Chapter 3

I had a barbecue two days before Maria was to leave for home and the city of Bogotá. It was an exceptionally warm day as only a day in Texas can be. I had plans for an in-ground pool, but it hadn't been installed yet. We had to make due with squirting each other with water hoses. There was more female pulchritude around that day, than I could believe.

Wendy at fifteen was going to take after her mother in beauty. Robin had been a beauty of the first order. Then there was Merry. She was forty and had been working out strenuously for five months, and was pretty damned trim. Pia turned eighteen and was the most petite of all and her dark beauty was a contrast to Merry and Wendy. Of course the prettiest of all was Maria.

I harked back to the one night she and I had made love. This was in the dark and I hadn't been able to appreciate her nakedness. I did now--well she was almost naked in her bikini. Gerry, Roger and I were overwhelmed with all of this beauty.

An hour into the party, a young girl came to the door. Gerry, embarrassed, introduced her as his girl friend. I quickly looked at Pia. She didn't seemed bothered by someone that could be a rival and apparently she wasn't.

The biggest surprise was when a man somewhere around my age, named Conrad came to the barbecue as a guest of Merry. He was someone that worked with her on different manuscripts--editor or something. I watched him and Merry interact. I think he was in love with her. Was I jealous? Not really and that puzzled me.

Merry and I went out once or twice a week. I usually kissed her when we came in. The first time I took her out I expected that we would be intimate when we retired. It wasn't to be as she made it plain she thought it was too soon. I returned from Colombia the first week of April and it now was within days of July. I still hadn't been in her bed. I felt I owed her a lot for taking care of Wendy and Roger when I was away so I didn't push for more.

I had made up my mind this was going to change as soon as Maria left. After all, Merry had gained much from her association with me. I paid her well and she was paying for Gerry's higher education. When he moved off campus though, I picked up the tab for his quarters. I put it from my mind and started grilling the steak and chicken.

Maria and I had a few minutes alone. "Daveed, I think your Merry is a wonderful person. She has been like a sister to me while I have been here--taking me shopping, out to lunch and showing me the sights. She wouldn't discuss her present feelings for you at all. She has told me all about when she and you were engaged and about the stupid choice she made.

"I do think she thinks you are a wonderful person, but I don't know that she wants to marry you. Your dating her is just so convenient. If you married her, your children would all be together. You both would have someone to sleep with. It would be so comfortable. My question is, do you want comfortable?"

"Maria, why are we having this conversation?"

"Daveed, I want you to be happy. That is all."

"I'm curious. Is that it? We spent five weeks with only a few bars between us. I saw you every single day. There were times when I know you didn't need to be guarding me in the cellar. I also felt that except for a few minutes, my life was never in danger. We also spent one wonderful night together. Another thing, why did you come here to the states with your sister? A phone call would have sufficed. I know you want me to be happy, but is that the only reason?"

"Let's just say I wanted to see how you felt now about being kidnapped. That was a stupid move on my part. I guess you could call me a poor little rich girl looking for excitement. I am going to use that money you say is waiting for me in Bogotá to give to the widow of the man that was killed. He is the one that wrote the ransom notes. The other man didn't have any family."

"You have money?"

"Not like you, but I don't really have to work."

"So the job offer I worked so hard to arrange for you means nothing to you?"

"Daveed, it means a whole lot to me. When I get home, I am going to accept it." I had my doubts that if she did take the job, she wouldn't work very hard at it and continue with it for long. Merry was going to drive Maria to the airport the following morning.

"David, Conrad has asked me out to a show this evening. We want to discuss a manuscript over dinner. Gerry and Roger are staying over at the house in Ger's room. Maria can stay here and sleep in one of the boy's beds. You don't mind do you?"

"No. Go and have fun. I'll say good-bye to Maria in the morning before I go to work. Do you want me to drop her off at your house on the way?"

"Not necessary. I'll come for her here." She and her editor left shortly after this conversation. Pia and Wendy suddenly came and asked to do a sleepover at one of Wendy's friends.

"That was neatly arranged, don't you think, Daveed?"

"Am I missing something?"

"Oh come on, I know you are smarter than you are pretending to be. I wanted to talk. I haven't had the chance to be alone with you. We have been playing all day and I need a shower. Would you wash my back, Daveed?"

I looked at this lovely creature with wonder. Speechless, I followed her into the shower. It was sometime later when I led her into my bedroom. I started to question as to who had arranged this, but was answered with, "You would be surprised."

I was uneasy, knowing that I felt halfway promised to Merry. I could make no promises, although I wanted to. I wanted to declare my love for Maria, but held back. Maria didn't ask for anything but the physical, and that she gave me all she had.

It was almost two in the morning. Maria was asleep cuddled against me. I had to get up for a bathroom break and I went from there to the refrigerator for iced water. A car pulled into the driveway, and I peered out the window to see who it was. It was Merriam and she stood beside the car kissing Conrad, who had brought her home.

I was sitting at the table when she came in. "Hi David, couldn't sleep?"

"I did some, but not much. Would you sit for just a minute, please?"

"You want to know about Conrad and me, don't you?"

"Not necessarily. I would like to know what your expectations for the future concerning me are to be?"

"In just a few words, if you love Maria, there isn't much of a future for us. If you don't, there still isn't much of a future for us either. If you love me enough to ask me to marry you, you are going to have your heart broken again as it was years ago. I'm hoping that isn't the case. You see, Conrad has come into my life, and I want to see if that will lead us into having a life together."

"Merry, we'll talk about this in more depth some other time. Maria is sleeping in my bed and I have a question I want to ask her before she leaves in the morning. Goodnight."

Just before I went through the door, "David, I arranged this just for you." I looked back and with a big smile on her face, Merry blew me a kiss.

Merry and I did talk within the next few days. "You know the years after you broke our engagement were very difficult for me because of the guilt I felt. The time you were away when you were kidnapped, I worked hard to get my body back into shape so you would forgive and love me again. But then you returned. For some reason I could feel you holding back. When Maria came, I knew why. In one way I was disappointed, because I knew I didn't have a chance to make up for the wrong I had done to you.

"Maria shared all her feelings with me. How she came to love you while she had you in her absolute power. You never whined or showed anything but respect for her. You showed her that even when her uncle declared you should be killed, you accepted it as fate. That was when you, the captured, became you the captor and Maria was in your hands and heart. Oh how she gloried in you when you kept your word just as you said you would."

Merry explained what she felt now for me. "David, I broke your trust once. I can see that I didn't live up to the man you are. Conrad has been working with me for years. I knew he loves me, and I have great affection for him. I have always turned his advances away, but I'm not going to anymore. The only thing I ask of you is to be my friend. I think you can trust me that much."

"Thanks for being so honest with me. I do love Maria. I don't know if we can ever work out a happy life together, but we both are willing to try. There is the age difference for one thing, and living so far away is going to be difficult. Having you as a friend means so much. In a way you have given me the freedom to pursue my love without feeling guilty about my past relationship with you." We left it at that.

So started a long distance relationship. I still had to go to South America on occasion for the corporation. I always directed my counterpart to have Maria at whatever meeting I needed to attend. We spent some wonderful nights together. We knew that someday we would be together all of the time. It took two years to arrange for her to come live and work in the States on a work visa.

Being an international corporation, we had many contacts with the state department. Sometimes we were called into a conference for inquiries about vexing problems that occurred between the United States and the South American countries. Of course one of these problems was the kidnappings that took place periodically. Maria's uncle had an extremely successful run of good luck. No victims were ever killed and even though it might be months before the ransom was paid, they all were resolved successfully. Maybe it was the ineptness of those that tried to capture him.

I would like to take credit for a clandestine meeting that took place one day in June between representatives of the governments and some of the guerrillas. These guerrillas were looked on by some as modern day Robin Hoods because of the injustice that prevailed. Three small groups were offered and accepted amnesty. Maria's uncle was pardoned and able to rejoin society again in his own country.

My household during this time was about as mixed up as any could be. Merry, with a son living here, kept house for me and I paid her wages. Occasionally we would go out to dinner or a show alone, but she was dating Conrad and if we did go out it was only as friends. She mothered Wendy and Roger the same as she did Gerry. Pia was living here and she was mothered the same way.

Pia was intelligent, cute and the most outgoing of all. She treated everyone the same. You never knew what she was going to do if you were in the same room with her. You might be reading the paper, and suddenly you would find her sitting in your lap, asking what you were reading. This happened to me. Or she might tackle the boys and want to wrestle. Wendy and her were inseparable. When she got a little homesick she might ask to cuddle with Merry just to get past a period of loneliness.

I'm sure she reported to Maria what went on in my life. That was fine with me. Sometimes after she had been talking with her sister, she would come and say, "Maria sends you a kiss." I would receive a kiss much like when the real Maria was here. I didn't think it odd at all. If it had been some one other than Pia, I might have.

It took two years to arrange for Maria to arrive and work in the main offices of the same corporation I was CEO of. Merry decided this was the time she and Conrad should marry. I walked her down the aisle and Maria was her matron of honor. Gerry moved out and got his own place his second year of college. Pia spent as much time at his apartment as she did here with me, Roger and Wendy. Roger would be joining him at the same school in the fall. Roger and Gerry were both vying for Pia's affections, but she treated them the same, saying they were her brothers.

Maria, immediately on arriving, started the process of becoming a citizen. We planned on marrying at Thanksgiving time. It was all arranged for her mother to come for an extended visit. I was now forty-four years old and Maria was thirty. We honeymooned in New York City, wanting to be home for the Christmas holidays that were approaching in a couple of weeks.