“I’ve been told I talk too much,” George said.
“Pah! That’s almost the best part of our relationship!”
He grinned. “I’m glad you said almost.”
“You are very pushy,” she said with a smile. “If you weren’t, I never would have had lunch with you, much less moved into your motor home. If you’d bet me a year ago I’d be doing this, I would have put my life savings against it.”
“We have a dinner date with your sons tonight,” George reminded her. “Luke isn’t very cagey—it’s always obvious when he has something serious on his mind. They’re going to give us a talking-to. Want to guess what it’s about?”
“Living in sin?” she asked with a wink.
“Do you think so?” he wondered.
“It’s just what I deserve. I would have been hell on wheels if any of them had informed me they were cohabiting with a woman without vows. George, why didn’t I start minding my own business years ago? No wonder they couldn’t stand to visit me for more than three days at a time.”
“Easy does it, sweetheart. If they wanted to live with a woman without the benefit of marriage, I’m sure they did as they pleased, even if they moved her out when you made that rare visit. Didn’t you say they usually came to you?”
“Usually.”
“And Sean stayed with Francine and Rosie for weeks, once he learned they were a family, though they weren’t married.”
“They did. And didn’t I just give them trouble about it for a while. Though Sean told me to get over it.” Her mouth formed a slight smile. “I was proud of him for staking his claim like that. Mothers shouldn’t be telling children over thirty how to live.”
“There you have it. Now, do you want to make this easy on them? We can always get married.”
“Yes, I think we should. But not for a year. This is a good idea—making sure we’re right for each other. We’re both too old to take ridiculous chances. Besides, I think God’s too busy with other things to worry about this much.”
He kissed her cheek. “As you wish. You can make sure I don’t have an alter ego who’s difficult and annoying.”
She put a hand on his bristly cheek. “I’m the one with the alter ego—she’s bossy and judgmental.”
“She’s been very well behaved lately,” George replied sweetly.
Much later that day, they went to Luke’s and had an extremely nice dinner with Luke, Shelby, Sean, Franci, Rosie and Art. After dinner, with the coffee and pie, Luke brought up the subject weighing on his mind. “So, Mom. George. We have some concerns about this plan you have to travel the world in an RV….”
George and Maureen looked at each other in sudden surprise.
“You have concerns, Luke,” Shelby said. “It isn’t necessarily unanimous.”
“I’m a little concerned,” Sean said.
“I’m not,” Franci weighed in.
Suddenly George and Maureen, eyes still locked, burst into laughter. When they finally quieted, Luke asked, “Is that funny?”
George pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped his eyes. “Well,” he said. “Sounds like a hung jury.”
“Listen, I mean this in a very respectful way, but you’re seventy, and that’s a big rig you got there,” Luke said, leaning forward earnestly.
“It is,” George said. “I took a training course. It’s not something you can jump in and parallel park, you know. And I wanted a house on wheels. Your mother and I—we’re really not much for roughing it. And by God, we’ve earned some good times, I think.”
“I’m going to take a similar course on driving it, in case George is ever indisposed…” Maureen said. Then she chuckled.
“What about this is so goddamn funny?” Luke asked with irritation.
“Oh, it’s just that we thought you were going to hound us about not being married and living together,” she said.
“No one at this table would have the b—” Shelby cleared her throat. “No one should hound you about anything,” she said. “Especially a man who flew Blackhawks and rode motorcycles for over twenty years.”
“Shelby, if you don’t mind,” Luke said.
“I do mind,” she said, straightening and rubbing her hands over her huge middle. “I’m so happy about Maureen and George and their wonderful plans. It sounds like fantastic fun! And there’s no reason to worry. Now, if either of them were in the least infirm, we could talk about it, but…”
“I’ll drive slowly and only make right turns,” George put in. Then he grinned largely. He was clearly not taking the boys seriously.
Luke took a drink of his coffee and leaned toward them both. “You’re worse than having a couple of teenagers. I just want you to be safe. I don’t want to worry about you sliding off some mountain in that monster or ending up at the bottom of the Grand Canyon because your reflexes are a little rusty and you took a turn too wide.”
Maureen tilted her head and smiled at her son. “Well, then, Luke, if you don’t want to worry, don’t. George and I are very cautious and plan ahead.”
“Mom,” Sean attempted.
Franci stood. “Stop. You flew jets that go over five hundred miles an hour and are just back from Iraq—you aren’t allowed to take the temperature of anyone’s life choices. The way I see it, if you and I decide to spend our retirement in an RV, I just hope to God it’s as fancy as theirs. Now, this meeting is over. Who wants a drop of Courvoisier with their coffee?”
“I do,” Shelby said hopefully.
“Who besides Shelby?” Franci asked.
Aiden carried through exactly as planned—he brought Chilean sea bass, mushrooms, rice pilaf, baby green beans and cheesecake to Erin’s cabin for dinner and cooked with her. No bear. He found out that her undergrad degree was in accounting, so it was natural for her to pursue tax law. Law school? “I’d always been a good student and I saw potential. Once I started, I wondered if I hadn’t taken on more than I should have, but it worked out. What did you want to do?” she asked him.
“Save the world,” he said with a shrug. He thought maybe now would be the time to explain that he wasn’t exactly who or what she assumed. “I was a crew member on an ambulance team in college, my part-time job, and the senior EMT delivered a baby. It was the most awesome thing I’d ever seen and I—” The timer on the stove went off and he jumped up to pull out the fish, distracting her.
Through dinner they talked about the most important people in their lives—to Erin it was her brother, sister and her brother-in-law. She told the story of how Marcie found Ian Buchanan in this very cabin, before it was, in her opinion, habitable. How Marcie fell in love with him and married him. When she mentioned that Drew graduated from medical school, he thought it was the right time to tell her…. But the phone rang and she dashed to it. She was only on a second before disconnecting and, with a big smile, said, “Remember I told you Marcie and Ian are coming up for the long weekend—Fourth of July. Would you like to meet them?”
“I would. Definitely,” he said. “How is it you never married?” he asked her. “And don’t tell me you didn’t date, because any man with a pulse would ask you out.”
She flipped the subject on him. “I dated—though infrequently. But what about you? I can tell you’ve been a bar hound, out with a hundred women.”
He was shocked. “What makes you think that?”
“You’re confident, good-looking, and admit it—you’re good with women. I’m a terrible pickup and you have me doing exactly what you want!”
He laughed at her; he almost said something about how he had to be good with women in his business. And the things he’d seen in his work as a gynecologist absolutely ensured he wasn’t careless or frivolous about sex. “Nothing could be further from the truth! Honestly? The military keeps a guy busy and the only women I was meeting happened to be hospital staff. We had some fun, but it seemed like a bad idea to have too much fun, so it was just friends. You must have run into similar situations with colleagues? Lawyers
you met on the job? Bottom line—no long-term relationships since my very miserable, very short marriage.”
“Tell me about that,” she said, leaning her chin in her hand.
And so he had, trying to keep the high drama of it all out of the story. Really, some of the things he went through with Annalee were not to be believed. He’d been a complete fool and he wasn’t proud of it.
Before he left her that night, very reluctantly, he made good use of her lips. He pulled her tight against him so she knew he was completely turned on. He was more than a little grateful—he hadn’t been that turned on in a while, and it was fantastic. All that night in his little cabin by the river he thought about Erin, dreamed about her.
The next day they went for a walk through a redwood grove, although poor Erin was still stiff and sore from her marathon bike ride down the beach. They held hands and talked about their families. Aiden learned about Erin’s remodel by e-mail. “I’d done some remodeling around my dad’s house the past several years, so I had an idea what I wanted. And the builder, a local guy, was easy to work with.”
Aiden found himself telling her about how his brothers Luke and Sean met and married their wives, about his widowed mother who hadn’t had a date in a dozen years, and George, about how Art came to live on Luke’s property and his recent declaration that he had a girlfriend. And in between these stories, their arms were around each other and they kissed: deep, hot, passionate kisses that lasted a long time. “I love kissing you,” he told her.
“I don’t think this is kissing,” she said. “I think this is making out. I haven’t done this in a really long time.”
He pressed her up against one of those majestic redwoods. With a finger, he stroked back some of that silky reddish-blond hair over her ear. “I should talk to you about something. About me, about what I do for a living.”
“Doesn’t matter,” she said, shaking her head.
“It must matter, Erin. Aren’t you a little concerned about getting involved with some sailor you’ve only known a few weeks? Kissed a few times?”
“Because of something as unimportant as income?” She shook her head again.
“What if there’s more to me than meets the eye?” he asked her.
She smiled. “Lucky me. Here’s what I want to know about you, Aiden. I have a good income—are you after it?”
“I’m not after that, no,” he said suggestively.
“Are you likely to use me? Treat me abusively? If we were involved, cheat on me?”
“Never. And we are going to be involved.”
“Want to know what I like best about you? That you aren’t afraid to be yourself. When I met you, I’m pretty sure I was insulting—making cracks about your appearance, your smell…” She giggled. “Lord, did you stink! My brother-in-law, Ian, he said that until he got to know me a little better, he thought I was snooty. I’m not. But I know I can be judgmental. I was pretty hard on him, too.”
“And stubborn,” he said with a smile.
“And that. And the truth is—I’m always afraid to be myself. I’m always trying to measure up.”
“There’s no reason for that,” he said. “You’re perfect.”
“I was fighting for my life in school, Aiden. My way of dealing with the pressure was to be perfect. Or maybe better than perfect. And then later, in my practice? My clients are my clients because they’re incredibly successful and are closely scrutinized by the IRS.”
“Understandable.”
“I apologize if I offended you when we were first getting to know each other….”
He grinned. “And I apologize if I gave you a concussion.”
“You chased away my bear. That zeros the debt. Can we go home soon?”
“Aren’t you enjoying the redwoods?”
“I love the redwoods. But I’m hungry and it’s a very busy weekend coming up. I’m having company and I want you to pick a time to come over and meet them.”
“There’s a town party for the Fourth,” Aiden said. “Monday at Jack’s. Well, behind Jack’s. Preacher’s going to fire up the barbecue and my whole family will be there. Will you and your family come?”
“Do we have to be invited? Because no one told me about it…”
He was shaking his head. “Everyone is invited. I think your sister and brother-in-law know a lot of the folks from town. They’d probably enjoy that.”
“The point is,” she said, “there will be lots of people around all weekend. Starting tomorrow evening for me, when Marcie arrives. So before all that starts, I want a little time alone with you.”
He was quiet for a moment; his eyes shone intensely into hers. “Are you ready for that, Erin?” he asked solemnly. “To be alone with me?”
“We’ve been alone plenty of times,” she said in a whisper.
“This time it’s going to be different.”
And she swayed toward him, offering her lips again. Her eyes drifted closed. In a breath she said, “Okay…”
All the way back to Virgin River the only thing Aiden could think about was Erin, her delicious mouth, the sweet scent of her skin and hair. While they made small talk about what they could have for dinner, he anticipated the satiny feel of her skin against his and he couldn’t wait to get past this first time with her so they could have so many, many more times. They stopped at a Fortuna grocery and bought a roasted chicken, salad greens, shoestring fries for the oven and a bottle of wine. And as they drove and made more small talk—about the town party, the number of people who would want their undivided attention and how inconvenient that suddenly was—all Aiden could think about was how many different times, ways, places and positions he wanted to get her in. He was trying to remind himself that women didn’t like to be rushed.
But, when they got to the cabin, he shoved the groceries into the refrigerator, grabbed her wrist and said, “Come on.” She laughed as he dragged her to the bedroom. When he got her beside the bed, he pulled her against him so she’d know that he was as hard as a baseball bat…as if she hadn’t gotten that message the previous few hours, especially when pressed up against a redwood. He covered her mouth in a searing, desperate, hungry kiss that made her moan. The moan came from so deep inside her that he was anxious to chase it, find it, please it and worship it. “God,” he said. “Oh man, oh God…”
“Just how long has it been, Aiden?” she asked him softly.
“I can’t even remember. But don’t worry, I’ll take good care of you.”
“I’m not worried,” she said.
He began pulling at her clothes while he kissed her. His hand was on the back of her head, his fingers splayed and threaded through her silky hair, his tongue in her mouth as he devoured her. He fell with her onto the bed, tugging her shirt off. Pretty soon she was helping him. They kicked off tennis shoes; shorts and shirts went flying and they were writhing together in just underwear. To his absolute delight, it was her hand that slipped under the waistband of his boxers, grasping him. And with that, he groaned and she gasped. That was always a good sign, he thought. A little gasp. He was pretty sure that meant he was of sufficient size to please her.
He struggled with her bra—it wasn’t the easy kind. The clasp was in the back, so he rolled her a bit and worked it clumsily, but it finally gave way. She had to let go of him to let the straps slip off her shoulders and he heard a sound of disappointment come from himself. Then he heard his groan of pleasure when she put her hand back on him. Next, her panties. Where were the panties? His hands ran down her belly and hips. “Where are your panties?” he asked breathlessly.
“I think they went with the shorts,” she whispered.
He chuckled against her mouth. “That was smart. Did I do that? Because that was smart!”
“I can’t remember which one of us took off my shorts….”
“It’s best when it happens like that,” he said sagely. “I like it like that—working together as a team.” Then he paused briefly to look down at her. She was nude and in
the late-afternoon light, she was golden. He smiled; that strawberry-blond hair was the real deal. “Erin,” he said almost reverently. “You’re so beautiful. Magnificent. Hot.” And then he dipped his mouth to her nipple, licked gently before he sucked, and made her almost cry out with pleasure.
He slipped his hand between her legs and gently probed. She was wet. She’d gotten wet fast. That was so fantastic. He massaged her a little bit and she squirmed against his hand, pushing against him, wriggling and whimpering. He loved those sounds. And she held on to him, stroking. Something had to give.
“Okay, baby,” he whispered. “Stop for a minute.” He pulled her hand away. “Don’t get ahead of me here. I need a condom.”
“Yes,” she said. “Yes, please.”
He pulled away from her, found his shorts on the floor and the condom in his pocket. He ditched the boxers, suited up and poised above her, kneeling between her legs. Then he dipped to her mouth and kissed her, deeply and lovingly. Against her open mouth he asked, “Feel ready?”
She nodded.
He gave her clitoris a few more strokes, felt her squirm beneath him, heard her murmurs and whimpers, and then slid in. “Ahhhhh….” came from him. “Ah, God! Oh, Erin!”
And he started to move. He grabbed her beautiful bottom so he could get the right friction, and he pumped. He pumped hard, he pumped slow. He went gentle and then fast. He lowered his lips to her nipple and sucked while he moved. He slipped his hand between their bodies and massaged her clitoris as he moved in and out. He covered her mouth with his and invaded with his tongue. He licked her ear and neck. Then he pulled out and went down on her, licking her there. He felt her nails bite into his shoulders and after a while he came back to her breast, then to her mouth. He was inside again, trying a slow and steady rhythm. He moved evenly, waiting for a hint from her. Finally he said, “Want to tell me what you like, honey?”