“Grandchildren?”
She shrugged. “It could happen.”
But not with her, she had to remind herself. It was too easy to fall into the trap of thinking this weekend was the beginning of a promising relationship, that he could be part of her life. But he wasn’t. She couldn’t plan as far as next weekend since he’d be gone by then.
So, she said, “We should head back. I don’t want to miss the double massage.”
They got to their room and, as instructed, stripped down to nothing and donned the thick hotel robes that had been provided.
A knock sounded on the door and two white-coated spa staff entered with two portable massage beds. The man introduced himself as Stephen and the woman was Taryn. They were both in their thirties and looked as though they competed in Iron Man and Woman contests when they weren’t massaging people.
They set the beds side by side and maybe three feet apart. “We’ll wash up in the bathroom and give you two a minute to get under the sheets. Face down please.”
She couldn’t prevent herself from peeking when Evan unbelted his robe, slipped it off and hung it from a hook on the wall. He raised his eyebrows and watched as she unbelted her own robe, let it slide down her arms and then laid it on the bed. She settled herself under the sheet on the bed, putting her head face-down on the donut-shaped head rest.
She heard the rustling and shifting of the bed beside her as Evan did the same.
Stephen was her masseur and Taryn took charge of Evan.
There followed sixty minutes of utter bliss. She did a lot of bending over in her job, examining patients and helping the young and infirm ones on and off her examination beds. She also spent time on paperwork and on the phone and in the car, all activities that caused tight muscles she hadn’t even known about.
She worked out when she could, running three times a week and getting to yoga and Pilates classes when time allowed, but still, Stephen’s strong fingers found and released pockets of tension all over her.
There wasn’t much talking. They’d put on one of those CDs of ocean waves so she had the hazy feeling she was floating on a sea somewhere. But she was aware of Evan beside her, imagined him sharing the experience as his own pockets of stress and tightness were pummeled and stretched. Once she heard him groan, twice she heard him sigh.
The sounds were too much like those he made during sex and she found herself growing increasingly aroused thinking of him so close to her, naked and relaxed. The massage brought her into her body, pushing away the distractions that usually occupied her mind. She was aware of her own skin and muscle and the quiet thud of her heart. She felt the sheet shift against her skin and the relaxation in parts of her body accompanied by the tension in her core.
When the hour was up, the two therapists simply said good bye quietly and that they’d collect the beds later. And then they were gone.
She raised her head and glanced at Evan to find him doing the same. “I am so glad she didn’t make me turn over,” he said softly. “I had this massive hard on.”
“From Taryn?”
“No. From thinking about you naked next to me.”
He reached out, touched her shoulder and stroked. “All that massage cream or oil or whatever that stuff is makes your skin so smooth.”
He rolled up and hopped off the bed, leaving the sheet bunched up behind him. He was right. He did have a massive hard on.
And she had lots of ideas about what to do with it.
She rolled up to sitting and then slid off the bed. She held out her hand to him and he took it and did an amazing thing. He raised her hand to his mouth and kissed her open palm.
Then he led her to that big, gorgeous bed and laid her down on it. And they put their relaxed muscles back to work, sliding skin against skin, mouth against mouth, fitting to each other. Learning each other all over again and finding out new things. She didn’t know what he tasted like. She set herself to find out.
When they’d had their fill of the bed, they moved to the bathroom, where the mirrored walls cast back their reflections over and over. This time, when they took each other, they watched. She liked seeing his round, muscular butt pump into her, and the sight of her own legs wrapped around him as she perched on the cold edge of the granite counter.
“I feel like we’re starring in a porn film,” he panted.
“But the only cameras are in our heads,” she murmured, stroking his sweat-damp shoulders. “You can never view the movie again. You’ll have to remember it.”
He rested his forehead against hers. “Oh, I will never forget a moment of being with you.”
She felt the same.
In the end, they ate in the restaurant. She discovered a pretty top in the gift shop that, paired with her jean skirt, was plenty stylish. Evan had snuck an overnight bag into the trunk with a clean shirt and his toiletries. She gave him a hard time about having luggage when she didn’t, but really she had everything she needed.
When she glanced at him she suffered a pang. She really did have everything she needed. And couldn’t have.
The food was over-the-top amazing and they fed each other from their plates like love-sick newlyweds. It was one of those restaurants that told you where every item you were eating was grown, bonus points if that had happened within a hundred miles of here. He started with the corn chowder, cooked with potatoes that were also local.
She ordered a salad of heirloom greens grown right on the hotel property. It arrived with a yellow nasturtium on top.
“I bet we trod on the husks of this very corn,” he said as they dug in. Then he said, “Oh, you have to try this. I don’t know how they made corn chowder taste so good.”
He passed over his spoon and fed her.
She then insisted he sample a forkful of her greens.
She didn’t care. Nobody knew her here. Maybe Evan wasn’t hers forever, but he was hers for tonight and she was determined to make the most of every second.
Over local lamb (her) and local pork (him) paired with a wine from the Willamette valley, they talked with the intimacy of lovers. It was so different from the night before when she’d felt as though the entire town of Miller’s Pond was staring at them, hoping to eavesdrop on their conversation. Here she could be a woman enjoying a man. Listen to the nuances in his conversation, enjoy the play of expressions on his face.
On their way back to the room, her cell phone rang. Charlotte.
“Hi Charlotte,” she said, as he opened the door and she slipped into their room. “Everything okay?”
“I think I’m in labor,” her friend said sounded both panicked and excited.
“Really? You’re what now, thirty-six weeks?”
“Yes, but the Int—my pregnancy book says at thirty six weeks a pregnancy is considered full term.”
She thought it was possible. Perhaps Charlotte’s heartburn had been part of the process. “How far apart are your contractions?”
“Fifteen minutes or so. Sometimes twenty.”
“Are they regular?”
“Not really.”
Oh, she was happy not to be packing her minimal supplies back into her bag and asking Evan to drive her back home. “Go back to your pregnancy book and look up Braxton Hicks. It’s your body practicing up for labor. You won’t be in real labor until your contractions are more regular and coming closer together.”
“So it’s normal?”
She smiled into the phone. “Perfectly normal.”
“Oh, good. It’s so weird feeling like your body is being taken over by alien forces and not knowing what’s normal and what isn’t.”
“I can imagine.”
“So, want to come over for a chick flick and eat ice cream? Then if it’s the real thing, you’d be—”
“I can’t. I’m on a date. And if real labor starts you get Gary to drive you to the hospital and you know I’ll come as soon as I can.”
“You with Easy Rider?”
She felt the warmth of a blush starti
ng and she had no idea why. “Yes.”
There was a slight pause. Charlotte said, “Are you being careful?”
It was her turn to pause. She glanced up and Evan was opening the French doors to their patio. Her tired girl parts stirred. “Yes, I’m being careful,” she said. She suspected Charlotte wasn’t referring only to birth control. And that, while she was scrupulous about protecting her health, she might be a little sloppy about protecting her heart.
Chapter Fourteen
Evan dropped Caitlyn off at her house at 9:30 on Monday morning giving her time to prepare for her day’s patients. She was so pretty in the morning light. In every light.
“Thank you for—everything,“ she said.
He leaned across the car and kissed her. “Thank you.”
There was a moment when she didn’t move and he felt them stuck in a moment of awkwardness. Now what?
He said, “Do you want a night off from me?”
Those gorgeous eyes held his gaze for a long moment. “No.”
He’d felt in that moment as though he were waiting for important news, not sure if it was going to be good or bad. When it turned out to be good he felt such a rush of relief it surprised him. “Great. When are you done for the day?”
“I’ll be finished by six.”
“Can I cook you dinner?”
“You can really cook?”
“You’ll find out if you say ‘yes’.”
Her smile was swift and sweet. “Yes.” She pushed open the door of the car and then paused for a moment. She said, “I’ll leave the back sliding door unlocked so you can come in if you want to start preparing food earlier.”
He understood that this was a pretty big deal. She was letting him in her space, allowing him to access her things, snoop if he was a snooper. She was giving him her trust.
“Thanks. I’ll see you later.”
He went to pick up Homely and found that, instead of abandoning his master of a couple of days, the dog was wildly excited to see him. Mop curls bounced and danced as the dog threw himself at Evan’s knees, squealing with joy. He couldn’t help but laugh and bend down and pet the dog.
“He’s such a good dog,” the woman who’d looked after him said, as he paid her.
Faint hope bloomed. “Any chance you’re in the market?”
She shook her head. “Sorry. I’ve already got two rescue dogs and three cats.”
She fed Homely a dog treat and Evan fetched one of the last posters from his car. “Can you put this up so your clients can see it?”
“Sure,” she said. Then she sighed. “You know, there are a lot of homeless dogs around. I think this is probably one of them.”
Evan was starting to think so too but he wasn’t ready to ship the mutt off to a shelter quite yet.
So, he and his shadow walked downtown so he could hit the grocery store and figure out what to make for dinner. He had a full day and lots of hours to kill, however, so he bought himself a coffee at the indie coffee place, sat outside with the dog curled at his feet looking like an old mop that belonged at the landfill.
On impulse, he pulled out his cell phone and called home. As he’d hoped, his mother answered the phone. “Hi, Mom. It’s Evan.”
“Ev,” she sounded delighted. “Where are you? Your dad and I have been looking at our old atlas every night. We figure you’re almost through Idaho by now.”
He suffered a stab of embarrassment at his lack of progress. He supposed he never got too old to want to impress his mom. “I’m less than four hundred miles from you,” he said. “In a small town called Miller’s Pond. I ran into some trouble.”
“Oh, no. Are you all right?”
“Yeah. I’m fine. My bike’s in the shop, though.” Then he had to explain his accident, and the dog.
“I couldn’t get stranded in an interesting place for a few days. No. I got stuck in America’s Most Average Town.”
“Then you’re there for a reason,” she said.
“You’ve been meditating again, haven’t you, Mom?”
“Every morning. It keeps me grounded.”
“So, here I am stuck. I’ve got Evan’s Amazing Life List sitting in my wallet and no progress is being made.”
“What are you doing with your time?”
He debated with himself for a minute, then told her about Caitlyn.
“Hmm. Maybe she’s your Donna Reed.”
“My what?”
“Don’t you remember, every Christmas we used to watch It’s a Wonderful Life, with Jimmy Stewart. He was a man who dreamed of getting out of his small town and traveling the world. But he fell in love with Donna Reed and the town kept needing him, and well, some bad things happened, he became suicidal and an angel was assigned to him. Eventually he discovered he didn’t need to travel anywhere. He had everything he’d ever wanted right in Bedford Falls.”
“You let your impressionable kids watch this?” He vaguely remembered the movie and something about bells. Sounded like a bunch of Hollywood crap to him. Miller’s Pond even sounded like Bedford Falls. He could imagine being suicidal if you were stuck here, too.
“The movie has a happy ending, darling. Your journey will too.”
“I guess.” He frowned down at his coffee and the muffin he’d mostly fed to the dog. “Tell Iris that I loved her muffins. They are better than you get anywhere.”
“I’ll tell her.”
“Okay. I’d better go. I need to figure out what I’m doing today since my schedule got messed up.”
“You might try living in the moment. Accept that you don’t have transport temporarily and just be where you are with patience.”
“When Dad built you that meditation yurt, he didn’t do us any favors.”
He heard the smile in her voice when she said, “Try not to push the river.”
Even though she was a Zen spouting hippy she always made him feel better. “Love you, mom.”
“Love you right back.”
He rose from the table and the dog jumped up with him. “If we’re not going to push the river, I guess we’d better dive into it, huh?”
The dog wagged its tail and accompanied him to the door of the grocery.
While he was perusing the fresh vegetables, his cell phone rang.
“Evan Chance.”
“Hi, Evan! This is Marshall Dremell. I run the Miller’s Pond newcomer’s club and we’d love to have you join us at our pot luck social Friday night.”
Usually he cut people off at this point, but he was so stunned, he said, “There’s a newcomer’s club in Miller’s Pond?”
“Indeed there is, will we see—”
“No thanks. But if any newcomers want to adopt a dog, tell them to call me.”
He hung up shaking his head. A newcomer’s club.
“I think it’s a plot,” he told Caitlyn later, over dinner. “The dog’s in on it. He runs out, throws himself in front of unsuspecting motorists or cyclists who wreck their vehicles, then Merv gets their business and holds them up in town long enough for the realtors and financial planners and every other service provider in town to get their hooks into the unsuspecting fool.”
“Don’t forget the local doctor,” she said, looking amused.
He regarded her. “She’s definitely got her hooks into me,” he admitted.
“This curry is fantastic,” she said. He’d gone with a mild red curry, with chicken and loads of vegetables. “I can’t believe you even made focaccia bread.”
“I told you I’m an excellent cook.”
“You did. But I wasn't sure I believed you.”
“Listen, growing up in our house with a lot of kids and not a lot of money, we all learned how to cook. Also how to fix things.”
Her eyes lit up suddenly. “Really? You’re handy?”
“I am.” And suddenly he didn’t have to worry about filling his time. Caitlyn had a list of small projects that were beyond her scope and perfectly within his abilities.
“I can work but
I need to leave time for accomplishing number three on my list.”
She stopped in mid-scribble because of course she was making him a list. “What’s number three. That’s not kiss a girl in the rain, is it?”
“No. The only girl I want to kiss in the rain, is you. Number three is my desire to learn another language. Specifically, Spanish.”
“Really.”
“Yes. I signed up for an online course. I was doing extremely well, repeating such useful phrases as “The girls like dancing, but the boys prefer baseball.”
“It’s the same the world over,” she complained. “What is it with men and sports?”
“A debate for another time. Anyway, there I was in the hotel room, working on my Spanish when the chambermaid came in. She happens to be Hispanic and she burst out laughing.”
“Was it your accent?”
“Probably, but also the content. I was repeating, el elephante bebe leche, which translates to the elephant drinks milk. Pilar, that’s her name, found this most amusing. We spoke in Spanish while she cleaned the room and she was able to correct my pronunciation and explain some grammar that I didn’t understand.”
“I hope you tipped her well. And didn’t waste her time.”
“I did. Also, she’s agreed to tutor me privately.”
“Don’t tell me, she looks like Penelope Cruz.”
“She probably did look like Penelope Cruz about thirty years ago. Now, she’s a nice lady who looks like she could use some extra cash and I am a guy who isn’t getting very far on his bucket list. I think we can help each other out.”
“That’s wonderful. Where are you having these lessons?”
“At the public library. She gets off work at one so we’re meeting at the library at two every day until I leave.”
“Did you go today?”
“I did.”
“And?”
“I have homework for tomorrow.” He grinned. “I can’t tell you the last time I had homework.” He settled back in his chair. Looked across at Caitlyn. “I’m so used to having my days full to overflowing, it’s hard to be idle.”
“You’re a recovering workaholic. You’ll get there.”
When she went to make coffee after their dinner, she discovered the foolish mug he’d placed in her cupboard with the German coffee mugs.
She picked it up. Stared at the cheap, thick pottery mug with the bright red glaze and the words Oregon is for Lovers.