An Evening at Joe's (16 page)

"Closed? What do they mean,
closed
?" Adam was indignant. "How do you
close
a very large hole in the ground?" Two cars ahead of the VW, the Arizona State Police were systematically turning cars away from the main gate to the Grand Canyon.

"Guess we should've been watching the news," Alexa noted. "Looks like the government's closed again." And when they approached the State Trooper blocking the road, the trooper confirmed that the largest natural canyon formation in the world was closed due to governmental shut down. Adam, lowering his voice, leaned out the window and tried to explain to the Trooper about Alexa, about how they were on a bit of a tight deadline. Whether the Trooper believed him or not, there was nothing he could do. He ordered Adam to turn the van around and head back out the access road.

"What is the point of having a government if they're going to shut down? What do they think they are, the fishmonger's?" Adam fumed as they rode back down the highway away from the Canyon. Putting on his best blue-haired pensioner voice: "‘Sorry, luv, tea time, you know. Pop back 'round at five.'"

Alexa laughed until she grimaced. "It's not all that bad," she said. "Maybe they'll be open tomorrow. The Trooper did say that Congress was Working as fast as they can."

"Oh, there's a comfort."

"Let's just go back to Flagstaff and check into the hotel. I've never been to Arizona before, I'm sure there are all kinds of things to see here." He found her optimism invigorating. "And then later, we can have a nice dinner... relax...." She reached across the narrow gap between the driver's and passenger's seats and placed a hand on his knee. "Or not...." She gave what she hoped was her most wanton smile as she drew her hand up along his inner thigh.

She heard him growl slightly as his foot pressed harder on the accelerator and they both laughed.
Just outside of Flagstaff, Adam pulled the VW into the drive of a huge Victorian house. "This is it," he announced as he helped her from the van. "The Crow Canyon Bed & Breakfast."

"Have you been here before?" Alexa asked.

"No, but it comes highly recommended. I've got colleagues in the area." No need to tell her that the last time he'd actually stayed in Flagstaff, he'd been brought there by a Sheriff's posse and was to be hung at dawn. Thank goodness for Sundance.

As Adam removed their bags from the van, a large, matronly woman hustled down the steps of the house, her obviously Native features a bit incongruous with the extremely European architecture. "
Greetings, honored mother
," Adam said in flawless Hopi as she approached. The woman broke into a huge smile, while Alexa looked at him with astonishment.

"
You are most welcome here
," the woman answered in the formal tongue of her people, then switched to English. "You must be Adam. Garrett warned me you were a linguist. Mary Crow, pleased to meet you." Mary shook Adam's hand vigorously. "And this must be Alexa. Come on, dear, let's get you inside. You must be exhausted."

Alexa's "No, really, I'm fine," was lost as the innkeeper wrapped a motherly arm around her shoulders and swept her toward the house. Alexa shot Adam an accusatory look, but he could do nothing but shrug his shoulders with a smile and gather up their bags to follow.

As he entered the parlor, he could hear Mary talking as she gave Alexa a tour of the downstairs. "Your Adam went to school with my son Garrett. "

"I didn't realize Adam had gone to school in the U.S." Alexa filed it away with the few other sketchy facts she'd learned about Adam in the past week.

Mary went on with the tour. "Here's the breakfast room. I generally have breakfast on by eight for the guests, but if you kids want to, you know, sleep in, by all means, take your time." Then she explained, "They went to a special school in Geneva, about ten years ago."

"Switzerland? Really?" Adam had told her he had traveled a lot, but it piqued Alexa's interest all the same.

Adam caught up with them in the dining room and broke in quickly. "Only for about a year. It didn't really work out for me. Where should I put these?" He indicated the baggage he was carrying to Mary, exaggerating its heaviness. He knew she didn't know much more about what Garrett Crow did for a living than what she'd already said, but he'd much prefer a different conversation all the same.

"Follow the stairs all the way up. You've got the whole third floor to yourselves. Go on up, it's unlocked. Give you a hand?"

"No, no, that's all right." He started up the stairs. "Why don't you show Alexa the view from the back deck. Garrett tells me it's spectacular."

"But you have the same view from your—" Mary started to call up to him, but Adam cut her off by clearing his throat. "Oh, right... Do you like kittens?" Mary asked Alexa as she led her to the back of the house. "There's a brand new litter under the porch...."

Adam hurried up the stairs with the baggage and opened the door to the third floor suite. Perfect. Everything was just the way he'd requested it. He pulled the drapes closed—he hadn't planned on arriving in the daylight—and went around the room lighting candles that had been strategically placed. Digging through his duffel, he pulled out his CD player and speakers and made a place for them on a dresser, then selected just the right CD. Looking in the mirror, he ran a quick hand through his hair and licked his lips. Everything was ready. Turning on the CD player at a low volume, he left the room and went back down the stairs.

When Alexa and Mary returned from their trip outside, Adam was leaning casually against the wall at the bottom of the stairs. "You were right," Alexa told him excitedly, "I have never seen such a view. The way the light plays on the mountainside—c'mon"—she took his hand—"you need to see this."

A smile played over his lips. "I'm told by a reliable source that the view from upstairs is even better. Care to see it with me?" he asked, reaching down and scooping her up in his arms.

"Adam!" Alexa laughed, "what are you doing? Put me down!" She struggled playfully and turned to look toward Mary for help, but the motherly innkeeper simply said, "It
is
a very nice view," grinned broadly, and walked away as Adam began to carry his precious burden up the stairs.

"Adam, I'rn too heavy for this. You'll hurt yourself." But to Adam she was as soft and light as the newborn kittens under Mary Crow's porch. He silenced her with a gentle kiss. There in his arms he could sense how delicate she was, how fragile, how... mortal. And how much he loved her for that. As he climbed the last flight of stairs, he nuzzled his face against hers and whispered "It's time we finally did this correctly."

Alexa lifted an eyebrow. "I wasn't aware we were doing anything incorrectly." They arrived at the door to the suite and Adam realized, a bit awkwardly, he'd have to set her down to get the door open again. He let her feet touch the ground just long enough so he could open the door with his free hand, then he scooped her up again. "What are you doing? I can walk," she protested.

"Carrying you over the threshold, milady," he responded solemnly, and he carried her into the room he had prepared for her.

The scent reached her before her eyes adjusted to the candlelight— the scent of the hundreds of roses that adorned every surface of the room. She looked around in wonder—roses of every hue, long- stemmed in vases, buds woven into wreaths, and gentle, delicate petals strewn an inch thick on the canopied bed upon which he finally set her down. "Adam... I...." She was speechless, struck dumb with wonder. But her eyes said everything Adam had hoped he would hear.

He had planned their marriage bed practically since the first moment he'd seen her, weeks ago in Joe's. Across the bar he could see her surrounded by roses, their perfection echoing the perfection of her skin, their purity the purity of her spirit. And while theirs was not a marriage by modern definition, legalistic and bound by the dictates of governments and modern religions, he sought marriage with Alexa more ancient than any of that—a uniting of their bodies, their minds, and their souls, for as long as they had.

When they had been delayed on their journey, he was afraid they had been deprived of this place, of this moment. His disappointment had turned to anger, and his anger had nearly driven her away. But Alexa was strong, he'd seen that strength before he'd ever even asked her name, and she'd come to him and healed him and purified him. They had discovered wonders about each other that even he, after so many years, had never imagined. Last night was a night of exploration and learning, a night when two people became fully whole after living half empty for too long. Today, those two would become one.

He sat on the bed beside her, picked up a single white rose from the nightstand, and handed it to her. "I hope you like roses," he said, a bit of a shy grin playing around his mouth.

Alexa's eyes were bright with unshed tears which reflected the glow of the candles. "I hope you removed the thorns," she said, trying to keep the moment light.

He held her close and looked into those eyes. "I promise you, every thorn that it is within my power to remove." And then he kissed her. He could feel the warm path of her tear on his face, then another as they glided down her cheeks toward her lips, where both he and Alexa tasted their bitterness in shared communion as their tongues sought each other.

His first taste of Alexa, his first taste of a woman in years, had been an explosion as senses he had thought long dormant reawakened and fired into urgency. Now, though his senses still thrummed, he could savor the moment. He held her close, drinking deep of her essence, enjoying the feel of his tongue as it rubbed against her teeth, delighting in the tiny sounds Alexa made in the back of her throat. Bodies unmoving, their entire lifeforce focused into their lips, their mouths— he was content to remain that way forever.

But Alexa, not having forever, was hungry for more. Without breaking the kiss, she reached behind him and began to pull the Irish fisherman's sweater he wore over his head. She succeeded only in getting it hopelessly entangled around the two of them. The kiss finally broke as they began to giggle, the sweater caught over both Adam's head and Alexa's.

"Whoa, whoa, Tiger, not so fast," Adam laughed as he freed them from the tangled wool.

"And why not?" she asked, taking the sweater and tossing it at the nightstand, leaving Adam shirtless.

He smiled, pleased at the changes he could see in Alexa after only one night of affection and attention. A closed blossom, ashamed of her body and afraid of intimacy, was slowly beginning to flower. "Because the night is still young, and I'm an old man," he teased.

"Old man, my ass," she laughed, tracing the definition of his biceps with a finger. He stood and reached for his duffel, and she watched the movement of his sinewy torso in the candlelight. "Guess I must just have a thing for older men."

Adam removed a green jar and a small box from his duffel and set them on the nightstand, then kicked off his shoes. He stood before Alexa clad only in his jeans. "Besides, this isn't about me. It's about you."

"Sounds ominous." Alexa looked at him with mock wariness. "Should I be afraid?"

"Never be afraid of me," he said, reaching for the clips that bound back her hair. He carefully unclasped them and Alexa shook her head, allowing the hair to tumble down, long and loose. He fingered a long, silken strand, let it fall, then kissed her on the top of the head. Her head against his chest, she reached out to clasp him around the waist, but he stopped her. "Not yet," he admonished, a twinkle in his eye.

"Tease," she accused.

"Wouldn't have it any other way," he said, reaching for the hem of the oversized tunic which concealed her body from the light. He pulled it up and over her head and dropped it on the floor behind him, and her flowing hair framed her milky shoulders like a painting. She smiled her encouragement as he sat beside her, but her eyes crinkled mischievously when he reached behind her to unfasten her bra. He was thrown for an instant when he found no fastener whatsoever, until Alexa reached around and guided his hands to the front. He had encountered and conquered countless variations on women's undergarments, from chastity belts to corsets, but this fastener stymied him. He gave her his best hurt puppy look and she relented, raising her arms, allowing him to pull the offending garment off over her head.

"You did that on purpose, didn't you?" he said.

She laughed and said, "Moi?" as she pulled off her shoes and then looked up at him expectantly. "What next?"

She was radiant as she sat under the canopy of her rose-covered marriage bed, her face a gentle pink in anticipation. There had been many marriage beds, of different cultures and different faiths, and many women, more perhaps than one man should be allowed—perhaps five thousand years were more than one man should be allowed. But he had loved each one as much as he could, for as long as he could, whether it was one year or eighty, and he cherished the memory of each in his heart forever. But in this time and in this place, Alexa outshone them all. He reached for the box on the nightstand, knelt before Alexa on both knees, and handed it to her. "I want you to have this."