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Hale kissed the top of her head, brushing off Van’s announcement. “Did it take a bullet to get you to change your mind?”
“I think it’s probably inevitable, and I’ve decided I’m a ‘don’t fight fate’ girl,” she replied.
“Then it was worth it.” Hale took her hand. “Van, if you change your mind, you’re welcome to join us.”
He watched as they walked into the big bedroom and the door closed.
It was the longest time before he got to sleep.
Chapter Eleven
Elisa drove up the mountain, a little worried she was going to fall off the other side, but this was the way she’d been told she had to go if she wanted to get to Elk Creek Lodge. She was on her way to speak to a woman named Chelle McIntyre who worked the information desk. It was Chelle’s first day back at work after a vacation and Elisa’s first chance to try to get more information on the lawyer looking for her guys.
This was her first real investigation as a Bliss County Deputy, and she was not going to screw it up. She was going to be a professional and prove Gemma hadn’t been wrong about her.
“Now if you take that road right there, you can get up to Mountain and Valley.”
She was a professional who was taking her dad with her on her first case.
“Mountain and Valley has a great telescope,” her dad explained. “Can see all the way to the Nebular’s home system. Can’t see the planet, of course. They keep that locked down real tight. Got excellent shields, and they use their sun to hide, too. Smart fellas those ones.”
She knew too much about aliens, but it was fun to have her dad around. He could talk forever about the aliens he’d hunted, but he could talk about other things, too. He was smart and she enjoyed his company, and when Sabrina got here she would fall madly in love with him and Cassidy and she would want to stay and they would be a family and…
She had to stop with the unreasonable expectations. Like the one where Van didn’t put up wall after wall.
“Of course you don’t need a telescope to see the rest of what Mountain and Valley has to offer, but I say live and let live,” her dad continued. “I’m not much one for the nekkid lifestyle, but it doesn’t hurt anyone. Well, except when they go on those nature walks and end up covered in poison ivy. Why anyone would want to walk through the woods nekkid, I have no idea, but then I’ve had to do it myself a time or two when I got dropped off. See, the transporters don’t always pick up on things like clothes.”
“Mountain and Valley is the nudist resort, right?” If she let him, he would go into a long discussion of the various teleportation rays used around the galaxy. She’d already learned how to gently ease her father back to earth.
It was odd because she would have told anyone who asked that she wasn’t a person who dealt with nonsense. What she’d come to learn was nonsense was relative. She likely wouldn’t put up with it if she thought he was trying to be funny or play a joke on her, but this was serious to her dad. She’d had some time to think about it. He could be processing trauma in a different way than others, but he was kind and seemed to very much enjoy his life, so who was she to push him?
He was so unlike her mother.
“Yes, it’s a real nice place, and they have some fun parties,” her dad replied. “You don’t even have to take off your clothes if you don’t want to, but you do have to be respectful. I’m sure Nate went over all that with you.”
She snorted at the thought. “The sheriff passed me a handbook it looked like he wrote himself and then told me he was going fishing. I’ve been mostly working with Cam or by myself with Gemma. They still have some temp guys taking night shifts. Gemma was right. They need a larger staff.”
The handbook had helpful hints on surviving Bliss as a law enforcement officer. It included a map of the town and coupons for free drinks at Trio.
What had she gotten herself into?
“You okay, honey?” her dad asked.
“I’m fine. Why?”
“Because when you’re nervous, your hands tighten around the wheel. Up until now I thought it was because you’re not used to mountain driving. You’re doing an excellent job, by the way. In a couple of months you’ll be an expert, and this won’t bother you at all.” Her father sat in the passenger seat of the big county vehicle, though when she’d picked him up, he’d tried to climb in the back. He’d told her the back was comfy, but she wasn’t going to ride with her dad where she would normally put people she arrested.
