The day was slowly moving to a close. Chrisine could hear the sounds of the kids about to be let out for the day. Then it would be quiet for the rest of her time at the office. She realized that she actually enjoyed the noise, exuberant noise of the elementary school kids being let out. There was so much life and joy in it, that it was a pleasure for her.

It was also the time of day, when her own secretarial staff would be going home, leaving her with the quiet that she loved periodically.

Chris Wilkins had wondered at first if she would like having the office of the superintendent of schools in the elementary school building but realized soon enough that it was a good arrangement, one that worked out just fine.

She was in the middle of these reveries, when her cell phone exploded with the opening of 'Carmina Burana', her ringtone. She noticed right away that it was from Charlie Rhodes, her next door neighbor. It caused a bit of concern for her immediately. She answered:

"Hey, Charlie!"

"Chris," he said. "I hate to ever ask such a favor but we just got some people in here and I have to make sure they're processed into our system."

"You can use the jargon with me, sergeant," she said with a grin. "You need to 'book' some people."

"Caught me, Super!" he quipped, "We need to book these people."

"And you want me to collect the hurricane and keep him in my office, until the police arrive?" she said with a laugh.

"Chris, would you please?" he asked. "I apologize for the need to ask this of you."

"Charlie," she said softly, "You know that I've told you that you can count on me for help with Wally anytime, and I meant it."

"Thanks, Chris, you're an angel," Charlie said, "I'm sorry but I have to go. I'll be there to fetch Wally soon."

"Take your time, sergeant, he and I are buddies!" she said then.

"You're the best, Chris!" he said as he rung off.

"If you only meant that," she said to herself.

Truth to tell, Chrisine Wilkins was in love with Charlie Rhodes, had been for a while. She certainly had been since the death of Charlie's wife Susie, leaving him to care for their two year old son Wally. It was a realization that grew over those few years, and, for Chris, had certainly blossomed.

For her the relationship with Charlie Rhodes was a 'whatever you need' one, and she truly and sincerely loved the little tow headed 'Wally', aka the 'Hurricane'.

That woke her from her reverie immediately and she got up to go to kindergarten to fetch him.

He sang out, as soon as he saw her in the doorway: "Chris!" Then with an embarrassed look on his face, remembering what his father had told him about addressing Chris Wilkins, when they were at school, he said quickly:

"Ms Wilkins!"

She gave him a conspiratorial smile and wink.

"Wally," she said, kneeling down in front of the little boy, "The cops are busy right now and I'm supposed to hold you captive in my office until you get rescued by the police."

"Oh, goodie!" Wally said, probably as much in love with Chris Wilkins as she was with him.

"Mollie, his Dad's held up at the station with some business," Chris explained. "I'll take Wally to my office to wait for him."

"Yes, ma'am," the young teacher said, smiling, "Sergeant Rhodes just called to confirm that Wally'd be going with you, until he would be able to come for him."

They walked down the hallway companionably holding hands with Wally chattering a mile a minute about school, his friends, what he did and on and on. It all brought a huge grin to Chris' face, as they walked along.

"Got some new computer games for you to try out, pal," she said.

"Oh, cool!" Wally replied, and she was newly amazed at where he picked up such language, thinking automatically of his Dad.

Chris Wilkins had been set in her ways already by the time that the Rhodes family moved into the newly built home next door. She had early on made a decision to buy up the extra land in their small out of the way street to keep it as private as possible. The Rhodes' home had already been built but Charlie agreed with her and bought the other lot on his side of the cul-de-sac, to keep it fairly private. She was pleased by their arrangement. For one thing, it allowed her to sunbathe, which she loved to do for relaxation. And, since the Rhodes family was a really busy one, she normally had all the privacy that she needed for doing it.

At 36 Chris Wilkins was a blossoming beauty. She was simply the kind of woman to whom the 30'as were a grand, grand time, bringing out beauty and charm. She was a bit on the tall side at 5'9" but her height only emphasized the loveliness of her total body: largish breasts, and a fully rounded butt.

She had looked on with horror, as Susie developed her final illness, and it was during this time period that she'd become such a good friend to Charlie and simply grown to love Wally. She helped provide some of the care for Susie, since she was right there and Charlie's schedule was a crazy one. They'd gone through that terribly difficult time together as friends, with her providing whatever support that she could.

It had taken Charlie Rhodes a while to get over the shock of Susie's death and Chris' help was an important thing in that process.

It was only that she never, ever had any idea in her mind of falling in love with him, which came only later, as life settled down for the two of them and Wally, in their cul-de-sac.

"Here we are, sport!" Chris said to her grinning companion.

"Thanks, super!" he said with a brazen smile.

She grinned back at him and said: "We won't tell your Dad that you called me 'super', will we?"

He grinned and said: "No, ma'am, sorry!"

"No 'sorries' between us pals!" she said, poking the little boy in the ribs.

She took him into her office then and sat him down at her laptop that she had there and set it up for some games for him to play. She also fetched a drink for him and kissed him on the head, when she brought it. She was rewarded then with his 24 carat grin.

"Thank you, Ms. Wilkins!" he said.

"Oh," she cried, putting her hand over her heart as though faint, "The boy's polite!"

This got her an all out grin from him, as he drank and then lowered his head to concentrate on the game.

It didn't take her long to finish up the few tasks that she had left for that day, while he was busy at the computer. Soon enough, she joined him and they toiled away at the game, one that had them throwing exploding bananas at each other's images. They were engrossed in the game and both of them laughing like yesterday's fools.

Their mirth was interrupted by a knock at the open doorway.

Chris looked up to see Charlie standing there and said to Wally:

"Wally, cheese it; it's the cops!"

They both went into giggles, after she said that and left Charlie Rhodes only shaking his head and saying: "I don't know which of the two of you is worse!"

Chris and Wally gave each other a grin and a 'high five' and Wally bounded off of the chair, from his position in front of the computer, to hug his dad:

"Poppa!" he said with both great glee and great affection.

They hugged for many minutes and finally Charlie said:

"Chris, this is so nice of you to do this!"

"You mean corral Mr Bigshot banana thrower?" she said laughing, and getting a companionable laugh from Wally.

Then she sobered a bit and said: "Charlie, it's no problem. Don't give it a second thought."

"Well," Charlie went on, "I appreciate it, Chris, and I want you to know that. Why don't the three of us go out for a pizza? We'd like to say a proper 'thank you.'?"

Chris was torn at that point. She didn't usually accept such invitations. She tried to keep her 'passion', as she called it, under strict control, and for her it was difficult enough to spend time with Wally but with the two of them, it was terrible difficult. She just didn't think that it would help her to keep a lid on the way that she loved Charlie, as well as Wally, for her to dine with them. She was determined to refuse but it was Wally that went to her then and hugged her and said:

"Please come with us; it'll be like the three mouseketeers!"

That made all three of them laugh and Chris gave in. "With one condition," she said, and pointing at Wally said: "If you get drunk again, this time I'll call the cops and send you to the slammer!"

Wally stuck his hands up in the air and promised not to drink too much beer. It was on that note that they piled out of the school building and headed for Chris' car, since Charlie had gotten a ride there in a squad car and was hoping, he said, that Chris would see them properly home.

Charlie Rhodes' own feelings at that point were decidedly complicated. After the death of his Susie, he shut down that part of himself, the part that was, would be, could be, might be attracted to another woman, even as lovely a woman as Chris was. Yet, at the same time, Chris' obvious love for Wally and the way that they were so good together, gave him more than one thought lately about what he might do about it. He just couldn't seem to get over the part of him, his passion, that had died with Susie.

It was as though he could never break through to who Chris Wilkins really was, or how she really was. She was older than he by about five or so years but it wasn't that, which held Charlie back. No, it was an unrecognized something that kept them 'friends'.

Chris certainly knew about the 'friends' part, and didn't try to push anything beyond that point. It somehow didn't seem proper to try to do that.

Their dinner was affable and very companionable. There was an already realized comfort among the three of them that belied any difficulties in their being a permanent threesome. The only people that didn't realize this was the three of them, or, perhaps more aptly speaking, the two adults. Wally had long begun to look on Chris with the eyes of a child dealing with one of his 'special' adults, his Poppa and his Chris.

Chris gave the two guys a ride home, after the dinner and got a hug and kiss 'good night' from Wally and a hug from Charlie--unfortunately never enough!

The next day was Saturday and Chris planned to spend at least some of it lying in the sun. She reasoned that it had to be, since it was already fall and the days of being able to lie in the sun were certainly numbered. She planned to be out there the next day at noontime to give her tan one last chance to shine.

As she gathered her things for her time in the sun, she decided to allow herself to wear a new bikini suit that she'd bought for a trip to Florida that she never was able to bring off. It was bright red and was fairly 'microscopic' in its fit but she was only lying out in her own back yard and didn't suspect any problems doing that.

She took with her a blanket, her sun glasses, tanning lotion, a bottle of water, and a book to read. She lay there and simply exhaled the problems of the week away, as she read a bit and relaxed. She became logy soon enough and set the alarm clock that she'd brought with her, so that she wouldn't overdo the tanning. She slipped into a light sleep. She was on her stomach and had unhooked the bra of the bathing suit, to let the tan be as even as possible.

She was in that position, when the ball hit her. Unknown to her, Charlie and Wally were playing ball in their adjacent back yard, and Wally hit the pitched ball rather harder than usual. Charlie went to fetch the ball, noting that it went into Chris' yard.

The ball hitting her woke Chris and she sat up, surprised by the interruption of her napping.

A few things were apparent at once: Charlie stopped dead in his tracks, as he caught sight of Chris, setting up, having forgotten about her loose bra. He simply stared at Chris' naked breasts and the way she looked in the bikini bottoms. He was thunder struck. She was beautiful! She was actually way, way beyond beautiful. He had never noticed, never given it a thought. Yet, here he was looking at her and was swept away. He was dumb and only managed one word: "Chris."

For her part Chris saw Charlie at once and she froze. She certainly remembered the bra, and her exposure but she was so shocked to see him standing there mute and staring at her, and almost only whispering her name, that she initially made no movement to do anything about it.

She recovered first: "Oh, your ball," she said, grabbing first her bra and putting it on and then standing to recover the ball.

This, of course, was worse for Charlie. She now walked toward the ball and he had the full effect of watching the twitching of Chris' ass cheeks, barely held in by the bikini bottoms.

She got the ball and threw it to him, noticing right away that he was still struck dumb.

"Charlie?" she asked.

It brought him around and he caught the ball and, reddened immensely, blushing furiously.

"Sorry, uh, Chris!" he said and beat a hasty retreat.

Chris' response to the entire incident was to simply smile.

"Way to go, Chrissie!" she said to herself, realizing that she'd finally managed to stun Charlie Rhodes, and do it, when she wasn't trying to have that effect on him at all.

Charlie and Wally played ball for a while and then went into the house for some lunch, and then it was a nap for Wally.

Charlie went to his den and sat. He decided that he needed time to think. Over and over in his mind he played the tape of her sitting up, startled and the bra falling down and off of her, exposing large breasts, and lovely, dark, stiff nipples. Over and over again he was stunned.

As he sat there the one thing that he knew was that this was no ordinary, catch a woman, when she's vulnerable kind of thing. This seemed to him to be a whole new thing that he'd never expected or put his finger on.

Probably most shocking of all to him was the fact that the remembrance of it was giving him an erection. Apart from normal times of masturbation, this had not been much a part of Charlie's life, since Susie was gone. But it was certainly there now.

"And she probably thought that you were lurking and ogling her!" he said to himself.

He decided that after Wally was in bed, he'd call her and apologize, hoping to convince her that it was fortuitous and not because he was doing any lurking at all.

He made the phone call later and asked her, if it were possible for her to stop over for a few minutes.

"Is the tiger in bed?" she asked softly.

"About to be," Charlie said, "And if you come now, you can wish him sweet dreams."

"Done!" Chris said.

She went next door immediately.

"Asleep?" she asked Charlie.

"Don't think so," was his answer. "Let's go see."

They went upstairs quietly together and looked in only to see Wally lying in bed and sinking obviously into a good slumber.

"Do you mind, Charlie?" she asked.

He knew what she had in mind and said: "Of course not. You're his pal. Give him a kiss."

She went to Wally, and pushing his hair up off of his forehead, kissed his forehead and then kissed him lightly on the lips.

"Good night, Wally!" she said very quietly, so as not to wake him.

His response, from a sleeping state, was to put his arms around her neck and return the kiss.

"Good night, Momma," he said, and sunk back into his sleep.

By the time that Chris was at the door, where Charlie was waiting for her, she was crying. He put his arms around her and took her out into the hall way and let her cry.

"Sorry for being silly!" she said, apologizing to Charlie, who waved the apology away and simply held her until her joyful sadness was over.

He resisted a strong temptation to kiss her then. All of what happened that day was, at that very point, becoming too much for him to keep his perspective. It took a great deal of will power on his part to not give in and kiss her.

Chris noticed it also, and was hoping, hoping, hoping for the kiss but also determined not to be pushy about a relationship, where, she thought, none existed.

Charlie was being equally careful because he wanted to make sure that before anything happened, if it were going to happen at all, and he wasn't sure of that, that the record was set straight about the ball incident this afternoon.

They went downstairs and Charlie fetched a glass of white wine for her and a beer for him. He stumbled around for a bit with small talk and then finally got down to what he wanted to say to her.

Chris, for her part, had been exercising. She told Charlie as much but he wanted her to come ahead anyway, saying it was important.

She wore a tee shirt, a short one, at least it didn't cover her butt. She also wore a pair of navy, stretch lycra running pants, and trainers. She had debated at the last about whether she should put on different pants but decided to chance it this way.

The first thing that she did, once they were settled in the family room, was to apologize:

"I need to apologize, Charlie, for the way that I'm dressed; I was just doing my exercises and didn't take time to change. I was hoping to get a chance for a rare 'tuck in' kiss with his majesty upstairs."

"No, please don't say that," Charlie said, unsure of himself, "You look wonderful!"

Chris smiled at the compliment and sipped her wine.

"It's I, uh, Chris," Charlie began, his embarrassment totally obvious, "who need to apologize for, uh, barging in on you today. You should certainly be able to expect the, uh, privacy and, I guess, sanctuary of your back yard, when you want to lie out in the sun..."

She smiled at him, letting him talk, and barely able to suppress a grin.

He went on: "I don't want you to think that I was, uh, lurking or anything like that. I wasn't; I'm, uh, not that way."

He hesitated then and she let him go to see if he had anything else to say:

"I want to tell you how totally grateful I am for the way that you always help with Wally. " He thought for a moment and said:

"I swear, what he said in the bedroom just now was more than half total reality for him, and not just the murmuring of a sleepy child."

He seemed to be running out of gas at that point, and Chris decided to act. Charlie had been standing for all of this recitation and speech. He stood there awkwardly, and she was sitting. Her response was immediate. It was unplanned, not thought through but as genuine as anything she'd ever done. She got up and threw her arms around the big cop, her neighbor, Wally's Dad, and kissed him.

Charlie was taken back by what she did but didn't hesitate at all. As soon as her arms were around his neck, he grasped her around the waist, with one hand on the middle of her back, and kissed her back.

It wasn't a quick kiss at all. It began slowly, softly and simply grew in intensity and passion, as the time, the seconds and the minutes went by. She opened her mouth for him, after just a bit, and greeted his invading tongue with her own. Then she pursed her lips to take his tongue and began to suck on his tongue. This produced throat sounds from Charlie that simply spurred Chris on. She ended the kiss by gazing steadily into his eyes, and running her tongue along his lips at the end of the kiss.

"Ohhhhhh dear!" Charlie said. "I haven't done that or thought of doing that, or thought of that for..."

She put her finger on his lips and said: "No, don't. We need to just think about that."

She laughed and said: "At least once the earth stops shaking, we do."

"Yes," he said softly.

"There's no hurry here," she said next.

"No," he said softly next.

"Are you okay, Charlie?" she asked.

"No, I don't think so," he said, "I'm not sure that I'll ever be okay again after that."

Chris giggled then, and spoke up.

"About today, no harm was done. I know that you had no intention to 'lurk', while I was sun bathing." She laughed and said: "Although next time, I'll know you were indeed lurking."

He was silent and said finally: "I'm sorry to be so dumb, Chris but between what I saw this afternoon, and the way that you're dressed tonight, and that kiss, I'm getting a totally new definition of what 'wonderful' means, and I don't know exactly what to do about it."

"Then we do nothing about it right now," she said softly. "We just go on, each of us, loving that wonderful little boy upstairs and let these things sort themselves out. I know that they will."

She turned and gave him a lingering kiss. It wasn't the same passionate kind of kiss as before but it wasn't the kiss of two friends parting. They both saw it for what it was, the kiss of two lovers who would certainly be together again and soon.

"I'm going to go now, Charlie," she said.

By then he was no longer struck dumb and some of his spirit had returned.

"And I'm going to watch you walk across the room!" he said with a chuckle.

"Dirty minded policeman!" she chided, kissing him again, and positively strutted from the room.

He followed her and opened the door for her. As she slipped out into the night to go to her house, he said softly:

"Beautiful ass, Chris!"

She turned, giving another short kiss and said: "Why thank you, Charlie!"

They both acknowledged to themselves that they had unfinished business to conduct with one another, and that the conducting of that business would occur soon.

But all of that was set aside, when Wally got sick.

It was a few days later. They had not indeed done anything about the lingering passion that they both felt from what had happened. But neither of them seemed to be in a hurry about it, knowing that it was going to happen.

The middle of the night and her bedside phone rang. It was an unusual event for her.

"Hello?" she answered in a very sleepy voice.

"Chris," Charlie said.

She came awake immediately because of the edge of panic in his voice.

"Wally's sick, Chris, very sick," he said then, his voice as close to absolute panic as possible without giving in to it totally.

"I'll be right there," she said.

"Door's open," was his response.

She took nothing; she waited for nothing; she thought of nothing but getting to the house next door, where Wally was sick.

She entered the house and followed the trail of light to the bedroom, Wally's bedroom, where she found the two of them.

For Charlie, it was, for a couple of reasons, the greatest crisis that he'd faced, since the illness and death of Susie.

The overwhelming fact was that this was Wally now who was sick, he was afraid of maybe the same thing, that had come and taken Susie.

But even in the midst of his near panic, Chris' appearance was another shock to his system. She'd taken no time to put on a robe. She wore the same floor length night gown that she'd worn to bed. It was a bone white and beneath it, Chris wore nothing at all.

In a nano second, Charlie took in the fact that she was there to help, and that was accompanied by the sight of her in that nightgown. He didn't dwell on it but he certainly noticed. He certainly noticed the poke of her nipples against the light off white fabric. He certainly noticed the poking of her her pubic curls against the front of the gown, down between her legs, and as he followed her into the bedroom, the cheeks of her ass were also on display.

It was as though all of this registered and was stored for consideration later. At the time his concern for Wally precluded his being able to dwell on Chris' loveliness in that night gown.

It was certainly his experience with the death of Susie that caused his brief panic that night. He wasn't prepared for anything, let alone the same kind of thing, to happen to Wally, and he discovered that Chris' presence was what calmed him down and helped him to function to aid her with the crisis.

"Run a tub of cold water," she said, once she realized how high Wally's temperature was.

Charlie responded by going off immediately to do that. He had it ready by the time Chris brought the limp boy into the bathroom, wrapped in a sheet, to put him into the tub.

"Call 911?" she asked then and he moved immediately to do so.

She meanwhile had dipped Wally into the water, in an attempt to bring his body temperature down.

The ambulance was there almost immediately. The emt's from the ambulance, once they assessed the situation and saw what kind of temperature Wally was running, had him ready to transport immediately.

Both Charlie and Chris rode in the ambulance with Wally. They followed the gurney into the hospital ER, and Chris hovered, while Charlie gave them the necessary information.

It was only while Chris was standing back, watching the ER staff work on Wally that someone tapped her on the shoulder. She turned to find a nurse smiling at her and holding out a doctor's white lab coat for her to wear.

"Oh, dear!" Chris said, "I was so upset that I forgot how I was dressed." She sighed then and said: "Or, I guess, not dressed."

"This will be fine," the nurse said. "His Mom?"

"No," Chris said, "Next door neighbor but I love him so." The nurse smiled and nodded. It was the kind of encouragement that Chris seemed to need right then, for she went on: "I love them both so."

She chuckled then and said: "I left my house, after Charlie called, without thinking about or bothering to dress, I'm afraid. I must be quite a sight."

"A lovely sight," the nurse said with a smile, giving Chris a hug.

"Thank you, for being so kind," Chris said, and then Charlie was back.

"How?" he asked quickly, and the nurse said: "Seems to be going okay just now; we'll let you know."

He put his arms around Chris and said: "Thanks so much for this."

"Fool that I am," she said against his shoulder, giving in to the urge to cry about it, now that her part in taking care of Wally was over, "Running around almost naked!"

"Spectacular!" Charlie said, and she looked at him with glistening eyes, and said what she otherwise would never have said:

"I love you, Charlie!"

She thought about having said it immediately, and realized that she wasn't sorry for making the declaration.

His response was to hold her close to him:

"Thank you, thank you, thank you," he said. He shuddered from the emotion just then and whispered:

"Noticed you prancing around almost naked though."

"Thought you might have," she said, and they dropped the topic for that time.

They waited and finally an ER doctor came out to talk to them. He told them right away that Wally was 'out of trouble'. Chris broke down into tears immediately.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I'm not even his Mom."

"The only Mom that he's got!" was Charlie's statement then.

The doctor went on to talk to them about what kind of strange infection he'd had, an almost freak occurrence but that he was out of danger then.

"I think that it was the soaking in cold water that saved his life," the doctor said.

"Yes," Charlie said,"She did that. I'm the cop and am supposed to be great in emergencies and couldn't think straight at all."

The doctor looked at the two of them with a kind of question on his mind.

"I live next door," Chris said, "Charlie called and I never even bothered to dress; still in my pj's. But we're very close."

"Yes," Charlie said, "Especially Chris and Wally."

Then the doctor said: "Well Wally's going to be just fine. We'll put him in a room upstairs just to observe him for a day or so; make sure that this is cleared out of his system."

"Thank you, doctor," Charlie said.

Then the doctor asked pleasantly: "Are you the superintendent of schools?"

"Yes," Chris said, "Here I am in dishabille!"

"Got the job done," the doctor said, "Good for you! You both saved this child's life!"

The doctor left them at that point. Charlie turned to Chris and simply held her in his arms. And Chris, for her part, clung to him a long while.

Finally she looked up at him and said:

"Charlie, why don't I call one of the people from my office? I need to go home and get some clothes and I'll bring some for you also?"

"Oh, would you please?" he asked.

She called one of her assistant administrator's who was also a friend:

"Janie," she said, once she'd answered the call and seemed awake. "I'm sorry to call you now but Wally next door was taken to the hospital for an emergency, and..."

She broke down at this point and only slowly was able to tell Jane that she needed a ride to get some clothing.

"I don't know if there are taxis or anything," Chris said finally, "And I came here with the ambulance wearing only my night gown, and, I'm afraid, nothing over it or under it."

"Don't you worry about it," Jane said, "I'll be right there. You just wait for me."

At that point, as Jane rang off, Chris could hear Jane explaining to her husband what had happened.

Jane was indeed there shortly and brought a coat for Chris to wear home. Chris leaned over and gave Jane a kiss on the cheek: