Town Darling (6 page)

“By accident,” Dina chimed
in.  “Wayne started it.”

Wiley glanced around the
backroom with a curious look.  “Where’s Wayne?” he asked.

“He slipped out the back
while Deputy Holt was handcuffing Casey,” Grey retorted with hostility. 

Dina firmly squeezed his
arm to silence him.  He didn’t need to get himself arrested as well.  It would
serve no purpose.

Wiley suddenly glared at
Vaughn with surprise.  “You let Wayne get away so you could arrest a little
girl?”

Vaughn appeared stunned by
Sheriff Wiley’s comment then turned defensive.  “She’s not a little girl, and
she’s the one who threw the punch.”

“It was an accident.  I
said I was sorry,” Casey announced.  It was true; she actually felt bad about
it.  “You hurt me worse when you threw me on the pool table to cuff me.”  She
knew she deserved it, but she didn’t need to be arrested tonight.  Her parents’
lecturing her echoed through her thoughts.

“You threw her on the pool
table?” Wiley suddenly demanded while glaring at Vaughn.

“I was handcuffing her--”

Wiley eyed the bruises on
Casey’s face and immediately appeared sympathetic.  He shook his head with
disgust.  “Looks like she’s been roughed up enough for one night.  Take those
cuffs off, give her a ride home, and get out on that road and catch some drunk
drivers.”  Apparently, Wiley didn’t take Abby’s threat seriously.

Vaughn appeared disgusted
and removed the handcuffs as Wiley walked away to patrol the tavern.  Casey
rubbed her wrists and avoided looking at Vaughn.  She felt bad, but she didn’t
want him to know just how bad.  Vaughn smirked with contempt and extended his
hand in the direction of the door.

“After you, princess,”
Vaughn scoffed with a sneer on his handsome face.

“What about my horse?”

Vaughn obviously wasn’t in
the mood to deal with her now.  “Your brother can take your horse home,” he
growled. 

“I can?” Grey suddenly
questioned from his chair with a look of horror on his face.

“Move it,” Vaughn snapped
at Casey.

T
he police blazer drove
along a dark, isolated stretch of road leading away from town.  Darwood Falls
was usually a fairly quiet, conservative town.  Being mostly farmers, a lot of
residents were in bed by the time the sun went down.  Most speeders on the back
road were usually non-locals just passing through.  The isolated back roads
encouraged aggressive drivers to joyride at frightening speeds.  The woods and
sudden curves often caused navigational problems for those unfamiliar with the
roads and usually left cars in ditches, head on into trees, or a mangled mess
of metal and fiberglass at the bottom of the infamous ravine.  Three or more
times a year, a car would fail to negotiate the curve, plow through the
guardrail, and plummet into the ravine below.  One out of three times, the car
turned into a fireball, but in all cases, the driver never survived. 
Patrolling the road late at night saved lives and brought in massive amounts in
fines to their town.  Vaughn drove his police cruiser while Casey pouted in the
back behind the mesh partition.  She painfully flexed her hand then shook it.

“I think I broke my hand,”
she remarked simply to no one in particular.

“Good.”

She glared at the back of
his head with annoyance.  He was very infuriating for someone so handsome. 
“Wayne started it,” she retorted with irritation.

“And what did Wayne do?” he
suddenly demanded to know while glaring back at her through the mirror.

Casey frowned while
sulking.  “Forget it.” 

The Harford boys were above
the law.  Everyone knew that.  Ernest Harford was Mrs. Mayor’s brother. 
Anything they did was swiftly swept under the carpet.  Corruption ran rampant
in their otherwise friendly little town.  The last thing she wanted or needed
was to recount Wayne and Ryan’s sexual advances toward her and Dina to Deputy
Holt.  Casey collapsed against the seat with disgust and stared out the
window.  She suddenly appeared concerned and sat up straight. 

“This isn’t the way to my
house.”

“The sheriff said to take
you home and patrol the road,” Vaughn announced.  “He didn’t say in what
order.”

It was just a little before
eleven when Vaughn pulled the blazer into a small cove alongside the road
within the woods and placed it in park.  Casey stared at the back of his head
with a shocked look.  For a brief moment, she wondered if Vaughn intended to
murder her and ditch her body in the woods.  He seemed a little moodier than
usual tonight.  Maybe that was her fault.  When he didn’t make a motion to draw
his weapon or get out of the car, she realized she’d seen one too many horror
films.

“You’re seriously going to
keep me locked up in here while you patrol your speed trap?” she lashed out.

“Yep.”

“Sheriff Wiley is going to
hear about this,” she scoffed.

“I’m just a dumb, hick cop
following orders,” he informed her.  “How about some music?”  Vaughn turned on
the radio that played country music.

Casey appeared horrified to
the music coming from the radio.  “Oh, come on.  Not country music,” she
suddenly protested.  “This is cruel and unusual punishment.”  She collapsed
against the backseat and groaned with disgust.

Vaughn strummed the
steering wheel in rhythm with the drumming in the song.  Casey rolled her
eyes.  At least he wasn’t singing.  He then sang the refrain purposely out of
tune.  She cast a glare at the back of his head.  For a moment, she swore he
was smiling at her in the rearview mirror.

†

I
t was 11:30 P.M., and it
had been half an hour since the tavern was cleared out by Darwood Falls’
finest.  The four Harford boys hung out in the dark woods not far from the
tavern.  Fred kept watch on the road barely visible through the woods while
Ryan, Wayne, and Blain rubbed various body parts in response to the pain Casey
had inflicted upon them.  In Blain’s case, it was pain Grey had inflicted.

“I’m going to kill that
bitch,” Wayne scoffed and cast his back against a nearby tree.  He immediately
regretted the action and rubbed his back.

Ryan gingerly rubbed his
crotch several times and remained uncomfortable.  “Stand in line,” he groused
without taking his hand from his crotch.  “Damn it, I can’t feel my balls. 
That bitch dug her claws into them and almost ripped them off.”

“I guess daddy’s been teaching
them a thing or two from his military days,” Blain scoffed and rubbed his
head.  “That prick, Grey, didn’t hit that hard, but he knew
where
to
hit.”

“She’s not getting away
with it,” Wayne growled and straightened with discomfort.  “I’ll get even with
that bitch.”

“Better make sure she
doesn’t see you coming,” Ryan remarked and again tugged at his crotch. 
“Son-of-a-bitch!  I think she did rip them off!”

“I think we’re clear,” Fred
said from his position overlooking the road.  He’d somehow managed to avoid
taking a beating like his brothers.  He was either smarter than he looked or
less aggressive than he pretended.  “Sheriff Wiley just left.”

“We’ll wait a few more
minutes then go back for the truck,” Wayne muttered.

†

I
t was now close to
midnight, and it had been an hour since Vaughn parked in his speed trap with
Casey locked in the back of the police blazer.  Casey was now slouched in the
backseat while staring at the ceiling with boredom.  She couldn’t believe he
was holding firm on his ridiculous punishment.  She knew he had it out for her,
but she swore he was getting some sort of perverse pleasure out of detaining
her like this.  She wanted to say something, but she couldn’t think of anything
that would help her situation--only make things worse.  She had a few choice
names she was just dying to call him at that moment.  She bit her tongue and
attempted to play it cool.  She couldn’t let him know he was winning.  Vaughn
held a crossword puzzle book in his hand and thoughtfully tapped his pen to his
lips.

“What’s a seven letter word
for fried batter?  Begins with an ‘f’,” Vaughn asked while deep in thought.

“Fucker--” Casey muttered.

Vaughn casually consulted
his crossword puzzle with a serious look.  “Hmm?  No, that’s six letters.”

Casey screamed in her
mind.  She couldn’t believe she actually thought he was cute when he was first
hired.  She sneered while staring at his profile in the front seat.  He
actually was cute, and it irritated her to no end.  She was almost glad she hit
him now.  She refrained from expressing those feelings as well.  In her current
situation, pissing him off could still result in him killing her, dismembering
her body, and scattering body parts throughout the woods.  Casey grimaced at
her own morbid thoughts.  She sort of doubted Deputy Holt was the serial killer
type.  She again glanced at his profile.  Vaughn was too much of a Boy Scout
for that.  She was quickly running out of ways to entertain herself mentally.

†

T
he empty tavern was filled
with broken bottles, overturned tables, broken chairs, and food carelessly
scattered about the floor.  It was just a little after midnight.  Grey
evaluated the scattered chairs and replaced those that weren’t broken.  Melanie
and Jeannie cleaned up the broken glass. 

“Well this sucks,” Melanie
scoffed.

“At least we get to go home
early,” Jeannie replied with little enthusiasm.

“Yeah, after doing twice
the clean-up and zero tips,” she huffed.

Melanie glared at Grey’s
back several times and sneered with disgust at their situation.  Jeannie dumped
glass from her dustpan into the bag near Melanie, who still glared at Grey.

“It’s all his fault,”
Melanie snapped lowly, catching Jeannie’s attention.

Jeannie uncertainly glanced
at Grey, who replaced one of the tables then looked back at Melanie.  “How is
it his fault?” she asked.  “He was just defending his sister.”

Melanie rolled her eyes,
groaned softly, and glared at Jeannie, who now collected unbroken bottles from
the floor.  “Casey obviously did something to provoke them.”

Jeannie straightened and
glared at Melanie, who appeared almost clueless.  “Stop defending your cousins,
Mel,” she snapped.  “Thanks to those illegitimate perverts, I have bruises on
my ass and my boobs.”

She gave Jeannie a quick
once over and sneered in response.  “With the way you dress, of course they’re
going to make passes at you,” Melanie remarked.  “Men want to see cleavage.  It
gets us better tips.  You have to expect some harmless flirting.”

“Harmless flirting?”
Jeannie nearly exploded.  “Copping a feel is not harmless flirting, and this
goes way beyond just copping a feel!”

“You’re such a drama
queen,” Melanie scoffed lowly and walked away.

Jeannie stared after her
with surprise.

†

W
ayne and his brothers
emerged from the woods near the tavern just moments later and crossed the
parking lot.  Ryan suddenly stopped and stared at the gray horse tied to the
hitching post by itself.  A devious grin crossed Ryan’s face.

“Wayne,” he called up
ahead.

The three brothers turned
and looked back at Ryan.  He deviously indicated the tied horse.  All three
approached and stared at Storm, who appeared to be lazily dozing.

“That’s Casey’s horse,
right?” Ryan announced.

Wayne suddenly grinned and
slapped Ryan on the arm.  He grimaced with discomfort.  Obviously, that was
sore as well.  Blain and Fred were a little slow catching on to the
conversation.

“What’s the plan?” Blain
asked.

“I think a bucket of
anti-freeze,” Wayne replied with a sinister grin.

“That’ll kill the horse,”
Fred protested.

The three boys looked at
their brother and raised their brows while grinning.

“No shit,” Ryan replied.

“That’s going a little too
far,” Fred remarked.  “We’re not killing the horse.”

“Yeah, and where would we
get anti-freeze this time of night?” Blain replied with a defeated sigh.

“Fine,” Wayne scoffed, “we
won’t kill the horse.  We’ll untie it and chase it off.”

“That’s better,” Fred said.

Ryan approached the horse,
which now woke up and watched him.  He untied the reins from the hitching post
and threw them over the horse’s neck.  Storm looked back at the wall before him
and propped his back foot without a care.  All four stared at the horse.

“How do we make him move?”
Blain asked.

“Don’t they yell ‘yah’ or
some shit?” Ryan asked.

“Ah, hell,” Wayne snorted. 
“You just hit them on the ass.”

Wayne smacked Storm on the
rump.  The horse snorted and tossed his head.  His ears pinned in response.

“Well, that really worked,”
Ryan remarked.

“We need to hit it with
something,” Wayne announced then looked around. 

He grabbed a thick branch
and approached the horse from behind.  As he raised the branch, Storm snorted
and kicked Wayne in the abdomen.  Wayne was thrown to the ground, clutching his
abdomen, and writhing in agony.

“Stupid horse!” Ryan cried
out and swung his fist for the horse’s nose.

Storm’s ears suddenly
pinned back as he lunged for Ryan’s arm.  The horse bit his forearm.  Ryan
cried out, jumped away from the horse, and clutched his arm.

“Shit!” Ryan cried out. 
“The fucking horse bit me!”

Without warning, Storm
lunged for the four men with his teeth bared and his hooves thrashing.  As his
large head swung wildly, all four boys scattered.  They ran for their truck
with the horse in pursuit.  All four jumped inside the truck.  The truck
started.  Storm spun around and kicked the passenger side door with his back
hooves, causing a large dent.  The truck burned out in reverse, turned, and
sped away.  Storm snorted then returned to the hitching post at a leisurely
walk.

†

A
nother hour had passed, now
a little after 1:00 A.M., and it was nearly two hours Vaughn had kept Casey
locked in the back of his patrol blazer.  Casey sat on the backseat floor with
her head against the mesh divider and her bare feet propped against the
backseat.  Vaughn appeared to be sleeping while slumped in his seat.  From her
position on the floor, she could see his profile.  He was only a few inches
from her where he slept.  For a moment, she actually thought he looked almost
innocent while asleep.  She couldn’t help but wonder what it was that her
mother liked so much about him.  Did her mother think Deputy Holt was good
looking?  Is that why she secretly hoped he’d become sheriff when Wiley
retired?  That was a creepy thought.  The radio continued to play soft country
music.  Casey sang softly to the romantic song on the radio.  Vaughn opened his
eyes and listened as she sang.  A tiny smile crossed his face, although she
couldn’t see it.

“I thought you hated
country music?”