“We’re done,” she announced, with a sigh. “Let’s gather up all the cleaning stuff and take it back to the shed, the vacuum cleaner back down to the office and lock up. Then we’re done.”
“Thank God,” Cole said, stretching. “I need a shower.”
Maggie giggled, “I’m sure I do, too.”
He put on a stern face and stared at her as he said, “And I’m hungry.”
“So am I. Didn’t you invite me to a fish fry?”
“Yep, I sure did. Do you want me to fry at my place or yours?”
The second he said it, Cole realized he’d quoted probably the oldest, cheesiest pickup line in history but he pretended not to notice. So did Maggie.
“Which would be easier for you?”
He thought about it for a few moments, “The fish is at the cabin and so is all the stuff I bought. Why don’t you just come up in about thirty minutes and you can watch me in action?”
Maggie’s eyes raked him from head to toe, lingering on his body with interest. “I’d enjoy that,” she said, with slow deliberation. “Let’s finish up then.”
Forty five minutes later, in bare feet, clean jeans, and an old T-shirt, Cole combined yellow corn meal, a little all purpose flour, salt, Cajun seasoning, and lemon pepper in a bowl. In another he cracked two eggs, beat them to a frothy consistency and added milk. He dipped each fish fillet in the liquid then coated it with the dry mixture. Cole added the first few pieces to the smoking hot skillet and listened for the right sizzle. After nodding with approval, he battered the rest of the fish, stuck a tray of frozen steak cut fries in the oven to bake and took the salad out of the plastic bag, dumped it into a bowl. Within moments, the first pieces turned a perfect golden brown, not too dark or hard. He forked them out of the skillet and placed them on a platter lined with white bread to soak up any grease and salted them.
When the fish cooled enough not to scald his mouth, Cole took a bite and sighed with pleasure. He’d given it just the right crunch and the perfect blend of seasoning. The fresh caught bass tasted better than any fish he’d eaten in years, far more delicious than any fast food variety and superior to the expensive seafood eateries Victoria’d been fond of choosing. His hunger roared for more as the flavor lingered on his tongue. Cole looked forward to the simple meal more than any in a very long time.
“Knock knock,” Maggie said from the porch. Beneath the simple shorts and tank top, her luscious body heightened his other appetites. “Can I come in?”
“Sure,” he called from the kitchen. A good mood settled over him and he embraced it, feeling playful. “After all, you own the place.”
She laughed. “It smells good in here.”
Cole pointed at the platter with his spatula and removed the second batch. “Go ahead and try one but pick one on this end so you won’t burn your tongue.”
Maggie lifted one and nibbled. A smile danced over her lips and he knew she liked it.
“It’s delicious,” she said as she reached for another piece. “Where’d you learn to cook this way? I’m guessing this isn’t one of your grandmother’s recipes, is it?”
She had him. “No, this is one of Pop’s,” Cole replied. “He tinkered with it for years until he got it perfected. I’m glad you like it.”
Within a half hour, he fried all the fish, took the fries out of the oven and put a bowl of salad at each place. They sat down at the small, rickety dinette table and before she took a bite, Maggie linked hands with him. She said a simple grace and they shared the meal, the first one Cole truly enjoyed at the cabin since he arrived. Supper evoked past memories of gathering around this table with his grandparents. They’d eaten fish then, too, on many occasions. Cole recalled old times with a rush of nostalgia and joy, filtered through the decades.
The remembered sense of family rested easy on his soul and as he watched Maggie’s expressions shift as she talked and laughed, Cole felt like she was also family. He’d known her for most of his life and they were connected in a deep meaningful way. A flash of guilt threatened to consume him because he’d never thought of Victoria as family, not in the way he did Maggie. She’d been his wife but Cole hadn’t felt the same. To prevent self-reproach, he reasoned it wasn’t disloyal, just the way he felt. He couldn’t change it or help it.
A spectacular sunset commanded the western sky with a panorama of vivid color. Most of the earlier clouds and rain moved away to leave behind the beautiful show. The red, orange and pink streaked sky created a stunning image. Cole saw it through the window and pointed it out to Maggie. They headed out to the porch for a better view and stood close, his arm draped across her shoulders.
“It’s gorgeous,” she breathed. A rapt look of wonder lit her face.
“Oh, yeah,” Cole said. “It’ll be fair tomorrow and sunny. No more storms for now.”
“Red sky at night, sailor’s delight,” Maggie said and Cole smiled too. He relished the old weather folklore, the adages and sayings. At the television station, he kept a collection of them in a special file. Cole tried to come up with something witty to say back to preserve the moment but instead he noticed the rainbow, vivid and colorful, off to the far right horizon.
“Look, Maggie!” he cried. “Do you see the rainbow? God, it’s pretty.”
“Oh, how beautiful,” she said, looking up into his face. “You know a rainbow is a promise, don’t you?”
Cole lacked words but not emotion. He turned her to hold her in his arms and lowered his mouth close to hers. “So’s this, Maggie.”
He kissed her. Cole tasted her lips, soft velvet, and relished the taste. Her mouth yielded to his without protest and her arms curled around his neck until her wrists rested on his shoulders. He shifted until her body touched his and tightened his embrace. The shared kiss touched off a fuse and Cole swore he felt the fire move through his body as it ignited every nerve. Passion roused within but he tempered it with a care and grace, one shifting lust with tenderness. Cole’s long dormant body revived and revved like a finely tuned race car engine. Maggie’s flesh relaxed against him, gave over to his arms with open surrender. If they stopped, he realized, it would be his call but Cole didn’t want to quit.
His cock swelled as his desire increased and by the time Cole ended the kiss to draw breath, he knew where this would lead and he wanted it. When he paused for air, Maggie’s soft sigh blew warm against the base of his throat and it erased the last of Cole’s inhibitions.
“I like your promise,” Maggie whispered. “Don’t stop Cole.”
“Don’t worry,” he answered in a low voice close to a growl. “I’m not.”
He kissed her again and this time the fire roared to higher levels, no single fuse to smolder but a conflagration, flames so intense they consumed Cole. His skin flared fever hot, sensitive as a severe sunburn. Maggie’s hands on his shoulders burned too and his awareness of their touch increased until he thought he’d nail her there on the porch even if he had to rip away the simple shorts she wore like a wildman. Her tongue worked into his mouth and Cole thought he’d pass out with the sensation but he gave tongue back even as his hand strayed under her tank top. He expected bra and found flesh instead. The silk of her skin excited him and his hands cupped her round breasts with appreciation, fingers straying to stroke her nipples until they hardened. Cole licked around one with fervent strokes, enough to bring a soft moan between her lips.
Maggie arched her back and then her nimble fingers undid the buttons of his shirt. She jerked it from his shoulders and worked it down his arms. Maggie’s actions broke their physical contact long enough for him to shed the garment. Her slender hands caressed his bare back and chest, tweaked his nipples and brought enough pleasure he made a guttural sound.
“Inside or out?” Cole asked.
She understood the basic question and gasped, “In.”
They moved in tandem kissing and fondling as they entered the cabin. Both stripped away their clothes as they headed into the bedroom, her tank top falling
onto the rug, his shorts in the bedroom doorway, and hers beside the bed. By the time Maggie sprawled across the comforter, nude as a newborn, Cole’s erect cock lacked restraint. She spread her thighs and he maneuvered between them, accurate as a good rifle and entered her. Her soft cries of delight echoed as his hardness plunged deep into her pliable, moist sanctuary and filled it to capacity. Cole worked in and out, savoring every sweet erotic ripple pulsing through his body. Cole paced himself, holding back his need to come so the explosion would be all the sweeter when it came.
Cole intended to wait longer but when Maggie lifted her legs like scissors and caught his body between them and locked them in place around his back Cole couldn’t hold back. He came in hard and deep for the final time. Sensual electricity burst into a sun and went super nova as they rode the burst of ecstasy together, clinging tight against each other. Her rapid breath kept pace with his and when the stars exploded, Cole heard her cry out with wordless pleasure and realized after a few seconds his deeper outcry joined with hers. They shuddered then slowed back to earth, grounded and transformed.
Cole rested on her, supporting his weight with his forearms and after he could breathe again, he shifted position to lie beside her, face to face. Her flushed cheeks, bright eyes provided evidence she’d enjoyed it as much as he had but when she lifted one finger to stroke his cheek with feathery motions, Cole shivered with sheer delight.
Maggie laughed with a clear sound as bright as silver moonlight so Cole slid one hand back between her legs and caressed her cleft. If it was half as sensitive as his dick, she’d respond. Her responsive shudder pleased him. “How’s that, lady?”
“Awesome,” Maggie answered in not quite a whisper but not full volume either. “Cole, it was stupendous.”
“Big words,” he said with a chuckle. “I waited about twenty years to do what we just did.”
“Was it as good as you thought it’d be?” Her voice in the summer dark bedroom soothed him like good honey.
Cole pondered it for about thirty seconds before he said, “No, about a hundred times better.”
“Aw,” Maggie murmured, as a pink blush spread over her face. “I think you mean it.”
“I do,” he said with honesty. “Scout’s honor, m’am,”
Cole held up two fingers in a crude Boy Scout pledge and she giggled. “Were you really a Scout?”
“Of course I was,” he said. “I made a bird house, camped out under the stars, helped elderly widows across the street, and sold popcorn, all of it.”
“That’s cool,” Maggie said. “I always wondered what you did the rest of the year, back home, city boy.”
“Did you really call me that?” Cole never recalled her calling him ‘city boy’ and now he needed to know.
Maggie bobbed her head, affirmative. “And sometimes summer boy, the St. Louis boy, and fishin’ boy, swimmer kid and that desperate Celinksi character too.”
Until she reached the last one, Cole wasn’t sure whether or not she joked but then he knew she teased so he laughed. Then, very serious, he told her, “I used to try to imagine life here in the fall and winter but never could, not quite. I thought it must always be summer here, everything still green and the weather warm. Come January I’d freeze my rear off in St. Louis but I’d think about you running around barefoot and swimming.”
Maggie giggled, sounding like the young girl who’d been his playmate. “That’s silly, Cole. When’d you figure out it wasn’t like that?”
“You sent me a Christmas card with a snapshot of you standing out in the snow,” he said, remembering. “I still have it, somewhere.”
Cole knew exactly where he kept the picture, in the top drawer of his desk at home, tucked into an old brown envelope with some other old pictures, mostly of his grandparents.
“I remember we used to mail each other Christmas cards,” Maggie said. Her foot stretched out so she could run her big toe down his leg. It tickled and titillated Cole at the same time. “I used to write so many letters. And we did a few of those taped letters, too.”
He’d forgotten until she mentioned them but they had. They taped long messages on a cassette tape and then mailed them in an empty crayon box. He remembered recording music in between talking and rambling. Shit, he’d read her his essay from sixth grade Communication Arts, and tried out his first speech in the ninth grade to see what Maggie thought. “Yeah, I’d almost forgotten,” he told her.
“I wish you’d never stopped writing to me,” she said and stunned him. “I wonder what might’ve happened if you kept writing back.”
Her words thumped Cole like a brick. He searched his brain, trying to recall a stopping point or a time when he’d quit writing to Maggie but couldn’t. The way he remembered, the letters and notes from Maggie quit arriving. “I didn’t quit,” he said, his voice level and calm. “I always wondered why you did.”
Lying side by side, her grey eyes met his without deceit, open and caring. “I didn’t, though. I wrote you a long letter after we got word your Pop passed away, tucked inside the prettiest sympathy card I could find. I wanted to call you but my mom said ‘no’. I felt so bad about his death because I knew how close you were to him. I waited for weeks to hear back from you but I never did.”
Cole didn’t doubt she told the truth but he’d never received a card or letter. He’d remember if he had because it would’ve meant the world to him. “Maggie, I never got it. If I had, I would have written to you, I know I would.”
“But you do believe me?”
“Of course,” he said as his fingers caressed her bare shoulders. “I do, absolutely. I wonder if my mom took it and didn’t give it to me.”
“Why would she do that?” Maggie asked. “It wouldn’t be very nice.”
“No, no it wouldn’t have been,” Cole replied.
“And why would she?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know. Moms do strange things, sometimes, I guess.”
Cole thought he could guess why but he wasn’t sharing, not yet if ever. Instead, his hand moved over Maggie’s hair, stroking it with soft movements as he remembered his mom, twenty years or more ago.
He came home from Lake Dreams with his head and heart filled with Maggie. He talked about her often, enough his mom’s warning bells went off loud and shrill. She asked Pop and Babka about the girl and they’d told his mother all about their summer romance. His grandparents didn’t object – they liked Maggie and they’d been little older when they committed their hearts but Cole’s Mom reacted like Maggie was an enemy. “You need to think about school,” she scolded Cole. “Put her out of your mind. A girl like her can destroy your future. I’ve got dreams for you, son, and I thought you had some career goals. Do you want to become a microbiologist or a doctor like we’ve always talked about? If you hang around some country girl, you might end up running a resort or something”
“That wouldn’t be so bad,” Cole told her, age seventeen, soon to start his junior year of high school.
“It would be terrible,” his mother had wailed. “It would be awful. You’re a bright young man, Cole, and destined for something big. I know it. Maybe you shouldn’t go down there next summer with Babka and Pop. It might be best if you try to find a summer job or even try to earn a little advance college credit. We’ll see.”
He never wanted to be a doctor or a microbiologist. Those were his mom’s dreams, never his. Weather fascinated Cole and if he did anything involving science, he knew it would be something with weather. Cole wouldn’t mind if his future included Maggie. He’d go back to Branson with his grandparents, no matter what. If he needed to get a summer job, maybe he’d get one in south Missouri but it never became an issue because Pop died on a beautiful October day, without warning and devastated Cole’s world.
Reflecting now, Cole bet his mother sorted the mail and removed Maggie’s card. He wondered if she’d trashed it or tucked it away somewhere. Without her interception, things might have taken a different direction, he mused
. Maybe he would have never dated Victoria or married her. Cole could accept it but he’d never wish away his children, even though he’d lost them. Instead, Cole planned to enjoy this amazing woman and hope it wasn’t too late for second chances. Given a choice, he had no doubt Maggie wouldn’t wish away her kids either. Cole resolved he’d ask his mother about the card, soon.
Cole pushed back the past to enjoy the present, to commit to memory each wonderful detail of this intimate moment. He created a memory snapshot of Maggie, naked, radiant, and tousled in his bed. As if she read his thoughts, she stretched and rubbed against him.
“It’s too early to go to sleep,” she told him.
“What did you have in mind?”
Her lips slanted in a mischievous little grin. “We could share a drink under the stars until we get tired enough to go back to bed.”
Cole’s heart warmed at the idea and so did his cock. “We could. I’ve got a mess in the kitchen to clean up, too. Babka would fuss if she knew.”
Dumb, he thought, as soon as he said, it, afraid he sounded fussy but Maggie smiled, a sweet expression. “You’re right. Let’s get up and I’ll help you put everything to rights then we’ll share a drink. Deal?”
“It is if it’s sealed with a kiss,” Cole said and kissed her. The smooch heated up and almost derailed their plan but he summoned enough willpower to roll out of bed. He pulled on shorts, nothing more and Maggie found her clothing.
Together, like two little kids playing house, they cleared the table, washed the plates and pots and pans, and when everything glistened, clean, Cole poured them each a drink, half John Jameson’s barley whiskey, half Coke Zero.
In the past six months, he’d drunk often and alone to dull his inner anguish sharing a drink with Maggie became more like a communion, one of spirit as well as alcohol.
Lake Dreams Page 10