The decorator told Mia that the “in” colors this year were white, gold with a few hints of black, Mia was upset enough to voice the opinion that she hated white and wanted warm greens and browns, even if they weren’t the “in” colors this year. Mia didn’t want to be re-decorating every year when a new “in” color scheme came into vogue.
The interior designer laughed at Mia’s concerns and said that Colby’s family did just that every year and all it involved was a two week stay at a tropical resort, and she took care of everything before they got back to their newly renovated places.
Mia just got more and more frustrated, that her own decorating skills were just ignored. Still Mia hadn’t heard from Rob. Where was he? Had he decided to just let her go? Did he know about the coming wedding? Had he decided to stay away from her because she now belonged to someone else?
Chapter Twenty-Four
Rob had heard from Noah that he and Ava were going to Mia’s wedding, and he had asked Noah to extend his best wishes for Mia’s happiness. He then went off in a convoy to visit some remote installations that his company had interests in.
As the convoy bounced and jounced across the desert, Rob ignored the discomfort. He was heartily sick and tired of the heat, the insects, the constant sweating, never having enough water for showers, running out of staples like deodorant, shampoo and soap, feeling gritty all the time. He hated his greasy hair, and had finally shaved his head to get rid of frequent head lice. He hated dumping out his boots every morning in case there were scorpions in them. He loathed not having clean clothes, and wearing his pants and socks till they could stand on their own with all the sweat and dirt in them. He got to hate the smell of his own body, and although the constant winds dried the sweat, he always felt grimy. His beard itched all the time if he didn’t shave, and there was never enough water to shave as often as he was used to. He had an electric shaver, but the electricity was pretty iffy too and batteries were hard to come by. His parents were keeping him supplied with toiletries and batteries, and he managed to charge his computer and I-Pod once in a while. Sometimes there were generators where he could hook up and see news reports from home, and catch up on emails, but he often cursed as a blackout forced him to lose a long interesting email to his mother or Noah.
The trips to Europe to ski were all that held him to sanity. In nice resort hotels, he could clean up, bathe, wash his clothes and shave as often as he wanted, and sleeping in a real bed with real sheets instead of a sleeping bag was a luxury he had almost forgotten. He remembered the satiny sheets on Mia’s bed. Weren’t they pink and green polka dots? Oh, my God, now he was even fantasizing about her sheets. He skied to the point of exhaustion every day he was on leave, and fell into bed at night with his body aching from the physical exertion, but mostly with his heart and his cock aching for Mia.
Rob tried hard not to think of Mia getting married soon. He certainly hoped the jerk deserved her. His mind was full of “What if’s” but he continued alternately working and skiing himself into oblivion.
This trip to the remote oil refinery, Rob ended up away for several weeks, and incommunicado all that time. Damn, he thought. She could be married now and I wouldn’t even know about it.
Rob was impressed with the money he was able to sock away while working abroad, and with the wonderful traveling he was doing, and the great places he had seen. He didn’t particularly relish living in a tent for two weeks out at one site, while repairs were made, and a menacing group of supposed guards looked more like they wanted to shoot Rob’s group of engineers and geologists, than protect them from terrorists.
He only wished he could tell Mia about everything, and just talk to her. I wonder if her husband would mind if we just emailed once in a while, just to talk. I miss her sense of humor and her insight into world affairs, and people, so much.
Rob continued his inner dialog, I must really have it bad, when I start missing her insight and conversation more than I think about her great little body, and how it felt to be cradled between her thighs, how she smelled, how she tasted…No, Rob, don’t even go there…
Then he thought, If I were married to her, would I mind if she just ‘talked’ or emailed to another guy? You bet I would
Every night they were forced to stay out in the desert Rob argued with himself, and alternately raged and prayed. If I get back, I’m quitting this job, and flying back to take her away from that guy.
The next night, he’d be praying Mia would be happy without him. Then he’d be back to raging, How could she do this to me? I love that woman to death, and she won’t even email me. She won’t come to ski with me when I send her a ticket. What’s the matter with me, why do I still care?
Then the next night, after another hot, exhausting day, How do these people do it? Living here in the suffocating heat with no showers, no water, no air conditioning? Rob was back to raging against his stupidity in leaving Mia at all. I could have just stayed. We could have got married and she’d be pregnant by now, and we’d have the greatest marriage of all time, and I’d be able to sleep every night with her hair in my face and her sexy scent on my chest and in my mouth…and so it would go, as Rob waited for this latest crisis to be over, so he could get back to his hotel.
As the days drifted by, boredom overtook Rob, and he took to wandering outside at night, even though he had been told there were guerilla groups in the area, who liked to kidnap Westerners for the ransom their companies would willingly pay to keep the locals happy. The North American oil companies wanted above all, to keep their places in the volatile middle east, to maintain the precious oil flow to the rapacious western cars and heating units.
Suddenly, he felt the cold muzzle of a rifle on his neck, and immediately fell to his knees. The rough guttural voice said to him in broken English,
“You Americans are fools. You think you can take all our oil and then go back to your comfortable lives. We own this camp now. We will see how much your companies and governments care about you now. Get up, and go back and tell your friends to send messages asking for money, or you’ll all be dead beneath the sand.”
It was several weeks of waiting for word to filter back to Rob’s company and for them to make the arrangements to ransom the workers. During that time, the men weren’t treated especially badly, but food and water were scarce, and what there was, was not particularly palatable. The men battled diarrhea and boredom with equal distaste, and Rob knew by the way his clothing hung on him that he had lost at least fifteen pounds during the wait. With no such thing as toilet paper, or water for washing, personal hygiene was non-existent, and the men cursed loud and long the desert custom of wiping with the left hand and eating with the right. How disgusting!
The men who held them seemed peaceable enough, but other rebels could arrive at any time and kill them all for no particular reason other than the slowness of negotiations. How could these people hate the Westerners as much as they did? What did we ever do to them? It seemed the locals hated them just for living in the world, not any particular reason. He could only keep his sanity by alternately working on computer simulations in his mind, and reliving every minute he had spent licking and kissing and touching Mia. He relived every conversation, every meal, every date they’d had, and knew how bad it was when he started inventorying her collection of sexy lingerie.
Rob’s company was finally able to airlift money and parts to the remote location, and the rebels allowed them to leave, although they kept all the vehicles except one. The men crowded into one open jeep, some able to sit, others able to only stand and try balancing over the jouncing trails by holding onto the roll bar. Rob was delighted to be able to hitch any kind of a ride back to relative civilization. Once back, he couldn’t wait to log in and see if Mia was married, how the wedding went, how she looked, if she was happy and continue to torture himself by asking Noah all those questions. He sat at the computer, filthy and sweat
caked, with his hair, eyebrows and every orifice on his body scratchy with sand, and forced himself to find out about the wedding before he even got into the shower.
Rob was afraid to find out about the wedding, but afraid not to find out. Tears filled his eyes as he thought about losing Mia forever, and with about 800 emails waiting for him, he scrolled down, scanning the addresses for messages from Noah or Ava. As he scrolled, he made bargains with himself, the devil, God, he didn’t care who, as long as he got Mia back.
“Please let her not be married yet. I’ll never ask for anything again if I can get her back.”
“If she isn’t married yet, I’ll fly back today, sand and dirt and all, and take her away from him and never come back to the desert.”
“C’mon, Noah, where’s your email telling me what’s going on with her?”
“If she isn’t married yet, I’ll stand up at the wedding and tell everyone there I object to the wedding.”
“If she’s already married, I’m going back out to the desert and live in a tent for the rest of my life. Maybe I’ll join a Bedouin tribe and never look at another email forever.”
He was so busy promising his life away, that he almost missed it. There it was. A message from Mia Sindling. Mia Sindling, not Mia Palmer. After all his inner pep talks, his hopes and dreams, his bargains and promises, he found his hand shaking on the mouse. He was afraid to open the email. It was over a week old, he noted. What if it was just a good bye note, or …Why would she be writing to him anyhow? After all this time? Maybe she just wants to rub it in and tell me how happy she is, and what I gave up?
Finally telling himself he was the biggest fool in the world, he clicked on the message.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Dear Rob,
I imagine by now Noah has told you I am getting married.
I’m not sure how this happened so quickly. I met Colby while skiing, and it was like an avalanche. One minute we were having dinner, and the next, his mother was throwing away my antiques, picking out my wedding dress, having her decorator do up a condo in the latest colors… Why am I telling you all this?
What I really wanted to say, is I realize I miss you. I miss talking, arguing about politics, skiing, our home town, our Saturday jaunts to the market, our ski parties, and just all of it.
Rob noted she didn’t say she missed the sauna, the earthquakes, the mind-blowing kisses… Well, he thought, it’s a start. At least she’s talking to me about something, instead of ignoring me…
I want to say I’m sorry I broke it off like I did, and I’m sorry I didn’t take you up on one or two of those fabulous ski trips you invited me on. If I don’t hear from you, I’ll understand.
Hugs, Mia
Rob was elated she had written at all, but she hadn’t said she wasn’t getting married. She hadn’t said she loved her fiancé, but she hadn’t said she didn’t love him either. She hadn’t said when the wedding was to take place, and she hadn’t mentioned where she was when she wrote the note. Rob got a feeling in his gut, like a cold fist had grabbed him.
Then Rob noticed there were three more messages from Mia. Each one seemed more agitated, and finally frantic, than the one before.
Mia didn’t come right out and ask Rob to come back and get her, and she didn’t say she wanted to call off the wedding. She just sounded upset, agitated and seemingly wanting to talk to Rob.
The last message was dated only a couple of days ago. Rob continued skimming his email for something from Noah that might explain the whole situation, and tell him what it was Mia wanted.
Noah’s messages were bland, and hardly did more than give Rob the date of the wedding, which looked like this weekend. Just four days to stop the mistake and get her back, chanted Rob in his mind.
Before he got in the shower, Rob started throwing his belongings in suitcases and boxes, and he called the airline to get the next flight home, even if he had to fly around the world three times with stopovers in strange places just to get there. He booked first class, money be damned, just to get there even an hour faster.
Rob took a fast shower, glad he no longer had to rely on “desert showers” which was the name the locals gave to the sweat baths which dried on their skin and clothes so fast they didn’t even have time to smell bad. Rob didn’t believe them. He smelled bad to himself, and he hated how he felt all the time.
He made it out to the airport with just a carryon, and tipped the taxi driver outlandishly to carry the rest of his stuff in and put it on a later plane.
I’m going back to Mia. I’m going back to Mia, his feverish brain kept repeating. He was an awful seatmate on the plane as he just couldn’t seem to sit still, hadn’t a book to read, and couldn’t concentrate on his other 796 email messages. He twitched, went up front for a newspaper and some magazines, had a drink, tried to play Solitaire on his laptop, and then twitched and started in fidgeting once more.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Colby was at his big desk, in his shirtsleeves. He was looking at an email from a buddy who was already in New Zealand skiing for the season. It was winter in Kiwi land and Australia, while here in the northern hemisphere, it was summer.
His buddy had sent some photos of the great snow and ski conditions and Colby was feeling a great nostalgia for the many times he had skied there and all over the world. He would certainly miss it from now on.
Only four days left, till he and Mia tied the knot. He wasn’t sure how he felt about that. He thought he loved her. He certainly loved her looks, her lovemaking, her intellect and her ability to get along with his mother.
Thank God she can get along with Mother. Mia will be a good buffer between me and the folks, and I sure need that, he thought. Both he and Mia had let his mother do everything for the wedding and she was in her element. Well, at least I let Mother plan everything. He had an impression Mia and her own mother might have wanted to be in on at least some of the planning. How could they do much planning from so far away? Better they should just come here and enjoy, instead of having all the responsibilities of the wedding planning, Colby rationalized.
In Colby’s mind, all was well, as long as he didn’t have to do anything except follow orders from his mother and the wedding planner.
Colby was glad he and Mia had both decided to keep his mother happy—a good step in making sure their marriage was smooth. He guessed he loved her. He didn’t know if he’d ever been in love before. He knew he wanted her, and missed her when she wasn’t around. He knew she’d be a good wife, and mother to his children, and a good corporate helper, too.
Of course, she’ll have no time to go back to school for her MBA. What? Does she think I can’t support her? She won’t be working long anyhow, once she gets pregnant, he reasoned. Colby’s mother had voiced much the same thoughts last night at dinner.
Mia had seemed distracted on the phone for the past week, and very quiet, not at all her normal bright self. Just wedding jitters, he figured.
I guess I’m pretty distracted myself, Colby mused, as he scrolled through the photos from the New Zealand ski hill for perhaps the tenth time that morning. He forwarded the photos to Mia, and replied to his buddy, he couldn’t join him this year, because he was getting married.
The almost immediate reply shocked Colby, and that he could actually carry on a conversation with someone more than half way around the world, without it costing a cent.
Hey Colby!! You getting hitched, man? That’s gotta be crazy. I know you man, and that married life and corporate BS is just not you, ya know?
Colby wondered why his ‘bud‘ thought he wasn’t the marrying kind, or even the corporate kind. When they were hooting around the world’s ski hills together, neither had asked for the other’s background, so Colby wasn’t surprised his friend hadn’t known of Colby’s father’s business and the promise his father had extracted that Co
lby would return to the business after a suitable sabbatical, to “get that ski bum attitude out of your system”, as his dad had said.
Colby spent almost an hour just staring at the skiing photos his friend had sent, and then staring out the window of his large office at the lake and mountains in the distance.
Maybe Mia would like to take off and go to Kiwi land with me and ski for a couple of weeks later this summer, he mused. Or maybe I can meet up with the guys when they hit Peru after the Oz season is over, even for a couple of weeks, he wished.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Ava was having the time of her life, dragging Mia around to lingerie stores, and shopping for cruise wear for the two of them. Noah had promised they would go on a cruise after the wedding celebrations were over.
Noah said “Since the grandparents are already babysitting, another week or two away would be just the thing for us as a second honeymoon.”
Ava snorted “Well, since our first ‘honeymoon‘ was spent writing final exams at university, and with me throwing up at regular intervals with morning sickness, it’s about time we had a real honeymoon.” Noah had confided to Rob in an email he hoped they didn’t return from their honeymoon pregnant yet again.
Ava was so excited she hardly noticed Mia’s flagging enthusiasm. Mia had hardly bought anything and Ava was carrying about twenty bags of “must-have” stuff for a cruise. Mia’s face was drawn, and pale, and her feet dragged, even as her shoulders sagged and cried out for a respite from the power shopping.
As they finally sat down at a Starbuck’s, to give their aching feet a break, Ava looked at Mia, and said, “Okay, Chick, out with it. I know you too well, and this isn’t just pre-wedding jitters, is it?”
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