[Authors note]
The story picks up again (if you forget my foopah of a posting from last week) when Matt and Kelly are on their Honeymoon. They have been travelling south down the Oregon and California coast and are in need of some refreshment.

---

“Do you want to stop for a Coffee?” I said to Kelly.

“Maybe we could get something for later at the same time?”

“Sounds like a plan. Let’s see what this place has to offer. The last few towns we have passed through have been ‘blink and you have missed it’ sort of places. The size of the print on the map for this one is a little bigger than those other ones.”

“We really got lucky with that walk on that beach, I’ve never seen sea lions in the wild. They were just feet away from us, weren’t they?”

“They were and thankfully, they were more interested in the eels that there coming down the river than us. Their jaws look really powerful.”

Kelly laughed.

“I never expected to see that huge amount of driftwood on the beach. Some of those trees were huge. It is a wonder to me why people don’t recover them and use the wood for something? If that happened on the Jersey Shore, they wouldn’t last five minutes and about ten on Long Island unless they washed up on shore in the Hamptons.”

It was my turn to laugh.
“Light-fingered Larry’s abound then?”

“Waste not want not more like!” replied Kelly as she swung the car off the road and into a small parking lot that fronted of a small collection of stores.

A small supermarket across was located across the road.

“I spy a bakery!” I said joyfully.

“I’ll go to the supermarket and see what they have in their deli section. If you get some nice bread and I’ll join you in the café. It is nearly time for lunch. If we get something for later, we can eat it while watching the sunset at Point Reyes,” volunteered Kelly.

“You took the words right out of my mouth.”

I bought some fresh Ciabatta rolls in the bakery. The smell of freshly made bread caused my stomach to rumble.

After resisting the urge to buy up all the stock, I went into the Café as ordered two coffee’s. I took them and found a table for us to sit at.

Kelly joined me a few minutes later.

“This looks like a nice place.”

“It does and the bakery next door was pretty good as well. We could do with one like this in Custer County.”

Kelly laughed
“It would make lots of money solely making donuts and cookies for the department.”

I looked at my wife and knew just how lucky I was to have someone like her in my life.

We sat watching the world go by. The town while small seemed to be pretty busy. People were out and going about their business. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed that the woman who had served me was grinning like a Cheshire Cat and looking at both of us. I began to wonder if there wasn’t a sign above out heads saying ‘Newlyweds are us!’ when she came out from behind the counter and came our way.

“We are about to have a visitor,” I said to Kelly.

She turned and saw the approaching woman and shrieked. It wasn’t a shriek of fear but joy.

“Aunt Nancy! What a surprise.”

The woman grinned from ear to ear.

“In all the Coffee shops in all of California, you had to stop in mine!” said Nancy is a fake Bogart accent.

Kelly and Nancy hugged. I could see that it was a hug of deep friendship.

Nancy pulled up a chair and sat with us.
“Don’t you have to be behind the counter?” asked Kelly.

“My assistant Marcie can handle things. We aren’t due to start lunch service for half an hour.”

Kelly turned to me with a huge smile on her face.

“Nancy is a sort of Aunt come second cousin twice removed. She used to look after me when I was about six or seven when I came home from school. Then she moved away and no one would speak about why she’d disappeared so suddenly.”

Nancy grinned.

“You were almost ten when I left. The reason I left was because I fell in love with a Priest. You remember Father O’Brian from St Patricks, he used to take your Sunday School classes. The Father quit the priesthood and we eloped. We were about to get married when he had second thoughts. He went back to being a priest but this time he was sent to southern Argentina as penance for his sins. That left me alone and carrying his child. Rose is my daughter. We eventually ended up here and to cut a long story short, I bought out the previous owner about five years ago. Thankfully, we are too small a town to attract the big chains but that might not be the case for much longer if the Mortensens’s, get their way.”

She stopped mid-sentence.

“Now, what on earth are you doing here and who is this gorgeous hunk of a man?” asked Nancy changing the subject.

“This is Matt. He’s the Sheriff of Custer County and my boss.”

Kelly grinned at me.

“He’s also my husband of just over a week and we are on our Honeymoon,” said Kelly as she flashed her ring.

“Well… I’ll be a… Well done my dear. I always knew that you’d find the right man sooner or later.”

Her answer puzzled me.

“You knew about what happened back East?” exclaimed Kelly.

Nancy nodded her head.

“I kept up with what was happening in the family until they drove you out of town. That was enough for me to tell them to get lost and that anyone who found their way here would be sent packing pronto. I did mention the Louisiana Slugger that I keep below the counter for self-defence you understand.”

The strength of her reply told me that Nancy was a woman who knew her own mind.

Nancy looked at me smiling. Then she sat back and took Kelly’s hand.

“This little one and I used to play dress up almost every afternoon while she did her homework. That’s how I knew about Kelly before anyone else. It comes as no surprise that she has found a good man once she got out that den of corruption and backstabbing that is New York.”

Just then the door to the Café opened and a man walked in.

“Does anyone here drive a Silver Nevada plated Prius?” he called out.

He’d just described our rental car.

“That’s ours.”

“You are getting a ticket.”

I could not believe this. I knew that Kelly had parked the car properly in the marked bay and the sign said ‘2-hour parking’ and we had certainly not been here anywhere near 2 hours.

“I’ll go and see what is happening,” I said to Kelly and Nancy.
“As far as I know we didn’t park illegally.”

I stood up and left the café. Sure, enough there was an Officer writing a ticket. I was too late to stop him from sticking it under the windscreen wiper.

“What is the problem Officer?” I asked in a quiet voice.

“Is this your car?”

“It is a rental but yes, I’m one of the named drivers.”

“You are parking too close to the Fire Hydrant. Move it or I’ll get it towed and that will cost you five hundred bucks to get it out of the impound lot.”

I looked around and there was a Hydrant. The trouble was that it was at least twenty feet away. As I was parked in a marked bay I knew a scam when I saw one.

“If you don’t mind officer, I’m going to take a picture of you and my car and the hydrant.”

“Why? You won’t get anywhere if you take this to court. Judge Mortensen does not like challenges to the work of the PD.”

“I…” I began.

I decided not to argue the toss with him instead, I just took a picture of the car, the parking sign and made sure to include the hydrant in the shot. I also took a picture of the Officer. He didn’t like that one little bit but stopped himself from trying to stop me. I knew that I had the law on my side. I was in a public place after all.

When I’d done, I asked,
“Where is your PD HQ?”

“Two blocks up the street. It won’t do you any good to complain as the Chief don’t take kindly to people from out of state trying to avoid the law here abouts.”

“Thank you, kindly officer. I will still go and speak to the Chief if you don’t mind.”

The officer grunted and got back in his patrol car and drove off with spinning wheels. I sighed. That would be an offense back in Custer County. Parking near a fire Hydrant was a gentle talking to sort of thing unless your surname was Cummings.

I spotted Kelly and Nancy leaving the Café. I walked over to them carrying the ticket.

“Apparently, I am parked too close to a Hydrant. I’ve a good mind to go and give the Chief a good talking to even if you are a Sheriff. Kelly told me about how you met.”

Nancy shook her head.

“And get yourself thrown into jail for a month and it don’t matter that you are a Sheriff. The whole thing is a scam to line their pockets. Out of state cars are prime targets especially rentals like yours. They can issue a ticket but you know as well as I do that the statute of limitations means that as long as you stay away then you can avoid paying but rental companies will just charge the fine plus handling to your credit card. It is easy low risk money for our wonderful PD.”

Kelly took hold of my arm effectively stopping me from walking away.

“Darling, we can’t let that jerk of an Officer spoil our Honeymoon. If he ever comes our way then we can throw the book at him in return can’t we eh?”

I thought for a second.

“I suppose so.”

“What are you two doing for the rest of the day?” asked Nancy changing the subject.

“Our plans were to watch the sun go down at Point Reyes and have a picnic at the same time. We have a Bread and Breakfast booked for tonight in Bodega Bay.”

Nancy thought for a moment. Then she said,
“That’s quite a way down the coast and if you didn’t already know it, Route 1 is closed between Jenner and Bodega Bay. The County is repairing a bridge after being badly damaged by a Semi last month.”

“We didn’t know,” said Kelly.

Nancy said,
“Can you cancel the B&B? I’d love to have you stay the night with me. Then you can meet Rose. The Café’ shuts at five on Monday’s. Rose will be done at the Hospital and be back by six.”

I looked at Kelly. Her body language told me clearly that she wanted to stay if only to catch up with her Aunt.

“Look Darling, we only have three days left before we fly home. Riding the cable cars in San Francisco can wait for another time. I’ll get on the phone and cancel our reservations for tonight and tomorrow. We can head down to the city in the afternoon and stay somewhere close to the Airport as and in case you had forgotten, our flight to Denver is at ten. That will give you plenty of time to catch up with Nancy.”

Kelly smiled. Then she looked concerned.

“What about you? What are you going to do?”

I smiled.

“There is a big ocean right on our doorstep. Oceans have fish, don’t they? I haven’t been fishing since I was posted to Florida.”

I turned to Nancy.
“That is if we are not putting you out and there is someone with a boat who knows the good spots to catch something remotely edible.”

Nancy laughed.

“Stan Matthews is the man you need to talk to. He has a boat in the Marina and even better he lives next door to me.”

That settled it. We were staying.

---

That evening, we met Nancy’s daughter, Rose. Rose was a doctor at the local clinic and was she spitting image of her mother.

Kelly gave Rose a big hug. Any doubts I had about Rose and Kelly getting on were soon dismissed especially when Rose confessed that Nancy had told her about Kelly before they moved west. Rose hadn’t lived with her mother in New York. A messy divorce and a lawyer for a husband saw that she had lost both custody and visitation rights to her daughter when she was just five years old. Her former husband had moved to LA with his new wife as soon as the divorce was settled.

It was clear to me that despite Nancy missing out on being a mother, she now had a great relationship with her daughter. I felt slightly envious of them.

The four of us talked long into the night. Well, Kelly and Nancy did most of the talking with Rose and I smiling and nodding our heads at the appropriate moments.

At one point, Kelly mentioned an old ‘friend’ of theirs, Lol Monahan.

“That old grifter,” said Nancy.

“That old dead grifter I’m afraid,” replied Kelly.

Kelly began to relate the tale of Lol and how he’d gone straight and left us some money.

“Of course, you must take it. You two put your jobs on the line for him and this is his way of saying thank you,” said Nancy.

“We are still undecided about using the money,” I said trying to at least contribute something to the discussion.
“If we don’t use it, we’ll donate to charity.”

Nancy laughed.
“I’d spend it in a flash. Lol would have no qualms about spending good honest money. He never did with bent cash now did he?”

Kelly couldn’t argue with that point.

We all headed off to bed not long after that.

---

[Three days later at SFO Airport]

“Did you forget something?” I asked Kelly. She’d been a bit out of it all morning but I was more concerned to get us checked in for our flight home to try to wheedle the reason why. We’d made it to the airport in plenty of time only to find that our flight was delayed but three hours. That gave me the time to get to the bottom of her strange mood.

Kelly shook her head.
“Not really. I guess that I’m sorta sad that it is back to work tomorrow.”

“Yeah. I could have done with another week. Still, it was nice to run into Nancy. She’s a very nice lady.”

“She is that. She was about the one relative back east that I looked up to.”

“Until she left you alone?”

Meeting Nancy had made Kelly far more open about her past. She’d been very, very reluctant to discuss in detail about her bust up with her family. I took this opportunity to probe a bit further.

“That pissed you off didn’t it?”

“Yeah and no one would tell me why. Now I know but I can never forgive my Pa. He told me to forget that she ever existed. Things were always black or white with him. You were either with the family and the means living in a ten-block radius and working for the NYPD or NYFD or City Hall or you were against the family and you were not welcome. That’s what happened to me when I let Ma and Pa find me as my true self. He beat the shit out of me and told me to ‘man up’. Ma just stood by and watched. She knew that her place was not to argue with the head of the family.”

“That must have been hard. You know to face up to them on your own?”

Kelly shook her head.

“I knew what they’d do so I was prepared for them. I had my tape recorder going all the time. I got it all on tape. I’d only just passed out of the academy and had been singled out for praise by the Mayor which made them even more angry at me. I took the tape to IAD. They dismissed it out of hand until I showed them the bruises. That’s when I formally declared that I was transgendered. IAD did the one thing that they can be proud of since their inception and warned my family off trying to discredit me or anyone else like me. As you know it didn’t last but I got out in the end and then I met you.”

“And I swept you off your feet?”

Kelly laughed. Her body language told me that she’d relaxed.

“Not quite but rescuing me and my car from a fate worse than death sure helped make a good impression.”

“Now Mrs Beecher, can I get you a coffee? Seeing as we are stuck here for a few more hours at the very least.”

She smiled at me. I knew that her answer was ‘yes please’.

I returned a few minutes later with our drinks.

“Did you like where Nancy lives?” asked Kelly as I sat down.

“I did apart from the PD. That lot need locking up and the key being thrown away.”

“You could complain you know?”

“To who? The Chief is at the centre of it. That’s not good at all.”

Kelly shook her head.

“Not really. Nancy told me while you were out fishing that he’s controlled by the Mortensen Family and the local Judge is one of the family. They think that they own the whole town. Nancy pointed out the entrance to their ranch when we went out for Lunch the day before yesterday.”

“So that’s what you were doing then?”

Kelly just glared back at me. Then she smiled.
“Two days you were out on that boat and you didn’t catch a thing apart from the smell of rotten fish? Nancy had been expecting to be cooking fish for us on both evenings.”

I laughed.

“We caught lots but Stan took them all and gave them to the Senior’s Home.”

“Ah that’s why you were so coy about catching anything?”

“Yes, and Stan will have told Nancy what we did after we left yesterday. We had far too many fish just for Stan and Nancy so we donated them to somewhere that could make good use of them. He kept some for Nancy. My guess is that that he rather fancies his chances with her.”

Kelly squeezed my hand and grinned.

“That’s what I love about you Matt. Always thinking about others.”

“Protect and Serve means doing just that… But now I have to think about you and Ma before all others.”

“You didn’t really answer me when I asked about liking were Nancy lived?”

I chuckled.
“I know I didn’t. Yes, I do but there is no way I’m going back there with the current PD in place. I’d probably kill the lot of them within a week and enjoy doing it. You know that is not my style.”

“It isn’t.”

Kelly laughed.

“What is so funny?”

“Something that Nancy said the other day. She had been describing our family and all its quirks. She said that is no use squeezing your bum after you have farted.”

I tried hard but I could not stop myself from laughing.

“I guess the next thing is ‘Carpe Diem’?”

“Something like that,” said Kelly.

I held her hand and looked in her eyes.

“This little vacation of ours has made one thing clear and that is that my decision about not going to stand for re-election was the right one. I’ve done my bit for Law Enforcement. I think it is time for me to do something different and that does not mean running a Cop Bar!”

Kelly laughed. It was well known that her family ran many ‘Irish Pubs’ in New York. When you retired from the service, it was generally expected that you’d go and learn the trade in one of the many bars run by family members before graduating to running your own. If you didn’t do that, you became a cab driver.

“Pa once said to me, ‘Don’t you get some idea of running a bar when you are done with the NYPD. The women in our family stay at home and raise the children’. I knew then that I had no future in the Big Apple even if they somehow accepted who I really am.”

Then her body stiffened up.

“Did I ever tell you that no one from the family came to my graduation from Police Academy?”

“No, you didn’t. From what you just said I can guess why.”

“That’s not the half of it. The Chief of Police found out and called my father into see him and gave him a right grilling. Dad didn’t like the dressing down he received and told the Chief that what goes on in his family was really nothing to do with the Chief. The Chief didn’t like being spoked to like that. As a result, my father got a month of graveyard shifts for his trouble. No one in the family spoke to me for weeks even after he’d arranged for me to be transferred to his precinct.”

Then she smiled.

“That’s why I liked it from the word go in Custer County. You have built a great team. Sue-Ellen will be a good Sheriff but it will be hard if two of us leave at the same time.”

I was momentarily stunned.
“Yes darling, I’m going to leave the department as well. It won’t be straight away and I’ll give Sue-Ellen time to get both of us replaced.”

I still couldn’t say anything.
“Isn’t it time for us to do something for us?

I smiled back at my wife of less than two weeks.
“Then we’ll have to see if we can get some help from the State Police. They owe us big time for doing their job at our arse end of the state. I think it is time to call in some favours. We’ll find out tomorrow how our Rookie got on.”

“That is going to be fun!” said Kelly with a cheeky grin on her face.

I smiled.
“Now Officer Harker, are you talking back at your Sheriff?”

“Yes Boss!”

“Good. Carry on then.”

---

Ma was waiting for us at the back door when Danny SWA dropped us off. He’d picked us up at Denver Airport.

“About time too!” said Ma as we emerged from his Truck.

“Ma! I called you to let you know that our flight would be delayed.”

“Pah. I intend to go to my grave without going in one of those new-fangled heavier than air doodads.”

Kelly, Danny and I all laughed. I felt sorry for Danny as he’d had to put up with Ma on the long drive back from Vegas after our wedding. Ma hadn’t liked ‘Sin City’ one little bit. I had to admit that I was in total agreement with her on that. Kelly was more ambivalent but it had paled considerably with her after less than two days.

The prospect of leaving ‘Sin City’ and heading for Death Valley with its beauty and silence is in my opinion, the perfect antidote to the excesses and downright grossness of Las Vegas.

Our brief tour of the Sierra Nevada’s and the Northern Californian Coast had been very enjoyable. To have someone to share the experience with is very different and often downright strange, but it had made it even better. Although Kelly and I had been living together for well over a year, I felt that getting married had taken our relationship to another level entirely.

‘Long may that continue’ I said to myself as I took our luggage into the house.

The next phase of our life together had begun. All I could hope is that I could protect Kelly from those who took offence at her choice of gender and that threat started at the top in DC.

[to be continued]