Something caught her eye, distracting her away from her train of thought. “Look over there. See the deer?” I followed her gaze, and although the sun was setting, I could see the silhouettes of two deer running through a pasture.
“Have you ever been hunting, Vaughn?”
I hadn’t.
“No,” I answered weakly. I didn’t mind the idea of others doing it, and I knew that in rural communities it was a big part of life, but it wasn’t for me. I didn’t think.
“That’s okay. I go, but I don’t really like the killing part. I usually only use one tag. That’s all I need. Most of the time I let my dad or Dean use my other tags. And, don’t tell, but I don’t care for deer meat.” She sounded like she was confessing to something way worse than an opinion on wild game.
“I won’t tell.”
“It’s funny. I don’t mind cleaning fish. I could eat them every day.” She sat proudly next to me, head high. “I can fish circles around just about anyone, too. That’s my thing.”
“Yeah, those fishhooks looked pretty cool.”
“Lures. They’re lures, or flies, depending on what you’re using.” I didn’t know what she was talking about. Most of it sounded like Greek, but the way she talked candidly about something she loved sounded like a song, and I turned the music down a little so I wouldn’t miss a single word. She rambled and chirped on and on about what worked best for which fish and what season you could find them. It was easy to tell she was passionate about it.
“So what do you do? What’s your Vaughn thing?”
I had to think about it. I didn’t really have a thing. At one time I liked golf, and I still did, but it wasn’t something I got ramped up about. Not like she had about fishing anyway.
“I don’t know. I think I need to find something.”
“If you turn this way it’ll take you up to Johnston’s Chute. You came from town on this highway.”
Was that a hint? Did she want to go down to the Chute? To her cabin?
“Um, which way?”
Her phone buzzed and she looked at it, then answered. “Hey, Sally, what’s up?”
With no cars in sight, I put it in park at the four-way stop and waited for her. I messed with my phone so it didn’t seem like I was eavesdropping, but she was sitting right there so it was kind of hard not to.
“He is? Shit. Yeah, I can be right there.” Then she listened for a little bit and rested her head back on the seat and looked at the top of the cab. “I’m sorry. I’ll be right there. Don’t let him leave.”
O’Fallon hung up and dropped her phone between her legs, then ran her fingers over her temples like she was irritated.
“I’m sorry to cut this short, but do you mind taking me back to my house?” All of the fun, carefree excitement from earlier was gone from her voice.
“Sure, that’s no problem. Is everything okay?”
She looked straight ahead and began to talk. “That was Sally. She owns a bar in town. She said my dad was drunk and didn’t want him driving home. She called to let me know it was probably a good idea if I came and got him.”
I didn’t know what to say. It wasn’t my business to pry, but she’d never mentioned her dad had a drinking problem or anything like that, and I hoped it wasn’t something that happened on a regular basis.
She didn’t return her hand to mine and it sucked. She leaned over against her door and looked out the window as I pulled out in the direction of town.
“Hey, I have room in here. I’ll go with you. We can pick him up. It’s actually quicker than going all the way out to your house first.” It was a long shot, but maybe it would mean it wasn’t the end of our night.
“No, I don’t want you to have to deal with all of that.”
“It’s no trouble. We’ll just go pick him up.” My hand crept over to her leg and I found myself gently rubbing it. “I don’t want to take you home yet.”
She turned to look at me—finally—as we topped the hill and the town’s lights came into view.
“Really? You don’t mind? He doesn’t usually drink that much. I’m not sure what his deal is.”
“No. Not in the least. It won’t take that long. He probably just had a few too many. It happens.”
Then she picked up my hand and pressed a sweet kiss to the top of it and said, “Thank you.”
I knew where Sally’s was because I’d driven past it every day on the way to the office. It sat on the square, and when I saw how many cars were outside, I turned down the alley to see if there was a place to park.
She looked embarrassed and thanked me three more times before we ever got to the front of the building. As we rounded the brick wall, we saw Dean helping her dad out.
“Hey, what’s going on?” O’Fallon shouted as she ran over to them. I followed, but I didn’t want to interrupt.
“I just got here,” Dean said to her. “Sally said you were on your way to get him, but I figured I could drop him off. I was going to see if you were home anyway.” Then his eyes landed on me.
“No, I was out,” she said and turned to me. “Vaughn and I were riding around.”
“Hey, kid,” her dad said, lifting his head, obviously wasted.
“Dad, what happened?”
“Nothing. I’m fine,” he spoke slowly.
“You’re not fine. Look at you. Dean is helping you stand up.”