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“Yeah, you can always use it to take a vacation away from here,” Jake said.
“We’ll put it toward our new house,” Kayla said, and Nate was proud of her for sounding so eager to get started on the project.
He knew it would be stressful. It would be for anyone taking on the venture, but he wanted to be there with her every step of the way, fully invested in the process of building a home for them.
Jake showed them some pictures on Instagram. “Before the haircut and beard was shaved off, shorter hair and only a mustache here, then no hair or facial hair.”
Everyone looked at the pictures. “Yeah, that’s Gerald,” Kayla said.
“Okay, good. We can share these with the FBI agents. We’ll leave you in peace then for the rest of the night,” Peter said. “But we’ll certainly learn who Gerald’s uncle is.”
“That’s great,” Nate said.
“I brought a gun for you to use for your own protection, should you need it. I should have brought one to you before this,” Jake said. “We’re posting some of our armed men in the vicinity too. The couple of men who were patrolling the area were in a whole different region up north near the falls and nearer to where Manning had died because they’d heard voices, but it turned out that it was just campers in the national forest and their voiceshad carried. The men wanted to apologize for not being nearby to help protect you.”
“They can’t have been everywhere at all times, and who knew but they might have caught the right guys in their area,” Kayla said. “No need for them to apologize. As to the gun, that sounds like a winning idea. I know how to use one, but I’ll let Nate handle it since he’s an Army Ranger and one of your reserve deputy sheriffs.”
“Yeah, thanks,” Nate said. “That’s a great idea.”
Jake gave him the fully loaded 9mm and wished them a good night.
Then Jake and Peter drove off with the jewelry, and Kayla and Nate went to bed. But this time he had a gun on his bedside table just in case they had any more unwelcome visitors.
Of course, now that they were prepared and had around-the-clock protection, in addition to the reports that went out saying the jewelry had been located by a couple of hikers who had turned it in to the sheriff’s department in Silver Town, Nate and Kayla didn’t have any more trouble. Peter did tell them that the necklace found in the stream above the cliffs had belonged to a jewelry heist in one of the towns other than Green Valley.
With no more issues with trespassers because of all the patrols going on in the area and all the suspects in the armed robberies having done a disappearing act, Nate and Kayla had been enjoyingtheir hikes, running as wolves, making love, and working on house plans. He’d also contacted Phil’s parents to let them know he was alive and well, except for the bump on his head that Nate had given him, but he’d left that part out. It was soon in the news that Phil and his friends were wanted by the police and FBI.
Peter called up with news about Gerald’s uncle too. “I was in Green Valley checking with the police detective in charge of the armed robbery case and told him what we learned. It turns out Gerald’s uncle owns the jewelry store that was robbed.”
“That was the uncle Manning had referred to when he said they’d been hired to do a job for someone’s uncle. So Gerard’s uncle hired his nephew and the others to rob his own store?” Kayla asked, surprised.
“Yeah. The uncle’s jewelry store had been robbed two years ago, and that gave him the idea. He and his wife were divorcing, and she had cleaned him out, but he got the jewelry store. He wanted to get the insurance money for the jewelry, sell the shop, and start over somewhere else.
“I sat in on Gerard’s uncle’s interrogation earlier today. I told him that one of the men he had hired, all friends of his nephew, had murdered another of the men he had hired. Then he immediately began to spill his guts. I think he believed he wouldn’t get any prison time because he’dflipped on the others and hadn’t been involved in Manning’s murder,” Peter said.
“But it doesn’t work that way,” Nate said. “He hired the men to do the job, and in doing so, he’s largely responsible.”
“Exactly.” Peter had located the spent shell casing and CJ had found the bullet Phil had fired at Nate that morning.
At the end of Kayla and Nate’s vacation, it was time to return to the real world. Nate planned to do everything he could to ensure Kayla wasn’t too stressed out about the construction of their new home.
For now, she wanted to stay with Nate at his apartment. He wondered about her affinity with Princess Buttercup and Rosco, but the first night home from work, he got his answer. She came home with Princess Buttercup in a carrier, and he brought in Buttercup’s litter box, food, and bed from Kayla’s car.
“Rosco needs the acreage to take walks on, so Roxie will keep him at the house. I see him at the lodge and take him for afternoon walks, so he’s happy to be with me like that. Well, he goes crazy when I arrive at the lodge too, but he does that with all of us. The problem is that Buttercup might be upset and unable to sleep without Rosco tonight. In that case, I’ll have to take her back to Roxie’shouse after work tomorrow. When we live in our own home, we can take both of them, if you don’t mind, on a week-to-week basis. As long as Rosco and Buttercup are happy with the arrangement.”
“Yeah, sure, whatever you’d like to do. You know I love them both.”
“That’s why I love you too.”
That night, Buttercup cried and ended up in bed with them, inconsolable because she wanted to sleep with her canine pal. Thankfully, Nate was good-natured about the whole thing, even though Buttercup’s favorite place to sleep was right in between them. Nate was just the right man for Kayla because all he did was laugh about it and never groused.
At breakfast time, Nate was smiling as he and Kayla made waffles and sausages together.
“Okay, so that didn’t work out,” Kayla admitted, chuckling.
“Do you want me to take all of Buttercup’s things to your house?” Nate asked.
“Nah. You can help me load them up in the car, and then when I get there, I can manage them. Buttercup will be over the moon to see Rosco and vice versa.”
