The Shocker

Chapter 12 - Love Ever After

I still don't know how I got shot, but I just figured my time had run out. The bullet hurt like hell. My wife helped me decide that it was finally time to hang it up. I was old enough to be the father of some of the new officers and to be honest I never trusted any of them as I did my old NCIS 'Nola team mates to protect my back.

I took the two week medical leave to fly back to Alabama. When I showed Percy my two favorite places on momma's farm she responded "well pick one and let's build our home there." I looked at her stunned and then realized that she was right. Picking all the colors and textures actually brought us to another level of trust. Once the house was finished, we could see how the other's contribution and insight made it just a perfect fit.

My first day back on duty, I turned in my retirement papers and then told the therapist that I thought the old man had had it. That summer Sonja and I visited all the normally cold weather spots enjoying our beautiful country. We managed to return to the Iowa capital for their State Fair in August that we had seen advertised in the Des Moines airport. I ate my way from the front gate to animal barns and beyond. I had no idea that you could fry that kind of food. Sonja just turned up her nose at everything. The Butter Cow for some reason impressed her. The huge steers scared her. The Grand Champion Bull was taller than she was.

The house was done a few weeks before Thanksgiving. Momma insisted on cooking but I persuaded her to oversee our cook in preparing the meal. Secretly I was trying to figure out how to get the recipes out of momma's hands so we would have them in the future. Her fellow church ladies finally helped me with that when they decided to do a cookbook that Christmas so she had gotten them all out to pick her favorites to include. I stopped by her house while she was at Bingo, picked up all the recipes that I wanted, ran to the copy center and returned them before she got back.

I recognized my blessing in having my wife with me well into our seventies. After my retirement we were able to travel to see friends and families. Tammy and Merri tried to get to the farm at least once a year. Triple P was offered a position at NATO. We visited him a couple of times at Brussels. From there we took a few days to visit Germany. Sonja had wanted to visit a concentration camp. We decided on Dachau which is right outside of Munich. It was a sad, tearful day for the both us as we first visited the camp and then drove to the rail yard where the prisoners arrived and were then forced to walk nearly 20 miles to the camp.

Back safely in our own bed, we found ourselves once again wrapped up in each other's arms. "I love you Butch" Sonja said sweetly. "Right back at you City Mouse" I replied before drifting off to sleep.