Thunder In Her Body (24 page)

“Now, you know you can’t eat everything they have at the various stations,” Blaze chided Aaron as the car wound around the entrance road to the Inn.”

“But, I can damn sure try,” he replied.

“You know what though,” Aaron continued, “Clare thinks with some better control of my diet, I might be able to get off the diabetes pills.  We’re going to schedule an appointment with my doctor here pretty soon and see what we can do about getting me healthier, and ensuring that I live to be an old, old man,” Aaron said, smiling at Clare.

“We want to keep the plumbing working as long as we can, too,” she tried to whisper to Aaron.

“That’s more information than we needed to have,” Lynette quipped, and they all laughed loudly.

The four hungry people made the rounds of the Buffet stations.  First there was the salad bar, with fresh, boiled shrimp on ice; plenty of salad fixings and dressings to please any palate.  From there, the little group hit the Mexican station, then Asian, the Country Cooking bar, the Italian or Tuscan Grill and whatever remained on the left side of the enormous room.  Lynette stood in front of the desert bar looking over it with the anticipation of a nun about to take communion.  Abruptly, however, she turned around and walked away from it.

“You don’t want any desert?” Blaze asked.

“I do, but if I go over there, you’ll see whatever I ate plainly outlined on my butt by nightfall,” she jokingly quipped.  She wanted that yellow cake with the coconut icing.  Her mouth watered like Pavlov’s dog but she’d worked hard to get the pounds off.  The cake wasn’t worth it, not now.  Not when she might be shopping soon for a wedding ensemble.

Aaron groaned in light-hearted misery all the way back to the ranch.  He and Clare played like kids in the back seat.  Blaze was quiet, obviously distracted from the foolishness and seemed deep in thought as he drove.  Lynette was just content.  She was full and sitting next to Blaze.  What more was there to need?

Blaze beckoned his lady into his office once Clare and Aaron settled onto the couch for a little television.  He didn’t sit behind his cherry wood desk, like some august business man.  Instead he sat in one of the tan wing-back chairs and asked Lynette to sit in the other, facing him.

“You know, we’ve talked about everything from our miserable mistakes, to how many more horses we can have on the place, but we’ve never talked about money or finances,” he began solemnly.

“That’s because that subject complicates things, and we’ve been moving so fast in this relationship, that I don’t think either of us was ready to discuss the nuts and bolts kind of stuff,” Lynette confided.  “And I think it’s because we’re both pretty self-sufficient financially,” she added.

“You didn’t want to, and I wasn’t quite ready, but we need to, Lynn.  I’m ready now.  There are some things you need to know,” he said confidently.

“I don’t want to take anything away from you, Lynn,” he began,” but I need you to know that I will be selfish with you.  I’ll try not to smother you, I know you’re an accomplished, independent woman, but Baby, I want you with me as much as you can stand.  I don’t wanna sit here, or anywhere else for days, even weeks at a time, waiting for you to come home, or listening for you to tell me when you’ll be leaving for another workshop,” he paused and frowned, then looked up at her.  He sat forward in his chair, clasping his hands in front of him.

“I have done some serious, and I must admit, wise investing in land and other things since I got out of the Navy.  I have resources,
considerable resources
, he emphasized that can make us comfortable for the rest of our lives.”  He paused.

“I can’t tell you that you can’t work.  I don’t have the right to do that, but if I can make it possible for you not to
have
to work
, could you give up your job?” he asked earnestly.  “Could you make
me
your job?  Could you make me, your husband, your work for life?” he asked.

“I’ll do everything I can to make your life comfortable.  I just want us to grow old together and I don’t want to share you more than is necessary. I’ve found you and I want you like I want my heart to keep beating.  I can teach you how to help me manage the ranch and my other holdings.  Some of that can become your new endeavor, if that’s what you want.  I will give you, do for you, whatever it is that you want, but I want you here during the days and I want your leg laying over mine every night.  I’ve lived so long without the kind of love I feel for you, Lynn.  Call me selfish.  I don’t care.  I don’t wanna miss a minute of our life together.  Two-thirds of my life has been spent wanting what I have with you.  What I have, what we have, is so satisfying to me that I don’t wanna loose a minute of it.  Do you understand what I’m trying to say?” he asked frankly.
  She sat there overwhelmed with what he had just said.  Her mind was racing, but it wasn’t doing “ping pong balling” as some people call it.  She was doing some quick linear thinking, problem-solving all at once.  She looked out the window at the lighted deck as he sat back, uneasily in his chair and waited for her to say something.

She took her time.

“First, I am lucky,” she began hesitantly, “to have a transferable profession and great references.  Somehow, I think I can move my training business to New Mexico, and work out of our home.  I might even be able to get a part-time position here at the college or offer seminars at the Lodge, or whatever.  People who do what I do on a larger scale travel all over the country.  I don’t see why I have to keep practicing my trade in Texas.  I’m willing to restructure my business and keep it here in New Mexico.  I’m willing to do that for both of us,” she said.  Blaze listened intently, as he always did.

“I’ve alluded to the financial responsibility I have to help keep my mother out of a nursing home, but I’ve never put a dollar figure on it.”  She hesitated.  This was difficult for her.  This was private; this was personal, and now she had to share it.

“I send my sister $800 a month to help with her care and maintenance, and I bring her home to Texas with me twice a year.  That was our agreement after she had the first stroke.  Flying up to get her, paying for plane fare for both of us back to Texas, taking her back, then flying back home myself, under the best of circumstances, costs me at least a couple of thousand dollars a trip and as I said, I do it twice a year.  And, if there’s anything extra that my sister needs for her, I come up with the money.  I’m not going to say that it’s not a bit of a strain, but it is a responsibility I have accepted.  She has been such a good mother to us all, and we’re trying to take care of her in a comfortable home environment as best we can, for as long as we can, so I have to have extra income to do that.  My retirement annuity just won’t cover my expenses and those, too” she said.  “So if I can work, I can continue my commitment to my mother and sister.  Let me be even more clear, I
will
continue my commitment to them as long as she lives.  So there are not a lot of choices for me as I see it,” she said in a matter-of-fact way.  Blaze sat silently, giving her plenty of time to respond to his requests.

“It has been apparent since I walked into this house that Aaron has a certain level of wealth.  Look at this place – the furnishings - everything.  I never asked who had what or how much, because it wasn’t my business.  I know you are retired from the military, so you get a monthly check, just like I do, and you own a large piece of land.  That’s fine with me.  If you didn’t have any of that, I think you know it wouldn’t matter a damn to me.  I hope you know that,” she said pleadingly.  “I had no idea that you were a man of means.  I thought that whatever wealth there was in this family, was mostly Aaron’s.  It wasn’t my place to ask.   I do know that you are a man of substance – the best kind.  You are a good man, Blaze, and I love you for that.”  She stopped to draw a deep breath.

“I’ve had to work and scratch for everything I have, or ever hoped to have.  That’s one reason I purchased the condo.  I couldn’t afford the log cabin, so I got the next best thing, but I got it up here in the mountains, so I was satisfied.  I’m used to compromise and I’ll try to meet you half, or more than half way, whenever possible.  But, I have nothing financially to offer you.  All I have is me…”

Blaze moved in his seat to say something, but she shushed him.

“I’m used to supporting me and mine.  I don’t know how to let anyone take care of me, Blaze.  It is a weakness, and Clare and I have discussed this over the years ad nauseum!  How do I walk into your life, and all of a sudden you’re keeping me – no, that’s not the right word.  Oh, shit, this is so hard to get out in an intelligible way,” she stammered.

“If I’d been your wife from your early years, I’d say I deserved part of what you have, whatever it is, but you amassed whatever it is on your own, and I don’t feel comfortable just walking into your world and your money and saying, ‘Ok, take care of me’.  But, see Clare would say that I give so freely of my time, money, resources and I expect nothing in return.  She would point out that others want to give to me – but Blaze, I don’t know how to receive,” she said, her lips quivering with emotion.  “I have done nothing to merit having any of what you have.”

She stopped as though an idea had crossed her mind.  Her eyes moved down to the tile on the floor.  She looked up at Blaze.

“Maybe you could do a pre-nuptial agreement to protect all your assets...” and he stopped her in her tracks.  Sternly he said, almost angrily
.

“There will be no damned pre-nup.  You get me, you get all I am, and all I have.”

She looked at him, trying to understand his words - trying to understand his tone.

“You have three children, or two, however you want to count them.  You must pass some of what you have on to them, it’s only fair.  I’m really in uncharted waters here, Honey,” she admitted.  “If you didn’t have anything more than that tiny little cabin over on the reservation, I’d still want you.  I’d say let’s live in the condo, and it would be ours, and we could visit the cabin and stay in it whenever you wanted, for as long as you wanted.  I have a home for us.  Some place we could live until we decided what we want to live in later.  What you have is not worth a hill of beans to me, it’s what you are that I love, do you understand what I’m trying to tell you?” she asked, but she didn’t give him time to reply.

“And by the way, I’ve had a partial hysterectomy.  I can’t give you any more children.”  She was finished.  She sat there with her hands in her lap.  She didn’t sit back in the chair, nor was she sitting on the edge of it.  The chair was just holding her in place.  He was fighting back the lump that had risen in his throat.  She was so honest, so sincere, and he wanted now more than ever to move her world totally into his.

“Let me tell you what I’ve been thinking about,” he started.  “First, I honor you for what you believe.  And I honor you for your commitment to your mother.  I wish I had one to take care of, but I don’t, so your mother becomes my surrogate mother, and I need to help you meet her needs.  I will have the bank deposit $2000 a month into your personal checking account, wherever it is, so you can do what you need to do for her.  I will have another $7500 a month deposited anywhere you want to compensate you for any lost revenue you might have by not working, or not working very much, let’s put it that way.  I will provide a home for you, - no - I will build you that cabin, for us – you can decorate it anyway you want out of
our bank account
and use that account for household needs, vacations, your personal expenses, you name it, the money is yours to spend.  If you come to me at any time and say ‘Blaze, I need this or that,’ you can be assured you’ll have it.  And, I’ll buy you things, things that I want you to have.  I don’t know what they are right now, but if I see something that I even think you’d like, I will buy it for you.  If you don’t like it, you can take it back, it won’t hurt my feelings.  But I’m going to dedicate my life to making you happy, to making you a good husband; to giving you a safe place to lay your head, and security from want.  In so many words, already in so many ways, you have made that commitment to me.  That’s all I ask of you.  I ask you to love me.  To be with me.  To share my world.  I know we can’t have anymore children between us.  I’m fine with that.  I guess I’m getting too old to deal with anything else but grandchildren,” he laughed.  “No more babies.”

There was a long silence.  Lynette was pressing her palms hard against her stomach.  She was so uncomfortable, she felt mildly sick.  He was bringing her really, into every aspect of his world.  It was strange and unfamiliar ground.  She would accept it because she loved him with all her heart.  She would never take advantage of him.  She respected him too much.

“Is this business meeting over,”
she joked, trying to lighten the atmosphere of what had been the most serious talk of their two short, committed weeks.  She rose and walked into his arms.  She hugged him tightly around the waist and laid her head on his chest.  She wanted to hear the heartbeat of the man with the biggest heart in the world.

“Where are the donuts and coffee,” she teased.