I spin, shouting, “Don’t touch me!”
7
BARTLETT
“Abby,”I say. “It’s just me.”
She’s breathing fast. "Sorry," she says, wiping away the tears in her eyes. "I just, I got scared for a second there."
I shake my head, pulling her to me, wrapping my arms around her. "You don't have to apologize for anything." I kiss the side of her head protectively. Something shook her up, and she is probably traumatized after the guys attacked her yesterday. "Did you get your wallet?"
She nods, looking up into my eyes. "Yeah. Darla was at the police station. I guess Graham doesn't come in until later in the day."
I smile. "She's a nice lady, right?"
"Yeah, she seems to have lots to say about you and your brothers, and your cousins, the Rowdy boys."
I take Abby's hand and walk down the sidewalk with her, Hijinx next to us on the leash. "Well, I think you'll figure it out pretty quickly that lots of people around here have opinions on the Roughs and Rowdys."
Abby shakes her head, looking up at me again. "I feel like you are this make-believe family. You're all way too good to be true."
"We're not as perfect as you might think. Every family has their skeletons, right?"
"You have skeletons in your closet?" Abby says. She rolls her eyes. "I don't believe it."
"Yeah? Well, my Great Grandpa Wilby Rough, he was born in 1910, bootlegged whiskey out of his barn here in Home with his wife, Margaret."
"That sounds like an urban legend," Abby says with a laugh.
"Apparently the cops shut him down because he was selling more liquor than anybody else on the west side of Washington."
Abby shakes her head. "I think this is a family story, not the real history of Home."
"Well, I guess we could always go to the Home History Museum and find out if it's truth or fiction."
Abby laughs. "There's a Home History Museum?"
"Of course there is. My Great-Great Grandpa Homer settled this town."
Abby groans. "Oh my God, you really are perfect, aren't you?"
"Stop it," I say, my hip hitting hers. "We're not using that word today, okay? I feel like there's too much pressure wrapped around it, and I don't want to spook you again like you got spooked last night."
Abby's fingers lace through mine a little bit tighter. "Yeah. Well, if I was spooked at first, I sure came around, didn't I?"
I chuckle. "Yeah, you certainlycamearound more than once."
"More thantwice," she says with a laugh as we walk up to the Home Cookin’.
"You want some lunch?"
"It's a little early for lunch, isn't it?" Abby says.
I shrug. "I'm always hungry. I'm a big-ass mountain man."
"I guess you are, aren't you?" Abby smiles. "What should we do with Hijinx?"
"Maybe my sister, Lemon, could watch him a bit."