This Damn Town
Wes
I’ve been in this godforsaken, podunk town for all of five minutes, and all I’ve wanted to do since I crossed city limits is turn around and go back home. But I promised Dad I’d come and talk some sense into Pops, so here I am, bent over in the mud at the end of someone’s drive with the sun glaring down as I change a flat tire in the middle of fucking nowhere.
Sweat pours down the back of my neck and my freshly starched shirt sticks to my chest.Fan-fucking-tastic.This is what my nightmares are made of.
I used to come visit Pops and Grams every summer. It was something I looked forward to. Some kids had summer camp. I had Cottonwood Creek andDawson Ranch.
I haven’t been back since the summer after my senior year of high school—well over a decade ago. Despite the time that has passed, my short drive through what they call “town” showed that not much has changed.
The old men still gather at a table in the Cowboy Corner Café—the only coffee shop in town—watching out the window while they sip the stuff, strong and black. The run-down Pump ‘n’ Pantry looks the same, except now the entireudoesn’t light up quite right, so it looks like it says Pimp ’n’ Pantry. There’s only a handful of stop signs and a single stoplight where worried parents demanded it after a kid almost got hit crossing the street when I was eight.
Exactly the same.
I wipe the sweat off my brow and crank the jack again. I’d just pulled onto this stretch of gravel—about a mile shy of Dawson Ranch—when my tire decided enough was enough and blew out, committing roadside suicide at the prospect of having to spend another moment in this town.
To top it off, there isn’t a single damn bar of service on my cell out here. I can only hope that I’ll get some service at Pops’ house or else I’ll go insane before long. If I have to go into town every time I need to send an email or make a call, then my time here will be even more unpleasant than I anticipated.
I finally have the car jacked up enough to start on the lug nuts, but I only get one off before I hear a low, menacing growl from behind me that makes the hairs on the back of my neck go up. It’s followed by a quick succession of loud barks, and I turn just in time to see the beast come barreling at me from the top of the drive.
I had pulled into the first drive I saw since these gravel roads were narrow and you never knew when a tractor would come along—especially during harvest season—but apparently, the dog on Old Man Henderson’s property, doesn’t take kindly to unannounced visitors.
I barely have time to stand to full height before the thing is on me, hackles raised, snarling like it would like nothing better than to tear me limb from limb. It doesn’t launch and rip me to shreds like I expect, but stands its ground, eyes never leaving me like he’s just waiting for the opportunity to attack. I’m so focused on the beast in front of me it takes me a moment to register the white pickup truck that has followed him down the drive.
The door to the truck slams, and I tear my focus away from the sharp teeth for a moment and glance up to find a woman standing in front of me, not Old Man Henderson like I’d expected.
My gaze drags over her in a slow perusal. She’s of average height with red hair. I can't make out much of her face under the brim of her hat, but her lips are quirked into a look of pure amusement, which agitates me more than it should.
The red hair reminds me of a girl my sister Quinn used to run around with, but last I knew, she was married to the bank manager's son and living in town. Granted, it's been years since I've thought to ask about her.
“You wanna call off Cujo before the thing kills me?” I say, giving the dog a sidelong glance. It’s a mottled gray with black spotting and saliva dripping from its jowls.
The woman scoffs. “Please, if she wanted to kill you, you’d be dead already. She scared off a mountain lion single-handedly last summer and didn’t even come away with a scratch.”
I skewer her with a glare. She’s wearing a graphic T-shirt that says,I’m not bossy, I’m just a little bit of a sassholeand cut-offs that show off her cream-colored thighs. After letting me sweat another moment, shepuckers her lips and whistles a single note that has the dog pulling its gaze from me and looking devotedly to its owner.
“Settle down, Dix,” she croons to the feral beast. “You’re scaring him.”
I don’t miss the way her lips twitch like she finds this entire encounter hilarious. The dog’s tongue lolls out of its mouth, lips curved into a toothy smile as it drops to the ground, wholly unbothered.
“You should keep that thing on a leash,” I grumble, relaxing only minutely as I keep one eye on the dog, who has undergone a total personality change.
Her spine snaps straight, and the flinty edge to her stare strikes sparks in the heated air. “You’re onmyproperty. Blockingmydriveway. She didn’t touch a single hair on your head, so you can drop the attitude,city boy.”
I scoff, my expression quickly shifting to one of derision.City boy?
People around here always throw that around like it’s the worst type of insult. I ignore her, kneeling back down to continue loosening the lug nuts now that there’s not an immediate risk of being attacked.
“Do you need some help changing that tire?” I glance up to see her eyebrow flicking upward like she honest-to-God believes I don’t know what I’m doing. “There's somewhere I’m supposed to be.”
“Nope,” I say. “The city slickerhaschanged a tire before.”
“I wasn’t insinuating you didn’t know how to change it.” She bites her lip like she wants to say more but thinks better of it.
“I’ve got it. I’ll be out of your hair in a few.”
“I’d offer to give you a ride if you wanted to go change into something more suitable to change tires in, but since you decided to take up the entire bottom of my driveway...” She trails off as if she’s expecting anapology.
