It was a fifteen minute drive to Tootie's house and when we drew near, I saw my brother Jerry's truck already parked. We pulled in behind him. The front door opened before we got to the last step and Jerry stepped out. I grasped his hand and clapped him on the back. "Good to see you, Jerry," I said. "Meet Cindy, your new sister-in-law."

"Hey Cindy!" he said, holding out his hand. When she took it, he enveloped her in a hug, too. "I'm glad to meet you."

Cindy feigned surprise. "Dan! His knuckles don't even REACH the ground!"

"Oh-ho-ho," Jerry laughed. "Toot told me she was fast. Come in. I can't wait to talk to you. I have to straighten out the lies he's been tellin' you."

We went inside and Cindy met Jerry's wife, Sheila, and the two of them joined Tootie in the kitchen.

I sat on the sofa at the opposite end from Jerry. Mike was in his recliner.

Jerry was shaking his head. "Ya know, I figured you'd remarry, but I'll be damned if she's what I pictured you with..."

"Yeah. Me neither. Damnedest thing I can imagine, though."

We were in the middle of catching up on life's happenings when I heard Tootie's voice from the kitchen shouting, "OMIGOD!"

Mike stood up quickly. "Baby, is something wrong?"

"No," answered Tootie, then she said, "Dan, can you please come in here?" The tone was just a little bit more than tense.

I got up, totally confused as to what was going on. I walked into the kitchen. There was Tootie and Sheila, looking like they'd just seen a unicorn, and Cindy, with a smile. A smirk, actually.

Tootie spoke first, in a low voice. "Dan! I thought you said she was eighteen." She sucked in a breath. "She's NOT eighteen."

"What makes you think that?" I asked.

"Oh, I don't know. Let's see!" she said through clinched teeth. "Exactly how'd it go? Oh yeah. As in "Cindy, how old are you really?" and she says "fourteen"!"

Cindy said, "Dan, I didn't want to lie."

Sheila got the next question. "She didn't look eighteen. She's fourteen. A child! You could go to jail."

Cindy fielded this one. "Yeah. If we weren't married. But we are. Legally. The same judge that signed the court order allowing underage marriage is the one who performed the ceremony. Wanna see the papers?"

"Uh..." Tootie backpedalled, searching for words. "Wow! Shit! Wow!"

"Tootie," Cindy said, "Dan didn't do anything dishonorable or wrong. Never coerced me or forced me or tricked me. Ever. And I truly, forever love him."

"And I love her, Toot. I never planned on this. It fell into my lap. Well, maybe that's a bad choice of words."

Cindy giggled nervously.

"But we were in a situation where we just fell together. I found what I was looking for, even if the package was unconventional. And..."

Cindy interrupted. "And I found Dan. I hope you don't hate him because of me. I love him, and I'd do anything for him."

By this time, Jerry and Mike were at the door, having caught most of the conversation. My eyes flitted from Mike to my brother. He was the first of the two to speak. "Damn, bro! You amaze me."

"Yeah, me too!" said Mike.

Cindy stepped beside me. "Okay," I said. "We're one hundred percent legal, just a little unconventional. If we're going to make you all uncomfortable, we can leave." I put my arm around Cindy.

Her expression was serious. "We're husband and wife. He can tell you how I'm NOT your standard fourteen year old girl. If you want to listen. He's ... We're your family, you know."

Tootie popped in. "I thought Mike's dressing was going to be the toughest thing to digest today. Cindy, darlin', you ARE family. And just another of the events in my brother's life. I want you here."

Mike said, "Yeah, me too. We might talk bad about him. But not you."

Sheila and Jerry were standing off to the side of the kitchen now. Sheila said, "You know, I have a niece that's fourteen and pregnant and she doesn't have a clue. You act like you got a clue."

Jerry said, "Yeah, I guess so. Okay. Let's go sit down and talk. I can't wait to hear some of this."

Tootie followed us into the living room, saying, "Give the stupid turkey another half an hour. I want to hear this."

In the living room, I said, "Now some of this might be painful to Cindy, so I'll leave it up to her to talk about her situation."

To attentive and sympathetic ears, Cindy recounted a bit of her situation when I met her last summer. She talked about how Helen helped her and took care of her in the absence of mothering from her natural mom, and how they'd talked when I first showed up.

We talked about our early relationship, how we became friends, how I was the tutor, how we started going places for meals, the time I sent her and Helen to the mall, how the relationship just grew. We didn't talk about sex. Nothing. And we talked about school.

"And that was the part where somebody had ulterior motives," I said. Cindy smiled demurely. "after the first week, after I sort of kick-started her in math, she took off. Straight A's. She came over every day, it took longer for her to write the answers than figure them out. And we talked and got to know each other. It was difficult for her, being the only kid at the RV park, and we just hung out together. I was glad to have a friend to talk to, and she did, too."

Then we talked about Cindy's mom signing over custody. And the whole school thing. When I explained, with Cindy's able help, the way things went at school, they were amazed. Especially when I explained last week's conversation. "You might look at her and see a fourteen year old girl, but she's a much more mature package than any eighteen year old I know of. And a lot of women in their thirties, too, for that matter. But she's graduating high school this year with a full college scholarship."

Mike said, "Dayum!"

"And as of Monday, we are officially married. So that's the story. She knows about my first wife and daughter. She knows about the last girlfriend."

Tootie interrupted. "Cindy, did he tell you how that messed him up?"

"He told me about her. Said when she left, it messed him up bad."

Jerry filled in. "We worried that he was suicidal. He didn't come out for a week."

"Yeah," Tootie said. "It was pretty bad."

"Well," Cindy said, "He sort of rescued me. And I rescued him. And this is the way it's gonna be for us. Forever. I know enough about bad relationships. I watched Mom go through plenty of them, and every time she did, I made mental notes, you know, like, "You don't do that," and "You should do this," and "Couples should be like," and stuff like that."

Sheila asked, "But Cindy, you're so much younger. What about the things kids your age are doing?"

Cindy was in control. "Mizz Sheila ... I'm sorry, but what ARE kids my age doing? Like struggling in school? I'm not struggling. Experimenting with sex and drugs and relationships? I have a very permanent and very happy relationship with somebody who is my match, mentally, emotionally and" she shot me an obvious and theatrical wink, "physically. Bouncing around after every fashion and fad? I am learning what I want to learn. I listen to the music I like. I dress conservatively but well, and appropriately for the situation. Trying to find something that means something to them, or just not caring and going along with somebody else because they're not strong enough to choose on their own? I go to school and I listen and talk to them. I'm NOT that way, and bless 'em, they're who they are, but I'm not trying to be one of those. I get to choose my own path." She sighed. "I got to see all the "good boys" and "bad boys" in relationships. My Mom tried 'em all. I saw what sex meant as far as building a relationship, and that love and sex weren't the same thing, and sex without love was a downhill slide. I ... I was a virgin when I met Dan. I think love should come before sex, and if there's love, then it's NOT sex. I learned that there was a time to look at myself and see what I want. I found that out. And then Dan came along, and all he wanted to do was help me. He never acted like he wanted anything else besides just to help me get the best for myself. And you, know, it didn't take much for me to figure out that HE is the best for me."

The room was silent for Cindy to continue her soliloquy. "He showed me music that I heard and it gave wings to my soul. And darn it! He gave me wings, for real, with that ol' plane of ours. And I went to work and saw what he did and how much he loved it, and how people acted around him, and I want to be like that. And this college thing? Can I be an engineer by the time I'm nineteen? Dan thinks I can. So if Dan thinks so, then I think so. Because it's not just me and Dan. It's us." She turned to me. "Right, babe?"

"Right, love!"

And she kissed me.

Tootie said, "huh! Well I'm not going to say another damned thing! He's yours, and you're part of our family. Forever. HE can go. YOU stay."

Cindy rushed over and hugged Tootie.

Sheila the skeptic had a tear on her cheek. She elbowed Jerry in the ribs. "You old ass," she said, " I love YOU like that, too."

Mike said," Well, people, that gives us something to give thanks about. Wanna eat?"

The appearance of a turkey and a ham and a very workmanlike table had us all seated in anticipation. Mike, being the head of the house, delivered a blessing for Thanksgiving. The conversation around the table became a lot more relaxed. Cindy was quick-witted and acerbic in countering Jerry's jibes at me and her. She was gracious in comments about the food and afterward, helped clear up the mess.

"Hmmph!" said Sheila, "the men should be doing THIS part!"

Tootie said, "Well, they DO have an important football game to watch!" Three sets of hands made short work of tidying up and the ladies returned to the living room. In order to accommodate Sheila on the sofa beside Jerry, Cindy plopped her sweet round butt in my lap and wrapped her arms around my neck.

And kissed me. And said, "This is the best family thanksgiving dinner I've ever had. And the first one in five years. And nobody's drunk, and there hasn't been a fight. Thank you all. Especially Mike and Tootie for letting us in their house."

"Oh, no, babe," chided Mike. "You're family now. You're ALWAYS welcome here."

"Yeah," Jerry said. "You said for better or worse. This is the 'better'."

Sheila interjected, "Saturday ya'll need to come over to our house. We'll make cinnamon rolls."

"Yum!" Cindy said. She looked at me. "Babe, we're gonna need to ride bikes across Alabama to work all this off."

"Yeah," I said. "That's assuming we can get the plane off the ground to fly back."

We hung around watching football and laughing and talking. Dinner was another slice of pie. Well, TWO slices. One pecan, one lemon meringue.

Jerry and Sheila left right after the game was over, both of them hugging Cindy. Jerry's last comment out the door was, "Damn! Bro! She's a doll! Seriously." Sheila just said, "Sweetie, you take care of Dan. I can tell he loves you and you love him."

After they left, Tootie said, "So, Cindy, Dan tells me you play rummy. Ever try partners?"

"No," said Cindy. "Just me and him. I think I'm a little ahead."

"I think she cheats." I laughed.

"Mike, wanna play? Partners?" Tootie asked.

"Sure," said Mike.

"Now, watch, Cindy. Tootie's been cheating at cards since she could count. The only chance we have is that Mike's more honest than she is."

"I dunno," said Mike. "Twenny-two years. She mighta ruint me."

We lost. I figured we would, because playing partners requires a bit of a different mindset, and Tootie and Mike had been playing like that for years. It was our first try. But by the last round, we were getting the hang of it.

Finally it was time to go. They saw us to the door. Tootie said, "It's been quite a day, hasn't it."

"I'm sorry I upset things, Tootie," said Cindy.

"Oh, no, babe," said Tootie. "We had to find out sooner or later. This way we worked it all out at once. And I think Dan's got a wonderful wife. Heaven forbid, you're just like him when he was young."

Cindy looked at me.

"Yeah, he was different from other kids his age, too. You two belong together."

Mike said, "Come over tomorrow. We have left overs."

"And a rematch," Cindy said. "We'll call first, but we'll be here for dinner."

We were holding hands as we walked to the SUV. Cindy looked back over her shoulder and waved. We got in the SUV and drove off. "Well," she said, "that was interesting!"

"Yeah. Interesting is a good word. I thought they were going to tear me apart. You just came right out and said, "Yeah, I'm fourteen"?"

Giggle. "Yep. Tootie said, "You look younger than eighteen. How old are you, really?" And I said, "Fourteen." She smiled. "I can laugh now, but I thought I really messed things up with your family."

"You're my family now, cutie!" I said. "And they'd have eventually come around. But I'm glad the truth is out." But when I walked in the kitchen, you were smiling."

"Because you should've seen the look on her face!"

"Yeah, I bet ... Glad it's over, though."

"Hmm. Me too, babe," she said. "Now we can relax around them."

"And that was quite a speech you gave. You had Sheila crying."

"It was the truth. All the truth. You know that. And you did pretty good yourself. Except for the part where we've been sleeping together for two months before we even knew we COULD get married."

"Yeah. I figured that one little detail didn't need to be focused on. Let 'em think what they want. We don't have to advertise."

"Yeah, no sense in rubbing their noses in it." She laughed. "You should have seen the looks, though."

"I bet! I was worried, though, for a while. But everybody accepted it. They might go home and think about it, but I think we're over the hurdle."

"Dan, I didn't want you to have to choose."

"I know, baby. We shouldn't have to choose, but I would have chosen you. Any day." She reached across the console and took my hand. I squeezed. Five minutes later we were in our house.

She walked into the house, straight back to the bedroom, and started undressing.

"Did anybody say anything about green shirts and red hair."

"Yeah. Sheila. Said she'd die for my hair. And eyes."

"I figured you wouldn't go unnoticed with that look."

"It's not a look, babe. It's just YOUR Cindy." She stepped into my arms. "Get this stupid bra off me."

I reached around her back and unhooked the two hooks, freeing her perfect titties. Then I lightly scratched her back, something she doted on. "Mmmmm," she purred as she started unbuttoning my shirt. She ran her fingers over my chest, through my hair. "You know, I like this. I saw those young guys at the pool, and bare chests creep me out."

"I'm glad to hear that. It's pretty much the way things are."

"That's what I mean, babe. You say that I click with you. Well, you click with me, too." And she put her mouth over my left nipple, sucking, then biting. Hard. And her hand reached down to feel the growing bulge in my pants. "Tee-hee," she giggled, "I know how YOU work, and I love it!" She unbuckled her belt and slid her pants down her legs. "Uh, I'm gonna be naked, and you still have clothes on!"

I dropped my own pants. She flipped the covers back on the bed and knelt in the middle of it, smiling, her back arched slightly, thrusting out her chest. Her nipples were perky and hard and perfect. As I crawled into the middle of the bed to meet her, her arms wrapped around me and she fell back, dragging me between her open legs, her pelvis mobile, searching. I entered her indescribable warmth and we made love, softly, her fingers digging into my back as she came. I rolled over onto my back, bringing her on top of me, my dick softening inside her.

"You're every erotic dream I've ever had, red-head," I said.

"Mmmm-hmmm," she purred. "And you're everything I ever imagined love to be." She kissed me, moving up to put her face nose to nose with mine. This meant my dick popped out of her, sopping and soft. "Mmmm, lover, we need to do something about that or there's gonna be a mess."

"I know," I said. "I can feel it." I looked at her smile.

"D'ya know how much I like the way we taste together?"

"As much as I do," I said. And we licked one another clean. Ten minutes later she was recovering from another orgasm and I was happily cradling her in my arms.

The remainder of the extended weekend was happy and uneventful. Thankfully. Too much good food. Not nearly enough time with family. But on Sunday morning, Cindy and I shut the house up, giving it a once-over. I hooked up the battery charger to the SUV and Tootie picked us up to deliver us to the airfield.

I let Cindy do most of the flying. Once off the ground, we set our course for the middle of Alabama.

"You know," she said, "I really had a good time. I love our family."

I noted the use of "our". "Uh... 'our' family? Sometimes I don't want 'em to be MY family, and you've gone and adopted the whole crazy bunch."

"Sometimes people aren't really neat and packaged like we want. But you love 'em, don't you?"

"Yeah, I do. And I love 'em even more since they met you and we got all this out in the open and they still accept me."

"And me." She adjusted engine settings and trimmed up the plane at cruising altitude.

"I never figured they'd reject YOU," I said. "As far as they know, you're an innocent little fourteen year old girl and I'm the child molester."

She giggled into her mike. "And we know who molested who, huh!?!"

"Yeah, but I was pretty easy to molest."

"Just what I wanted." She turned to me and smiled. "And," giggle. "So did you!"

I was unbuckling my harness.

"What are you doing?" she gasped.

"My version of the Mile-High Club." I unbuttoned her shirt and placed my lips on a pliant mound and sucked.

"Aaaah. Dan!"

"Kinda does things to your concentration, doesn't it."

"And you think that just because we're even, that means it's over?"

I laughed, buckling back in and watching our flight path as she buttoned her blouse back up. I pulled my headset back on. "I hope we're never over."

She turned to me, a serious look in her eyes. "Dan, I will NEVER be over you, babe!"

"Good! Tootie told you how messed up I was when Leona left. If you left, I'd never recover."

"I know, Dan. I can see it in the way you look at me. And I'm the same way about you."

And we flew onward, talking over the conversations we'd had over the last five days.

"You gotta know that I like the whole bunch. I never got a chance to spend much time around normal people. You and Mizz Helen, and the guys you work with, it's just nice to see people acting normal and responsible and decent."

"I'm glad you liked it. Wanna go back for Christmas?"

"Oh, yeah," she said. "We can load this thing up with presents."

"Yeah, we'll be a regular Santa's sleigh."

Two hours later we were letting down for landing. I talked Cindy through the traffic pattern and we set up on final. She followed me along on the controls for landing. We taxied up to the fueling station and topped off the tanks, then taxied back to the hangar, opened the doors and swapped the location of the pickup truck with the plane. We locked up and went home.

We drove into the park and I noted several spots occupied. The snowbird season was in progress.

I was hustling our bags and Cindy unlocked the door and held it open for me while she called Tootie and reported, "We cheated death yet again!" laughing.

She stepped into the trailer and said, "You know, we're going to really miss that big shower."

"Uh-huh," I answered. "I could get used to having my back scrubbed."

She giggled. "And your front, too, I bet." She paused. "Wanna take a couple of laps around the park? We got a lot of food to work off."

"Sure," I said. We locked the door behind us and began pedaling around the park. A lap around the park was less than half a mile and we did several of them, Cindy beside me, our pace leisurely enough to carry on a conversation. The air was pleasantly cool until the shadows lengthened at sunset. We returned to the trailer and went inside.