For the Love of His Life (14 page)

Jared chuckled evilly.

“I didn’t mean with real whips, silly!”

“Yeah, he’d probably like that too much!”

“Ri-ight. Because despite poking himself into every orifice of every starlet and wanna-be in Hollywood, he secretly lusts after fat women like me, huh?”

“Don’t put yourself down like that, Ronnie. I told you years ago that if we weren’t cousins I’d have married you myself.”

Veronica snorted, “That’s because you see the
inner me
, the sterling, loving, wonderfully thin and beautiful woman that lives in there. Not the chunky blonde who doesn’t believe in make-up and wears the evidence of enjoying her own cooking a little too much.”

“Just be careful around him, okay? I mean it, Ronnie. He’s a one-night-stand kind of guy. He’s charming and magnetic as all hell, which is what always comes across the screen to make women fall in love with him. But there’s no real substance to his interactions with females. I don’t want to see you get hurt.”

“Okay,
Dad
. I’ll be sure to remember that, when he’s gasping in pain while we’re running together, I shouldn’t fall for his sweaty, out-of-shape ass.”

“I’ve said my piece. I won’t mention it again. But now I really have to go…the girls are pulling at my shirt to get me off the phone. I love you, Ronnie. Take care of yourself.”

“You, too, Jared. Love you too. And see you soon, huh?”

“Bye.”

Veronica sat on the swing for a while, thinking about what an unusual, yet interesting day this had turned out to be.

Raul seems to finally be discovering he’s got a real person living inside of him. Gram-Marie may not like him yet, but she’s showing signs of being able to tolerate him better than before. Jared is worried that I’ll fall in love with his bad-boy movie star. As if!

She closed her eyes for a minute and remembered how he looked in running shorts. How his eyes were so dark that they bordered on being black…the kind of eyes she had always been drawn to in a man. About how hot it always made her to have her white skin covered by a man with dark skin, their colors blending as they made love. She wondered if he kissed in person as well as he did in the movies.

Decisively she stood up and shook herself.

I’m not that stupid! I’m doing this huge favor for Jared so he will owe me one. I’m babysitting his boy to keep him out of trouble…nothing more. He thinks I’m fat, I think he’s arrogant and plastic. As long as I remember that, Jared has nothing to worry about.

But when she pushed the screen door open she found that the family had moved out into the dining room. The only one left in the room was Raul, snoring softly on what used to be Grampa’s favorite napping chair, with an afghan tucked around him. She walked over to stand in front of him and admired his long, black lashes that looked so delicate on his face, which was less arrogant-looking while he slept. His hair was tousled and his hands were draped carelessly on the arms of the chair. For a moment she studied the size and shape of his fingers, then shook her head.

No! I’m not going to think about the size and shape of what he has to offer! I’m sure it’s hot…but he’s used to stuffing it into bony babes. Besides, in a few weeks he’ll be leaving to stay in his trailer. There’ll be no reason for him to ever be back here again. Even though I might like a one-night-stand with him, he’s not pursuing me, so he’s probably not interested. Focus, Ronnie, focus.

She walked into the kitchen to get herself a cup of coffee then followed her family out into the dining room, leaving Raul to continue his recovery in peace.

Chapter Eleven

The next few weeks flew by for Raul in a blur of physical activity that exhausted him just remembering it. He woke up early enough to eat and have time to digest his food. He lifted weights and exercised in his cabin before he met up with Veronica out on the entrance to the trails. He kept up with her while they ran, and gradually she increased the speed and distance. He hardly noticed they were doing what he had been unable to do without collapsing for the first few days. They always swam a few laps around the lake after their run, and as the air temperature warmed slightly, he began to look forward to the coldness of the water to shock his aching muscles.

Veronica also began to train him in other outdoor activities of the north woods. She taught him how to use a kayak and a canoe, using the rental equipment available for the resort guests. She taught him how to get his fishing pole ready, and how to bait the hook and cast off. He learned how to do it from the shore first, then how to do it while sitting in the canoe.

The first time he tried to cast-off in the canoe he leaned too far over and fell out of the boat. He came up sputtering, irritated when he realized Veronica was laughing at him. When he tried to pull himself back into the canoe he tipped it over and she joined him in the lake. When she surfaced she splashed at him, yelling at him that her lures were lost forever, and to stop just treading water and help her find them. They both dove down fully clothed multiple times and eventually found most of her lures, and the tackle box—thankfully shut—keeping most of her stuff inside.

She used that opportunity to show him how to right a canoe and how to get back into it without tipping it over. Afterward. they sat on the side of the lake drying in the sun, while Veronica told him the story of some of her lures, given to her by her grandfather, who split up his prized possessions among his grandchildren right before he passed on. Raul, who’d never had a grandfather, watched her eyes light up as she told funny anecdotes about the old man, and tear up as she remembered how cancer had reduced him to a shadow.

He had to force himself not to touch her, fighting the natural, yet foreign to him desire to try to comfort her over what was so obviously painful for her to remember.

She feels so much for so many
, he thought.
No wonder she’s so confident in who she is. She’s always been surrounded by people who love her, who share themselves with her.

And not for the first or last time, he watched her closely while trying to be sneaky about it. He told himself he was studying how to express deeply-felt emotions so he would be able to do it on-screen. The fact that he enjoyed studying every line of her face, or the curves on her body, was an unimportant side-effect.

Just familiarity, nothing more. That’s it. I need to be able to pass for someone from her world. But I’m not. I don’t belong here…or with her.

Often late at night, when he was having a couple of beers to wind down, Raul would walk out to the lakeshore and sit, looking up to marvel at the number of stars in the sky. He was getting used to the silence of the woods, broken only by the occasional rustling from tiny critters or the calls of the loons.
And as he sat he would think back on his day, remembering every ache in his body as a badge of honor…further proof that he was molding his body into the best shape he’d ever been in, to play what he hoped would be the definitive role of his career. He would walk carefully back to his cabin so he didn’t disturb any of the other guests, or surprise any small animals with the sudden appearance of a large human foot. And when he got into bed, nude as always, he would take care of his over-active sex drive himself, amused that now that he wasn’t drinking as much or doing the kinds of drugs he was used to, that he got as hard as he did when he was a teenager, and shot off almost as quickly.

He tried not to assign too much importance to the image that he usually got off on, since he had only seen Veronica in a bathing suit and never nude. But her nipples always poked through the exercise bra when she ran, and almost broke through when she swam in cold water after their runs. And he wondered if she went in for the trendy trims or waxes that the females he was used to did, or was her pubic hair natural, messy and long. For some reason that was usually the image that did him in, imagining her silken blonde hair being repeated around her pussy…the one he was never going to get to see because he was a pompous jerk and she only tolerated him as a favor to her cousin.

Slowly his body began to reflect the work he was doing. As a thirty-year-old man, his testosterone was fully-charged up, so he was gaining more in muscle weight and strength than he ever had before, when he would occasionally ramp up his work-outs for a movie role. He found he enjoyed the things this new body could do and endure, and he craved more challenges. So when Keith offered to take him along on a back-pack outing into the Boundary Waters Canoe Area that he was leading for a few days, Raul explained to Veronica that he was ready to try something totally different from what he had ever done, but which would allow him to use the skills she’d been teaching him. She sent him off with her blessings after making him promise to practice his fish-cleaning skills which were still not up to her standards.

“That way I’ll know you won’t starve,” she’d said and he enjoyed thinking it meant that she cared if he ate or not.

Raul had so much fun on the back-pack outing that he wanted to stay out longer than the seven days the others had paid for. Reluctantly he helped paddle one of the canoes back to the dock at the resort, where they’d set off from originally. When he saw the familiar areas, known to him in a visceral way from having run the same trails repeatedly, he felt a weird feeling in his stomach, as if he was returning
home
. Since he had never really had a home to return to, it was quite an unusual experience.

He was also anxious to tell Veronica about the many fish he had caught and cleaned himself. The other men on the trip had also caught some, but they had deferred to him as one of the guides and he had really enjoyed having a skill that helped them all to eat. Once the gear was all unloaded for the group of friends who’d booked the outing, Raul helped Keith get the canoes back into the shed for storage until the next trip. Once Keith said they were done, they walked companionably up the path that led to the parking lot. Keith said goodbye as he used his clicker to open his truck and Raul headed into the dining room to see if Veronica might still be around. It was mid-afternoon, but he was still hopeful.

“No, she’s not here,” said the gum-cracking teenager cleaning up after the late lunch rush.

“Do you know where she is?” Raul wanted to share his experiences from the backpacking with her.

“Dunno,” she replied. “Hey, Amy, do you know where Ronnie is?”

The waitress smiled. “Who’s asking, honey?”

“I am,” Raul said as he waved at the waitress who always kept his coffee cup filled when he ate in the dining room.

“You’re back? How was the trip? Were you okay with the tent?”

“Yeah. Once I figured out how to set it up, I was fine. Sleeping on the ground reminded me of when I was a kid and I had to sleep on the floor in a lot of flea-bag motels while Mom was on the bed.”

“She didn’t let you sleep in the bed with her?”

“Not when she was entertaining.”

“Aw, honey, that’s harsh.”

Raul shrugged. “I didn’t know it at the time. As long as there was a roof over our heads to keep the rain off, I figured we were doing pretty good.”

He smiled. “So do you know where Veronica is? Is she in town working, or home, or what?”

“You’ll see her soon, if you stick around. She’s out on the lake with a guy she went to college with. He’s an Ojibwa, from just across the border in Canada somewhere. He usually gets down here once a year, when he can get time off from his law practice. He told her he wanted to show her his new canoe. They took off after the lunch rush, after he had some pie. He told her he only comes down for the pie. Then they left.”

Raul was trying hard to fight the emotions that were fighting for dominance in his brain. He was disappointed that Veronica wasn’t there, since he’d missed seeing her more than he’d thought possible. But his dominant emotion was a sudden, stabbing jealousy that made his stomach hurt.

A lawyer? They went to college together? So he’s got a degree like she does? And makes good money…probably defending his tribe’s rights against the government. Shit, I can see him already, telling her all about how noble he is, how unselfish, how much he works for nothing to be able to make the lives of his people better. He feeds the starving children and puts clothing on their backs, then gets their parents enough money to take care of them. I hate that fucker already and I haven’t even met him yet!

“So do you want anything? Coffee? Pie?” Amy looked at him expectantly, while the girl cleaning up dishes stared at him every opportunity she got.

“Sure. Coffee is good…and pie. What did she make this morning?”

“Today’s specials are chocolate pudding pie and strawberry rhubarb. What’s your pick?”

“We didn’t eat much for lunch today…give me one of each.”

“Sure thing, honey.”

“Can you bring them out onto the deck? I’m kind of used to being outside all of the time now. Being
in
a building is kind of weird.”

Amy chuckled. “That’s what my husband always tells me after his hunting trips. Here’s your coffee. I’ll bring the pie out there in a minute.”

Raul took his coffee and walked out onto the deck. He sat at the table that he usually chose because it had a good view of the lake. He stared until his eyes hurt, but couldn’t see any sign of a canoe, or Veronica’s light blonde hair.