Regarding jury duty, I did get "excused" by the prosecution. Unfortunately, I'd already lost too many days of writing to get where I intended to get. Therefore, the story continues on into 2015. : )

As always, thank you for your views and reviews and interest in general!

Chapter 44

The next three weeks are more surreal than the dreams.

It's not only that I have time in a way I haven't had time in years, or that I actually welcome the space and the stillness, or that I have specific, focused pursuits designed to move me towards the life I want.

And it isn't that I'm following directions, that I'm cleaning the wound and doing the exercises, determined to avoid infection and further injury, convinced that the medical professionals have my best interests at heart.

It isn't even that I see Walt most days for an hour or two, and that I'm not nervous or anxious, and I neither have to fight off the desire to run nor the desire to get him naked. In those minutes together each day, we're just part of the flow, part of the phase. He brings me coffee, and we talk about his nameless wild horse or about the possibility of bringing Bud on as a permanent member of our department. We walk out into the fields, make a huge circle around the golf course, and I tell him about Aunt Maria and he tells me about the Absaroka of the 1970s. We watch Breaking Bad and drink beer and eat the one-handed chocolate chips cookies I made for him, which aside from the eggshells are delicious.

There's nothing tense or awkward or frantic or rushed. We just are, for an hour or two each day, and when he leaves, he hugs me carefully and kisses me on the cheek, and I'm not terrified that it might be the end or that it might be the beginning.

Mostly, I guess, it's that I'm here and it's now, and I'm not constantly laboring to change history or to avoid memory or to fight off the future. I'm slipping at times into the past, and lurching at other times into whatever is next, but for the most part I'm in this place, at this time, and I'm satisfied with how it is right now.

Each day, excluding Sunday, I spend an hour with Chandler, and most of the time I don't hate him. He's helped me come to my own conclusion that I've been looking at it all wrong. I've been believing that success in this psychological arena would be to wipe my mind clean of the particularly disturbing episodes. Chandler has convinced me, though, that erasure is not possible without severe brain damage, and even if it were, it's not the solution that will get me the peace and the love I really want. The goal instead is to accept some emotional discomfort, to deal with it a little more the way I deal with physical pain, and to not let it sway me or get me off my path.

After my sessions with Chandler, I walk into town. There are thirty-nine businesses and organizations on and around Main Street, thirty-four of which I had never patronized. I discover that Durant has a well-stocked and eclectic used bookstore, that I can pay my utility bill at Ace Hardware, that there is an office supply shop that manufactures custom return address stamps that don't include Sean's name, and that the outfitter in town is only marginally more expensive than the Cabela's in Billings. My most meaningful discovery, however, is the Absaroka County Public Library, where I have been quietly expanding my mind most afternoons before walking home in the evening, or on Tuesday and Thursday, to Tabatha's meditation class.

It's now crisp late morning, under bright sun and wide Wyoming sky. I'm on my way from the medical compound to the library when my phone rings.

"Hey."

"Vic."

"Walt."

"Where are you?"

"In the alley between Conoco and Western Pipe. Didn't we say three? "

"Yeah. I'm just confirming," he says.

"You thought I'd forget our first real date?"

"It's not our first date, Vic. It's more like our thirtieth."

"How did you come up with that number?"

He lowers his voice. "It's an estimate." I hear the knocking of his boots across the wooden floor. "Everything that isn't work is a date."

The hinge squeaks, and what I assume is his office door clicks shut.

"And you came up with thirty? Does that include work that morphed into non-work?"

Since the surgery, I've been committed to not going there in our interactions, to proving to myself but also to him that this isn't just a lust thing. It has been an exercise in discipline and delayed gratification that after three weeks has me poised to unravel it all at the first sign of a loose thread.

"You really want to talk about that?" he says, deeper and even quieter, obviously a willing participant in the undoing.

"Yes and no," I say.

"That's not an answer."

Papers rustle on his end, and above me a seagull squawks, a thousand miles from the nearest ocean.

"I'll see you at three?"

"I'm looking forward to it," I say, doing my best not to make it sound suggestive.

When I enter the library, Brittany, the ridiculously pretty head librarian, is standing behind the counter scanning books into the computer and placing them on a shelving cart. I'm burning up, but it's still easier to sweat profusely than it is to remove articles of clothing, so I endure.

"Morning, Brittany," I say.

"Heya, Vic. You're early."

"Different schedule today."

Across the library at one of the microfiche machines, a male fashionista is scrolling through what appears to be old editions of the Durant Currant.

I lean in and whisper to Brittany, "Enrique Iglesias is a long way from home, isn't he?"

Her big brown eyes brighten. "I know, right? He looks like Enrique," she whispers. "Thank you. My sister totally disagrees."

I peek back over my shoulder. He's now standing up, back to us, sagging his two hundred dollar jeans right down against the southern border of decency.

"Who dresses like that in Durant?" I ask, but before Brittany can whisper, "He's the new judge," I've figured it out for myself.

My stomach clenches.

"Oh, shit," I say.

"What? You know him?"

I sneak another glimpse. He's turned sideways now, and he's texting or emailing or something. It's definitely him.

"I got a warrant from him. I didn't make a great impression."

"You should say hi to him," she says. "Clear the air."

Brittany usually gives off a cultured, over-achiever vibe, but something about the presence of Judge Banuelos has got her all fidgety and giddy.

"You know who should say hi to him?" I say, apparently a bit too loud. "You."

He looks over, catching us both in the headlights.

"Hey," I say, about as sincerely cheerful as I sounded when Lizzie used to drop in on Walt. "Zeke. How are you?"

"Vic," he says, walking over to us. "How are you?"

"I'm good," I say. "You?"

I am jealous of Brittany, who avoids getting caught in the social pleasantries loop by returning to her work.

"I'm well," he says like he thinks it's me causing the conversation to go around in circles.

"Good."

"I heard about the scene out at the farm," he says. "That must have been awful."

I don't know if he means the injury or the shooting or the bombing or the dead dogs or all of the above, and I don't especially want to know.

"It was bad," I say. "But I'm on the mend."

His eyes drop to my arm in the sling, but he doesn't mention it.

"So how are you adjusting to life in Durant?" I ask, because I have no clue what else to say.

He's looking at me like he's trying to decide if I'm worth it.

"I came over from Lusk, so this is the big city for me."

If he dressed like this in Lusk, I imagine he grew accustomed to having his lunch money stolen.

"So, uh, Vic . . . ," he starts, but then he's interrupted by the jangling of the bell on the street door.

When I turn towards the sound and see, of all people, Walt crossing the threshold, I'm right back in the headlights, only this time I'm pretty sure I'm about to get run over.

Walt pats the counter and says, "Morning, Brittany," then he walks right up to me, takes his hat off, and just when I think he's about to lean down and kiss me, he rests his hand on his belt, his elbow bumping my arm, and he nods a greeting at Zeke.

My face flushes extra hot.

"Sheriff Walt Longmire," he says, offering his other hand and a rare toothy smile.

There are various problems with this situation, and I'm torn as to which one I should worry about first.

Seemingly stunned, Zeke shakes Walt's hand. "Judge Ezequiel Banuelos."

"Pleasure to meet you, Your Honor," Walt says as though he's entirely unaware that he's scaring the shit out of the poor guy.

"Likewise," the judge says. "Call me Zeke."

"I saw you out on the square talking with Vic about a month back, but haven't had the opportunity to meet you myself."

"Yeah," Zeke says, his eyes moving to me briefly. "Vic pointed you out to me."

Walt shifts his weight to the other foot and looks down at me. "I'm heading out to Omar's. Thought I'd offer you a ride home if you want it," he says.

"I just got here," I say.

"Where are you sitting? I'll catch you up on a couple of items."

I hope his couple of items don't sound as fake to Zeke as they do to me.

The judge stands there judging for a moment, then he says, "Well, good to meet you Sheriff. And Vic, nice seeing you."

He chats with Brittany while Walt and I move to a table against the back wall at the end of the J through M aisle of the mystery section.

When Zeke leaves, I whisper, "What was that?"

"What was what?" Walt says, brow crinkled.

"You couldn't wait 'til three to see me?"

"I really was here to offer you a ride. But what kind of jealous lover would I be if I left while that guy was still sniffing around?"

"He's the judge. As in the guy who grants us warrants."

"And he was hitting on you. Again."

"I hope you're ready to spring this on everyone at work 'cause I think it's about to get sprung."

"I didn't even touch you, Vic. You really think in that two minute conversation he figured out we're secretly not sleeping together?"

"You're funny."

He winks at me.

"I have to tell you something and it may taint your view of me," I say.

In that instant, a curtain closes over the playfulness, and the color drains from his face.

I reach over and put my hand on his. "No," I say, "it's nothing like that," but he's obviously not convinced, so I hurry it up.

"That day you saw me out there talking to Zeke? When you were leaving for your doctor's appointment?"

"Yeah."

"Well, I said something stupid to him about you."

"What did you say?"

I bite my lip.

"I told him I was in love with you."

At first, his expression doesn't change and he says nothing. I'm about to start back pedaling, when a smile slowly spreads across his face, and he moves his chair closer to mine.

"You told him before you told me?" he asks, trying to achieve the eye contact I'm avoiding.

"It's not like I was confiding in him, Walt. It slipped out."

"That's interesting. It didn't slip out in my presence until you were under the influence of some pretty heavy medication."

"Yeah, well."

He leans over and kisses me on the neck, right below my ear, and it sends goose bumps across my scalp.

"If he was planning to talk, wouldn't he have done it already?" he asks.

"Not if he thought it was one sided."

"You mean not if he thought he still had a chance."

"That might be what I mean," I say.

He looks through the aisle towards the front of the library where Brittany is now straightening the free public service pamphlets and bookmarks.

"I'd just rather not have to deal with this before we're ready," I say.

"I don't think we'll be able to hide it for too long anyway," he says, facing me again and putting his huge, warm hand on my thigh.

"If Ferg or Ruby, or Bud, or all three of them object, we'll have a problem."

He squints a little. "They might be fine with it, Vic."

"They might be, but wouldn't you rather we be the ones to tell them?"

"Ideally."

"It's possible we just lost that option."

He scratches his head.

"I guess we'll know if somebody says something. If no one says anything, we'll just wait and tell them when we're ready."

"But if they get all upset about it, I don't want to be responsible for totally disrupting the Sheriff's Department."

"What do you propose?"

"I could apply for a job with the State Trooper. I've got an excellent service record, and a boss who could be persuaded to write me a glowing letter of recommendation."

He sits up straighter, refusing the bait. "You've really thought about this."

"Or," I say, "we could just go pull a Hector on Banuelos."