Page 8 of The Last Promise You Made

I parked my pickup out front of Willy’s garage, hoping to put a burr in his butt about the sound gun. When I noticed the sign saying he’d closed early, I groaned, knowing exactly where he’d headed. I wasn’t sure I was ready for Drunk Willy tonight.

I made my way to the edge of town and Uncle Phil’s bar. McFlannigan’s had been in Willow Creek for over a century. Whispers about every generation of McFlannigan owning the place were almost legendary in this neck of the woods.

I pushed open the carved doors to reveal a pub that would have been better suited to the Irish countryside than the wilds of Tennessee. Old-world charm, etched-glass mirrors, and rich woods filled the space. The sound of the live band hit me, and I barely held back yet another groan. I’d forgotten what day of the week it was. Thursday night meant two-dollar beers and line-dancing competitions that turned the town into rabid dogs.

As I made my way to the bar top, my gaze settled on Willy. His mammoth shoulders were hunched, and a beer was cradled in his hands as he watched the locals slapping their hands and twirling about the dance floor. The crowd’s flannel, dark-wash jeans, and cowboy boots seemed at odds to the old-world-style dark paneling and faded green wallpaper lining the walls.

I tossed my hat on the lacquered mahogany and swung myself onto the stool next to Willy.

“You get around to fixing my sound gun yet?”

Willy nodded. “I’ll drive it out to you tomorrow.”

Sadie slid a beer toward me, and I met my sister’s eyes with a twist of my lips. “What if I wanted whiskey tonight?”

“You’ll get beer and like it,” she tossed back, lips twitching as she wiped her hands on a towel.

My sister was a vivacious brunette in her twenties with a pixie haircut and the McFlannigan pale skin and blue eyes. Eyes that used to dance with an impish delight but were often hidden these days behind a simmering frustration. It was one of the aftereffects of being shot while protecting Mila. Another was the limp that showed up when the damage to her nicked femoral nerve flared. Stuck at home while recovering, she’d dropped out of college and given up her promising career on the world dart circuit. My opinion—that I wisely kept to myself—was that she’d started working at Uncle Phil’s simply out of a desperate need to escape Mama’s clucking.

My neck burned as if I was being watched, and when I turned my head, I caught a blond woman in a tight sweater dress, staring me down. She screamed city girl with her expensive bag hanging from the back of the stool and her spiked heels dangling from her toes. Tourist. Here for the snowy mountain vibe and the antique stores that graced our streets.

I raised my glass, smiled, and thought briefly about sauntering over to her side of the bar. She was exactly what I needed. The complete opposite of the two dark-haired beauties who’d tortured my memories all day. I could lose myself in this woman. Find release and satisfaction without any emotions attached to it. I’d give her a memorable night to tell her friends about when she returned to her real life.

“No,” Sadie said, smacking my arm with the bar towel.

I grunted out my disapproval, catching the towel, twisting it easily from her hand, and then attempting to flick her with it. My sister danced back with a little chuckle.

“What happened to the Sadie who was always on my side, talking about the joys of the naked flesh and making Gemma and Maddox blush?” One of Sadie’s and my favorite shared pastimes was making our siblings uncomfortable, and while I didn’t want to think of my youngest sister having sex, I could block it out enough to enjoy harassing our middle siblings.

“Not her, Ryder. Not tonight. Her boyfriend stood her up for a long weekend away where she thought he was going to propose.”

“Sounds like the perfect time for me to swoop in. Revenge sex,” I teased back, but the idea of it actually turned my stomach a bit. I wanted to forget the woman who’d abandoned me, not be reminded of what it felt like to be left behind.

Uncle Phil sauntered behind the bar to join Sadie. As he was only thirteen years older than Mama, most people thought he was her brother rather than Mama’s uncle. He had dark hair that I suspected he dyed, the McFlannigan eyes we’d all inherited, and a stomach that had expanded over his belt in the last couple of years. He normally smelled like cigarettes, whiskey, and cheap cologne, and he had a reputation for being a bit of a ladies’ man back in the day, who had turned sort of sleazy as he’d aged. A wave of alarm hit me, wondering if that was what my nieces and nephews would think of me in another thirty years. The decrepit uncle who hit on women too young for him while trying to relive his glory days of sex and rock and roll.

It took any ideas I’d had left about one night in the arms of the blonde and turned them to ash in my mouth.

But what else was there for me? I wasn’t going down the path of a relationship again. I’d had my chance, and it had disappeared.

Color-changing eyes and lips that burned taunted me. Eyes that had nothing to do with Ravyn’s dark ones. These were all snarky defiance with a rebellious boldness that had all but screamed from Gia when I’d caught her red-handed going through my office, making me want to punish her and devour her at the same time.

Uncle Phil put his arm around Sadie and squeezed. “Your sister looks good back here, doesn’t she? Like Sarah all over again.”

Sadie and I shared a look. Granny Mc had lived and breathed the bar, spending more time here than anywhere else. She’d had a stroke in the office and died before the EMTs could get her to the hospital. Everyone had said she’d gone out just like she would have wanted, breathing in the bar’s aroma. My siblings and I had all worked at the bar at different times growing up, especially in those years when things had been all but desperate at the ranch, but I didn’t want this to be my sister’s life. She had a future outside of this town and this bar. She just needed to be reminded of it.

Sadie slipped out of our uncle’s hold, slid an empty pint glass his way, and said, “On that note, I’m out. I have a song calling my name. I was only covering until Ted came back from his break, so now that you’re here, you can do it.”

Uncle Phil wiped his arm over his forehead, and I noted, with a bit of concern, that his face was sweatier than normal. It was a cold night and warm bar, but he looked like he’d been working out with a boxing buddy.

“Fine, fine, go have a bit of fun, but you’re on the schedule tomorrow.”

Sadie just waved at him as she started toward the crowded dance floor. I swung off the stool and caught up to her, grabbing her arm and twirling her toward me. “What are you doing here, Sassypants?”

“I was attempting to dance,” she said.

“You know what I mean.”

Her eyes turned shadowed, and she didn’t say anything. She looked like she had when she was four, and I’d found her with her finger in one of Mama’s freshly baked olallieberry pies. Defiant and guilty all at the same time.

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