin’ poor by watching over me while I learn to walk again.
The saloon is my baby, sure, but, Iggy, I’ve been thinkin’ about my will. I’m leaving the saloon to you.”
Iggy was glad he’d sat down already, or the statement would have knocked him onto his ass.
In the back corners of his mind, Iggy had possessed the faintest hint that as Uncle Howie’s closest living relative, he’d likely inherit the saloon—or at least be the one tied up in probate court for a year or two after his uncle’s eventual passing.
But to have Uncle Howie say it so bluntly for the first time took Iggy’s breath away.
“You can leave it to me without offering me a job first,” Iggy said dumbly.
Uncle Howie chuckled. “I know that, son. I’ve just had a lotta time to think while I was stuck in that hospital, and some things got real clear for me. I know movin’ here in high school was a last resort for you, and we did our best. I think we did, anyway.”
“You did more than anyone else in my life ever has.” Emotion thickened his throat, and Iggy swallowed hard several times to dislodge it. “You listened to me. You believed me. I owe you everything.”
“You don’t owe me anything. It was the hand we got dealt by God or the universe, whatever you believe in. We can’t choose the hand, we just gotta play the cards and hope for the best. I learned that lesson when Lucille died.”
Iggy blinked hard but didn’t respond, unwilling to interrupt. This was only the third time Uncle Howie ever mentioned his late wife to Iggy, and all three were within the first six months of Iggy living here. Then he’d learned not to ask about her.
But Uncle Howie must have been in a nostalgic mood, because he smiled fondly out the window and continued.
“Lucille and me, we met in a saloon on my twenty-first birthday, and I never loved a woman faster or harder. We always talked about owning one of our own, makin’ it a place locals loved to show up to for a smile, a dance, and a drink.
We dreamed about it, but we never got dealt those cards.
Instead, eight months after we got married, Lucille got dealt brain cancer, and she was gone by the end of the year. ”
His voice cracked but his expression remained even, if a bit lost in those memories. Iggy’s chest ached with grief. He’d known the aunt he’d never met had died of cancer, and died young, but not which kind. The loss had cracked Uncle Howie’s heart in two.
“I thought I’d die right along with her, but God didn’t want me yet.
” Uncle Howie cleared his throat. “She had life insurance, but I didn’t want it, I wanted my wife.
So, I put the money in the bank, and I kept on livin’ and workin’, and when the opportunity to buy the saloon came up, I took it.
Paid for most of it with Lucille’s life insurance.
Felt like I had Lucille’s blessing, even though she wasn’t there to run it with me.
Since it did well from the start, I paid off the mortgage after less than five years.
I never upgraded the trailer, because this is my home.
So, I just invested the money for an eventual retirement.
“And then along comes this angry, resentful, very broken teenage boy who needs my help, and for sure, that wasn’t a hand I knew what to do with.”
“But you played those cards anyway,” Iggy said softly. Reverently.
“I did. Never gave much thought to kids, not after losing Lucille. Then the game changed. You were dealt into my life, and I was dealt into yours, and no matter how it turned out, you were the best hand I ever played. I think of you like a son, Iggy, have for a long time.”
Tears burned behind Iggy’s eyes, and he couldn’t stop them from spilling over.
He didn’t want to stop them. His heart swelled to bursting.
“I was scared to think of you as a father. Between my dad and Monte’s, all I knew was fathers left and hurt their kids.
But you didn’t. You loved me enough to let me leave when staying here hurt too much. And I never felt judged by you.”
“It’s not my place to judge you, son, only to love you.”
“I love you too, Uncle Howie.” He knelt in front of the wheelchair so he could hug his uncle tight, hoping to communicate with more than words.
Grateful they’d said the unspoken things.
Most of the unspoken things. As Iggy slid back onto the couch, closer this time, he said, “Malcolm and I are back together. Officially.”
“I should damn well hope so, after the way you two were makin’ eyes at each other in my hospital room when you thought I wasn’t lookin’.”
Iggy started laughing. “Why don’t you go out and get your own sex life, and stop perving on mine.”
“Just might after all this. Takes nearly dyin’ to really focus on the important parts of life. I thought bein’ at the saloon six nights a week was enough for me, but bein’ alone has just gotten too damned lonely. You know?”
“I do. Alone feels safe until you remember how amazing it feels to be in love. To have someone you want to share your heart with.”