Joe wished DiTomaso Construction had never taken on this particular project, a new subdivision planned for the small farming community of Aldergrove, in the east end of Langley Township. It seemed cursed from the start. The developers were being uncommunicative and late with payment, the neighbours surrounding the planned subdivision were making a stink, both at the zoning hearings and on the site itself. Some had even placed themselves in the path of the bulldozers and other clearing equipment, a dangerous action for both protester and operator, and the police had been called in on more than one occasion to help cool things down.

Now there was theft.

He wished he'd listened to Johnny and hired security to watch the site at night, but Justiciar didn't send its staff this far east, and he didn't want to offend Lauren by hiring someone local (of course, he hadn't even asked her, and maybe he should have done that). Now the pipe they'd brought in to connect to the municipal water supply was gone, and they would more than likely have to eat the cost of replacing it, and now they were behind schedule waiting for replacement.

Still, he did the right thing and called the police to report the theft, and when the RCMP cruiser pulled in at the site, which still looked like a blasted landscape in the aftermath of a battle, he strolled over to meet it and admit to his own culpability in not securing their stuff.

The person that emerged from the cruiser was a woman, and he was surprised to feel relief at this; perhaps he thought a female officer would be more sympathetic to their predicament, or perhaps he would have felt more ashamed to admit to a male officer the fact that they'd left valuable and saleable construction material out in the middle of nowhere, free for the taking. Was it sexist to believe he'd get gentler treatment from a female? Perhaps it was. Perhaps she would give him the same look of pitying contempt he'd get from a male counterpart.

She stood from her car and closed the door, and he was surprised to see her unfolding into a very tall person. Very tall for a woman, anyway. She turned to him, and they locked eyes, and she tilted her head and squinted at him, looking him up and down with something like appreciation and... recognition?

"Hi," he said. "I reported the theft."

"Hi," she said. "I'm Sergeant Joanie Mara, Langley RCMP."

He blinked in surprise. "Did you say Joanie Mara?"

"Yeah..." She looked at him again and said, "I know you from somewhere, don't I? What was your name again?"

"Joe. Joe DiTomaso." He offered his hand, although he wasn't sure if you were supposed to do that with a cop.

She didn't seem alarmed. She took it and shook it firmly.

They stared at each other for another minute before he asked, "Do you... by chance... forgive me for being impertinent... do you have red hair under that hat?"

She smiled and blushed a little, and he knew it was her.

Joanie Mara, after all these years.

"You're Lauren's groom," she said, confirming it.

"You remember me?" he asked, feeling happier about it than he should have.

She nodded. "Your height and your hair are pretty memorable."

He smiled giddily and said, "So, I think I remember Lauren telling me you wanted to go into the RCMP. You made it, then."

"Yeah. I started not long after your wedding, actually. I guess that's why I never saw you again. Training in Regina, then posting in faraway corners of the country."

Her ambiguity of the word you, whether she meant him or Lauren and him, gave him a little thrill.  "You made it back, though," he said.

"I did."

"How long have you been in Langley?"

"A few years."

"You should have let us know when you were back, we could have gotten together and reminisced," he said, and then he felt himself blush, because it felt inappropriate; he was presuming it was something she would have wanted.

She blushed again, and he felt his heart race. This was dangerous. "I didn't know you two would have wanted to see me," she said. "It's been a long time."

"I'm sure... Lauren would be pleased to know you're back," he said. For some reason he added, "We've been reuniting with other old friends, recently, so what's one more?"

"Well, your implication that I was Lauren's friend is a bit generous," she said. "We were really just classmates."

"Still," he said. "It's nice to see you again, especially as it was so unexpected, and in this unfortunate circumstance."

She cleared her throat as if just remembering what she was here for and said, "Yes, right, the theft. Show me where the... pipes, was it?"

"Yes." He led her to the empty pallets where the pipes used to lie. She asked all the proper questions, and he answered as best he could, and she filled in a form, which she asked him to sign.

"You'll get a copy of the formal report mailed to you, which you'll use when you make your insurance claim," she said.

"I guess there's probably no chance of getting them back?"

She shook her head. "Sorry. They're probably long gone by now. Sold, likely. Building materials are some of the most highly trafficked goods on the black market."

He sighed. "That's what I feared."

She gave him a sympathetic look and said, "Hey, look, I'll give you my number, and you can call me if you have any more questions, and I'll call you if we track them down."

He pulled out his phone and opened his contacts list, then handed it to her. She put in her digits, and he took it back like she was handing him Communion. "Is this your number at the detachment?" he asked. "Maybe I should take your card, if you have one, and I can give it to my brother Johnny. He's not here today but I'm sure he'd like to keep updated on this."

To his surprise, she blushed again. "Yeah, I have one," she said, handing him a card, which had her name, rank and phone number, which he compared to the number she'd put in his phone. "But the number I gave you isn't the one on the card," she admitted, as if she were reading his mind.

He looked at the number on his phone again and then looked up at her. She must have given him her personal number. "Great!" he said, making sure to leave the number without a name attached. He sent a test text, Hello.

Somewhere on her, something pinged, and she started and pulled a phone from her inner jacket. Seeing her uniform underneath, he was uncomfortably reminded of the night he went out with Al and Sunny for Al's bachelor party, an occasion he'd had to endure with a grin even though the idea of Al marrying a spitfire like Rachel still irritated him. In a privately spiteful attempt to embarrass Al, Joe had taken them to the Paramount, once a movie theatre in New Westminster, revamped into a "gentleman's club." What Joe hadn't predicted was that Al hadn't shied away from the action but ended up choosing a dancer to give him a private lap dance, a small Asian woman who'd reminded Joe of Lauren, which had surprised him, given the woman he'd been about to marry was the exact opposite of the dancer. Maybe that had been the point. 

Joe also hadn't predicted he would find himself entranced by the antics of another dancer, an incredibly tall woman who'd used a police get-up in her routine. So taken had he been by her that he'd paid for a private lap dance, and it had been one of the most erotic things he'd ever experienced, and it had made him feel incredibly guilty, as if he'd cheated on Lauren, even though the dancer had been the only one who'd removed her clothing. At the time, he'd thought it had been Lauren herself, who'd once strutted for him in her security guard uniform, who'd inspired this fascination with women in authority. Maybe he'd been wrong. Maybe this tall goddess was the fantasy he'd hoped for when he'd bought that lap dance.

She opened her phone, smiled, and typed a message back.

Hello, yourself!

That was the first text she sent him, and over the months they exchanged more. He made sure to only text her when Lauren wasn't around, or late at night, and he deleted the thread whenever he felt their conversation got too suggestive in case Lauren checked his phone; she knew the code to unlock his phone in case of emergencies, just as he knew hers. 

One night Lauren nearly walked in on him texting her when she came home after spending an hour or two looking for Charlie, Johnny's family's dog, who'd gone missing. He had to do some quick distraction on her until he could make sure he deleted his thread; it was uncomfortable, because for some reason Lauren wanted sex even though she must have been tired from working all day and from driving around looking for the dog, and for once he turned her down, something he thought he'd never do, and he could tell she was hurt by it (he found her coming out of the downstairs bathroom later with her laptop and speakers in her ears, and for a moment he wondered if she'd been watching porn in there to make up for their missed opportunity).

Mostly, though, their texts were tame, just two people who'd met a long time ago and were reconnecting, catching up on everything that had happened to them in the intervening years. So why did he feel so guilty about texting her and not telling Lauren that her old classmate was back in town? 

Maybe it was because he wanted this for himself, this one acquaintance. The past couple of years had been all Lawrence Street Detective Club all the time, and though he liked Sunny, Tej, Rachel and Al, he remembered the years when they weren't in his life, and they weren't terrible ones. Joanie was a reminder that there were other people out there besides the LSDC, and Lauren was so happy to have Rachel back in her life that he didn't think she'd miss Rachel's substitute at her wedding; he couldn't remember her mentioning Joanie once in all the years since their wedding. Whether she'd be cool with him having her as his new friend, he couldn't ask her, because he was afraid of what her answer would be.

That fear grew when it appeared Joanie had grown more comfortable admitting how she felt about him, and he felt himself responding in kind, and he really wished he'd had time to delete this most recent thread before he lost his phone:

Joanie: Ever since I saw you at the wedding, I couldn't stop thinking about you.

Joe: Me too.

Joanie: You're so... massive!

Joe: LOL

Joanie: I remember your arms around me, squeezing me against you, the pressure on my ribcage like one of those inflatable vests they use to calm autistic people when they have panic attacks.

Joe: ??? Never heard of those.

Joanie: Regardless, you're super cozy.

Joe: If I put my arms around you now, I think I'd be in real danger.

Joanie: I bet you would. I also remember feeling you getting hard against my belly when you hugged me. You must also have a massive cock.

Joe: LOL

Joe: No, really. I can't be unfaithful. I made a commitment for life.

Joanie: I'm not asking you to. We could just meet sometimes, catch up with each other. Have coffee. Talk.

Joe: I don't know. Maybe. It was nice seeing you that time, it's been years, hasn't it.

Joanie: Yeah. Been away for a long time. The man pool was very shallow where I was.

Joe: Too bad. Sad face emoji. 

Joanie: Do you ever have time on your own?

Joe: Sometimes on Sunday evenings I hang out with my brother Johnny. I can cancel that and meet you instead.

Joanie: Fantastic!

Oddly enough, the first time they met in person after she'd responded to his theft call was a complete coincidence.

He was with Naomi, and they were having a Daddy-daughter day. Joe had taken her to Coquitlam Centre for some shopping, and then they'd ended up at the Starbucks in Pinetree Village across the street. Naomi wanted a vanilla frappuccino, which Joe found amusing, because it was indistinguishable from a vanilla milkshake, but Naomi wanted to feel like a grown-up and go to Starbucks like Mommy, and Joe couldn't say no. It was about the only drink there without caffeine in it, so that was a good thing.

While they were waiting for Naomi's name to be called (she got a thrill hearing her name called out by a server), he felt a light tap on his shoulder, which he found unusual because hardly anyone could reach his shoulder without at least standing on tiptoe. He turned, and there she was, and for a moment he couldn't breathe.

"Hi!" she said, sounding so pleased to see him that he could have died happy right there. She was out of uniform, and her flaming red hair was down, and she was wearing jeans and a tight sweatshirt that hugged her sculpted body. Her smile lit the room, and more than a few male eyes swept over her, but her eyes were only on him, and for a moment he almost forgot his daughter was right beside him.

"Hi!" he said, trying not to give away how excited he was. "Fancy meeting you here!"

"I live around here," she said. "It's too bad the Coquitlam detachment didn't have a vacancy, but it's not a long drive across the bridge, and it's mostly against traffic."

He saw her eyes look down at Naomi, and he cleared his throat and said, "This is my daughter, Naomi."

"Hi Naomi," she said.

"Hi," Naomi said, perhaps a little too flatly for Joe's taste. She slid her hand into his as if claiming him. "How do you know my dad?"

Joanie's face fell. "Oh, well, I responded to a theft call he made at his construction site in Aldergrove. I'm a sergeant in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police."

"I know who they are," Naomi said. "We learned about them in school, and they're the police where we live."

"Oh, well, yes, we police most of B.C."

Naomi scrutinized her for a moment. "You don't look like a cop."

"Naomi!" he snapped. "That's a little rude. First, police don't like to be called cops--"

"That's what Mom calls them," Naomi protested.

"Well, yes, I know, but Mom's family has her history with them--"

"I know," she said, rolling her eyes.

"And secondly, police come in all shapes, sizes and genders."

"I just meant she's not in uniform," Naomi said.

"Oh." Joe suddenly felt stupid. Naomi was taking after her mother more and more lately. She was very intuitive, and he felt he should tread carefully with Joanie in her presence.  

Joanie didn't seem to mind her observation. "It's my day off, a rarity for a Saturday. It's nice to meet you. My goodness, you're pretty, you have your father's hair."

"I like your hair too, it's more orange than mine."

"Well, yes, but you have such nice skin, whereas I freckle like crazy and burn in the sun."

Naomi seemed to warm to her. "It's my mom's skin tone. I have her face, too."

"Well, she must be very pretty, and very proud of you."

"I don't know, I don't think she likes that I'm almost as tall as she is."

Joanie laughed out loud. "I bet no parent wants to see eye to eye with their kid. It shifts the power dynamic."

"You mean, like, I don't have to do what she says anymore?"

"Um..." Joanie looked at Joe, and her eyes sparkled, and she grinned mischievously. "I think your father would have something to say about that."

Suddenly Naomi's name was called, and she picked up her milkshake in fact if not in name. She took a sip, nodded, and said, "Good. I'm ready to go, Dad." 

He looked at his daughter, and she looked pointedly back at him. If he pressed for more time to talk to Joanie, Naomi would remember it and probably mention it to Lauren. Better to make like this meeting was no big deal, instead of the highlight of his day.

He looked at Joanie and said, "Well, it looks like we're all set."

"No coffee for you?" Joanie asked.

"Nah, I don't really drink it in the afternoon. It was our Daddy-daughter day today, and this was just a treat."

Joanie smiled tenderly at him. "How lovely. Naomi's very lucky to have a dad like you."

Joe felt himself blushing and made himself stop. "I suppose," he muttered. "It was nice seeing you again."

"You too. Bye, Naomi!"

"Bye."

He gave her one last parting look before they left.

Later, she texted, I didn't give the game away, did I?

No, he replied. I don't think she suspected anything. 

It was serendipity seeing you today.

I agree. Very pleasant. Hopefully next time just the two of us.

Yes, definitely.

That meeting wouldn't happen until months later, when Joe was out of the hospital and well along the road to recovery. 

Thanks for reading this far! If you liked what you just read, hit "Vote" to send this title up the ranks. If something doesn't ring true about house construction or police procedure, leave me a comment. I strive for authenticity. To get back to Rachel in the present day, click on "Continue reading."