Page 56 of Broken SEAL'S Secret Baby
“I was going to suggest this if we couldn’t find a suitable house quickly enough. Since we didn’t need it, I’ve been using it for a field office.”
For a horrible moment, I have visions of “doing it” on a desk. But then I relax. Charles wouldn’t do that to me. Would he?
He hurries down the path, back to the parking lot, and holds the door open for me. “Let’s get out of here before James finds another excuse to hold us up. He can be …uh… persistent when he has something in mind.”
As Charles gets in, I comment, “You are just now noticing that James can be super annoying without even trying?”
“Oh, I found that out a long time ago,” Charles chuckles. “But he’s a good man to have in your corner when things get tough. Just look at those two houses he’s building for himself and for us.”
“Does he know there’s an us?” I ask, silently wondering if there really is an “us” or if I am a momentary diversion.
“Not unless you’ve told him,” Charles says.
“No,” I reply, a little of the light going out of the moment. Still, if I am a momentary diversion, I mean to get the most out of it that I can manage.
We ride in silence for a few minutes, then Charles says, “I made a mixtape for you.”
“Tape?” I put a world of meaning into the word.
“Well, CD.” He taps a button on the steering wheel and says, “Sydney, play Kate mix from CD.”
“Playing Kate Mix from CD,” the mechanical voice says, “Volume singalong.”
An old Beatles song about holding hands drifts out of the speakers. This is followed up by “Black is the color of my true love’s hair,” the traditional song rendered in a mellow tenor by an artist I don’t recognize. Then the mood is broken by a silly song about a toasted chicken sandwich and sweet ice tea.
By the time we reach the Spindizzy Municipal Center parking lot, I feel well and truly wooed, even though Charles hasn’t said a word or taken his hands off the wheel.
He parks behind the camper we had towed out from the City, then pulls me around to the other side. I can only stop and stare. An army green canvas tent, big enough to house a cooking team or an old M.A.S.H. operating theater stands there.
“Welcome to my home away from home,” Charles says. “I crash here when it gets too late to come back home and disturb you, Cece and Grace.”
He opens the front flap, and I step in. The front area contains a huge metal desk, several large filing cabinets, an array of stacked batteries, and what looks like a ham radio set. I must have looked as gobsmacked as I felt because Charles shrugs and looks a little sheepish. “Gotta stay in touch with everyone. Besides, it was fun getting out the old rig.”
Impulsively I ask, “Will you teach me to use it? Not right now, but sometime, I mean.”
“Sure,” he says. “I’d be glad to. I’ll even help you get your license, if you want and we can set one up at the house.”
“I’d like that,” I say.
“Now,” Charles grins at me a little wickedly, “Let’s see if we can keep from being interrupted again.”
He picks up a sign from his desk that reads “In conference, do not disturb” and slides it into a holder on the outside of the door flap.
He turns to me, runs his hand down my braid to the end of my hair, and removes the hair tie. Then he begins to sing softly to me, “Black, black, black is the color . . .
His arms encircle me, and he waltzes — yes, really, waltzes — me through a curtained doorway into . . .
I had sort of expected maybe an army cot. What I see is a huge four-poster bed draped with gauzy mosquito netting, with beams across the top and a couple of ropes hanging down the sides. A free-standing air-conditioning unit whirrs in one corner; a little camp stove stands in the other. A small table holds a litter of grooming tools and a slim document folder.
“I love the ground on which she stands . . .” Charles sings and dips me onto the bed. Then he loops my hair around his fist and kisses it.
I start to scoot over for him, but the bed sloshes!
“Easy,” he says softly. “Just roll. It’s a waterbed.”
I obediently roll. “A waterbed? I thought they went out in the eighties.” The bed sloshes some more.
“There’s still a few around,” Charles says. “I like them, although it can be inconvenient if they spring a leak. I didn’t try to install one in the penthouse because of the weight. But the parking lot holds this one up just fine.”
