Side by side they worked until everything in the store, the storage unit under the loft, and most of the house had been cleaned out of any reserves. It only took an hour for the store to be completely decimated of anything that resembled food. Kalinda put in a call to QT as a backup for some kind of stew or dinner for the kids. Paul and Jeremiah weren’t having much luck themselves.
Jeremiah had come out of the suit and tie and was down to his white tee shirt and a pair of hiking boots. He and Paul worked in tandem cutting firewood for the campfire for the night. With so many teens present, it would be a big help to the bus driver and an overwhelmed counselor to have as much light as possible available tonight since it was not a full moon. QT & Curley arrived a few hours later with a pot of venison stew that she’d made with a new recipe. They doled out small bowls to all the kids and campers around the fire at no charge after they got the call from Kalinda as well as hearing from Old Man McFeeny what happened down at his place.
“I didn’t know he was charging people to camp down there,” Curley Joe said.
“You learn something new every day,” Paul remarked.
Jeremiah had stopped chopping wood to marvel at the size of QT’s bottom, hypnotized by its width. However, it was Beverly’s expression that made Kalinda laugh to the point of nearly wetting her pants. Paul tried to get her to calm down but she couldn’t stop laughing.
Her parents.
His parents.
George.
Buster.
Twenty five pimply faced, ever hungry teenagers, and then there was Beverly’s botoxed face trying to express what she was seeing when QT turned and gave her a full view.
“I swear that expression reminds me of Bernie Lomax sitting on the beach in those shades. She looks like Bernie Lomax trying to smile,” Kalinda said, doubled over in laughter.
“Bernie Lomax? Why do I know that name?” Paul said.
George piped up, “It is the dead guy from Weekend at Bernie’s.”
“Oh my God,” Paul said as he looked at his mother’s facial expression while she watched QT bend over to pass out the stew. QT turned too fast and knocked one kid over with her butt. The child screamed, “Oooomf!” as he hit the dirt.
The only black child in the entre group said what every man who had ever seen the back side of QT wanted to say.
“That is one impressive ass, Lady,” the teenager said. “Does it have a name?”
Beverly Darton opened her mouth, unable to do anything else in the way of an expression, letting out puffs of air disguised as laughter. She sounded exactly like an excited gorilla about to get a new mate. She looked at Kalinda, “My word, Kahuna, this has been the most exciting five hours I have had in a very long time.”
Instead of correcting Beverly again, a smiling Kalinda looked at her mother-in-law and simplified it all.
“Please, just call me Mary Jane. It is so much easier,” she told Beverly.
T he Dartons made the trip out to Imnaha to present the deed to the lands adjacent to Hell’s Canyon to Paul.
Paul in turn handed the deed back to him.
“Dad, if it is okay with you, it would be nice if that land could be opened to the public and made into a state park named after the man who purchased it. That way, everyone gets to enjoy it and we don’t maintain the expense or legalities if anyone gets hurt there,” Paul said to his father.
“That’s good thinking,” Jeremiah said to him. He sat next to his son on the patio, looking out over the land, the darkness creeping in on them like a hunter in the night.
“I sent Luke to Switzerland to heal,” Jeremiah said.
“That’s good thinking,” Paul responded to his father.
They sat in quietness for several minutes before Jeremiah opened his mouth again. “Paul, I just wanted to say...,” he started and stopped. Paul had placed his hand over his father’s heart.
“I have never in my life felt as if you didn’t love me,” Paul said. “I don’t care about the past, I am only interested in how we move forward.”
“Moving forward means spending time with my grandchildren when they are born I hope. I want to be a better grandfather to them than I was as a father to you boys,” he told his son.
“Sounds good to me,” Paul said. “Dad, I am tired. It has been a long week and an even longer day. I am going to take a hot shower and climb into bed and snuggle up to my wife.”
“She seems as if she really loves it up here,” Jeremiah said. “She is a fine cook, too. I mean, you and I actually sat at the table and had dinner together. I cannot remember the last time we did that without a fight. Kalinda learned to cook food you can eat. That is amazing.”
“Yeah. And she really loves me,” Paul replied.
“I can see it. You know what else...I am going to have some really smart grandbabies,” Jeremiah said with pride.
“Let’s hope – some days I can be as sharp as a rusty tack,” he said, standing to stretch.
“Maybe you should soak in that hot tub of down there,” Jeremiah suggested.
“Nope. Hot shower is faster and then my bed. We have to clean up all of this stuff tomorrow,” Paul said. “Then we reset it for the next weekend, clean the cabins, take care of the refuse, that kind of thing.”
“I tell you what. As a wedding gift, why don’t I start a temp cleaning company up here? Hire a few local folks to come in and clean, handle the trash, and the like,” he said to Paul.
“Dad, why don’t you make an investment in George, let him start the company and handle all of that stuff,” Paul suggested.
“You sure? George?” Jeremiah said it with a frown.
“He has come through for me since we opened this season. He deserves his own business, plus it will do him good,” Paul said.
“Consider it done,” Jeremiah said. As Paul was entering the house, his father touched his arm. “Do you think it would be okay for your mother and me to try that hot tub thing out? My back is aching like crazy. What was I thinking swinging that axe?”
“No problem, I will get it going for you, then I am headed to bed,” Paul told his father.
“Beverly!” Jeremiah called out. “Grab some towels and get out here! Just the towels Darling, nothing else.”
“Yuck,” Paul mumbled.
Either the Botox had loosened up or his mother was truly happy. She was grinning and looking at her husband in a way no son should ever witness on any mother’s face.
“Double yuck,” he grumbled as he started the fire and added water to the tub.
B one weary and smelling of lemons from the soap she loved to use, Kalinda rolled over into the mass that was her husband. Nearly a month and half had passed and both their lives had changed so dramatically. Paul recalled when they first walked through the doors of the house, poorly decorated with no life in its walls. Tonight, again, they had guests who would be staying for a week. More friends would want to come for dinner this week to meet his parents as they had Kalinda’s.
My wife .
“So, Mrs. Darton, what name are you going to use from this point forward, Mary Jane or Kalinda?” He wanted to know.
“Which one are you going to call when you are reaching that critical point in our lovemaking?” she asked, running her hands across his chest.
“I married Kalinda. I made love to Kalinda. I fell in love with Kalinda. You can be Mary Jane when we want to have sexy role playing,” he told her with a chuckle.
“Well, seeing as how my parents have been here all week and now your parents are here, our twice a week thing hasn’t happened this week,” she whispered. “Doesn’t seem like it will happen this coming week either.”
“Oh, it is going to happen. It is going to happen right now,” he said, reaching for her.
“Paul, we can’t! Your parents are right next door! They will hear us,” she said to him, suddenly embarrassed.
“I can get this done and not even muss the hair on your head,” he told her.
“Well, I don’t wan
t it if I can’t break a sweat,” she said coolly.
“Don’t worry, I am going to make it so good, you will get up, go bake some bread to make me a sammich, then come back and thank me for finishing you off and not messing up your hair,” he told her.
“Whatever, I am going to go so hard and silent like a Ninja on you that you will be dragging your foot like Quasimodo when you go knock on your parent’s door to thank your Mama for making you a real live baby-making man,” she told him.
“Shit, if that’s the case, hold on,” he told her, springing from the bed. In his boxers, he opened the bedroom door, stepped out and tapped on the adjacent door. His father bid him enter.
“Before I go to bed, Mom, I want to thank you for making me into a real live boy,” he said with a grin.
“I don’t know what that means. I didn’t get it when you sent me the postcard either. Is that some sort of weirdo sexual reference about your penis? If it is, I am not amused,” Beverly said to him.
Paul looked at her face. “I can’t tell if you are or not.” Beverly threw the pillow at him.
“Take your nasty, mannish hide to bed, Paul,” Beverly yelled at him. “You need to go to sleep too, Kapuka!”
“It’s Kalinda,” she yelled back.
“Whatever!” Beverly chided.
Paul closed the bedroom door, locked it, and slid back into the bed next to his wife. “Thank you for coming to rescue me from a life I couldn’t imagine living without you,” Paul told her.
“No, it is I who should thank you. I don’t have to reinvent myself or alter the story any more. I can just live my life the way I want to with you,” she said.
“No more running from your past?”
“I have nothing to run from. My parents love me and did right by me overall. They hid so much to keep our lives private. Too private if you ask me. Hell, it was so private I didn’t even know my own father was in my house every other weekend. Am I okay with her being his side piece her whole life? No. I never will be okay with that, but love is complicated. They found a way to make it work and have shared a good life,” she told him.
“Do you think we will need to find ways to make us work, Kalinda?”
Her hand went low under the covers, touching him intimately. “The only thing I need you to make work right now for us is this. Our life is going to be just fine,” she told him.
“You promise?’ he asked, moving closer to her.
“No need. I’m going to show you,” Kalinda said. “I am going to spend the rest of my life showing you how wonderful it is to build a dream with someone who sees your vision.”
“So, this is real?”
“I am as real as it gets,” Kalinda said as he pulled her into his arms.
“Honey, I don’t know what all the questions were about the horse, but if in your head the happily ever after includes you having a horse, I went and bought you one,” he whispered as he moved, covering her body with his own.
“Seriously? You bought me a horse?”
“I bought you a horse, the barn to put it in, and three months’ worth of riding lessons. Let’s just say it is my wedding gift to you,” he said huskily, losing himself in the desire to connect with his wife.
Paul kissed her deeply, putting all the love he could muster into the kiss. His mail order wife was exactly what the postman ordered. If the story she’d invented in her head about her life with him in Oregon included her riding off into the sunset for the happily ever, then the little lady would get a horse.
The last thoughts before he connected their bodies in love were the two kittens sleeping in the baskets in the corner. They were cute little monsters even though the names his wife gave them were atrocious. He was almost scared to think what she would name the damned horse. It was also in that moment that he decided that he was going to name their children.
If she let him.
Family. I am going to have a family . To both him and his wife, a loving family was critical for their children. For Paul, it was part of the happily ever after he had written in his head for himself.
- Fin -
About the Author
As an award-winning, best-selling author, Oliva loves a good laugh coupled with some steam, mixed in with a man and woman finding their way past the words of “I love you.” An author of contemporary romances, she writes heartwarming stories of blossoming relationships about couples not only falling in love but building a life after the hot sex scene.
When Olivia is not writing, she enjoys quilting, playing Scrabble online against other word lovers and spending time with her family. She is an avid world traveler who writes many of the locations into her stories. Most of the time she can be found sitting quietly with pen and paper plotting more adventures in love.
Olivia lives in Hephzibah, Georgia with her husband, son, grandson and snotty evil cat, Katness Evermean.
Learn more about her books, upcoming releases and join her bibliophile nation at www.ogaines.com
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Also by Olivia Gaines
Modern Mail Order Brides
Oregon Trails
Serenity Series
Welcome to Serenity
Slice of Life
Friends with Benefits
A New Mommy for Christmas
Slivers of Love
The Cost to Play
Thursdays in Savannah
The Blakemore Files
Being Mrs. Blakemore
Shopping with Mrs. Blakemore
Dancing with Mr. Blakemore
Cruising with the Blakemores
Dinner with the Blakemores
The Davonshire Series
Courting Guinevere
The Value of A Man
My Mail Order Wife
A Weekend with the Cromwells
Standalone
Santa's Big Helper
A Menu For Loving
North to Alaska
Turning the Page
An Untitled Love
Wyoming Nights
Watch for more at Olivia Gaines’s site .
Oregon Trails Page 21
