Lost and Found [Harvest Moon: A New Beginning]

Questions

Rio hurried through her chores as fast as she could, not wanting to leave Neil and Vaughn alone in her house any longer than necessary. She hurriedly pulled off Flash's saddle and bridle and stowed them in the barn, gave him a quick brushing and wipe-down, then turned him out with her cows and her grey mare, Sahara, to graze. Then she returned to the barn, grabbed an armload of hay, and tossed it into the manger before moving on to her spacious coop. The hens were already outside, scratching around, so she tossed some more corn into their feeder and gathered the eggs from the nesting boxes.

When she walked through her front door, she found Neil in the kitchen, leaning with his back against her refrigerator and glaring at Vaughn, who stood with his arms crossed over his chest, leaning against the end of the counter. She noticed neither of them had any refreshments, and she had a definite sense of walking into the middle of a hostile stare-down. Ignoring them, she walked into the kitchen, nudging Neil out of the way so she could unload the day's milk and eggs, along with the herbs, peaches, and mangoes she'd kept from the morning's harvest—the first fruits of summer. In silence, she turned to look at the two men, who had ceased glaring at each other and instead watched her every move.

Sighing, she opened the refrigerator door again. "Iced tea?" she offered, pulling a tall glass pitcher out.

"Sure, thanks," Neil replied, his gaze still fixed on her.

"Yeah, okay," Vaughn likewise accepted, glancing with a scowl at Neil before turning to watch Rio again.

She began to feel ill at ease from the sheer intensity of their stares. Looking up at the clock as she poured glasses of tea, she saw it was midday already. So she threw together some sandwiches, too, and cut up some of the fresh peaches, then carried it all to the table.

Waving the two men to opposite seats, she sat down and took a long drink of the cold tea. Then she looked at the men and said, "Well. I'm going to assume from the stony silence when I walked through the door that you haven't introduced yourselves yet. So... Neil, this is Vaughn. We used to... ah, date each other."

"Is that all you'd call it? Just... dating?" Vaughn interrupted with a scowl. "I thought it was hell of a lot more than that. I thought I meant more than that to you."

"Hold your horses, cowboy. First things first. Vaughn, this is my boyfriend, Neil."

The two men stared at each other, the glares intensifying along with the charged atmosphere. Before either of them could erupt, though, she continued.

"So why are you here, Vaughn?"

He scowled at her, angry, annoyed, frustrated—but also baffled why she'd ask such an obvious question. "To find you, of course. You just... disappeared. I left on the early boat that Wednesday, same as usual, and when I returned the following Monday... you were gone. No one knew where, or why. Just that you'd sold your farm and everything to Mark and left. The only message you left was that scribbled note you gave to Mirabelle. And that was cryptic enough—but I think I figured it out, eventually." He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a battered leather wallet. He opened it and found a well-worn scrap of paper out. He unfolded it and set it on the table before him. "You wrote, 'Her name is Rio, she don't need to understand,' then below that, you wrote, 'I'll take my chance, 'cause luck is on my side.'" Looking at her as he put the paper away, he said, "I finally found out that those were quotes—song lyrics, actually. From a few decades ago. And at the end of the song, the singer says he might be able to find the girl if he looks hard enough. So... that's what I set out to do: look for you until I found you. I want to know why—why you left me like that. I want you to look me in the eyes and explain it to me."