The Treasure of the Hairy Cadre (An Alpine Grove Romantic Comedy Book 8)

by Susan C. Daffron

  He laughed. “Wow, it must be a big moment.”

  Kat began stuffing vegetables into plastic bags. “It is. And then I have to dress like a girl again this weekend for Beth and Drew’s wedding. Two dresses in one week!”

  “Have you talked to the happy couple lately?”

  “Beth called to see if the kennel was open yet and I told her it wasn’t done. Her mom isn’t too excited about taking care of Dixie while they’re on their honeymoon, given what a handful adolescent dogs can be.”

  “True. I guess you could give Beth and Drew a wedding present by letting Dixie stay here.”

  “That’s a great idea!” Kat held up a jumbo zucchini with light-green stripes. “Dixie could be the first occupant of the new kennels. I have reservations starting up on Labor Day weekend, but I could make an exception for Dixie, since you finished everything early.”

  “If you got excited about it, you could give her a bath and try out the grooming area too. Dixie can be our furry beta-tester.”

  “I’ll try to ignore that foray into nerdville terminology. Beth is going to be so thrilled.” Kat jammed the last few beans into a bag and put a twisty tie on the end. She turned back to Joel. “I think I’ll need to say thank you forever for all the work you did.”

  “Well, it does benefit me in the long run if you make money boarding dogs, particularly once we’re married. Maybe your mother was right and I really am a gold digger who’s after your vast fortune.”

  “Because so many people go into dog boarding for the money, right?”

  He poked her in the ribs and grinned. “Exactly. I don’t know what I’m going to do with myself now that I’ll have so much free time.”

  “Tomorrow morning you can help me harvest more beans. Even with the ladder, the ones at the tippy-top are hard for me to reach. I couldn’t get them all.”

  “Pole beans might not have been a great idea.”

  “But that article I read about vertical gardening said you can grow so much more that way.”

  “We don’t need more.”

  “Once I find out how to can them, it will be fine. You said you like pickled stuff.”

  “In moderation, yes.” He pointed at the bags of produce. “But look at that. You’ve got squash stacked like cordwood in the refrigerator. How much are you planning to can?”

  “I don’t know. Do you think the people at the wedding would mind if I leave a gift squash in their cars?”

  “Yes.”

  “Fine. Be that way. But if people leave their car windows down, all bets are off.”

  After arriving at her parents’ house, unloading everything, feeding the animals, and finally making herself dinner, Sara was exhausted. Olivia was confined in Sara’s old bedroom and Holly was staying downstairs in the kitchen behind a baby gate. The dog was utterly convinced that Olivia was some form of snack food and Sara was starting to realize what Kat meant when she had mentioned that Holly was “obsessed with wildlife.”

  Maybe her parents would be willing to adopt a cat. Okay, who was she kidding? After their last dog died of old age, Sara’s parents had vowed not to get any more pets, so they’d have more flexibility to travel. Mom was going to kill her for bringing Olivia here. She could imagine her mother’s voice, “Sara, you know me—I’m going to get attached! That’s how we ended up with Geronimo.”

  Sara sat down on the sofa in the family room and turned on the TV. Holly jumped up next to her and put her muzzle on her leg. Sara stroked the dog’s head. “Oh Holly, what am I going to do with you? I didn’t think you’d be this bad about Olivia.”

  The phone rang and Sara jumped up to answer it. She smiled at the sound of Zack’s voice. “You sound different on the phone. I’m glad you made it back okay.”

  “Still me. How’s life at mom and dad’s house?”

  Sara sat down in the old easy chair next to the phone. “I’m glad they’re not here yet. I have an interspecies compatibility problem.”

  “Your dog hates the cat? Or vice versa?”

  “Everybody hates everyone equally. No one got hurt, but Olivia is locked in my bedroom, and I feel terrible about it. I was hoping I could keep Olivia, but I don’t think I can. Holly won’t listen to me at all.” At the sound of her name, Holly walked over and sat in front of the chair. Sara stroked the soft fur on the dog’s head. “I’m afraid she might actually kill the cat.”

  “That doesn’t sound good. I guess you’re not having a great day either.”

  Sara stopped petting Holly. “What do you mean either? Did something happen? Is it Ozzy? Or is your leg hurting you? It didn’t get infected, did it? I’ve been so worried about the conditions it was subjected to while we were out in the woods. Do you have a fever?”

  “My leg along with the rest of me feels fine. I’ll find a doctor tomorrow.” There was a long pause and he continued, “As it turns out, not only did he rip off my laptop from my hotel room, but Ozzy must have visited my apartment at some point too.”

  “What? Are you okay?” Holly looked concerned at the tone of Sara’s voice and she began petting the dog again.

  “Don’t freak out. I’m fine. I wasn’t there. I don’t know when it happened, but my place is a mess. Since I got back to LA, I’ve spent most of my time talking to various local law-enforcement agencies.”

  “What did they say?”

  “Wow, that’s a bummer about your apartment, dude.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Only sorta. It’s LA and one of the guys obviously spends a lot of his off-hours on his surfboard. He mentioned he’d been hit in the head by it a few times when he wiped out. Anyway, they aren’t too optimistic. I did explain that they might want to talk to this creepy guy named Ozzy about the break-in.”

  “Did he steal anything?”

  “It’s hard to tell, since stuff was all tossed around everywhere. I looked with the cops for a while and they’re still poking around over there. I’m staying at a hotel tonight while they do their thing.”

  “Oh Zack, I’m so sorry.”

  “Yeah, now we’re both unemployed and unable to go home. So far, this whole treasure thing hasn’t had a positive effect on our lives. I’m sorta wishing Ira never wrote me that letter.”

  “It wasn’t all bad.” Sara smiled. “I did meet you. And your apartment probably smells better than my house. I stopped by to pick up some stuff and the smoky stench everywhere is awful. The fire department said it was probably someone smoking who didn’t dispose of a cigarette properly. In any case, I’m doing a lot of laundry. It reminds me of when I was in college and brought all my dirty clothes home.”

  “My apartment may be trashed, but at least it doesn’t stink. I did remember one thing while I was going through stuff. I was looking at my CDs and remembered Ira’s dog Mary Lou was named after the song by Ricky Nelson.”

  “Wasn’t Mary Lou the dragon in your dream? You didn’t say it was also Ira’s dog’s name. Do you think that’s significant?”

  “Maybe. But probably not. Thinking about that did bring back a lot of memories of singing with Ira. I kinda forgot we did that. He had an old beater guitar in the basement and we’d go down there and sing. Ira was a roadie, so he taught me a whole bunch of Ricky Nelson songs.”

  “Wait, I know this!” Sara jumped up out of the chair and Holly leaped around her. “Pretty, pretty, Mary Lou! The day the music died and all that. Maybe the fire is about the plane crash.”

  “You’re thinking of the wrong musician. Ricky Nelson died in a plane crash, but not that one. The one you’re thinking of is Buddy Holly and the song ‘Peggy Sue.’ Ricky Nelson was a big teen idol in the fifties. He was the son of Ozzy and Harriet, and he died in a plane crash in 1985.”

  “Oh, oops.” Sara sat down. “I think I may have seen him in ancient reruns of the TV show, back when he was little.”

  “Yeah, you and everyone else. Ira went on a bunch of tours with Nelson and other acts that were popular in the fifties and sixties.”


  “Do you think remembering this has something to do with your dreams? Or the treasure?”

  “Maybe. I haven’t had a chance to think about it much. Tomorrow I need to talk to my assistant and get my life together. I didn’t deal with anything today because of the whole apartment problem. She’s gonna kill me.”

  “You have an assistant?”

  “A part-time one. She started out as my travel agent, but now she does other stuff for me on the side too. You may have noticed I’m not the most organized person in the world.”

  “I noticed.”

  He sighed. “Meagan is gonna have a coronary when I tell her about all this. She probably wonders why I haven’t emailed her in so long.”

  “I guess you’re in contact a lot?”

  “She says she’s my work wife.”

  “Cute.” Sara didn’t think it was cute at all. Meagan didn’t sound like a grandmotherly name. More like a name for a nubile, sweet young thing. Probably blonde and willowy. “I’m sure she’s very efficient.”

  “Yeah, you remind me of her a little. Meagan is always bossing me around trying to help me get my act together.”

  “How flattering.”

  “Hey, I didn’t mean it like that. In the business world, they’d say you have good leadership skills. Your leadership skills kept me from starving to death or having my leg rot off.”

  “I think that relates more to my nursing skills, but thank you. Leadership is a much nicer term than others I’ve heard to describe me. I never thought of myself as a leader before.”

  “Maybe you should. You could have been a great CEO. Even now, you’re the CEO of a lot of second-graders. That’s pretty close, when you consider the fact that a lot of executives tend to behave like seven-year-olds.”

  Sara laughed. “Except my entrepreneurial empire is filled with crayons.”

  “Well, there are worse things. I should go. Tomorrow is going to be a long and probably depressing day filled with a bunch of phone calls to unhappy people. The other thing that sucks is that I miss you.”

  “I know. I miss you too.” Sara ruffled Holly’s ears, hoping the answer to her next question wouldn’t be disappointing. “When do you think you might come back here?”

  “I’m not sure. I think I told you I have to go to Chicago next week. Well, assuming I don’t find an angry email when I get back online. They probably tried to call too, but Ozzy pulled the tape out of my answering machine and threw it all over the floor. I’m feeling even less bad about kicking him in the face.”

  “I’m sorry you had such a terrible day. You sound a bit…sad, I guess.”

  “Yeah, I’m tired and I should probably call my therapist too. This is all kinda out of hand, even for me. Once I have my life put back together, I’ll give you a call.”

  “Okay. I’ll be here this week, then back at my house. I’m going to have to start preparing for school the last week of August. Teachers go back earlier than the kids.”

  “Hmm, I didn’t think about that. I’d like to see you before summer vacation ends.”

  “I’d like to see you too.”

  “We’ll figure something out.”

  Sara tried to muffle a sigh. “I was afraid you were going say that.”

  After the conversation with Zack, Sara was grumpy. She tried to distract herself out of her bad mood by going for a run and then throwing the Frisbee for Holly in the back yard for a while. The good news was that she and the dog were both tired. The bad news was that she couldn’t get away from the feeling that she’d never see Zack again.

  The return to real life had quashed his sense of humor and lighthearted attitude. Although his devil-may-care approach had been irritating at times, now she missed it. And him. More than she wanted to admit. She didn’t have many spontaneous creative people like that in her life, and Zack was definitely one of a kind. It was bothersome that he seemed so down and Sara was worried about him. Her brain simply refused to shut up about it and her swirling thoughts were driving her crazy.

  Maybe he’d call, but it was becoming increasingly unlikely that they had much of a future together. The summer fling in the wilderness was going to be yet another failed foray into love to add to her collection. Her leadership skills, or whatever you wanted to call it, seemed to have a repellent effect on the male of the species.

  After folding yet another load of laundry, Sara gave up on being productive and went upstairs to bed so she could better worry about Zack and ponder her failed relationships for a while. When Sara opened the door to the bedroom, the cat scurried out from under the bed. Sara picked up Olivia, cradling her in her arms. “Hi, sweet kitty. I’m sorry you’ve been banished to my bedroom. It’s not your fault. I hope you’ll forgive me.”

  Sara got into bed and stared at the ceiling, stroking Olivia’s soft fur and listening to the soothing sound of feline purring. It was strange to be here in her childhood bedroom, and yet familiar, since she was lying around mooning about a boy.

  It was like she had reverted to her insecure high school self. What was wrong with her? She was a grown woman and somehow she had managed to get involved with a strange man who needed a therapist because by his own admission, his brain was “whacked.” The guy was looking for a treasure, for heaven’s sake. The second-graders who would be in her class in a few weeks were probably behaving more maturely than she was right now.

  She rolled over and squeezed her eyes shut. Feeling sorry for herself like this was such a waste of time and energy. Tomorrow she’d focus on getting her act together and returning to her grown-up life. She needed to focus on the upcoming school year and getting her classroom ready for the kids. That was what was truly important. It would be nice when her parents got back from Wyoming too. A big sympathetic hug from Mom and a few words of wisdom from Dad would help.

  The next morning, Sara slept late. She woke up when Olivia stepped on her head and loudly indicated her interest in breakfast. Removing the cat and placing her on the floor, Sara staggered over to the closet and tended to the demands of the meowing tabby.

  After she’d gone for a run with Holly, showered, and dressed, Sara felt much better than she had the night before. Yesterday had been long and exhausting, and to be fair, spending the night with Zack at the H12 meant she hadn’t done as much sleeping as she did when she was alone. It was easier to face the world after a solid night’s rest.

  The time for moping was over. She had to sit down and plan the various things she needed to do next. Pulling out a kitchen chair from the old table, Sara settled in with a cup of tea, pencil, and paper. She hadn’t even thought about how she was going to decorate her classroom yet. Every year, she liked to have a theme related to current events. The summer Olympics had just ended. Maybe she could find some sports-related decorations. Kids loved talking about running and carrying the torch. She could discuss Olympic history, ancient Greece, and the importance of physical fitness too.

  She smiled at the last topic, which reminded her of Zack and his whining about getting in shape. Having to run away from childhood bullies like Ozzy did demonstrate the value of remaining healthy. Maybe she’d leave that little detail out of her lesson planning.

  While Sara worked, Holly was happily chewing a big plastic toy that was specially designed for “aggressive chewers,” which was a pet-marketing term that meant the dog wouldn’t destroy the toy in mere nanoseconds. The gnawing sound echoed under the table as the dog methodically worked over the plastic with her back molars. When Holly set herself to a task, she was extremely focused.

  Both human and dog jumped at the sound of the phone. Sara rushed to answer it. “Winston residence.”

  “Hey Sara, it’s Zack.”

  “Hi! I’m glad to hear from you, but a little surprised. I thought you were busy today.”

  “I was. Or I am. But I figured something out and I had to tell you. This is so cool, I couldn’t wait. I’ve been up for hours.”

  “Really?” Sara smiled at the excitement in his voice. “W
hat happened?”

  “Actually two things. The first one is that the cops picked up Ozzy. He’s hanging out in a jail cell somewhere.”

  “That’s great! And fast. I thought they weren’t optimistic.”

  “They changed their minds when they saw his rap sheet, I guess. Anyway, they caught up with him and he confessed to stealing my stuff.”

  “Can you get it back?”

  “I’m not sure yet. But that’s not the best thing. This is so excellent I can barely stand it.”

  “Better than having Ozzy gone? What is it?”

  “I sang.”

  “That’s…um…nice. You do have a beautiful voice.” Sara pulled her brows together. Zack’s drastic mood change was odd. Was he bipolar or something? Had he ever actually told her why he was seeing a therapist? “What did you sing?”

  “Every single one of Ricky Nelson’s songs. The clues to the treasure are in the lyrics!”

  “Are you sure? How do you know?”

  “I just do. They all correspond to my dreams. Everything makes sense now. There’s even an obscure song that has a dragon in it. Even Ozzy. His nickname isn’t from Ozzy Osbourne—he was named after Ricky Nelson’s dad…Ozzy of Ozzy and Harriet.”

  “I didn’t think about that connection when you mentioned singing the songs with Ira. You figured it out? That’s incredible.” Sara twisted the phone cord around her finger. Maybe Zack didn’t have serious mental health problems after all. Now she felt bad for wondering. “I don’t know what to say.”

  “How about, ‘Hey Zack, come back here to Alpine Grove and then let’s go find some treasure and have fantastic sex.’ Does that work?”

  Sara laughed. “Well, okay. Although that doesn’t sound like something I would actually say.”

  “Probably not. But you might think it.”

  “I might. How soon can you get here?”

  “I need to wrap up some stuff today, get my leg looked at, and get Meagan to cancel the Chicago trip and make reservations in Alpine Grove for a decent boat that is not like that tiny piece of junk I got before. You can gather up all the camping gear and preparedness thingies you’ve got. Restock all your matches and little do-hickies, if you haven’t already. And if there’s stuff you need, I’ll buy it. And food, lots of food. But no fish. I veto all forms of fish. We’re gonna do it right this time.”