Chapter 1

Looking at his watch Patrick (Pat) Miller saw he had been walking for fifty five minutes and while it was a little short of his one hour goal it was long enough as far as he was concerned. He had started walking about three months ago in order to get some form of exercise. He noticed that he was starting to put some weight on his six foot two inch frame and thought that walking would help control this weight gain. He found that it did as to putting anymore more weight on but so far it hadn’t done anything to reduce the weight he had gained.

He had opted for walking over using the exercise machines as that form of exercising just didn’t appeal to him. In order to alleviate the boringness of walking he had downloaded some audiobooks from the library on to his computer and then transferred the stories to his Sony Walkman which helped pass the time as he walked with him listening to the stories. He did admire the narrators of the stories as they were good and never hesitated or made mistakes. If they ever did they probably had to do a retake. The stories by the more popular authors about spies, courtroom drama or political intrigue were his favorites.

Because of the rainy weather today he couldn’t walk outside in his sub-division and the sport complex in his town or village as it liked to be called was in the wrong direction from the Costco store where he needed to go to do some shopping. His remaining option was to walk in the large enclosed shopping mall which was close to Costco before the stores in the mall opened. Looking again at his watch he saw he still had some time before Costco opened which caused him to walk into the food court at the mall.

He placed his order for a cup of coffee and glanced at the tables in this large food court. Very few of the tables were occupied. Taking his coffee he noticed a table on which it looked a newspaper had been placed. Next to this table was an adjacent table at which a single lady was sitting. It looked like she was drinking coffee and reading the paper which seemed like a good idea to him.

Walking up to the table he said to the lady as he pointed to the table that had the newspaper on it, “Your paper?”

“No, someone must have left it there.”

Sitting down and picking up the paper he said, “I need to kill a little time before the stores open.”

He could see by the expression on her face that she was a little annoyed that he was trying to have a conversation with her but she quickly said, “Me too” and continued to look at her paper.

The look he had at this woman told him that she was fairly attractive and must have also had been doing some walking herself by the tight light blue workout outfit she as wearing. She appeared to be younger than his fifty eight years of age and had short raven black colored hair. Her body was a little bit of a mystery to him because of the way she sat with the paper in front of her.

Pat glanced at the sports section of the paper for a few minutes and raising his cup to his lips said, “The radar indicated the rain should be over by eleven.”

He could see she was becoming a little annoyed with him conversing with her but she said, “Does your wife know your aren’t wearing your wedding ring?”

She must have noticed the white ring on his finger and falsely assumed he had taken the ring off in order to hit on her. The look on her face now was one of smugness in that she thought she knew why he took it off and she and had caught him doing that.

He responded. “No, I don’t think she does.”

There now was more of a smugness look along with smile on her face as she heard him say that but that look changed when he said, “She passed away about six months ago.”

His remark now caused the expression on her face to be one of confusion. “Oh I am so sorry, I thought... , never mind what I thought. Please accept my condolences on your loss.”

“The pancreatic cancer was discovered late and she passed away three weeks after it was. We were married for thirty two years.”

“Again I am sorry what I said about your wife not knowing you were wearing your wedding ring because of the white band I saw on your finger. I thought you may have taken it off and were hitting on me.”

Looking at her straight in her eyes Pat said without thinking about it, “You were only half wrong.”

She paused for a few seconds to digest his remark and then she started laughing. He joined her and laughed along with her. She had a very nice laugh.

When the laughing stopped Pat said, “Let me introduce myself to you. My name is Pat Miller, I am a widower as you already know and am a retired police officer. I really wasn’t hitting on you but you are an attractive lady and I assume that happens a lot.”

“It does happen but not as much as you think. My name is Jillian Kirby but my friends call me Jill. I am divorced and have been for almost eleven years. I am not really retired since I do work two days a week, a little more during vacation season as a lab technician.”

Taking a sip of his coffee Pat said, “I don’t mean to pry but are you presently seeing someone?”

She seemed to be taken back a little at his question but said, “No, why are you asking?”

“Again, I don’t want t to sound like I am hitting on you but if you aren’t seeing anyone I would like to take you out. I can handle the days being single as there are things to do but the evenings are lonely and conversing with an attractive intelligent lady would be a welcome change. If going out with me since we just met presents a problem don’t be afraid to say no and I will understand.”

Pat could see Jill was thinking about what he said. She responded saying, “Well, since you are a retired police officer I will feel safe if I go out with you. Yes I will go out with you and where would you like to go?”

“Dinner as a minimum which will be a nice change from my home cooking and eating carry out. For the rest of it I don’t know. I see where you were reading the entertainment section of the paper. Is there anything interesting that you noticed to do or see in the paper?”

“I did see where there is a singing group giving a performance this Saturday at the college’s auditorium who are said to be an up and coming group.”

“Sounds like it would be interesting to see them perform. Let me call for tickets and we can go out to dinner before the show.”

Contact information was exchanged and a time agreed to when Pat would call for Jill. She rose and extended her hand to Pat. She said she needed to be going as the stores had opened. He shook her warm and soft hand and said he would see her Saturday. In watching her walk away in that tight workout outfit she was wearing gave him the thought that she had a nice ass.

Pat left the mall to do his shopping and was a little excited. This was the first date he was going on since his wife passed away. He couldn’t help and think about it and wonder how it would turn out. He knew the sexual revolution had long passed and he had heard and read stories about the change it had made in women. If something more than dinner would happen between him and Jill he didn’t know but he hoped that it would.

This date he was going on was constantly on his mind. Saturday couldn’t come fast enough for him but it eventually did.

Pressing the doorbell button to Jill’s condo made Pat feel quite nervous. He hoped it would be a nice evening. Pat opened her door and in seeing her he thought it was a good start to way to start the evening. She was wearing what would be called a basic black dress which complemented her black hair. The dress had a square neckline and ended two inches above her knees. Her makeup made her look younger than she was. She really was an attractive lady.

“You look very nice.”

“Thank you.”

Walking into her condo Pat said, “I must admit that I am a little nervous about tonight. This is the first date I have been on since my wife passed.”

“I promise you I won’t bite so you don’t need to be nervous. This isn’t my first date since I have been divorced but there haven’t been many dates. I have been asked a few times but there were various reasons why I turned most of the requests down.”

“I feel honored that you are going out with me.”

“You should be.”

Pausing for a minute to digest her remark he started laughing and she joined in the laughter.

“You almost had me there.”

“Let’s just go and have a good time.”

As it turned out they did have a good time. Over dinner they asked questions of each other in an effort to get to know the other better. Jill had two sons, one who lived in the area and one who lived in Seattle. Both were married and they gave her three grandchildren. Pat told her he had one daughter who was married but live a three hour drive away in Indiana. He said he had two grandchildren. Other areas of mutual interest were also discussed.