LITMIR.BIZ

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might be thinking about who you want for attendants. I hope it’s a short list because I don’t know anybody besides my sister who would be a bride’s maid. I suppose I could talk Rhonda into it if I had to. After that I draw a blank. I think Steve and Randy would feel pretty silly standing up there. So, if you can, think of two people that would work and I’ll talk to Rhonda.”

      “What else?”

      “That’s all for now. You’ll have to get fitted for a tux later.”

      “That can’t be all.”

      “I told you I’d keep your part easy.”

      “What if I want to help?”

      “If you want a really tough assignment then plan the honeymoon.”

      I could tell this idea interested him. Where would a cop and a tracker go on their honeymoon?

      “Where do you want to go?”

      “I don’t know, surprise me.”

      “Well, what do you want to do?”

      “I want to spend time with you.”

      “Do you want to rough it or go easy?”

      “To be honest, I don’t want to spend my whole honeymoon in a tent. And I definitely don’t want to eat oatmeal for breakfast. And I’d prefer to avoid all kinds of backpacker food except trail mix.”

      He smiled at me, glad to see my outdoors fix was over for a while. Maybe, if people would watch where they were going in the woods, we’d have a few days to ourselves.

      After dinner Rusty excused himself, “What’s the patient’s name?”

      “Angie Grey.”

      Rusty went outside to make the phone call so I wouldn’t try and read him during the conversation. He knew me too well. He came back looking somber.

      “We’ll try again in the morning,” he said when he got back to the table. “It was good news, just not the news you were hoping for.”

      It was going to be a long night. Rusty’s cell phone rang and he got up to answer it, wandering off again. I always made a point to not listen to his work conversations.

      “That was Strict,” he said on his return. Lou Strickland, Search Commander. “He just wanted to know how you were doing. He said we should go do something fun tomorrow. You’ve been running yourself ragged.”

      “I am not, I’m just wishing this last one had turned out more positive.”

      “Nope, Strict is right. You do need a break. Let’s start a different search.” I looked at him quizzically. “I have something I want to show you. Tomorrow.”

Chapter 2

      In the morning we called the hospital again to check on Angie. She was conscious now. Things were looking up. I was able to relax a little.

      We drove up into the hills and wound around on some back roads. Rusty pulled up into the driveway of a ranch style home. The yards were landscaped and the house looked freshly painted. A welcome sign was nailed to the wall beside the front door and pots of flowers lined the porch. We walked to the front door and Rusty rang the bell.

      The door was answered by an older woman, maybe seventy-five years old. She brightened when she saw Rusty. She was dressed in slacks and a polyester blouse with flowers embroidered all over it. Her clothes were immaculately pressed, not a wrinkle in sight, well, not on her clothes anyway. She walked with a delicate grace as she led us into her living room.

      “Mrs. Morgan, this is Cassidy.”

      She looked me up and down and gave Rusty a sly look. “I’m pleased to meet you Cassidy,” she said politely.

      “It’s good to meet you too,” I replied, curious about why we were there.

      “Cass, Mrs. Morgan is trying to sell her home. I’ve been looking around in my spare time while you were out with the team and so far this is the first house I found that I’ve wanted to show you. I don’t know exactly what you are looking for in a house. I just know the condo is not a good long-term solution for us, so I’ve been watching for a house that you might like.”

      He’d been looking at houses? He never said anything about looking at houses! He looked at me uncertainly. Okay, so I’d look at the house. What I’d seen so far I liked. Mrs. Morgan had obviously taken very good care of it. Everything was tastefully and carefully decorated which made me wonder what it would look like with Rusty’s old brown couch sitting where the pink, mint green and white Victorian floral couch was. The front windows opened onto the landscaped front yard and beyond that were rolling hills with neighbor’s houses far enough apart to be private yet close enough to see. The kitchen looked freshly remodeled with oak cupboards and glass inserts. Everything was clean and sparkling. The den was warm and cozy. I walked around the house timidly, not wanting to intrude. Mrs. Morgan took over, sensing my hesitancy.

      “The house has nice big bedrooms,” she said brightly, leading us down a hall. “Here’s the bathroom. There’s another one off the master bedroom. There’s three bedrooms but I don’t use the rooms for bedrooms, since it’s only me here now. I love the master bedroom. My husband built the house and he loved the outdoors. He put a bay window in the bedroom and he would sit for hours watching the birds. Sometimes deer come down out of the hills.” Uh oh, she’d hit the nail on the head there! “The master bath is a bit odd. My husband was in a wheelchair in his later years and we needed the bathroom remodeled. So the doorway is wider than most and the shower has been replaced and expanded. We had this bench put in so he could sit and shower.” I blushed, thinking of creative ways to use that bench in the shower.

      I looked out the bay windows and paused. There was a small barn, a corral, an open area of dirt and Bermuda; not a pretty site but there was space for an agility course. It was obvious a horse hadn’t lived there for years and the area needed some clean up. Mrs. Morgan led us through the house showing us all the little things her husband had done to make life easier for her while also explaining that she was waiting for the right buyer for the house. Someone who would take care of it and liven it up again. She talked about the horses her husband had kept and told us she was moving into town, closer to conveniences, downsizing to ease the workload.

      I was still in shock when Rusty and I climbed into the Explorer again.

      “What do you think?” he asked.

      “Rusty,” I said, “it’s too much. It’s a wonderful house. But it’s too much.”

      “Too much what? Too big? Too fancy? Too expensive? You grew up in that mansion at the ranch but this house is too much?”

      “Even my old house was more house than I really wanted, except for the yard. I always wanted more of a yard for the agility course. If you took the condo out to the hills and plopped it down where Mrs. Morgan’s house is I’d be fine with that. I don’t need a fancy house, just a little place, close to the hills.”

      “I get the feeling we are back to the issue of not liking to wear a dress. Anything that is fancier than plain old jeans is uncomfortable to you. You think of this house like you think of a dress.”

      I thought for a moment and realized that he was right on. Bingo. How did he do that?

      “So,” he continued, “take out all Mrs. Morgan’s fancy furniture and years of accumulated knickknacks. Take away the flowers and the embroidered towels. What are you left with? It’s just a house. You make a house into what you want after you buy it. Tell me what you don’t like about the house once you mentally pare it down to size. The only things I can really place in it that dress it up are the bay window in the bedroom and the cupboards in the kitchen. Everything else is just a nice, big open house. You could bring Shasta down. Set up an agility course. If it closed in time you could

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