Sally: Autumn Storms (F&L Story #4)

Sally: Part 10

Outside the camper, he heard the strange sound again, closer...from the other side of the tractor barn.  He let his eyes adjust to the dark before turning the corner.

Sally stood there a good thirty yards back with a compound bow that was bigger than she was raised up to her chest.  She fitted a feathered arrow to the bow and drew her right hand back to her chin.  With determined concentration, she released, and the arrow flew through the air, hitting a target resting on a pile of hay bales.

Sweet Jesus.  The arrow quivered there, sticking out of the center of the target.  Sally grunted with displeasure and bent over to grab another arrow.  She wore a pair of cut-off shorts with her cowboy boots and a tank top that stuck damply to her curves.  Hello, Annie Oakley…  He'd never seen a more intriguing sight as Sally skillfully wielding that apparatus in the moonlight.  She was fearless grace in motion.  This was the same woman that hid in the back of his truck from a mouse.

Wilson rested his shoulder against the corner of the metal building and watched her shoot off three more arrows.  Her wild, blond hair swirled around her bare shoulders, getting in her face with every draw.  She puffed air out the side of her mouth to move the strands out of her eyes and pushed back her bangs with irritation as she marched over to retrieve her arrows.

She sensed him watching her and looked up.  “Oh...did I disturb you?”

“No, ma'am,” he said, wanting to smile at her, but couldn't allow that small luxury.

She clutched the arrows in her fist and lowered her bow.  Her eyes darted to his open shirt.  She blushed prettily and looked away.  “Um...”

“Am I disturbing you?”

“No, no,” she answered hastily.  “I'm just finishing up.  Bow season started this month, but I haven't had much chance to go hunting.  I thought I'd go up to the deer camp early in the morning, so I wanted to make sure Big Jim here was working properly.”

“Big Jim?”

She raised her bow, and now he could see that the aluminum limbs were coated with a camouflage finish.  A hunting bow.  “Yeah, I know,” she laughed.  “It's a stupid name, but it stuck.”

He shifted away from the building and approached her.  “I saw all your guns, but I didn't know you bow-hunted as well.”

“Actually, I prefer it over the rifles.  It's just more dignified this way.”  She raised her eyes.  “Do you hunt?”

“Can't,” he answered.  “I can't own or handle any guns.”

“Oh, right...your parole restrictions.  Does that include bows?”

“Probably.  I'll have to ask Josh.  He would know.”

“Right.”  She fidgeted for a second, scuffing her toe over the dirt.  “Ever shoot a bow then?”

“Can't say that I have.” 

She looked so skittish, standing so close to him, that he had his answer.  She'd been avoiding him.  Only, he had no inkling as to why.  Did he do or say something to piss her off?  Or was this still about that damn camping trailer?

“Is something bothering you, Sally?”

She jerked as he said her name.  “No.  I'm fine.”

“Am I about to get my walking papers?”

Her amber eyes met his darker ones.  “Walking papers?  Why would you think that?”

He raised an eyebrow and a shoulder at the same time.  “Just a feeling.”