Chapter 34

Thursday morning. Up. Dressed. Out the door. In the door of the little restaurant. Cashier saw us walk in. "Hi, Cindy! Dan! Get yourselves a table!"

We saw Bill Carmody at about the same time he spotted us. He waved. We joined him.

"Hi, Mister Bill," Cindy piped.

"Hello, sweet thing," Bill said. "Hi, Dan. Kinda nasty this morning, ain't it."

I laughed. "Another day in paradise," I said. "But it'll move through today."

Cindy was smiling, a fact noted by Bill. "Tomorrow ya'll're going where? Charlotte?"

"Yessir," Cindy answered. "He's getting me out of school at eleven. Should get to Charlotte before dark."

"Hotel reservations. Rental car. Concert tickets. And if the weather holds, we'll be back Sunday. But it's kind of shaky for Sunday."

"Heard that," Bill said. "You're scheduled to roll Number Two on Tuesday, right?"

"I'll be back for that. My techs are monitoring the temperatures on the generator, and your mechanical folks are taking care of the turbine. I'll be on the cell phone," I said.

"Yeah, that's good! Your stuff hasn't been a problem. Yet."

"That's why I get the medium bucks," I laughed.

We enjoyed breakfast, greeting several other project guys as they showed up for breakfast. Bill finished while Cindy and I were still eating and he grabbed the ticket. "We talked business, didn't we, Cindy?" he laughed.

"Yessir. Thank you." She gave him her best smile.

I dropped Cindy off at the park to catch her bus and I went on to work. I caught Sara getting out of her car. She rode to the office trailers with me in my golf cart.

"Darn!" she said. "It's NASTY!" The open cart did little to mitigate the raw blowing drizzle and the chill. Fortunately an early bird buddy had the coffee pot going when we walked in. We had an informal progress meeting, I made a visit to some of the critical places in my world, and then got back to the office, like many of the workers, trying NOT to be out in the nasty weather.

The wind changed at lunchtime and by four o'clock the low clouds were gone, replaced by high overcast, and it was breaking up.

I got back to the park and walked into the office to find Cindy, Helen and Charlie chatting.

"How's the project?" Charlie asked.

"We're going to spin the second one next week," I answered. "Already made electricity with the first."

"Gettin' close to finishin', sure enough," he said.

"Yessir. Getting there."

Our girl's excited about the concert," Helen said. "She played us one of the selections."

"I'm excited too," I said. "It's a favorite of mine. And this group is supposed to be very good."

"You know," Charlie said, "One a' these times, Helen and I will join you two in Mobile for one. Gives us an excuse to dress up and act civilized."

I considered that. I'd NEVER seen Charlie look less than civilized. Not Helen, but hers came from a personal presence that showed through the veneer of checked shirt and baggy jeans. "That's us, ' I said. "I get to put on a suit, and you KNOW what Cindy looks like when she dresses."

"Oh, yes," Charlie said. He smiled at Cindy. "Dan's right. You're quite the beauty."

"Ya'll MAKE me blush, ' she said. She was blushing. And beautiful.

She and I finally left, dropped her backpack at the trailer, and then puttered up the road for a soup and salad meal with our dear lady friends. After the meal, we sat for a while chatting with them over herb tea and cheesecake.

Back at the trailer, it was packing time. Cindy flipped open her laptop and opened a checklist, calling out each item as I collected and packed it.

"Green dress, green sweater," she giggled. "I know what makes MY baby happy! And pack your blue underwear. That makes ME happy!"

"What?" I asked.

"I like 'em," she giggled. "When I know you have 'em on, I think about, you know..."

"Why didn't you say something? I'd've bought more."

"Not the same. Like eating too much chocolate kills the effect. But a taste..." She was smiling enigmatically when I turned to look at her.

This was the first time she'd said something about a turn-on. My cutie and I had an active and joyful sex life together. She had a lot of favorite activities, favorite positions for her moods, and her body telegraphed her desires quite nicely, but this was the first time that she'd said that she desired a particular bit of clothing over what we regularly wore. Damn straight those blue drawers went into the bag. "That's a new one, baby. You never said anything before."

Green eyes. Twinkling. "Wear those Saturday night. I'll KNOW you have 'em on under that respectable grey suit. Beautiful music. Great dinner. And the whole time I'll know that you're doing something a little bit special, just for me!" She grinned.

"Oh, little doll," I said. "Since August I've lived my whole life just for you."

"That goes both ways, you know," she said. "But it's like my green dress. I know that you LOVE that color on me, so I kinda make sure that it shows up from time to time. Just so you know, guy."

"You charm me, little one!"

She abandoned her laptop and strode the short distance up the trailer's little aisle to engage me in a few hugs and kisses and some happy fondling.

"Pack enough so we're covered for Monday," she said.

"I got mine," I answered. She handed me another pair of her jeans and a sweatshirt.

And a pair of powder-blue panties. "D'ya still break out in a sweat?" she giggled.

"Oh, yeah," I answered. "You looked so perfectly innocent and so unbearably cute and..." I described the first time she'd worn a skirt to go out to eat with me.

"I WAS innocent," she said. "That was unpremeditated. But when I saw your FACE ... I mean, I hadn't even thought of how I might affect you. You were this nice older guy. An' I was just a young girl who enjoyed having a friend." She leaned over to kiss me full on the lips as she handed me her socks to pack.

"But the look on your face ... You made me feel ... well, you know what happened."

I knew exactly what happened. After that night I thought I was going to hell by way of an Alabama prison. "I know, baby. You were impossible. Now I've found myself living a dream I didn't even dare to entertain."

She hopped up on the edge of the bed and spread her arms. I stepped between them to kiss her upturned face. "I still love you, Dan! And it's a long way to forever."

"Yes, forever, angel," I said, kissing her again. We finished out the packing and stowed the suitcase and our two travel bags. It was time for showers.

She stepped out of the bathroom, mussing her hair with a towel. I handed her nightshirt to her and she pulled it over her head before she started her hair dryer.

I stripped and stepped into the shower. Fifteen minutes later I was shaving. I finished.

"Aftershave!" she shouted at me.

"Okay, sweetie," I said.

I stepped out to pull on my own nightshirt. As I pulled it over my head, temporarily blinding myself, I heard a giggle and felt a warm hand curl under my balls.

"Love playin' with 'em," she said.

We curled up on the sofa, her in my arms, leaning back against me, the two of us covered with a blanket against the chill winter temperatures, flipping through the TV channels to find something to watch. Ended up on a nature show.

I turned my eyes downward to regard the perfect head of copper-colored hair leaning against my chest. I planted a slow, savoring kiss to the top of her head and she responded by nestling back deeper into my arms.

"Mmmmmm, this is the perfect way to spend a winter night, Dan."

I admitted that it was perfect.

At nine we turned the television off and retired to the bed. "Leave the little light on," she said.

I knew exactly the significance of that instruction. She crawled up onto the bed from the foot, looking over her shoulder at me, short hair swaying seductively, her eyes happy, expectant. I crawled in behind her and she rolled onto her back, drawing me down onto her with her clasping arms. Our mouths merged. I breathed Cindy.

"You make me tingle, guy," she said.

"Yeah? What do you think you make ME do?"

She slid a hand between our bodies. "I KNOW exactly what I make YOU do. And I LIKE it!"

Yes, seven months into the relationship and the closest I ever came to initiating sex was to lightly caress and fondle her. Many an evening we'd slide under the blankets together and our legs would tangle and we'd pull together, and a little hand would start stroking me. And off we would go.

Tonight was one of her more emphatic variations, portending a furious and tasty bout of sixty-nine, leaving us both drained, the score at Cindy - 3, Dan – 1, and her laying atop me, her nose touching mine, smiling. I loved her atop me. Our breathing normalized and then synchronized.

She kissed me and slid off, turning her back to me and shoving her butt against me. I turned toward her and we spooned up, her hand tugging my arm tight around her. And we slept.

The alarm clock broke our reverie and we hit the floor running. Our plan, premeditated, was to leave the trailer this morning and not return until our weekend was over. We dressed. I started the truck to warm it when I got dressed, and I started loading bags. By the time we'd secured the trailer for the weekend, it was just beginning to warm up in the below freezing temperature.

We did breakfast, missing Bill. Some mornings he stayed in his apartment and had breakfast there. We waved and chatted at a few of the other guys who passed through, and I dropped Cindy off back at the park to catch her school bus. I went to the jobsite.

I made the grand tour of my critical equipment, chatted with my lead technician and the electrical foreman and the new owner's electrical engineer and made sure we all knew what the schedule was going to be for the next few days.

I stopped back in the office, prodded Sara to make sure that none of MY paperwork was nearing the 'critical' mark on her works in progress. I sat at my desk and ran through the email one more time to make sure that I hadn't missed anything, and then I stuck my head in Bill's office.

"Hey, boss! Anything else before I escape?"

"Nope!" he said. "Just take off and have a good time. Take good care of our girl."

...

Bill had grandkids Cindy's age. We'd talked about it before. The guy could've run me off, made my life hell, forced me to quit, had he taken a mind to do so when he found out about Cindy and me getting married, but he didn't. He just shook his head. We went to lunch, talked a bit.

"Dan, it's not my place to get into your personal life, you know..."

"I know, Bill. This is what? Our third project together? You're more my friend than my boss."

"I feel the same way. You're like a son, if not a younger brother. But you INTRODUCED us all to Cindy. Dan, she's awfully young." He sighed heavily. "I have a grandson and a granddaughter, like, HER age."

"I understand, Bill. But I MARRIED Cindy. She's special in a lot of ways and I was never less than completely honorable about her. She's not my toy, Bill. She's my partner. Young. Looks strange, maybe even wrong, to a lot of people, but I will be with her until I die."

He eyed me seriously. "You're not one of those skirt-chasin' fools we see all the time, Dan. I'm inclined to believe you. But you're forty. She's fourteen. YOU have to be careful for HER sake."

"I guard her more than my own life, Bill..."

"I hope you do, Dan..."

...

"Oh, I will, buddy!" I answered.

"AN' you might want to see about her being here next Tuesday when ya'll roll the Number Two unit."

"Good idea, Bill. I'll talk to the school. It's getting a bit dicey, though, with all the client people around."

"I'll tell 'em what's going on. As long as we don't break the access rules, I think we're okay."

"Okay, buddy. See you later." I wheeled around and said bye to Sara and I was on the road.

At the school, I was greeted in the front office. They knew me by now, as many times as I'd picked up Cindy for one thing or another. Jim must've heard my voice because he walked up while I was waiting for Cindy.