Thunder In Her Body (38 page)

Lynette was hesitant to take off her beautiful wedding dress.  She felt so comfortable in it and she looked so beautiful.  She sensed that she would never again look this beautiful nor feel as special as she did in this wedding dress.  She turned once more in front of the mirror in their bedroom, looking at how the dress laid smoothly across her curves, and how the fringe moved.  Blaze appeared, silently as always, right behind her.  He put his hands on her shoulders.  They stood there, gazing into the mirror.  They were an exceptionally handsome couple.  It was the image one sees above the fireplace in stately castles across Europe, or in the mansions of America’s scions of industry, only they were attired in American-Indian wear.

“I want this vision burned into my memory all the days of my life,
Lynn,” Blaze said, his voice filled with emotion.  “Thank you for this gift,” he said.   When she was ready, he gently helped her lift the gown with all of its fringes over her head.  Carefully, she placed it into the dress bag, which had hidden it so well.  With reverent hands, she hung it in their closet, knowing that from time to time, she would unzip the covering and stroke the fabric and fringes of her special gift to Blaze, remembering each moment of this day.

She and Blaze did their part in cleaning up the remains of the reception.  Maurice was seen talking to Dena when the rental company arrived to retrieve the tables and chairs.  Wherever Janette was, it was certain that Hawk was nearby.  The glass wear and dishes would be cleaned and sanitized somewhere other than the reception site.  No one had to wash dishes! That was all a part of Lynette’s contract.

“You all need to get out of here,” Clare commanded, with a mock air of authority.  “Get ‘em out of here,” she told Aaron.

And so with good wishes and cans tied to the bumper of the big, silver Dodge Ram, Blaze and Lynette left their family and friends and headed for the tiny cabin up in the forest.  They would spend this night there alone.  It would be the first night of the rest of their lives – together.

DUSK CREPT ACROSS the mountains.  The last rays of that marvelous wedding sun folded silently behind the peaks.  The bright greens of the forest trees were now dimmed to a dark, rich green, almost black.  Only thick patches of flowers held enough color to be seen.  The road wound in and out of tall stands of pines, and fallen spruce, then disappeared over another rise.  Here and there was a nicely kept doublewide home, with a horno, an Indian outside clay oven, sitting out in the yard.  Then openness.  Horses stood in corrals made of roughly hewn, crooked cedar posts.  A few longhorns grazed near a narrow stream.  Birds flew into trees for their nightly sanctuary.  Occasionally a fence began, then just ended, going nowhere in particular.  Old homes, now abandoned shacks, stood lonely and devoid of all life.  A raven could be heard signaling the coming of night, but other than that and the sound of the truck’s tires crunching on the gravel road, there was no other sound.  It was such a beautiful drive; such a peaceful area.  Blaze did not talk.  Lynette did not talk.  They just
were.

After all the stuff was brought in from the truck, and the stamping on the floor had ceased, Blaze turned to her.

“Welcome home, my wife, he said.”

“Thank you, my husband,” she responded.

Not until she lit the kerosene lamps did she notice dark things on the bed.  She carried the lantern to the bed and held it high so she could see.  Were these large bugs, creatures of some kind?  She looked more closely and saw red – and white.  She bent down.  She looked carefully.  They were rose petals.  Rose petals sprinkled all over the bed and onto the floor.  Fresh rose petals.  When had he had time to come all the way out here to do this?  She sat the lantern on the night table and picked up several of the petals.  She lifted them to her nose.  The smell was enchanting.  Blaze walked up behind her and ran his arms around her waist.  He bent his head down near her ear, as though others might be listening.  He whispered in a voice she had never heard before.

“I will love you on this bed until the morning.”

Though the evening chill of this July night had not yet set upon them, he made a fire in the wood stove.  She sat on the side of the bed watching, then kicked off her shoes.

“Don’t,” he said, softly, telling her with his eyes not to take off her clothes.

As the fire caught the small logs, and sent an orange glow flickering across the room, he pushed off his moccasins and placed them neatly together slightly under the bed.  He undressed himself one garment at a time, folding each piece of his clothes in an almost ceremonial way, laying them across one of the chairs.  He loosed his hair and looked down into the fire.  The glow of the fire made the grey in his hair shimmer like threads of silver.  His skin glowed a deep bronze.  In two or three short steps he was standing in front of her.  He ran his fingers up through her temples and into her hair and he pulled her mouth to his, kissing her long and deeply.  He reached around her neck and unclasped the lock of the squash blossom necklace and laid it gently on the little table next to the bed.  With skilled hands, he reached beneath the hem of her blouse and lifted it up and over her head, folding the blouse, in much the same way as he had folded his clothes, and he laid the garment next to his.  Her bra unsnapped with ease.  That too, he folded.  Her breasts fell downward as two large mounds.  He lifted them as high as they would go, held them for awhile and breathed in, then softly kissed each one, before kissing her lips again.  He unsnapped the button at the side of her white slacks and eased her into a sitting position on the edge of the bed.  Bending down on one knee, he lifted her little shoes and sat them neatly together beside his, beneath the bed.  From her knees he pulled down her slacks, folded them and placed them on the chair.  With warmed hands, he slipped all of his fingers around her and into the back of her panties.  He held his hands there with fingers spread wide and he lifted the flesh within them.  Raising her to her feet, he breathed deeply again and slipped the panties to the floor.  She stepped out of them.  He folded them, and laid them on the chair.  With hands feeling easily for the pins holding her hair, he removed them and placed them on the little table.  Gently he lifted the Zuni earrings from the holes in her ears and laid them next to the squash blossom necklace and the hair pins.  He said nothing.  She leaned into him and surrounded his waist with her arms.  He laid his head atop hers and wrapped one arm around her shoulders; with the other he held the back of her head and clutched her to his breast.  He started to sway from side to side, rocking her in that motion.  They stood like that for minutes.  Then he lifted her off the floor and into his arms and laid her gently onto the bed.  She felt the roses cool on her back and waited for his direction.  He kissed her eyes, her nose, her mouth, her shoulders.  With tender hands, he gathered rose petals and rubbed the sweetness on her breasts, lowering his mouth onto each one, suckling at the tan, round orbs, nursing them, drawing circles with his tongue.  He kissed the depression of her upper stomach and his lips moved down to her navel.  His tongue felt warm as it coursed in a circle around this depression and it dragged down into that mat  that protected something so precious.  He slid his hands sideways beneath her heavy buttocks and raised her ever so slightly toward him.  His face disappeared from her view as the sensation of electricity drove through her body.  Remaining there, he working the area, tasting, drawing his tongue into places for which she had no description.  And he lingered there, for a long time, biting gently, pulling, stroking.  An agonized cry – long, slow and mournful poured from her lips as she reached for his hands and pulled hard on them.  He pressed his face farther into the darkness as her feet drew up near his shoulders, and he continued his work.  The muscles in her calves tightened, then her knees and thighs.  Her moans now came as coughs until she stopped breathing.  Her body vibrated all over.  She clawed at his hands.  He never stopped; he never let go.  She shook violently and let out a cry through her open mouth.  “Oh dear God,” she said, pushing the words from deep in her stomach out into the air.  She shook again, convulsing uncontrollably, then loosed her grip on his hands and fell silent.  He raised up to look at her face; to see what he had wrought.  It was the expression of a child sleeping safely and securely in its mother’s arms.  It was the contented face of a woman after the pain of child birth had subsided.  It was his woman, his wife, to whom he had just given a supreme pleasure.

He eased himself up next to her and laid his head on her shoulder.  She kissed him on his forehead, then his lips, as she let out a deep sigh.  He was content to save himself for later.

“There are many hours left in this night.  We will not sleep this night.  I will love you all night, until the morning’s rays lay across us,” he moaned lustily.  And he kept his promise.  Again, and again he moved within her.  He lifted her upon him at times.  He lay behind her.  He lay upon her back as she rested on her stomach.  But at no time did they sleep.  He would make this marriage night the hours she would remember when time and old age robbed them of their strength.  And he would see her in his eyes always as his beautiful, seductive, willing bride.

C
HAPTER 26

        
¤

         The Courthouse Find

T
he newlyweds didn’t leave immediately for their honeymoon.  There were things to attend to.  Blaze had the cabin and his business issues.  Familiar with handling travel arrangements, Lynette took it upon herself to put together a last minute romantic vacation.   She was accustomed to a certain amount of comfort, but she had no experience with wealth.  She knew she could spend whatever she wanted for their honeymoon, but her practical side – call it her Scottish frugality, prevented her from being excessive.  Wherever she planned to take them, it would be fun but reasonable in price.  After all, they were in the process of building a rather expensive, forever home.  It made no sense to her to run through obscene amounts of money on the honeymoon.  And since it was Blaze’s money, she dedicated herself to being a careful steward of that resource.

Due to the short timeframe within which to arrange dates, places and times, she found that certain tour companies were booked all the way till October.  Lodges were generally out of the question, after all this was high season in
Alaska.

“Hey Babe, would you consider a cruise?” she asked Blaze as he walked into the office.

“I works for me if that’s what you want,” he said pleasantly.

Celebrity, Royal Caribbean and Princess plied the frigid waters of Alaska but the seven-day cruises were just too short.  Most of the cruises were round-trip from either Seattle or Vancouver, British Columbia up to Glacier Bay then back to the port of embarkation.  Lynette had visited the cities of Juneau, Ketchikan, Sitka and Skagway three times and though she wanted to stop in these ports again, for Blaze’s sake, she also wanted him to have the Canadian experience in the Yukon.  She wanted the cruise itinerary that visited Hubbard Glacier and ended in Seward, Alaska.   After much wrangling with herself, and taxing the patience of a highly competent travel agent, she chose the Holland America, Zaandam ship which connected with a 12 day land tour.  So a cruise-tour would be the way they’d spend their honeymoon.   Now the rub.  Nothing is ever easy!  A veteran of five previous cruises, Lynette knew that the higher up on the ship the suite was, the more likelihood there was of feeling the rolling and tossing of the ship if they hit rough seas.  In the past she’d avoided any sense of sea sickness by reserving staterooms on lower levels, and always – always - mid-ship.  The problem was that the only accommodations left were upper level veranda suites – high up on the ship, and expensive.

“Not to bother you,” she told Blaze, “but all we can get is a pricey veranda suite.  I wanna keep this trip within reason, but it’s a suite or nothing at this late date.”

“And the problem is?” he asked her quietly.

“Cost,” she replied.

“Again, the problem is?” he asked with a twinkle.

Having been in the navy, Blaze understood the physics of ship- board motion.  He assured her that with the dual thrusters on the large ships, motion was kept at a minimum even in rough seas.

“A regular cabin could feel like tight quarters,” he interjected.  “We need a little more space.”

So she booked the July 25
th
sailing.

Lynette wanted to make sure the puppies, still unnamed, would be strong enough for Hawk and Maurice to take care of while she and Blaze were gone.  She showed the men, (who’d been handling animals most of their lives- duh!), how to mix the pablum-type feeding mixture the vet gave her, and how to feed and stimulate them.  Their eyes wouldn’t be open for another week, so she wanted them watched well.  Suzie Q ran down to the bunk house when “her” puppies were moved there, so the hands had to make sure food, water and bowls were there for her too.  Rusty roamed down there, but wandered back to the house, more content to lie on the deck in the shade or hog the couch in the living room.