Taking her coffee and heading out the front door of the modest home, Eva smiled at the fairytale scene that greeted her. Soft, spring-green forest surrounded the house, dappled with morning sunlight. Trees swayed in the soft breeze as birds parlayed between them, singing. The wind carried the scent of the wildflowers that grew in the small meadow a dozen or so yards from the house. It felt like she had stepped into a fantasy novel.
Charlie had said he’d be at the bar, but instead, he came from around the side of the house carrying a small hatchet. He saw her on the porch and gave her a nod. He wore what had been his standard uniform for years, consisting of jeans, a brown belt, work boots, and a plain white shirt, which he sometimes dressed up with a polo. His dark, tussled hair reminded her of pictures of their father when he was young. And like their father, Charlie loved work and almost nothing else. He kept the rest of his life simple.
“This place is incredible,” she said wistfully.
Charlie followed her gaze, gloved hands on his hips. Whatever he had been doing this morning already had him sweaty and breathing hard. He squinted, as if he was trying to find what it was she was talking about. “Yeah, I guess. Kind of a dinky little house, though.”
“Not the house, necessarily, but the land,” said Eva. “I’ve never been to a place like this.”
“You used to go to the park all the time,” said Charlie, wiping his brow and pulling off his gloves.
“That’s different,” she said. “That’s all manufactured. This is real.”
Charlie gave her that exasperated smile that only brothers could give. He softly tapped her arm with the gloves. “You read too many books. You gotta get out into the world. Then you won’t be so amazed by shitty scrub forests.”
Eva gave him a glare and took a sip of her coffee. “Oh, Christ. I’ve been out in the world. You make me sound like a shut-in.”
“You kind of have been for a while,” said Charlie. He rubbed the back of his neck, something Eva knew meant he was only half-joking.
“Well,” she said. Her gaze fell to her sandaled feet, suddenly feeling vulnerable. “There’s no reason to be a brat about it.”
Charlie tilted his head and made a soft noise, something painful. He put a hand on her shoulder. “I’m sorry, sweetheart, I didn’t mean it like that.”
Around the same time Uncle Owen must have been building his bar, Eva had gone through a transition of her own—she finally left her neglectful husband of three years, a man who had charmed her romantic side, only to become something much darker once she committed to him. She became little more than his property, and although he never laid a hand on her, he had damaged her, regardless. The years she’d spent married to him had withered Eva’s spirits in ways she hadn’t known were possible.
But Charlie helped save her, as he always had, big brother that he was. He helped her leave, and put her up in his own apartment across town, where she could regain her footing.
Eva nodded quickly. “Look, I came out here with you on purpose, for a reason, I know—to get out of my rut. I know it’s time for me to get out of your place.”
“Hey, I’m not saying that—”
Eva put a hand up. “I know you’re not, but you’re also my brother, which means you don’t have to. I can see it. I mean for this place to make a difference.”
“I’m not trying to push you out, Eva. I just worry about you. I know you’re not like me. You do better when you have people around to be with. Having you around does make me feel less like an insane workaholic, though.”
“But that’s exactly what you are,” she said with a laugh.
“Well, you help me hide it.” He dropped a kiss on top of her head. “C’mon, Owen should be here any minute. You ready to become a bartender, or what?”
Eva shrugged with a laugh and followed Charlie through the forest. “Guess that means I have to start drinking more.”
Charlie gave her playful frown and a laugh and led the way.
About five hundred feet from the house, through the “scrub forest,” as Charlie had so lovingly called it, sat Swashbuckler’s. Owen and Geri had purposely built a modest, relocatable home in the back to allow them better access to their business, which is where Eva and Charlie would now be residing while they did the same. As she waited for Charlie to unlock the back door’s hefty padlock, Eva noticed the gravel parking lot of the small dive bar was far bigger than logic would dictate. She reminded herself to ask Owen about that.
The building itself was nearly brand new, built from the ground up by Owen on an empty piece of land on the foothills outside a town called Howlett. Eva had never heard of it before they got the call from Owen, and had only first seen the twinkling of the tiny town’s lights as she and Charlie had arrived in the dark yesterday. It was, by far, the smallest place Eva had ever visited in her twenty-seven years. Three generations of her family lived and died in the concrete jungle of Silverton City, where she had always felt like a bee in a massive hive. Only through her deep love of literature and stories had she visited places like this, small towns where everyone knew everyone’s secrets and people didn’t lock their doors at night. It felt a little like stepping into another world, complete with the unusual feeling that always came with a visit to a new place—the feeling that adventure could be around any corner. Part of her heart beat faster at that idea; another part of it seemed to shrink in anxiety.
Charlie wrangled with the unfamiliar locks until they finally gave, and led Eva into the back room of the bar. The place had no extravagant kitchen, only the necessary washing equipment and storage for inventory and other things. Most of the space had been devoted to the barroom itself, which sat patient and empty, its neon signs dark. Only a few small windows around the ceiling let in the sunlight, a design choice obviously made on purpose. As she looked around at the pretty wooden bar, the still-cushy stools, the line of shining vending machines in the far corner, Eva wondered what it felt like to want to be in the dark all the time, like Swashbuckler’s barflies clearly preferred. Even after Charlie hit the lights, the place still felt dim.
One by one, Charlie walked by the neon beer signs and yanked on their pull cords. He unlocked the front door as Eva meandered behind the bar itself, running her hand on its polished surface.
“It’s not a bad-looking place,” she said.
Charlie put his hands on his hips and looked around. “No, not at all. At least it’s a new dive.”
“I’m not sure I’ve been in a dive of any kind,” said Eva.
“You’d remember, if you had,” said Charlie with a chuckle. “This place will look much different in twenty years. Hell, in ten years.”
They began to check out the situation behind the bar when they heard tires crunching in the gravel lot outside. Footsteps came for the door not soon after. “Must be Owen,” said Charlie.
Eva looked at her watch. “At nine a.m., I sure hope so. Otherwise, someone has a serious problem.”
The door to Swashbuckler’s squeaked as it swung open. Fresh daylight blasted across the black-and-maroon patterned laminate floor and sent dust scattering into the air. A man in his late fifties stood a moment in the doorway, hands on either side of the frame, as he kicked a bit of sticky mud from one of his boots. He entered and the door dropped closed behind him.
“Now, that can’t be Eva,” said the older man. He shook a finger at her with a smile. “I just won’t believe I’m that old, no sir.”
Eva smiled at him. She tried hard to mentally place him in some fond memory within the Murdock family, but she came up empty. He stood tall, dressed in a faded but clean polo shirt and brown jacket that seemed to come standard to every old man once they reached a certain age. Brown hair that needed a trim shot out in all directions from under a blue trucker hat decorated with the logo of what looked like a local brewery. He had the wrinkled face of a basset hound, eyes a bit sad, even as they shined when he smiled.