They had arrived at the campground off of Highway 89 at the northern end of the park after making the eight-hour drive from the ranch the day after the wedding.
It was Jenny’s first real chance to start moving into their new RV-style custom sleeper cab. She’d had little time after the late evening wedding, the reception, and saying goodbye to friends.
They had stopped at Bozeman along the way to shop for supplies they would need for their trip.
Now settled in at the campsite, Jenny was looking at boxes of supplies from the ranch they had thrown into the truck before taking off, and at the shopping bags from the store.
“You’ll have to help me decide where to put all this stuff,” Jenny said. “I can’t believe how much space we have, and how much storage.”
After they packed those things away and made some semblance of order, Jenny heated up leftovers they had packed into their refrigerator from the wedding reception. They were sitting at the table eating dinner.
“I love this kitchen,” Jenny said. “It is so different from those first meals we used to have crowded all together in your other truck. Remember?”
Hugh remembered how nervous he had been when Jenny had first come onto his truck, and how the closeness from the confines of the small sleeper had both unnerved and excited him.
“Yeah, I definitely remember those days,” he said. “And I’m so happy you like it.”
Jenny remarked at what a beautiful wedding it had been.
When the wedding was being planned everyone had agreed they liked the idea of an evening wedding that would give a romantically lighted ambience as dusk turned into night.
The caterers had set up a large canopy on the expansive lawn next to the log house.
“It sure was nice seeing all of our friends who came to our wedding,” Jenny said. “I was surprised by how many were able to come.”
Roc and his two cousins, whom Jenny knew by their real names, Huey, Dewey and Louie, cycled up all the way from Southern California.
James came, of course, to be Hugh’s best man. And Hugh and Jenny had been surprised when they had seen Charlie coming up the driveway in a rental car. She had been in Boise at the time, finishing up moving out of her condo there.
The four of them had managed to take a few minutes before the wedding to talk for a bit on the pool deck. Hugh wanted to get brought up-to-date about Charlie’s legal status and job situation.
Charlie said it was going to work out the way they had hoped. After making an extensive investigation into attorney Fishburn’s activities, the authorities agreed Charlie had been an unwilling accomplice, doing what she had done under duress. It had also gone in her favor that she had helped thwart the attorney, and Frank and William from accomplishing their full agenda soon after she realized what they were doing.
She had been hired by the Arizona Democrat newspaper, Arizona’s largest daily, and was working to put together the huge story about the fake-crash insurance scam, the murders and the kidnapping of Jenny.
“Don’t be surprised to see a book come out of it,” she had told them.
Grant Elliot Johnston III, WestAm’s attorney, had been invited, but he had sent his regrets. The timing wasn’t good because of his case load. Also invited was Gloria, Hugh’s dispatcher, but she couldn’t get away on such short notice.
Hugh had been pleased to see Trooper Donovan pull up in his cruiser. The trooper’s introduction to Charlie had been a little awkward at first, but when he had heard the whole story about Charlie’s involvement, the two of them had gotten along fine.
Donovan had mentioned to Hugh something making the rounds in law enforcement circles – a number of incidences of truckers picking up young female hitchhikers and raping and murdering them, or holding them for ransom.
“I’m assuming your lady’s hitchhiking days are long over, so no worry there,” he had said to Hugh. But he had asked Hugh to keep his eyes open for potential situations at truck stops that didn’t look right.
“Also, I don’t know if you make it down by the southern border very often, but we’ve heard from border patrol that truckers are bringing illegals up from the border in their trailers.”
He told Hugh that sometimes the truck drivers were part of it, and sometimes the drivers didn’t realize coyotes were slipping the illegals into their trailers.
“I’ve actually been down in the Phoenix area quite a bit lately,” Hugh had told the trooper. “I’m sure I’ll be down there a lot more for testifying if the insurance scam case goes to trial.”
“In that case, be extra careful,” the trooper had told Hugh.
The remainder of the guest roster consisted of a few friends from when Hugh was growing up, Roly’s and Mary’s friends, and Martha and Hugh senior’s friends from town and the church. Most of those were unknown to Hugh and Jenny.
One that Hugh and Jenny had recognized was the DMV lady who had given Jenny her license. When she saw Jenny, she just chuckled and shook her head. “I still can’t believe you did that.”
This would be their first night in the new sleeper. Jenny had not even seen it with the bed lowered down from the back wall. Hugh would have liked to have spent their wedding night in their new “home.” But it hadn’t worked out that way. It had been a long day and Hugh hadn’t prepared the bed beforehand, and then he hadn’t wanted to deal with it. So, they had spent their wedding night in Jenny’s room.
When Hugh lowered the bed, Jenny said, “Wow! It’s huge!”
“Really, it’s just a full-size bed,” Hugh said. “But definitely bigger than the bunk beds in my old truck.”
They got
