“How the hell did he think he was going to get that kind of attention and nurturing from a neurosurgeon? Aren’t you a little too overwhelmed on an average day to take on a little boy and all his little needs?”
She was silent for a moment. “Oh, I do like you, Callum. Where are you from?”
“I’m from everywhere. If he wasn’t doing anything for you...”
“Why was I with him? After he dumped me, I asked myself that question. It was comfortable in many ways. I had someone to talk to, play with, sit next to during a bad movie. Someone to go to a restaurant with, someone to make love to. But then he left me and basically said it was my fault.”
Cal grinned. “You won’t have any trouble filling the position. Maybe around here it’ll be iffy. But when you go back to Denver...”
“Since I’ve been here, since Sully has been doing better, I’m starting to feel almost normal. I’m going to milk this for a little while. Since I don’t have a job.”
“Were you bored with surgery?”
“You don’t get bored with the kind of surgery I do. There’s no margin for boredom. The pressure is too intense and the odds against success, despite our progress, are still too high. Never bored. I think I might’ve been addicted to the rush—it’s damned exciting. I might be making a change, however. I’ll think about that for a while. I like it here. It’s pretty uncomplicated,” she said, leaning toward him for a kiss.
She tasted of Chivas and playfulness and he lapped it up. He was starting to have thoughts of going further.
“And what about you, Calico? You have no job, you’ve been here for weeks, you don’t have a woman, you don’t seem to be doing anything...”
“Shame on you, I dug your whole damn garden. I stock your shelves every day, fish off the dock, hike around the crossing and build a fire for you at night. Then I let you talk. I’ve been very busy.”
“What brought you here?”
“I was looking at the CDT trail map and from New Mexico to Salida across the Rockies it’s frozen. I hate being cold. I’m just waiting for some of that snowpack to melt and then I want to do some serious hiking. I decided when I left Walt’s World to take six months to wander, then I’ll settle somewhere and get back to work. I’m just doing what you’re doing. I’m just taking a break. Thinking.”
“Did you graduate from high school?”
“Yes,” he said, laughing.
“Did you go to college at all?”
“Yes,” he said, trying to look serious. “I studied literature. I’m a romantic.”
“And then went on to get a counseling degree...” she offered.
“I’m afraid not. You shouldn’t ever take my advice or tell me your dreams unless they’re harmless.”
“Did you want to teach?” she asked.
“I did teach for a while. A short, memorable time—six months in what was called a men’s academy, the oldest ‘man’ being seventeen. I think I’m probably better with girls. I really liked that HR job...” He put his hands on her hips and leaned toward her.
“Because it got you laid.”
“I saw that as a perk, not part of the job.”
“I’d really love to see that princess someday...”
He decided it was time to talk less and kiss more. She was every bit as excellent as he was. She was getting closer and closer, her hands caressing his shoulders, neck and head. He loved female fingers in his hair. She was breathing hard and so was he.
“I have a roomy tent,” he said against her lips.
“That probably wouldn’t be smart of me,” she said.
“You worried about Sully?”
“I’m worried about me,” she said emphatically. “You’re probably riddled with theme-park diseases.”
He laughed. “Making serious love to you will be hard if you keep making jokes. I’m not riddled with anything. Except, you know, things like lust.”
“How long has this been on your mind?” she asked.
“Specifically?” he asked.
“Just when did it first come to you?”
“I think it was...when you asked me if I was homeless,” he said. “There was a dominatrix quality about it.” Then he smiled against her lips.
“I’m not spanking you, no matter how you beg.”
“Awww...”
“Why do you want to? Besides the fact that you’re a man?”
“You’re so pretty, Maggie,” he said tenderly. He tucked her hair behind her ear. “You have such a hot body, too. And you take such good care of your dad. Okay, that last has nothing to do with sex, it just makes you so much more desirable, that you’re a caring person. Mostly? You’re pretty and clever. I’m such a sucker for looks and brains. Gives me such a hard-on.”
She sighed. “All right, Calypso. But if you leave me in the morning, I might hunt you down. And punish you.”
He put his hands on either side of her face, on her cheeks. “Listen to me, Maggie. I’m going to explore this summer. But I won’t leave you without saying goodbye. Because that would be awful and if you did that to me I would be disappointed. We’ll make love, we’ll laugh, we’ll play and when the weather is warm enough so I’m not caught in some damn avalanche, I’m going up the trail to the divide. I’ve been dying for two things. You and that trail. You most.”
“You promise?”
“Yes. Even though I have a bad track record with promises.”
“You break them?” she asked.
“They usually break me,” he said. “Let’s sneak out the back door.”
* * *
Maggie held his hand and they walked to his little pop-up trailer. It was a tent, really, but it opened up out of a small, flat trailer that he pulled behind his truck. The base was metal, the top was canvas. It was spacious for a tent; she could almost stand up inside. It was not furnished with a king-size bed, however. There were two single but large cots, one on each side with space in the center. “Hopefully we won’t take up too much room,” she said.
“We’ll have all the room we need,” he said. He pulled her down beside him and after their shoes were off, they disrobed each other while they kissed. She was in a hurry and he was slowing her down. “Don’t rush this, Maggie,” he whispered, kissing her neck and chest. “Let’s enjoy it.”
“People can’t see our silhouettes through this tent, can they?” she asked. “They can’t hear us, can they?”
“You grew up in a campground and you don’t know? If you’re really loud, someone might get Sully out of bed and tell him someone’s killing a cat...”
She moaned and lay back on his cot. He pulled off the last of her clothes, her shorts and panties. Life was good, she thought. She’d shaved her legs without the faintest idea there might be sex in her life again. It was a miracle.
She’d been attracted to him since first meeting him, but that didn’t translate into making love for her. She just thought he was very good-looking for a bum. But it was really talking to him that did it to her. He was the clever one. She should have known he was learned in literature; he was so well-spoken.
Her Achilles’ heel was being told she was pretty. Not just pretty, so pretty. Maggie wasn’t used to that. People didn’t say that to her. They said things like, Of course you’re pretty, Maggie, and You’re a very attractive woman. She was ordinary. Not homely, certainly not ugly. But there was nothing special about her looks—brown hair, brown eyes, five-nine, straight teeth. She was always picked first in sports for teams but if there was a school play, she got the part of the aunt or sister while those achingly beautiful girls played Blanche or Cinderella. Those girls who would grow up to work as princesses.
His hands on her were so delicious; his mouth was heaven. He was determined to take his time, stroking and caressing slowly. She moaned and squirmed
beneath him, the craving building, but he just hummed as he kissed, sucked, licked, nibbled, caressed. Somehow, he knew exactly how to touch her, how to titillate with his lips and tongue. He brought her nipples to life with those excellent lips. Then he kissed his way down over her belly and between her legs, his miraculous tongue torturing her for a little while as she gritted her teeth to stay quiet, gripping his shoulders. Then he kissed his way back up to her mouth.
“I think I could do this for a living,” he said. “You really turn me on.”
“I’m ready for you to get going here,” she said.
He laughed. “Are you now? You sure you want it bad enough?”
“I’m sure,” she said, running her hands down his smooth back, over his muscled butt. “I think you have a better butt than I do,” she said.
“Not possible. Your butt knocks me out.” He reached down and fumbled around under the cot. She heard him rummaging and he came up with a condom.
“That was convenient,” she whispered.
“My shaving kit,” he said. He knelt between her legs and looked down at her. “Maggie,” he said in a breath. “Look at you. So lovely. Ready for love.” He ran one finger from the hollow at the base of her throat down her body, over her breastbone, over her navel, over her pubis. He gave her clitoris a brief tease, then lowered himself into her. “Whoa,” he said in appreciation. “God, that’s good.”
“Good,” she agreed softly.
With his mouth on hers, his hands on her hips, he slowly rocked with her, gradually setting a pace that grew deeper and deeper, harder and faster. She pushed back against him, embracing him and kissing him wildly, little whimpers of hunger escaping her until before long she froze, lifting off the cot, lifting him in her sudden strength, and she clenched as she came with heat and power. While her insides gripped and quivered he emitted a deep groan and she felt him throbbing inside her. As she was coming down from the experience, he began to move, ramping her up again, making her come again. He was limited to the one, however—so sad for the man, she abstractly thought as she indulged a second orgasm, almost as good as the first.
Then she collapsed beneath him, weak and satisfied. “Oh, Calder,” she finally said. “That was amazing.”
He chuckled and ran a knuckle over her cheek, giving her bruised lips little pecks.
“Did we rock the tent?” she asked.
“Who cares? I don’t care. I’d be happy to rock this camper all night, entertain the neighbors.”
“Unfortunately, I can’t stay all night. The bed is too small, for one thing.”
“You can stay a little while, till I get a second wind. I’m not like some people, on a hair trigger and able to throw out an orgasm a minute. That’s a very neat trick, by the way. I bet I enjoyed that as much as you did.”
“Highly doubtful,” she said. She rubbed her hands over his shoulders. “You’re very good at that, like a man with tons of practice. Lucky for you I have to stay right here until my bones grow back.”
“We came together like old pros,” he pointed out. “Like lovers with a routine. I love that. It’s kind of kismet, don’t you think?”
“I don’t know what to think,” she muttered. She ran her hands over his chest. “You’re so smooth. I never saw this coming...”
“You didn’t?” he asked. “The second I saw you I knew we’d end up like this. Waiting for you was hard.” He moved a little inside her. “It’s hard again...”
“You don’t have to wait now, Caleb,” she said.
Every man has a property in his own person.
This nobody has a right to but himself.
—John Locke
Chapter 6
Maggie had no idea how long Sully had been up when she finally rolled out of bed at seven thirty....on about four hours of sleep. She stumbled to the bathroom and purposely didn’t look in the mirror, a little afraid she’d see Cal’s brand on her. She started the shower and got in while it was still cold.
Holy mother of pearl, what a night that was. He was an amazing lover. But also, he was such a sweet, smart, funny man. Of course he had to be some strange duck who was taking six months off to do odd jobs and camp. He couldn’t be some ordinary, stable, reliable person, like a truck driver or forest ranger. But then, what type of man did she think she could have a comfortable fit with? Sergei, the Ukrainian artist, had been a disaster. Andrew, the doctor, should’ve worked—they had so many things in common—and it had been a worse disaster.
Even running her own hands over her body as she sudsed up in the shower brought delicious tinglings from the night before, little shudders of aftershocks.
When she was out of the shower she braved it, looked in the mirror. Her cheeks were either flushed or chafed from Cal’s beard. Her lips were rosy from hours of kissing, sometimes so wildly she could hardly catch her breath. She lost control more times than she could count and she was pretty sure she bit him once. His fault, really. He could drive her so far into ecstasy she lost her bearings and became nothing more than a writhing body responding to a powerful force and lost all sense. She wondered if she just rocked and wailed in that little pop-up all the damn night. For all she knew the other campers brought their folding chairs over to Cal’s site and created an audience. At least it had been Sunday night, the weekend warriors gone, the population down.
She put lotion on her face and some lip gloss, blew out her hair and got dressed. She was going to have to think of what to say to Sully. She’d never faced that before—worry over explaining to her father. She’d had a fling or six at the crossing, and there was Andrew—she’d never explained him. She had just said they were seeing each other and they’d be staying in one of the cabins. Something about this was different. It was probably because he’d had a heart attack, she thought. Or it could be because she hardly knew Calvert, the handsome, good-natured bum and princess molester. Better go easy on Sully.
Funny, this had never been an issue. Until she was out of pre-med, aged twenty-two, she’d been very careful with her behavior around Sully. He was so proud of her, she hadn’t wanted to disappoint him. Then that summer before med school, self-designated as an independent adult, she had a little summer romance at the crossing. He was a biology teacher on summer break, living in his RV for several weeks, studying the flora in the Rockies, and she flirted with him. He flirted with her. They were drawn by common interests and lust and she stayed out all night a few times, cozy in his RV.
Sully had said nothing. Nothing at all. It was as if they’d come to the mutual understanding that it was time for her to lead her own adult life, take responsibility for her actions without his guidance or interference. Silent acceptance.
She found him on the porch with Frank, having coffee and a not very heart-healthy pastry. But she’d been out most of the night and had therefore relinquished the right to comment on his diet choice.
She got a cup of coffee and sat down. “How’d you sleep, Sully?”
“Slept like a rock. Didn’t even hear you come in at three thirty.”
“That was subtle,” she said. Like she really needed Frank in on this.
“Mail run yesterday brought in four packages,” Sully said. “They’re for thru-hikers, so it’s starting. Cal’s in the storeroom moving things around and getting ready for some restocking, making room for the packages that are going to start coming in now—hikers on the trail are moving this way now that the snowpack is melting.”
“Oh.” She sipped her coffee.
“I’d be in there working, but I’m taking it one step at a time. Some of those boxes weigh forty pounds.”
“I’m glad you’re not doing that.”
“You know more about the post office end of things than Cal. Can you go check and see if he’s making sense of the storeroom? Looked like he was doing okay, but...”
“
When did he get here?”
“Around six thirty, I think.”
Show-off, she thought. “You give him a raise or something?” she asked.
“Funny. Jackson is starting this afternoon. I’m going to use him Saturday, Monday, Tuesday and then his sister, Nikki, Friday, Sunday and Thursday. No extra help on Wednesdays. Sounds decent, doesn’t it?”
“Doesn’t Tom usually show up on Wednesdays?”
“For cleanup around the grounds,” Sully said. “That’s going to get more important as spring ripens. Few more weeks and I’ll be doing it mostly on my own.”
She wasn’t so sure he’d ever be as active as he once was. It wasn’t just the surgery, it was the surgery plus being seventy. “I’ll go check on Cal,” she said, taking her coffee with her to the storeroom.
When hikers planned to take on one of the long trails like the Colorado or Continental Divide Trail, meticulous planning was required. They couldn’t carry a lot of water with them—water is heavy. They had to know precisely where they could get fresh water along the trail. And they had to try to plan strategic stopping points. They could camp along the trail for four to as many as ten nights if there was plentiful water along the way, but they couldn’t carry enough nourishment or changes of clothing for longer than that. They would plot their trek by towns and campgrounds like the crossing. At the crossing they could get showers, wash clothes, pick up parcels they’d mailed ahead as well as packages sent to them by friends or family. They’d meet with other hikers, share news, drink a few beers, grill some burgers and load up on protein. They’d charge their phones, check their email. They exchanged more than news—sometimes they’d trade off equipment or supplies to both lighten their load and pick up items they needed. They often exchanged books—Sully had a shelf set aside for that. Long-distance hikers didn’t carry more than one book at a time. They’d also do some shopping for anything they’d used up, lost or forgotten—batteries, first-aid items, lighters for campfires, protein snacks, water-purification kits.