I think you can check-raise the turn and call down if 3-bet. Villain could be betting with a number of hands you're beating here (from your description KJ, KT, AJ - A8, TT - 77, etc.) and you've probably got 6 outs if you're behind. Maybe call it 5 to be conservative, but I still think you've got to get another bet in here.

I don't know how I feel about the flop check - it seems like this is one of those situations where you know you're going to call a bet anyway, so why not bet out? A lot of hands you're beating will call you here. If you bet, UTG raises, and then someone else calls/re-raises, you can be pretty confident you're behind too.