Oops, the third part of this little tale got a bit too lengthy and thus had to be split into two parts. Sorry about that! Hopefully this installment will be enjoyable enough to make up for the fact that the story is not yet complete. ;D

Without further delay…

Moving Day
Part III

He left her standing in the kitchen without saying a word. What was there to say? "Hey Vic, there's the pizza we ordered before I started trying to swallow your face. I'd better go pay for it even though I'd rather have you for dinner." Walt cringed, bounding down the short staircase and trying to even out his breathing. What the hell was he doing? Surely he was too old to be going at it in the kitchen like a horny teenager whose parents were out for the night?

Panicking for a moment, Walt was relieved to find his wallet still resting in the back pocket of his jeans. He wasn't sure what he'd been expecting, considering he seemed to maybe have just enough sense left to keep the rebelliously persuasive erection inside his shorts.

Sense? Who are you kidding? If the doorbell hadn't buzzed when it had, who knew what he and his deputy would be doing right now? Probably wearing a lot less clothes, for a start. How could he have let himself lose control of the situation like that? It gave a new meaning to the phrase 'saved by the bell'…

Out of habit he peered through the peephole just to be safe before opening the door. When he saw who was there Walt almost laughed, he really almost did. Of all the ironies, on tonight of all nights, it just had to be Jamie who came to deliver the pizza.

xxxxx

Vic slumped against the counter as she watched him spin on his heel and stalk toward the staircase, running a nervous hand over the flushed skin on the back of his neck as he went. She felt a certain sense of satisfaction, somewhere in the floaty cocktail of sensations that she was drowning in, that she had been the one to make Walt blush all the way to the tips of his ears.

No words had been forthcoming when they were interrupted. A few choice ones had been caught in her throat, of the type she would generally save for the privacy of the bedroom— the PG-rated version of which would probably roughly translate as Wow. Just… Wow.

She could practically feel the ghosts of his fingertips digging into the t-shirt covered flesh at the small of her back, gripping her left butt cheek like a man who most assuredly knew what he was doing. If it were up to Vic she would open the window and fling that goddamned pizza out into the street like a frisbee, uncaring of which fine resident of Durant, Wyoming might end up wearing it as an extremely gooey hat. Then she would frogmarch Walt Longmire into her bedroom and not let go of him until at least sunrise of the following day. Preferably high noon, if he displayed the sort of surprising stamina she suspected he might.

Regaining her footing, Vic touched a hand to her hair and noticed that it was half in and half out of the ponytail she'd worn for most of the day. She finished the job that Walt had begun, letting her hair fall in waves around her face. What was taking him so long? God— she hadn't scared him off to the point where he'd taken the pizza as an excuse to run out on her, had she? She fiddled with the utensils on the counter, jumping as she heard the downstairs door swing shut again, followed by his steady booted footsteps on the stairs. Their relationship had changed like night and day in the past five minutes, and Vic honestly wasn't sure quite what to expect from Walt next.

xxxxx

"…I swear, Walt, I didn't know anything about those kids selling acid down by the railroad tracks. You know that's not my scene."

"Jamie." Walt held up a hand, trying to stem the unsolicited flow of words.

"I just— I really need to get back, there are three more pizzas waiting and Carson didn't show up for his shift tonight and—"

Walt sighed heavily. "Jamie! I just want the pizza, okay?"

"—I mean I can tell you a few of their names, I guess… wait. What?"

"Just give me the pizza." Walt's eyebrows scrunched thoughtfully. "Give me the pizza and then call me at the station first thing tomorrow to let me in on whatever the hell it is you're ramblin' about. Alright?"

"Awww Walt, now come on—"

Walt wrestled the pizza and salad out of Jamie's grasp and presented him with a fifty dollar bill and an uncompromising glare.

Jamie looked at his shoes. "Shit. Okay, but—"

"Goodnight, Jamie."

Walt shut the door, pressing his forehead against it for a long moment. What the hell was going on with his life, these days? If it wasn't one thing it was another, but right now his main focus was on the woman upstairs and the sudden change in their relationship. He had no idea what he was going to say or do when he was face to face with her again, but Walt Longmire was certainly no coward. Adjusting his grip on the food parcels, he straightened his shoulders and climbed back toward Vic, one measured step at a time.

xxxxx

When he marched back into the room, pizza in hand, she immediately sensed by his demeanor that he was going to be evasive. Vic briefly entertained the option of treating him as a hostile witness, but cuffing him to the furniture didn't seem all that appealing unless there was going to be kissing involved.

She watched him walk up to the opposite side of the kitchen island and set the food cartons on the countertop, and when he finally raised his head to look at her Vic found herself wondering how long they'd both been in love with each other without being able to admit it. She would love to say that she never thought about it until that night with Lizzie Ambrose at Walt's cabin, but she knew that would be a lie. In all honesty it had probably started on the day they met…

x

She made the appointment with a woman named Ruby, and it had been a process. Fortunately with her husband tied up with work and out of town for days on end Victoria Moretti didn't have a hell of a lot to do other than watch daytime talk shows and repeatedly call the Absaroka County Sheriff's Office in a desperate bid to be rescued from the clutches of Jerry Springer and the ever-charming Judge Judy.

Sheriff Walt Longmire sure seemed to be out of the office a lot. With that cowboy name Vic wasn't sure whether to expect some washed-up good ol' boy who would rather be off eating free donuts somewhere rather than doing actual police work or a John Wayne caricature, wandering the farther reaches of the county with nobody but his trusty horse for company.

He was even absent from the premises on the day of their meeting. Ruby was solicitous, offering coffee and suggesting that she sit and wait in the main station room. There were three desks there, all currently vacant, with one being more empty than the others and lacking a nameplate. She sat in the adjacent chair, wondering whether this might turn out to be her desk if she played her cards right.

After waiting for twenty minutes Vic began to feel impatient and started pacing the room, casually looking at some of the rustic artifacts on the wall and trying not to be freaked out by the taxidermy— she'd realized early on that if she was going to adjust to Wyoming life it was going to involve a much closer relationship with disembodied animal heads than she'd previously been comfortable with. Something on top of the other desk near the windows caught her eye, and curiosity got the better of her.

There were two evidence bags, one containing a handgun and the other several smashed up bullet casings. Vic squinted, picking up the bag of spent ammunition and holding it in the light to view it more clearly. If these were evidence from a crime, it must be a very unusual one. She was so distracted by her examination that she didn't even notice that anyone had entered the room until a smooth, deep voice rumbled her way.

"What do you think?"

She jumped, startled, and immediately relinquished her grip on the items she most certainly should not be tampering with. "Sorry, I didn't mean to—" She was brought up short by the sight of his tall frame standing by the coat rack.

The hat— people really wore them out here in the west, apparently— came off, and a penetrating blue gaze came up, pinning her with slow and quiet interest. He stepped around the divider and she took in the slightly rumpled denim shirt and weathered boots. His whole appearance was pleasantly lived-in, and he was certainly younger than she had expected. What was he, 45? A really well-aged 50? He sidled up, and she absently noticed a worn leather and cozy flannel scent about him.

"Miss Moretti, isn't it? Walt Longmire."

He proffered his hand and she shook it, remembering what her father had taught her about the proper way for a cop to shake hands. She had practiced on all four of her brothers until the firmness was just right and complaints of pinched knuckles had ceased.

"Just Vic, please. 'Miss Moretti' gives me bad memories of Sunday school."

"Vic…?"

He was sort of cute when he was confused. "Short for Victoria," she shrugged. "It never really suited me."

Tilting his head to the side as he regarded her, he almost looked like he wanted to disagree. Instead he just quirked an eyebrow and motioned toward the items on the desk beside her. "I saw you looking at the evidence. What were you thinking about?"

Sighing, she picked up the bag of casings again. "Well… I don't know what sort of crime you're investigating, but these casings are unusual. They're all fragmented, disintegrated almost, like what you get with frangible bullets. Glaser Safety Slugs, maybe?"

There was a sheet of paper in his hand that she hadn't noticed until he held it up. "Funny, that's exactly what the ballistics report says. The crime is a murder, by the way."

She forgot herself for a moment and made a derisive snorting noise. "I doubt you could murder someone very successfully with ammo like this. What did the autopsy look like?"

He was giving her a look, and she wasn't sure whether he was irritated or slightly impressed.

"Sorry. You probably can't comment on an ongoing investigation, right?"

There was a long pause. "What kind of police work did you do in Philadelphia, again?"

"Homicide. I did a concentration in ballistics at the academy… you get a lot of gun related crime out here in the middle of nowhere?"

For the first time he actually smiled, with an attractive row of white teeth, and Vic felt her stomach flip over. "We sure do love our firearms in Wyoming. You see a lot of fatal shootings back east?"

She leaned against the desk. "Some. In point of fact people are just as likely to get bludgeoned to death with a bowling trophy as they are to be shot. If all the murderers used guns it would have made my job a hell of a lot easier."

He paused again, and she imagined communicating with this man could involve a lot of protracted silences. "Well, maybe you can make my job easier. What do you say, Deputy Moretti?"

Five minutes later they were out the door, shiny new badge pinned to her belt and poor Ruby left to take care of the hiring paperwork as they hurried off to the autopsy. Trailing behind the sheriff Vic already knew that she'd be willing to follow Walt Longmire almost anywhere.

x

That had been the start of it. They'd solved the case together and moved straight on to the next without hesitation, and it had been a matter of weeks before Branch had called her 'teacher's pet' for the first time. Initially Vic assumed she liked spending time with Walt so much due to their surprising professional compatibility— it was something she'd never actually experienced before, working this well with someone, and she learned so much just by watching him every day.

Of course she was also lonely with Sean away on business so often, and she figured it was natural for her to gravitate toward her co-workers and focus on her own career. That was what she kept telling herself right up until the day she realized that she preferred Walt's company to Sean's even when her husband was home, and after that she didn't tell herself anything about the situation for a long while.

And now here they were, and Vic was walking out of the kitchen toward where Walt was standing. He didn't move away as she half-expected him to do, in fact he seemed to be leaning in. One of his hands was on the counter, and the look he was giving her burned her insides a thousand times worse than that feeling of butterflies on the day they met. His musculature appeared to be wound tight as a spring, body language screaming fight-or-flight while his eyes raked over her face.

She stepped closer, invading his personal space and wishing that he would just take her in his arms again. Instead he reached out and took her hand, drawing her nearer, and Vic would be damned if she knew whether he was about to kiss her or if was getting ready to say that it had all been a terrible mistake.

xxxxx

*Ducks flying objects*

YES, YES, this was supposed to be the final chapter. However, this flashback just insinuated itself into the story and things got a bit too lengthy. I had a bit of a word binge over the past 12 hours and so parts of the (seriously FINAL) chapter are already done. I'm on a very relaxing beach vacation (avec WiFi) starting on Saturday so I will have plenty of time to cap the story off.

In the meantime, let me know what you thought of this installment! ;D