watching us approach the campsite. Rusty stood, hands on hips, big smile plastered on his face. Oh man, if he just knew how good he looked… He spoke with Strict and then they both smiled. Peter stood there with a look of fondness in his eyes. Ally might not fit into his cookie cutter world but he loved her just the same, perhaps more, because of it. I shed my pack at the nearest picnic table and ran over to Rusty for my welcome home hug. It felt so good wrapped in Rusty’s arms. I could live there. Ally watched and just shook her head wondering what that little kid was doing with a big hunk like him. Strict came over and gave me a polite shoulder hug, his way of saying job well done. EMTs closed in on Ally but she eventually fought them off.
“Ally, you met Rosco. This is our search commander Lou Strickland, my husband Rusty Michaels. Guys, this is Alisondra but you can call her Ally. How’s Landon doing?”
“He’s sitting at home with a stack of pizza boxes,” Strict replied.
“I need to go over and cook up some backpacker spaghetti, backpacker stroganoff, and backpacker macaroni and cheese. I bet he missed all that.”
Rusty warned me, “Actually he has a wish list. Chocolate chip cookies with nuts is on top, followed by mayojar steak with fried rice and steamed vegetables.”
“He ate all my chocolate chip cookies and now he’s asking for more? After I spent two days out in the hills?” I said, then added with resignation, “I bet he gets them, too.”
“You might look tough but you’re a big old softie,” one of the guys quipped and Ally looked totally bewildered by that.
“Yeah, I guess I am,” I replied.
“Will you come talk to my class?” Ally asked hopefully.
“Sure, just give me some time to get things back to normal. I need to make cookies and go grocery shopping, but later in the week I can do it. Just tell me what time, what room and I’d be glad to.”
“Oh goodie!” she exclaimed like a little kid. “Room Two A in the portables by the little playground.”
Home felt unusually quiet. Shadow had given me his customary wild welcome then settled back into his usual routine. Rusty and I snuggled on the couch catching up on minutes.
“I missed you last night,” I confessed.
“Mmm,” he said snuggling closer.
“I probably could have found Ally yesterday if Landon hadn’t broken his leg. But I doubt we could have hiked out yesterday, anyway.”
“I suppose you’re going to spend hours making cookies.”
“I can do it tomorrow while you’re at work but I did tell Landon I’d call him when I got back. He’ll probably just try and make me feel sorry for him. If he cons me into making dinner would you mind having mayojar steak at his place tomorrow night?”
“That would be up to him.”
“He’s not getting me over there without you. If he wants cookies and dinner he’s got to invite you too.”
“Next time your partner breaks a leg and needs to be airlifted out let me know. I’ll track with you. I don’t like you being out there all alone.”
“All alone? Just me, the radio, the GPS, the maps, and my rifle. You know I’ll be fine. The only thing I was worried about was that Ally might need more medical attention than I could provide, but that wasn’t the case. She was just lost. She didn’t even really think of it as a bad thing to be lost. It was more like an adventure to her. But if you’d have been on that helicopter to take Landon’s place I sure would have been glad. Ally would have too. She was a little disappointed to be found by a woman. She was hoping for a bunch of handsome guys, not one woman tracker all by herself.” I laughed, “She asked if my parents approved of me being up in the mountains all by myself.”
He laughed with me, “What did you tell her?”
“I just answered her question. It was still an appropriate question to ask. You know,” I said lazily snuggling even closer, “you’ll be lucky if you get a homemade dinner tonight. I may just stay right here all night long. You’re going to have to kick me off if you get hungry and even then I need to shower before I cook.”
“How about I help you with the shower, then we figure out dinner?”
“Seems like I need help with everything today.”
Chapter 6
Rusty and I had the sexiest shower this side of the Mississippi. It was large, with glass walls and had a bench positioned right in the middle. There were two shower heads: one normal one and one on a long hose that could be used almost anywhere in the shower. It had been made for a disabled man and we put it to good use. The widow who had sold us the house was moving to senior living apartments and wanted her home to go to someone who would liven the place up again. Rusty and I definitely livened up the shower. Any time the bathroom door was left open it was an invitation for shower play. Sometimes it was play. Other times it got hot, steamy and sweaty and we ended up in the bedroom in a tangle of bed sheets and limbs.
I awoke with my hair sticking out in all directions. So much for my shower. Now I needed another one. Instead I rolled over and snuggled closer to Rusty’s side.
“Look what you did to me. I’ll never get my hair to stay down. I’ll have to shower again. We’re in a never ending cycle. We’re going to make love and shower for the rest of our lives and it’s all your fault.”
He lazily turned over and wrapped his arms around me. My hair tickled his nose.
“Sounds good to me. But it’s not all my fault. You lured me into the shower.”
“I lured you? You were the one who said I needed help showering.”
“You lured me all the way from the den to the shower to the bed.”
“I led you into a trap.”
“The most wonderful trap. How did I live without you for so long?”
“Patiently.”
Landon had only spent one day at home in his cast and he already had cabin fever. Rusty and I stopped by for a visit on our way to dinner and ended up taking him along. He already had a stack of pizza boxes by his chair in the living room although it didn’t make any sense how he could eat more than one pizza in a day. Rusty offered to take him to Zeke’s but he quickly turned down more pizza. We settled on Trujillo’s, an old standby frequented by most of the members of the police force.
“Hey Landon!” Benny Trujillo called in greeting. “What did you do to your leg?”
“I fell on it rock climbing,” Landon answered.
“Can I sign your cast?” Benny asked.
“Sure, why not?” Landon said.
Benny disappeared then returned, not with a marker, but instead carrying a business card covered in clear package tape which he stuck to the back of Landon’s cast.
“There. It’s like a bumper sticker.”
I read the card aloud, “Trujillo’s Bar and Grill serving lunch and dinner daily 11AM-11PM.”
“Great, I get to be a walking advertisement,” Landon said.
“You’re not even walking. You’re a crutching advertisement.”
“Yeah,” Benny said, “but Landon knows lots of people. I can count on him getting around, you see, so everybody will wonder, what’s that thing on the back of your cast? And so they’ll read it.”
“Yeah,” I said, “he knows the whole police force, the ambulance company and ER at the hospital, but they are already your