Title: My Hero
Author: Ramos
Rating: PG-13 for language
Disclaimer: Don't own Walt Longmire. Currently looking for property in Absaroka County.
~Longmire One Shot, set about six months after Season 3~
When night falls around Absaroka County, it gets dark and then some. The streetlights around the center of town do fair to middling, but like most of us they were getting on in age and starting to fade. Once I'd turned out the lights in my office and headed out into the reception area, the only guide for my feet was the feeble light reflecting off the high ceiling and the little green lights on the various electronics. Who knew technology could be so useful?
The receptionist's desk was empty, Ruby having left for the day hours ago. I had Ferg running radar down one of the county highways, and Vic had left on time, for once. Just me by my lonesome, which was a bad habit I'd gotten into after Martha's death but so far I hadn't made much effort at quitting it.
I found the corner of Ferg's desk by habit, and navigated to the door by memory. Right as I turned the knob, the phone began to ring. Staring at it a moment, I considered ignoring it but after having been doing this job for as long as I have, there wasn't much choice.
"Sheriff's office," I answered.
"Walt? Shit, I thought Ferg was working tonight."
"He is – it's Friday. What's up?"
"Right – Radar night. Shit." Vic huffed on the other end of the line, her breath in my ear giving me a phantom tingle down my neck. "Look, can you do me a favor and call me in about ten minutes?"
"What?"
"Ten minutes from now, call me back. Tell me you need me at work."
I glanced around the silent, empty station. "I don't need you. I'm headed home."
"Jesus Christ, Walt – I don't care if you need me or not, just call my cell phone and tell me you need me."
"Why?"
"Monadate," she muttered.
"What was that?"
"I'm. On. A. Date," she enunciated clearly, biting off each word. "And if you don't call me and get me out of this in about ten minutes, it's going to get really, really ugly."
I closed my eyes, trying to follow her logic. Instead, I found myself asking, "Who are you on a date with?"
"Omar. Well, Omar and his client, Ross or Ralph or whatever his name is."
"I don't think I heard you right, Vic. You're on a date with Omar?"
"I don't have time to talk right now, dammit. I'm hiding in the ladies room. Just call me in ten minutes and say you need me. Make up something. Flat tire, car accident, zombie apocalypse, I don't care, just something to get me the hell out of here! Got it?"
Before I could say another word, she hung up on me.
I contemplated the phone in my hand, then hung it up and drove over to Henry's place.
Walking in through the swinging doors Henry insisted added character to his bar, it appeared the Friday evening crowd was just starting to get lively. Several couples were up dancing, and I had to step lively myself to dodge them as I made my way through to the bar. Considering the lack of night life around Absaroka, and the fact that she was even willing to visit the ladies room wherever she was at, I figured I had at least a 50-50 chance of finding Vic at the Red Pony.
When Henry noticed me, he gave me a slight, knowing smile and nodded towards the corner. Sure enough, there was Omar at one of the small tables by the wall, wearing that expensive leather coat he keeps to impress his well-heeled clients. The man next to him was typical; overdressed in a Western-style shirt, complete with rhinestones, his jeans too dark of a blue and his boots too new to be comfortable.
The woman they were talking to I didn't even recognize.
She had blonde hair twisted up in a graceful knot, and long earrings dangled down emphasizing the line of her neck. A sleeveless, smoky green dress clung to her curves and brought out the color of her sultry eyes, outlined with more makeup than Vic normally wears in a month.
It wasn't until she smiled at the pretend-cowboy that I realized it was, indeed, my deputy I was watching.
"It is good that you are here," Henry said to me, his voice pitched to carry through the crowd noise.
I turned my back on the trio in the corner and pulled my attention to Henry. "Why's that?"
"They have been here for over an hour, and I have seen bull elk compete with more finesse. If things continue as they have, they will either shoot each other, or Vic will shoot them both."
Glancing back over, I was just in time to see the cowboy lean up on his elbows to whisper something in Vic's ear. He was apparently drunk enough to think he was charming as he leered down the front of her dress.
Omar called him on it, and the two men were obviously exchanging heated words. Vic laid a hand on Omar's arm, calming him with a joke and then deliberately tilting her head back as she finished her beer. More than one man in the vicinity watched her take those last few swallows.
"Shall I make that two burgers to go?" Henry asked sagely.
I didn't bother to answer; he had probably put two on when I walked through the door. Instead, I made my way through the crowd. Vic was holding her empty up in the air, apparently trying to get the waitress' attention, while the two men argued over who was going to buy her next drink.
"Hey, Omar," I greeted the man, and sent his client a friendly nod.
"Walt!" Omar was effusive in his welcome, and gave the client a hearty slap on the arm to be sure he had the drunken man's attention. "This here is Walt Longmire, the county sheriff. Don't worry, we go way back."
The client tilted back a white cowboy hat that was several inches too big for his head and regarded me like a new specimen at the zoo. "Howdy, Sheriff," he said, and then sniggered.
"Vic," I said in less friendly tones. "Glad I found you. Want to tell me why you haven't been answering your phone?"
"My phone?" She gave me a blank look, her eyes wide with surprise.
"I've called you three times," I told her sternly. "Ferg's got a situation down south. You need to give him a hand."
"Oh, come on, Walt. It's her night off!" Omar wasn't quite as drunk as his client, but he wasn't far behind, either. "Besides, I promised Vicki I'd buy her dinner."
"She'll have to take you on that later, Omar. Got a young female in custody – regulations state we need a female officer on duty."
Vic wasn't stupid – she quickly stood up, gathering a tiny little bag and a slithery scarf of some sort. "Sorry about that, Omar, Rod…"
"It's Todd," he told her, about a hair away from a full-on pout.
"Whatever. Catch you next time you're in town?"
The leer was back immediately. "You bet, sweet thing."
She gave him a poisonous smile, and I ushered her ahead of me. Blonde hair blocked my view and it took a moment to figure out why my perspective was wrong. Glancing down, I saw she was wearing heels. Not just any heels, but really tall, skinny ones that ought to have been registered as dangerous weapons, and not just for the spike. It made the muscles on her calves do interesting things and it occurred to me that I'd never seen Vic in a dress before. Okay, maybe once or twice, but never from this vantage point.
Henry met us at the door with a bag of food, and a moment later we were out in the cooler, quieter parking lot.
The silky scarf swung out, and Vic settled it around her bare arms and flicked the end back over her shoulder, swathing her torso in a glittery cocoon. She turned towards me just as quickly and grasped the lapels of my coat.
"Thank you, thank you, thank you," she breathed out quickly. "You have no idea how glad I was to see you."
"Always nice to be appreciated," I told her.
"We don't really have a situation, do we?"
"Nah. Ferg's probably half asleep by now." I looked at her in the soda light atop the pole bringing electricity into the Red Pony. "Do I want to know how you got involved with Omar tonight? I thought you hated him."
"I don't hate him," she denied, half-hearted at best. "He's just a pain in the ass. And this was mostly your fault anyway."
"How so?"
"You borrowed that rifle from him a while back. And then you asked me to drop it off at his place on my way home this afternoon."
Peering down from my less than usual height advantage, I tried connecting my tough-as-nails deputy with this goddess standing in a gravel parking lot, and what a borrowed rifle might have to do with it.
"I got over there and he has that schmuck client with him. They were already having a pissing match over their sharpshooting skills or some shit when I got there. Then they started trying to impress me."
That made more sense. "You're pretty hard to impress," I observed, thinking of the various plaques Vic had hanging on the wall of her house, now that her ex-husband was no longer around to object to Vic displaying the trophies she'd won for her own shooting skills.
"Yeah," she deadpanned. "So Omar had me take a couple of shots."
"With the rifle?"
"And then with a 9 mm. And then a .45."
"You show 'em how it's done?"
She rolled her eyes. "If I'd known before how much that would turn Omar on, I'd have shot myself in the leg first."
A sudden full-body shiver hit her, and I remembered that while I was wearing jeans and a sheepskin coat, her dress was about as substantial as a poor man's hanky. I turned her towards my truck, doing my best to shield her from the breeze with my arm.
"So how'd you end up having dinner with them?" I asked casually, trying not to notice how nicely we fit together. Fortunately the Bullet was parked close, and for once she let me open the door for her. With those heels, she had to brace her hand on my shoulder to keep her balance as she climbed up.
"He bet me a steak dinner I couldn't beat him in a fast draw," she said with a carnivore's grin as she settled into the seat.
A chuckle escaped me, and I shook my head. Heading around, I climbed in the driver's side and put the food between us. Fortunately I waited my turn; I might have lost a finger as she dove in, rooting out an onion ring bigger than the gold bracelet on her arm.
"Oh, my God," she moaned around the hot food, her fingers catching the greasy crumbs.
Half a burger later, I filched one of her rings, and she snagged a few of my French fries. I had to smile at the elegant woman beside me licking ketchup off her thumb and drinking water out of a bottle she'd left on the floorboards of my truck two days ago.
"What?" she asked.
"You never got your steak," I reminded her.
"Please. I'd rather be here eating with you than in there with those two."
I wasn't sure what to say to that, but it made me wonder. "If that's so, why did you agree to go out with 'em in the first place?"
She turned towards me, her eyes dark with cosmetics but frankly honest. "Do you know how long it's been since I've gone on a date? An honest-to-God, wear-a-dress, pick me up at the front door date?"
Wrapping the rest of her burger in its paper, she stuffed it back into the bag. "I've been divorced for six months now. Since then, I've been on…" she counted briefly in her head. "Four dates. Two of them were casual, dinner and a movie kinda thing. One trip to the county fair, which turned into a really exciting evening of deep-fried guess what this is on a stick. And then tonight."
She wiped her hands on a napkin and then began pulling pins from her hair. The fine strands of gold gradually fell in an untidy mop around her face and neck, until she raked her fingers through it and established some sort of order. Normally straight, her hair crested and rolled in waves down onto her shoulders.
"I should have known it would suck ass, but you can't win if you don't play, right?" she told me, her voice quietly unhappy in the cab of my truck.
"So you went out with Omar?" I asked in disbelief.
"I know, right?" As quickly as she'd turned introspective, Vic laughed. "What was I thinking? That dude – Todd," she mocked, "started hitting on me the moment we met, and you know how competitive Omar can be. When they both showed up at my house, I wasn't sure if they were gonna arm wrestle or expect a three-some."
My ears began to burn, and I was glad the dim light in the truck kept Vic from seeing me turn red. "And once they started drinking, it got worse. I haven't heard that much bragging since Branch introduced us to his bronc riding buddies. Hell, at one point I was willing to sleep with one or both of them just to get them to shut up!"
She laughed again, her face alight, and it occurred to me that Vic Moretti was a beautiful woman.
"So that's when you snuck out to the bathroom and called for backup," I surmised.
"Yep. And then you went above and beyond and showed up to rescue me in person, just like John Wayne. My hero," she drawled, then popped a stolen French fry into her mouth.
"Not much of a hero, Vic," I told her.
"Sure you are, Walt," she argued blithely. "You're always a hero – and an officer and a gentleman. And when you check me out, you're usually looking for blood or bullet holes or something, not trying to look at my tits."
I snorted. "See, now – normally you'd have told Omar and his buddy where to get off if they were doing that."
"True."
"So why did you put up with it? Why didn't you just walk away tonight?"
Vic shrugged. "A couple of reasons. First of all, Omar drove, so if I walked away they would have just followed me, and that's just pathetic. And I can't walk far in these heels." She propped one long leg up on the dashboard to illustrate that dangerous point, and the faint light from the parking lot slid up the smooth skin of her calf.
"Secondly, Omar's clients bring a lot of money into the county."
"Civic duty," I mused, nodding. "Mighty patriotic of you."
"Exactly!" she said with a grin. "And thirdly, Omar is mostly harmless, when he's not being an asshole. I figured I'd keep him sweet for the next time you need to ask him a favor.
"And last of all, do you remember me saying I hadn't had a date in a while?"
"Not sure it counts as a date if you walk out before dinner," I commented.
"Oh, I don't know. I got to dress up, I had a handsome man buy me dinner. And now, he's taking me home." She flashed that smile at me again, and I could take a hint.
Having already consumed my half of a cardiologist's nightmare, I started the truck and pointed it towards town. We chatted a bit, mostly about Omar's more colorful clients, and before too long I pulled up in Vic's driveway.
"What are you doing?" she asked as I turned off the engine and started to get out.
"Gonna open your door for you," I told her. "Got a problem with that?"
She grinned. "Gonna walk me up to the front steps, too?"
"Sure am," I replied. "I was raised right. You take a woman out for dinner, you show her a good time, and then you walk her to the front door."
"Play your cards right, you might even get that good night kiss," she teased.
Suddenly without a smart answer, I shut my door and walked around the truck. Vic sat primly, with her hands folded over her little bag, and waited for me to open her door. She took my offered hand for balance as she climbed out of the truck and let me play the swain, even going so far as to tuck her hand around my arm.
"Man, am I out of practice," she commented as she tripped, her heel catching on the uneven sidewalk. Her weight shifted towards me momentarily, and I caught a whiff of her perfume. It wasn't Jo Malone, thankfully, but something that suited her.
"Walking, or dating?" I managed, trying to make light of the moment.
"Both," she shot back. "My only consolation would be the fact that you probably suck at it even worse than I do."
There was no arguing with that; I hadn't had a proper date for nearly a year, and I wasn't sure a one-night stand with Lizzie Ambrose really counted as a date. I never took her anywhere, nor went any further than buying her dinner at the Red Pony. Her obvious interest in me had been flattering, and had reminded me I was alive at time when I felt more than a little dead. We had never shared a real connection, or flirted, or even talked as much as I had tonight with Vic.
For some reason, that walkway was both too short and too long; I held Vic's elbow as she clopped up the wooden steps.
"Thanks for the ride, Walt. And for dinner," she added. Before I could realize her intent, she leaned up and gave me quick kiss – just shy of my mouth, on the cheek, like a friend or a co-worker or even a relative. A moment later she had her house keys jingling in her hand, unlocking her door.
My hand found hers as she grasped the knob.
"Can I see you again?" I asked.
"You'll see me tomorrow at work," she said dryly.
"I don't mean work."
She stilled, then her head tilted towards me, pinning me with a sharp, hard look.
My mouth opened, but so many of the things I wanted to say wouldn't come out. Reasons, excuses really, for letting my need to solve my wife's murder and my desire for revenge prevent me from being a friend when she needed one. For telling her I wanted her to stay in Absaroka when Sean filed for divorce, but giving her no indication of any reason beyond administrative. For holding her at arms' length for the past six months while I tried to put my life back into some sort of working order.
While our professional relationship had remained in the aftermath of Barlow Connelly's arrest, I had retreated from whatever personal connection had grown between Vic and myself. It hadn't been until our impromptu dinner in my truck that I'd realized just how much I'd missed her. We worked together nearly every day, but I hadn't noticed her dating, or even talked to her about a single thing outside of our work for months. Now just the thought of going back to that same, sterile, impersonal association left me feeling gutted and desperate.
The only thing I could make was a lame joke. "After all, our first date went so well…"
If anything, her expression hardened, and reminded me that whether she was in uniform or this fashion plate get-up, she was still Vic Moretti and not to be underestimated in any way. I braced myself. I deserved anything she might say.
"What did you have in mind?" she asked finally.
I swallowed. "Uh…there's a Greek restaurant over in Harding; Ruby said it was pretty good."
'When?" she bit off, as though taking an incident report.
"Sunday? Maybe around seven? You could wear a dress, if you want."
"Screw that, it's too fucking cold." Her frown softened and she rolled her eyes. "Jesus, Walt, that's your cue to offer to keep me warm. You really suck at this, don't you?"
"Yes. Yes, I do," I admitted freely.
"Well, work on your flirting technique," she advised me. "You're gonna need it. Second dates are make-it or break-it time."
"No pressure," I remarked, determined to step up to the plate. "Of course, you're gonna have a hard time topping this outfit." I indicated the form-hugging dress she wore.
"Oh, it's not what's outside," she informed me, her shoulders moving in such a way that my eyes were drawn down to a cleavage I'd never really allowed myself the liberty of studying quite so closely. "It's what's on underneath that counts."
My mouth went dry; Vic in full-on flirt mode was a force to be reckoned with. "Noted."
"So easy," she mocked with a brilliant smile, throwing her hair over her shoulder as she opened her front door. "See you tomorrow, Walt."
"Goodnight," I told her, watching her peek through the door until it closed completely.
Walking back down the drive, I considered the woman behind me, and the prospect of a second date when I hadn't even planned the first one. How exactly had that happened? Then I shook my head, chuckling. I'd spent the last three years obsessed with what happened in the past. Maybe I should stop worrying about what had come before, and keep focused on the future. Henry had been telling me that for far too long; if I took his advice now, it would shock the daylights out of him.
Whistling at that idea, I got in the truck and drove home. After all, I only had two days until our second date.
~fin~