5. Whiskey and Warnings #2
"Dad," she says. "Remy says there's a bar with live music and a mechanical bull and he said I can look at it but not ride it, which is honestly rude, and can we please go?"
She says all of this without stopping once for air.
I look at Laney.
Laney looks at Maisie with the expression of someone who knows exactly where this is going and has already made peace with it.
"Whiskey River," she says. "Wyatt Boone's place."
"Is it appropriate for an eight year old?"
"It's Silver Ridge. Half the town will be there. Jolene brings her grandkids on live music nights." She picks up her hat from the barn rail. "It's more of a community event than a bar."
"Remy sold it as a mechanical bull situation."
"Remy sells everything as a mechanical bull situation."
From somewhere outside Remy's voice carries across the yard. "I heard that and I stand by it."
Maisie bounces once on her boot heels. "So we're going?"
I look at my shirt, which is still damp from the earlier rain crossing and has acquired several new layers of barn dust and general ranch incident over the course of the afternoon. I look at Laney, who is somehow still put together despite the same afternoon I just survived.
"I need twenty minutes," I say.
Remy appears in the barn doorway beside Maisie, hat already on, looking like a man who has been ready for this for several hours. "We'll take my truck. Silas is meeting us there." He looks at my shirt. "Might want to make it thirty minutes, Money Bags."
Maisie thinks this is the funniest thing she has ever heard.
I make it twenty-five.
Whiskey River Bar and Grill sits at the edge of Main Street and announces itself with warm light and the sound of a live guitar that reaches the parking lot before you're even out of the truck. It's a big open space inside, worn wood floors and high ceilings.
Long tables fill most of the room and a bar runs the length of one wall. A small stage at the far end holds a three piece band working through something with a fiddle that makes the whole room feel like it's moving slightly.
It's absolutely packed.
Maisie stops just inside the door and stares with her mouth open like she's walked into something she didn't have words for yet.
Wyatt Boone spots us from behind the bar and raises a hand in greeting. He's a big easy presence, former rodeo cowboy with a wide smile and the comfortable authority of a man entirely at home in his own space.
"Laney," he calls over the noise. "You bring the new neighbor finally."
"He brought himself," she says. "I just didn't stop him."
Wyatt grins at me. "Good enough. First round's on the house, neighbor. Welcome to Silver Ridge."
Remy is already at the bar.
Silas is already at a table.
Maisie is already asking Wyatt about the mechanical bull.
I stand in the middle of Whiskey River Bar and Grill and feel it. For the first time since arriving in Texas, I feel like maybe I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be.
The night settles into exactly the kind of easy rhythm that Whiskey River seems purpose built for.
Maisie seats herself between Remy and Silas at the long table and proceeds to charm every person within a ten foot radius without appearing to try.
Jolene is indeed here with two grandchildren who immediately absorb Maisie into their orbit like she's always been part of it.
Pearl Bishop, who is seventy-eight years old, tiny, and apparently afraid of absolutely nothing, stops at our table to look me over with sharp eyes and declare that I have a good face before moving on without further explanation.
I decide to take it as a compliment.
The band is good. Really good. The fiddle player in particular does something in the middle of a song that makes the whole room lean in slightly without realizing it.
I'm on my second drink, a bourbon that Wyatt recommended without being asked, and I'm starting to understand why this place is the center of Silver Ridge's social universe.
It's warm in every sense of the word.
Laney is at the far end of the table talking to June Calloway, who owns the bakery and has the calm, steady energy of someone who has heard everything and judges nothing.
Laney is relaxed in a way I don't see on the ranch.
Laughing more easily. Leaning back in her chair with her boots propped on the empty seat beside her.
I'm not watching her.
I'm watching the band.
The band happens to be in the same general direction.
Remy reappears from wherever he disappeared to and drops into the seat beside me with a fresh drink and the satisfied expression of a man whose evening is going exactly as planned.
"Good night," he says.
"Good night," I agree.
He follows my gaze toward the band. Then slightly past the band. Then back to me with a grin that I would very much like to wipe off his face.
"The band is great," I say preemptively.
"Real talented," Remy agrees.
I take a drink of my bourbon.
It's around nine o'clock when she appears.
I don't catch her name because the band is between songs and there's a lot of ambient noise and she introduces herself to me very close and fast in the way that suggests the ambient noise might be intentional.
She's pretty, confident, and leaning against the table edge at an angle that makes her intentions fairly clear.
She asks about the ranch. She asks how I'm settling in. She tells me Silver Ridge has apparently decided I'm "ruggedly handsome," which feels deeply suspicious considering I spent most of yesterday covered in mud and horse feed.
She touches my arm twice in the first three minutes of conversation and laughs at something I say that wasn't particularly funny.
I'm polite. I'm friendly. I'm also aware, with a peripheral vision that has apparently developed strong opinions, of exactly where Laney is at every moment of this conversation.
She has stopped talking to June.
She is looking at her drink with the focused attention of someone who is absolutely not watching what's happening at my end of the table.
She picks up her glass. Sets it down. Picks it up again.
This woman beside me says something and I respond and I don't hear a word of it either.
Remy leans close to my ear. "For someone who's not interested," he says quietly, "she sure is interested."
I look down at the table.
Laney looks up at exactly the same moment.
Our eyes meet for two full seconds before she looks away first.
She picks up her drink again and drains the rest of it in one go.
I turn back to the woman beside me and smile and say something appropriate and feel Laney's eyes on the side of my face like a brand.
My grip tightens slightly around the bourbon glass before I even realize I'm doing it.