2 Maid in the Shade (8 page)

“
What was that?” I asked, still catching my breath.

“
I think, darling, I’d call it years in the making. I’ve always been serious when I told you it happened the minute I saw you. Imagine my disappointment when I realized you weren’t quite as old as I had assumed. Didn’t you feel anything when you first saw me?” He asked.

“Bone-crushing regret, that you were about to be my stepbrother, joy that at least that tied you to me somehow
. Beyond that, I couldn’t imagine.”

“Wouldn’t imagine.”

“Perhaps. But I wasn’t talking about that, I just saw something moving by the trees.”

He
laughed. Ah, I believe you’re stalling.” Sitting up, he pulled me back to him, turning me around between his legs and kissed the nape of my neck.

I
shivered: “Did you plan this?”

“You must be joking
. You called me to say you were in the city, you agreed to have lunch. It was a beautiful day and I thought it would be a brilliant time to show you this place so I canceled my appointments. I just had the basket made and dropped at Delmonte’s so that seemed perfect timing. Anyway, you told me to close my eyes and actually started seducing me.”

“
Not my fault. You took off your shirt.”

His
tone was self-deprecating. “Oh, so any bare-chested man would have done?”

“It’s not just the physique
.” I grinned, “There’s that face of yours. Lucy says you are too gorgeous to be straight.”

His
brow furrowed thoughtfully. “She might be onto something. I think we should test that theory, over and over and over again until we dispel any concerns. But then once you are fully satisfied? You’re only attracted to me physically?” He asked teasingly.

“
I’m not that one-dimensional,” I huffed, “never discount the English accent.”

“
No more trips to England for you,” he lamented. “Mother will be crushed. Naturally everyone there has the “accent” and when I’m in England I never wear a shirt; no one does any more. It’s considered quite old-fashioned. Even the tubby little bankers go bare-chested. Just slacks and suspenders for them, a little nod to old conservatism. I don’t even warrant a glance.”

“
I find that difficult to believe,” I said, “but agreed”, “no more trips across the pond. I’m not too fond of the idea of anyone else looking at you. Wow. Who knew you were such an Adonis? The whole time you stayed with me when I had the rabies shots you kept pretty well under wraps.”

“
You were too young to know what you wanted, too sick and too grateful. Also becoming an exhibitionist might get in the way of my profession. Besides, what about you? Every time I turn around there’s new competition. It drives me wild every time I have to travel. That’s why I call you so often. I’m always afraid that I’ll come back to find you with a boyfriend. It’s hard to be a gentleman when I’m lusting after you like a madman. But I’m playing the long game.”

“
Trust me, there are not any men queuing up for a relationship with me. But I’m aware it sounds disingenuous to say I’m pretty shocked at myself.” I laughed. “Is it terribly cruel of me to say we need to stop now?”

“Brutal,
but not unexpected. Just lie down beside me a little while first.”

“Okay, just for a few minutes.”

But as soon as I was stretched out beside him I reached over and touched the scar on his abdomen. He flinched.

“I’m sorry,
” I said, “Is that recent?”

His
eyes clouded over for a flash and he made no reply as he reached for me. “Ben,” I whispered, and then I was on him again like a magnet, as one hand held me to him in a kiss and the other moved into my breeches and down to one side of my lace thong. As we rolled over again into the grass we heard a sudden roar, as a massive bear rose from the edge of the woods.

B
en quickly pulled his hand from my hip, snapping my whisper thin thong in the process.

W
e silently sized up the situation. Mama was to our left, while a cub rummaged through the picnic basket up to our right.

I
n our quest for the longest lasting kiss in eternity we had luckily rolled several yards away into the part of the meadow where Bessless was stationed.

“
Anything there you can’t live without?” I asked.

“You mean shall we pack up
?” He whispered, smiling. “I think we need to get inside that Rover and out of Mom’s way.” We watched the cub rush back towards its mother with some picnic prize in its teeth.

“Slowly,” I whispered, “it’s unlocked
.”

B
en nodded his head at me to make a run for it and I didn’t have to be told twice. I streaked across to the Range Rover and was in the passenger seat in record time. I watched anxiously for Ben to follow but to my shock he ran toward our abandoned picnic, grabbed the basket, dumped it out, grabbed the blanket and raced back to me.

He
threw the basket in the back started the engine. At the noise the mother bear rose up on her hind legs and roared again. 

I
never knew anyone to be able to so expertly whip poor aging Bessless about, but Ben did it so smoothly, so calmly, we were barreling back down the dirt road and away before the sound had died down.

I
looked back at the bear; she was down on all fours once more, ambling toward the cub. I was trembling a little; the bear was just the culmination of a completely unexpected afternoon. I couldn’t tell which part of the day owned more of my brain right now.

“
Why the heck did you go back for the basket?” My tone was filled more with consternation than anger.

“
I had it specially made, just for us, I designed it for us.”

“
Well,” I said in confusion, “that’s very thoughtful but you risked both our lives for it. That bear could have caught up with you easily.”

“
Nonsense,” he laughed, “I’m very good at risk assessment. Besides, maybe now you’ll realize how important we are to me. You keep the basket and we will take it along on every journey, and no one else will use it until we’re ready to hand it down. Now we have an adventure to remember along with that.”

B
en kept one hand on the steering wheel and held mine in the other. Then he turned mine and began stroking my palm and I gasped. It was all I could do not to grab the wheel to get him to pull off the road. I considered using the legitimate excuse of my tattered thong which was driving me insane on a whole different level. I did have to do something about that and he had seen me in far more graceless situations.

“
Ben,” I said “eyes on the road okay?”

He
nodded but not before giving me a hot look that told me I had been right not to ask him to pull over. “We’d be there for days,” I thought, smiling to myself.

“What’s with the Mona Lisa look
?”

“I was just thinking that these panties are damned uncomfortable now but I forbid you to pull over so I can take them off.”

“It isn’t a problem, Gretchen. I can take care of that for you in one more snap,” he smiled back.

“
Nope, eyes straight ahead. I was smiling because I was thinking of you doing just that, then about sex in an SUV, which made me think of how tall we both are, and then how tawdry it sounds, but doesn’t really matter.”

He
decreased his speed substantially. “So... If it doesn’t matter...”

“
Do not pull off the road!” I said my voice rising.

“
You’re afraid you’ll be out of control?" He asked hopefully.

“
I’m certain I will, please speed back up.”

“
This would be such a wonderful time to run out of fuel,” he said, looking at the gauge hopefully.

“
Thank God you didn’t say petrol” I laughed, “As I mentioned before I’m even more of a sucker for that accent. It makes everything you say a tad more interesting.”

I
reached into the side of my breeches and pulled at the intact side of the thong. No go.

A
s he turned occasionally to watch me struggle he finally grinned and said, “Seriously Gretchen, let’s pull over at least. I can take care of that easily.”

“
And the bra even faster, unless I beat you to it,” I thought to myself. Remembering my pen knife I retrieved it from my jacket, pulling the breeches down just enough to slice through the lace.

“
They don’t make them like they used to,” I said sadly.

“
A fact which makes me fervently happy,” he replied, looking at the small shredded piece of turquoise on my lap as I replaced my pocket knife.

“
Wasn’t there a matching bra?" He asked wistfully.

“
No,” I said, “one of those utilitarian garments, nothing exciting, I pick them up at the women’s prison rummage sale.”

“
Liar, I don’t know why I asked. The image will be etched in my brain forever. You know what’s unfair?”

“Life in general
?”

“
Yes, that of course, but Jethro...”

“Jared,” I corrected.

“Jared,” he said, rolling his eyes, “he just gets this serendipitous surprise of seeing you in your panties while you strolled around with your dog.”

I
grinned “That is ridiculous. You know it didn’t happen that way.”

“But at the time he had known you for a month, and here I am patiently waiting, ready to nurse you to health or make love to you until you faint and he-.”

“Oh brother,” I interrupted, “who knew you could be so manipulative?”

“Please don’t use the word
“brother” when you talk to me. Our parents were married a few months at best and we never shared a home.”

“Sorry, a
nyway I can’t very well put them back on and model them.” I held up the wad of lace ripped them in half and flung a portion in his lap before stuffing the remainder in my pocket.

“
Not the best place in the world to fling them, love.”

I
looked over at him and now it was my eyes which widened.

“
I’m sorry,” I said laughing, “but somehow I think that’s been there.”

“
Nevertheless, the damage is done. Are you sure we can’t resume our picnic? We had the rest of the day and it's highly doubtful there are more bears to interrupt us.”

N
o “cubus interruptis? I’m sure, but I can also assure you Jared has never been kissed like that or touched my lingerie,” I grinned.

S
omewhat mollified, he nodded then gave a long silent pause “Wait, but you have kissed him?”

“Only where I shot him, after
I thought he was going to kill me. You know that was months ago and it was completely an apologetic kiss. More like you would give, oh, a brother” I laughed. (At least it began that way, I amended silently.)

“And here I was hoping the shot was in the groin and you did irreparable damage.”

I smiled. “And just so you know, I have not dated him.” (I also decided to leave out the part about spending the night together since it didn’t count. Lucy had coerced her friend Jackson into lugging a tranquilized Jared into my bed that same night as a prank).

B
en nodded, satisfied. “But you will admit today with me was a date?”

“
You men,” I said playfully, “always trying to label things, talk things out, trying to pin us down.”

“
I believe you were pinning me down less than an hour ago, literally. “By the way, your place or mine? Actually your place is more convenient for my trip, but the schedulers don’t like change.”

“
Your place or mine
? You are so bad at your pickup lines I don’t think I’d ever have to worry about you and other women. Your place THEN mine.”

“
As in, you’re not coming up? That’s it? I took the day off. This day is hardly over.”

“
You need to slow down Ben,” he glanced at the speedometer, “No;” I amended, “we need to take it slow. You’re too important for me to screw this up.”

“
Okay”, he said, “but you have to promise me something.”

“Do I
?”

“Just keep an open mind okay
?”

I
nodded.

“I have to be out of the country for three weeks or so, I’m leaving late tomorrow, and I’d like you to come with me.”

I opened my mouth to protest.

“
I’d like you to come with me but it is work and it’s too dangerous. Not for me,” he added hastily “believe me; that is one place where I’m too valuable to lose. I can bring help to their economy if things go well and the corporations which hire me can realize a staggering profit.”