𝐌𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐂𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫 | 𝐏𝐡𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐩 𝐆𝐫𝐚𝐯𝐞𝐬 𝐗 𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫

I'll be Around

╭────── · · ୨୧ · · ──────╮

If Phillip Graves hadn't been medically discharged from his union following a bullet to the shoulder, and little Winnie Collins hadn't been swept back home to dusty Texas after the devastation of her engagement to another man - and the subsequent fallout of her job - neither of them would have truly met.

After a tumultuous weekend, arriving at her Daddy's ranch, along the dirt track - past the sunny crop fields out to the West, the creek and the woodland to the East, and their flock of sheep along the ridgeline beside their home - the last thing she'd expected to see in their driveway was a rust-brown Ford F-250.

Steven Collins - Mr. Collins - did not own a rust-brown Ford F-250.

The likely assumption was that her father had a friend over - one of the guys he fought with from back in the field, though that was a number of years back, probably an older fellow, hence the pick-up - but it could have been the case, also, that there was a stranger on their ranch.

And Winnie didn't take kindly to strangers on their ranch.

"The hell is this... ?" She encircled the truck, noting the pack of smokes on the dashboard. An out-of-state brand.

On approach to their ranch, she spotted her mother, Mrs. Collins, picking some weeds from their front porch. She was wearing her outdoor dress - a yellow one with a floral pattern that she only wore outside because nobody could tell if she took a tumble in the tawny dirt.

There was a significant scowl on poor Winnie's face as she slid a hand along the railing, for the fact that neither of her parents had informed her of their guest, but she tried not to let it cloud her thoughts as she called, with as sweet a voice as she could muster;

"Momma?"

Mrs. Collins flung another weed or two. "My darlin' Winnie!" And, with a wild gallop and a frantic disposition, slammed open the screen door, shouting, "Steve! She's here! Winnie's back! Get y'ass out 'here!"

Winnie had never been so gravely suffocated; her mother surely squeezed tight enough to change the structure of her ribs, and - sure enough, from the likes of her mother's commotion - her father leapt from the couch and ran outside, too.

"Y'alright, sweetheart?"

"Daddy!" She grinned, catching him in a hug that - to his credit - wasn't so stifling.

When she appeared from the hug again, she noticed a stranger on their porch. He had a cigarette between his lips - of the same ilk she'd seen on the Ford F-250's dash - and a kink in his hip as he leant against the doorframe. He was an older man. There was no doubt about it, at least at the tail-end of his thirties, and his forehead crinkled whenever he squinted at the sun.

His shirt - one of those sky blue cotton-blends they sold at the farmer's markets on Tuesdays - was unbuttoned to the sternum and tucked at the elbows to resolve the effect of the afternoon sun.

Mrs. Collins' hand on Winnie's cheek distracted from the sight; he slung an arm about her waist, and the two of them commented on her 'bright' appearance - to distract from the grey bags beneath her eyes from hours of wobbling over a man she thought she loved - and Winnie considered that she, somehow, recognised their guest.