He opened the case and lifted out an elaborate contraption that did in fact look like some exotic instrument, but Angie soon realized it was a hunter’s bow.
JP said, “Most women misunderstand hunting. They think it’s brutal, a behavior left over from caveman days. But I love to hunt because it requires skill and it requires patience. It’s not the killing that draws me to the stand at five o’clock in the morning; it’s the thrill of the chase. The relationship between man and animal is older than recorded time.”
Angie nodded. She could see how Deacon would have fallen head over heels in love with this guy. Deacon appreciated purists. He admired integrity in people and their pursuits. He liked things done the correct way, not the quick and easy way.
“You only shoot one buck a year?” she said.
“One buck a year,” JP said. “I set up cameras, check them all summer, watch the deer grow. Sometimes I give them names.” He grinned. “I’m sure I sound like a dope.” He counted out a certain number of paces and set the target down in the sand. When he came back, he picked up the bow.
“This, Angie Thorpe, is a compound bow. The peep sight is here, and if you look through the peep sight, you’ll see the pins. The top pin, the green one, is for thirty yards, so that’s the one we’re going to line up because that’s how far away our target is. I’m going to put on this release”—here he strapped on a wristband that had a clip attached—“and nock the arrow in. And then I’m going to draw.” He pulled back the string of the bow. Angie watched the muscles of his forearm jump. “And then it’s as easy as pulling the trigger.” The arrow whinged through the air with an audible whoosh. It hit the cube just below the deer.
“Aw!” JP said. “I’m sorely out of practice. And I think I got a little nervous because I’m trying to impress you.”
Angie smiled at her feet. JP took the bow off his shoulder. “It’s your turn,” he said.
She said, “I don’t know how.”
“I’m going to teach you,” he said. He gently positioned the bow over Angie’s shoulder and pulled out an arrow with hot-pink fletching. “This is a field tip. It’s not going to kill anything. We just use this for target practice.” He secured the release onto Angie’s wrist; it buckled like a watchband. He nocked in her arrow. “Now, draw back.”
Drawing back the bow was nearly impossible. Angie’s left arm pushed forward; it was trembling with the strain, and she got the bowstring back part of the way, but not far enough.
“Pull harder,” JP said.
She was about to tell him she couldn’t do it; she wasn’t strong enough. But then she gritted her teeth and pulled the string back with all her might. She had learned to dice ten onions in fifteen seconds and fillet a Dover sole with the grace of Leonard Bernstein conducting the New York Philharmonic. If she could do those things, then she could shoot an arrow.
“There you go,” JP said. “Now line up the pin, and when you’re ready, pull the trigger.”
Angie’s arm gave way as she reached for the trigger, and the hot-pink arrow sailed about three feet over the target cube and ricocheted across the sand.
“Let’s try again,” JP said.
The second arrow sailed over the target. The third arrow hit the sand four feet in front of them. The muscles in Angie’s forearm burned. The sun was in her eyes, and she was sweating through her white T-shirt. She thought about her Aboriginal ancestors prowling the dry, hot, bloodred terrain of the Australian outback. Surely they had archery skills that had atavistically been passed on to Angie?
The fourth arrow went wide left.
“You’re taking your eyes off the target,” JP said.
“No, I’m not!” Angie said.
“You are,” JP said. “You need to line up the pin.”
“I am lining up the pin!” she said. “Why am I even doing this? You said this would take my mind off things, but it’s making me feel like shit because I can’t do it.” She glared at him. “Was that the idea? To make me feel like a loser?”
“I thought it would give you something else to think about,” he said. “Something else to want.”
Angie laughed incredulously. “I don’t need anything else to want!” she said. “I want my father back! I want Joel to call me and tell me what the hell is going on! And I want to keep our house!” She raised the bow over her head and thought about throwing it, but she suspected it cost a lot of money, and so she carefully brought it back to her side.
JP took the bow from her. He nocked an arrow, drew the bowstring back, and pulled the trigger. The arrow hit the deer in the heart.
“I’ll take you home,” he said.
“Wait,” she said. “Let me try one more time.” She had never thought of shooting a bow and arrow for any reason, but she hated to back away from a physical challenge. In the Board Room kitchen, she was the only one Deacon trusted to take on the fire. Tiny and Julio urged her to try out for one of the competitive cooking shows like Iron Chef. She would win, they said. She would dominate. But, unlike her father, Angie had no desire to cook in front of cameras.
JP went to collect the arrows while Angie stretched out her wrist. She felt embarrassed by what she’d said.
Angie drew back the bowstring. She lined up the pin.
“Pretend the target is my ass,” JP said.
Angie was grateful for the light tone of his voice, but she lost her concentration; she had to relax her stance and start over.
“No input from the peanut gallery, please,” she said.
JP made a motion of himself zipping his lip. Angie imagined Deacon up in the sky, in a wild blue heaven, gazing down on her. But then Angie dismissed this thought. She didn’t believe in heaven. Or maybe she did, but she realized she wasn’t shooting at this target to prove anything to Deacon—or to Joel, or even to JP. She was shooting to prove something to herself.
She pulled the trigger.
It missed the target, but only by a few inches.
“Better!” JP said. He pulled his phone out of his back pocket and checked the time. “I should get you back. I have tourists to save.”
“Okay,” Angie said. Reluctantly, she handed over the bow.
As JP drove her home, Angie said, “I have to ask. What did my father tell you about me?”
JP pushed his Blues Brothers sunglasses up into his bushy hair and stared out the windshield. “I guess the question is, What didn’t he tell me about you?” JP said. “He told me you were smart, and tough, and a crackerjack chef. He told me you could drink every man he knew under the table. And he told me you were the finest surprise of his life.”
“Surprise?” Angie said.
“He said…” Here, JP paused and ran a hand over his beard. “First of all, you have to take into account our circumstances. Most of our talks took place driving out to Great Point before the sun rose. We got reflective. It was something about the sun just coming up and the mist lifting, the sound of the waves hitting the sand and the cries of the gulls. If you were going to talk—and Deacon was a talker—you were going to say stuff that mattered.”
“Yeah, but what did he mean by ‘surprise’?” Angie asked.
“He was telling me about the first time he held you as a baby,” JP said. “I guess he’d sort of gone along with the whole adoption thing for Belinda’s sake, but he wasn’t really a part of the mission of finding you and bringing you home. So Belinda plops you in his arms and says, ‘Here’s your daughter,’ and Deacon said he looked down to see this dark-skinned baby who had nothing whatsoever to do with him.”
“Great,” Angie said. “You are failing miserably in your attempt to make me feel better, I hope you know.”
“Just wait,” JP said. “So I guess you grabbed his finger with your little baby hand, and you didn’t let go. You had this relentless grip, apparently, and Deacon told me he felt something pass between you and him. Like you were choosing him, or accepting him, and he said to himself, If you’re not letting me go, Buddy, then I’m not letting you go.”