Thunder In Her Body (13 page)

The sound of the soup boiling over startled them both and they moved quickly toward the hissing mess.  Blaze turned the burner off as Lynette lifted the pot from the heat.

“I don’t care much for electric stoves.  I burn so much food on them.  Gas is easier to control,” she said.

“Note to self,” he said, “I’ll keep that in mind.”

They slept together in his big, comfortable bed all night.  Well, they didn’t sleep
all
night.  And in the morning the sun wasn’t the only thing that was up!  After Blaze reached for the foil packet in the night stand drawer, Lynette crawled over on top of him.

“Just lay your arms up over your head and relax,” she whispered to him.  “I’ll do all the rest.”  He was possessed of incredible passion and stamina, and she had five years of abstinence to make up for.

C
HAPTER 7

¤

Silver City 

C
lare and Aaron got very little sleep themselves that Sunday night.  Lynette had been right about their attraction to each other.  Since both were adults, single, unattached, healthy human beings, they took advantage of the privacy of the condo and got to know more about each other.  Aaron was an able lover, and Clare, shy on the surface, held nothing back when she was in the throws of passion.  Tired, rest-broken and a bit stiff, Aaron awakened to the smell of coffee brewing – the leaded version.  He came down stairs and watched Clare bustling around in the small kitchen trying to get a little breakfast prepared before they had to leave for Silver City.

Aaron reached around her tiny waist and squeezed her tightly.

“Good mornin’ sweetie,” he said, a bit groggy.  “Make plenty of that java, ‘cuz I’ve got to be awake and on my toes today.  Big case.  Lot’s of money at stake.  Why’d you keep me awake so late?” he teased.

“Me!” Clare said in feigned annoyance.

“Well, if you weren’t so damned sexy and pretty, I could’a slept down here, like we were just friends,” he said.

“And you have some swamp land in
New Mexico to sell me,” she teased, as she kissed him passionately.

By 8 a.m., Aaron was backing the big white Cadillac out of the condo garage and heading south on the interstate.  They would have to go through Socorro, Tularosa, Alamogordo and drop south from there as there weren’t any passes that went over the San Andres Mountains.   On the other side of the San Andres Mountains was the Rio Grand rift, a north-south geological slash through New Mexico.  And with that rift came another set of hills and mountains, so there was no other way but to go through Las Cruces. From there they would pick up Interstate 10 to Deming, then north on 180 to just outside Silver City.  The 2 ½ hour drive that Aaron mentioned was really more like 3 ½ to 4 hours each way, so there was a good chance they wouldn’t be back by dinner time.

Aaron was a good, careful driver and Clare was comfortable with him.  She offered to drive part of the way, as she, too, was skilled behind the wheel, but he wanted to make the trip easy for her.  He liked her, and they had worlds of things to talk about.  He loved animals, and she had once been a director of an animal shelter.  They, of course, had the law in common, and compared New Mexico state law to Texas’.  Both were avid readers and Aaron loved to travel.  Because of his diabetes, his doctor said he needed to walk every day, and Clare was a dedicated hiker.  Aaron had two children from his marriage, but because of their busy lifestyles, he rarely saw them.  They came for Christmas a couple of years when the grandchildren were small, but with teenagers, planning a visit had become a bit troublesome.  So they talked on the phone often, the sons called for legal advice occasionally, but for the most part, Aaron’s life was with Blaze, the hands on the ranch, and a few well-chosen friends who golfed at the Country Club.  During the summer, he often attended the quarter horse races around the state.  In years past, he had traveled in Europe and hoped someday to go back there, maybe with someone special.  Clare and her sisters had been to Paris, France a year earlier, so they talked a lot about The City of Love.

“I don’t mean to be rude, Clare, and I know Lynette is your best friend, but what is she?  I mean what’s her pedigree?” he asked hesitantly.

“She’s a mongrel,” Clare quipped laughingly.  “She calls herself a true example of America. A Hines 57 mix, literally a mongrel,” she replied, chuckling.

“What do you mean?” Aaron asked.

“Well, as you might have guessed, she’s mixed-race.  She’s part Jewish, part Scot, part Black, part German, a little bit of French and it appears there might be a significant part that is Native-American.  On documents she checks the
Other
box.  But, if there are only three choices, White, Hispanic or African-American, she checks the African-American box.”

“She’s not black!” Aaron said with some shock in his tone.

“That’s the designation she chooses and that’s the culture from which she originally came, though she has never lived in an all black community.  She’s very proud of her African-American ancestry.  She honors the lives of all of her parts, so to speak, and she honors the gift of life from wherever it came,” Clare added.

“She’s a beauty, whatever she calls herself, and I think Blaze has his hands full.  I’ve known him almost my entire life, and I’ve never seen him pacing through the house like he was Saturday night.  It was like she’d already gotten under his skin and it was an itch he didn’t know how to scratch,” Aaron shared. “I got up the first time and saw the light on in his office.  He never works at night.  Then Suzie Q got restless.  She kept coming in and out of my bedroom, so I went into the kitchen, and he was just standing there, leaning against the pantry door, with his arms folded over his chest.  He didn’t even notice me until I said something.  He gave me the strangest look, and apologized if he woke me up.  If I didn’t know what was probably on his mind, I’d be worried.  She’s done something to him, Clare,” Aaron said with some concern in his voice.

“I think that observation goes for both of them.  Lynette is pretty easy to read, once you get to know her.  To some people she can come off pretty guarded. She’s selective about who she lets into her world.  She’s had her share of knocks and she jokes about having her other master’s degree from the graduate school of hard knocks!  But Blaze couldn’t find a more caring, kind or loving person than her.  She’s tops in my book, and this is my personal observation – she thinks Blaze is somebody really special,” Clare added.

“Well, he must think the same thing, ‘cuz I don’t really think he got more than a couple hours sleep that night, if he slept at all,” Aaron said.  “It was as if he was trying to make a major decision all of a sudden and he didn’t have much time to do it.”

“What do you mean, she thinks she may be part Indian,” Aaron asked after a short silence.

“Lynette is a genealogist by avocation.  Did her master’s thesis on genealogy.  She did it on her mother’s side of the family though.  Her mother told her that in the early years of her marriage to Lynette’s father, he told her that “his people” came from
Athabasca, Canada, and if you see photos of her daddy, and I have, there is clearly a mongoloid look to him.  His eyes are somewhat slanted, he has high cheek bones, straight hair and he is a light, sort of reddish color.  She hasn’t begun too much work on that side of the family, but if it is true, her grandfather or great grandparents may have been First Nation people.  She’ll find out some day,” Clare said.

“Wonder how they’re managing right now,” Aaron mused.

“Try to get the picture out of your mind,” Clare giggled.  “I just hope she lets him live,” she giggled again.

“Any chance we can be doing the same thing later on tonight,” Aaron teased.

“Pretty darn good chance,” Clare responded, patting his leg.

After a hearty lunch, Aaron pulled up in front of the pink, 1930s art deco-style Silver City courthouse.  They had about an hour before the afternoon docket would be called, so he showed Clare around this familiar haunt.  He stopped in the District Clerk’s office, dropped off some paperwork then they sat outside the designated courtroom until it was time for afternoon court.  He poured over his last notes, arranged some papers and showed some documents to Clare, explaining what was at stake in this case.

Aaron left the courtroom jubilant.  He won his property rights case for his client and would stand to gain a tidy sum for his thorough research and work on behalf of the client’s family.  It was nearly 4:30 before he and Clare walked down the courthouse steps, and frankly, he was exhausted, for which, he again, blamed Clare.

“There’s a pretty nice Holiday Inn Express down on
Superior Street, let’s see if they’ve got a vacancy.  It’s close to several restaurants, and maybe I can show you around another New Mexico town,” he told Clare.  Aaron had that number in his cell phone address log and called.  When he hung up, he started up the Cadillac and headed in that direction.

“It’s clean, pretty comfortable and maybe we can take a short nap before dinner,” he said with a little fatigue showing in his voice.

“You ever been up to Gila Cliffs National Monument?” he asked Clare.

“No, never been over this way.  Lynette and I went up to Mesa Verde
Cliff Dwellings several years back. We had a great time.  We got there just as the evening sun turned everything bright gold.  It was awesome,” Clare said remembering back fondly.

“What were y’all doin’ up there?” he asked.

“Just vacationing.  We flew into Albuquerque, got a rent car and headed north.  We spent a day or so in Santa Fe, then drove up to Chaco Canyon – which bowled Lynette over.  She has a special affinity for all things associated with Native-American culture.  It was a spiritual experience for her.  We then drove up to Farmington and on to the Four Corners region.  Let me tell you, I’ve never seen Lynette like she was up there.  It was October, if memory serves me, and we were both intent on bringing back presents for Christmas.  She saw all that hand-made native jewelry and pottery and went crazy.  I say she entered an altered state of consciousness.  She pulled $50 bills out of her wallet, her purse, her pocket, and I swear she had some stashed in her bra!” Clare laughed loudly.

“Is she loose with money?” Aaron asked seriously.

“Oh, heck no.  She’s just the opposite.  She can squeeze a dollar ‘til the eagle pees,” Clare added.  “That’s how she’s able to do all the things she does;  help her daughters, help her mother, her family, have her nice home, keep a bank account and I can tell you for sure, she has excellent credit.  The mortgage company that financed the condo didn’t even flinch after they looked at her credit history.   She’s solid as a rock, and damned independent too,” Clare added.  There was a long silence before Aaron spoke.

“I don’t have the right to ask you this, but I’m going to share something with you and I pray that you don’t tell Lynette what I’m getting ready to tell you.”
  Clare waited for a second and a frown moved across her face.

“Lynette is my best friend, Aaron.  If there’s some reason she’s in danger or going to get hurt, I can’t promise not to tell her whatever the danger is,” Clare spoke seriously.

“Oh there’s no danger.  I’m thinking about Blaze,” Aaron said.

“What about Blaze?  And why is there something I shouldn’t tell her,” Clare asked, now deadly serious.

“Blaze doesn’t work for me,” Aaron said.  “We do work together, but Blaze is rich as Croesus on his own.  He has more money than me.  In fact, he deeded over to me several parcels of land that I have now just as a gift.

“What do you mean?” Clare asked, frowning even more.

“Blaze has a damned good head on his shoulders.  He learned a lot from our daddy and he’s put that knowledge to good use.  Right after he retired from the Navy, he took a lot of the money he’d been saving for over 20 years, and bought some land.  In fact, he bought several hundred acres, which were undeveloped at the time.  He gathered up acreage here and there and just sat on it.  That boy’s got land and property all over three or four counties.  When the building boom of the late 90’s hit up in the area, he had parcels of valuable land to sell to the developers, some ranchers, and even to the state.  A couple of years ago, he traded some acreage for a smaller parcel of land which turned out to be a gold mine.  Well, not literally, but you know what I mean.  Blaze actually owned a lot of what is now Crystal Bend and just north of there.  He sold one package here recently for one point six
million
dollars.  All in one fell swoop,” Aaron confided.  “He’s got land and lots all over this area; some out there on 380 on the way to Socorro that nobody ever thought anybody would want.  He got that ranch land for little or nothing.  When we took y’all out to the ranch, that was mostly my land.  Blaze has his own ranch back over there north and west of mine.  Some of his backs right up to mine.  He’s a fair man.  He does fair business.  He knows right when he sees it and he despises wrong.  He’s honest as the day is long, and though he’s a shrewd businessman, he can sometimes be too trusting in his personal life,” Aaron admitted.