Chapter 1

Greg Daniels was sitting in his car at the Tampa International Airport cellphone parking lot watching the flight board for information on his wife’s flight from Dallas, Texas. Jill his wife had flown out to Dallas almost four weeks ago to visit their married daughter Bethany, her husband and her family. Jill loved being with the three grandkids. The board said that Jill’s flight was ten minutes late from its scheduled arrival.

Jill initially had gone out to visit Beth when her first child was born, then went again for the second and then the third. These visits of Jill’s were about four weeks each during the summer months and close to a week when school was out during the school year. Now with her retired all the visits were for four weeks. Greg understood the need for the visits with the new babies but now that all the grandkids were in school that was another story. He didn’t complain to Jill about these visits as that would cast him as the “bad guy” as he knew she enjoyed doing these visits. While she enjoyed these visits Greg thought he should also enjoy himself while Jill was gone.

It had been an interesting four weeks thought Greg. How things had changed in the man woman relationship was dramatic from what it had been when Greg was younger and starting to date. In trying to explain the change he would say that men no longer were the sole pursuers as the women now or at least some of them saw what they wanted and went right for it. These women were aggressive and not hesitant to chase a man to have sex with him if they felt an attraction to the man. The man being married didn’t seem to be a bar to their pursuit of the man they were attracted to. These were interesting times was the thought that was running through Greg’s mind.

In thinking about what happened when Jill was gone he knew it all started two days after she left for Dallas. On that day Greg who was fifty six years of age and an early riser was walking through the parking garage under his condo building heading to a convenience store to purchase a newspaper. He thought he would later in the day subscribe to the paper as it was less expensive to do it that way and more convenient for it to be delivered.

He heard a car door slam and a voice say, “Damn it.”

Looking at where he heard the voice he saw a dark haired lady standing next to an automobile. Walking over to her he said, “Problems?”

“My car won’t start and I am going to be late to school. The teacher is supposed to be in class before the students arrive and it looks like that won’t be the case now. What a way to start the day.”

“What happens when you turn the key?”

“I get a clicking sound.”

Greg asked her to try and start the car and he could hear the clicking sound she said she heard.

With her out of the car Greg said, “It sounds like your battery is dead and that is the starter solenoid you hear clicking. There just isn’t enough juice in the battery for the starter to turn over the engine. If I had jumper cables I could give your car a jump but I don’t have the cables.”

“I guess I will just need to call a cab. My husband was already picked up by his buddies to go out on a charter boat to do some fishing.”

Greg said, “Why don’t you let me give you a lift to school? There is nothing pressing that I need to do since my wife has left for Dallas to visit with our daughter and her family.”

“That would be so nice of you to do that and a life saver. Let me get my things. By the way my name is Pat Morrison.”

“Nice meeting you Pat, I am Greg Daniels.”

Walking to his car Greg had some thoughts about Pat. Age wise she seemed to be in her early to mid-forties, about five feet seven inches tall with a slim figure. Facially she was fairly attractive. Her attractiveness was what he would call natural as it seemed she didn’t have on much makeup because he saw a few freckles on her face. The dark skirt she had on showed a nice pair of legs and a small butt.

When they were both inside Greg’s car Pat gave him directions on how to get to the school. They also talked in an effort to get to know the other better.

Greg said, “I haven’t seen you here before, did you just buy a condo?”

“No we bought three years ago and have been renting the unit out to the prior renters. Now that they have non-renewed their lease we thought we would use it for a few months before we rent the unit out again. I think this is the best time of year to be here before the snowbirds come down here and the area gets crowded.”

“I agree with you and I like the area. To me the area is more blue-collar and not has fancy as some of the areas that are further south.”

“I agree with you.”

“How do like teaching? My wife was a teacher before she retired.”

“I am not a full time teacher, just a substitute teacher. Although I did get my teaching certificate when I graduated, I never did become a full time teacher and was always a sub. My husband Paul followed his father who was into the purchasing and renting of apartment buildings. We live in a suburb in the Washington DC area which is where Paul has his buildings. He thought that was an area that would be somewhat immune to the fluctuations in property values and that the buildings would appreciate in value. So far he has been right in his assessment. He purchases buildings putting the minimum down after checking that the buildings have a positive cash flow. As the buildings appreciate he re-mortgages them and uses the increase in equity to purchase more buildings. He is good at what he does and we do own a considerable number of apartment buildings. Right now Paul is flirting with the idea of turning some of those buildings into condos and using the money from the conversion to buy more buildings.”

“As to me, I was always a sub and when I wasn’t teaching I was helping Paul with the buildings. Now we have reached the stage where we can turn over the buildings to a realty management company and take some time to relax and enjoy life. The management company only calls us when there are major problems. This talk so far has been all about me, you are going to need to tell me about you.”

Greg gave her a quick synopsis of his life in which he told her he was a retired firefighter and split the time living here in Florida for close to seven months with the remainder in Ohio.

They arrived at the school Pat was called to teach at. As Pat was leaving his car Greg gave her his card and told her to call him when she was done teaching and he could come and take her back to the condo.”

“Thanks for the offer and it is sweet of you to do that. I will try and get a lift back from someone here first. My husband when he gets back from fishing will be busy in replacing the car battery which is probably the original as the car is four years old. Thanks again and it was very nice for you to do this.”