Samson and Sunset (9 page)

  “How about we go to a movie, a nice
dinner, and then back to the hotel for some good exercise,” he
said.

  “Oh, do they have an exercise
room?”

  “I don’t know, but the exercise I had
in mind was chasing you around the bed about fifty times and then
chasing you around inside the bed about fifty times.”

  I just turned and gave him a grin that
said it all. I liked exercising with Shay. You could get a good
workout, get real sweaty and need a thirty-minute shower—of course
not by yourself. I liked showering with Shay. He had just the right
amount of hair on his chest. I’d lather it up and make little
designs and little curls in the soap. Showering with Shay was
effortless; he always soaped me up real good and enjoyed rinsing me
off.

  I remember saying, “I really need to
bathe, how do I get the soap out from between my legs?”

  I didn’t want it to burn.

  Shay stood there for a second, then he
slid the glass shower door open, grabbed a glass from the counter,
filled it with water and sloshed it upward between my legs. What a
weird feeling! It took several glasses to get the soap out, and by
this time, we were both laughing so hard we didn’t even dry off. We
just fell on the bed, laughing hysterically.

  “See,” Shay said, “I told you I’d take
care of you.”

  And through all this buffoonery, we
ended up back where we had started, thus leading to another
shower.

  ***

We got up early the next morning, had
breakfast and were off to the mountains! I thought I’d find the
mountains overwhelming, but I loved them. They were breathtaking. I
could feel the presence of God when I looked at them. There were
small vaporous clouds that drifted mistily between the peaks and I
could envision my Lord in His heavenly kingdom up there.

  I loved the white-water rivers, my
Indian spirit just went wild for them. Their mystical churning
seemed to awaken something in me. Crystal clear, they spoke to me;
a powerful message that something this beautiful and vast must be
respected. I thought of the earth and how if you abused her, there
would be a price to pay.

  I took a lot of pictures. The day went
fast and we headed down out of the mountains back to our hotel. All
this time I knew Shay was wondering if he had wooed me enough to
want to stay the rest of the week.

  He hadn’t.

  When we got back to the hotel, Shay
said we’d just order room service.

  I said, “Well order quick, because I
want to call home and check on Kelly!”

  He ordered and I called home. Mom put
Kelly on the phone so she could say, “Hi Mommy,” then she said,
“Hi, Daddy,” so I said, “Wait Kelly, here’s Daddy, now you can talk
to him.”

  Shay asked her a few questions; then I
heard him tell her their little rhyme, (Three Little Monkeys
Jumping on the Bed.) Shay loved Kelly. As far as he was concerned,
she was his. And the feeling was mutual.

  Mom told me that Sterling Westover had
called, asking if she’d heard from me and would she ask me to have
Shay call him about business. I relayed the message and Shay called
up his dad and talked cattle for some twenty minutes. I could have
heard this conversation twenty times and I still would not have
known what they were taking about. I knew nothing about cattle and
didn’t want to know.

  My ears perked when I heard Shay say,
“Well, I think we are leaving here in the morning. Callie’s
homesick for Nebraska, so I guess we can just run up there and get
things under control. I can go to that cattle auction if you can’t
make it. I know what you’re looking for, and I’ll get them for the
right price.

  “Well, all right then, don’t worry
about it. I’ll call you when we get there. Oh, wait, will you call
Sherry and tell her to get the house ready in the morning? Open the
windows and air it out. Also, tell her to get the groceries on the
week list. Yep. Okay. Talk to you tomorrow night, might be
late.”

  “What’s happening?” I asked.

  He told me something about a problem
with the cattle on their ranch in the Nebraska Sand Hills, a ranch
I knew nothing about.

  “Shay, are we going there?”

  “We’re going in the morning. Long
drive for one day for you, Callie, but I’m needed and I’ve got to
go.”

  He said Sterling (he always called his
father Sterling) wanted to buy X amount of cattle, but didn’t think
he could get up there this week.

  “Princess,” he said. “This Friday
you’ll be going to your first cattle auction.”

  ***

We had gotten married on Saturday night and
stayed that night in Plymouth. Then spent Sunday and Monday night
in Denver. This meant we’d be spending Tuesday through Sunday in
the Sand Hills. Shay said the closest ranch to theirs was about
forty miles away, and the nearest town was about eighty miles away,
except for something he called a “burg,” which he said was about
twenty minutes from the ranch.

  “Well, what do they have there at the
burg?” I asked.

  “Oh, they’ve got a gas station, a
cafe, a post office, a blacksmith shop, the Gray Stone Saloon…”

  “What is this, the 1800s?”

  “Oh yes, also there’s the cattle sale
barn and a little general store.”

  What have I gotten myself into? I
thought. A honeymoon in the Sand Hills; guess that would teach me
to watch what I wished for. We’d be going back to Nebraska, all
right. Just not quite the part I had in mind.

  ***

Shay said the house was closed up unless he
or Sterling were there, but their foreman’s wife, Sherry, would
open it up, air it out, dust it off and make the beds with clean
linens. She had two grocery lists, he said. One for if they were
coming for a few days, and a larger one for a week or more.

  I said, “Well, I want to buy the
groceries.”

  “You’re not going to have time if we
want to get there by dark. Look on the bright side, princess.” Shay
stuck his head out the bathroom door with the shower running. “When
we get there I’m going to let you shop ’til you drop!”

  He pulled his head back just as the
pillow I threw at him hit the door. Then I heard him yell, “Come
here, princess. It’s shower time! I’ve got the glass already in
here!”

  After showering, we had a long roll in
the hay, and while he was holding me in the afterglow, Shay said,
“Callie, do you just have the one checking account?”

  “Yes,” I told him, “the one I’ve
always had.”

  “Well, princess, when we get home I
want you to close it.”

  “What? No, I’m not closing my
account.”

  “Yes, you are. I’ll give you
forty-eight hours after we get home to close it or I’ll close
it.”

  I knew he could do that, as that was
the bank the Westovers used.

  “I think that’s unfair of you to ask
me to do that, Shay,” I said.

  “Well, honey, I’m the head of this
family and I’ll control the money. If you need anything at all, you
just have to ask me and I’ll give you the money. I wouldn’t deny
you anything. Having two checking accounts is ridiculous. So are
you going to close it?”

  “All right I will. I don’t see that I
have any options,” I grumbled. “But I want to be the one to close
it!”

  We lay there for a second. “You know,
Shay, you may have control of the money, but you don’t have control
of me!” I said with my smart mouth.

  Shay rolled over on the upper half of
my body, gently running his hands through my hair. Then he gave me
a long, gentle kiss. Afterward, he lifted his head and said:

  “You may still have that cute little
ass, princess, but you’re mine now and I do control you.
Conversation over. Now go to sleep, darlin’.”

  He cradled me in his arms as usual and
off we went to sleep.

  As I drifted off, I thought: Shay
James Westover, you do not control me.

  ***

Shay woke up around 6 a.m. I felt his hand
touching the side of my face, then a sweet, gentle kiss. “Callie,
Callie. You awake?”

  “No, I’m still asleep.”

  “No, you’re not, babe. Come here,
darlin’. I want to ravage your form.”

  “Could you just do it while I
sleep?”

  “Oh no, I don’t think so.”

  I opened my eyes and wrapped my arms
around his neck. The next hour and 15 minutes was sheer ecstasy.
Then we were up. Shay showered while I bathed. We had packed the
night before, so Shay loaded the car and, after eating breakfast in
the restaurant, we were on the road.

  I had no idea where we were, but Shay
said we were going to go to Cheyenne, Wyoming, cut northeast and
then go up through Ainsworth, Nebraska. Well, it wasn’t long before
we hit rain. Not hard rain, more like a gentle mist coming down and
kissing your skin. It made me think of the light mist they put over
the vegetable section at the super market.

  We got there after dark, around 9:30
p.m. We had made several stops along the way to eat and see the
sights. Since everything was dark I had no idea what things looked
like when we arrived. There was a small light on inside the house.
Shay pulled into the driveway, got out, came around and opened my
door as usual. We walked up the steps and onto the open wrap-around
porch. Shay unlocked the door and opened it. He didn’t go in, just
turned and looked at me and said, “Come here, princess, I’m going
to carry you over the threshold.”

  “But this isn’t our home, would it be
right?” I stopped and looked at him. “We never talked about
it!”

  “Let’s talk about it later, princess,”
he said and carried me over the threshold.

  It was very nice inside, with a big
flagstone fireplace and two sofas, one on each side facing the
other. The walls were a bright, shiny, western-style, knotty pine
wood, the kitchen was huge, with a knotty pine picnic table and two
long benches. The master bedroom had a knotty pine, king sized, log
frame bed, with a beautiful quilt. The bathroom was spacious, with
a huge shower, plus a tub. There was an office, a den, and four
bedrooms, total. Truly, it was quite lovely. Maggie Westover had
good taste.

  “Callie,” Shay said, “you can bathe or
shower, put on your PJs and relax. I’m going to drive down to the
bunkhouse, see if I can find our foreman, Jose. I need to let him
know I’m here, tell him what time we need to meet in the
morning.”

  “All right, no problem, I’ll be here,”
I said, and Shay was off.

  It was like a replay from when the
roads were washed out.

  After bathing and putting on my PJs, I
grabbed a pillow and lay down on one of the sofas. It was lights
out for me. I must have been wiped out. Not that I had done that
much, but I had had a lot of ‘exercise’ on this trip and was, after
all, pregnant.

  I have no idea what time Shay came
back, but he was quiet while he showered and worked in the office
for a while. When he was ready to go to bed, he picked me up off
the sofa and while holding me in his arms and kissing me, said,
“Callie, remember the promise I made on our honeymoon? Well, I’m
keeping that promise.”

  He whisked me into the bedroom and
made the next couple of hours worth the long ride through the Sand
Hills. We fell asleep shortly after making love, around 1 a.m. Shay
said he had to meet Jose at 5:30 a.m., so I knew there would be no
sex the next morning. As it was, Shay was only going to get four
and a half hours sleep. Poor guy. I felt sorry for him.

  4:30 a.m.

  “Callie, Callie, baby, wake up. I’m
not going out to work without making love to you, baby.”

  And he gently rolled me around into
different positions on the bed, kissing and caressing me until we
were both fully awake. Then we made love. When it was over, Shay
jumped up, put on the clothes he’d put out the night before and was
out the door, calling, “I love you, princess! I’ll see you later
today. Have fun!”

  “What am I going to do?” I called.

  “Do anything you want, but don’t leave
the property… I don’t want you getting lost. Bye babe, love ya!”
And he was out the door.

  He didn’t even have a decent
breakfast, I thought. Though I did see him grab an apple off the
table as he went out the door. I sat there in that big bed all
alone with a silly, happy smile on my face. This was my Shay and I
loved everything about him. I wondered how God could love me so
much to give me Shay. Then I flopped back on my pillow and went to
sleep.

  ***

A few hours later, something gently brushed
my lips. At first I swatted it away, thinking it was a fly. Then I
heard:

  “Are you still sleeping, Callie? It’s
1:45 in the afternoon! You must have really been tired.”

  “Well, don’t forget I’m pregnant,” I
said. “But hey, wait just a minute. I’ll get up and fix you
something to eat.”

  “No need, babe. Sherry made lunch for
everyone. She sent you a plate, too. It’s on the table. But I have
a better idea, stay here a few minutes.”

  As I heard the shower running, I knew
sex was in my immediate future. I might have to get this guy a
nine-to-five, I thought; or who knew how often he’d be popping in
during the day!

  Well I was right; we had a passionate,
romantic afternoon. Afterward, Shay got up and went into the
kitchen, got my plate of food, came back and sat on the bed. He put
a pillow behind my back and fed me my lunch in tender forkfuls.
Shay always made me feel so special.

  He went back out around 4:30 p.m.,
came back at 8 that night. We had our usual, great all-night
love-in—though we did give it up around 2:30 a.m. It was lights out
in the ranch house. The Westovers were going to get some much
needed sleep!

  The Auction

  I had been a married woman for six
days, when I found myself wide awake one morning, while Shay lay
sound asleep. It was five in the morning. I could see out the
window that we still had that soft mist coming down. We hadn’t had
any sun since we’d been here, but that was fine with me. Even
though I was a sun-worshipper, I loved misty rain. I rested my head
on my hand, braced myself on my elbow and watched my beautiful
husband sleep. I think I let him get away with more than I would
anyone else, because he was so gorgeous and so good to me.