Chapter 14

Lou Ann loved Mount Rushmore and Crazy Horse. She enjoyed the mountains and looked forward to going over the Rockies to Disneyland. I constantly teased her about getting lost in the mountains and having to forage for berries and leaves to eat, while using other leaves for clothes.

Lane sat quietly beside us as we poked fun at each other. She was less stressed after Kelly left, and it showed in lots of little ways. I would look in the little mirror installed so the driver could make sure everyone was safely seated before pulling out and catch her looking at me. She would reach out and lovingly stroke Lou Ann's hair for no reason, and then smile like she just found out Santa Claus was real.

The sexual pull was apparent, but manageable, and I was enjoying the sense of impending eruption almost as much as I looked forward to getting her naked and finding out all her secrets. Lane changed overnight from serious, focused, and driven to take care of Lou Ann, to gentler, kinder, sexier, and driven to take care of Lou Ann.

I noticed all her curves that day more than the previous ones, and I noticed Lane discreetly checking out my package. We were doing the age old dance that ends with horizontal moves that blow your mind, and I was anxious, but patient in my desire to take off her clothes. Lou Ann noticed the change in dynamics and would stare at us until one or the other noticed and asked, "What?" She never responded, just looked thoughtfully out the windshield each time.

When I helped Lou Ann into the hotel suite in Billings, Lane nodded towards the bathtub and asked, "Can you help me get her into the tub?"

I don't think Lou Ann wanted me undressing her at her age, but she was resigned to being naked in front of strangers and accepted it as inevitable. When I picked her up and carried her into the bedroom, she said, "I know you have to help Mom get me in and out of the tub, but it's embarrassing"

"Of course it is," I said, honestly. "Do you have any ideas how we can make it less embarrassing?"

She thought it over and said, "If you get me one of my really long T-shirts, it will cover me - enough - and I can get it off to wash."

"And THAT'S exactly what we'll do." I looked through her bag and handed her a pink T-shirt, then stepped out while she took off her shirt and bra. When she called my name, I returned and lifted her enough to slide her pants and panties off, without disturbing the T-shirt. Once we got that figured out, I lifted her into the warm bath and left so Lane could help her get cleaned up.

When they were finished, I returned to find Lou Ann sitting up in the now empty tub, looking all pink and clean, wearing the same shirt, and waiting to be moved to her bed. When I lifted her, she asked, "Can you set me on the toilet and leave for few minutes?"

"I can do whatever you need me to do, Little One."

Later I moved her to the bed, tucked her in, and kissed her cheek.

Lane asked me to wait for her for a little while, and disappeared into the second bedroom. When she returned she was freshly scrubbed and wearing a warm up suit. "My daughter has her first crush, and you're it," she said.

Hmmmmm... "Well I guess it is inevitable that any fourteen year old girl would develop a crush on the man who just happens to be the only man nearby and who helps take care of her.

"What would you like me to do to discourage it," I asked, very reasonably?

I could tell that Lane hadn't gotten that far. She thought it over and said, "I don't know that I want you to discourage her. Just be you, and let's see if it passes."

I was intending to head out to the coach but Lane settled in for another talk. "I told you about Bill, but I didn't tell you about us, I mean Bill and me.

"When I first set eyes on him, he was the perfect college professor, except in his case, he was a teaching assistant, which is like a teacher's aide, I suppose. He wore wire rimmed glasses and a tweed jacket. His clothes always looked slightly rumpled but perfectly right for his profession. Bill did everything humanly possible to look like a college professor, in hopes that someday he would be one.

"I was a sophomore and very naive. I thought Bill was the most urbane, hip, and most desirable man in the universe. It was only later that I discovered that his clothes were always slightly rumpled because he was always nailing some coed in his little alcove where he tutored incoming freshmen.

"When he asked me out, it was to be his date at a faculty associate mixer, and he didn't want to attend alone and feel like he stuck out. I wasn't his type, other than the fact that I was the owner of a vagina. Bill was rather non-judgmental about the vaginas he visited. Tall, short, ugly, cute, beautiful, fat, sloppy, virginal, well used, and sometimes none at all, as in homosexual, Bill liked vaginas. He didn't care where they came from or how they were used before he got to them.

"He was thrilled when he discovered I was a virgin. When he released me from that particular burden, it was so magnificent that I was instantly in full blown love, and he was in love with my parents wealth. It didn't take long before he realized he wasn't getting any of my father's fortune and started to run around with all his little sluts again. I say again, but it is quite likely he never stopped tapping the freshman class.

"I found out I was pregnant and it thrilled me. Bill was not as thrilled. He sulked, bitched and moaned, and then suddenly bucked up and took it with grace. Later he told me he thought my parents would give us a few million dollars because we made them grandparents, so my being pregnant turned into a short-term positive.

"When the doctor told us that Lou Ann was not going to be healthy and might not survive, Bill withdrew from me altogether. He never loved me, so caring about me was out of the question. Caring for me during a physically and emotionally stressful pregnancy was not going to happen. He had too many untapped freshman to get bogged down with a wife and a disabled child on the way.

"You already know, Bill disappeared right after Lou Ann was born and filed for divorce almost instantly. He still thought he could tap Daddy's money through the divorce court. When Daddy found out that was Bill's plan, he hired the biggest, meanest, nastiest, shark in the country, and took Bill apart brick by brick.