c5

Walt had always been a man of few words, a big, quiet, mostly serious guy. Cassie seemed to get the conversation rolling off his tongue and he loved that. Time with her was amazing to him; it seemed to fly. After a couple of long coffee dates, dinner and a Sunday ride into Sonoma, he began calling her just to say hello, to catch up on the day. He hadn't done anything like that in longer than he could remember. And it's not as if they were jumping off the phone real fast, either.
He could tell Cassie was enjoying their time together, as well, and also that she had no idea what to make of him, what to do with him. Here was this prim and proper little nurse, probably used to dating doctors or at least golfers, spending time with this big scruffy biker. He was sure he didn't look like any of her other friends; it was probably going to be a long time before she sprung him on them, if ever, afraid they'd think she was crazy. The first time they were book browsing, he suspected she was surprised he could read.
Cassie needed to move real slow for obvious reasons, but that had very little to do with Walt's behavior. He took his time because that was his nature. He knew in ten minutes Cassie was special. She was sweet and funny. And so beautiful, with her pale ivory skin, rosy cheeks, red lips and large brown eyes. And her hair—it was thick and straight and so shiny, flowing down her back almost to her waist. She braided it and wound it around her head for work and tied it in some kind of knot for riding—a knot she could release with one tug and let fall down her back in a silky sheet. He'd been wanting to touch her hair to see if it was as soft as it looked, but he pretty much kept his hands to himself. There had been that one kiss, and he hoped for many more.
It was only because of Cassie and the fact that he was fond of her the second he met her that he asked Kevin to check out that license plate number three weeks ago. Kevin had called the very next day and told him the vehicle was registered to Ralph Perkins.
Naturally, Walt asked, "He a paramedic?"
Kevin answered, "I'm not saying any more than his name, which you said would be in the vault, but I'll look into this a little further."
Walt got two things from that short response. First, it would have been easy to say he wasn't with the fire department, thus removing him from a relatively small group and lumping him with a million other men. After all, Walt had already intimated the guy had played off Cassie's conversation, made up a simple lie to gain her trust, setting her up. And second, there were very few reasons for Kevin to look into something that didn't even happen in his jurisdiction, unless he suspected it just wasn't right. Kevin was a Rancho Cordova cop— Cassie's close call had occurred in Sacramento, Rancho's neighbor. Kevin was a busy patrol officer; he didn't have a lot of extra time for things that weren't important. And he hadn't been all that excited about the story in the first place. Maybe something was up.
So Walt called the fire department and said that a man he worked with had a fire and the firefighters had been just fantastic—one in particular. Walt said he wasn't sure which firehouse had responded that day, but the man he was looking for was named Ralph Perkins and he'd like to thank him. It took only a few seconds. He was told the man worked out of the northwest area.
Since he floated between four stores on a regular basis, Walt looked up a map of firehouses in that area and began taking very brief detours to drive by some of them. It only took a couple of weeks and some luck to spot that teal-blue Tahoe parked outside one of them. At least it was a long way from where Cassie lived. It was the end of July; the weather was hot and humid. Often the firehouse door was standing open. Walt had taken to driving by that firehouse often, sometimes twice in a day. If that teal-blue Tahoe was in the lot, sometimes he'd sit out there a while, across the street, and just watch. Wait.
Walt was very conscious of what he'd promised Kevin; he would not approach or engage the guy. But Walt knew how he looked—big and dangerous. His style alone suggested he had disreputable affiliations, which he did not. It couldn't do any harm for Perkins to think Walt could bring the whole local Hells Angels club to his aid in a second, though even if he could, he wouldn't. At the least, it wouldn't be a bad idea for Ralph Perkins to see he was there. One of these days Perkins would be working on the rig or the fire truck would be leaving the station and he wouldn't miss a great big biker with a cast on his right arm sitting outside. It was a good idea for Perkins to know Walt was on to him, because if he ever went near Cassie again, if he ever threatened her or hurt or scared her, he was going to be so sorry.
That's when Walt figured he was probably sunk. He was hooked on her bad. A guy had to be real careful when something like that happened; it was tempting to try to figure out what the woman wanted most and fit himself into it. It was a huge mistake to do that. When people tried to change to please other people, lots of things went wrong. At the very least, it was hard to guess right—things could be made worse instead of better. At its most destructive, the woman could be attracted to the wrong man, an imposter.
Walt was stubbornly himself. This was who he was; this life worked for him. It brought him a lot of personal satisfaction and he felt good about his work, the quality of his life. He could already tell she liked him. If her feelings were going to grow stronger, they would have to be for the real Walt—big and hairy and dedicated to bikes and the open road.
But he wasn't above working at it a little. The next time he called her, after asking about her day, he said, "How about this weekend, Cassie? We could take off in a different direction this time."
"Oh, Walt, I'm sorry," she said. "I have to work. Hospitals don't shut down on weekends and holidays."
"I admit, I haven't really figured out your schedule yet, except that you're on the day shift."
"It's not easy to keep track of. I work every other weekend and half the holidays. I've been there five years now, so I can actually score a big holiday sometimes—like New Year's Day, which makes it possible to stay up late on New Year's Eve. But that means working Christmas Day. We have to share the load."
"Kind of sucks, I guess," he said.
She laughed at him. "It's not as bad as it could be. Our doctors don't take many days off. E.R. docs don't do rounds, don't have patients admitted they have to watch over, so their schedules are a little more flexible, but on every other service the doctors are checking in by five, six in the morning almost every day, holidays included. Their families complain constantly."
"I hadn't thought about that. So, you have any days off coming up?"
"Sorry. Until next weekend, I have only Wednesday and Thursday."
"How'd you like to go for a ride on Thursday?"
"Aren't you working?"