After a thoughtful pause, she looked up and smiled at him. “You know something? You should have been careful what you wished for. I am not going to be easy for you to get rid of like the other girls you have dated.”
Scott was thinking about Michelle’s encounter with Tom’s mother as he replied, “I’ll just let my mom deal with you if things get to be a problem.”
“That won’t work because your mom likes me and she’ll be on my side. You are stuck with me now.” She replied, as she reached up and touched the side of his face.
Scott took her hand and kissed the palm before letting their hands rest on her stomach. “If I am stuck with you, does that mean I can’t go out with other girls?”
Her reply was made with casual indifference. “It’s entirely up to you if you want to live long enough to see your next birthday.”
Scott leaned over and kissed her forehead. “I’ll take that as a definite no. It does seem somewhat strange that you and I are giving up our independence on the 4th of July. I think we should celebrate the occasion. We could call it lack of Independence Day.”
She smiled as she thought about his idea. “It’s too bad we don’t have any fireworks.”
Scott knew she would understand the intent of his suggestion. “Maybe we should make our own fireworks.”
Her smile grew more noticeable. “Maybe we can make this a 4th of July that neither one of us ever forgets.”
She then sat up before she turned around to face him. “So what should we do to celebrate our new commitment to each other?”
Scott leaned forward and kissed her. “I think we should go back to the house, pop the cork on a bottle of champagne, and then go sit in the Jacuzzi. What do you think of that plan?”
They watched each other for several minutes before they shared another longer and more fervent embrace that lasted for several minutes. In a soft voice she whispered in his ear, “I think we should make wearing clothing in the Jacuzzi optional. What do you think?”
He replied after a brief kiss, “I think that’s a great idea. I think that when we get finished with the champagne and the hot tub, I should carry you to the bedroom where you and I can finish our celebration. What do you think?”
After another long passionate kiss she replied, “I think we should celebrate all night long. What do you think?”
Scott kissed her forehead again and replied, “I think we have a plan.”
As he began to stand up, she reached out her hand to stop him. Scott sat back down as she put her arms around his neck. Her expression suggested she had some reservations and she was about to express them. “Scott, I am not like this with other guys. I don’t make myself this available to other people like I have with you.”
He knew from his personal experience and from the comments other people had made to him that Michelle was a reserved person who did not open her life to many people. In some ways, she was very guarded, but for some reason trusted him from the beginning. Scott could easily sense the discomfort she was experiencing in feeling she needed to explain herself.
He sat back down and took both of her hands. “I know who you are and I know you about as well as you know yourself. I know you trust me and I know trust doesn’t come easy for you. I know you were not like this with other guys because you and I have talked about this before.”
She had a look of determination as she looked directly at him. “I don’t want you to misunderstand anything I’m about to say. I want the physical part of our relationship. I want you to kiss me, hold me, touch me, and make love to me, but I think it is going to be awkward for me for a little while. This is new for us.”
Scott watched her face while making a suggestion he thought would put her more at ease. “We have been dating each other for ten years only we didn’t have the physical part of that type relationship. We don’t have to celebrate tonight. We can celebrate on July 5th, August 3rd or November 28th. We move at our own speed and only when we’re both ready. It’s that simple.”
She started shaking her head back and forth slowly. “Wait a second, Scott. You and I just made a plan and we are going through with it tonight. I just don’t want you to be disappointed with me if I am not what you expect.”
He started smiling. “No, you wait a minute. First, it is entirely possible that I will not live up to your expectations. Beyond that, we were just at the beach a few days ago and you were wearing your rather small two-piece suit. I may not have seen you completely unwrapped, but I have a pretty good idea about what’s in the package.”
Michelle’s response was both assertive and playful as she started grinning. “I sure hope you have some idea about the contents of my package because I made it about as obvious as I could without doing a strip show for you.”
Scott thought about her comment for a moment. “At the time, I thought you were still getting married to Tom so I didn’t know it was your intent to be so obvious. But I can assure you, I didn’t miss anything.”
Her expression became more serious. “Tonight just before we went into the barn, you said you wanted to talk to me. What did you want to talk about?”
“When you and I were at the beach on Monday, you kept making comments expressing your doubts about you and Tom. You made a few less than respectful comments about him and I realized that something was wrong and that you weren’t just nervous about getting married. You seemed almost angry with him. I was going to suggest you postpone your plans and I was also going to tell you how I felt about you.”
She began to share her thoughts about him in a way Scott had not expected. “I was then, and I still am angry with him. But, I am just as angry with myself. When I first came home from college in May, the more time you and I spent together, the more I realized he was not the right person for me.”
Michelle could tell from his expression that he wanted to hear more. She chose to change her explanation. “I can show you my heart and soul and tell you my deepest secret. He wasn’t interested in my heart or my soul. He has some corporate concept of what a wife should be and his mother seems to fit that role.”
Scott could not resist the temptation to ask what he thought was an important question. “When you came home from school, we went to Cape Lookout. I asked you what was bothering you. You said I would not understand because I was not a female. Now, here is my dumb male question. What attracted you to him in the first place? Why would you agree to marry him if he was not close to what you were looking for?”
Michelle took a few minutes to think about her answer. “We were both business majors in school and had that in common. His dad was entrenched in the corporate world and I guess I was impressed by that because he had passed along that corporate worldview to Tom. Somehow, I became impressed with his world and forgot the value of my world. We went to dinner at nice restaurants, got dressed up to go to nice parties, and sort of lived that fantasy life for a while.”
He asked the logical follow up question. “So what happened to bring you back to earth?”
Michelle looked at the ocean for a moment and then back at him. “William and Betsy were taking a road trip and stopped in to see me at school one day in late April. You have to know that William and Betsy are very wealthy people, yet we went out to dinner at a typical local restaurant instead of one of the nicest restaurants in town. I realized he had been very successful in the business world, but chose to live his life with a degree of elegant simplicity. That was when I realized Tom and I came from different worlds.”
She paused for a moment before she continued. “One night after William took me to dinner, Tom took me to a very nice expensive restaurant to eat. While we were there, he made some smart-ass comment about the dress I was wearing not being appropriate if I were planning to move up in the business community. At first, I was embarrassed and then I got as mad as hell. I came home from college the next day, you and I went to Cape Lookout, and you know the rest of the story.”
Scott steered the conversation in a different direction
trying to understand her motives. “Why haven’t you told anyone that your engagement was off? I would have thought you would have told your mom before now.”
“I wanted you to be the first person to know because I knew you would be there for me in a way that mom can’t be. She will support my decision and me, but you and I hold each other up in the bad times in a way parents can’t. I can tell you things I wouldn’t want to tell her.” She replied.
He was silent long enough to cause Michelle to question his thoughts. “You have something you want to say, but you aren’t saying it.”
Scott hesitated to tell her the truth, but at the same time, he had to get the answer to his question. “Are you coming to me on the rebound from a failed relationship?”
Her voice was emphatic. “No. Not at all. I left him. He did not leave me. I realized he was a stuffed suit and that was not what I wanted. I didn’t leave him with my heart being broken. I left with a sense of relief. I came to you because I realized this is where we belong and that is the only reason. Tom is history and you and I are the future. I think it’s time to close the door on Tom and talk about us now.”
Scott agreed with her suggestion. “I think you are not only beautiful, but also very smart. It’s time for us to move on.”
She leaned forward and gave Scott a quick kiss before giving him one of her scheming looks. “I believe you said something about a Jacuzzi and a bottle of champagne before we were sidetracked.”
Having helped Michelle to her feet, they began their trek back to the house. She stopped on the bottom deck step and looked at him for a moment before speaking. “If you and I are going the distance tonight, you have to make a commitment to me now.”
Scott looked back at the ocean and then at her. “I made a commitment to you years ago, but I don’t mind making it again right now. We are celebrating our lack of Independence Day and unless you run away, we will be having this same celebration fifty years from now.”
CHAPTER VI
Scott woke up at ten-thirty on Thursday morning to the sensation of Michelle kissing his cheek. As he rolled on his side to face her, the first thing he saw was her devious little smile. “So, what are you thinking?”
Looking into her beautiful blue eyes, he replied, “I think you have given me the best 4th of July in my life. To be completely honest, this has been a long time coming, but was very much worth the wait.”
Michelle placed her hand on the side of his face as she spoke in a soft voice. “I am very happy right now and I am at total peace with myself. I know we are going to take very good care of each other from now on.”
Throughout the day, he noticed a change in Michelle from what he had seen over the past few weeks. She was relaxed and appeared to be very happy, even when they did something as simple as taking a walk on the beach. He was sure she was being honest when she said she was at peace with herself.
For all practical purposes, their relationship was like a jigsaw puzzle with all the pieces falling into their proper places. Somewhat to his surprise, even the more intimate times they shared together on Wednesday night and Thursday morning were free from any sense of awkwardness.
Late on Thursday afternoon, William called to say he would be coming for a visit Friday morning. They assumed he was coming to offer them another “opportunity” but neither of them could decide what the offer might be. Rather than using their time to solve the “mystery opportunity”, they spent the afternoon and evening on the beach, playing miniature golf and swimming in the ocean.
True to his word, Betsy and William arrived at ten o’clock on Friday morning. After exchanging their greetings, William and Scott sat on the deck overlooking the ocean while Betsy and Michelle fixed soft drinks and a snack in the kitchen. A gentle but steady breeze kept them comfortable as the sun rose higher in the sky. William spoke as he was sitting down, “I suspect you would need a wheelbarrow to carry all of the girl talk going on in that kitchen.”
“I think you might be right. I want to thank you and Mrs. Broughton for letting us use you beech house. You have a great place here.” Scott replied.
William took a cigar from his pocket and looked at it, but did not light it. “Well, I have worked hard for what I have and I’ve been lucky. Many times, luck is more important than hard work, but you don’t really want one without the other. By the way, you can call us William and Betsy. I don’t think you need to be quite so formal.”
Scott realized he had the chance to gain insight about Michelle’s relationship with Betsy. “Michelle seems very close to Betsy. I think it has been good for her to have Betsy to talk to through the years.”
He started smiling. “Michelle’s mother is my sister so I have to be careful what I say. Mothers and daughters have a strange relationship, especially during the teen years. They would be willing to die for each other at the same time they are clawing out the other’s eyeballs. Betsy has the luxury of listening to Michelle without having to play the role of parent. She offers Michelle some guidance without being judgmental.”
Scott continued his fact-finding mission given the fact that William was talking. “I have the impression it was not easy for Michelle growing up with three brothers.”
William put the cigar in his mouth, but still did not light it. “Well, until she was in ninth grade, we weren’t completely sure George and Sally didn’t have four boys and no girls. Her brothers used her to balance the teams in whatever kind of sport they were playing at home. Sally and Betsy started leading her in a different direction while trying to get her out of the tomboy role she was playing.”
Scott started laughing as thought back to their days in junior high school. “I remember those days well, but to her credit, she was better at baseball than some our male team members. I guess having three brothers teaching you to play paid off for her.”
“Having three brothers was not a bad thing either. She learned to fight for herself and stand up for what she thought was right. You would be well advised to be careful with her.” He replied, with a slight grin.
Scott was also smiling while remembering some of his encounters with Michelle. “She has mellowed out some over the years, but she remembers how to stand up for herself, which I respect.”
The smile left William’s his face as he turned to Scott. “You have been a very good friend to Michelle through the years and you kept her from taking the wrong path more than once. You have been very protective of her.”
His response to William was made with the same serious tone. “It’s been a two way street with us. She jerked my chain a few times and made sure I didn’t stray too far from the beaten path. We tend to listen when the other is speaking.”
“She looks very happy to me, more so than I have seen in months if not years. I think the two of you coming here together might have been a good decision.” He replied as he lit his cigar.
Feeling more comfortable with his position, Scott decided to challenge William. “I don’t think we ended up here by accident and I am equally sure you and Betsy had something to do with our being at this beach house.”
Before he could offer a rebuttal to Scott’s suggestion, Betsy and Michelle joined them on the deck. Michelle stood behind William as she leaned over and kissed his cheek. She then put her hands on each of his shoulders and started to pat his shoulder. With each word she spoke, her pats grew stronger, as did the determination in her voice. “I think you owe Scott and me an explanation about the little performance you dreamed up for us in your barn on Wednesday night.”
Scott glanced at Betsy and saw her smiling while Michelle was making her accusation. William took his hand and placed it on top of Michelle’s hand. “I think your question would be better directed if you talked to the architect of that plan who happens to be the lovely lady to my right.”
Michelle’s mouth opened widely for a moment before being slowly replaced with a smile. “That was your idea?”
Betsy playfully fanned herself with her hand as she replied, “Modesty
requires I share the credit with William.”
Michelle sat next to Scott before she spoke. “This inquisition is getting us nowhere.”
Betsy took a sip of her Coke before she replied, “Several weeks ago when you and I talked about your wedding plans, you showed all the enthusiasm of a woman going to an oral surgeon. When I brought up the subject of a wedding gown, you told me we would look later and that you had better things to do. Clearly, you were not acting like a young woman excited with the prospects of getting married.”
William spoke next as he directed his comment at Scott. “The day you and Michelle went to Cape Lookout was the first time you knew she was planning to get married. Your father told me you came home from the beach, didn’t eat any dinner, casually mentioned the fact that Michelle was getting married, and then you acted like a zombie for the rest of the week.”
Michelle, having been surprised by that news, reached up and touched Scott’s shoulder as she was grinning. “I didn’t know my potential marriage had quite that strong of an effect on you.”
Before Scott could defend himself, Betsy pointed out something Scott had not known. “Michelle, a touch of humility might be in order. If you recall, I asked you if Scott would be attending the wedding and you started crying.”
Scott made a face at Michelle before she hit him on the shoulder and said, “Stop looking at me like that”.
Scott was still bothered by the way they had intervened at the barn given Michelle had made the decision not to tell anyone her wedding was off. “I’m not sure any of us had the right to try to influence Michelle’s decision to marry Tom. That was her decision and we should have all supported it.”
Michelle nodded her head. “I agree with Scott. That was a rather public effort to get Scott and me together at a time when I was getting married to someone else.”
Brother Willy's Traveling Salvation Show Page 5
