Thursday morning. Up. Dressed. Out the door. In the door of the little restaurant. Cashier saw us walk in. "Hi, Cindy! Dan! Get yourselves a table!"

We saw Bill Carmody at about the same time he spotted us. He waved. We joined him.

"Hi, Mister Bill," Cindy piped.

"Hello, sweet thing," Bill said. "Hi, Dan. Kinda nasty this morning, ain't it."

I laughed. "Another day in paradise," I said. "But it'll move through today."

Cindy was smiling, a fact noted by Bill. "Tomorrow ya'll're going where? Charlotte?"

"Yessir," Cindy answered. "He's getting me out of school at eleven. Should get to Charlotte before dark."

"Hotel reservations. Rental car. Concert tickets. And if the weather holds, we'll be back Sunday. But it's kind of shaky for Sunday."

"Heard that," Bill said. "You're scheduled to roll Number Two on Tuesday, right?"

"I'll be back for that. My techs are monitoring the temperatures on the generator, and your mechanical folks are taking care of the turbine. I'll be on the cell phone," I said.

"Yeah, that's good! Your stuff hasn't been a problem. Yet."

"That's why I get the medium bucks," I laughed.

We enjoyed breakfast, greeting several other project guys as they showed up for breakfast. Bill finished while Cindy and I were still eating and he grabbed the ticket. "We talked business, didn't we, Cindy?" he laughed.

"Yessir. Thank you." She gave him her best smile.

I dropped Cindy off at the park to catch her bus and I went on to work. I caught Sara getting out of her car. She rode to the office trailers with me in my golf cart.

"Darn!" she said. "It's NASTY!" The open cart did little to mitigate the raw blowing drizzle and the chill. Fortunately an early bird buddy had the coffee pot going when we walked in. We had an informal progress meeting, I made a visit to some of the critical places in my world, and then got back to the office, like many of the workers, trying NOT to be out in the nasty weather.

The wind changed at lunchtime and by four o'clock the low clouds were gone, replaced by high overcast, and it was breaking up.

I got back to the park and walked into the office to find Cindy, Helen and Charlie chatting.

"How's the project?" Charlie asked.

"We're going to spin the second one next week," I answered. "Already made electricity with the first."

"Gettin' close to finishin', sure enough," he said.

"Yessir. Getting there."

Our girl's excited about the concert," Helen said. "She played us one of the selections."

"I'm excited too," I said. "It's a favorite of mine. And this group is supposed to be very good."

"You know," Charlie said, "One a' these times, Helen and I will join you two in Mobile for one. Gives us an excuse to dress up and act civilized."

I considered that. I'd NEVER seen Charlie look less than civilized. Not Helen, but hers came from a personal presence that showed through the veneer of checked shirt and baggy jeans. "That's us, ' I said. "I get to put on a suit, and you KNOW what Cindy looks like when she dresses."

"Oh, yes," Charlie said. He smiled at Cindy. "Dan's right. You're quite the beauty."

"Ya'll MAKE me blush, ' she said. She was blushing. And beautiful.

She and I finally left, dropped her backpack at the trailer, and then puttered up the road for a soup and salad meal with our dear lady friends. After the meal, we sat for a while chatting with them over herb tea and cheesecake.

Back at the trailer, it was packing time. Cindy flipped open her laptop and opened a checklist, calling out each item as I collected and packed it.

"Green dress, green sweater," she giggled. "I know what makes MY baby happy! And pack your blue underwear. That makes ME happy!"

"What?" I asked.

"I like 'em," she giggled. "When I know you have 'em on, I think about, you know..."

"Why didn't you say something? I'd've bought more."

"Not the same. Like eating too much chocolate kills the effect. But a taste..." She was smiling enigmatically when I turned to look at her.

This was the first time she'd said something about a turn-on. My cutie and I had an active and joyful sex life together. She had a lot of favorite activities, favorite positions for her moods, and her body telegraphed her desires quite nicely, but this was the first time that she'd said that she desired a particular bit of clothing over what we regularly wore. Damn straight those blue drawers went into the bag. "That's a new one, baby. You never said anything before."

Green eyes. Twinkling. "Wear those Saturday night. I'll KNOW you have 'em on under that respectable grey suit. Beautiful music. Great dinner. And the whole time I'll know that you're doing something a little bit special, just for me!" She grinned.

"Oh, little doll," I said. "Since August I've lived my whole life just for you."

"That goes both ways, you know," she said. "But it's like my green dress. I know that you LOVE that color on me, so I kinda make sure that it shows up from time to time. Just so you know, guy."

"You charm me, little one!"

She abandoned her laptop and strode the short distance up the trailer's little aisle to engage me in a few hugs and kisses and some happy fondling.

"Pack enough so we're covered for Monday," she said.

"I got mine," I answered. She handed me another pair of her jeans and a sweatshirt.

And a pair of powder-blue panties. "D'ya still break out in a sweat?" she giggled.

"Oh, yeah," I answered. "You looked so perfectly innocent and so unbearably cute and..." I described the first time she'd worn a skirt to go out to eat with me.

"I WAS innocent," she said. "That was unpremeditated. But when I saw your FACE ... I mean, I hadn't even thought of how I might affect you. You were this nice older guy. An' I was just a young girl who enjoyed having a friend." She leaned over to kiss me full on the lips as she handed me her socks to pack.

"But the look on your face ... You made me feel ... well, you know what happened."

I knew exactly what happened. After that night I thought I was going to hell by way of an Alabama prison. "I know, baby. You were impossible. Now I've found myself living a dream I didn't even dare to entertain."

She hopped up on the edge of the bed and spread her arms. I stepped between them to kiss her upturned face. "I still love you, Dan! And it's a long way to forever."

"Yes, forever, angel," I said, kissing her again. We finished out the packing and stowed the suitcase and our two travel bags. It was time for showers.

She stepped out of the bathroom, mussing her hair with a towel. I handed her nightshirt to her and she pulled it over her head before she started her hair dryer.

I stripped and stepped into the shower. Fifteen minutes later I was shaving. I finished.

"Aftershave!" she shouted at me.

"Okay, sweetie," I said.

I stepped out to pull on my own nightshirt. As I pulled it over my head, temporarily blinding myself, I heard a giggle and felt a warm hand curl under my balls.

"Love playin' with 'em," she said.

We curled up on the sofa, her in my arms, leaning back against me, the two of us covered with a blanket against the chill winter temperatures, flipping through the TV channels to find something to watch. Ended up on a nature show.

I turned my eyes downward to regard the perfect head of copper-colored hair leaning against my chest. I planted a slow, savoring kiss to the top of her head and she responded by nestling back deeper into my arms.

"Mmmmmm, this is the perfect way to spend a winter night, Dan."

I admitted that it was perfect.

At nine we turned the television off and retired to the bed. "Leave the little light on," she said.

I knew exactly the significance of that instruction. She crawled up onto the bed from the foot, looking over her shoulder at me, short hair swaying seductively, her eyes happy, expectant. I crawled in behind her and she rolled onto her back, drawing me down onto her with her clasping arms. Our mouths merged. I breathed Cindy.

"You make me tingle, guy," she said.

"Yeah? What do you think you make ME do?"

She slid a hand between our bodies. "I KNOW exactly what I make YOU do. And I LIKE it!"

Yes, seven months into the relationship and the closest I ever came to initiating sex was to lightly caress and fondle her. Many an evening we'd slide under the blankets together and our legs would tangle and we'd pull together, and a little hand would start stroking me. And off we would go.

Tonight was one of her more emphatic variations, portending a furious and tasty bout of sixty-nine, leaving us both drained, the score at Cindy - 3, Dan – 1, and her laying atop me, her nose touching mine, smiling. I loved her atop me. Our breathing normalized and then synchronized.

She kissed me and slid off, turning her back to me and shoving her butt against me. I turned toward her and we spooned up, her hand tugging my arm tight around her. And we slept.

The alarm clock broke our reverie and we hit the floor running. Our plan, premeditated, was to leave the trailer this morning and not return until our weekend was over. We dressed. I started the truck to warm it when I got dressed, and I started loading bags. By the time we'd secured the trailer for the weekend, it was just beginning to warm up in the below freezing temperature.

We did breakfast, missing Bill. Some mornings he stayed in his apartment and had breakfast there. We waved and chatted at a few of the other guys who passed through, and I dropped Cindy off back at the park to catch her school bus. I went to the jobsite.

I made the grand tour of my critical equipment, chatted with my lead technician and the electrical foreman and the new owner's electrical engineer and made sure we all knew what the schedule was going to be for the next few days.

I stopped back in the office, prodded Sara to make sure that none of MY paperwork was nearing the 'critical' mark on her works in progress. I sat at my desk and ran through the email one more time to make sure that I hadn't missed anything, and then I stuck my head in Bill's office.

"Hey, boss! Anything else before I escape?"

"Nope!" he said. "Just take off and have a good time. Take good care of our girl."

...

Bill had grandkids Cindy's age. We'd talked about it before. The guy could've run me off, made my life hell, forced me to quit, had he taken a mind to do so when he found out about Cindy and me getting married, but he didn't. He just shook his head. We went to lunch, talked a bit.

"Dan, it's not my place to get into your personal life, you know..."

"I know, Bill. This is what? Our third project together? You're more my friend than my boss."

"I feel the same way. You're like a son, if not a younger brother. But you INTRODUCED us all to Cindy. Dan, she's awfully young." He sighed heavily. "I have a grandson and a granddaughter, like, HER age."

"I understand, Bill. But I MARRIED Cindy. She's special in a lot of ways and I was never less than completely honorable about her. She's not my toy, Bill. She's my partner. Young. Looks strange, maybe even wrong, to a lot of people, but I will be with her until I die."

He eyed me seriously. "You're not one of those skirt-chasin' fools we see all the time, Dan. I'm inclined to believe you. But you're forty. She's fourteen. YOU have to be careful for HER sake."

"I guard her more than my own life, Bill..."

"I hope you do, Dan..."

...

"Oh, I will, buddy!" I answered.

"AN' you might want to see about her being here next Tuesday when ya'll roll the Number Two unit."

"Good idea, Bill. I'll talk to the school. It's getting a bit dicey, though, with all the client people around."

"I'll tell 'em what's going on. As long as we don't break the access rules, I think we're okay."

"Okay, buddy. See you later." I wheeled around and said bye to Sara and I was on the road.

At the school, I was greeted in the front office. They knew me by now, as many times as I'd picked up Cindy for one thing or another. Jim must've heard my voice because he walked up while I was waiting for Cindy.

"Sure wish we could've made this one, Dan," he said.

"Me too," I admitted. The trip we'd made with him and Ann was a great time for all of us. "We'll get other chances."

"Yeah, I know..." he sighed.

Jeans and sweatshirt-clad Cindy came bouncing up, her backpack slung over one shoulder. "Hi, Mister Jim. Hi, Dan!"

"Another adventure, huh, Cindy?" Jim said.

"Oh, yessir!" she chirped.

"Where ya'll goin'?" asked the school administrator.

"Charlotte. Bach concert," Cindy said. "We're flying our plane over..."

"Wow, sounds FUN!" she said.

"It IS!" Cindy said. "The best music ever!"

"Uh, Jim, I need to see if I can get Cindy out of school on Tuesday. We're spinning up a turbine out at the job, and she needs to see that. My boss asked if she was coming."

"I'll take care of that for ya'll, Dan, ' he said.

On the way to the airfield, we stopped for a meal and a bathroom call. Finally at the field, we pulled the plane out of the hangar and backed the truck inside. Together we loaded our luggage into the luggage compartment and tied it down carefully.

"Truck keys?" Cindy said.

I patted my pocket. "Right here," I confirmed.

"Okay. Let's lock up the truck," she said. She tugged one door and I tugged the other, closing the truck inside the hangar and locking it, and then we completed the preflight checks.

She got into the passenger seat this time. I popped the plane's window open, yelled "CLEAR!" even though we were the only ones visible on the apron, and then cranked the engine. It caught and settled to an even rumble. Oil pressure was up, and we sat, checking the cockpit and unfolding the paper charts that we used to augment the GPS we used for navigation, until the oil temperature needle started edging upward.

We taxied to the end of the runway, ran through the engine checks, made a general radio call, scanned the vicinity for other aircraft, and then turned onto the runway into the northwest wind. The low temperature and the brisk wind had us off the ground faster than normal and we climbed out in an arc that carried us off to the northeast.

Cindy's finger traced our course along a penciled line on the chart and we chatted over the intercom as we flew along making a good hundred and sixty miles an hour towards our destination. Farmland gave way to forests and hills and mountains, at least what passed for mountains in the southeastern United States. I was looking forward to showing Cindy REAL mountains in the Rockies this summer.

We left the mountains behind us as we neared the general aviation field that was our destination.

"Landing lights, Cindy," I said. It was nice having a copilot. Especially one as pretty as this one. She reached over and flipped the switch. The extra light was a big plus to enhance the visibility of our plane near the airport, just in case there was somebody out there flying without a radio. It was common at these general aviation fields. Recreational aircraft didn't require radios.

As I pulled us around in a standard traffic pattern, I noticed another plane being tied down on the apron a thousand feet below us, the occupants getting in a car and driving off. Cindy did the landing from the right seat and did a darned good job of it. We taxied to the transient flightline and tied down and then walked to the airfield office. There were two rental cars there, one for us, one to transport the driver back to his office. I signed paperwork and gathered keys, then talked to the airport operator, arranging to have him top off our plane's tanks.

We drove our car out to the plane and offloaded our bags and off we went to find the hotel, a task made much easier by yet another GPS.

Cindy complained about her only shortcoming. "I wish I could drive sometime, Dan," she said. "You have to drive everywhere."

"In due time, baby doll," I said. "You can't do everything all at once."

"Oh, Dan, it JUST aggravates me, you know. I'm getting ready to graduate. I'll prob'ly be the only graduate who doesn't have a driver's license."

"Hah!" I laughed. "That's because you'll be the only one up there who's only fourteen!"

Little darlin' stuck her tongue out at me.

We found the hotel without a hitch, parked the car and walked in with our luggage. I was standing at the desk when I heard a strangely familiar male voice, muffled to sound like the imitation of a radio transmission.

"Dan Richards, report to the supervisor's office immediately. Your transformer blew up!"

Cindy and I both wheeled around. I was looking at a guy about my size, his hair a shade darker, standing there with a teenaged girl beside him, luggage in hand.

"Alan Dean Addison! What the HELL are you doing here?"

Cindy's eyes flitted back and forth between me and him.

"I was going to ask YOU the same thing, buddy!" he said, shaking my offered hand vigorously and then pulling me in for an embrace. He turned to the young lady beside him. "Tina, this is Dan Richards. He's one of the guys I worked with in Arizona a few years ago."

She extended a hand. "Hi, Mister Dan. I'm Tina. Alan's wife." She smiled prettily.

Okay. Let me parse that later. My turn. "Cindy, this is Alan Addison. We worked together on a project in Arizona. Alan, uh ... Tina, this is MY wife, Cindy!"

"Hi," Cindy said, smiling and extending her hand. "I'm happy to meet you."

"So what are you doing HERE, Alan?" I said.

"Concert. Tina an' me..."

"Bach?" Cindy asked.

Tina nodded enthusiastically. "You too?"

"Oh yes! Tomorrow evening!"

Alan said, "You're checking in?"

"Yep!" I said, stepping up to the counter. I answered the desk clerk's questions, presented a bit of plastic, signed a form and received a couple of keycards. "Your turn, "I said.

Alan stepped up and mirrored my actions. Turning around, he asked, "Where're you working?"

"New powerhouse south of Birmingham," I said. "You?"

"Plastics plant east of Nashville. How'd you get here. Airline?"

"Nope," I answered. "Cindy and I flew in. Remember that plane I was getting rebuilt in Arizona?"

"No joke? That old bush plane. What was it? Cessna 180?" He questioned.

"Yeah. I spent some bucks, but she came out nice..."

"And the airport east of town? You flew in there?"

"Uh-huh," I answered.

"We saw you fly in. Tina and I were just driving off."

"Okay, okay ... what room are ya'll in? We need to go drop off bags and then we can catch up if you want."

"One-thirteen," he said.

"We're in four-twenty-nine. What? A few minutes? Our place or yours?" I asked.

"Ours," he laughed. "Fifteen minutes. Okay?"

"Okay. Cindy?" I turned. Cindy and Tina were standing in the lobby chatting, smiling. Alan's Tina was a few inches taller than my Cindy, her hair several shades darker, but still with an obviously red hue.

"Yes, baby?" she answered.

"Let's go put our stuff in the room, then me an' Alan have some catching up to do."

"'Kay," she said brightly. She turned to Tina. "We'll see ya in a bit, okay?"

Tina's head bobbed. "We sure will!"

We got on the elevator. Before I could open my mouth, Cindy spoke. "Dan, I don't believe this..."

"What part?"

"All of it. We fly four hundred miles to someplace we've never been, walk into a place and you meet somebody you've worked with. That's ONE thing. The guy has a wife still in high school. That's ANOTHER thing. And we all flew here in our own planes. That's THREE!"

"Four," I said. "Alan's an electrical engineer too, baby!"

She giggled. "What is this? Some kind of mutation caused by high voltage electricity?"

I let us into the room and handed her a keycard. We put our bags down. She administered our standard "Whoopee! We're in a motel room!" kiss and hug and we flopped onto the bed together.

"This is liable to be one of the stranger weekends we've had together. Alan and I have a lot in common."

"I can see that, baby," my little redhead said. "You're almost the same height. His hair's a little darker. Both of you have blue eyes. We're here for the same concert. He's got a young wife.

"You need to know more. We're the same age. Graduated the same year, two different Louisiana colleges a hundred miles apart. Both were in the army, both in the engineers. His wife left him. You know about me. He's like a brother from a different mother.

"And ya'll met on a job in Arizona." She smiled coolly.

"Uh-huh. And when that job finished, he left first, and I hung around for a couple of weeks. But we worked together. Had a lot of fun."

"Why didn't you keep track of each other, Dan?"

"Oh, we emailed back and forth for a while, but you know how those things go. We just went in two different directions. That was two jobs ago for me." I looked into the cool green eyes of my Cindy. "Baby, if they're up for it, do you mind us all hanging around together?"

She giggled. "I think it's the neatest thing I can imagine," she said. "I mean, they might not want to, if they're like us, you know, looking at the weekend like a little honeymoon. But yeah, if they want..." Smiles.

"okay, love, ' I said. "We'll have our time."

"Let's go wash our faces and go meet our friends," she said.

I was in the bathroom when the phone rang.

"Hi! This is Cindy!" Pause. "Yeah, Tina! We'll be right down. One-thirteen? We'll be there in a minute!" She saw me. "Come on, baby! Let's go!"

I followed her out to the elevator and down to the ground floor. We walked up the hall. Cindy was just about skipping, for heaven's sake!" She knocked on the door.

It opened, Tina standing there smiling. "Come in," she said. "Nice rooms, huh?"

Alan said, "We try to do this every two or three weeks. Gets us out of..."

"Don't tell me you're living in a TRAILER!" Cindy squealed.

"Remember when you and I talked about getting trailers custom built to go on the road, Alan?" I asked.

"I did, Dan. Worked out fine on the last job." Alan shrugged. "This time..."

"Me too," I said.

Tina and Cindy were sitting cross-legged on the other of the two queen-sized beds chatting.

"How'd ... last time I knew, you were divorced. Tina ... How old?"

"Seventeen," Alan said, watching my eyes. "And Cindy?"

My turn to be sheepish. "Fourteen ... Legally married. Since the week of Thanksgiving."

"Day-um!" Alan blurted. "Tina and I since October."

"Okay," I said. "One more question. What kind of plane?"

Alan laughed. "Actually we have TWO. We flew here in our Cessna 182. I bought Tina a 150 to get her license with. It's for sale now."

"She's got..."

"Dan," Cindy squealed. "Tina's got her PILOT'S license!"

I gave up. "So, what are you guys doing for dinner?" I looked. Cindy was grinning.

"We usually sort of wing it," Alan said. "Tina, fire up the laptop and see where we're going to eat tonight?" He looked at me. "Any preferences?"

"Cindy?" I asked.

Cindy was looking over Tina's shoulder. "We're lookin', baby. We'll let you know!"

Tina looked back over her shoulder. "And it won't be fried ANYTHING!"

Cindy giggled. "We're gonna have to help 'em out. They're all giddy."

I looked at the pair at the computer, then at Alan.

"Alan, the last time we did something together we built those bowling ball mortars.

"Hell, Dan," He laughed. "I still got mine!"

"Me too," I said. "Made for an interesting traffic stop in Texas on the way home with it," I laughed.

"I bet," he said. "Speeding?"

"Worse than that, buddy. West Texas deputy sheriff followed me for ten miles before he pulled me over to look at it. I thought I was going to have to shoot the thing." I chuckled.

Cindy said, "We got it!"

"Where are we eating, then?" Alan asked.

Tina said, "We found a neat Italian place. It got good reviews. And it's not far."

I looked at Alan. "She run your life?"

He grinned. "She IS my life, Dan."

"We're two lost son-of-a-guns, then, buddy!"