Corbin's Bend Homecoming

by Ruth Staunton

  That quick kiss he gave her at breakfast could barely be called a kiss. It was more of a peck. And yet her lips had tingled and she wanted more. But he was gone. Did he do that on purpose?

  No, he couldn’t have known how it would affect her. She ran her tongue over her lips as she watched his long legs take him out of the restaurant and to his pick-up truck. Four days—she wouldn’t see him for four more days.

  She went to work at the medical center and hoped the job and taking care of her patients’ physical therapy needs would help keep him out of her mind. It didn’t. She could talk to her patients about their condition and give them exercises to do to help their particular problems, but when it came to small talk with her patients, she found herself distracted by thoughts of RJ.

  RJ…what the hell could those initials stand for? And what was the big deal that he couldn’t or wouldn’t tell her what his names were? Robert, Randall, Roy, Richard, Raymond, Russell, Ralph. None of them were objectionable. In fact the only R name she could think of that would be undesirable was Rufus.

  She thought of all the J names she could think of. James, John, Joseph, Joshua, and of course, Jack. Her list of J names didn’t come up with any odd ones. So what was wrong with his name that he didn’t want her to even know what the initials stood for?

  Kelly had an idea and on her lunch break, she called her uncle.

  “Kelly, what can I do for you?” Uncle Brent sounded relaxed and not busy.

  “Hi, Uncle Brent. I want to make something for RJ and for it to really be special, I don’t want to use his initials. Can you tell me what his full name is?”

  “Why don’t you just ask him?”

  “Um…well…he left this morning on a four day shift so I can’t reach him. I just had this goofy idea to make him a cake and decorate it with woodsy stuff and write something like Ranger whatever his name is on it.”

  “I don’t think I can help you. If I remember correctly, his application only had his initials on it.”

  “Really?” Kelly asked. “Wouldn’t his driver’s license have his full name? How did you run his credit check without his full name?”

  She heard her uncle sigh and had a feeling she wasn’t going to get any answers. He proved her right with what he said next.

  “Kelly, I honestly don’t remember what was on his application. Even if I did, I can’t go around giving out personal information on our residents. Bottom line, you’re going to have to get that information some other way. Besides, he goes by RJ and I don’t think it would look bad on a cake.”

  Disappointed, Kelly said, “Okay, thanks anyway. See you soon.”

  As soon as she hung up, she muttered under her breath, “Thanks for nothing.”

  She’d have to let it go for now and think of some other way to find out his name.

  Chapter 4

  Kelly was meeting RJ for dinner at Endelé and she was running late. Her last patient took a little longer than expected. She rushed home to take a shower before getting dressed for what was essentially their second date, though their first with just the two of them.

  It was early June and the temperature was warm, so she put on a pretty flowered dress with a hem that ended half way down her thighs. Happy to be going out with someone that was not shorter than she was, she slipped her feet into a pair of sandals with three inch heels. They would make her the same height as RJ and she wondered if it was going to intimidate him. She hoped not. She usually wore flat or at most low wedge heeled shoes at work. But she loved to wear heels and it wasn’t often she got to wear them. The restaurant was further away than she cared to walk to in her heels so she took her car.

  She hoped this dinner went well. She expected it would since RJ seemed to be a strong and confident man. Her dating life had never been overly active. As a woman who was taller than most men, she didn’t get asked out all that often. Most of her relationships had been based more on friendship than anything else. If she stopped to think about it, she couldn’t say she’d ever actually been in love. There was always something that seemed to hold the man back from getting too serious. She didn’t want to blame it on her height, but felt it had to be a major factor.

  She parked in the small lot of the restaurant, glanced at the time displayed on her navigation system in the dash of her car, and saw she was ten minutes late. She hoped RJ wasn’t starting to think she was standing him up. The hostess just inside the door greeted her.

  “Table for one?”

  “No, I’m meeting somebody and I’m running a little late. Maybe they’re already seated.”

  She let her gaze wander over the restaurant and spotted RJ waving his hand to let her know where he was. For some reason his wave made her smile brightly as she strode through the restaurant to his table.

  “Hi, I’m so sorry I’m late. I’m normally a very punctual person, but my last patient had questions and I wanted to make sure they understood what they needed to do on their own at home.”

  The corners of RJ’s eyes crinkled with his smile and he said, “No problem, you’re not that late. Let’s order a drink.”

  The server came to their table, interrupting the long, cool look at Kelly he was enjoying, and asked what they would like to drink. Kelly ordered a frozen Grand Margarita with an extra shot of tequila and RJ ordered one of the specialty Mexican beers the restaurant carried.

  Once the server left to get their drinks, RJ turned his attention to Kelly saying, “Tell me about your day.”

  “My day was the same as most of them are at work. Just trying to help patients get through their physical therapy exercises after their injury or surgery. Nothing really unusual happened today. I did get two new patients fresh out of surgery. One just had a hip replacement and the other one had rotator cuff surgery. But it was a pretty routine day. Tell me how your last shift went in the wilderness area.”

  RJ said, “My days are not always the same. I’ve been working some more with the ranger interns, but this last shift was at the fire watch tower. Those days are pretty much similar. I usually spend the morning surveying the entire area from the watch tower, and then in the afternoon I hike to visit the campsites or wherever the permit holders are to make sure everything’s okay. Sometimes there are a lot of people in the wilderness area, and other times just a few. If there’s a group of students or scouts, I go to the area they’re in and make sure everyone is safe and basically just check in on them.”

  “You must really love the outdoors to do that job.”

  “I do love the outdoors. I’ve always enjoyed hiking. I like to occasionally hunt, but only if I can make good use of the meat. Being a single guy, it’s hard for me to use all the meat from a good-sized buck or an elk. There’ve been times when I donated the meat to a shelter.”

  “You don’t hunt just for sport?”

  “I suppose there is an element of sport when anyone hunts, but I don’t hunt just for the trophy.”

  Kelly smiled and said, “Glad to hear that. I’ve never been hunting and I don’t have anything against it, but I do feel there should be a purpose for the hunting. Like food and clothing or other useful items made from the skins.”

  “That’s exactly how I feel,” RJ said as their server came back with their meals. “When I do hunt, I take it to a processor for butchering, and he usually buys the hide from me and then turns around, cures it, and sells it for a little profit. He pretty much makes sure that everything that can be used does get used.”

  They ate their dinner, nibbling off each other’s plates, tasting everything. RJ had to work at not staring at Kelly. Her blue-gray eyes seemed so intense as they talked. Like she was really listening to everything he was saying. It made him feel he was important to her.

  “So tell me,” RJ said. “Why did you, a single woman, decide to move to a community like Corbin’s Bend?”

  “I moved back to Colorado several months after my dad moved back here from Chicago. He retired from the U.S. Marshal Service and I had moved to Chicago so tha
t I would live closer to him and have a chance to get to know him better. I grew up in Denver with my mom and stepdad. So once he moved back, I thought I should move to Colorado to be close to the family again.”

  “Okay, I get that. But why Corbin’s Bend? Are you looking for the kind of relationship that most of the people here have?”

  “To be honest, I don’t know. I was kind of thinking I’d live in Denver, but when I realized I could get a job at the medical center here, I thought it’d be great. I’d be close to my dad and close to my uncle, and it’s just a quick hour’s drive to go see my mom and my grandparents. But I wasn’t looking forward to commuting every day from Denver to the medical center.”

  “So you’ve never been in a domestic discipline relationship?”

  “No. I honestly don’t know that I want to be. It’s something I’ll have to figure out if and when the opportunity presents itself. So what about you? Why did you move to a place like this?”

  “For two reasons. The first one is that I do want a domestic discipline relationship and Corbin’s Bend is nearby the area I work in. Second, with my crazy schedule, it’s hard to find a woman doing the club and bar scene. Then taking the time to figure out if she would be open to the kind of relationship I want just wasn’t working. I figured if I lived here in Corbin’s Bend, I’d know the single women here were at least open to it. Now that I’ve met you, I realize that just because a woman lives here, it doesn’t really mean that she might want or even be open to that kind of relationship.”

  “I didn’t say I wasn’t open to it,” Kelly clarified. “I feel I’m open to pretty much anything, or at least open to thinking about it. A lot depends on the people involved and on how the whole relationship works. I guess I’m saying that I just don’t know for sure.”

  “I know what you mean. Everything depends on the other person. It depends on their personality and how they feel about certain aspects of the relationship.”

  Kelly just nodded in agreement and RJ thought she might not be too comfortable talking about this subject. He was sure he was right when she changed the subject.

  She asked, “What does RJ stand for?”

  He looked down at his plate and wished the initials he used as his name didn’t always have to come up, but he answered, “They’re the initials of my first and middle names.”

  “Duh,” Kelly said sarcastically. “Haven’t we been through this already?”

  He shrugged and said, “It doesn’t matter. I go by RJ.”

  “What’s the big deal? Is it some strange family name that embarrasses you?”

  RJ sighed and pushed his plate away, making it clear he was done eating. “No, it’s not a family name at all. I just prefer RJ.”

  “Let me guess. Robert James?”

  He shook his head telling her that wasn’t it.

  “Robert Joseph?”

  Another head shake.

  “Do I have one of the names right?”

  “No, you don’t. Can we just drop this name game?”

  Shrugging, she said, “Okay. Are you back on duty tomorrow?”

  “No, day after tomorrow starts a four day shift. I’ll be camping out most of the time so I can check some areas that I don’t get to very often.”

  They spent the rest of the dinner with RJ telling her about various aspects of his job and then she asked, “Could I come out some weekend when you’re in your tower and hang out with you?”

  “No, that’d be against regulations. You can come out and tour the tower, but actually hanging out with me while I’m on duty isn’t allowed.”

  Kelly made a pout and asked, “Do you always follow the rules to the letter?”

  “When it comes to my job, yeah. I pretty much do. I’m not against bending the rules in certain situations, but I feel rules are in place for a reason and it’s best to abide by them.”

  They parted in the parking lot since each had their own vehicle. RJ kissed her and promised to call her after his next shift. As he watched her drive off, he wondered if he should have invited her to his place for a drink. Nah, he decided it was best to get to know her better. He could easily fall for her. She was easy to talk to and spoke her mind. She had none of the shyness or hesitation so many young women had when first dating someone new.

  A month later Kelly was ready for the weekend that she hoped would finally bring their relationship to a new level. They’d seen little of each other but spoke regularly on the phone. RJ finally had nearly a full weekend off. The days passed slowly, but finally it was Saturday and RJ would be coming home this afternoon. She kept busy with what seemed like an endless task of getting her small home in order. She learned it was a good thing she wasn’t a true clothes horse. Her bedroom closet was adequate, but in no way could it be called spacious.

  She often had problems finding clothes that fit her frame properly. Even when she purchased the tall version of slacks, they were often too short. Sometimes T-shirts barely came to her waist and left a telltale strip of her belly showing between the bottom of the T-shirt and the waistband of her pants. What many stores called tunic length ended up being just right. Finding clothing that fit well was a chore and diminished the joy that so many women found in shopping.

  On the bright side, it meant all her clothes fit in the closet and drawers of her dresser and chest. The closet only had one shelf above the clothes rack. Her dad was a handy guy, she’d have to ask him if he could install a second shelf to give her someplace to store her out of season clothes.

  When she finished, she glanced at her clock and saw that it was midafternoon and RJ was probably home or almost home. She needed a shower and knew RJ would be taking one too before he called her. It was the perfect time to hop in the shower, wash her hair, and slowly begin to get ready for their date.

  Her phone rang while she was still getting ready and even though she saw it was RJ, she let it go to voicemail. When she was done, she called him back.

  “Hi, sorry I missed your call,” she said when he picked up. “I was almost done braiding my hair and couldn’t drop it without having to start over. Are you home?”

  “Yeah, just got out of the shower. How about we have dinner in Boulder tonight?”

  “That sounds good. What time, and should I come to your place or are you going to pick me up?”

  “I’ll pick you up. I was taught a gentleman always picks up a lady when they’re going out on a date.”

  “At least we know chivalry is not dead in Corbin’s Bend.”

  “You’re right about that, it’s full of a whole lot of old-fashioned people. How about I pick you up at six? Is that all right?”

  “That’ll be fine, I’ll be ready.”

  “Good, I already made reservations for seven, so be ready on time. See you at six.”

  Kelly stood there and looked down at her cell phone after he hung up. Was she wrong thinking his voice had changed and somehow become more firm? Those last few sentences had sounded almost like an order. It was the first time RJ had spoken to her in such a hard voice. Was this a show of his dominance? If it was, she didn’t think she liked it. As she thought about it, she began to get a little angry.

  She was never late for an appointment or a date. Well, just that once at Endelé, but that couldn’t be helped. It was work related so it shouldn’t really count. And he said he hadn’t minded, that she wasn’t that late.

  It was one of her pet peeves when people kept others waiting. Depending on how far she had to drive, she left her house ten to fifteen minutes earlier than she needed to. You never knew what kind of traffic you might run into and she liked not having to worry about being late.

  How dare he even suggest that she might be late? She stomped to her closet to get the dress she planned to wear for the night. On her way to the closet, she changed her mind about what to wear. Instead of the black dress with a modest, slightly scooped neckline, she went for the red dress with the plunging neckline. Then she went to her lingerie drawer and pulled out the Victori
a’s Secret push-up bra that would make the girls look like they were about to tumble right out of that plunging neckline. Grabbing the low heels she had intended to wear with the black dress, she returned to the closet and pulled out her favorite four inch stilettos. They would make her just a tad taller than RJ.

  In her jewelry box she rummaged for the silver necklace that had a heart-shaped pendant on it. If she remembered correctly, the chain was long enough to put the pendant just above her cleavage, drawing the eye to her abundant bust. Yes, she was going to enjoy watching RJ’s eyes pop out of his head when she opened the door to let him in.

  Standing in front of the new cheval mirror that she had splurged on, she critically evaluated her look. The dress wasn’t too short, it ended about three inches above her knees. If it were any shorter, poor RJ—and any other man they might run into on their date—would only be confused about where to look. At the hem of her dress, leaving a man to wonder how far up her long legs really went; or at her overflowing bosom which just might make a man hope for what looked to be the inevitability of her tits escaping their bonds.

  A glance at the clock told her she was ready nearly a full twenty minutes before RJ would ring her bell. Reaching behind her neck she pulled her French braid forward so it hung over her right shoulder. Yes, she liked that look. The end of the braid would draw a man’s eye right to where he would imagine her nipple might be. Smiling smugly to herself, Kelly went back into the bathroom and applied another coat of lash-lengthening mascara and another swipe of the red lipstick that matched her dress. Satisfied with her look, she went and sat down in the living room and played a game of solitaire on her cell phone while she calmly waited for RJ.