Page 16 of His Wounded Heart

“I need to get in touch with Bernie Faulks and he isn’t answering his phone.”

“Is there something wrong at the cabin? I know Bernie can be hard to reach even though he has a satellite phone. Maybe one of the men in town, or my brother-in-law can help you.”

“From what I understand, it’s Bernie I need to talk to. One of my men’s brothers is likely staying up in the mountain area, and I was told that Bernie would know where to find him, or would know somebody who could.”

Trenda laughs and I enjoy hearing it. “Yeah, Bernie’s one of a kind. None of the old guard thought he could come back from Chicago and fit back into life here in Jasper Creek, but he did. Now he’s one of the go-to people in the area.”

“If you can get ahold of him,” I mutter.

“Sounds like he’s in his anti-social mode. It happens.”

“It’d be nice if I could text him, or leave him a voicemail.”

“Yeah, he sets up his satellite phone to only take voicemails and texts from numbers he has stored. He’s an ornery old bug batter.”

I laugh. “Bug batter?”

“It’s something I came up with early when I didn’t want my daughter to have a potty mouth.”

“It stands for bastard, right?”

“Yep. I do try to keep my swear words as limited as possible. I live with her, and I still need to buy groceries.”

I start chuckling again.

“Anyway, the best thing you can do is drive up to his place. My sister Evie is in town, maybe I could ask to borrow Aiden’s Range Rover so that you could drive that up to see him.”

“How far away does he live from my cabin?”

“About twenty miles if you take the mountain roads. I’d say about ten miles as the crow flies. I could draw you a map and email it to you, or…”

“Or?”

“I don’t know what I was thinking. One of the last times Drake was in town, he and I took Maddie on a run up the mountain so she could do wellness checks on everyone for a paper for school. He wrote down everyone’s coordinates that they visited and gave all of us copies, in case we couldn’t remember the way to their homes.”

“Do you go up the mountain often?”

“Not as often as I’d like to. I do help Bernie when he’s gathering supplies for the folks up there. Hold on and I’ll get you Bernie’s coordinates.”

I hear clicking and I know she is at her computer. In short order she’s back on the phone with me giving me the longitude and latitude to find Bernie Faulks. “Make noise as you’re coming up to his place. If you sneak up you might get shot.”

I can’t stifle my snort of laughter. Then I heard Trenda’s rueful laughter. “Oh yeah, I forgot who I was talking to. Did you start out as a SEAL?”

“Yep. Enlisted when I was eighteen, didn’t become an officer until I was twenty-five.”

I could hear her thinking.

“How long did you serve?”

“In total, twenty-nine years.”

“I wonder if Drake will stay in the Navy that long,” she ponders out loud. I’m impressed; she didn’t ask why I didn’t retire at thirty years so I could take advantage of a better retirement. Not only is she funny and smart, she’s compassionate enough not to broach delicate topics. There’s a lot to like about Trenda Avery.

“Thanks a lot for the information, Trenda, I really appreciate it. I hope I’ll see you in the grocery store again.”

“Simon?”

“Yes?” I ask before hanging up.