Samson and Sunset (20 page)

  ***

When we got to the house, Shay opened the
door and my eyes widened like a kid on Christmas. Everything I
could have imagined, he’d done! He’d put a huge window in over the
kitchen sink. He knew I loved looking out at that beautiful
view—grassy land that stretched for miles, with little glades of
trees. I could even see the pastures where they set Samson and
Sunset loose in the day to run around. I would be able to watch
them shaking out their gleaming white mains and tails like two
tamed unicorns. I was especially thrilled to be able to see the
beautiful horse stable, and a few of the old farm buildings, like
the milk house. The only eyesore was the old Straw House, which
Maggie hated and I wasn’t too fond of myself, old as it was. It
would have been torn down long ago if it weren’t a piece of
Westover history, built by Shay’s grandfather.

  The appliances had been installed, and
my cupboards—oh how marvelous!—had beveled glass doors. There was a
mudroom entrance to the kitchen, with a shower and a bench to sit
on, so you could take your dirty boots off when you came in from
the ranch. There was a chest of drawers with towels and some of
Shay's underwear, t-shirts and tube socks, old sweatshirts and
jeans. Shay always entered through the mudroom, so he always
smelled fresh when he came into the house.

  Now for the big moment: the master
bedroom! I was surprised to see that it was light and dark blue,
with plum carpeting to match the living room. I had asked for a red
bedroom, hot and spicy. My heart dropped.

  I moved on to inspect the bath. It
matched the bedroom with blue walls plum shag carpet, but Shay had
put tile around the toilet and the tub, so the carpet wouldn’t get
wet.

  “You don’t like it,” Shay said.

  “I like it. But this is what I wanted
for the guest room. You got it mixed up, Shay.”

  “Well, do you want to see the
upstairs?” he asked.

  “First I want to see my sunken living
room!” I said, hoping it would lift my spirits after the
disappointment of the bedroom.

  We proceeded to the dining and living
room area. It was perfection: two steps down and we were in the
sunken living room. It was fantastic!

  At the end of the living room we took
the grand stairway up to the next level. Shay had antiqued the
banister white with a dark cherry wood handrail. He did such
perfect work you would have thought he bought it that way. He was a
perfectionist, and did everything exact. He could have done it for
a living.

  The steps were carpeted in plum shag,
and there was a magnificent chandelier hanging down in the center
of the hall. Shay led me up the stairs and opened a door on the
left. I found myself in a cute little room, all done in pink.

  “Kelly’s room!” I said, clapping my
hands.

  “Now go through that door,” he said,
pointing.

 
Voila!
We were in a darling
bathroom with two sinks; white fixtures, pink, blue and yellow
walls. He guided me through to the next room. It was painted
little-boy blue. “Wessy’s room!” I exclaimed, delighted.

  Both children would be sharing the
bathroom between their rooms.

  “Ready to see the room across the
hall, princess?”

  We walked across the hall.

  This room had a double-door entrance.
Shay took hold of both handles and opened the doors. It was dark
outside, but someone had come over before us and turned on all the
lights. My eyes widened to the size of golf balls.

  Red walls! I saw beautiful, hot sexy
red walls.

  “This is our bedroom, isn’t it,” I
squealed, knowing the answer.

  Shay had removed a wall and made the
two guest bedrooms into one large suite with a huge attached
bathroom.

  I got everything I wanted in that
bathroom: double sinks, a vanity, beautiful light fixtures, and
marble. That marble amazed me. A marble tub and marble floors. Shay
had sent all the way to Koehler, Wisconsin for the grand tub and
fixtures. When I inspected the shower, I found that it had two
showerheads, one on each side of the big shower, with a long marble
bench along the inner wall.

  I told Shay I was sure the bench was
going to became our private amusement park.

  “Good thing I put in a non-skid
surface,” he remarked.

  We dubbed it “Water Paradise.”

  There was a loveseat set flush against
the back of the headboard, that looked out into a wonderful sitting
area. Shay had built a huge stone fireplace; on either side of
which, I already knew, I would place two matching chairs. Plus
there was room for Shay’s desk and chair. Shay always needed a
place to do his farmstead business.

  The king bed was in the middle of the
room, raised up eighteen inches above everything else. Shay had
upholstered the back of the headboard in red velvet and had the bed
made precisely with just red satin sheets.

  “It feels like being inside a rose,” I
said.

  “Well, you’re the hot house rose,
remember?” he said, twirling me.

  The bed faced the huge balcony he'd
built, with two huge sliding glass doors.

  “Gosh,” I said. “I wonder if we can
see the stars from bed. Let’s go out on the balcony!”

  “Nope, not yet woman, I have plans
first.” Shay flipped on the surround sound and “Love Is A Many
Splendored Thing” came on. He crossed the room and put his arms
around me in his sexy, loving way—one hand supporting my back, the
other cradling the back of my neck. He started dancing with me
slowly, while unbuttoning several of my blouse buttons, recreating
our first time. That night, which was really not so long ago, when
he took a young girl into his parents’ suite and taught her what it
was to be made love to by a real man.

  As we danced, Shay gently unrobed me
and then pinned me to the wall for those sensual kisses. I forgot
all about the new house. When he had us totally undressed, and
scooped me up in his arms and carried me to the bed, putting his
sensuous lips on mine and giving me a long, breathtaking kiss. He
always smelled so damn good. He lay me down on the right side of
the bed, my side.

  “Just lay there, princess, don’t
move,” he said. “I think it's warm in here.”

  “Really? I feel fine.” The air
conditioning was on.

  Shay walked across to the sliding
glass doors and slid them wide open. It opened up the whole wall,
so that a light breeze came in, filling the room with the smell of
night and the soft sound of wind through the leaves.

  He went to the dresser and got a
little red satin sleep mask out.

  "Lift your head, princess," he said,
slipping the mask over my eyes.

  “Oh,” I said, “kinky! We’re going to
have kinky sex!”

  "Hold that thought, princess.”

  All was quiet for a few minutes.

  "What are you doing, Shay?"

  “I'm just standing here looking down
at you,” came his voice from somewhere in the room. “Your flawless
bronze skin, your platinum hair, your slim, tiny body, your
beautiful perky little breasts. Everything about you is perfect,”
he said. “God you’re beautiful, woman. Did I ever tell you how much
I love you, princess?”

  He ran his hand gently down one of my
legs. Then I felt him get into bed on his side and reach for me
with the gentlest hands. I could feel his strong arms moving me
closer to him. I slid easily on the satin. He held me for a few
seconds, touching my breasts, then moved his mouth gently around my
nipples.

  Finally he brought his lips up to my
mouth and kissed me with both hands under my head. With the mask
on, every sense was heightened, my attention undivided. I could
feel his body over mine. He wasn’t lying with his full weight, just
touching the surface of my skin with his chest.

  “Come here,” he said, pulling me
gently toward him, cradling my neck in his right arm, my head near
his shoulder on his chest.

  “Lay back on the pillow, babe, put
your head back.”

  “What are you doing Shay?" I
asked.

  “Lie there and relax,” he said,
rubbing my arm softly.

  “Shay, I'm getting a little dizzy, I
think it’s the mask. I feel like I'm moving,” I told him.

  “It must be the mask, darlin’. You’re
okay. Just listen to the music and relax.”

  After four or five minutes that felt
like forever, Shay said, “I’m going to take your mask off now,
princess. You just lay there looking straight up.”

  I could feel him gently removing the
mask. At first, I was night-blinded from the mask, but as my sight
started to clear, I could see stars, millions of stars. I realized
I was staring up at the night sky.

  “Are we outside?” I raised myself up
on one elbow, looking with amazement at the scattered strings of
constellations.

  My Shay had made a moving bed for my
anniversary surprise so that we could make love outside in the
night. I could see now that he’d rigged a whole pulley system, with
wheels on the bed and rails that ran all the way out onto the
balcony. He could just lie in bed and all he had to do was put his
hand down and crank a handle, and the whole bed would slowly move
outside onto the balcony. And now we were under a star-blanketed
night sky, in the comfort of our own satin-sheeted bed. My Indian
spirit was going to love this!!

  Shay brought out a tray with two
stemmed glasses, wine for him and sparkling grape juice for me. I
felt so free outside under the stars, making love right there in
the open, the touch of the breeze against our skin. Our house
wasn’t near any of the other houses on the ranch. No one could see
us but God.

  After one round of making love, he
handed me a red rose with the thorns cut off.

  I’ll always remember that rose. Its
silky petals made their way around our bodies during lovemaking
throughout the night and morning.

  Around dawn, the rose was beginning to
wilt and so were we. So as the sky began to turn pink at the edges,
Shay rolled the bed slowly back into the bedroom. After rolling it
in, he rolled the carpet strips back down and it was once again a
flush level floor.

  Shay closed the doors and pulled the
curtain over the windows, making the room like night. There was
just a little wall sconce, casting a soft, pearly light. He put his
arms around me and we fell asleep in the afterglow.

  The Straw House

  We just had a fantastic summer. I had
a big garden, and Mom came out and helped me in it several times a
week. My mom was my best friend. I just adored being with her. She
spent a lot of nights with us, staying in the guest room. She
enjoyed helping me clean and play with the kids; we’d can
vegetables. She always cooked special German foods for us. I did
get a young babysitter, sort of a mother’s helper, a seventeen year
old, darling Hispanic girl, the daughter of the people who had
moved into Cookie’s old house. Her name was Yolanda, but we called
her Yonnie.

  Yonnie was a big help with the kids.
She took them for walks and watched them in the back yard while
they played. Wessy was too young to walk, but she took him out in
his stroller. She always came over in the afternoon when the kids
were napping, so Shay and I could go horseback riding. The ride
was, without a doubt, the most relaxing time of my day.

  ***

One morning, in mid-September, Shay looked
out the window and said, “That mist has been coming down since
midnight. It’ll be too slippery to ride today, princess.”

  I looked out the window at the pale
gray day.

  “I’m just going to work all
afternoon,” he said, kissing me goodbye. “I’ll see you around 6:00.
Think we’re going to move some cattle today,” he remarked, and was
out the door.

  Well, I wasn’t going to have to fix
lunch for Shay. Usually on a busy day like this the guys all ran
into Westover and had a beer and a burger, then went right back to
work. I was about to call Yonnie and tell her she didn’t have to
come today, when I reconsidered: I could just go groom the horses.
That would be nice. I’d just brush their beautiful coats and pamper
them a bit. Sunset and I had forged a bond. She’d follow me
everywhere when I let her out of her stall. Sometimes she’d follow
me instead of Samson.

  So when Yonnie got there I was all
ready to go. I had on my tight blue jeans, western shirt that
snapped shut—my breasts were so perky, in a plaid shirt I didn’t
need a bra. I sat on the bench in the “mudder and fadder room,” as
we had taken to calling the mudroom. One time I’d called it the
“mudder room,” and Kelly had taken the ball and run with it,
calling it the mudder and fadder room. Well, that just stuck. I put
on my western boots, slipped on a jean jacket, yelled to Yonnie
that I’d be back about 4:00, and skipped out the door.

  It was around 3:00 when I left. I
wasn’t planning on staying out in the damp much longer than an
hour. My back was giving me trouble; ever since the fall I’d taken
on the curb when I was pregnant with Wessy, it seemed to ache
whenever it was rainy out.

  I was off to the stable; happy I’d
decided to still go out. Sunset got so excited when I came into the
barn. She knew my voice and called out through the stable when I
called her name. She knew I’d be bringing a small bag of raw brown
sugar, her favorite. Of course I always gave some to Samson, he was
a big spoiled baby for a stallion. Sunset was with foal—now how
exciting was that? The baby would grow up to be Kelly’s, we’d
decided.

  Lucas, the stable foreman, was gone
that day, but I was going to work with my horses anyway. I was
brushing Sunset vigorously when I heard a voice behind me.

  “Samson kicked up quite a fuss last
night in his stall.”

  I turned around, startled, and saw
Frank, one of the hands. He was tying up a grain sack. “Could be we
have a coyote or a wolf in the area,” he added.