The Utah soil was hot underfoot as Bobby walked it. She was a farm girl and she was accustomed to such heat and desolation. Walking, she thought of the day she'd left the dry Nevada heat and the arid soil to make a name for herself elsewhere. She became a nurse, putting herself through school while working two jobs waitressing and bartending; she lived in California for six years before her father died…

She came back here to Utah, where her father moved after her mother finally died of all the abuse he'd taken out on her, to bury the man she barely knew anymore and perhaps find something here that she lacked in her life out there. She came to an old bar called the Luna Mesa and walking inside she nonchalantly threw a glance about the room. Silence settled in the small bar as she made her way further inside, finally sitting down at the bar and lighting a Marlboro Red.

An older man that looked to be of Mexican descent walked up to Bobby's spot at the bar and smiled softly at her, "What'll ya be havin', doll?"

She puffed out a small cloud of grey smoke and smiled warmly back, "I'll have whiskey, straight, two shots please."

The bartender walked away to grab the bottle and silence once again fell on the room as the door to the bar swung open and shut again. She fought the urge to look back at whoever came through, telling herself maybe it was better not to know. Soon enough, however, she heard the sound of thick lug-sole boots with steel-toes making their way across the room to her, stopping close by her; she heard the stool scrape across the floor as the new arrival sat down beside her. "Well," a voice said next to her as the old Mexican poured her a couple shots, "looky what I found here! What a pretty little thing…"

Bobby looked over to where the voice hailed from, looking unimpressed at his assessment. "I'm not a thing. I'm not an it. I'm a fuckin' woman, jerkbag." She paused, stealing a long drag from her cigarette as this guy's face turned angry, mouth rigid, eyes mere slits. "Ya do know what respect is, don't ya? Ya should show some, ignorance is not a very good look on ya, boy!"

She really did it now…

Before she knew what she was about, the man who'd spoken to her got up, knocking the stool back and took a hold of her thick brown hair in his rough strong fist. The stool crashed onto the hardwood flooring of the combination bar and diner; the sound echoed in the silence of them room. All the men who'd been eating or drinking were silent but alert to what was going on; they were all able-bodied and none of them were helping her. The man who had a hold on her hair was seething and she could read the anger in his eyes like red hot brands. His hold on her hair suddenly propelled her forward and her face slammed into the bar counter hard.

A lesser woman would have passed out from the sheer force of the connect her head had made with the bar but Bobby was born and bred of southern brawn; she didn't have the luxury of being a wilting lily. Her eyes peered up at the man from her place bent over the bar. His rotted grin was growing centimeter by centimeter as he realized he had her pinned and she was at his mercy, at least for right then. "Fuckin' bitch," he said as he kept his hand firmly fisted in her hair, his body leaning over her as he stood half behind and half to the side of her. "Nobody comes int'my town an' tells me what. I tell you what ya fuckin' cunt." He smirked wide and his rancid breath hit her square in the face. "You want respect, ya gotta show yer Master some first…then we'll see."

This guy was fucking insane, clearly. Bobby's brain was working again, going a mile a minute as he held her down on the bar and leaned over her. His breath in her face was enough to make her gag and she didn't care for the way he was talking about her showing him respect; he didn't know what respect really was. "Look, I don't know you. I'm sure we could talk 'bout this or somethin'?" Bobby was trying to appeal to his more rational side; she didn't realize it yet but her apparent need to placate him wouldn't work. It looked for a moment like the man was going to let her up but instead, he merely pulled her head up by her hair and slammed her back down on the counter again. The action forced Bobby to grit her teeth together so she didn't utter a cry or yelp of pain; she refused to give him the satisfaction. "Jesus…I'm sorry, I didn't mean to make ya mad. I say shit I don't mean half the time…"

The man who was holding her, terrorizing her, was huge. He was bigger than any other man in there and that was saying something considering they all looked like thoroughbred miners and the like. His hair was greasy and the individual hairs clung to each other like threads in a weave; it was wayward too, having the appearance of loose hay the way it laid haphazardly on his head. His teeth were black from rot and his breath, well, that's what the stink was from, Bobby was sure. She'd been right about the boots too; simply from the sound alone she'd deduced they were thick lug-sole with steel toes. His clothes were dusty and tattered in some places, navy blue coveralls with a white wife beater underneath. The white of the wife beater was almost yellow gray from the amount of wear and dirt it saw over the life of the shirt. The worst of it all was that Bobby could see the man beneath the dirt and grime and the overpowering aroma around him of body odor, ammonia, whiskey and smoke, and she could see he wasn't half bad looking. The man was handsome even, in a very rugged and alluring way. He could pass for sexy if the smell of his teeth and the ambient scents hadn't been so strong she wanted to hurl.

She looked into his eyes then, thinking she needed something that wasn't abstract to get her mind off the smell that was making her eyes water when her eyes met his. How had she not noticed his eyes before? Bobby blinked once and she felt her mouth go as slack as it could with one side against the bar. His eyes were beautiful. It wasn't that fairytale kind of beautiful one would see and be instantly enamored by, no, but they were beautiful still in their own haunted way. They were blue orbs and they were deep and crystalline like the ocean but they had a gray milky haze over them that said this man had been broken so many times by the things he'd seen that it left him bereft of emotion, cold and distant and unreachable. It was funny, but that's what Bobby realized made them so beautiful, made him so intriguing now: his brokenness.

His pupils were dilated and black as the lowest pit of Hell. "What the fuck you starin' at, pussy girl? Huh?" His voice was a nice blend of rough and scratchy and smooth and velvety even in his pissed off state.

Bobby took a moment to reply. "I'm starin' at ya…your eyes…" Her own voice was pitched low and quiet, barely audible over the whir of the ceiling fan overhead and the small amount of chatter that had started up around them.

It seemed as though the man was done being angry for her imagined slight and let her up, his hand slipping out of her hair as she righted herself. He grunted and growled low and sized her up. "The fuck 'bout 'em…?"

Bobby stood upright and adjusted her tailored blouse and her hair. "They're…you're a good lookin' guy ya know. Ya don't have to treat girls like shit to get them to pay attention to ya."

His black teeth came into view again as he smiled ruefully. "Don' think I don' know what yer doin'. Yer tryin'a butter me up so I won' give ya yer punishment. Don' think it's gonna work; when that payment comes due I'll collect…" It was a promise.

"I wouldn't expect anythin' less." She said as she looked around them and then back at the man. She noticed the old Mexican staring at them from a shadowed place behind the bar. She thought it odd; why would he care about their exchange if he wasn't about to help her before in the first place…? "I'm Bobby. Nice to meet ya, reckon…" She held out her petit and feminine hand, long fingers waiting to grasp his in return if he wanted that.

"Mac…name's Mac." He looked down at her extended hand and grinned a full nasty rotted smile. "Bobby's a man's name. Think yer daddy was expectin' tits when he offered up that name as a choice?"

He didn't shake her hand; well, that was to be expected, she guessed. Her hand fell back to her side and she raised her chin a fraction of an inch. "Bobby was my mama's choice. Daddy wanted to name me Trigger after that stupid fuckin' horse from that TV show back in the day."

So he couldn't intimidate her; that was something new. "Yeah!? Well, no shit…" He smirked again and winked. "Well, doll face…good to see a new set o' tits in this place. Word o' advice, this is my town. I like what I see it's mine…an' I like what I see." Mac's tone lowered and the words snarled out of his nose like steam from a dragon's. "Hear me, sweet thing?"

"Yeah, I hear you…" Bobby's thoughts trailed off as she looked him over. She didn't whether to be afraid or be flattered, even though she knew she should be afraid a million times over. He liked what he saw? How many times had she heard that one in her lifetime? Not a single one. Ever. "But I ain't listenin'… If ya want me, that's one thing, but ya better start actin' like ya give a second shit 'bout me or I won't be 'round for long…ya hear me?"

Bobby waited for a bit, pausing to see the fallout of her words but none came. Mac didn't strike her as stupid or completely uneducated despite his appearance and his behavior. When it came down to it Mac seemed, to her, like his street smarts outweighed his inability to identify with academic smarts. She expected his retaliation; even better, she knew it would be at a point in time when Mac believed she wouldn't expect it. Bobby had to be on her guard from here on out…

Mac was on fire inside, seething to the very marrow. With all this little bitch had dared to say to him, he could have laid her out on the floor, out cold, and no one in there would have had shit to say to him. She'd gone from calling him handsome or at least 'good-looking enough' to insulting him yet again. Apparently she didn't realize that this really was his town and what he said went. He eyed Walter over the bar; he was the master planner of their whole operation but Mac, he was the enforcer, the muscle, and what Mac did was almost always necessary to ensure their survival. What Walter said went when it came to Mac, otherwise, everything was as Mac wanted. He didn't get the nod from Walter he'd been expecting. Mac's mouth twitched as it formed a grimace. Well, what did that old geezer know anyway? This girl was Mac's, period. He'd keep her no matter what because after all he'd done for Walter, for Devon and Rick and the whole fucked up family business, Mac deserved some fucking compensation for once in his goddamn life!

While Mac was lost in his thoughts, Bobby had been quick to leave the Luna Mesa. For all intents and purposes, she'd lived to fight another day and that was all anyone could ask for sometimes. Of course she hadn't driven there; Bobby was new in town and she only lived six miles from the Luna Mesa. She was on foot but making good time, hoping the crazed obsessionist wouldn't miss his new pain in the ass for a good long while…

Contrary to Bobby's thoughts and unspoken wishes on the matter, when Mac came to attention he noticed her absence right away. "The fuck she go!?" He growled the words and everyone turned away from him, scared of his wrath. Rick ducked his head away, his eyes fixed on the lines of the hardwood flooring of the bar. "Anybody gonna answer me or do I gotta pound the fucker outta somebody!?"

Walter finished drying off his hands on a bar towel and looked his son in the eyes. "Bitch left." It was a statement, not drawn out at all, matter of fact and nonchalant.

"Son of a bitch!" Mac yelled with emphasis, slamming his bottle of Jack Daniels down on the counter and clapping his hands together once to get the excess dusty earth off. Turning his back on the bar and all its patrons, he made his way out of the bar, closing the distance to the door in no time at all. He parked his old red truck all the way across the parking lot, knowing damn well if he didn't that someone's drunk ass would hit it on their way home later; it was beaten and worn and showed rust in some spots but Mac took care of it rather well and it still ran like a top. He got in and didn't bother to buckle up; he never did. He figured if Sheriff Pratt or that little turd Harley was going to pull him over it wouldn't be the lack of seat belt that they'd be looking for. He revved the engine before putting the gear in drive and flooring the vehicle out of the lot.

Sometime later Bobby heard a truck coming hard and fast down the dirt road behind her. The rumbling made her turn; she couldn't make out the driver. All she could see was the red paint with a matte finish and the flood lights mounted on the front end. They made the truck look more like an oversized bug and less like an American classic but hey, who was she to judge who did what to their mode of transportation? Once he was even with her, the window rolled down and his blackened grin was infectious; he made her smile back at him despite the fear and uncertainty he'd instilled in her before. She could barely believe her luck tonight. "Somebody tell ya I left or what?" She crossed her arms across her chest and held the smirk; her eyes narrowed a bit, if only to see him better in the sinking light of the canyons. "Find it hard to believe ya missed me so damn fast…"

"Missed ya right 'way sweet thing. Ain't much 'bout a girl named Bobby I could miss…" He was being good natured but all he felt like doing was taking her sweet ass while she was bent over his tailgate. "Why don't ya hop in an' I'll give ya a ride, huh?" He smiled wide at his own double entendre, his rotten teeth appearing before her shamelessly. Mac was playing the trustworthy card just in case it won him points with the girl. He couldn't help flirting though…

If this guy thought she was stupid or that he'd win her over that easy, then he had another thing coming. "Mmmhmm…well, if ya missed me so damn much ya should prove it." She faced him, the rolled down window giving her an unobstructed look at his face. Those rotten teeth weren't having the effect they should have had on her. "Get out o' that truck and c'mon over here…"

He looked like the cat that swallowed the canary for a minute. Clearly Mac wasn't accustomed to women baiting him back the same way he'd been doing for years to them; this bitch was forward and cocky without being outright slutty, and he liked that. He finally grinned, scoffing a laugh at the same moment. He liked a bit of fight; it's what always drew him to certain females. "How's 'bout you come over here an' get in. We'll talk 'bout it some then…"

Bobby grinned at him and his consistent pressing. Without the atmosphere of the bar and the other men she felt more confidence. "How 'bout not…? C'mon out, Mac; I promise I won't bite." Her grin remained and she couldn't tell if it unnerved him or if it amused him in the slightest.

Mac weighed the benefits against the negatives. Giving this little slut any leeway at all when it came to this was going to make it harder to break her later. "Alright, alright, sweet cheeks…ol' Mac's a comin'." He hadn't intended to give into her demands but if it kept her around then, that was half the battle right? "M'comin' out now; hold yer horses, lady." Mac slipped out of his seat and jumped down onto the dirt road. His thick soled boots kicked up a small cloud of dust every time he moved to Bobby on the side of the road.

Against Bobby's better judgment she waited for him to leave the truck behind and walk to her; everything inside of her was screaming to get out of there, to run away and never look back. She didn't know what it was that made her stay but it could have been the way he'd complimented her before. No man had ever said that to her, period, for any reason; and if this man was as bad as half the whispers she'd heard about him…then all the more, maybe he wasn't so bad. "Well…hello there…" She said softly when he got close enough to hear her.

"Hey there doll face…" He grinned obscenely. His hands twitched at his sides at the same time that his cock jumped in his coveralls. He ached to touch this girl, to teach her a lesson she'd never soon forget.

His movements, minute thought they were, didn't escape Bobby's notice. "So, ya missed me, huh? Or…so ya said…?" Hey eyes locked with his, brown orbs to his ocean blue hues.

He nodded, smirking his blackened grin like always. "Yeah…I did…pretty puss." His tongue flicked out over his teeth and he made an awkward sucking sound.

There was something that struck Bobby about the way Mac was acting. She had a feeling that he was dangerous, as dangerous as half of the whispers she'd heard, when he wanted to be; she also had a feeling that being dangerous was something he chose to be a majority of the time. But then, there was this other feeling she was getting that maybe he didn't want to be that way all the time and if someone showed him respect he might look differently on them, especially if that someone was of the female variety. "So, what are we gon' do 'bout this, huh?"

"We? There's a 'we', now?" His eyes danced under the fading light of the day and that's when Bobby noticed his pupils were dilated to the size of dimes. "C'mon, baby…admit it, you like me…"

Bobby couldn't help it; she smiled at his certainty and his cockiness. The apparent drug use scared her a bit because that told her he was often unreliable and unstable. But he was okay with her right then… "Sure, I'll bite. I suppose, even thought we literally just met, that I like ya, alright…"

He gave her the stink eye and a sly smile. "Thought you said ya don' bite girl…?" He was teasing her.

"I don't usually, so I guess I do like you, huh?" Bobby closed the distance between them and nudged him with her elbow. "I'll only bite ya if ya don't mind…"

Mac licked his lips and looked her over like she was his next meal. "Like bitin'…like it more when I'm the one doin' it…" He grabbed her elbow, the one that nudged him; he didn't want to let her go now, not without a fight to remember her by at least.

Her piercing brown eyes locked with his blue ones again but this time there was a warning in them. "I don't think that's such a good idea right now, sugar. Us just meetin' tonight and all…" Mac looked about to object when she put a smile on her face and a hand on his chest. "Where I come from the men are pure animals and they always take what they want. Now, ya want me to give ya all I got right?"

If she thought she was going to trick him like that… His eyes bore into hers and he tried his damnedest to dredge up any and every image of the whores he'd beaten in the past. Mac wanted so badly to want to hurt this one too, for all the teasing she done to him; but then, he'd never come across a woman quite like Bobby before. He was having a hard time separating sex and pleasure from the pretty face that stood in front of him albeit seemed to have no problem separating sex and pleasure from death, blood, and carnage. It was unlike him in almost every way but this wasn't a normal chick he'd run into either; she wasn't from around here. Unlike all of his conquests he wanted Bobby to give him all she had, freely, of her own volition. His brain was doing somersaults and the only thought that registered besides getting lucky was that Walter and Devon, Rick even, they would think he was going soft or crazy or both. To Mac, he knew exactly what he was doing for the first time in his life. He didn't want to take this one…

By his silence, Bobby determined he did want all that and more; it was an internal struggle she saw in his eyes but she forced her tongue to remain docile. "Take me home and drop me at the door. No more and no less for now, that alright Mac?"

His emotions were a mess. That wasn't normal for him either; Mac hated emotions. He usually didn't have any to begin with. Why was this woman getting under his skin when no one else could even make his eyes blink? He adjusted his weight on his feet, shifting from foot to foot like he was adjusting his coveralls but really he was just confused and disoriented by her. This girl was so beautiful… What the fuck was thinking like that going to get him? Nothing, that's what; beautiful girls didn't stay with him because he was a fucking monster. Wasn't that it? He always had to take what he wanted and keep a tight hold on it or else it would slip away. Nothing good ever stayed…

"Yeah, alright…I'll drop ya at home. Hop in my truck."