Chapter 72

Breakfast the next morning was billed as a country breakfast, and that it was. We ate at 7:30 along with the Baldwin family. There were other guests, but none had opted for the full breakfast and were expecting a more buffet-style but less impressive meal later in the morning. The table was piled full of pancakes, sausages, fried eggs, toast, orange juice, coffee and fresh milk.

We ate our fill, and didn't linger, wanting to be at the golf course by eight, hoping to find a driving range to loosen up on before we teed off.

We stopped on the way to the course to grab coffee from one of the places we'd seen while driving around the day before, and armed with our drinks, mine plain black coffee and Kelli's a cafe mocha something-or-other, we made our way to Salmon Run.

The course didn't have a driving range, but they did have a warm up driving tee with a net. We bought a bucket of balls and spent 45 minutes getting our swings loosened up before our tee time. We were back in the club house with ten minutes to spare and found another couple there. The gentleman at the counter, who hadn't introduced himself earlier came over.

"Hey folks, I wonder if you would like join these folks over here and play as a foursome? They have a 9:30 tee time, but when they found out you folks were a couple, they thought they could get going a little earlier and have a little more fun golfing with another couple."

The couple, who stood up as this spiel was made, looked to be about our age, perhaps a few years older. They were both tanned and looked fit. They were dressed for golf, as we were, and nothing else about them stood out to me, other than the big smile on the woman's face.

I looked at Kelli. "I don't see why not," she said, looking at me for confirmation.

"Might be fun," I agreed.

"you folks have a few minutes until your tee time, so I'll leave you to get introduced."

"Howdy folks," the man said as they finished approaching us. "I'm Cody Jenkins and this is my wife Clarissa."

Kelli laughed and I grinned and shook my head as I shook the offered hand.

"Cooper James, and this is my girlfriend, Kelli Montoya."

"Oh my," Mrs. Jenkins laughed. Cody, Cooper, Clarissa and Kelli. Aren't we an alliterative assemblage!"

"Absolutely," I drawled, causing all four of us to crack up.

While we got our clubs and carts sorted out and prepared to play the first tee, we learned that Cody was an aircraft mechanic who worked for a company in Scottsdale, Arizona.

"Small world," Kelli said when she heard this. "I was in Scottsdale on business two days ago."

"I have to be back in Scottsdale in two days," Cody told us. "We're at the end of two weeks of vacation. We've been golfing our way down the coast from Seattle, sort of."

"We're just taking advantage of a long weekend to get away from town," I told them.

"We're from Santa Rosa, in California," Kelli added.

"I've been there," Clarissa said. "I grew up in Vacaville."

We continued to learn little bits and pieces about each other as we played that morning. Cody and Clarissa were in their early thirties, so both were a bit older than we were, but not that much. Cody had been in military as well, in the air force, but had gotten out three years ago and gone to work immediately for the company he now worked for in Arizona. Clarissa worked at a bank as a teller.

I quickly learned that I had the longest drive in our foursome, and I needed that advantage, because I was also the worst of the four of us once the ball was on the green. The course was absolutely beautiful, and I loved the fourth hole, with the pin sitting on an island in the middle of a small lake.

The four of us made a friendly bet on the game, with the losing couple buying lunch, and the Jenkins' proved to be a better pair of golfers than we were, particularly with my erratic putting. I could hear Harley silently wishing we could just lock onto the ball and put it in the hole. I could have done that of course, and he knew it. The questions is, could I do it and make it look natural? I wasn't willing to risk finding out.

The restaurant at the club house was nice, and lunch at the Salmon Run featured salmon of course, but I opted for a grilled chicken sandwich instead, though I had a smoked salmon chowder with it that I enjoyed a great deal.

"This was fun," Kelli said when we were done, hugging Clarissa while I shook hands with Cody.

"It was," Clarissa agreed. "Where are you guys staying? Maybe we could get together for dinner tonight?"

"That sounds like fun," I agreed with a nod.

"We're staying at a bed and breakfast on the other side of the river," I said. "very cozy little place called 'A Country Retreat B&B'. Very nice. We even ate breakfast with the family this morning."