Page 63 of No Man Left Behind

“Do you want a hint?”

“Not yet.”

“Do you know the answer, Elina?”

She shook her head, so he asked Piper and Troy the same question. No one knew. She certainly didn’t, but she figured even if the others knew, they wouldn’t spoil his fun. She hadn’t had a lot of experience with jokes and riddles growing up. Another side-effect of the language barrier and the reason she’d worked so hard to learn the languages of all the countries where she’d lived.

Marcus pulled out his keys and frowned at Owen. “An old bear? A great-grandpa bear?”

“Nope.” The boy squealed with delight.

They moved outside as Marcus set the security system and locked up. Elina had Finch on a leash, and Rachel walked with Flups. The kittens would be fine on their own, but she imagined they’d have a bit of a mess to clean up when they returned.

Marcus kept guessing and sending Owen into fits of giggles. “A grumpy bear? A toothless bear? A chicken bear?”

“A chicken bear? What’s a chicken bear?”

Marcus shrugged his massive shoulders. “No idea, but chickens don’t have teeth, so I thought it might work.”

Owen nodded. “Good guess, but that’s not it.”

The twinkle in Marcus’s eye had Elina believing he knew the answer, and she couldn’t wait to hear it.

“A polar bear? Do polar bears need teeth?”

Owen’s voice was serious. “Yep. They gotta eat seals.”

“Yeah. I guess they need teeth for that.”

“They do. It’s not another animal, Deputy. Try something else.”

They walked along the sidewalk to where the path led into the woods. Owen grabbed Elina’s hand. “We’ve got the first post here. Do you think we should have a fun fact here instead of a joke? We can maybe do a fact and then a joke or a riddle. Does that work?”

She nodded. “Sounds like a good plan to me. Do you want to use Fancy or Phil for the first fact?”

Owen took his time over the serious matter. “Do you have a fun fact about the Phail Jail? We should do one of those here because it’s close. And can we use Phil because Deputy Ramirez is male, too?”

Elina smiled and managed to ignore Marcus’s soft groan and the quiet laughter from the other adults at Owen’s use of the nickname the town had adopted for the police station. “I think one about the Phail Jail would be amazing. How about the one about it originally being a telegraph office?”

Owen nodded as they stopped by the post, and they answered his questions about how telegraphs worked. Piper dug through the cards for the right one, and the boy turned to Marcus. “Do you have another guess yet?”

“Are you going to be a lawyer when you grow up?”

Owen laughed. “I don’t know. Why?”

“You’re determined, and you don’t give up easy. Those are good qualities for a lawyer.”

“And a hockey player?”

Marcus nodded seriously. “You’d be good at that, too.”

Elina fell a little more in love with Marcus with every interaction. This one had her tumbling all the way. Completely and irrevocably.

She had never put much thought into having children of her own. There were so many kids out there hoping for love. Sometimes, hoping only for survival. But a little boy with those serious eyes and that sparkling wit? How could she not want that?

At that moment, Marcus lifted his eyes to lock with hers. Some of what she’d been thinking must have shown because heat flared in his eyes. Heat and something that looked a whole lot like the love she felt swamping her.

“It’s not Toothless Tom, it’s a gummy bear!”

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