Page 20 of Bernadette
“Wyatt is famous around here for his BBQ. He butchers a cow and serves that up. I don’t mind it at all, I love me a decent steak every once in a while. We, I mean members of the Crows, which was the name of our club back home, we were famous for our pig roasts.”
“Oh, shit. You mean you roasted a pig all day?”
“And night, not one pig, but two, along with two cows from Wyatt.”
“Holy hell, Chuck, how many people are you expecting?”
“At least seven, maybe eight hundred. Word got out that it was the wedding reception.”
“Shit, what are you going to do with security?”
“Once Morgan and Wyatt get back here, we’re not going to let them out of our sight, and if either one of them has to use the bathroom, they will be having an escort with them. The outside will be patrolled by regular agents from the bowls of alphabet soup.”
Bernie frowned, then leaned in closer to him. When she got a sniff of his aftershave, or whatever he wore, she took a deep breath, held it, and willed her girly parts to calm themselves. Now was not the time to get interested in a relationship with someone. Though, there was no one stopping either one of them from the possibility of a roll in the hay, so to speak. She looked around, and smirked when she happened to see several men walking toward them, all carrying a bale of hay. It took several minutes to get her mind out of the gutter before she could ask her question.
“Oh, sorry, lost my train of thought there.” She waved her hand before her face and shook her head, hoping he wouldn’t notice the heat she felt in her cheeks. “I was going to ask if that man from Homeland had any agents here.”
“I believe he does, and do me a favor.”
“What’s that?”
“Talk with Uncle Chip if you get a chance sometime tonight. I’ve seen David try to throw his weight around and boss Morg around, but Uncle Chip only has to say David’s name or clear his throat, and the man shuts right up.”
“Interesting,” Bernie said as she turned in a circle outside the building they stood before, and took in the scenery. “I like that it’s open.”
“It wasn’t. Ava had to remind Wyatt to move the equipment further out from the barn.”
“Why?” Bernie frowned, then nodded as the woman just mentioned approached, and handed them each a bottle of cold water, while Justin carried a folding chair, which he passed to Chuck, who opened it and helped Bernie to sit.
“You’ll read about this in the files, and we can tell you everything that happened since arriving here, but I was the first operative, and when I was out scouting, I had a run-in with a cop from a couple counties over. It wasn’t pretty. Like I said, we’ll get into all this on Monday, and don’t think I’m trying to gloss over what happened, it’s just that now isn’t the time.”
“Okay, but that didn’t answer my question as to why the equipment was moved further out.”
“Oh,” Ava laughed as she sipped her own bottle of water, before answering, “That same police officer I had a run in with showed up here at an Erwin BBQ, the first one in several years, and tried to abduct Lucas’ fifteen-year-old girlfriend right out from all our noses. They knocked Lucas out, and I had gone outside to get some fresh air when I heard her scream, then a muffled scream. If I hadn’t gone out then, we never would have caught them.”
“What happened to the girl?”
“I sent Lucas in to get Tom, the local sheriff from this county, and Morgan. They came running, and I didn’t know it, but Carl Miller was here, too. Tanner, the cop, and I got into a little altercation.” Ava looked over at Justin when he snorted his water out through his nose and shook his head.
"You’ll see in the video they have.”
“Anyway, I took him down, and he was arrested along with several people he had with him. Because it was an attempted kidnapping, BCI took over the case.”
“Not the FBI?”
“No, because they didn’t cross state lines.”
“Ah, as I catch up with everything, I’ll be asking a lot of legal questions. It’s going to be a whole different ball game with the civilian laws now.”
“Yeah, but that’s what Carl’s here for. He works and lives with us, and answers all our questions.” She looked at the two men and grinned. “Or tells us we can’t do what we are planning.”
“Or,” Chuck laughed as he sipped his own water. “He tells you the proper way to do what you want without getting caught. He makes sure you understand what you can do within the legal limits.”
“True,” Ava laughed, and they sat around to watch as people milled about, and Bernie frowned at them.
“Don’t you two men have work to do? Chuck said something about a roasted pig or two?”
“Two,” Justin said. “Chuck and I are the ones that BBQ it up once it’s stripped of the meat.”
