Chapter 29

Saturday, January 5, 2002

Originally, Trey and Myleigh's plan after they returned from their honeymoon had been to leave directly from the Camden airport on their trip back to Kansas City. But, that had been before Blake and Jennifer gave Myleigh the harp – and before Nicole gave Trey the handcuffs. From a point about two minutes after the newly-wedded Hartwells pulled out of the Walworth driveway, that plan changed. A honeymoon was one thing; they had planned it and had some things they wanted to do on it, especially in bed, considering their self-imposed delay. But, but getting her unfettered hands on that harp was something Myleigh was adamant about doing before they went back to Kansas City, especially since it was too big for Trey's car and would have to stay in Spearfish Lake.

Randy and Nicole had suspected such a scenario all week, but they didn't know for sure until Nicole got a call midmorning on Saturday from Myleigh. The two had gotten back to the airport in Camden and asked if it would be a problem if they came up and spent the night. Nicole told her that it was no problem; she had been as curious as anyone else about what had happened on the honeymoon, especially if the Tiburon Bahia Resort actually was what Danny had reported.

Randy had been out and around somewhere; Nicole wasn't sure where, but she thought either the Spearfish Lake Cafe or the office were pretty likely. He showed up a little while later, apparently lost in thought. Naturally, she asked where he'd been.

"Oh, out at the local ski hill," he replied absently.

"You went snowboarding and didn't take me?" she chided.

"No snowboarding," he shrugged. "I didn't even get out of the truck. I just needed to look around and adjust my thinking a little."

"Oh, the ski lodge thing again?"

"Yeah," he said. "I was thinking about it this morning and it struck me that all they're trying to build this year is that kind of place on a somewhat bigger scale, not Aspen revisited. I mean, I've been out there enough to know the place pretty well, but I sort of needed to jog my memory a little. The more I think about it, the more I think that we could get away with doing the project in-house and save the tribe a pot load of money."

Nicole had, of course, had a blow-by-blow description of the events of a few days before, and had been witness to a lot of Randy's ruminations about them. "You're saying have Ken design the ski area?" she asked.

"You get right down to it, I don't see any reason why he can't," Randy replied. Ken was a guy in his fifties who had worked for Clark Construction for many years, sometimes as a carpenter, but often as a draftsman. He wasn't a trained and certified architect, but had a good eye for design. He often did architect-quality work on projects when an architect wasn't really needed. He was good – in fact, he'd been the guy who had designed Randy and Nicole's house, if any proof was needed. "He's got a good eye for site design and development. I'm thinking if I send him out to nose around ski resorts for a week or so that he probably could learn all we need to know to get the design work done. It's not that complicated."

"How about the ski lifts and like that?"

"Again, it isn't Aspen," Randy said. "I did some investigation yesterday, and we can buy all the bits and pieces we need for the lifts and put them up ourselves. We can even get some consultation from the manufacturer for some things I'm not real clear about. After all, this isn't a public project, and there's no bank to insist on an architect. I think I'll call Norm on Monday and run it by him."

"How about the lodge? Could you have Ken do that?"

"I'm not sure without talking to him," Randy smiled. "But it's something to think about. While I'm having him look around ski areas, I think I'll have him look over the lodges while he's at it. He might come up with some good input even if he doesn't wind up designing it."

"Is that going to get in the way of you going to the Bahamas?" Nicole couldn't help but wonder.

"No, unless something really comes out of the woodwork, that's all set," Randy told her. "I'll have to take Ken up to talk with Norm, and it's going to take him a while, but he should just about have a proposal ready by the time I get back. The time pressure is really off now. If we keep it in house there's no way an architect can drag ass on it. So, what's happening around here today?"

"Oh, I had a call a few minutes ago," she reported. "Myleigh and Trey are back from Mexico, on their way from Camden, and they're headed up here. I don't expect them for a while. I think they'll go straight to Blake and Jennifer's."

"God help anyone who gets between Myleigh and that harp," Randy smiled. "She's been without a harp for almost a week now; she must be having withdrawal symptoms."

"Foaming at the mouth was the impression I got," Nicole snickered. "The question now is if Trey is going to have to handcuff her to get her back to Kansas City. They're going to spend the night here and leave for Marienthal first thing in the morning."

"Good," Randy smiled. "I'm looking forward to hearing about what happened."

It was after dinner before Myleigh and Trey showed up. Both Nicole and Randy were a little surprised that Trey hadn't had to put Myleigh in handcuffs again to get her out of Blake and Jennifer's, but she seemed about as hyper as Randy had ever seen her. "What a marvelous, heavenly instrument," she gushed when asked about it. "I fear it shall never replace Blue Beauty in my heart, but the timbre and range of that harp is enough to send me to heights of rapture. How very thoughtful it was of Blake and Jennifer to arrange to procure that specific instrument and give it to me. I believe vast new heights of endeavor will be experienced when I am familiar enough to do it justice."

"I take it that means you liked it," Nicole giggled.

"Oh, dear me, yes," Myleigh beamed. "It is such a shame that I cannot take it back to Marienthal with us, but even if we had a vehicle of such size to carry it I fear there isn't enough room in our apartment for it. I shall be counting the days until I can return here to rest my fingers on its strings again."

"Gives you a reason to come back," Randy said. "I'm guessing spring break?"

"Oh, we shall be here for that, I am certain," she replied. "In fact, I would expect that we shall be making some weekend trips up here for no other reason, even though Trey feels that our presence here will be needed for items to do with the house."

"Yeah," Trey added. "While Myleigh was off in a world of her own, Blake, Jennifer, and I spent some time planning. It looks like I'm going to have to be up here more than we thought, starting in a couple weeks to get the studio set up, assuming that you guys will be done in there by then."

"We should be, unless something really stupid happens," Randy told him. "I wanted to have that project signed off before I head to the Bahamas. That's two weeks from today."

"It's still on?" Trey asked.

"I'm a little surprised that something hasn't come up to kill it," Randy told him. "But yeah, it is. If nothing else it'll be good to be away from all this snow for a while."

"Well, good for you," Trey said. "After a week of warm beaches it's hard to have to come back to the cold again."

"Hey," Nicole said, "I want to hear all about your honeymoon, but let's not just stand around here by the door. Why don't we get your stuff up to your room, and then I can break out some wine and we can hit the hot tub?"

"Oh my, yes," Myleigh smiled. "We had the most marvelous time. We'll have to tell you all about it."

A few minutes later all four of them were in the hot tub, all nude, of course. Myleigh was snuggled up under Trey's arm, with a huge grin on her face. "I suppose you wish to know all the lurid and intimate details about our honeymoon, with a detailed amount of all the mad, passionate sex my husband and I shared morning, noon, and night?

"Well, not all of it," Nicole grinned. "But I take it that you had a good time."

"All in all we had a very nice time," Myleigh grinned. "I think I am coming to appreciate the fact that I shall very much enjoy being married to Trey. He is quite fulfilling, and I mean that in more than one sense, I assure you. I fear I do not know how to say it, but I feel he completes a part of me that was in dire need of fulfillment. I confess that until recently I had not really thought much about the practicalities of being married, and I am sure that there are issues that we shall have to work out, but I feel that we shall be able to do so in a civilized manner."

"Well, good," Randy said. "It takes a little getting used to, and you have to learn to give and take along the way."

"Oh, I am quite certain that we shall," Myleigh told them. "I was rather incensed with Trey's refusal to remove the handcuffs from my wrists a week ago, that I might spend a few minutes with that magnificent harp. However, I am forced to admit that after a while I was able to get things into perspective and realize that he was doing it for the benefit of both of us."

"I wondered about that," Nicole said, trying to hide a smile. "How long did he leave them on you?"

"We had arrived at the motel room in Camden before he removed them from my wrists," Myleigh said. "I should have thought that he would have at least allowed me to change clothes here, but he was cruel and mean and dastardly to me by refusing to permit it. I had to bear the weight of those manacles upon my wrists for what seemed like days before he removed them, with the warning that he would shackle me to the bed with them if I attempted to sneak out and return to Spearfish Lake in order to try out that wonderful instrument."

"Good thinking, Trey," Randy laughed. "I've been around Myleigh enough over the years to know that sometimes you have to be a little firm with her, especially when she gets an idea in her head."

"Oh, I knew that," Trey smiled. "Sometimes you use the carrot, and sometimes the stick. Once she realized the inevitability of it all, that she had other things to occupy her mind finally filtered to the surface. Let's just say that we had a really enjoyable evening, and it was hard to get up when the alarm went off the next morning. We did, though, since we had a plane to catch."

"How'd that work out?" Randy asked, his distrust of airlines arising in him.

"Not bad," Trey said. "We only had one connection and it worked out pretty well. Camden to Minneapolis-St. Paul, then to Cancun. I had a rental car lined up there, and we headed on down to the resort. It shot most of the day in the butt, but it was a lot warmer than here."

Both Randy and Nicole really wanted to know what happened next, but were just a little reluctant to admit that they knew what Danny had told them. They'd talked about it ahead of time and agreed to give Myleigh and Trey a chance to admit it before they'd drag it out of them. "Are those Mexican drivers as bad as they say they are?" he asked.

"No, it went pretty good, all in all," Trey said. "They're used to people who don't speak Spanish showing up there, so everyone was pretty helpful."

"It was ever so much warmer than here," Myleigh added. "Even much warmer than in Kansas City. I found the different atmosphere and culture most exhilarating. We arrived at the resort about the time the sun was setting, just in time to partake of the evening repast. It proved to be a very nice resort, and I believe Trey did very well in choosing it."