Wednesday I pulled Hardesty's business card out and punched the phone number into my cellphone. Ring. Ring. "South End Middle School. Hardesty speaking."

"Jim Hardesty? This is Dan Richards, Cindy's, uh, tutor, I guess..."

"Oh, hello, Dan," he said. "I'm sorry I haven't put that information together for ya'll yet..."

"Thanks, Jim, but that wasn't why I was calling. Can you do me a favor?"

"Sure. I'll try. Whatcha got?"

"Tuesday we said that Cindy's schedule might be flexible. Can you see if I can pull her out of school Friday? I'm wanting to bring her out to the job and let her see a real project in progress."

"Oh. For little Miss I Wanna Be An Engineer? Shouldn't be a problem. I'll call you back."

"Thanks, Jim," I said.

"Not a problem, Dan. Hey! I was serious. It's barbecue an' beer season. You can come over for supper. Give me a call."

"I haven't forgotten. I'll do that. Talk to you later.

Forty-five minutes later I was standing in front of a transformer, pointing at a detail for the electrical foreman and my cellphone went off. I flipped it open. "Hey Jim. Whatcha got?"

Hardesty said, "I checked with Cindy's teachers. They sounded relieved that she'll be out on Friday."

"Hey, thanks," I said. "I'll give you a call next week about dinner."

"'Kay, bud," He said. My phone clicked. I returned to my conversation about the job. The foreman understood what we needed, and I headed back across the plant to the trailer that housed my office.

"Hey, Dan," said Sara. She was our secretary/administrator/receptionist/gal Friday.

"Hey, Sara. I'm bringin' company with me Friday."

"Oh, yeah? Who?"

"Fourteen year old genius named Cindy. Lives at the RV park where I stay. Wants to be an engineer."

Laughter. "Yeah. Show her what you do out here. She'll change that to ballet!"

I'd already taken care of details like clearing the visit with the superintendent and the safety guy, so I was on good ground for Cindy's visit. I spent the rest of my day at my desk with a red pencil, marking up changes and additions to installation drawings. Four o'clock, and I was out the door.

Entering the park, I stopped at the front office. As usual, Helen was being entertained by Cindy.

"Hello, Helen, hello, little green-eyed girl," I said to them. "Cindy, you're gonna hate me."

"Why?"

"'Cuz I called your school today and got you out of class Friday so you can go to work with me."

Squeal. Bounce. Hug. And a kiss of the variety one might expect between friends when one does the other a favor. "Really?"

"Yep," I said. "I already cleared it with safety an' with the boss. Let's go get you some work shoes. We can eat while we're out."

Helen said, "Dan, you're spoiling her."

"Nah," I said. "It's nice to have a buddy. I just have to figure out how I can explain her off when we go to visit the Hardesty's next week."

"My counselor?"

"Yeah. Ex-marine."

Helen laughed. "You need to go, Cindy. You'll get to see 'em gruntin' an' crawlin' in the dirt an' stuff."

"Oh, come on, Helen. I was an engineer an' he was a pilot. Neither of us grunt much."

She was chuckling as Cindy and I loaded up in the truck. An hour later we were in possession of a sturdy pair of girl-sized work shoes, for which I had to tip my hat to equality in the workplace. And we were at dinner at one of those country diners that always seem to provide decent food for cheap. The ride home was conversation while she shuffled through my CD selections, then, "Nah ... We can talk some more."

"I'm just about talked out. You talk."

"Yah remember me talkin' about Miss My Daddy's a Lawyer?"

"Yeah. You didn't punch her or somethin'?"

"Oh, no. We're zero tolerance. They'd call Mizz Helen." She continued, "But let me tell you ... I was finished with the math. Took me five minutes to do those problems the teacher gave me. So I was reading. And the teacher was going around helping kids that were having trouble. And she told ME to go help the first row. An' that's Miss My Daddy's a Lawyer, sitting up front, center."

"And you're telling me that you helped her?"

Yeah. And she thanked me."

"Good. You usually have a choice with how to deal with people. Sometimes they choose to make it unpleasant, and that puts a whole new set of problems in front of you, but if THEY don't make that choice, then YOU choose to make it as pleasant as possible."

"Yeah. I see you doin' that all the time. Now that I know what to look for. And another thing. Nobody's making fun of my clothes any more. You an' Mizz Helen fixed that for me. Andddd..." She emphasized the "d", "I am trying to speak more properly."

"I can tell," I said. " But remember, language is important to people, and if you sound like you're putting on a show or trying to show people up, well, that can bring difficulties. I'm not saying you have to talk like you just fell off a pulpwood truck, but care about the people you're speaking with."

"Okay. But thanks for noticing."

"No, thank YOU for trying." And it was these little steps that made me think that my Cindy was going to grow into a spectacular human being.

We walked into the trailer and went about the evening routine of bathing and hair care and shaving and she pulled a nightshirt over her head, then turned to me and said, "You know, we could go to bed early..." And we did.

Afterward, we lay in each other's arms, listening to soft music.

"You know," she said, "I've been reading some extra books for history."

"No, I didn't know that. That's good, though."

"About customs andddd stuff with the pioneers when the country was young."

"Yeah?"

"Well, you know, it's funny, but back then if a girl was having periods, they thought she was old enough to get married, because she was old enough to have babies."

"You need to think about something, though," I said.

"What's that?"

"Girls didn't go through puberty as young as they do now."

"Oh. But still, that was one thing. Another thing was that people didn't have to go in front of a preacher or a judge because sometimes there wasn't one around, so they'd just announce they were married in front of their friends and neighbors and that was it."

"Uh-huh," I said. "And they'd write the date in the family Bible."

"So why can't we do that?"

"Because as soon as I announced I was married to a fourteen year old girl, I'd be ol' Bubba's boy toy in an Alabama State Prison, and now, Mizz Helen would be in trouble too."

"I mean, we can say it to each other. There'll be a real wedding when the time comes, right?"

"Yes, so I guess I can say I, Daniel Paul Richards, take you, Cynthia Susan Smith, to be my wife, the keeper of my love and my soul, until the end of days."

The green eyes got VERY serious. "And I, Cynthia Susan Smith, take you, Daniel Paul Richards, to be my husband, my happiness, my help, my friend, my love, until the stars wink out in the skies."

That is serious stuff. And that glorious night, to the strains of Boccherini, as my eyes closed to the even sounds of her sleeping breath, I knew somehow that it would be forever.

Thursday was a pretty standard day. The alarm went off, waking us both. We cuddled, caressed, fondled, then got out of bed, stretched the covers over it, and went about our morning routines, ending up at the dinette, dressed, a bowl of cereal and a mug of coffee in front of each of us. I kissed her before I headed out the door, leaving her to wait for her bus.

It was just another day on the job for me. Nothing came up that we didn't already have a handle on, and I spent the last hour of the day walking out the key parts of the project, seeing what I could bring Cindy to see. After work, back to the RV park. When I got there, Helen's van was absent. So were Helen and Cindy. The park's utility guy was in the office. I knew him, too.

"Hey, Steve," I said. "Where's Helen?"

"Hi, Dan. She took her girl Cindy to a beauty shop. Said they'd be back about five."

"Oh, okay," I answered. "Any mail there for me? Helen usually stacks it on her desk."

"I didn't see any," replied Steve. "It's almost five now. They should be showin' back up any time."

"Yeah, you're right. See you later, Steve. Be careful!" and I left for my trailer. Jim was right. No sooner than I'd exited the truck, I saw Helen's minivan driving in the front entrance. So now I was wondering what Helen and the "beauty shop" might have done to the perfection that was my Cindy.

Helen drove right past the office and pulled in behind my truck. Cindy bounced out one side of the van and Helen the other.

"You like my hair, Dan?" she was grinning, and her hair was still the color of a pocket-worn penny, now just a little shy of her jawline.

"It's shorter. That's all I can see. And definitely cute. Am I missing something?"

Helen said, "Those women at the beauty shop wanted to do ALL kinds of stuff to her, but she put her foot down and said to just trim the bangs and cut an inch off the bottom." She laughed. "Told 'em that's the way her boyfriend liked it."

Cindy grinned at me, eyes twinkling.

"She's right," I said. "You got any homework?"

"No," Cindy chirped. "All my teachers know I'm doin' a field trip with you tomorrow and I'm pretty much caught up with anything they have."

"You're past 'caught up', you know."

"Yeah, but my history and language teachers don't want to give up yet. Science and math, they gave up." She laughed.

Helen laughed, too. "Just remember, you two, we have dinner with the judge tomorrow evening."

"Yes, ma'am, I remember," I said. "We'll have plenty of time to be ready after work tomorrow."

Cindy and I walked out. "Is it too late for a swim?" she asked.

"No, we can do that."

"Good. Let's go!"

Zip to the trailer, change into swimsuits, an act that involved getting naked and subsequent groping and giggling, and we were back out the door carrying towels and headed to the pool. This little walk as a pleasant part of the day, and a few laps in the pool were an excellent way to drop stress. Of course, seeing Cindy matching me in my swimming pace, (thank God she didn't wear that bikini!) induced a whole different set of tensions. She knew it, and giggled about it, although in broad daylight, even though we had the pool to ourselves, her responses were limited to quick furtive touches and knowing grins.

"You know," she said, "this is the last weekend that the pool is open, huh?"

"Yeah, I think I saw a notice on the office bulletin board."

"Yeah," said Cindy, "Mizz Helen closes it the first weekend in October. So Sunday's our last chance to swim here."

"Yeah. We'll have to find another way to exercise."

Cool eyes. Wet bangs plastered to her forehead. And a decidedly lustful grin. "I can think of a few."

"Me too. But besides that. You don't have a bicycle?"

"Me? No."

"You've ridden a bicycle, huh?"

"Of course."

"I have a bike. You need one? We could ride together."

"Where do you have a bike? I've never seen it."

"In the storage locker. Up the road."

"You have a storage locker?"

"Yeah, baby. I can't keep EVERYTHING in that trailer. It's stuff I didn't leave back home because I knew I'd need it. I have a bike. Some camping gear. Cold weather clothes. That kind of stuff."

"Camping gear?"

"Yeah. Why?"

"Like in 'spendin' the night in the woods' campin'?"

"Or on the beach. Or in the desert."

She giggled. "Uh, this is Alabama. We got woods. We even got beaches. We don't have deserts."

"Oh, dear girl, there IS life outside Alabama. If you think you saw stars the other night when we looked at the sky, let's do that again in a high desert."

"If I'm with you, I can add my own stars." She smiled.

"Well, there are a couple of tents in there."

"A couple? Why a couple?" she asked.

I have one tent for wintertime, when I need a little more weather protection, and then I have my other tent, for the summer, and it has just screen, to keep bugs out so I can see the stars."

"And what do you sleep on? The ground?"

"Nope. Big air mattress."

She looked thoughtful for a few seconds. "How big's your sleeping bag?"

It was my turn to smile. "I guess I need one a little bigger than the two I have, huh?"

"Yeah, that'd be nice, don't you think?" and she smiled sweetly.

We stepped into our trailer and did quick showers. More fondling. Irresistible. As she finished drying her hair, she spoke up. "That place we went Monday? Can we go there?"

"Sure," I said. "They have an interesting menu." And a half hour alter we were seated across from each other at a neat little table being attended to by a genteel lady who was one of the owners. We settled on choices based on her recommendations and were not a bit disappointed.

We returned home. All that was left to do was to be happy with each other, and that was as relentless as gravity. Cindy's pre-bed routine was charming and more erotic than even the hormone-surge fantasies I had as a teen, when sex was the be-all and end-all to existence.

She stripped her jeans and blouse, neatly hanging the clothing for the next day. The panties came off. The bra, yes, she wore a bra over those A-cups, otherwise the nipples would have men leering everywhere she went, she'd turn to me to unhook that bra, pressing forward against me so I had to reach my arms around her back, and that always ended up in a hug.

Tonight was one of the nights where she put nimble fingers to work unbuttoning my shirt, then unbuckling my belt and unbuttoning my trousers. Then the sound of a zipper ... And she sat on the end of the bed, totally, lusciously naked and started peeling off my unfastened clothes. As I kicked out of my trousers at my feet, she tugged me onto the bed beside her. The clothes could wait. Cindy and I didn't. Love-making, it was. Tender, yes, but hot, too, as we explored each other, lavishing love with mouth, fingers, and yes, it ended in a penetration that could only be characterized as a mating.

Sated, I turned out the lights and turned on music, Mozart ... and with Cindy in my arms we drifted off into dreamland.

Six AM. The alarm came on, and we both stirred simultaneously, rolling face to face for the kiss that started our days. Neither of us wore underpants and she wiggled her pubic mound, its wispy down rubbing against morning wood. Her leg went over mine and she pushed me over on my back and straddled me.

"Don't think we're going all the way with this," she giggled. "I'm just stretchin'..." And her hips lifted and she slid me inside her. I loved the way she could treat intimacy as such joyous mirth. She rode me for a few strokes and then hopped off. "Come on. Get dressed. We have a job to go to."

I stood up beside the bed, laughing, my dick stuck out hard in front of me. "It's a horrible person who would get her partner this aroused and not finish the job."

"Oh, I plan on finishin' babe," she laughed, "but just not right now. I just wanted you to have THAT in your head all day today. And for dinner tonight. And THEN we'll finish." She was buttoning a denim workshirt as she received a kiss from me.

Ten minutes later we were out the door headed for the breakfast joint, me in my standard canvas work pants and denim shirt, Cindy a shorter, definitely female version. We walked into the diner for breakfast and I recognized some of my co-workers and said hi. Cindy and I sat in a booth and had breakfast. We were nearing the end of good country breakfast fare when I looked up at one of the guys, another engineer. "Hi, Fred," I said. "Meet Cindy."

Cindy looked up. "Hi, Mr. Fred!" she said brightly.

"Hi, Cindy. Are you the one Dan's bringing to work today?"

"Yessir. It's my reward for good math grades."

"Yeah," I said, looking at Fred. "That's a ripoff. Eight-grade math to this child is like swattin' flies with a sledgehammer."

"Ewwwww! That's a horrible picture!" exclaimed Cindy.

"Oh yeah," laughed Fred. "Ol' Dan's got a way with words." He tapped the table. "See ya'll out there in a bit. Nice meetin' yah, Cindy!"

"Bye," she said. He was turning to head out the door. We finished our breakfast and coffee and then headed towards the job.

First stop was the security guard. He saw my truck, started to wave me through, then saw Cindy. I stopped and he took her name, carefully writing it on his clipboard.

I told Cindy, "that's so if the place burns up, they'll know how many piles of ashes to make..."

"Really?" she asked, wide-eyed.

"Kinda-sorta ... except for the blowing up and ashes part. At the end of the day, the number of people coming in has to equal the number of people going out."

"Oooohhhh!" She stared out the window at what was an alien environment to her. To me it was home away from home. I pulled my truck into a parking space with my name on a sign. This impressed her. "You get your own parkin' spot?"

"Yeah. That's so they'll know which tires to slash..."

"You're jokin', right?" After I'd gotten her with the "piles of ashes" comment, she was going to be wary.

"Yeah..."

We walked into the trailer that was the job's central office. That's where Cindy met Sara, the office administrator. Sara was her normal self, acerbic, not bad looking for mid-thirties mother of two, a little on the plump side, blue-eyed, blonde (this week), jeans and a blouse, sitting behind her desk, queen of the project. "Mornin, Dan," she said. "Is this your visitor today?"

I introduced her and Cindy to each other, then Cindy and I visited the project's safety guy for a hard hat and safety glasses so she could go out into the work areas. As we were leaving the trailer, Sara called out, "Dan, be nice to her out there ... you know how you are!"

Cindy was impressed again. As one of the key engineers, I had a golfcart at my disposal to save time getting around. I couldn't help but notice heads turning. Cindy in a hardhat. Maybe there was some kind of construction site fetish that had to do with short red hair curling out from under the edges of a hardhat. And the jeans, well, Cindy did jeans very well. Her hips were young but swelling into delights and seeing them framed in blue denim, well, there IS poetry in that motion. Her workshirt was just a little loose, so every motion of her torso was a peek-a-boo for one or both of those breasts to press against the cloth. Careful hiding is sometimes better than full exposure. Maybe it was me, but this was pure and inadvertent tease here.

As we drove through the site, Cindy's head swiveled from side to side as I gave a running guided tour. We stopped at various parts of the job, walked inside buildings, I pointed out equipment and talked about it in simple terms. I showed her some of the guys working. Watched her completely melt down one of my millwrights with a couple of smiles as he showed her what he was doing and she asked questions. We rode the elevator to the top of the huge boiler structure and I showed her the site from our vantage point ten stories above ground.

She was enthralled. "This is like the most hugest playground in the world," she said.

"Yeah. But every bit of it is from the minds of engineers somewhere. Nothing 'just happens'. It's a puzzle with a million pieces. And you've got to know what pieces are yours and how to make sure they fit with all the others. That's what I have to do: make sure my pieces fit and work when the time comes to start this puppy up."

"Wow..."

Nearing lunchtime we went back to the trailer. Walking in, Sara caught us. "So Cindy, you ready to take up ballet now?"

Cindy smiled. "Nuh-uh! I want to make MY part of this thing work."

Sara fixed me in her eye. "Well, Dan, you've gone an' ruint her."

"I know," I said. "It's my personal grace an' charm that does it." I paused. "We're goin' out for lunch. Wanna come along?" This got me a little off-kilter glance from Cindy.

"Nah, thanks anyway," Sara answered. "I got diet stuff in the fridge. But thanks for askin', anyway. Take Cindy someplace nice, not that greasy spoon ya'll usually go to..."

Cindy and I walked to my truck. I got stopped twice to answer questions about work. I think one of those stops was just so the guy could get another look at Cindy. I don't if Cindy noticed that, but I did.

We got into the truck and waved at the gate guard on the way out. "So tell me," said Cindy. "You an' Sara?"

"No way, babe," I said.

Cindy pushed the question. "'Cuz she's a little bit plump?"

"Oh, no, she's cute enough in her own way, and she's smart enough, but there are three things right up front."

"Three things? Like what?"

"Like two kids and a husband that would cave my head in with a big wrench if I messed with Sara."

"You've met him?"

"Oh yeah. He's runnin' a couple of our crews out there. Nice guy."

"So you thought about it?" I could feel her eyes even though I couldn't see them. I was focusing on the road while I was driving.

"Nope. Just a nice lady who does a very good job under difficult circumstances and who keeps us all happy. Well, as happy as you can get on one of these projects." I continued, "I didn't come out here to pick up women."

"I know," Cindy said. "Me and Mizz Helen sort of watched you come and go for a while. You didn't run around and you didn't bring women to the park." She smiled. "But you dodged my mom and picked ME up!"

"Uh, nay, little darlin', YOU snuck in under my radar. If a year ago somebody'd have told me that I'd fall in love with a thirteen year old girl, I'd have told 'em they were crazy. I wasn't looking, and YOU showed up anyway."

One of the nice things about being a senior engineer was being able to beat the crowds out the gate to lunch, so when we pulled into the diner it was still relatively early and the place was easy to get into. We got a booth and ordered two plate lunches. Cindy regarded her plate of "a meat, two vegetables, mashed potatoes and gravy".

"Purina construction chow," I said. She giggled. "Seriously. I've been eating lunch like this for what, two and a half months now?"

As we ate, we watched the place fill up. A couple of our co-workers took advantage of the empty seats in our booth to slide in with us. Cindy slid way over into the corner leaving a noticeable gap between her and the technician sitting next to her.

"What? I'm not gonna bite," he said, laughing.

"I don't think she's worried about you biting, Phil," I said. "She doesn't want the smell to rub off."

"Heeyyyyy!" he laughed, "I took a mid-week bath this week!"

We finished and they scooted out of the way so we could leave. Back at the job, I showed Cindy my workstation computer. She was impressed by the huge monitor. "I need that," I said. See these?" I picked up a sheaf of 11x17 inch papers. "These are the drawings we have to use to build this place. I need to work on them on the computer and it gets very difficult if I can't do that on a full-sized image."

She was looking around. "This place is filled with paper," came the comment.

"Yeah, sometimes I think the weight of the paper is equal to the weight of all the iron in the project." It was my turn to sigh. "The drawings aren't bad." Then I showed her equipment lists and wiring schedules and other esoterica. "Stare at one of these for a day an' you'll want to run off screamin' into the woods."

From the open door, Sara interjected, "Yeah, sometimes he turns off his light an' closes the door an' weeps softly."

Cindy answered, "You could bring 'im a coke and pat 'im on the head."

Sara laughed, "Nuh-uh, baby. I don't even make these guys coffee. They can get their own stinkin' cokes."

"Y'see," I laughed. "No wonder I go home at night an' cry ... I work with impossible people!"

Sara wheeled her chair away from her desk so she could look into my office. "I try to not make 'im cry unless he needs to. Sometimes he needs to." She laughed. "Paperwork IS the job to some people. Like me. I don't care what goes on out there, but if I don't have receipts to match the bills, SOMEBODY'S in trouble."

I looked at Cindy. "Okay, so I lose a receipt every now and then..."

The rest of the day was more touring. She shadowed me round like a puppy, and like a cute puppy, every place we went, work stopped so guys could just get close enough to see her.

Finally our day was close enough to quitting time that I could justify leaving. I stopped into the office trailer. "Sara," I said. "I'm gonna take Cindy home now."

Sara smiled. "Sweetie," she said to Cindy, "you really oughtta think about that ballerina thing."

"Nah," said Cindy. "My legs are all wrong for it."

Sara laughed. "Okay, Cindy. It was fun having you in here. Get Mister Dan to bring you back, okay?"

I got a couple more stops before we made it to the truck. One the guys said, "Dan, she's an impediment to productivity. Everywhere she goes, work comes to a standsill."

"I know. We noticed."

We drove out. "So what'd you think? Engineer? Or ballerina?"

"I could be like Mizz Sara an' just make your life miserable."

"I'll be sure to tell her that she made an impression on your young mind." We both laughed.

"Uh, engineer, Dan. Definitely engineer." She let out a sigh. "Like you. I wanna be like you. And WITH you."

"I love you, Cindy," I said. What else could I have said?

"I love you too, Dan. Forever."

She was humming on the ride home, lost in thought.

"Baby," I said. "How about a quick swim, then we get dressed for dinner?"

"Mmmmm. Sounds perfect!" she said.

We stopped by the RV park office and chatted briefly with Helen. I got directions to the judge's house.

"And how'd your visit go, baby?" Helen asked Cindy.

"It was wonderful," Cindy answered. "I saw so much stuff. It's interesting. So much to learn."

Helen smiled.