“You’re staring at a tree instead of seeing the forest.”
“Honestly, the forest slid down the side of the mountain with the soil,” Rylee countered, “and is looking like giant pickup sticks lying everywhere. These are lives, not trees.”
“Still try to see the forest here. Your job is to figure out whether there is an exchange of counterfeit money for real US dollars. And as you do that, you’re protecting future rescues.”
“No. That’s Dakota’s job. My job is to stop the attrition. Alright, I know you’ve got your spin class before work. I just wanted to return your call. Love you.”
“Get some rest, I love you back. Wednesday is coming.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Dakota
Monday
Rylee and Dakota had zipped their sleeping bags together so they could sleep in each other’s arms.
Tank was in his crate, lying on his back and snoring.
“Jasper spent the night with Neesa last night,” Rylee whispered her gossip.
“Mmm, do I want to know that?” Dakota chuckled as he pulled Rylee tighter against him and whispered in her ear. “I’m going to tell you a secret about Jasper. We don’t meet weekly at Macadoo’s. Jasper didn’t think it was professional to ask Neesa out, though he thought they had a spark. So when she was walking down the corridor behind us, Jasper set up the event in the hopes that Neesa would come, and once he saw her in an off-hours setting, he could talk to her as a private citizen.”
“Clever. Neesa took the bait, hook, line, and sinker. But what if she liked Jasper, but she had judo lessons that night?”
Dakota moved to the side as Rylee kicked her feet. She did that throughout the night. Last night and the night at her place. “Then Jasper would have licked his wounds and worked on overcoming a broken heart.”
“They’re cute together,” Rylee said, flipping over and pushing her ass into his hard-on, then pulling his arm over her so they spooned.
Because this was a community tent and anyone could come in at any time, it was a blissfully torturous position to be in. “Tell me what you think about our many brush passes before we finally met. Veer said it was Fate’s hand.”
“Veer is?”
“A woman you didn’t meet because you kicked some guy’s ass and left before we could toast you.”
“Fate’s hand keeping us apart, you mean? I mean, if I was always running off in the other direction …”
“Don’t finish that sentence. I kind of thought of it as flirtatious,” Dakota ventured. “Like, I don’t know, teasing foreplay. No, that sounds awful and isn’t the right sentiment.”
His phone pinged, and Dakota reached for it, squinting at the screen. “Huh.”
“What’s that?”
“A Navy brother in Utah texted. I guess it’s dinnertime there. He said he ended up as a volunteer when the search and rescue team was out looking for a missing solo hiker. The hiker just got pulled out of quicksand at Arches National Park thanks to the guy’s phone having an emergency satellite connection.”
“Is the hiker okay?” Rylee asked.
“He was extracted and hiked out, so I assume so. Mace, he’s a guy on Cerberus Bravo, has a K9 named Diesel. Have you met him yet?”
“They did a round of names. I haven’t memorized them all yet.”
“His wife, Tara, got stuck in quicksand once. Luckily, she knew what to do, so the drunk people around her didn’t pull her legs off. That’s the closest I’ve come to knowing someone in quicksand.”
“I don’t know what to do.” Rylee kick-kicked her legs. “What do you do in quicksand? What do you do if it’s your dog in that mess? You can’t go in after him, and isn’t it a bad thing to flounder? Of course, a dog would struggle.”
“Wow. That’s a horrific thought.” Dakota focused on Tank and went completely still.
Rylee reached out a hand and gripped his arm. “In the Kevin Bacon scenario, I am now three people away from knowing anyone who has ever encountered quicksand. You have to figure that’s pretty rare.”
