There are several reasons for that. He’s quite a bit older than me, we have absolutely nothing in common other than where we grew up, and maybe most importantly, he and my dad don’t get along.
This means that if David is ever in attendance at any family get-together that includes my parents and his—no, we’re not related but our parents’ friend group acts more like siblings than friends—David and my dad stay far apart. I don’t know all the details other than David was somewhat of a hellion in high school and his early twenties. Which means he ran into my dad, the town cop, a few times.
“Hey, Mia,” David finally says. “I didn’t realize it was you.”
He looks, and sounds, less than thrilled. Exactly how a woman wants the hot, rugged man who just rescued her to react to realizing who she is.
“Would you have left me out in the field if you had?” I ask.
“Of course not.” He seems truly offended I even asked that.
I was kidding. Guys like David don’t leave people stranded out in fields. Not late at night, not alone, and certainly not in a storm.
No, I don’t know him well, but he wears a uniform. He’s law enforcement. Sure, it’s adjacent maybe, but he takes care of people and animals for a living.
Do I have a romanticized idea of what his job is? Maybe. Is it based almost entirely upon my hero worship of my father, a man who also wears a uniform and a badge, who takes care of people and yes, animals at times, for a living? Yes. Is it also deeply ingrained in me to be drawn to men like that because my father swept into my life and literally rescued me when I was an impressionable young child? Absolutely.
But hey, at least I’m aware of all of that, right?
“I was joking,” I tell David. “I know you wouldn’t have left me out there.”
He’s still glowering at me. “How long were you stuck out there?”
I am not going to tell him it was five hours. Again, I know guys like him. The protective, in charge, take-care-of-everyone-and-everything type. I’ve lived with and looked up to one of those for twenty years now.
Do I think my father walks on water? Pretty much.
I know, rationally, that he’s not perfect. But my instinct, my default setting, my knee-jerk reflex is always to think that Scott Hansen is right.
And honestly, so far, that instinct has served me well.
And even if my dad and David don’t get along for whatever reason, I can already read all of the same things all over David. They might both hate to know that, but they’re kind of the same guy.
And that could end up being a problem for me.
Because I really like guys in uniforms.
And as independent as I try to be, people taking care of me crashes right through my I-don’t-want-to-burden-anyone walls every time.
I really do appreciate when people respect my walls. They’re thin walls. More decorative than an actual barrier of any kind. They’re more like those really pretty room dividers made of light wood and paper, to be honest. There to represent that I want to take care of myself and sometimes I need to be given that space. My friends, my little brother, and my mom are wonderful about not knocking my dividers over.
But then there’s my dad and my sister. They take care of me, running right through those pretty paper screens and…I don’t hate it. It’s always done with love and sometimes having someone say, “I see your room divider and I understand it, but I just really don’t want anything between us” is nice too.
So, a guy in a uniform who makes a living out of taking care of people coming in to rescue me? Yeah, I’m going to get stupid over that.
And that’s probably going to be a problem.
“I wasn’t out there too long,” I say noncommittally.
He stomps to the refrigerator and jerks the door open. “You didn’t tell your dad you were going out to Bob’s to look for animals?” He comes toward me with a bottle of water. He twists the top off and hands it to me.
I take the water and gratefully gulp down a few swallows. I had water in my car, but not enough for several hours.
“I wasn’t looking for animals. I was looking for animal tracks,” I tell him after I swallow. “I was planning to make molds for a display at the library to go with the summer adventure reading program we’re doing with the kids. We’re studying all about Nebraska. We talked about the settlers for two weeks. Another week we talked about the rivers and lakes in the state. Last week was native birds. This week it’s mammals.” I pause.
I realize I sound very excited about the program. Because I am. I love this stuff. I love books. I love research. I love imparting knowledge, even in little bits. But give me a project, an entire summer of once-a-week activities to create, and a rapt audience of little, open minds to help fill up, and I’m in heaven.
I know the rivers-birds-mammals thing sounds nerdy, but this guy is a conservation officer. This is right up his alley. He could probably teach all of the units without opening a book. Not that I condone not opening books. But this is his day-to-day.
