Chapter 17

The letter was in our hands the Friday before we were supposed to join Ernie and his bunch at their camp. Camp. In this context, it was kind of funny, because the hunting camp was not too many miles away from his home and office. It was, however, a long, isolated drive up a gravel road originally built to service oil wells. Now it led to a little artificial high spot in the midst of the Gulf coastal marshes. Oops! They're 'wetlands' now. In a matter of a couple of weeks, this place would be the base for hunters bent on acquiring ducks from the marshes.

Right now, though, there were two pickup trucks and Ernie's official sheriff department SUV parked in front of a pretty nice building. Yep, it was built by an oil company with the idea that it needed to withstand the inevitable hurricane and then provide a place for their workers to live while the field equipment was restored. When the field petered out, the camp was sold. Now it was Ernie's.

We got out of the truck and ran into people we didn't know. Nikki charged right in. "Hi, I'm Nikki and this is my husband, Dan. Mister Ernie invited us!"

The older woman of the group, fiftyish, grinned. "OH, so I finally meet YOU! I'm Beth. Ernie's wife. This is my daughter Sharon and daughter-in-law Bella. I'm too tired to name kids! Ernie and the guys are around back." She grabbed Nikki. "Come on. He'll be okay with the rest of 'em. I've been waiting to talk with you." She was smiling.

Nikki looked at me. "You can go off and bond, guy. I'm safe. She's got Mister Ernie pretty well house-broken."

Beth laughed. "Oh, good! It shows in public. I've worked soooo hard!"

Nikki's responding grin told me that I shouldn't worry about her socializing. Nikki was becoming more self-assured by the day. I walked around the side of the building. It was elevated on pilings, but the ground level was rendered almost opaque by a complete set of screened walls, a necessity in marshlands where mosquito infestations could kill cattle with sheer numbers. Ernie was straining to see who I was and when I rounded the corner, he recognized me and shouted. "Dan! Grab a drink outta that cooler! We're settin' up to boil crabs!"

I grabbed a beer and walked up to Ernie and the other two guys. Ernie introduced me. "Dan, this is my son, Ernie Junior. You can call 'im 'Junior'. And this is my son-in-law, Jeff. Boys, this is Dan Granger, the only man who didn't evacuate the parish voluntarily for the hurricane. And wait'll you meet what he rescued!"

Junior grinned. "Dad says you pulled your wife out of the wreckage of that apartment building."

"Guilty," I said. "Just a bit of luck that I heard her hollering inside there."

"You stayed at your house? The one next door to the apartments? And they got blown to HELL!" Junior looked puzzled.

"Got some engineer buddies: A civil guy did my foundations and between him and a mechanical engineer, they came up with the structure. Cost me a chunk to build it that way, but I didn't lose a thing off it. And I did the electrical system, so my lights blinked ONCE. Only thing I missed was not putting up a satellite dish for TV and the internet."

"No shit!" Jeff blurted.

Ernie laughed. "Yeah, I flew in on an Army chopper and there he was, him and his future wife, standing in the driveway. Lights and air conditioning and they didn't wanna go NOWHERE!"

"I invited 'em in for cold drinks," I said. "Just like my momma taught me!"

I heard a familiar giggle coupled by all the other heads turning. I turned to catch Nikki's arm in mine. She was in complete 'doll' mode. Last week's haircut had her super-neat, her walnut hair perfectly in place, bangs straight across at eyebrow level, the rest at jawline, her natural curl bringing the ends forward in a neat curve to frame her face. And blue eyes. Make that 'twinkling blue eyes'.

"Are you telling stories again, baby?"

Now, Ernie already knew Nikki, so she wasn't a shock to him. To Junior and Jeff, though, they could've caught flies with their mouths gaping open.

"Nikki," I said, "this is Junior, Ernie's son, and this is Jeff, his son-in-law. Guys, my wife Nikki."

Poise returned to both guys and they shook her offered hand. She turned to me, tiptoed to plant a kiss on my cheek and said, "I'm going back inside to help the ladies. You can stay out here with the guys and walk around dragging your knuckles and grunting." Giggle. And she bounced away. I noticed the heinie wiggle.

"THAT'S your WIFE?!?!?" Jeff asked.

"Yep. Three months now. She's my life!"

Junior stepped in. "Dad said she was different. THAT'S definitely different."

"Oh, she is. She's smart as a whip. Likes my music. Reads books without pictures. And Just skipped two grades in high school." Yeah, I was bragging. My Nikki. I was past 'proud husband' with her.

"And you rescued 'er?"

"Yep! The morning after the storm blew through, I was checking out the outside of my house and decided to take a closer look at that collapsed apartment building."

"Building was a piece of crap when they built it. I know some of the contractors," Jeff said. "Oops! sorry to interrupt."

"No problem. I watched it being built. I know it was crap, too. But anyway, I heard somebody hollering. I climbed up on the rubble and met Nikki staring out of the pile. Had to cut some two-by-fours out of the way to get her out. Gave her a place to stay. Two weeks later, we decided we needed to be together."

Ernie added, "Kid had a rough life before Dan."

"And now life is good. For BOTH of us!" I said.

"How old..." Jeff started.

"She's fifteen. I'm forty-one."

"Oh."

"Yeah, I know. SHE says..."

"I asked 'er myself," Ernie said. "Before I went and talked to the judge. She's not your normal teen."

"Cutie, though," Junior said. "Just like you said, Dad. I can see getting' your head turned."

Jeff snorted. "Would've turned MY head, and I'm married."

"And your father-in-law packs a gun," I laughed.

"But you look like you keep yourself fit," Jeff said. "I guess that pays off now." Jeff carried forty or so extra pounds, not grossly overweight, but it was obvious.

I kind of smirked. I knew exactly what he as angling towards. "In ways a normal man can only imagine!" I laughed.

A plump, dark-haired woman approached with a tray of deviled eggs. Jeff smiled sheepishly. Uh, Dan, this is my wife Sharon." Sharon was obviously a product of somebody and Ernie. She had the swarthy stockiness that wasn't uncommon in some Cajun bloodlines. Dark eyes, thick very dark brown hair, a couple of shades darker than Nikki's.

"We met in the front," I said.

"Hi, Dan," she said. "We been up there in the kitchen with Nikki. She said you needed to get fed regular or you get grumpy!"

I looked over her head. Nikki was peering out of the door, grinning. I could only imagine the conversation that was going on in that kitchen. She gave me a little wave of her fingers to let me know she'd put Sharon up to the comment.

"She just knows the calming effect deviled eggs have on me, that's all, ' I laughed.

"I'm sure, ' she said. "Dad, Momma says y'all can start boiling the crabs any time now!"

"Let's go kill some crustaceans," I said.

Ernie raised an eyebrow, then grinned. "You wanna watch the big words there, engineer!" he laughed. "Last one that called 'em 'crustaceans' was that whacko science teacher that quit last year. She quit before they lynched 'er after she an' a couple of kids tried to protest at the shrimp docks."

"Oh, yeah. Nikki told me about 'er. You should know better, Ernie! I'm nipple-deep in the petrochemical industry."

"Oh, I know that," he chuckled. "I'm just ripping on you a little."

"Turnabout's fair play," I said.

A huge vat of heavily seasoned water was brought from a simmer to a rolling boil and a basket of crabs was lowered into it, along with whole small potatoes and ears of corn. All we had to do now was wait, a task best performed in a chair nearby, beer in hand. No, I wasn't much of a drinker, but beer goes with boiled crabs and good conversation.

Fastidious manners don't. Cleanup of the diners involved soap and garden hoses, and you wanted to be very sure you'd washed your hands before you touched any tender parts, lest the pepper residue on your fingertips transfer to your tender bits, a rookie mistake only made once.

We sat and talked until well after dark in the screened patio under the raised camp, laughing, carrying on. Nikki was happy and bright and funny and I was perfectly happy seeing it. Finally, after a second round of dessert ("I gotta have your recipe for banana pudding, Mizz Richard," Nikki told Ernie's wife) we stretched and made our way back to the truck.

One last round of handshakes and hugs and kisses and we headed up the road out of the marsh.

I glanced over at the cutie next to me. "Well?"

"Well, what?"

"Did you have a good time?"

"I had a GREAT time. So neat having friends like that, baby. Grandma's friends were like that, but they were so much older. Today, I was older than the kids, but the women treated me like one of them."

"Good," I said. "I enjoyed myself, too. I watched you. You fit right in. Made your own place."

"They LET me make my own place, Dan. That was the best part. You should've heard some of the conversations in the kitchen while y'all were outside."

"Oh yeah?"

Giggle. "I think 'bawdy' is a neat word to describe it. I never heard adults talk about sex like that. I think they were surprised when I didn't just run screaming from the room. But I figured if they could..."

"You talked about sex?"

"In general terms. You know, sometimes it's not WHAT you say, it's what you DON'T say." Giggle. "And how you don't say it."

I thought about that for a minute.

"It does have a positive effect, though, honey," she cooed.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. I am abnormally horny." Giggle. Her eyes laughed as they connected with mine. "Of course, I was warned that older guys slow down and I need to be careful that I don't wear you out."

"And how'd you respond to that?"

"I just smiled and said that I lacked NOTHING!"

"You flatter me, little one."

"I was telling the truth. If it was any better, it would KILL me."

"You KNOW how I feel about it, baby. You show me how lacking my imagination was."

We drove on to the house, talking and teasing one another. By the time we got home, both of us wanted to dispense with the shower, but our better senses prevailed. Naked. In the shower. Twenty minutes of hot, soapy, wet foreplay. Out of the shower, I indicated that we should go straight to bed.

"Nuh-uh. I got plans, and the LAST time you did THAT without shaving, you like to wore the skin off the insides of my thighs!" Giggle.

I like THOSE plans. While I shaved, she dried and brushed her hair. I finished brushing for her, and she stood and turned, squeaky clean, completely naked and kissing me.

"Now!" she said.

When we walked into the bedroom naked, the cat took off. He KNEW better.

I heard somewhere that there are only a finite measure of positions from which one might insert Tab A into Slot B. Tonight we tried at least a dozen. I think I sprained my tongue. Nikki lost count of squealing, breathless orgasms and I managed three in an hour and a half and could barely follow her back into the bathroom where we did a refresher shower before retiring.

"I'm sure glad it's Friday night," I said. "I'd hate to go to work in the morning still smiling from all this!"

She giggled. "Didja ever think of how it is for me, goin' to school and everybody just KNOWS I've been havin' sex the night before?"

"Yeah, ' I said. "I get some of that. Everybody says I'm much less intense at work."

"Uh-huh. But you're married and of the age where it's expected. I'm just a tender little schoolgirl. I'm not supposed to be sitting in class getting wet remembering LAST night and thinking about TONIGHT. And smiling like that."

We both felt the thump on the bed that marked the return of the cat. He surmised it was safe enough for him to curl up to sleep.

Nikki curled up, too, inside my arm, her own draped across my torso, idly fondling my completely spent dick.

Let's skip ahead a few months. Me. Nikki. Everybody, friends and family, got used to the strange spectacle of Nikki and her old husband (her friends) or me and my teen wife (my family and friends.)

We'd made the pilgrimage to Arkansas twice to visit her mom. I expected heartache from it. There was some. Her mom pulled out all the stops, trying to lay a guilt trip on Nikki with the hopes of getting a pipeline to the outside. Nikki read right through it. "Mom, I love you. You're always going to be my mom. But I'm not buying that 'it's not my fault' thing." We promised to do a visit every couple of months, and Nikki kept the writing going.

We shared Thanksgiving together, dragging MY family ("Uh ... OUR family," she reminds me) over to the house for a full layout for dinner. Sis brought pies.