The gravel crunched under our shoes as Delaney and I made our way down the road away from the hotel restaurant. The air was calm and still, only the whoosh of an occasional passing car to break up the silence. Soon, we arrived in front of a small bar with a big, neon-purple sign out front that read “Willy’s.”

“This is the place?” I asked.

“This is it,” said Delaney. “Doesn’t look like much, but unless you’re into downing cheap wine at the last joint, then I think it’s our only other option for drinks in this town.”

“Hell,” I said. “As long as they’ve got booze and a place to sit, I’m more than fine with it.”

Delaney gave me a nod of approval, and we headed in.

Willy’s was a dive bar through-and-through. The place was low-lit and decorated with old metal signs of various beer brands and sports teams, along with a few road signs. A handful of tables were here and there, a pair of rough-looking locals the only other customers in the place. Australian country music played on the speakers, and a heavy-set man in a dingy white undershirt stood behind the bar polishing pint glasses.

“What do you think?” I asked, curious to hear Delaney’s take on the joint.

“I’m down,” she said, giving an affirmative nod.

I raised my eyebrows slightly.

“Oh yeah?” I asked. “You strike me more as the type that drinks in those trendy downtown bars where they make drinks with elderflower and the bartenders all have twirly-tip mustaches.”

Delaney gave me a sly smile.

“I think you’ll find that I’m full of surprises,” she said.

More than pleased with her response, I gestured to a pair of barstools, and we took our seats. The bartender looked us over with an inquisitive expression, and I could tell right away that he’d figured we were outsiders.

“Something I can get for you?” he asked, his eyes flicking from me to Delaney and back again, as though this was some kind of prank.

I opened my mouth to speak, but Delaney beat me to it.

“Two shots of whiskey,” said Delaney. “Whatever your well is. And two pints of lager, too.”

The bartender gave a nod and was off.

“Color me impressed,” I said.

“What?” asked Delaney. “Never met a girl who likes whiskey before?”

“Most girls tend to like whatever tastes most like fruit juice with a hint of vodka.”

Delaney flashed me another one of those sexy half-smiles for which I was already beginning to develop a taste.

“I guess I’m not like most girls,” she said.

Before I could say anything else, the bartender returned and plopped two shot glasses in front of us, along with a pair of tall, frosty glasses of beer. I paid him, and he was off.

“Next round’s on me,” said Delaney. “Never been one to have men pay for all my drinks.”

“I see I’ve got an independent sort of girl on my hands,” I said.

“What, the fact that my job involves me trekking off across the globe by myself to the most far-flung towns in existence didn’t tip you off to that?”

“I suppose you’ve got me there,” I said.

I passed one of the shot glasses over to Delaney.

“What’re we drinking to?” she asked.

I considered the question for a moment.

“To new friends,” I said.

“Works for me,” she said.

We tapped the rims of our glasses and tossed them back. As the cheap booze burned its way down my throat, however, all I could think about was how much I wanted a little more than just a new friendship with Delaney.

Delaney was damn beautiful—no doubt about that. Sexy green eyes, a pert little nose, and a full mouth that cried out for a kiss. Her skin was fair and flawless, and her mane of chocolate-brown hair hung playfully down at her shoulders. And I could tell that there was a killer body hiding beneath those expensive business clothes.

On top of my clear physical attraction to her, I was genuinely enjoying getting to know her. She had a sharp, sassy personality and had just as much of a taste for banter as I did. Meeting her was by far the highlight of my trip to this faraway little town.

“So,” said Delaney, wrapping her slim, French-nail-tipped fingers around her tall glass of beer. “What do you miss most about Dallas when you’re in a place like this, as far from home as it’s possible to be?”

“Hard to say,” I told her. “Takes about an hour in a place like this before you’re already missing the creature comforts of a real city.”

I glanced around after the words left my mouth, hoping that I didn’t catch the ire of any of the locals. But the bartender had gone off somewhere, and the two other patrons in the place seemed so into their pints that Delaney and I could’ve had a fistfight in the middle of the joint and they wouldn’t have noticed.

“You’ve been in Dallas for a while?” she asked, setting down her beer after taking a long sip.

“Yep,” I said. “Though my job has me traveling all over the place. My apartment might as well be a hotel.”

“I know the feeling,” she said. “My place is just a spot to crash and get myself mentally ready for the next trip to God-knows-where.”

“That mean you’re getting tired of it?”

“No,” she said, looking away. “I mean, I don’t know. Maybe.”

The words came out in a strange blurt, and I could tell that she was more than a little unsure about her answer. Deciding to keep things light, I went back to her original question.

“Paulie’s sandwich shop,” I said. “That’s one of the things I miss most about Dallas. You know the place?”

“I don’t,” said Delaney, seeming relieved to have changed subjects. “But I’m intrigued.”

“It’s a place down in the West End. Best meatball sub you’ll ever have in your life. It’s kind of a ritual of mine to go there for my first meal when I get back into town.”

“That so?” asked Delaney, a bit of incredulity in her tone.

“That surprise you?” I asked.

“Maybe a little,” she said. “You don’t look like the kind of guy who eats too many meatball subs.”

“We all have our vices,” I said.

Delaney flashed me a coy look.

“I suppose we do,” she said, the hint of a sensual smile playing on her lovely lips.

I let the moment hang in the air, our eyes locked onto one another’s.

“And you?” I asked. “What do you miss about our humble home?”

“Warren Park,” she said, not missing a beat. “I go there all the time for walks, to clear my head.”

“Being in a place like this makes you appreciate having some green around,” I said.

“No kidding,” she said. “The drive up here was torture. I felt like I was driving through a wasteland.”

“Eight hours of nothing,” I said. “I’ve driven through Western Kansas, and the Northern Territory makes that state feel like I’m driving through a damn theme park.”

“I don’t know how they do it,” she said. “I’d go crazy in a town like this.”

“I know what you mean,” I said. “I need a little more action than a place with a population of less than a thousand can offer.”

“That’s right,” she said, her eyes narrowing. “A place with a little more…stimulation.”

I couldn’t help but let a smirk form on my lips—her insinuation was more than clear. And I couldn’t help but be pleased with the direction this evening was going.

“I think I need to use the little girl’s room,” she said. “Excuse me.”

She rose from her seat and headed off in the direction of the bathroom, and I couldn’t help but let my eyes linger on her rear as she walked.

Once she disappeared behind the door, I lifted my drink to my mouth and took a long sip. The day that I’d just had was fresh in my mind, and it played over in my head.

I wasn’t in town for any kind of logging operation, and I suspected that Delaney had picked up on how flimsy my story was. In reality, I’d come here to stop by the cemetery and finally pay my respects to my father.

The drive up to Longbridge had given me plenty of time to go over my reasons for being here. This place was the hometown of my father, who passed a year ago after a short and sudden illness. He’d come back to Longbridge after divorcing my mother and shacking up with the woman with whom he’d been cheating.

Earlier in the day, I’d found myself at the lonely grave in the dusty cemetery, a strange mixture of emotions in my heart as my eyes lingered on my father’s name on the small plaque. I knew that I needed to simply forget him and move on, to try to do what I could to keep his memory a fond one in my heart.

But I couldn’t. All I could think about was how devastated my mother had been when he left, how it didn’t seem as though he gave a good goddamn about anyone’s needs other than his. He dropped off the face of the earth when he moved back here to town, and the more I thought about it, the more I wondered if that was his goal—to forget about the life he’d led, to put my mother and me behind him and start fresh, away from his old obligations.

More than anything else, I wanted to sit him down and ask why, why he’d found it fitting and proper to simply leave, as though we’d been some mistake that he wanted to ignore, to pretend had never happened. For years I’d known that I needed to have this conversation, that I needed to come to Longbridge to sit down with my father and get some answers. But time flew by, and before I knew it, I’d received the news that he was in the final stages of a sudden and severe illness. Then he died, and that was that.

“Two more whiskeys,” I said to the bartender as he returned to his spot behind the bar.

He grunted and nodded before pouring the shots.

I suppose that at the very least, I could distract myself from these matters with some booze and a little romance—if that’s what one could call a quick fling.

“Say,” I said to the bartender, not able to resist. “You know John Gable?”

The bartender stopped in his tracks and looked away for a time.

“Why? You know him?” he asked.

“I do,” I said. “Kind of. We met through work a while back, and he told me to look him up if he was ever in Longbridge.”

A quizzical expression formed on the bartender’s face.

“Not sure what kind of work John did that had him working with Americans, but if you say so. Anyway, he passed about a year back.”

“Oh,” I said. “That’s too bad.”

“Yeah, sorry to be the one to break it to you.”

“And…what did he do in town?”

“Not sure,” the bartender said. “He lived mostly in Sydney. Only popped back into town now and then. Him and his woman.”

“And is she still in town?”

“Nah,” he said. “She took off after John died. Heard she went to live with her family in Perth. Could be wrong about that, though.”

Right at that moment, Delaney returned from the bathroom and plopped back into her chair. The bartender took that as his cue to leave and headed off.

“I see you went ahead and ordered us another round,” she said, her eyes on the two fresh shots of booze.

“I did,” I said. “Hope that wasn’t a little presumptuous of me.”

She flashed me another smile.

“Just presumptuous enough.”