Page 9 of Every Little Kiss
Ms.Moberly leaned over and gave Bullseye a head scratch. Bullseye didn’t even bother opening an eye. He was already asleep. “Now, you might want a notepad and pen so you can take notes. I saw onCriminal Mindsthat in a missing-person situation, it’s important to walk through their final days.”
“LuLu’s a dog,” Ford repeated as Harris took a notepad from his chest pocket and handed it to Ford.
Ford ignored this. “Could you excuse us for a moment?” Before Ms.Moberly could argue, Ford grabbed his “boss” by the back of the neck and walked out of ear range. Bullseye rolled onto his side and farted.
“Look, I’m sorry for missing your briefing,” he whispered. “It won’t happen again. So you can stop with the whole first-day prank wars.”
“No prank, Jamison. We got a call. You were on the schedule. I thought,How lucky are we to have a K-9 officer on our team today?” Harris laughed. Ford did not.
“I’m the head of the division.” Well, he was back home, where he wouldn’t have to deal with this kind of crap. “And I’m here to consult on recruiting and organizing your new volunteer K-9 team and maybe find some lost hikers. Itraindogs—I don’t find them.”
“You’re here because you decided to play hooky on the biggest test of your career, and your boss sent you to detention—in my department. So you get to play community-outreach director while you’re here, which means riding the desk and the occasional callout.” Harris gestured to the manicured lawns, neatly kept houses, and newer SUV parked around the cul-de-sac. “So for the next three weeks, this is your community. And it’s time to start reaching out. Making connections. Building bonds.” He leaned in. “You can start with Ms.Moberly.”
“Making nice with the residents isn’t really my thing.” It was why he’d stuck with the more extreme cases. He had an innate confidence to him that worked in rescue situations. Small talk with townsfolk? That was not on his list of skills.
Although he’d done some pretty good small talk earlier that morning. His body was still humming from the encounter.
Harris hooked his thumbs through his belt loops. “Great time to turn your weakness into your strength, then. Practice makes perfect.”
“Do you have any other fortune-cookie advice for me?”
“How aboutbeggars can’t be choosers, so gear up,” Harris said, pointing to the mountain range behind them. “Because until you decide to stop bailing and haul your sorry ass up Canyon Ridge and pass your certification, this is as exciting as work will get for you.”
It wasn’t the hike up one of Sequoia Lake’s most treacherous peaks he was worried about. It was spending twenty-four hours up there alone, looking down on the site of the accident that had changed everything, with nothing but his memories and what-ifs to keep him warm.
“I didn’t bail. I was doing a search at the mudslide in Montana,” Ford pointed out.
“A search you volunteered to go on even though you knew your yearly test was that weekend,” Harris said. “And you didn’t tell me that Sam Preston was the victim of that car crash two winters ago that went from rescue to recovery when the big snowstorm hit.”
Ford froze at the name he hadn’t heard since all the media had died down more than a year ago.
“Yeah, that was the same look I had when Bob from Reno called to see if I could offer some air support on a search, then asked me if I knew I’d brought on the guy involved with Sam’s recovery.”
“It was a recovery and a rescue. His son made it out.”
Barely. Ford had found Sam and his son in a cave, a quarter mile from the accident site. Sam was in critical condition, Paxton hardly old enough to understand what was happening. And both were at risk from the elements.
It had been touch-and-go for a while, and when the temperature dropped to freezing, Ford began to doubt if any of them would make it out. A therapist would argue that he never had. That a piece of him was still back there.
A piece he was hoping to reclaim by coming back to Sequoia Lake.
“Does his widow know you were the responding officer?” Harris asked.
“No,” Ford said sharply. “And I intend to keep it that way.” Which was why he’d backpedaled over buying her coffee.
He knew walking up to that counter exactly whom he’d encounter. Prepared himself for the familiar rush of guilt that came whenever he’d caught a glimpse of Sam’s family on his visits to the area over the past couple of years. But nothing could have prepared him for the spark of attraction he’d felt.
“Good luck with that, man.” Harris laughed. “This is Sequoia Lake you’re talking about. Gossip is like gold in this place. A bear can’t shit in the woods without the town calling a council meeting to discuss it.”
“Well, there will be no discussions here. I won’t be around long enough to create any buzz.”
“Hate to break it to you, but the gossip mill started churning the moment you were spotted flirting with the town’s favorite single mom this morning. I give it until dinner before people claim that destiny placed you in the rental right down the lake from her.”
Ford snorted. “It wasn’t destiny.”
“Right. Bob didn’t think so either. Just like I don’t think he sent you here to ride the desk to scare you into getting recertified,” Harris said. “I think he sent you here so you’d have to face the one site you’ve been avoiding.”
“I’ve worked in Sequoia Lake on over a dozen searches with you since then.”
