Chapter 2

Two days later, the day my world changed, I had survived the drive and the mandatory “meet the family” event. By the time I returned from my jog along the beach, Sandy was already gone. Since they predicted rain, she’d decided to head downtown and join her family for a day of shopping. Having declined, I found myself in the hotel room alone, so I cranked up the radio and started the shower. It had been an excellent pre-dawn workout and a nice long run. As I swept my still thick hair back from my face, I inspected my physique in the mirror.

“Not bad for a fifty-plus guy,” I muttered, flexing and bending like a damned fool before stepping under the warm pounding spray.

Since my early retirement, I had thrown myself into all sorts of hobbies, to include upping my normal workout regimen. To be perfectly truthful, I had been as shocked as anyone to discover I felt better and had more energy than in my twenties. Surprise, my doctor had been correct all along. Eat right, exercise more and, well, also quite honestly, with the blessing of good genes, I looked decent enough to receive compliments whenever someone asked my age.

So, yeh. Not bad for fifty-plus.

Just as I stepped out to dry off, my stomach advised me in no uncertain terms of its hollowness; its rumble echoing across the small hotel bathroom. As such, I raced a comb through my gray-tinged black hair, slipped into a pair of loose shorts and a beefy t-shirt, and headed to the lobby breakfast area. My plan was to eat, find a comfortable corner and at the very least read the morning away.

But I would probably end up writing.

Alone time had become more and more difficult with Sandy working from home several days a week. So, my idea for this vacation involved showing my face as required to her family, but otherwise reading and writing. So far, so good. After meeting everyone at last night’s dinner, I begged off the insanity of mall crawling with a horde of her relatives, and instead was now walking from the elevator into...

Holy crap! The entire fucking planet was in the hotel lobby, eating or carrying trays piled high with breakfast foods.

The clamor of children racing underfoot. Old people ... well, older-than-me people clustering, shuffling and blocking the way. Business travelers dashing back and forth, grabbing what they could before departing as quickly as they could. It was utter bedlam. With a sigh, I waded into the midst and discovered the elixir of life. While clutching my coffee close, I snatched up a yogurt and fruit before weaving away from the buffet counters.

That was when the almost impossible quest for a seat began. Nothing but a swirling mix of raucous or sleep-deprived people occupied tables for as far as the eye could see. Another sigh slid from me, my stomach rumbled, and I was about to head for my room when I spied an open chair beyond a pillar. While making a beeline for the miraculously empty spot, I stumbled to a halt when I glimpsed the small table’s only other occupant.

Dark-haired and tanned, a statuesque woman in her early-30s was absorbed in her purple tablet while sipping coffee; a half-finished bowl of bran cereal lay before her. After a quick glimpse of her wedding bands, I gave a sigh of relief. I didn’t want to appear like I had ‘accidentally’ shown up to hit on her. As gorgeous as she was, I was hungry and just needed a place to sit.

“Is this seat taken?”

She looked up at me. Wow! My heart stammered. Her vivid green eyes sparkled in the light of the dangling fixture. Which kept my gaze from wandering into her deep V-neck loose fuchsia blouse. I was married, not dead. After giving me a quick neutral once over, she shook her head and returned to her tablet. With a wasted grin still on my face, I settled to eat.

As I sipped my coffee, she yawned, watching some kind of business video with Bluetooth earbuds in her ears. Not that I was looking for lively conversation ... or any conversation, but she was clearly engrossed. Or trying to be engrossed. As such, I pulled up my tablet to read while sipping and munching. Frankly, we may as well have been on a crowded subway car for all the interaction, or complete lack thereof, we had while eating.

Apparently, unlike the hordes still whirling around us, she was not in any rush. Every once in a while lifting a spoonful of cereal, she munched, fixated on the video. But I had a hot date with a comfy couch in my room and finished breakfast before her.

“Thanks,” I said with what I hoped was a warm grin as I stood up to depart.

At first, the woman didn’t appear to notice; her gaze locked on her screen as she savored her coffee. It was only as I pushed in the chair that she glanced up and called out.

“Have a good one.”

She flashed me a smile. She had a pretty smile. Full red lips. Shiny. My heart stumbled at those gleaming eyes; they drew me in for a brief second before I snapped out of it to reply with a quick nod. “You too.”

After leaving, I caught a furtive glance from her before I went up to brush my teeth and curl up with my tablet. The high point of the exciting life of a lone married man on vacation having passed.

Or so I thought.

As it turned out, the local meteorologists once again were wrong. Nothing new there. If there was one thing I knew, it was predicting Florida weather involved a lot of Ouija boards and magic 8-Ball shaking. The storm clouds drifted off, the sun’s glorious radiance reappeared, and I decided to change my plans. Once I changed into swim trunks, ditched my shirt, and grabbed my tablet, I headed for the pool. Whenever my wife returned we would head across the road to the beach. However, in the meantime, all I sought was a shady spot in which to hang out and read between slow laps in the hotel’s large pool.

Though clueless about to which dark lands the horde of breakfast barbarians had wandered, I was in luck; they had not settled around the pool. Only a smattering of folks laid around or paddled, also enjoying the surprise change in the weather. As such, I found a table under an umbrella and sat for a quiet morning. That fresh after-storm smell hung in the crisp air, along with the powerful scent of chlorine from the water and suntan lotion wafting from its inhabitants.

After texting Sandy, I attached a picture of the crystal clear surface with a smiley face. With a long exhale, I stretched out, picked up my tablet and dug into the latest tale of rip-roaring adventure. Good old sci-fi was great for vacations. It was sometime later, and I was getting hungry again, when, deep into the story, I caught the telltale click-clack of approaching high heels.

There hadn’t been any eye-candy moving about this early, so I glanced up and did a double-take. It was my erstwhile breakfast partner and all-around bored business person. After noting her long, shapely legs beneath a billowing thin yellow-orange flower print cover-up, I was returning to my book. But when she walked nearer, she peered over her shoulder across the pool before looking at me.

“Could we be married for a while?”

“Huh?” I replied, intelligently as my brain seized up, while lifting my eyebrows.

“That guy. Over there.” She gestured beyond the pool to an unkempt man on a lounge chair. “He’s been stalking me.”

When it was lifted by a soft, warm breeze, her cover-up failed to cover much of anything. Flat stomach, tight black bikini bottoms, and toned thighs ... Yeh, I could see why she would be stalked.

With a gulp, I tore my gaze from her lithe figure to the offending male settling on a lounger on the far side of the pool. He was older, heavy-set, and pasty white, with dark sunglasses, but didn’t seem interested in her. At least no more than any of the other men who caught sight of her. No matter, I nodded. One time, I had played a woman’s boyfriend on the train to convince some rough-looking guys to leave her alone. Sandy found that story both hilarious and heroic.

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