Page 11 of Rootbound

I can’t take it anymore, and frankly, I’m starting to get a little afraid.

“What. Is. This.” I try (and fail) to keep my tone neutral.

She is momentarily shocked that I burst our long-standing bubble of silence.

“What? It’s Tyler Childers.”

“I know whothisis. I mean what is this whole goddamn playlist? There is absolutelynorhyme or reason to any of it.”

“What do you mean? They’re all good songs—that’s what it is!” she says, not trying to disguise her offense.

“No,” I manage to respond with an annoyed sigh.

“Ummm excuse me, what do you meanno?!” she sneers.

“I mean no, I can’t follow along with this. It’s distracting my driving. You need to group a playlist together by at leastsimilargenres or something. This is different decades, different tempos, different genres, and different everything. This is psychotic.”

“Oh, sorryDeliverance,I left all my dueling banjo tunes back home. Are you for real? It’s fucking music!”

“Sure as hell is notfuckingmusic, not surewhat kind of fucking you’re into, but this mash-up would not be good to fuck to.”

Woah—what was that? What made me go there?But I press on.

“Also, really? ‘Deliverance’? You know you’re in Idaho, right? Not exactly known for being backwoods or toothless. I know I got a purdy mouth.” I bare my teeth at her in the biggest smile I can manage.

Her mouth hangs open at that and it takes everything in me not to piss her off more and poke my finger in it. I know I’m being a dick, but I’m (mostly) serious, and seeing her temper flare is the closest I’ve been to hilarity in a while.

She doesn’t grace me with a response, but disconnects the phone and puts in her headphones. Relieved, albeit a little let down she didn’t attempt a comeback (not sure what that is about either), I go back to driving.

The girl is attractive, there’s no doubt about it. But I’ve been attracted to plenty of women before. Tait Von Frankenstein, or something to that effect, practically wears a “fuck off” sticker on her forehead. She’s either attached, or not interested. Her face completely shifted when we locked eyes earlier. She came down the escalator looking a bit wide-eyed, and immediately shuttered that expression. I’m not sure if I should feel suspicious of this yet, or what it means… Something about her continues to pester my brain, though, and I’m determined to find out why. Maybe she reminds me of someone?

I can’t help but feel protective of the Logans. They took me in fifteen years ago when I was just sixteen, gave me a summer job and raised me up from there. I had a dad who loved me in the way he knew—which was to ignore me as much as humanly possible, and tend to his own vices. Whiledoing the latter, he got into a bar fight over who knows what, ended up accidentally killing a man, and going to prison. After that, I was sent to live with my aunt, Grace, and by extension, Charlie. The Logans put me to work, caught me up on school, and changed my life. I sometimes could do without Charlie’s brothers—namely the one that pimped me out to the TV producers as an extra. That shit has followed me since. They had a great laugh at that—still do.

For the most part, though, the Logan family is all the family I need. Helping maintain the ranch, working outdoors, guiding hunts, driving cattle for the ranchers who still lease out the land—it’s what brings me contentedness. It’s all I know how to do, and all I could ever want to do, and I never would’ve had the opportunity to know it if not for them. They’ve made me a part of their family, and as a guy that never knew what that was before, they’ll have my loyalty for life.

But like me—like us all—they have their own skeletons and demons. I know Charlie has two daughters out there that he hasn’t seen in decades. Only after a long whiskey night will he mention them.…

I slam on the breaks, forcing Tait to nearly smack her head on the dash.

“Alright, dudewhat the fuck.” She whips in her seat to face me.

“Tait… that’s—that’s a fairly unique name,” I say.

It’s the eyes. I see the resignation on her face when she accepts that I know.

“Yeah, it is.”

“What’s your last name again?” I ask.

“Logan. My name is Tait Logan. And yeah, I’m Charlie’s daughter.”

Seven

Tait

“Andthe reason you neglected to mention that? Along with why you’re here? The book research seems like a pretty far-fetched excuse to operate under,” Henry says accusingly. His tone is much less venomous than it was when it came to my playlist, but he’s clearly suspicious.

“There’s a very simple explanation for this. But can we pull over or something? I’d prefer not to get wiped off the road,” I say.