Chapter 2

As the sun set behind us, Sharon looked up from her phone. “There’s an RV park about two miles ahead on the left.”

“Don’t you want to go to a hotel? There’s an interstate about fifteen miles up the road, and I’m sure there’s a hotel there. The camper only has one bed,” I pointed out.

“So you said.” Sharon looked at me across the cab. “If I wanted to share it, to just sleep, would you mind?”

“I’d be lying if I said anything besides no, I don’t mind a bit,” I answered.

“I’m serious about just sleeping, I promise.”

I nodded. “The RV park it is, then.”

We had sat and eaten our lunch while we swapped more anecdotes about our past lives. I told her that I’d worked in FAA security as an air marshal and in several other positions during my tenure. She also found out that I was a licensed pilot, though my experience was limited to single-engine planes. That led to the standard conversation between pilots – the ‘there I was’ stories about our flying adventures.

Back on the road, we’d taken an indirect route to nowhere special. I’d see another highway, and turn onto it just because I wanted to go that way for a while. The landscape changed from flat, open ground, to large fields bordered by low hills that teemed with wind turbines. Sharon was fascinated, and she took pictures and videos of the platoons of three-hundred feet tall turbines.

We stopped twice for potty breaks and snacks, and got back on the road. Now, daylight was fading fast, and it was time to stop for the evening.

We pulled into a mostly empty RV park, and I procured a parking space for the night. I pulled the rig into our assigned space, leveled it with the electrically powered jacks on the camper, and connected the camper to the sewer and power utilities. Sharon watched the process, asking a few questions and holding a flashlight to help my aged eyes.

I held the door for her, and she climbed up into the camper. I turned to retrieve her bag from the ground, and then I froze. The hair stood up on the back of my neck, and I peered out through the scattered trees and past the board fence around the park to the highway. A pair of vehicles, a SUV and a sedan, rolled by on the highway at that moment, and disappeared from view without slowing.

“Are you okay, Thomas?”

I turned to see Sharon standing in the doorway, regarding me curiously.

“Yes, I’m fine.” I responded quickly. “I thought I heard something.” I picked up her bag and presented it to her with a smile.

“Okay.” Her smile was a bit off-center, and she took the bag. “Thanks.”

I climbed up into the doorway, and looked around as I reached for the camper door. There was nothing amiss, so I shook off the uneasy feeling and closed the door.

The camper had a tiny bathroom, a galley, and a wardrobe on the left side. On the right side was a single compact recliner, a built-in desk, a fridge, and another wardrobe. Forward, the bed extended to the wardrobes, whose doors were short enough to clear the bed when opened.

“This is nice,” Sharon commented as she looked around.

“I try to keep it clean. I did modify it by taking the table out and putting in this desk and chair, instead.” I moved past her and set her bag on the bed. “You can use this wardrobe for your stuff,” I pointed to the left side unit. “I’ve never gotten around to putting anything in it.”

“The bed looks comfortable, though.”

I blushed a little and turned to avoid looking at her. “We, I, had a customized mattress made for it, along with custom fitted sheets.”

Sharon put her hand on my arm, and a ball of warmth ignited somewhere in my belly as she touched me for the first time. “Look, we can go to the hotel if you’re not comfortable with this.”

I shook my head. “No, I’m okay. It’s been a while, that’s all.” I took at breath and faced her. “Let me show you where things are.”

“Okay.” She stepped to the front of the unit, and I went back and slid open the bathroom door. “This is the toilet and shower.” Moving forward, I opened the galley cabinet doors one at a time. “Plates, cups, glasses, silverware, cookware, pantry, microwave, and dishwashing supplies.” I turned to the desk. “In here is my laptop, a few books, a junk drawer, and some personal items.”

Moving to the bins over the right side window, I pressed a spot on the lower corner of the cabinet, and a long, shallow bin dropped from the cabinet. “This is the long arms stowage. I have a pair of AR-15s in five five six NATO, a pair of Ruger Ten Twenty Twos for plinking, and a Winchester DBM in thirty aught six. The handguns are stowed in the bottom nightstand drawers; a pair of H and Ks in forty caliber, and a pair of Smith and Wesson Shields in nine millimeter.” I closed the rifle stowage, and opened the cabinets. “Ammo, cleaning supplies, range bags and other assorted things are in here.”

“Where are the rocket launchers,” she quipped with a grin.

“I had to leave them at home this trip,” I grinned back. “They about fried the roof the last time I launched one.” She laughed, and I continued the tour.

“There is an air conditioning unit, which we will probably need, a TV up there,” I pointed to the flat screen unit folded against the ceiling behind the AC unit, and a folding satellite dish on the roof for TV and internet.”

“Wow. You don’t seem to lack for anything.”

“No, I guess not.” I clamped my jaw shut before the words ‘not anymore’ came out. Damn it, what was I thinking? I had known her for ten hours. Get a grip. “Are you hungry? I’ve got some beef stew we can reheat.”

“May I cook for us,” Sharon asked. “I’m not trained in that,” she smirked at my expression of mock surprise, “but I can probably come up with something.”

“Sure. What can I do to help?”

“Given the size of the kitchen,” she pointed to the chair, “sitting down so I can move would be the most help at the moment.”

“Yes, Ma’am,” I said meekly as I sat down.

“You’re more or less domesticated,” Sharon said as she turned toward the cabinets. “That’s a welcome surprise.”

I laughed and retrieved my laptop. “I’ve not been accused of that before.”

While Sharon worked her magic at the stove, I got the internet going and checked my email. For a wanderer, I was remarkably well informed on the goings-on of the world, I suppose.

“Do you have any children?” Sharon asked a few minutes later. She had both burners occupied, and was running the microwave with another dish. The air smelled like an Italian restaurant, and my mouth watered.

“No. Megan,” I got my dead wife’s name out this time, “had a hysterectomy as a teen after a car accident. Her parents and mine are long gone, and we were both only children.”

“No cousins or other family?”

I shook my head. “Our aunts and uncles, five counting both sides, scattered to the four winds when they left school. I think we went to one family reunion in the twenty-two years we were married.”

“That’s sad, but I understand. We traveled so much that we rarely saw my extended family.”

I browsed to my bank account page, ensured that the few bills I had were paid, and closed the connection. Then, I sat back and watched Sharon work.

She was tall, nearly equal to my five feet ten inches, with long legs and an average build – not slender, and not heavy. She was nicely proportioned, though I had no idea about what her breast size might have been by just looking. Her reddish blonde hair was neatly trimmed, and just touched her shoulders as she moved. Her skin was fair and softly freckled, and that ball of warmth in my middle returned as I took in her profile. I guessed her age at somewhere around thirty, but I was no better at estimating that than guessing her breast size or her weight.