Chapter 10

By the time he kissed Agatha goodbye, in view of anyone who cared to look, as she stood by her packed car, Bobby was almost not-sad she was leaving. Between Agatha and the twins, to say nothing of Erica Bradford, it had been a long autumn.

He spent the rest of November and December working on the apartments in the barn. Once the floor was poured, he started on the exterior walls. It was a lot like building a house, except that he was able to use plywood on the outside, rather than weatherproof sheathing. With few windows to install, the work went more quickly. He ran the wiring himself, but had an electrician check everything. Plumbing was the biggest job. He’d stubbed everything off when the floor was poured, but it just went to a three inch pipe outside the barn. He still had to lay the rest of the line to the waste system that the house dumped into.

The real problem was that at the end of December, they ran out of money.

They say that when one door closes, another opens. That happened for Bobby, in late December, though he didn’t know it then. And then, of course, there is the problem that some open doors are better left un-entered. But that part will come later.

It was on the twenty-seventh of December that Bobby got a call from Felicity Chumley, asking for a favor. The favor was actually for her friend, Millie Vaughn. It seemed that Millie’s sister, a college aged girl named Paula, was going to visit for a week or so and needed a date for the New Year’s Eve party that Felicity was throwing. She said she’d just naturally thought of Bobby.

“Can you do that for me?” asked Felicity.

“You know how helpless I am when it comes to you,” he sighed, theatrically.

“You can’t fool around with this girl,” said Felicity. “Millie was worried when I suggested you. She doesn’t know exactly what happened between you and me, but she knows you’re not the average male friend of mine.”

“No problem,” said Bobby. “I’ll be a good boy.”

“That’s what I’m worried about,” said Felicity, her voice a low purr. “Sometimes you’re too good.”

“Awwww,” said Bobby. “Wasn’t two enough for Chester?”

“That’s what I’m talking about, Bobby Dalton!” she yipped into the phone. “Every time I talk to you I, think about having more children. I have my hands full as it is, thank you very much. The last thing I need is another baby. Why do you think I’ve been avoiding you for the last six months?”

“I just thought you were tired of me,” said Bobby, trying to sound sincere.

“Well you just keep your hands off of me at the party too. And don’t listen to Chester either.”

“So he does want another one?”

“Will you take care of this girl for me or not?” she asked, her voice stern.

“Yes, Ma’am,” he said. “I’ll do you proud.”

“You won’t do me at all,” she growled. “Regardless of what my husband wants.”

Bobby laughed. “Okay. I promise to behave myself around you too.”

Felicity still had a mental image of Bobby in her mind after she hung up the phone. She felt the now familiar tingle in her nipples and the hunger in her belly. It had been one of the hardest things she ever did to stop having her sexual liaisons with him. Even now, after six months without feeling his weight on her and his delightfully stiff penis inside her, she still ached to be with him.

She pushed those thoughts away. She was too busy with his other children, and her foundations, and taking care of Chester to give in to her urges. Maybe on the anniversary of their meeting she would treat herself to a night of bliss. Her nipples tingled more at that thought and she went in search of her husband. Maybe a couple of quick orgasms would satisfy her.

Bobby parked his car and walked to the front door. The party was obviously already going, even though he was there right on time. It wasn’t hard to imagine the people who thought of themselves as movers and shakers, in Granger, to want to arrive early.

Felicity knew how to throw a party. It was eight in the evening, but the house was already crowded with people talking too loud and drinking too much. Most people just threw him a wave as he threaded his way through the throng, looking for Felicity. She had said that Millie wanted him to meet her sister here, instead of picking her up at the Vaughn house.

He saw her in a gaggle of people, both men and women. Millie was there too. Bobby surveyed the young woman standing beside Millie. She was looking around and appeared to be bored. Everyone around her was smiling, but she was looking this way and that, as if to find something to be interested in. He pegged her as Millie’s sister because of the facial resemblance. The resemblance stopped there. Millie was shorter than her sister and had brown, curly hair, while Paula’s was black and straight. Millie was more full bodied, while Paula was slim and less curvy.

Bobby worked his way behind Felicity and reached with both hands to casually stroke her sides, at her waist. She turned to face him.

“I should have known it was you,” she said. She looked at him through lowered lashes.

“Just wanted you to know I was here,” he said, putting an innocent look on his face.

Felicity pulled him around, to face Millie and Paula.

“Paula, this is Bobby,” said Felicity.

Bobby had been looked at by a lot of women. Most of them hadn’t looked him over like Paula did though ... not until much later in their relationship. Her eyes dropped and then rose, and a smile came onto her face.”

“I approve,” she said.

“Paula!” barked her sister. “You just remember what I told you!”

“Don’t wig out, Millie,” said the girl, still looking at Bobby. “I just figured any blind date you got for me would be a disaster. I’m pleasantly surprised, that’s all.” Her eyes fastened on Bobby’s face. “For now, anyway,” she added. She addressed Bobby. “Can you dance, cowboy?”

She was making reference to Bobby’s attire. He had chosen a western shirt and jeans, with boots. He had checked a jacket at the front door. It was cold and windy outside.

“I’ll try not to step on your toes too often,” he said.

“You just be home by one or two,” said Millie. She was staring at Bobby too.

Millie was the one who had first told Felicity about Bobby Dalton and suggested that he might be the answer to a problem Felicity had. She had made that suggestion mostly in jest and had later been astonished when she found out Felicity had hired the man. Millie and Felicity spent a lot of time together, and it had been impossible to miss the changes in Felicity’s demeanor, after Bobby Dalton came into her life. She would never talk about him, but at the same time, she mentioned him too often.

And then there had been the babies, of course.

Felicity wouldn’t talk about them either, or more correctly about how she came to have them, other than to say that Chester was responsible. That was the word she had always used ... responsible. It didn’t take a rocket scientist, though, to tell that Felicity and Bobby’s relationship was very close ... maybe too close. But Millie also knew that Chester had no objection whatsoever toward having Bobby around ... so there couldn’t be anything untoward going on. In one sense, Millie was a little jealous of her friend. There were lots of times when Millie wished she could spend a few hours with a man other than her husband, who wasn’t nearly as attentive to her needs as he used to be. It wasn’t that she wanted to cheat on him. She just knew spending some time with an interesting man like Bobby would be ... interesting.

As she watched her little sister be led away by the man, she hoped he wouldn’t be too interesting. Paula seemed to go through men like poop through a goose. So far, in the four years she’d been at college, it had been impossible to keep up with the latest name of the latest boyfriend. During their phone calls in the last year, Millie had taken to asking “Anything interesting on the love front?” instead of asking if Paula was still going with so and so. Paula’s answer was routinely, “Nothing yet.”

“She’ll be fine,” said Felicity into her ear. “He promised to be a good boy.”

Millie’s curiosity burst out of her, temporarily out of control.

“Was he always a good boy with you, Felicity?”

Felicity’s eyes went guarded, like they always did when Millie questioned her about Bobby Dalton. “He always acted exactly like I wanted him to act,” she said.

Millie stared at her friend for a few seconds longer. Someone bumped into her and the drink in her hand spilled. It broke her concentration and when she looked back at Felicity, she was already talking to someone else.

Paula had taken Bobby’s hand and pulled him toward the dining room, which had a hard wood floor. All the furniture had been removed, and it was being used as a dance floor. There was a disk jockey who had been hired to provide music. He was currently playing older rock and roll, since many at the party were in their thirties and forties.

They danced, then as soon as the music stopped, Paula grabbed a drink off of one of the platters being carried through the throng by hired waiters. It was champagne, based on the bubbles drifting up from the bottom. She tossed it off like it was water and made a face.