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Impact on the Heart

By: MSTarot



 ("This story has a slow build and has more to do with the start of a relationship between two people with a lot of past baggage, than pure sex. If you're looking for a quick fix...what are doing reading novella?" Grin. "Enjoy.") 

For some reason I'm thinking about the summers I use to box with my cousins. The time that Mickey hit me square on and broke my nose.

Yea, that hurt about like this. In fact exactly like this.

Moving in a fog, like I'm in a world of molasses I lift my hand to my nose and very gently pinch the bridge where it hurts. As I focus on that pain others start to appear. A line of fire along my neck on the left side.

I let my hand drift slowly to it. I wince at the hot burn just under my ear. Sitting back I follow it down across my chest. My fingers fumble with the seat belt buckle for far longer than it should take to get it to open.

Reaching over, still pushing against the molasses, I find the door handle. The bent and twisted metal groans and pops when I push at the car door. The sound of the little squares of glass dropping out the shattered window to the asphalt below is only half heard. My hand brushes the gray deflated bag out the way as I try to swing my legs out the car.

It seems to take an eternity to get that simple action accomplished.

Sounds start to come to me then. Voices drifting in from a long way off. I look up at a face just in front of me. Why he is speaking from the bottom of a well a mile away I don't know.

"Sir, are you alright?"

Blinking I try to focus on him. He's a young man maybe twenty; the first thing my eyes take in is the fact his arms are covered in spiders. His face is vaguely familiar, like I've seen it somewhere recently. TV maybe?

"Sir? Sir, are you alright?"

I lick my lips and regret it. There is powder from the airbag all over my face. The taste doesn't go with the copper taste of my blood.

"Sir?" he asks yet again. His voice is piercing and getting louder by the second.

"I'm fine. See to the lady in the other car." I blink at him. "Ladies first."

"My sister's looking after her. I came to check on you. How the head?"

He kneels down in front of me his feet crunching glass.

"Still attached by a little string." I tell him moving my hand to the back of my neck. "Otherwise it feels like it would float away." My vision comes more into focus and I blink the grit from my eyes. I try to pull against the car roof to get out but his hand on my chest stops me.

"I think you should sit still, sir. We called an ambulance. Let them take a look at you before you go moving to much."

I look down at his hand and the very muscular arm it's attached too. I see now that the spiders are tattooed on.

"I need to check on the lady in the other car." I tell him. I give up trying to move against that hand. Even clear headed I don't think I could budge it. "Is she okay?"

"I'll see... if you don't try to move. Okay?"

I nod. I'm not sure I could disobey even if I wanted to.

I watch him walk away from me toward the other twisted pile of crumpled metal. Yellowish fluids are pouring out the front of it. There is a burnt pancake syrup smell in the air all around me.

I see a very pregnant lady stand up and talk to him for a second.

"Oh God! I hit a pregnant woman!"

Grabbing the car roof I lever myself to my feet ignoring the way the world spins. 

Glass crunching under foot I start to stumble my way towards the other car.

I see the woman look my way, and then she catches the man with the tattoo's attention. When he looks over and see me I see him give an exasperated sigh then start towards me.

"Sir, you promised not to move." He says when he gets to me.

"I didn't know I hit a pregnant woman! Is she alright?"

"You didn't! That's my sister, Sara. Now come on lets get you back to your car." He goes to try and take my elbow. I move it out his way and bring my hands up to ward him off.

"I'm fine. I'm fine. Let me go over and see the lady I hit. I'm already on my feet I can't do myself anymore harm."

He seems to disagree. After a moment of looking into my eyes he steps aside and I walk past him. That I'm holding the side of my neck to cool the burn from the seat belt comes to me when I get to the side of her car. The pregnant lady looks up from the open car door and stand up with a hand to her back for balance.

She looks to my keeper.

"Kevin?" she asks.

"He says he's fine." I can see the tattooed man shrug without even looking. "He wanted to see too her."

I see...Sara?... nod after a second and move out the way.

Kneeling down next to the car door I look in at the woman I hit.

She is in a state of near historical tears. Her hands are clutching at the wheel with a force that may soon break finger bones. I gently bring my hand to rest on top of hers. She looks over at me. Seeing my bloody face I watch her mouth drop open in horror. Her hands leave the steering wheel and she covers her mouth.

"Oh my god. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry." I hear her say through the muffle of her fingers.

"Shush now. It's not your fault. If anything it was a mixture of the wet roads and my driving. I should be the one apologizing here. Now are you alright?"

"Oh god my boyfriends going to kill me. He's gonna kill me for this." She starts to rock back and forth in the seat. I see the dark bruise forming along her neck where the seat belt burned her skin. I know I must have a similar.

"Hush now my dear, and sit still. I can hear the sirens. The ambulance will be here soon. Let them take care of you, and don't worry about the car. My insurance will take car of the car."

"He's going to kill Me." she says in a soft voice as I get her to lean back into the seat. She keeps repeating it till the ambulance arrives.

** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** **

"Mr. Kindle?"

In the line at the police office, I turn at my name and smile when I see her face.

"Miss Shay! You look a lot better, than when I saw you last." I grin at her when she brings her hand to the dark bruise on the side of her neck. I have a similar one on mine. I hope her's doesn't continue all the way down to her hip like mine does.

"Well thank you. I look a mess though." She gives her head a shake. She looks at the line to the desk. "Filing the accident report?"

Nodding I hold up the paperwork. I see a similar set in her hands.

She follows my eyes down to the papers and nods. "Yea."

As the silence start to become uncomfortable I ponder asking questions and finally take the plunge.

"Did...did my insurance company get in touch yet?"

"What? Oh yes I guess. I don't really know for sure. His insurance agent said it was totaled." She gives a shake of her head.

""Tell him I'm sorry." I say lamely.

She shakes her head and looks down. I hear a sniffle then a tear runs down her cheek.

"Hey now...what? Did he take it that badly?" sighing I give my head a shake. "Like I said to the officer on scene mostly it was my fault, admittedly the wet road and the icy bridge didn't help maters. I was just going to fast. If you like I'll talk to him. I do know that my insurance will cover getting him a new car. Can you tell him that for me or give me his number and I'll do it? In fact lets do that, give me a number I can talk to him at and I'll give him a call."

"I can't do that." She says softly. "He broke up with me."

I stare at her in shock. I wince a little when I shake my head without thinking. My hair brushes the friction burn on my neck.

"Because of the wreck?"

She nods. Her eyes drop to the black and white floor tiles.

"A week from Valentines Day he broke up with you over you being in a car wreck? One that wasn't your fault?"

She nods again, then after a moment looks up at me. She gives me a half a smile.

"He said I didn't care enough about his car to drive it safely. He said that knowing how much it meant to him... that I wrecked it... just goes to show how much I don't care about the things that are important to him."

I know my jaw must be on the floor.

"Seriously?" I ask after a moment.

I just see her nod when the lady behind the desk calls out.

"NEXT!"

Shaking my head I turn around and step up to the big Plexiglas window. At least four inches thick with a small hole cut into it to speak through I lean down to talk through it.

"I need to file an accident report." I tell her.

Handing her the papers I notice that I have started to truly boil inside.

"What a fucking prick?" I say under my breath.

"What?" asks the lady behind the desk. 

I look up and shake my head with a smile.

"Sorry talking to myself."

She looks down without a smile. DMV workers. No sense of humor. I take the paperwork back with the case report card and step out of the way.

I move back to by the door and stand there looking at Miss Shay.

I can see the air of a woman that life has defeated. It hangs around her like a mist. She moves with all the lifelessness of a person in deep depression. She takes back her paperwork after a moment from the lady at the desk. As she walks towards me she sees me standing there and gives me a slight smile. I hold open the door for her. She smiles more at that.

We step out into the cool February morning. The weather has been up and down for the last week. It can't make up its mind if it's still winter or if spring is truly here.

"Miss Shay?"

She looks back at me, and then that slight smile is back.

"Yes Mr. Kindle?"

"I'm sorry that what happened caused trouble between your boyfriend and you.. If you think my talking to him might help him change his mind I would be happy to do that." I offer.

She start to vehemently shaking her head then stops with a wince and brings her hand to her neck. I catch her eyes, nodding I place a hand on my own in sympathy.

"I appreciate that, Mr. Kindle but no. He said if he ever saw you that he would...kick you ass." she gives a shrug. "Sorry, he was very upset about his car."

"So I hear." I take a deep breath. Looking across the street I see that someone had the good sense or good sense of humor to put a donut shop across from a police station. I see her snuggle her jacket and scarf around her closer then wince when it hits the friction burn. "Miss Shay, let me buy you a cup of coffee."

She glances towards the donut shop and start to shakes her head.

"No I need to..." I can see her fishing through her brain for what she might need to do then stop. She kind of slumps with a defeated set of her shoulders. "I guess I don't really need to do anything. Coffee would be nice."

Seeing all the police around I resist the urge to J-walk and instead guide her towards the crosswalk and we walk across to the other side of the street.

The seats in the donut shop were new when I was born, or maybe my dad, or maybe his dad. For all their ancient padding though they are fairly comfortable. I see the pain wince when she sits down.

"You okay?" I ask concerned. 

She nods undoing the buttons of her jacket. She shrugs it off her shoulders with another of those signs of pain.

"I'm just one big bruise." She says after she gets it off.

"I'm sorry." I say lamely.

She shakes her head.

"I don't blame you. Truly I don't. I saw the bridge when they were checking me out in the back of that ambulance. It had a lot of black ice on it. Really I don't blame you."

The waitress pours us two cups of steaming coffee. I order a couple of crullers to go with mine. She gets one as well.

"Well...I'm still sorry. That you're hurting. I do know how you feel. I've got bruises in places I didn't know I had anymore."

Her eyes got to my nose, more specifically to the white strip of Band-Aid tape. I lift my hand to it.

"Small break. I've had worse done to it." At her look I shrug "I've broken it bad at least twice before. To the point it had to be set."

"Accident prone?" she asks then grins a bit and tries to hide a chuckle.

I shake my head.

"No. I use to box." I lift my hands loosely in front of me. "You know Boxing? I knew in the car it was broken."

"You hit the wheel?" she asks looking through the steam from her coffee. She's holding it under her chin letting the heat warm her fingers and the steam her face.

I shake my head and again wish I hadn't

"Nope I was leaned forwards when the airbag deployed. When we hit I didn't see it coming. I was thrown forwards then got smacked in the face when it went off."

"Sorry." She says with a concerned look.

I chuckle and stop myself this time from shaking my head.

"You haven't got a thing to be sorry about Miss Shay."

She smiles.

"Call me Casey. Every time I hear, Miss Shay, I want to look behind me for my mother."

I chuckle.

"I will, if you will call me Jake." I smile as I take a sip of my coffee, wincing at the scalding of my tongue I sit it back down. What's with this place and the nuclear hot beverages? I pick up a cruller and tear it into half. I give it a dip then finally get to enjoy a bit of my coffee.

I watch her as she gently blows on her cup. My mind is reeling that someone would dump this lovely woman over a car accident. One that's not even her fault. Like that would make any kind of sense even if she had been at fault.

After a moment of this I notice her eyes are focused into the depths of her coffee. I can see she is a million miles away.

"Casey?"

She looks up at me blinking.

"Sorry. I kind of went all spacey there. Did you say something?"

"Are you alright? I mean inside. I've had people break up with me before I kind of know what that feels like. It sucks when it happens but you look...like you lost everything and your dog."

She looks down at her coffee again.

"In a way I guess I did. You see I had decided that he must be the one. I've been with him for almost six months ...for me that's a record. I was hoping that he might ask me to marry him soon. I think... I really loved him." She swallows and shrugs. I watch her lean down and blows ripples across the top of her coffee. Whiffs of steam drift over towards me.

"You... 'think'...that you loved him? Casey I hate to break this to you but if you love someone there isn't any 'think' to it. You know. You know it in your bones."

She looks up at me with a sadder look to her face than before, then she gives a sigh.

"Yea. I guess. I just wanted him to be the one...maybe." Another sigh. "I don't know. I don't know anything anymore."

I sit for a second just looking at her. Some of the things she's said come to me then. Six months is a record for her? Why? She's lovely enough. Sweet, with a face that, if not beautiful is certainly pleasant to look at. 

Ignoring my too hot coffee I sit back and absently munch on a donut. I make a mental decision based on what I wanted to get done today and decide all of it can wait.

"Want to tell me about it, Casey? I'm a good listener." I offer.

I watch her go through a dozen emotions on her face.

"I wouldn't know where to start." She says after a moment.

"At the beginning of course. You said that he was a record? So you've never had a boyfriend for more than six months? Why?"

Watching her I give her the time to find the words...or the courage to use them.

"They say I'm boring." She looks up at me. I see the little half shrug. "Sorry I ...I'm not the most exciting person in the world. I like to read. I like watching my fish swim, listening to music." I see her swallow. "I guess guys want a girl that wants to go clubbing and hang out at a bar all night."

"Some do. The ones that generally haven't grown up yet." I smile, well more of a grin. "What's the oldest guy you've dated?"

"What? Oldest? Well I guess 25? Yea, Anthony, was 25. We were together for about three months." She shrugs. "For awhile he was the record holder."

As she goes silent and slips back into looking into her coffee I sit and just look at her for a second.

"Stop me if I'm wrong."

She looks up sharply.

"You don't really want to date but friends of yours say you should. They set you up with this 'Great guy they know'... right?"

She looks down, then kind of slowly nods.

"You go out with the guy maybe a double date ...maybe by yourself. He's nice enough, maybe even charming. Dinner, a movie, maybe out to a club for drinks. Somewhere along the way after maybe the second or third date with him he's been so nice to you that when he starts getting a bit touchy feeling you just kind of go, yea I guess I will, sure why not, he's cute."

I smile when she blushes.

"You have a few, kind of, hot nights together. Then things just sort of taper off. He comes by every once and awhile. Calls, 'hey want to go out?' you say yes even though you don't want to. He gets you a little tipsy takes you home, not his place but yours... right?"

She looks up and nods.

I take a deep breath.

"Yea. It makes it easier to leave after he's gotten what he wanted. It wasn't a night with you he wanted it was a few minutes with your body. I imagine some of them do fall for you a bit, you are beautiful to look at, then they get to know you a bit better and they find that you're not really what they wanted."

She nods. A single tear rolls down her cheek. She wipes it away with her thumb.

"Not exciting enough to hold onto a man."

She says it with the air of repeating words she's heard before...many times.

"Boy."

She looks up at me then.

"The word you're looking for is boy. Not man. You've been dating boys. Oh I'm sure some of them seemed mature enough. At first anyway. Let me guess again..."

"Go ahead. You're good at It." she says with a sad smile.

I smile back.

"Sorry about that. It's actually part of my job description. Anyway like I said let me guess. You got started doing it in high school. You were a senior but you were dating the freshmen. Always younger guys."

She just looks at me. Then slowly nods.

"How did you know that?" she asks.

I tentatively try a sip of my coffee. Still too hot. It's definitely Goldilocks at the donut shop today.

"I work as a councilor. Marriage, troubled teens, people trying to get back into life after years spent in prisons. That sort of thing. Like I said I'm a good listener. Casey, I want to ask you something, but it's kind of personal. How about I ask it and you don't have to answer?"

She gives me a nod but I can see a worried look on her face.

"These boys you've dated. I imagine they have told you they loved you. Yes? Well did you every... really, in your heart, really believe them?"

"I don't know." She answers after a second. "Maybe with a few. One or two."

I nod.

"Yea. I'm going to go out on a limb here a bit but I don't think you have ever really been in a true relationship. I mean with someone that truly loves you." She looks up at me I catch her eyes. "If that's true I'm sorry."

After a moment she sighs and gives me a halfhearted smile.

"Not your fault I'm boring in bed..." she stops I see her expression change. She just let slips something she didn't mean to.

"Have they told you that?" I ask after a second.

She gets a bit fidgety, moves her coat on the seat.

"I don't want to talk about It." she looks up from moving her napkin an inch. "Let's change the subject. Is your car going to be repairable?"

"I don't care about cars." I say softly. From the look in her eyes I don't think she's ever heard a guy say something like that. "They're a hunk of sheet metal that gets you from place to place. I don't care in the least about them. Not cars... sports...porn," she blushes a deep red. "Or most of what the guys you have dated probably cared about."

I pick up a half a cruller and swirl it in my coffee. I recognize it as a nervous distraction but can't stop myself. I set it back down on the napkin uneaten. My hunger for them has gone.


Impact on the Heart



"I care about People. Sensations. Beauty. Memories. You see I found out awhile back that the most important things in the world are not what most people think. It's not possession, or having the biggest bank account. It's about living. Enjoying every moment." I swallow and take the plunge into the deeper waters. "I fell in love. Once." I give a half smile at the memory. "She was my cousin...first."

I see Casey's eyes go wide.

"Yea. You see I was young. Younger than you are now in fact. She was a year younger than I was. She was married but separated with the guy and nine months pregnant. Now...I never told her. Not once how I felt. She may have known we were always close but she never let on if she did." Pausing I pick up my swizzle stick and start playing with my coffee. I seriously wonder if I will ever drink it. I lift the little red plastic straw out to make sure it hasn't melted. I glance up and see her eyes on me. "Oh I know, First cousins and all that. Kind of sick huh?"

She looks at me for a second then slowly shakes her head.

"No. No not really. I mean it's not like she was your sister." She kind of shrugs. "What happen?'

I sit the red straw down. Why did I use this story as a reference? I could have told her a hundred things about the people I've worked with that would have been just as good.

"I was there at the hospital. She asked for me to be there at the delivery since her husband wasn't. I caressed her sweaty face all through her labor. I held her son before his father ever saw him. He was the most beautiful thing. He opened his eyes in that messy little face and looked up at me. His fingers curled around my finger like tiny grains of rice. He was so small." I choke up for a second. Sitting back I bring my hand up to the bandage at my nose and caress the ache. "She named him after me." I smile then bring my hand up to my eye. My finger quickly wipes away the tear.

""What happen, Jake?" she asks.

"Her husband showed up. Came to see his son more than her I think. He wasn't too pleased to see me or to hear that 'His' son was named after another man. But he didn't let her see that. No he was caring, loving, told her how proud he was...of her. Sat there holding his son. All smug about something. Like his dick had done all the work."

I go quiet. My fingers rub from the bridge of my nose across my eyes feeling the tears just under the lashes.

"It felt like he took your son from you. Didn't it?" she asks after a second. I give a nod then suppress the need to cry. The memory is ten years old but it can still tear me up if I let it. "What happen Jake?"

I take a deep breath to settle myself.

"She was found hanging in her bathroom about a month later. They ruled it postpartum depression. They cleaned out the apartment, took all her stuff to Goodwill, and he got custody of his son." I swallow down the old hate. "Then the autopsy report came in. The angle of the electrical cord she strangled on was wrong. It couldn't have been suicide."

"He killed her?" Casey asks shocked.

"Oh... that was the first idea that I had, Police as well, but you see he had an air tight alibi. He was at a party with some friends. Half dozen people saw him there." I feel it simmer. When I look up she sits back a bit. I make myself calm down. "He was questioned but nothing came of it. All the evidence was destroyed when the apartment was cleaned out. Police never found any leads, no witnesses. No case."

"So he still has his...son?" 

"Oh yea. Him and his new wife. They married about two months after my cousin was murdered. Funny thing though. After twelve years together, they have never had anymore kids. Strange that huh? Since he was so proud of himself at the hospital, you would figure he would want to get her pregnant as well." I leave the unspoken thought to hang in the silence.

I see Casey look down struggling her way through what I've said.

"I'm sorry."

I shake my head.

"Not your fault in any way, shape, or form."

She looks up at me catching my eyes.

"I still sorry. For you."

I shrug.

"That's life, Casey. If I had told her what I felt for her...maybe she would have told him to get lost. He had already pulled a knife on her once early in their marriage. He told her that he was sorry. That he hadn't meant it, that he was just drunk." I pause and swallow down the bile. "Maybe if I had gone and beaten the living hell out of him then things would be different. I'll never know." I look up and see her face. Slowly I smile. "Here I was trying to comfort you about breaking up with your boyfriend and I've ended up talking about me."

She shakes her head.

"Oh no. I think you have been talking about me as well. I've had those type of ...boys. They get drunk and get rough. They will say their sorry till they are blue in the face but I'll still have the bruises. At least most of them have moved on quickly." She shrugs. "I was a lousy lay I guess?"

I catch her eyes.

"Casey, one of the worst things people can do is down talk themselves. From what I've just hear you have never had a guy with enough experience to even know what kind of a ...lay... you are. You've been dating twenty-year-old adolescence. Don't sell yourself short."

She shrugs.

"What was her name?" she asks me. After a second before I can answer she adds. "Was she beautiful?"

"Her name was Maria." I pause and a smile comes to my lips as I remember her face. "To look at? Most men probably wouldn't say so, but to me she was the most beautiful woman in the world. She had the most sexy blue eyes." I chuckle. "And freckles. She was covered in them. I remember I saw her in a bathing suit once. I jokingly offer to count them all for her."

"How long were you in love with her?" she asks.

I pause thinking back. The years fall away to the days of my childhood. Playing in the woods near her house, sneaking secret kisses while no one was looking.

"I think I always was." I look up and a grin comes to my face. "You changed the subject back to me. Maybe you should work as a councilor. You're good at it."

She shakes her head.

"I do good as phone sales representative"

I stop for a second then look up.

"You do telemarketing?" I ask.

I have to laugh at the look that comes to her face then.

"Why does everyone make it sound like I'm dealing crack to school kids?" she asks her lips pursing. 

I laugh then. Really laugh.

"Yea I'm a telemarketer. I talk on the phone all day to people that don't want to talk to me." She tilts her head a bit and brings a hand up to press an imaginary mic closer to her mouth. " Hello I would like to offer you a membership in the Hotels of the World Savings Network. We currently have several outstanding packages starting at just 20 dollars. That small amount can save you potentially thousands of dollars a year on hotel fees..."

"Stop it, stop it " I hold up my hands in surrender, chuckling.

She looks at me then gives a little laugh.

"See boring."

My laughter dies quickly then.

"That's your job Casey. Not you. You said you like to read. What kind of books?" She blushes. I feel my eyebrows lift a bit at the expression on her face. "What?"

"Romance."

"What's wrong with that? You almost turned red as this swizzle stick."

"It's silly." She says after a second.

"What's silly about it? You have never known romance. You long for it in your life, so you find it where you can. I don't see anything silly about that at all."

She gives a kind of half shrug.

"I don't know. It's just... Silly."

I look at her face, she not looking at me but running a finger across the swirls in the Formica top.

"What's silly about it Casey?" I ask seriously.

She kind of gives a shake of her head, then a shoulder shrug.

"The things in those stories. They never happen. Not in real life."

"Maybe not to the extreme. For the most part they take it over the top a bit but romance does happen."

She shakes her head

"Yea right." She says softly.

I hear the soft half spoken words. They set a bell to ringing in my head. It's the one I listen to when I'm working. The one that tells me when one of my clients say something off hand that's really important.

"Have you ever been Scuba diving?" I ask.

She looks up from the table blinking.

"What? No, I've never done anything like that. Why?"

"But you know that people do it right? They put on air tanks and go under the water."

"Of course." She says confused.

"How about skydiving? Or bungee jumping?"

"Of course not!"

I sit back and point at her.

"But you know they happen. You can turn on the TV and see people do them. Romance is the same way. Till you've been in one the only experience you have at it is seeing other people doing it, or in your case reading about it. Now all those thing, sky diving, bungee jumping they are extremes. Romance novels are extremes. So yea some of the things in them they probably don't happen all that often. But they do happen."

She looks down at her nearly empty cup. I swear she must have a galvanized throat. Mine is only just now getting cool enough to sip.

"Just not to Me." she says softly.

"Yet."

She looks up at me blinking.

"You're a very... young... lady, Casey. You have along time to find someone and fall in love still. Hell my parents didn't marry till they were in their late thirties. You're twenty what? Three...Four?"

She gives a nod.

"See plenty of time." I sip at the coffee. Well at least it was worth the wait. "Which is it by the way? Three or four?"

She looks up.

"Twenty Three." She looks at my face then. After a second she frowns "How old are you Jake?'

I smile a bit at that.

"I'm thirty five." I say after a second.

"Really? You don't look thirty." She says in astonishment.

"My family doesn't really show their age till they get to about sixty...ish." I grin. I know it make my face look boyish. "I'll look in my thirties till I'm in my late fifties. My Dad did. Mom was five years younger and started to tell people she was cradle robbing when she was forty nine."

Casey chuckles. She sips away the last of her coffee then. I see the hesitation, then she open up her purse and takes out a business card and a pen. I watch her writing her number on the back.

"I've got to go. Would you give...give me a call sometime? It was nice to have someone to talk to." She says holding the card out to me.

Taking the card from her I see her script is a beautiful flowing hand. Almost old fashion. Turning the card over I see the number of a phone sales company. 

"I would be happy too. It was nice having someone to talk to as well." I tell her smiling.

"But you talk to people for a living!" She says with a tilt of her head.

I smile. 

"So do you."

Reaching into my back pocket when I stand up I pull out my wallet and fish out one of my cards. It has three numbers on it. Business, cell, and a private home number I use to talk to my clients after hours.

"You call me anytime as well. I'm at one of those."

She nods.

I drop a bill on the table to pay for the mess, and follow her out.

I watch her cross the street to where she parked. It's an older car, small, conservative. A bit like her in fact.

I look at the rental I'm driving, also a bit small and conservative.

"Casey!" I call after her just as she's about to get into the car across the street.

She looks back over at me. I wave the card she gave me.

"Is this where you work?"

She nods. I can see the quirky questioning look come to her eyes. She's about to speak but a bus comes by with a roar and a cloud of exhaust. When it's passed I'm already inside my rental. I see her watching me as I drive away.

** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** **

"Mr. Kindle there is a call for you, a Ms Casey Shay."

Smiling I spin my chair around and pick up the phone. I've been expecting this call.

"Hello, Casey."

"Jake! Oh my god! What did you do?" I can hear laughter on the other end of the phone from, I'm guessing, the other ladies at the telemarketing firm.

"Do you like the flowers?" I ask grinning. I pull the receipt over across my desk and look down at the delivery time they gave. Yep to within the minute. Worth the two hundred bucks any day.

"Oh my god they are still coming in!"

I chuckle.

"Jake! How many did you buy me?" she asks laughing.

"Just the half dozen, Dozen. Look I need you to do something for me. There's one set that's different... it's got blue flowers with white roses. See it?"

"Yea he's bringing it in now. Oh my." I hear Oooh's, awe's, and more laughter, giggles really, through the phone.

"Okay I want you to open the card." I tell her.

I sit back and looking up I see my secretary standing at my door listening in. She's grinning like the proverbial cat. I make a shooing gesture at her but she shakes her head no.

"Jake?"

"Yes, Casey?"

"Jake, this is a lunch invitation?"

"Yes it is. For tomorrow. I figured since your boyfriend was stupid enough to break up with you that you don't have a date for Valentine's day. I'm right aren't I? None of your friends have set you up yet I hope?"

"No...I mean yes, no I don't have a date." She says stuttering.

"Yes you do. With me. I know it's a bit short notice but I do hope you will accept."

"I ...I don't know what to say, Jake?"

"How about yes? It's a small word should be easy." I bring my voice down to a whisper. "Say it with me. Yes?"

"Yes"

I hear cheering behind her.

"I'll pick you up around 11:00 tomorrow. That will be alright yes?"

"Ah...yea. I'm mean yes that will be fine. Wait...wait, where are you picking me up?"

"Well there of course." I say.

"But... But."

"I'll see you tomorrow."

I gently hang up the phone.

"Denise? If she calls back tell her I went out." I tell my secretary. I get on the computer and bring up the restaurant. I confirm my reservation. 

Looking up at my secretary I see her still standing at the door, grinning.

"What?" I ask belligerently.

"She sounds nice. Young even?"

"Oh hush you old matchmaking bitty!" I tell her. I ball up the florist receipt and toss it at the door. I can hear her giggling off and on for awhile.

Sitting back at my desk I ponder what I'm doing.

"It's been awhile for this kind of thing." I say to myself after a few minutes.

I try to think back to the last time I had a date out with a girl that I've just met. It's been more than a few years.

I feel a tingle of nerves then. It's a wonderful sensation. I feel almost like a schoolboy then. Looking at my computer I decide to get back to work, but as I lean forward the screen saver pops on and I see my face in the blank screen.

No lines, no gray hairs, hell only a few laugh lines starting to form at the edge of my eyes when I smile. I don't look thirty-five. Most days I feel like the little schoolboy I just felt like. 

Jiggling the mouse I make myself get back to work on my next case for the day. Before I worry myself till I'm the next case for the day.

** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** **

I have to admit that even though I'm not a car type of guy this one is fun.

I took the rental back to the dealer and told them to give me something a little sportier. I've been just enjoying driving it all morning. I check my watch as I turn the corner. Five till. I'm just about on time.

Pulling the car into the parking lot I get out and adjust my tie in the glass. My reflection looks back at me and grins at my nervousness. Just like schoolboy coming to pick his date up for the first time. Worried what her dad will say.

I pick up the small wrapped present and head inside.

The lady at the desk sees me come through the door and grins. She brings a finger to her lips before I can speak.

Standing up she points over to a cubical against one wall and I can see Casey. Her dark brunet hair has been pulled back into a style that's very different from what I've seen her wear before. She looks like she's also a bit nervous.

Walking past the receptionist I see the ladies looking up at me as I pass. For some reason the scene from an Officer and a Gentleman come to mind. It makes me wish I had a set of dress white. I watch the eyes of a few. I'm getting a few different looks. Some are appraising of me; others show a more intensive scrutiny. Like they are trying to guess my age.

Those I give a wink.

Stepping up behind Casey I see her lift her hand to the computer in front of her. I slip the package under her arm when it moves. As she notices it she gives a little jump and half turns. The cord of her head set tugs it half off her head. I chuckle watching her awkward fumbling with it.

"Jake...what have you bought me now?" she picks up the present. "I know what you're doing." She says with a soft smile.

"Do you? You must have been catching up on your reading lately then." I say smiling back.

She gives her eyes a roll.

"What is this?" she asks.

I chuckle and shake my head.

"That's the reason for the wrapping paper. If I just told you then where would the surprise be?"

She shakes her head at me then looks around. I glance around and see we're the center of a sea of faces with little mics by their mouths. Some of them are still delivering their sales pitch non-stop, others have their mic covered.

When I look back at her she's making a shooing gesture, similar to the one I made to my secretary. I see it have about the same effect.

I lift an eyebrow and look towards the wrapped present.

I love seeing her eyes go wide as the paper comes off to uncover the picture of a man with his shirt half torn away and a mane of flowing blond hair hanging down his back. The woman clutched in his arms is starring at him like he's a god.

"It's a first edition and signed by the author." I say after a second.

She glances to the bottom of the page then opens the front cover.

"Elisabeth Kindle?" she looks up quickly, I can see her putting it together.

"My mother."

She goes to hand it back to me. 

"Jake, I can't accept this. This is like a family treasure."

I shake my head and hold out my hand blocking the return.

"I have others that she signed. She would have wanted you to have this one I think. She told me once, before she passed, that the greatest hope she had for her life was to bring a bit of romance into the lives of her readers."

Casey holds the book then glances back down at the signature inside the cover.

"Find some every day?" she asks seeing my Mom's catch phrase.

"Happiness."

She looks between the book and me for a second then swallows.

"Thank you, Jake." I can see her glance at the ladies around her. "Let me get my coat from the break room. I told the boss I wanted to take off for a long lunch. After the flowers she said she would insist that I did."

I chuckle.

I watch her walk away towards a door. I feel again the eyes of the women she works with. I glance up and make an adjustment to that statement. 

The guy that walks up to me, gives me a once over, with a look not too dissimilar from some of the others I've gotten.

"She's a nice girl. She's been through hell lately. If you after just quick...piece of ass, let her know that from the start. She doesn't need her heart broken again." He glances over his shoulder as she comes walking out the break room "Remember what I said." He walks away. I watch him going and wonder to myself ...just what I am after. I don't think it just a piece of ass.

I smile at her when she comes walking up with her purse and her coat. 

She looks towards the guy.

"What did, Marcello, want?"

"Oh nothing much. Just talking about the car wreck and getting hurt. You ready? I promise this time I'll be much more careful driving."

She smiles.





Impact on the Heart



"I hope so my shoulder still hurts something horribly."

I give the receptionist a wink back when she gives me one. I hold the door open for Casey to walk out. Then I step ahead of her to the passenger side of the rental.

She shakes her head with a roll of her eyes then stops and looks at the car.

"That's not what you were driving yesterday."

"Nope. I'm going through a one-day midlife crises. It's been so long since I dated I had to do some research." I close her door and walk around to my side. When I get in I stick the key into the ignition. "According to my reading hot young chicks dig fancy sports cars." I crank the car with its rumble and pat the gas.

She shakes her head and grins at me.

"But I don't car about cars. They just a hunk of sheet metal to drive from place to place."

I give an overly dramatic sigh.

"Well there goes that research out the window. I guess you don't like to talk about sport either?"

She chuckles and shakes her head.

"Not really?"

"Damn." I drop the car into gear and back up. "And I spent all those hours reading up on curling."

Listening to her laughing I pull the car out and head towards the inner state.

"Where are we going?" she asks when I hit the off ramp.

"It's also a surprise, but this one I couldn't wrap. I tried I really did but I just couldn't get forty thousand rolls of wrapping paper on short notice."

She rides in silence for a few seconds.

"You're acting a bit strange." She says to me after a moment.

I glance over at her

"Yea. I Know. I'm nervous."

I see her eyebrows crease.

"Why?"

"Oh I don't know. I'm thirty-five you're twenty-three. I've not dated in a few years, you're out of my league."

I see her turn to look at me 

"I'm out of your league? A telemarketer who reads romance novels and can't hang onto a boyfriend? What league are you playing in?" she asks with a chuckle.

I smile, but can't think of an answer.

Hitting the signal I take the off ramp. I see her eyes go to the sign by the exit.

"The Aquarium?"

I nod, then grin.

"You said you like to watch fish. You really haven't given me much to work on as far as likes and dislikes."

** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** **

The waiter sits us next to the huge tanks. The table is one of the few that is still empty. When I called they had told me they were booked solid but then changed and got me in. Valentines Day makes for a lot of changed plans.

A lot of changes. 

I hold her seat till she sits.

"Oh would you stop that." She tells me with a blush.

"When you stop enjoying it I'll stop doing it."

Sitting down I look through the menu for a second. I don't really need to, I checked the menu online yesterday. Strangely there is a lot of seafood on it. Not feeling good about eating a fish with maybe his cousin staring at me from the tank next to me I order a steak.

She takes longer to order. After a glance at a little blue fish swimming next to her she make a similar decision.

"Go on, Dory. I'm having the chicken." She tells the fish.

When the little blue fish swims off I can't help it.

"Keep swimming, keep swimming."

We both break into laughter.

After a bit we end up just looking at each other over the table.

"Why?" she asks at last.

I lean back and then pick up my napkin roll. I lay the napkin across my knee as I ponder how to answer this questing. I don't come up with a good answer. I haven't since I started asking it to myself before I ordered the flowers.

"You won't accept that I have a hidden attraction to women that have been just dumped because they were in a car wreck will you?" I ask after a second.

She smiles but shakes her head.

"No, I won't. Come on out with it. You're a councilor, you're suppose to be good with words."

"Not when it gets personal. I'm never good with them then." I look over at the tank and my reflection. When I look back at her she waiting for the answer. From the look on her face she might just be willing to wait all day.

"I had a good time talking to you over coffee the other day. I came to realize that I've been just kind of drifting in place since my last relationship. I..."

"What?" she asks after a few moments.

I take a deep breath to settle my nerves. Normally I love the various feeling that come to me but not this one not today.

"Other than clients I don't really know a lot of people. Not a lot of women. Most of them are married or... I may have dated them at some point in the past. I don't really feel like trying to... take back on... a relationship that already failed once and I won't date a client. It's unethical for me to use the influence that I have to get women. I'm trying to help them, not form a dating pool. You're ...truthfully the only woman I've met recently that I really hit it off with... in any way."

She sits looking at me with her head tilted for a second.

"Did you try running into them with your car? That worked for me at least."

I chuckle and shake my head.

"Now better question. " I say moving my fork just a bit till it touched the spoon next to it. "Why did you say yes?"

She doesn't answer at first. Maybe she needs to form her thoughts or maybe the barracuda swimming by is a distraction.

"I don't really know. I think some of what you said to me made me think. About the men...boys... I've been dating. That maybe it was time I took a man out for a change."

Smiling I move my hand across the table till hers reaches over to take it.

"I'm flattered."

"Why? She asks after a second.

"That you think I'm a man. I just a mischievous little boy with evil intentions towards your virtue." My face splits into a grin.

"No you're not." She says giving my hand a swat. "You've been nothing short of a gentleman."

"Ah my dear but that is but carefully laid bait. And you've take it hook line and..." I look over at the little clown fish swimming by the glass. "...Nemo."

She laughs and shakes her head.

"Well if this is a trap at least you're feeding me well and taking me to nice places." She moves a hand over to by the tank and the little orange and white fish swims over to her hand looking for food. "What made you think of here?"

"You said you like to watch your fish. I figured if I proved to be a boring date you would at least have something to look at."

She looks back at me, then scoffs.

"Now you're sounding like me." She looks up as the waiter brings the appetizer. "Mmm god that smell wonderful."

I nod agreement and grab a piece of the bruschetta. The bread is wonderfully warm and buttery. I place a little of the hot cheese and then the tomatoes on it and sit back. 

I watch her eat and she alternates between looking from the plate in front of her and me. Every once in a while we will both get distracted by some bit of exotic sea life.

"Jake?" she asks softly "Is this a trap?"

I sit the bit of bread down and dust crumbs from my hands.

"Well if it is it's a very humane one. You can slip out of it at any time. Not much of a trap then is it?" I take a sip of my soda. Letting it clear my mouth. "I would be lying though if I said I wasn't a male. With all the drives and wants of my gender. You're gorgeous, beautiful... young. Everything a guy my age would be looking for."

"Guys your age look for stay at home types, that talk on the phone all day?" She glances back at the tank. "And like to watch fish for fun?"

"Maybe the type that like to read romance novels turn me own. It could be a family genetic trait? Or maybe.... you would be the type who would like to have a story read to her?"

Her eyes pop wide at than and I sit back smiling.

"I remember my favorite passage from one of my Mom's books." I take a sip then lean forward. My eye half-close I picture the page, the top corner folded in my copy. "With slow feathery kisses like butterfly wings his lips made patterns of pleasure and lust up my neck. His lips kissing delicately into the soft hairs at the nape sending shivers through me. They travel across me to the very core of my..."

"Stop it!" she say then shivers.

I chuckle then sit back.

She looks at me blushing then slowly shakes her head.

"That was evil." She says after a moment.

"Want more?" I ask with a grin.

She is saved from having to answer as our food arrives.

Along with the third present.

The little box is silver and has a large silvery bow on top to match. It's sitting in the middle of a plate. The plate is placed in front of her

She stops in mid action then looks up at me.

"I do hope the bikini fits I had to guess at the size." I say sitting back hiding my mouth a bit with my hand. She looks back down at the box not much bigger than a matchbox.

The look she gives me is priceless.

I watch her open the box to revel the little card with the Aquarium logo blazed across it. She picks it up and turns it to the other side but it has no writings on it other than the big names.

She looks up to our waiter.

"It's a reservations card miss. Show that at the door and we have to seat you within thirty minutes or your meal is free." The waiter looks to me I nod thank you and he's off to another table. A gesture from him and our glasses are refilled by his helper.

"How much did this cost?" Casey asks holding the card up between us.

"Nope... no prices tags on presents. Besides it's only good for three times. Though it can be renewed."

She looks down and with a shake of her head places the card back into the little box.

"Jake, you've made me very self-conscious of the fact that I didn't get you anything."

"You got me you. I haven't had a date at Valentines Day in years. I've had no one to give flowers to or take out to eat." I grin. "No one I can lay romantic traps before, with the hopes of snaring. I've had more fun in the last few days than in a long time. So thank you." I pick up my soda and wish I had ordered us some champagne. "YOU, make a wonderful present my dear."

She smiles and shakes her head at me.

"Well just call me gift then."

I nod 

"Alright... Gift."

Again she smiles and shakes her head

We eat in a comfortable silence while we watch each other eat. I wish I had better table manners but the food is good enough that I just give in and enjoy every bite. She eats like a conductor directing a symphony. Both hands working together in unison to handle knife and fork. For some reason watching her delicate throat swallow has me turned on.

More than once we both turn to find a fish watching us eat. It makes me very glad I didn't order seafood.

By the time the waiter comes over with the dessert menu I've leaned my chin on my hand and I'm simply starring into her eyes. She gives a blushing smile and takes the menu. I wave off mine.

She does things with a delicate deliberation. Her movements careful. I can see that she has still a lot of nerves making her a bit bashful around me but the majority of them have faded.

She looks up seeing me watching her and blushes.

"Would you stop that?" she asks with a grin.

I shake my head.

"Never." I answer back, also with a grin.

She rolls her eyes at me and goes back to looking at the menu. She makes her decision and order a piece of cheesecake. When the waiter leaves she looks back to me to find me still starring at her. She blushes ten shades of red.

"Would you stop starring at me?" she says giggling.

"I believe I said never. You did hear that right?"

"Please?"

I give a nod and look down. When I look back up she glances away from me quickly.

"Let me hold your hand." I ask.

She looks back to me blinking. Slowly hesitantly she reaches her hand across the table. 

Her fingers are slim, delicate. The nails have been polished to a deep burgundy red. I trace the swells on top of one knuckle with my fingertips absently. I look up to find her watching me now.

"What is it?" I ask after a second.

"You're a hansom man." She says softly.

I chuckle.

"I'm hardly a romance cover model. No rock hard pecks, no washboard abs." I reach up and run a hand across my thinning hair. "Certainly no long flowing mane of hair."

"You don't need all that. You're hansom, you carry yourself with a distinguished air and a confidence. You remind me of one of my college professor in a way."

"Is that a good thing?" I ask playing with her fingers, gently.

She smiles then blushes a bit.

"Yes, it is."

I tilt my head and a slow grin appears.

"I hear a story there."

She looks at me and shakes her head. I give her fingers a squeeze. She looks up at me and then shrugs.

"Not all that much to tell. He was a history professor, Mr. Tillerman. I had such a crush on him. He was..."

"About six one with dark brown hair, thinning a bit on top. Had this habit of playing with his glasses when he was speaking." I say smiling.

She looks at me shocked.

"You know him?"

I nod my head.

"Yep. He was one of my clients a few years back. He came to me for counseling. He was having problems with his marriage."

Casey sits just looking at me for a moment then leans forward.

"Can I ask what?"

I grin

"Only if you want to be extraordinarily nosy." I chuckle "It wasn't much to tell. The old man problem. He was getting all kind of younger women flirting with him all the time then coming home to a wife that wasn't really paying him any attention. He was afraid that he was going to stumble." I shrug. "He came to me for advice."

She looks down and blushes.

"Wow, that hits a bit close to home."

"Oh, so you were one of the little flirts? You naughty thing."

"I was not!" she says shaking her head. "Well I didn't get too obnoxious with it anyway. Some of the other girls did. I remember one girl, a Candy...something another, said she was going to have him before the semester was out."

I nod.

"Yea. He told me he was doing nothing to bring it about but that he getting little love letters from his students almost every day."

"Really?" she asks after a second. I hear something in the tone of the question.

A smile slowly starts to come to my face.

"You sent him one. Didn't you?"

She looks away embarrassed then after a moment gives a nod.

"Just one. It wasn't much of a love letter, just me telling him I thought he was a nice looking man."

I nod accepting that.

She goes silent and after a moment starts watching the fish.

"Casey are you...?"

I stop speaking when I hear her cell phone go off. She blushes embarrassed that she didn't turn it to silent mode. I sit back to give her a bit of illusionary privacy as she checks the number then answers it. I catch the puzzled half frown.

I can just make out the mumbles of the person on the other end asking if she's Casey Shay.

"Yes, this is she."

The rest of the conversation on the other end is to low for me to hear but I get to see its effects.

All the color drains slowly from her face. I see her holding it together to stay on the phone.

"Yes.... thank you very much. Yes I understand, I'll be there just as soon as I can. No, thank you."

She closes the phone by habit. She lowers it to the table her eyes not focused. I see tears starting to drip down her cheeks. She grabs her napkin up and brings it to her face as she slowly sinks into first silent tears then full out crying. 

Moving around to her, I take her into my arms. I don't know what's happen but I can see the need for a shoulder. She clutches to me and I hold her tight as she cries into my chest.

"Sir?"

I look up at our waiter.

"Is everything alright?" he asks.

"She got some bad news. If you would please go ahead and get the check." I hold Casey to myself by the back of her head, as shudders of pain and loss rack through her.

"Yes sir. I'll bring some to go boxes for your food as well. I'll be right back."

I hold her to me just being there for her. I still don't know what brought this on but at the moment it's not important that I do. 

Holding her I'm only vaguely aware when the waiter and the manager come to the table. I brushing her soft hair as the tears slowly subside. I manage to fish my wallet out and point the manager to the top credit card.

She slowly pulls back and looks up at me just after I move my head back from resting against her hair.

Her face, so beautiful, is now a mess of makeup and tear tracks.

"Casey?" She tries to speak but can't.

I reach over and hand to her the glass from the table. She takes a sip then focuses on my eyes.

"My Dad just died."

I pull her back to me as she starts to cry again. I see others in the restaurant looking over at us with concerned looks.

I sign the check and help her to her feet without ever turning her lose really.

** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** **

Her hand is in mine as we sit in the funeral directors office. It's been a long day for her but I've never left her side. She several times has had need of my shoulder and I've been there every time. 

The trip to the hospital. All the papers for her to sign, the family priest is there to offer condolences. The family doctor there to explain the sudden death. Brain embolism while cutting the grass.

Then the families there. I meet an older sister who looks at me kind of strange, then a younger brother who doesn't even really look at me at all.

I'm there for her. Through out the day I turn down several offers to leave. When the tears stop she will say something to the effect of "Thank you, Jake, but I can handle it now, I'll call you later."

Then she can't handle it and my shoulder is there for her.

Her siblings leave it to her to deal with the arrangements. Given that they both seem to be a lot less emotionally tore up I think that's kind of wrong but I keep my piece.

Her head is on my shoulder from the director's office out to my car. Her arms wrapped around mine. As I unlock the car door she turns again into my chest, not to cry this time, but in need all the same. I hold her to me feeling the little spasms of agony come and go.

"Jake...you have been more than kind..."

"Hush now, my dear." I lift her chin till she's looking into my eyes. I gently smile at her. "I'm here till 'I' think you don't need me anymore, not the other way around. So hush." I say the last word in a soft breath. I lean her back into my chest and softly caress the back of her hair.

"I've got to go to my Dad's place. Go get the papers so I can find the documents I need. He had a burial policy and insurance, a Will but that's at the lawyers. I need to find the house deed, and the car titles ...all of that kind of thing."

I nod and help her into the car.

The smell of our food in the backseat comes to me as I open my door. Along with the fact that I didn't eat breakfast because of nerves and then barely had even tasted lunch before this started. I'd been too taken with watching her eat.

As I drive up in front of her father's home I see a park across the street.

"Casey? Would you like to go over there and finish our lunch first, though it's getting closer to dinner?"

She glances back into the back seat at the food and I hear her stomach growl. I laugh at her blush. There is the faint hint of a smile as she nods.

I grab out the bag with the boxes and come around to take her arm in mine.

I have to dust leaves off the top of the park bench but the seats are clean enough.

"Jake...I'm sorry for today." She says after I sit down.

I just look at her for a second.

"Casey, you are not responsible for everything that happens in this world. You don't have to apologize when the bad parts happen. I'm sorry... about your father, but I'm glad I was there for you when it happened. I don't even like to think about you having to deal with all this alone." I swallow and look down at my food then back up at her. "Casey I hate to ask but why are you doing this alone? Why aren't your brother and sister taking care of some of this stuff?"




Impact on the Heart



She looks over at the house across the street.

"That's not where I grew up." She tells me after a second. "That's the house my Father bought when he and my Mom divorced. There were the three of us kids and when it came time to chose where we were going to stay I chose my Dad. Jason, my brother, said I had betrayed Mom when I did that. Milisa seem to understand but I think she kind of felt the same way."

"So your Dad became your problem to handle." I say understanding. "When he needed something they would be there, maybe, but the rest of the time He was yours to take care of."

She nods.

I take a slow breath to quell the uprising of feelings that threaten my manners.

"Yea, I've had to deal with that more than a few times over the last few years." I say after a moment. "Parents get the divorced but the kids feel like they have been part of the whole thing. Like they have to chose who they love the most. Sometimes the parents even make it worse by making the children feel just like that is what they have done." I sigh and open my lunch up; the smell of it is still wonderful. "I have a client, well I guess had a client would be a better way of saying it, named Cindy. I had her transferred over to a full psychiatrist. Her parents divorce truly unhinged her a bit. They played her off one against the other for the better part of a year before her Grandmother put a stop to it and brought her to me."

Casey nods her mouth full of food. Taking a sip from her bottle of water she clear her mouth.

"It sounds like you have a interesting job. You get to help people. I would like to do something like that I think. Most of the time I just annoy people."

I nearly choke from laughter at that admission.

"You do have a job that can get on peoples nerves but if it didn't help a few people out there then there wouldn't be a market for those kinds of sales. So you're helping some people."

She shakes her head and looks down at her food. 

"I will get fifty people hang up on me for everyone that will listen and fifty no's for every yes. In a day I make maybe five sales sometimes. It takes volumes of calls to make any profit in this business."

Watching her speak I can make the next statement with some surety.

"You don't like what you do. It feels like a worthless endeavor to you, right? Why don't you change to something else then? You have telephone skills and experience, there are a lot of jobs out there for that skill set."

"A lot less than there were ten years back. Computers have taken on a lot of those kind of tasks." She says

"Well call me old fashion but when I pick up the phone and find myself talking to a computer I don't care for it in the least." I say

"My Dad's the same way..." she starts to say then stops...

I reach across the concrete table and take her hand when the tears start. I don't offer anything more than my presence. She needs to get these tears out as best she can. 

After a few minutes she slowly stops crying and we sit in comfortable silence eating the last of our lunch together. I watch her face, feeling the need to say something to help but feeling at a loss for words. A state that my secretary would totally deny existence of.

Casey looks up at me and I see a blush start to cross her cheeks.

"What?" I ask with a grin.

She shrugs but doesn't answer. Reaching across I tap her hand and ask my question again.

"I was thinking about what you said about changing jobs. The problem is the only thing I can think of that uses my skill set and sounds fun...is well...A phone sex operator."

I smile then chuckle.

"Well if you make that job change let me know. I'll be your biggest customer."

She looks at me blinking. Then there is a smile, blush, chuckle combination.

"You like to listen to phone sex lines?"

I shrug.

"Don't know I never tried it. No, I would call you just to listen to you talk sexy. You have a beautiful voice and I would love to hear that."

She blushes under the praise and looks down to find her food gone.

"Wow, I must have been hungry. I just don't really remember eating those last bites." She glances over at the house. "I guess we need to go. It may take a few hours to find what I need. If you like I can handle it alone then take a cab back to the office to get my car?"

I'm shaking my head before she's half way through the question.

"Here till I decide." I look across the street. "You're going to need me over there and not just to help find papers."

She swallows, then nods and gets to her feet. When I come around the table and pick up her lunch box she catches my arm.

"Jake?"

I look down into her beautiful face.

"Thank you, for being with me today. I don't want to think about what today would be like if you hadn't"

I lean down and place a soft quick kiss upon her lips then move my mouth to by her ear.

"You're welcome but its all still just bait for the elaborate trap I'm laying for you." I smile at her chuckle.

Her fingers close on the front of my shirt and she leans into my chest.

"You can stop baiting the trap. I think I'm caught." She says softly.

It's awkward to hold her with my hands full of Styrofoam boxes but I manage.

After a few minutes she turns me lose and we walk over towards the house. I drop the boxes into a trashcan by the street side.

As we cross the road I see her head turning to look at one corner of the yard.

Sitting among slightly shorter grass is a bright yellow riding lawn mower. By the look on her face I can tell she is picturing him sitting on it.

"Does it store in the back somewhere?" I ask as we walk into the yard. Grass clipping stir by my feet.

"There's a shed back there."

"I'll go put it up." I tell her

"I can..."

"...go unlock the door. I'll put up the mower and come join you in a minute." My voice is firmer than she has heard from me before it gives her a startled second then she nods.

The lawn mower is far from new but I can see it's been well cared for. That careful precision that the daughter has, shows a bit of its source. More so when I get the mower cranked and around the house. The storage shed, a little garage built against the side of the larger garage really, is meticulously organized. All the garden tools hanging from their own peg and no other. An ordered man, a man of details. I can see that from his habits.

When I shut off the mower and close the door I hear raised voices from the other side of the house.

There is a second car in the street behind my rental.

When I walk around the corner I see Casey by the front door talking to her brother, Jason, I think his name was. I see a taller man standing next to him. He looks maybe twenty, twenty one.

She's ignoring him, but talking with her Brother in a less than completely calm voice.

"...I will go through it all, get with the lawyer and see what he has in the Will going to whom, as far as things go. Just let me find all the papers. I know he had a copy of his Will here and that may tell me if he wanted you to have it." she's making a wait gesture with her hand as she talks.

"Look Cass, I promised Philip he could have the car, for what he's offering. It a good price given how old that thing is. Let's just find the paper later. He can take it, if the Will says Milisa was to get it we can split the money with her."

"I really don't care what you promised Philip, Jason. That you brought him here... today... knowing that I would be here is just..."

"Come on Cass, don't be that way." The guy standing next to her brother steps forward. "Look just let me get the car and hell, what you say I call you tomorrow and I'll take you out for a late Valentines dinner? We can try to patch things back up. I know you didn't mean to wreck my car it was that asshole that hit you. Let my buy your dad's old car, I promise I'll take better care of it than he did."

As I step from around a tall shrub my feet making no sound on the soft carpet of cut grass, I see her eyes come to me, a look of fear comes to her face. I just stop, standing behind them a half dozen feet or so and cross my arms.

After a few seconds I can see my presence there calms her. Gives her a strength. She looks to her brother.

"No, Jason. You can't have the car. If Dad had said it was to go to you then fine, but till I've found that Will and seen where it's meant to go I can't let you take it."

I hear her brother chuckle.

"Sis, I'm just going to get the keys and go get the car. Look have your big sister little brother power trip on another day. I need the money and I've found a buyer. The cars not even worth what Philip is willing to pay for it. Two grand is a more than fair price for a forty year old clunker."

Her eyes go to me. I give my head a shake. She looks back to her brother. Her hand pulls her cell phone out her pants pocket. She holds it up for him to see.

"Who do I call, Jason, our sister or the sheriffs office? One of the two is going to tell you the same thing I just did, since you're not listening to me. You're not getting the car! Not till the Will is found and you know what, read in chambers. If you hadn't been so pushy about it I might would have let you take it if the copy said the car was going to you but now? No. I want to hear it from the Probate. Dad may have changed his official Will since he made that copy." She turns to look at the taller man. "I'll thank you to get off my Father's property, Philip. I don't even want to see you... much less go out with you. So please leave."

Both guys laugh.

"Come on Cass, don't be that way towards him." Says her brother chuckling. "Philip here was the best thing you've ever had going for you. He's just about got you to come out of your shell. Now come on open the door and get out the way I don't have all night. I've got a date to go get some roses for." 

I see Casey's eyes narrow. Her fingers click around the keys in her hand. 

The taller guy Philip moves forward.

"Come on Cass I forgive you for what you did to my car. It was that assholes fault. Now come on, open the door." He kind of looms over her a bit. "Don't make your brother and I have to take those keys from you."

"Not going to happen." I say with my voice calm and even.

Her brother and the tall guy both about jump out their skins spinning around towards me.

"Who the hell are you?" her brother asks then looks hard at my face. "I saw you at the hospital."

"Jake Kindle." I look to the other guy. "The asshole."

Philip's face goes ten shades of red. He moves from in front of her to standing far to close to me trying to do the looming over me thing now. I'm not impressed, our eyes are far to close to level for it to be anyway effective.

"I'm going to kick your ass for what you did to my car old man!" he says threatening, but doesn't make a move closer.

"What the fuck is he doing here?" her brother demands of Casey.

My eyes shift looking past Philip's shoulder to meet with hers.

She sees my calm in the face of the taller man's anger, I think it gives her strength. She steps up into her brother's face.

"He's my new boyfriend. Now get you and your boyfriend off this property. I'll let you know when the Will is to be read."

"Boyfriend?"

Both men say it together. I hear all kinds of tones in their words. I could spend a day trying to sort out the different ones.

I don't have that kind of time at the moment.

Watching him with corner of my eye I see when Philip makes his move. His hand starts up towards my face!

Maybe it's the cold air through my nose but even the idea of taking a punch on my already broken nose isn't even considered.

My head moves with the old skill out the way of the incoming punch even as my hands are lifting to guard my face.

His second swing I see coming in square on. I lift my left arm and it lands somewhere around my forearm on the hard bone, probably hurting him more than me.

The ribs are open!

The left takes him just under his short ribs square on top of his diaphragm. I see the air leave his mouth, see that half a second shocked look when he tries to breath in and can't.

Then my right connects with his jaw just under his ear! I may be fifteen years out the ring but I have lost very little of my power. He drops like a stone!

I see her brother step towards me and I settle my hands back into position in front of my lower face.

My eyes are steady and cold when they meet his.

"Your friend was stupid and ignorant, you know better than he did. Do you still want to make the same mistake?" there is a calm to my voice that chills even me.

Jason looks down at his friend and I see the fear. My coaches told me to look for it. Sometimes it's sudden, then gone. Other times it's there always but half-hidden.

His is more... out in the open, kind of waving a surrender flag.

** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** **

In the end I have to help him get Philip out to the passenger seat of the car behind mine. Even when he comes partially too the tall man is out of it. I see a bit of blood at his lip.

"He starts coughing up blood get him to a doctor." I tell Jason as I walk back around the front of the car. I see him put the car door between himself and me as I clear the finder. My answer is a quick nervous nod.

I start back up the walkway then see something on the ground. Leaning down I pick up the white tooth. I walk back over to the car making a roll it down motion with my fingers.

I drop the tooth into his hand.

"Better yet take him to a dentist. That can be put back in if you hurry." I squat down till his eyes are level with mine. I move my eyes towards where Casey is standing. Then center them back on him. "Don't bully your sister again like that. Like she said I'm her new boyfriend, you, and I don't want to get off on the wrong foot. You have no idea how long I may be in your life."

I see his nod and lift my eyes to look up at Philip. He's looking at me but I don't think he sees me really.

"Now go see to him."

As the car pulls away I take in a deep breath and feel the nerves settle in. My hands start to shake from the adrenaline.

Yea that's the reason, I tell myself as I turn and walk to where she is standing on the front porch.

I can see the wheels turning behind her eyes as I walk up. Reappraising me.

"Shall we go in, it's cold out here?" I look over my shoulder at the street light, as it turns on. "And it's getting dark."

She nods but doesn't move to open the door.

Smiling I take her hand into mine. Her fingers feel cold and there is a slight tremble similar to mine. Adrenaline is a bitch.

"Come on, girlfriend, open the door."

She blushes and turns to the door. I don't turn lose of her hand till she got it open and we are inside.

"Sorry." She tells me after a second. "About me using you like that, and about what Philip tried to do."

I smile and step up till I right in front of her. My arms close around her gently.

"Stop apologizing for what the world brings. You have no control over you ex being an idiot that thinks with his fist." My lips quirk. "As for using me...make it up to me with a kiss."

She looks down then back up at me. She leans in and I feel her lips, still cool from being outside, brush against mine. Then they center in and I feel them warm against my own as I return the kiss with a growing passion. The adrenaline of the fight switches to a need that has been along time unsatisfied. 

Casey melts into my arms her mouth moving in a growing passion her lips part and I taste her breath. I place a second soft kiss back upon her lips and slowly step back. I watch her face for the half second before she opens her eyes. I enjoy seeing her savoring the kiss.

She looks at me then a soft smile making her even more beautiful.

"That was nice." She says after a moment.

"Yes it was. I would like more, of them. My lovely girlfriend."

She gives a breathy laugh.

"You're not going to let me forget that anytime soon are you?" she asks moving back a bit. I catch her hand before she can escape.

"No." I say softly.

I enjoy the blush on her cheek. I hold her hand till she squeezes my fingers to signal a need for release.

Moving with her through the house I see the same sort of precision that I saw outside reflected in the decorating of the house. Things clearly in place and nothing that's not needed just sitting around taking up space. The more I see of the house the more I think her father and I would have gotten along well. By the time we get to his office and I see the family pictures that cover a wall of it I'm wishing I had been give the chance to know him.

I smile when I see the disorder of his paperwork. Yep he and I are a lot alike I think.

"It will take just a bit." She tells me and goes to work.

Taking a seat in one of the chairs I watch her start pulling out files and opening drawers. She reads through things and sets them in a pile then every so slowly a second smaller pile starts to form.

She is so beautiful to watch. The order and precision that she moves with is almost like watching a dancer. The grace of long practice making ever move look like magic. Casey moves that way. When she's not paying attention to what she's doing.

"Would you like a drink?"

I look up from admiring her breasts to see her eyes on my face. I feel my cheeks flush at having been caught like a schoolboy. I lick my lips finding them dry and a bit chapped from the cooler air.

"That would be nice. Anything."

She nods and leaves the desk. I watch the curves of her ass as she walks away. She stops by the door and I quickly bring my eyes up only to find myself caught again. I see a small grin.

"Would you like beer? I know he has a few...that he will never..." I see her swallow, I nod and she smiles this little quirk and disappears off into the house.

My eyes roam around the room as I wait. They settle on the family photos. I get up and walk over to the wall.

Family vacation photos, graduation photos, birthdays. They're happy poses for a camera to capture. I look for and see the tension in the faces of her father and the woman that looks so much like her that it has to be Casey's mother. It's there but only a person trained to read faces could see it. The first pictures have them laughing and hugged up against each other, then later ones there is a growing distance. I see a photo of them when Casey must be about fourteen or so. She's next to her dad, a slighter taller more mature looking Jason, her brother and sister stand closer to their mom.

The next photos are of a man and a woman with their family not a husband and wife. The rings are gone, the love between them seen so clearly in the first photos is totally gone now as well. I can see the tension in the faces of the kids as well. 

My eyes come to rest on a vacation photo of Casey by herself. She is standing alone on a beach looking off into the setting sun. She is in a two piece with a wrap covering her hips and legs. I can see the woman I know in this one. I look between it and the earlier ones showing the happy teenager with the bright smile.

"My dad took that." I look over to the door and see her standing by it. "He was a good photographer."

She comes over to me and hold out the open bottle of beer, Schlitz. Now I really do wish I had meet him.

I look at her. 

"I think I would have liked you dad." I hold up the bottle to show the brand.

She chuckles.

"He was a devoted fan." she looks up at the photos. Her hand goes to one of her and her dad together standing in front of the Epcot sphere. "A stranger took this one, using Dads camera. It was just him and I."

I gesture with bottle to the rest of the wall.

"So I can see. It was a bitter divorce?"

She nods and sighs.

"Yea. There weren't any affairs of anything like that I just think that Mom fell out of love with him. Maybe she wanted more out of life than he could give. I tried to talk to her about it a few times but She wont give me a straight answer."




Impact on the Heart



"She may not know why herself. A lot of my clients coming to me about marital advice don't." I point to the picture with the separation. "I can already see where the tension was building."

"Yea. That was Thanksgiving dinner at my grandparent's house. They didn't speak to each other the whole way there, not hardly a word exchanged between them the whole day, then silence all the way home. Mom filed about a week later."

"Right before Christmas?" I sigh at her nod. "You and holidays don't have a good history of late."

She gives a half chuckle at that.

"Yea."

She looks back to the desk and sighs.

"What?"

"There's too many paper to look through tonight. I need to go through them all to find what I need. With the way my brothers acting I don't want to leave them here. Would you mind taking me to my car? I'll come back and load all this up."

I smile, slowly I shake my head.

"Am I that terrible?" I ask smiling. "I swear I feel like you're trying to get rid of me, Cass."

Her face goes from starting to smile to dead flat.

"Please don't call me that." She says sharply.

Startled I look at her and nod.

"Sorry I didn't know. I heard both your brother and what's his name use it I thought it might me a nickname you liked."

She shakes her head.

"No. It's what my Brother called me to tease me when I was first starting to date. He told all the guys I went out with to call me that." I see her face slowly come back to what I know. "I hate it."

"I'm sorry. Let me make it up to you."

She looks up at me puzzled, then smiles as I step in front of her and lean down.

My lips touch hers again. The warmth of the house is there now, warm and soft her mouth presses against mine. I taste the soda she was drinking. I feel her lips moving against mine and I know she must taste the beer I have been drinking.

Then her mouth has moved and I feel her arms tighten around me. She's holding me to her almost painfully. I wrap her into my embrace as I feel the tears beginning. My own eyes are not dry as I caress the back of her hair.

It's a very long time till I turn her lose. I help her gather the papers together and close up the house. I step up behind her in the kitchen seeing her looking out the back window towards the large garage at the back of the yard.

"Do you think they would come back and take it? Jason and Philip?" she asks.

I let my hands come to rest on her shoulder. Her fingers curl up around mine

"Your brother might. I don't think Philip will be interested in anything but some pain killers for the rest of the night." She looks back over her shoulder at me. "I knocked a tooth out when I hit his jaw."

She flinches.

"Ouch." I see her look back to the garage. "I would love to move it somewhere but I can't think of where."

"My garage." I offer. "My cars still at the body shop. I don't have a car in it at the moment. I've been parking the rental in the driveway. Let's load all these papers into it and you follow me in your dad's car. It will crank right?"

"Far as I know yea. Dad drove it on the weekends sometimes. But I can't drive it. It's a stick."

"Then you drive the rental and I'll drive your dad's car." I say as my hand double checks for the keys in my pocket.

"I'm not on your insurance." She says shaking her head. "If I wreck it I'll invalidate your coverage."

"Then don't wreck it." I tell her smiling. "I mean if you do I would obviously have to break up with you. It would clearly show that, as my girlfriend, you don't care about me that you wrecked my rental."

She giggles, then shakes her head.

"Well if you did you still wouldn't be the shortest relationship I've had."

I look at her, unable to believe that. I shake my head at her nod.

"Unfrikking believable. It's a good thing your tastes in boyfriends has improved in the last few hours."

"Would you stop teasing me about that already?" she gives my arm a little pop. "I've kissed you to make up for calling you that so they would leave me alone."

I look down in her eyes.

"I'm not teasing. I kind of like the idea."

"Of being my boyfriend? Really? Are you that desperate?"

Again that lack of love of self. I see farther into her than she knows every time I hear it. That feeling of worthlessness that guys she's been with have given to her. I wish I had the last one back in front of me. I would send a second tooth flying out his mouth!

I pause and think, for half a second, that maybe hanging out with her is making me younger. I haven't had a thought like that in ten years.

"I'm not teasing and I not desperate. I really do like you and want to get to know you better." I look up around at her father's house. "Right now's probably not the best time in your life for your heart to be getting tugged around by me though. So let me get the keys. You take mine. I'll drive your dad's car to my place I'll take you to your car in the rental. Transfer the papers over to your car. I'll follow you home, help you unload them. I'll go home and tomorrow we can get together again. I'll help as much as I can with papers, or at the very least I'll cook breakfast for us."

"You can cook?"

"I'm a very good cook." I say smiling at the tone of astonishment. "Breakfast is easy to make and can be a lot of fun to make for someone you're in love with."

The words are out my mouth before I realize I've said them.

I see her head slowly come around to look at me her eyes taking in my face.

"You're in love with me?"

I pause then and look as deep inward as I can. I look into my bones to see what I finding there. What's there is a feeling that sure is a lot like love. I look at her eyes and smile slowly. "It's called a Freudian slip. You say something that you're feeling without really intending to do it. So I guess I must be, starting to feel something like that for you."

She looks down from my face and I can tell she's doing that same type of inner searching. I see slowly raised eyebrows then a smiling shrug.

"I think I might be feeling something similar." She smiles. "Nice bait."

I grin shaking my head.

"I don't need to put out any more bait. I think the trap already caught me."

I look back out the window at the growing dark. I hold out my keys to her.

She takes them and comes around to take a set of keys off a hook by the back door. She hands me the old leather fobbed set of car keys. There is a smaller Masterlock key on the same ring. 

"For the padlock on the garage door." She explains.

I nod understanding and we go back to the office to get the papers together. It takes three trips with us both loaded down to get then all to the rental car.

She gets in and cranks it up, as I'm loading the last box full. I walk around to the window,

"I'll be around in just a minute. You follow me to my place." I tell her.

"Right." she says. I can feel the heater flowing out the open window. I lean in and give her a quick kiss. 

As I walk around the house I shiver and bundle my jacket closer around me. I hope this old car has a working heater. 

The pad lock is easy, the tumblers clearly use to being turned. Hell he may have even oiled the lock. I pull the doors open to either side and turn on a light switch.

"Holy fucking shit."

My words are a fogy cloud in front of me in the colder air of the storage shed.

The deep blue Stingray Corvette is maybe late sixties, and it is as clean as the day it came off the lot. I have never been one to care about cars but damn this one is nice. My finger touch the cold door handles by the windows and the door opens without so much as a squeak.

"Two grand? Okay, her brother is a fucking idiot."

The leather seats are cold, the leather crinkles as I sit down. The motor turns over with a deep purr of power. Turning on the light I see them lift up in front like little eyes. I shift into first and ease it out the garage nervous as a cat about the sides of the doors.

I put it into park and hop out. The doors closed back, I put the lock back on and snap it shut. For some reason I'm hoping almost maliciously that her brother and Philip do come back and think it's still inside.

The car rumbles to the end of the drive. I see her give a wave, I triple check the road of traffic, then pull out.

I'm having second thought about being a car guy before I'm a mile away. I find the heater and turn it on. Several times I find myself wanting to test the power I have. I can see that my midlife crises maybe more than one day long after all. 

I have to hop out go inside and hit the door opener from inside the garage. My garage door opener is still in my car. I never put it in the rental I was afraid I would forget to get it back out.

I shut off the Corvette with a great feeling of reluctance and depression.

I see her scoot over into the passenger seat as I walk up. I smile that she's not willing to get out into the now cold night if she doesn't have to.

"Don't you dare let your brother sell that car for two grand." I say as I get into the car. I enjoy the warmth of the seat her body gave. "Hell I wouldn't take less that twenty for it if it was mine."

"Twenty? But it's forty years old or more?"

"Stop thinking old car... think classic, antique, Vintage. Philip? He is trying to cheat the hell out of your brother. Hell for that matter your whole family."

"Twenty thousand?' she asks against after few miles.

"At least! Do a Google search when you get home. Try looking on Crags list or E-Bay even. See what they are selling for there. For that matter look up the local Corvette dealership they are always in the market for a good showroom piece to display the heritage of the company and that car is near perfect."

She nods. Then shrugs.

"I'll have to see what the Will says. It may go to Jason after all. I'll let him know about Philip though. Thank you."

We get to her office and she leaves me with a kiss to get her car. I follow her to the small apartments nearby where she lives. The walk up the step with the boxes shows me I'm not as young as I've been feeling.

Stepping into her apartment I grin, as I smell the roses I bought her. They are scattered around the place in tall glass vases.

Then I feel like I'm back at the Aquarium. There are three big tanks in the living room. I see a tropical...a tank of fancy goldfish and one tank with a very big fish swimming around by himself. I walk over to him.

"That's Oscar. His foods there beside him Give him a few if you would." She says sitting down the box she's carrying.

The big fish comes to the top when I open the plastic hatch and starts to mouth the surface tension as I drop the tic-tac size pellets into the tank.

"Why is he alone? Doesn't he like company?" I ask, then turning I see I'm alone in the living room.

"Yes." She says from the other room. She comes walking back in carrying a dipper with a silvery fish flopping in it. She drops him into the tank with the big fish "He loves having company over. For dinner."

I watch the big multi-colored fish turn and start to chase the little minnow around the tank.

"It will take him awhile to catch his supper. Can I get you anything? You're sure?" she steps over till she pressing to my chest. "Jake I just want to say ... thank you. Again. For being there today for, Me." she looks up at me. I see the tears at her eyes but there is a smile tugging her lips upwards. "And for all your help today...making me feel better."

I run a hand across the back of her soft hair and pull her to me.

"You're more than welcome. It's what Boyfriends are for."

My chin rests on the top of her head as I hold her. My eyes go around the room taking in the other things. The same feeling of neatness that her father's house had, she has here. I smile when see the tall stacks of books by the couch though. Then I see the larger bookcase by the back wall. I feel a grin when I see the familiar blue gray of my mothers book covers.

"Quite a collection."

She pulls back from being snuggled into my chest and looks where I'm looking. She shrugs in my arms.

"Your present will be the prize of the collection. Thank you for that again."

"I just hope you enjoy it." I tell her softly.

"Oh I will. My copy over there is about dog eared from reading it over and over."

"What was your favorite part?" I ask looking down.

She blushes furiously.

"Oh my god look at you." I smile. Turning her lose I walk the short distance over to the shelf and run my finger across the titles of my Moms book. I see the one I gave her. Pulling it out I see it is worn, there are also several bookmakers, but the spine shows a favorite spot. The book opens to it easily.

Turning to her I start to read.

"...and he gently lifted her chin and stared into her eyes. 'I'm going to ravage you my dear". He tells her with a leer. "I will take from you what you should have given freely."

I close the book back and look at the deep red blush coming to her face. "My mother would have loved to see you blushing like that. She use to call these her bodice ripper stories."

I place the book back on the shelf. I see the other titles that she's collected. 

"You have good tastes. Mom had a lot of respect for most of these."

"She's my favorite. When I read hers it feel like I'm reading something wrote just for me"

"She was a very talented author. I know she would have loved to hear you say she was your favorite. She always enjoyed doing book signings because it let her to meet her readers." My hand drifts across the spines of the books. Old pains surface as I miss my mom. It feels like it was just yesterday, not decades ago.

Casey is looking down into the fish tank with all the fancy finned multi-colored gold fish. I step up behind her and bring my hands to rest on her hips. Her hair is soft under my cheek.

"I guess I need to go." I say after a moment.

She sighs.

"I wish you didn't have to. I...wish you could stay." She looks back over her shoulder at me. "You're good company."

I look back toward the big fish. He's spitting little silvery scales out his mouth.

"I'll gladly stay so long as I'm not dinner."

"I won't eat you, I promise." She say grinning.

"Then I'll stay till you chase me off."

She turns in my arms. I lean in with a touch of surprise as she lifts the few inches to kiss me.

"I don't think I'll chase you off either. Want a late dinner?"

"You cook?" I say mirroring her tone from earlier with a gin.

She shrugs,

"Not to much, little things. I was thinking sandwiches and chips."

"Sounds good." I nod.

"Have a seat I'll put it together. Will tea be okay? I don't have much else."

"Tea will be fine, thank you."

I take a seat on her couch and lean back into the soft pile of pillow. I notice the lack of a television. I look around at the fish tanks and then at the stack of romance novels sitting next to me. There are many bookmarks in each, marking favorite places.

Picking one up I open to the book marker, it is movie stub I notice. Glancing at the stub I see it's also a romance.

I look down into the pages.

I didn't pay attention to the name of the author when I picked it up but I very quickly notice it's one of my mom's books. As I read I hear again her voice. As a boy I use to sit giggling when she would read some of the chapters back to herself. I had been such a fool thinking that her writings were silly. All about silly girls that get kidnapped then fall for their kidnappers.

Then I came to understand what she saw in them. After I feel in love with Maria.

Thinking back, I think that Mom would have understood what I felt for Maria. But by then she was gone. A year and a half passed.

"I like that one. She wrote the characters so silly yet there was so much passion to them." Looking up I see her walking back in carrying paper plates.

"Sir Niles Navaery, the knight of a thousand lances." I chuckle remembering the long conversations Mom had with her agent and publishers to get this one approved. "And the dear sweet virginal Penny Penwinkle, the princess of the Petunia Palace."

I laugh with her that. I open the book to a page near the front.

"Seeing her flowers opening in the morning dew he lifted his lance to the sky and let lose a call that set the flutter birds to fluttering and the butterflies to flying." I laugh remembering my Mom laughing her head off while writing this one. "She loved this one. She had a lot of fun writing it."

"I can tell. The whole thing is one big punch line about sex."

I nod.

"Allegorical. She wanted to give a try at writing one. It took a lot of argument to get her agent to show it or her publicist to print it but in the end she showed them all. It was one of her most popular as far a sales."

I flip through the pages to another book marked passage. I grin as I read it and she blushes at the grin. I start over reading it aloud.

"He drove his might steed into the list of love and settling his long lance firmly he plied forwards without fear of concern for his own safety. The challenger had not a chance when the clashing thunder of his passion met her love of color and her passion for petals."

I stop reading at her giggle. I look down from her smiling face and see a little bag sitting beside the pile. I pick it up and see a brand new book. I turn it spine on and read the author.

"Mom, worked with this guy. Helped him get a foot in the door a few times"

"That's written by a guy?" her eyes are the size of saucers. "But..."

"A lot of male writer use female names to write romance. Women like to identify with a woman author. The exact same thing comes to light when you read erotica. There the reader is a guy and he likes the idea of a woman author. So a lot of the male writers also use a female name."

"I've never read erotica." She says with the hint of a blush.

Moving my hand I tap the stack of books.

"Yes you have, just the PG fourteen level. I have some at home that my Mom wrote near the end of her career...when she was getting sick and wanted to write whatever she wanted to write not what a publisher might want to sell. Some of them can blister your fingers turning the pages they are so hot."

"I wish parent could live forever. I would have loved to have met her." She, looks down, sees the food in her hands, and remembers it. She holds out the plate with my sandwich.

Nodding sadly I place the book on top of the stack and take the plate from her. I dig into my sandwich, but I find myself watching her after my first bites. Even with so simple a meal she eats with that delicate precision.

We're half way through the meal when the phone rings?

The person on the other end is nearly frantic. I can all but hear her screaming at Casey. For the second time in a day I see this woman's face go a bone white while she's on the phone. She thanks the person on the other end then hangs up her hand shaking.

"What is it?" I ask almost dreading the answer after the other call she got earlier today. She looks at me and if anything goes even whiter.

"You've got to leave!"

"What's wrong?' I ask.

"That was Wendy. Phillips sister. She said that he just showed up drunk as hell, talked her husband into going with him. He's got three or four other guys he knows with him as well."

I sit up and focus on her.

"They're looking for you!" She grabs my arm and starts pulling me to my feet. "You've got to go, they will come here."

"You're coming with me them. I'm going no where unless I know you're safe and having him and a group of guys coming here when he's drunk. No you're coming with me."

"But... but"

"But me no buts come on get you some clothes for a few days. When we get to my place I'll call a lawyer I know and get a restraining order filed. Till then you need to be somewhere he can't find you."

"I'm not worried about me, I'm worried about you." She says pulling at my arms again.




Impact on the Heart



I pull her to me.

"Well I feel the same way. Now come on. Get your clothes, I'll feed the fish. They may have to do without for a day."

"I know someone that can come by and feed them. I'll call them."

"Do it tomorrow. Clothes." The last word is given with the commanding tone I can give when needed. I see it again surprise her. She hurries off into the room at the corner of the apartment.

It takes me more than a few minutes to get all the fish fed. I find their food behind the tanks and give them all a pinch. Then I find the fourth tank in the kitchen. A beta tank with a red little feather of a fish in it.

I look up as she comes out with a gym bag over her shoulder.

Leading the way out the door and down to the stairs, I'll admit the walk out to my rental is a bit tense. I open the passenger door after putting the bag in the trunk.

** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** **

The ride to my house has me checking the rear view mirror but I don't ever see anyone even close.

I pull the rental around the side of my garage and into the backyard. I park it near the backdoor. Getting her bag I open the door.

A massive cat of cougar proportions pounces on me as I walk inside. Then in a classic lion like move his pride mate come in on her.

"Good lord these aren't house cats! These things should be hunting gazelle on the Serengeti!" she says her voice a bit panicky, the cats sudden appearance scared her a bit.

Grinning I reach down and pick up the fluffy bundle that's meowing by my feet.

"This is Ghost. The one brushing your legs is Darkness."

"So that's what happen after they ate Michael Douglas. The came here and moved in with you. What do you feed them on? White tail deer?" she asks bending down to pet Darkness. He stands up on her leg placing his paws nearly on her waist.

"No, but they can eat me out of house and home."

Hopping down Darkness bumps her and almost makes her stagger as she starts to cross the kitchen.

"What breed of cats are these? Mountain lion?"

"They're Maine Coons, although Ghost here may have a bit of Persian in her." I flip the big ball of white fur over and start to rock her in my arms like a big super harry baby. She's purring loudly enough to be heard across the room. After a moment I set her back down and go to the cabinet. Darkness all but opens it for me with his big head.

"Thank you Dark, but I've got it. Yes I know," I say to him when he meows up at me. "It's been a long day for me too." 

Ghost leaps the three feet to the counter top like it's a step for her. She tilts her head when Casey starts to scratch her behind the ears.

The bowls of cat food however make both of them abandon us silly humans; our function is completed anyway.

Casey follows me through the dining room into my living room. I hit the lights and then cringe. 

"Sorry about the mess. I wasn't expecting company."

"Oh my God!"

I grin as she takes in the Valentine's card the size of a pool table and the box of chocolate bigger than a car hood. Both have her name in gold lettering across the bright red front.

She slowly turns her head to look at me.

"Have you completely lost your mind, Jake?" she points to the card and chocolate. "That's insane!"

Chuckling I nod.

"I was going to have them delivered to your office tomorrow. I completely forgot about them really."

"Delivered, by who...a moving company?" she starts to laugh, then it turns to tears, then back to laughter. I fold her into my arms and hold her tight as she swing more to the tears side.

"I'm sorry." She says in a whisper.

"You should be. I'm going to have to have this shirt dry cleansed to get all the salt out of it." I say joking.

She looks from the wet tear-stain up to my smiling face and goes back to chuckling.

Leaning in I brush her lips with mine then hug her to me.

"I'm here for you, my lovely. For whatever need you have... be it bodyguard, fish feeder, boyfriend, or handkerchief. I'm here for you." I tell her then.

Her hands hold me tight and she leans her head into my chest.

"Friend to my heart, love given not pause, till fate take me or love break, Me." she says softly with a sniffle.

"That was beautiful. Yours?" I ask after a moment.

She nods a little.

I feel it then. It settles into me like a lock clicking into place. The warmth of her, the need from her to be held, the love of words of passion and love. All of that together bring it to a conviction stronger than the bonds of steel.

I'm in love.

I've known women in my life, more than a few I cared for very deeply, but this...this is that feeling I had only one before. The powerful building pressure I feel in my heart as love for Casey take its place as a part of me...it's almost frightening. I remember the pain when I lost Maria. That I have opened up enough to let myself feel that kind of hurt again is a shock to even me.

Something of what I'm feeling must have passed through my arms to her.

"What?" she asks softly looking up at me.

Her eyes are so beautiful, even the tear tracks add to it. They are red rimed and still I love them. Do I tell her? Do I make that step?

Would it feel like a trap in truth to her then? Would I be using her father's passing as a way of digging my need for her into her deeper than she might feel? What does she feel for me?

"What Jake?" She tilts her head and looks up at me with a puzzled look coming to her face. Her hand moves to my cheek and she wipes away a tear I did not know I had shed.

'I...I love you." I say softly so very unsure of what response I will get.

Watching her face I see a dozen emotions cross behind her eyes. Startling, puzzlement, a bit of inner conflict then a soft warm look that brings an easing to my worry.

"I love you." She swallows and looks down at my chest. 'I don't want you to feel like you are being dragged into loving me because of my loss today. I don't want you to feel like you have to be kind to me because of my father." She looks up at me.

For a second we both look into the other eyes. I think a part of the almost comical crisscrossing of emotional insecurities come to us then. I slowly smile as I see all my worries fade in he lovely pools of her eyes.

I receive an answering smile from her.

"You make me feel like an insecure teenager again." She says then.

I nod.

"You're doing the same for me. That's saying a lot since I'm ten years older than you are. I feel oh maybe twenty-three again. Hardly a child off apron strings really."

She purses her lips and light smacks my arm. Then she smiles and shakes her head.

"You're going to be the best relationship I've ever had. I can tell that already. You make me laugh." She reaches up and brushes hair back behind my ear. "I think I need that more than I even need romance." She gestures to the over-sized Valentine's gifts.

"But with me you get both. Romance and a laugh. You want to really chuckle wait till you get to see me undressed. That a laugh out loud moment."

She chuckles then catches my shirt in both hands. She pulls me down till our lips are just inches from each other. She softly places a kiss on my lips.

"Jake?"

"Yes my dear?" I look at her blinking.

She takes a deep breath.

"Where is your bathroom?" She laughs then. "I've really got to go."

Laughing I point down the hall to the door with the faint bluish light coming out from under it.

"Just follow the light." I tell her gesturing.

"That's what the mosquito said to his wife." She gives me a wink and with reluctance lets her fingers slip away from my hand.

I watch the curves of her ass as she goes down the short hall. The moment she closes the door I let myself relax.

"My god what are you doing?' I ask myself softly, I notice then that I'm shaking. "I need alcohol." I go to the bar and start to mix a drink. Reaching over I flip the switch and music start to softly drift through the living room.

I set out a second glass but wait to see what she would want.

Several minutes pass. Then a few more. I'm just starting to worry that she may have opened the window and fled screaming into the night to get away from me when I hear the toilet flush.

I take a sip and my teeth play with a chunk of ice. I see her open the door and step out hesitantly.

My eyes go to the dark blue covered book in her hand. When I look up at her face I see she is a brilliant shade of crimson!

"Did you like it?' I ask as a grin starts to come to my face.

"Oh my lord!"

Laughing I nod.

"Would you like a drink to calm your nerves a little, Casey?"

I lift mine and gesture towards the empty glass.

She gives a slow nod.

"What would you like?" I ask walking around the back of my bar and picking up the white cloth from the shelf under the top. I give the top a dusting and look to her with a grin.

"Well hello miss. Welcome to my club what can I get you?"

She giggles.

I watch her slowly walk towards me. I see she has a death grip on the little book. She sits it on the bar and tilts her head looking at me.

"What would you recommend?" she asks playing along.

"Well this is a fully stocked bar little lady...by the way I probably should ask to see some ID, you look hardly old enough to vote let alone drink."

"I'll have you know I'm more than old enough to be off my moms apron strings." She looks down at the book and blushes again. "My god what I read in here."

Chuckling I pull a bottle of bourbon and a bottle of vermouth from under the bar. I get out a glass of crushed ice. The little jar of cherries and the small bottle of bitters are almost frosty from the mini fridge. I start to work.

"I told you Mom wrote some racy stuff before she died. That's one of the milder ones. I have the original first draft packed away. That one of the pre-production volumes. They only printed about ten of them. The publisher wouldn't sell it without her 'toning it down' was how he put it. So she never got it published."

"Have you though of trying to do it now? Things are probably a bit more relaxed in the industry now. There have been some erotica even go mainstream lately."

"I know. She did maybe about fifty stories that are along the lines of that one. Most are in notebooks, still hand written. I've though about it but never seem to find the time." I slide her drink across the bar. "A Manhattan for the little lady."

She eyes the drink with it's floating cherry.

"Um...okay. I don't think I've ever had one."

I watch her face as she takes a sip. I made it tight. I see the pucker then the mellow from the sweet. Then the slight inrush of breath as the alcohol takes her air.

"This is good."

"Well I'm glad you like it little miss. Now let go have a seat before I get you tipsy and start feeling like I'm contributing to a minor."

She gives a little huff and a stamp of her foot.

"I'm not that young!"

I have to smile seeing her doing something that child like while protesting her youth. Lowering my eyes all the way to her feet I let them slowly come back up her with long pauses at the enjoyable places. The color to her face is wonderful to see.

"What you are is absolutely gorgeous."

I love the smile that comes to her lips as she shyly looks down.

"Thank you."

I pick the book up off the bar and tuck it under my arm. I grab my drink in the same hand.

Walking around the bar I take her elbow and lead her into the living room. I sit down my drink on the end table then the book next to it. Guiding her I sit down first then have her sit next to me. Turning just a little I lean her back against my chest and side. I ignore the wince of pain from the bruise on my chest.

The remote on the end table turns on the logs in the fireplace.

She snuggles into my chest, as the warmth of fire and alcohol makes it's way into us to take away the last of the chill.

She slowly sips her drink 

"I can see your Mom's influence on the place." She says after a moment "The little touches a guy wouldn't make."

I chuckle.

"More like you're seeing her influences on me. Most of this is my handiwork. Some of it is where she had it but ...no. This is mostly me."

She tilts her head a bit as I talk then nods.

"That explains a lot about you."

"Such as?" I ask running a hand down her side

"Well you...do things the way a woman would. You.... oh I can't explain it well."

Taking a sip of my drink I run my finger across the soft skin of her arm.

"Maybe that I don't rush things? That I take my time. That the long seduction is more enjoyable than the quick catch."

"Yea." She says with a nod. "That kind of thing."

She hands me her empty glass.

"Another?'

She gives her head a shake then settles into my arms more. She kicks her shoes off and turning stretches her legs out down the couch. My hand comes to rest on her stomach just to the left of her navel.

A large pile of white fur hops up onto the end of the couch and curls up around her feet.

"Oh she makes a good foot warmer." Casey says running her toes through Ghost's soft fur.

"They're a multi-use bred. Bed warmers, pillows, and foot warmers. Guard cats. Champion mousers."

Like the dark shadows he's named for Darkness comes into the room and goes to sit in front of the fire. His big tail curls up around his front paws and he sits with his head tilted watching the fire. He's like a silhouette against the flames

"And high end art decor." She says with a smile.

The days long events and left over pain from the wreck has taken a toll on us and we settle into one another's warmth. Me holding her, Her holding my arm. Comfortable in each others company. After a long time her head turns and she takes in the book sitting next to me.

"That is so different from what she wrote before."

I pick up Mom's book. 

"Well she was writing what publishers would sell. So she wrote what she had to write to pay the bills. She enjoyed her romance novels but she said she always wanted to add more to each story. To make the women that read them so hot they went and attacked their husbands with their need."

She softly chuckles.

"Well she did that with that one. Whew. The laundry mat scene?"

Grinning I thumb the book open to where she's talking about. It opens easily as I've read that page many a time.

I read it out loud to her, my eyes barely skimming the page. Memory has most of the story already.

"Sandra Lee doesn't know he's there as she walks into the laundry mat. She places her basket by a washer and opening it begins to place her clothes inside. The smell of her own lingerie if a turn on to her. The men covered her in their passion sweat. The dried spots of cum on the black corset tell of other, wetter, things that splashed her skin than sweat. Sandra lifts a dark blue teddy to her face and breaths in her own scent and the deeper musk that sex left trapped in the silky fabric."

I notice that Casey is breathing a little harder. She leans her head back against my chest, her ear turned to listen.

"Sandra doesn't know he's there, she doesn't see him watching her. She doesn't know it when he walks slowly and quietly up behind her. Her first instinct that some one's behind her... comes to late!"

I take a sip from my drink. I see Casey's nipples beginning to push up the front of her blouse. I let my hand shift up till my fingers can feel the bottom edge of her bra through her shirt. She gives a little squirm in the seat.

"The metal washer is hard and cold as he pushes her forward onto it, his hand has her by the back of the neck, his fingers tight in her hair. His other hand runs down across her ass squeezing the soft cheeks. 'I always knew you were a whore.' He says to her. 'I could hear you screaming, begging, for more cock the other night. The walls in these apartments are paper-thin. I imagine most of the people around here know you for what you are now. How many men were there? Four? Five? Answer me.' He demands. 'There were four.' she says breathless. His hand, hard as steel, closes on the back of her sweat pants! They are all but ripped down off her ass. Her thong rips away with hardly an effort, thought the black fabric pulls between her lips as he pulls it through her thighs.The cold metal of the washing machine makes her wince when her bare thighs touch the metal. She gasps at the sound of a zipper, then again as she feel his hard length of his cock part her ass cheeks. His hand comes up to her mouth."

Looking down I see Casey's eyes are half closed. She's imagining herself there in a laundry room with a strange man about to take her. Her breasts rise and fall with deep breaths. I lean into her ear.

"Does this story get you hot?" I ask my voice a soft breath by her ear.

"yes " she whispers.

"Did it make you wet when you read it earlier? In the bathroom?" I ask. I let my finger drift along the bottom edge of her bra.

"yes." Again her words are a soft hardly spoken whisper. She takes in a long slow breath that makes her breast rise just above my hand.

"Is it making you wet now? Hearing me read it to you?"

She nods this time, almost like she can't tell me that she is.

"If you were reading this alone...at home...in bed...would you touch yourself as you read?"

Again she tries to nod but I don't accept it this time.

"Would you touch yourself?" My voice is the firm tone she's heard a few times.

"yes." The word is hardly a breath.

"I want you to play with yourself as I read. Would you do that for me, Casey?"

The question startles her but after moment her breathing quickens and she gives a little nod. Her hand makes its way past mine, the fingertips brushing mine. Across her stomach her hand stops at the button and the top of her pants open. The zipper purrs it's way down. Softly her fingers move back up onto her bare skin and then disappear down the front of her panties. I smile when I hear the small moan from her as she touches herself. I go back to the story.

"His hand is hard as it covers her mouth silencing the scream that was about to make it's way out. Sandra gives a little pain filled huff as his cock finds that dark rose between her cheeks. His breath is hot next to her ear. 'I loved to hear you moaning last nigh I want to hear it again. Are you going to moan for me?' His hand leaves her hair and goes to her hip. With a quick thrust his cock is driven several inches into her ass."

I grin as Casey gives a little gasp. Her hand is moving under her the light pink fabric. I let my hand drift down her stomach then come back up under her shirt. The edge of her bra is warm when my fingers touch it.

"Still sore from the use last night Sandra moans in pain as he pushes even more of himself into her ass. Her hands clutch the washer. With a tear filled scream that's lost in the hot palm of his hand she leans forward as he goes all the way in. Slowly his hand moves from in front of her mouth. She hears him chuckle as she cries from the pain. 'Don't think I don't know this hole got used last night. With that many men someone had to do it. Am I right?' he asks. 'Am I right?' he demands driving harder into her."

'yes.'

Casey surprises me when she whispers the answer. I smile loving the effect I'm having on her with just my voice.

I bring my hand up and cover her breast Casey gives a little nod and a moan to show her approval. She leans herself back into me more. Her legs open slightly to give her better access to herself. I can hear a wet sound coming from her playing fingers.

"Are you enjoying the story Casey?" I ask as my fingers slowly caress her breast circling the hard nipple through the soft fabric.

"Oh, Jake, don't stop reading...please."

Smiling I lean my head a little till I'm right next to her ear.

" 'Yes' Sandra say then. Her words a gasp. His long cock pulls out till the flared head tugs her ass then he's driving it back into her. Moaning in continuous lust, she leans down onto the washing machine. The hard pounding of him bringing back memories of the night before. When the men finally forgot to be gentle and just putting her through her paces. Making her do what they wanted. It had been so intensive to be made to perform. She had loved it. Slowly despite the tearing pain she comes to love this as well. His cock isn't as long as some of the ones last night but its every bit as thick."




Impact on the Heart



I turn the page with my thump smiling as I read slightly ahead.

"Holding her hard by the hips he drives himself into her taking what she would not give to him if he had asked, but what she is more than willing to give now. The feeling of her ass, tight and warms as wet silk caressing his cock is far too intense. It very quickly starts to drive him to the end. He doesn't want that...not yet. Pulling himself from her hard he chuckles at her gasp. Looking down at her ass he sees that his stomach hitting it has it a bright red. But it's not red enough! His hand goes to his belt hanging half off him. Ripping it out through the loops he catches the leather in his hand doubled. 'You've been a naughty little girl haven't you?' he asks."

"yes" says Casey softly, breathlessly.

"His hand holding her hair pushes her forward higher onto the washing machine. 'You know what happens to naughty little girls don't you?' he asks as his hand moves back 'They get spanked.' He says as he swings the belt hard across both cheeks of her ass! She cries out in surprise and pain, then does so again as he swings again."

Pinching Casey nipple through her bra I see her arch herself up off the couch a little. Then she does it again. I love that she's imagining every blow of the belt.

"Sandra Lee shudders as blow after blow sends lines of fire across the soft skin of her ass. Never has she felt like this! Every crack of leather is a shock that travels straight to her clit. A hot burn, then a dull fire, then a lightning bold tingle that makes her wish he would swing harder at the same time she's begging him to stop. Her ass aflame she moans when she hears the belt hit the floor. 'Such a naughty little girl you have been but your going to be a good girl from now own yes?' he asks. At her exhausted nod he steps back behind her and pushes himself into her pussy. The lips part and a river of passion flows down her thigh as he thrusts inside."

Casey's eyelids flutter! Her mouth opens in a silent sound then a soft moan starts to build. I grin, as this shy composed woman becomes an animal to her own lustful needs. 

My fingers catch the top of her bra and pull it down. The feeling of her bare breast, warm and silky fills my hand, the nipple a hard button in my palm.

"Oh Jake...oh my god yes." She says in a moan. I place the book down on the table and leaning back down to by her ear I softly kiss the bruised side of her neck as shudders of pleasure send her to twitching in my arms.

"I love you." I say softly by her ear as she finally shivers to a stop after several long moments.

Panting a bit Casey turns to look up at me. She slowly smiles.

"I love you too."

Softly caressing her breast I look at her flushed face, a slow in and out breath marking the last of her orgasm.

"I think I found what your other boyfriends missed." My finger circles her nipple. "Did I mention I have about fifty more stories like this one."

She blushes, then a grin appears that nearly matches mine.

"We haven't even gotten through this one yet, Boyfriend." She looks down at the hand holding her breast, then back at me. "When did that get there?"

"Some time around the start of the spanking. Want me to move it?" I just let my hand rest on her now, in no hurry to move it at all.

She shakes her had and snuggles back into my chest.

I cuddle her into my arms and just hold her tight. She leans her head against my chest and watches the fire her breath still a soft pant. The couch sinks a little as Darkness joins his mate by her feet.

Her head under my cheek I watch the flames listening to her breathing. She is a soft warmth in my arms, her breast a softer one in my hand. I smile when I notice that she's drifted to sleep. 

My needs are making demands of me, but I ignore them for now. There will be other nights when I can see to what I need. May other night to come when my little Casey will see to me. I glance at the book. Many more stories for me to read to her.

Or maybe for her to read to me. She has such a sexy voice, her words often like the heavy purr of my cats.

Watching the flames I ponder the day. A date that ended badly because of a phone call. A fight with her old boyfriend that wasn't even worth showing up for. Then a ride in the hottest car I've ever driven.

Compared to all of those holding her now is the best part to the whole day.

Looking up at the clock over the fireplace I see its still hours till midnight. Till the end of Valentine's day. The day for lovers. Placing a soft kiss into her hair I wonder just what the rest of the day will hold.

Or tomorrow.

Or tomorrow after that.