Epilogue
Riley Combs walked into the boardroom and plunked himself down onto the nearest chair. Both Kat and Badger looked up. Badger frowned, and Riley frowned right back.
Kat laughed. “Badger, you should know by now that nobody thinks that frown of yours is very threatening.”
“It should be,” he grumbled. “Don’t know when I lost that.”
Riley snorted. “Somewhere around the time that you had kids, who wrapped you around their little fingers.” He gave Badger a broad smile.
Badger shot him a look, just as his daughter raced into the room and threw herself into his arms. “I love you, Daddy.”
He sighed, picked her up, and cuddled her close. Then he glared at Riley and grumbled, “What do you want?”
His daughter looked up at him and patted his cheek. “Talk nice, Daddy. That wasn’t nice at all. You know you like Riley.”
He sighed. “Well, Riley, sir, … what is it we can do for you today?”
Thoroughly enjoying the fact that big, bad, scary Badger—whom nobody ever talked back to—had been totally tamed by toddlers, Riley smiled at his boss and stated, “I just wondered if a K9 was over in my corner of the world that I could check on. That would give me a reason to go home.”
Badger’s daughter said, “Put me down, Daddy. I need a nap.” Badger kissed his daughter on the head. “Give your mama a hug and then go sleepy-bye.” The happy child did just that and skipped off.
Kat now focused on Riley again, eyeing him with interest. “I can’t say I’ve ever had anybody ask for that,” she noted, giving him a sharp look. “And why don’t you want to go home to just visit family and friends, without another reason to?”
“Well, you know, family stuff.”
“Oh, I do know family stuff,” she replied, “but so much family stuff turns out to be just BS family stuff.”
“What do you mean by that?” he asked, leaning forward, his gaze intent.
“If people would just sit down and communicate, 99 percent of all these problems would evaporate.”
He shrugged. “You’re probably right,” he replied cheerfully.
“So, why do you need a case? Why not just tell the family that you’re there but not for them?”
“Partly because it might be time for me to head in that direction, but I also want an out, in case I need it.”
“And why is that?” she persisted, tilting her head at him.
That was the thing about Kat, you never really had a chance to pull anything over on her. She seemed to always know when crap was going on in your world.
“Let’s just say, my mother contacted me, and somebody I may have known a while ago is apparently about to get married.”
Kat’s eyebrows shot up. “Ooh, and you want to stake a claim?”
Badger stared at her, then turned to Riley and punched him on the shoulder. “That’s not the way life goes, man,” he declared. “If you wanted to stake a claim, you should have done it beforehand.”
“I did … sort of,” he stated.
“Okay, Riley. I need to hear a little more about this,” Kat stated, a curious expression on her face.
“Yeah, you probably do, but it’s a little awkward.”
“Nope, doesn’t sound a little awkward to me,” she quipped, putting down the tools she was working with. “Yet it sounds way more than a little awkward for you.”
Riley shook his head, then sighed. “Okay. So, … I was dating two sisters.”
“That was your first mistake,” Badger told him.
“It wasn’t serious,” he explained.
“Uh-oh,” Kat said. “Until it was, right?”
“Yeah. Exactly. … I fell for one sister, but the other one claimed to be pregnant, by me. So the sister I fell for didn’t believe me when I told her that I wasn’t sleeping with, you know, … her sister.”
Kat raised a hand, shaking her head. “Hang on a minute. This is too confusing. Can we just have names, please?”
“Debbie and Gail,” he replied. “Debbie’s the one who said I got her pregnant. Gail’s the one I was falling for.”
Kat asked, “And who is getting married now?”
“Gail.” He sat back and sighed. “And I can’t quit thinking about her since I heard the news.”
“And yet if she had wanted you—” Badger began.
“Thanks for that,” Riley snapped, followed by a grimace. “She may have thought there was no way forward from where we were.”
“And is there?” Kat asked.
“Yeah,” he declared, his tone forceful, “because Debbie finally told the truth and said she had been dating someone else. She ended up marrying that guy, the father of her child.”
“Okay, so that’s a good thing.”
“Yeah, Debbie and her husband have a little girl and are very happy. I really want a chance to see Gail again.”
“What does that have to do with us?” Badger asked, staring at him. “Unless my dear wife here has opened a booth for therapy by the hour, I don’t see anything relevant to our operations.”
Kat reached over and smacked him one. “That’s because you’re not thinking.” He glared at her, and she smiled, noting, “Look at the track record.”
“What about it?” And then he groaned. “Oh no, you’re thinking that, if you can finagle Kat into this equation somehow, then maybe you’ll end up as one of those lucky ones who ends up living happily ever after. Is that it?”
Riley looked at him with an impudent grin and shrugged. “Hey, it’s worth a shot, right?”
Badger closed his eyes, shaking his head.
Kat replied, “You still haven’t told me what corner of the world is yours.” She tapped a folder she had sitting off to the side. “Because I do have a case here. I’m just not sure its location works for you.”
He smiled at her. “Oregon would be great.”
Her eyes widened. She flipped open the folder and double-checked it. “How does Portland sound?”
He muttered, “Perfect.”
She nodded, a knowing smirk on her face. “Sounds to me like you’re my next K9 bet.”
He stood up, snatched the file folder off the corner of the table, then gave Kat a great big hug, whispering, “I’ll take it.” And, with that, he hurried out the door.