Page 3 of Willow Vale

“But—”

“I’m not going anywhere near The Pint. Not going to happen.”

“If it’s because of the bar, it’s been?—”

“It’s not only because of that and you know it.” I swore tonever step foot in a bar again after spending most of my adolescence hunting Irene down. But that wasn’t the only reason I’d rather yank my own teeth out than ever set foot in Willow Vale’s most popular bar in town. It was because ofwhoowned The Rusty Pint now.

Desi raised her hands in defeat but that glint in her eyes remained. “Whatever you say. But let me know if you change your mind.”

Yeah, that definitely wasn’t happening.

CHAPTER 2

Lila

There have beenplenty of times when I’ve questioned my decisions—having a kid to raise didn’t help in that department—but today I found I was questioning if I’d lost my mind completely.

After a week of job hunting: checking out the general store, bookstore turned coffee shop (which was just a little table with a coffee pot and some creamers set up in the corner of the store), anactualcoffee shop, and the steak house located along the highway, I finally gave up trying to avoid the very thing I’d been dreading.

Standing in front of the old red brick building, I fought an internal war to not turn on my heel and run. I knew I couldn’t do that no matter how much I questioned this choice driven by sheer desperation.

I had a kid to look after, and he was counting on me to be the mature, capable adult that my age said I was supposed to be. Using that as the necessary force to drive my courage forward, I walked right up to the black door and stopped abruptly before my hand could so much as graze the faded metal door handle. I caught my reflection in the tinted glass,half of my face obscured by the window decal of a cracked pint glass oozing golden liquid I assumed was beer. The white bold letters beneath it readTHE RUSTY PINT.

Shaking my head at myself, I said under my breath, “You can do this.”

The Rusty Pint had been completely changed since I last stepped foot in the bar. It was nearly unrecognizable. In fact, I think the only thing that remained the same was the building it was built in sometime in the 1980s.

Last I remembered, The Rusty Pint had been just an old dive bar with neon signs, vintage décor, and an array of photographs, all of which were still on the walls, if only rearranged. Some photos were from the annual rodeos that took place in town, and some were signed by country singers who stopped by at one point in time. Back then, The Rusty Pint used to be owned by an older couple in town before they sold it, and they never turned down a customer. Including Irene.

When I was younger, all I wanted was to blame someone for my mother’s addiction. To blame my grandfather for not being there for her when she needed help. To blame her.

However, after doing some research of my own over the years, I knew addiction wasn’t a scale between nature or nurture. The only thing that could make a difference was if an addict ultimately made the choice to get help. To try.

It was easier said than done, I suppose. But my mother did neither. Not really.

My mother was still very much alive, but there were times when I’d grieved her loss as if she truly had died. The lack of her—her constant absence in my life—that left a hollow feeling in my chest where her love was supposed to inhabit. I still wasn’t sure how to navigate around it, probably because I never allowed myself to when I’d made River my numberone priority. Because he needed me, and I wasn’t going to let him down.

Today was no exception—no matter how I felt.

The dim lighting coming from the sconces along the mahogany walls gave a warm inviting ambiance to the surprisingly quiet establishment. Bottles of liquor and clean crystal glasses lined up against the mirrored wall behind the bar were practically sparkling under the lights.

Despite the complete remodel the bar underwent, there wasn’t a soul in sight. Which I’d consider a good thing seeing as it was twelve in the afternoon on a Monday.

The moment I reached the bar top, one of the metal doors to my left swung wide open and Desi wandered out, holding a tray of clean wine glasses. She stopped short the moment she spotted me before a wide grin pinched her cheeks.

“Not a word,” I said before she could start her gloating.

Desi put her tray down on the bar top and made a zipping motion across her lips before hurrying around the bar to wrap me up in a bone crushing hug. She was a good three inches taller than me even with her bright red Chucks, all five-foot-eight of her put my average height to shame.

“It’s going to be great, I just know it,” she said before kissing the top of my head.

I accepted her hug with a smile. Lately, the only person who hugged me regularly was River, and while he was the most affectionate kid I knew, I could admit it was nice to get some human contact without being covered in cheese puff dust or chocolate afterward.

Despite my not wanting to come work here at first, I knew Desi loved working at The Rusty Pint. She’d been a manager here for a few years and I never heard her complain once about it. She also sang with the local band that playedon the weekends, widely known as Willow Vale’s very own rising star.

Desi and I had been accepted into the same university in Laramie after we graduated from high school. We always talked about the dreams we had, where we saw ourselves working after we graduated, what we wanted to do with our lives. The plan had been to live together after we graduated with our degrees…

I was headed into my senior year when I got the call that Irene had gone into labor. In the blink of an eye, it all came down to who was going to take River when she decided to bail as soon as she was released from the hospital. At twenty-one, I had a newborn to take care of with absolutely no idea where to start. Luckily, my grandfather showed up for me. He convinced Irene to sign over her parental rights, and he was there to help me raise River for the first few years until his health took a drastic dive. He hadn’t always been there, but he’d tried his best to help me when I made the decision to raise River.

---