A Red Leaf And Ten Orchids Ch 10

**I've still got a way to go with this one, but I'd like to thank anyone who comments on my stories and takes the time to vote. O_o

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Kayla felt better as she began to get ready to leave and she thought about the evening before. She tried to be objective and look everything over but she kept finding a little smile on her face. In spite of the speed of this and the oddness, she had found herself almost trying to fight off the feeling that she had.

She tried to tell herself that this wasn't supposed to be happening. She'd never had a relationship begin the way that this one had. And for her to get intimate after three days wasn't anything like her track record either, but whenever she marveled at that, she had to chuckle and shrug to herself.

'What the hell?' she asked herself. Her track record up to this point had been one rolling train wreck after another, the times that she'd been careful and the very few times that she hadn't. How much worse could this one be? At least she was finding the courage in herself to give it a serious try. That alone was something.

Kayla was still thinking as she prepared, but at the same time, she was still putting things away in their new places. There was an open cardboard box on the floor that she hadn't really gotten around to yet, and her foot brushed against it as she stood wondering about her hair. She decided to re-braid it and then thought about the evening again, just after she'd kissed Joshua goodnight.

At first, she'd closed the door and leaned against the back of it for a minute, but then she realized how the posture was reminiscent of the way that a teenage girl might do the very same thing after saying goodnight to a boy that she really liked in a million cheesy movies. The thought had made her laugh to herself quietly and it got her away from the door in a hurry, She shook her head at her actions and just went to bed.

That was when she'd had the dreams.

One of them related to a fantasy that she'd had forever, though she was surprised – even while she was dreaming it – to see herself doing just what she'd always had a secret and very sensual wish to do. She'd thought of it before, but only when she was awake. This was new to her.

But there had never been even one person that she'd had a relationship with or that she'd even known who seemed to fit what she'd imagined and for damn sure none of them were worth even trying to share it with, let alone admit it to.

Anyway, the man in the fantasy had no face. She guessed that she'd never gotten far enough along in her fantasy to where he'd needed one.

Well he had a face in that dream. That man now had a face and a name and that surprised her even more, since she really hadn't thought of the fantasy in months..

In the second dream, Kayla was sitting beside the ocean on a really nice deserted little beach all alone on a hot day. She knew that she'd been swimming, since her body was still covered in water droplets from the ocean.

She'd never had this dream before.

When she looked down at the droplets, she noticed that she was wearing a bikini with a floral pattern. Kayla even noticed that the overall tone was a warmish yellow, though there were plenty of green leaves in the pattern. The warm tone came from splashes of orange, here and there..

She was a little surprised. It wasn't really the first color and pattern that she'd have gone for, but that was what she had on. She hadn't worn a bikini in so long. As she remembered it fully awake now and hours later, she had to really try to figure out just how long it had been.

In the dream, there was just the sound of the ocean breeze past her ears and the slow rhythm of the incoming waves, and every so often, she could hear the call of gulls out to sea, and birds from the jungle behind her. She had no idea where she was and it didn't matter to her in the dream. She remembered looking off to the side, along the strand, and she saw him walking along the wet sand with his hands in his pockets.

The man was wearing jeans, as odd as it seemed to her, but he wore no shoes. He was just walking toward her with his head down, his pant legs wet almost to the knees, and his face hidden by the other incongruity about him. He was wearing a Stetson and it prevented her from seeing his features.

Kayla remembered watching him walk and thinking that it was going to be just a little funny at some point. His path would take him right past her, less than ten feet away from her feet, and if he didn't look up in time, she thought that he might just trip over the large section of the driftwood tree trunk that she was sitting next to.

But then she saw his chest and she just knew.

In her dream, she called to Josh, but he didn't seem to hear her. She stood up and placed herself squarely in his path. When he reached her, he stopped maybe six feet away and looked at her. Kayla was frightened to death that he'd just look at her, push her aside and walk on - but he didn't.

In Kayla's dream, he smiled just a tiny bit, while his eyes took on a look that told her in no uncertain terms how he wanted her. Kayla was still afraid, though not of his look. There were only two things that she could do, and one of them would reveal her shame to him. One of them was to walk closer, and the other was to walk away.

She stepped closer and touched his cheek for a moment before she ran her hand down his chest slowly. When she'd gotten to below his navel, her hand slowed even more until she made him groan as it slid lower still and she felt his arm slip around her waist.

He was trying to pull her to him, but she knew that this miracle had to end, so she placed her hand against his chest and pushed him away a little. Kayla remembered how she'd dragged her eyes slowly upward on him until they were looking into each other's eyes. She did her best to hold the look on her face and not let it slip so that he wouldn't see the dread that she felt.

His arm fell away as she turned around. and began to walk away from him slowly with her heart in her throat.

She remembered wanting to check – to see about a couple of things. She wanted to see if he followed.

She wanted to turn her head far to the left and look down as she walked to see the green there, but she didn't dare. She knew that if it was there in the dream, then she'd be walking away alone.

But she heard the slightly splashing cadence of his feet at the water's edge where he walked and knew that he followed her, so she turned left and continued on under the fronds of the nearest palms. That was where he caught up to her and Kayla's recollection of the dream ended with her in his arms.

Kayla finished the braid and looked at her own face in the mirror. The dream had come to her before she knew that he'd seen the back of her. Now? She found herself wishing a little that she could have that dream again, but this time without the uncertainty that she'd felt.

She felt the box against her ankle and looked down and her eye fell on her razor, and then she saw her aerosol can of men's shaving foam. A dollar seventy-nine, it still said on the price sticker. She must have gotten a hundred uses out of the thing. Now there's value.

Kayla smiled as she sat on the edge of the old tub and turned on the water, already knowing something about the man who had seemed to just explode into her life somehow.

Her next thought made her laugh a little.

Josh wasn't interested in a landing strip.

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Josh was feeling almost suburban as they shopped. It was a new experience to him to stand around while Kayla chose some things for Jillian, and then for herself. After that, Josh waited with Jillian while Kayla looked for a top.

She'd worn a necklace of her own, a gold chain with a gold cross. She'd decided to keep the French braid in her hair purposely, ...

She thought it was a little stupid, but she took the three tops that she'd thought might look good to a dressing room. She hung them up on one of the hooks there on the wall and just noticed another garment left behind by someone on the back side of the door, but thought nothing of it and closed the door to change.

It wasn't until she went to look at herself in the mirror on the back of the door that she noticed that it was really two articles on separate hangers. She was looking at the top and the matching bottom that when combined made up a bikini. She smiled to herself and laid it aside carefully to try on the first of the tops that she was interested in.

That took a minute and a half. It was really no contest and she made her choice quickly, but, ...

Kayla's eyes went to the bikini. It wasn't even the thong type.

It got just a little nutty then as Kayla recalled snippets of her conversations with her aunt.

"Stop talking yourself under a rock."

"You need to like yourself, Kayla."

"You need to try. Something at least."

Kayla wanted to shake her head and almost wondered where the tiny loudspeaker was. Just what the hell kind of sappy movie was she playing through her mind here anyway?

She looked at the bikini again and wondered when they'd started selling the things in separate pieces since she hadn't bought one in so long. She shook her head and thought that they could sugar coat it any way that they wanted to, but it was nothing more than a money grab disguised as offering a woman flexibility or a better choice of sizes.

But it was a little cute, she decided, and it had green leaves, though in a sort of bamboo-like pattern, not like the one in her dream at all, she told herself.

Dang, and it even had little orange highlights in the yellow background.

She held it up and wished that she could wear one again, but, ...

She noticed that it was on sale, forty dollars marked down to fifteen for the bottom and ten for the top. She shook her head.

No way. She knew that she could likely buy a nice one-piece for close to the same money in this very store, and not even on sale. She'd even seen them on her way to the dressing room.

She looked at her face in the mirror and thought.

Time – and years of workouts – had been good to her and she knew it full well. There were a lot of women her age who would kill to have her figure. And she had to hide it.

Or did she?

She looked at the label and the price tag. Kayla stared.

Size eight.

'Well,' she thought, 'there's nobody here to laugh at me if I try it on.' It was only a bikini, not a backless gown, a cute bikini something like – no, pretty similar to the one that she'd been wearing in a pretty nice little dream and just her size.

She put it on and took a breath before she looked.

Kayla smiled as she checked herself out, but then she began to turn to see what the back of it looked like on her and then she remembered. She stopped still.

She didn't want to look anymore. She didn't really want to see what she knew was back there. Kayla looked down and her hands began to move to take the pretty bikini off.

She had no business even trying it on.

But then she froze again and thought about it. She looked up and saw her own eyes blazing at herself in the mirror.

'What are you doing?' she thought to herself uncharacteristically, as if there weren't there enough reasons for a woman to feel self-conscious. Kayla told herself that she still had a nice body – a panther-kind of body at thirty-three years of age. She realized that she'd been covering herself up more and more these past few months, seeking to hide what was there – and she KNEW that it was all her. What was next, a tarpaulin? Enough was enough.

"Fuck this noise.' she heard the words in her mind. She'd been good enough for Josh last night, and he had no problems with her today. If they had some sort of crazy chance together, then she had to stop throwing up roadblocks, she told herself, it could be much worse than something that she'd resented and hated herself for.

The woman in the next dressing room looked up and wondered a little when she heard the laugh through the wall. She was sure that the other woman had gone in there alone ...

Kayla was grinning as she changed back into her clothes. Now she had the real argument to get past – convincing herself that she had a place to wear it.

That took another eight minutes, but at least she was admiring the way that she looked now. If he liked it, then maybe she ought to just get used to the idea.

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Josh and Jillian passed some time while waiting by telling each other how bored they were. "The paint in my room was dry faster than this," she said.

Josh replied that oceans have probably dried up quicker and Jilly laughed, but then she scowled just a little.

"You hate waiting too? This isn't bad yet," Jilly said with a sour face, "I had to wait while Kayla picked a bra to buy. It took forEVer,"

She rolled her eyes in an exaggerated fashion, "I thought I was gonna die. And I could see the toy section, too. I asked if I could just go there to wait. But Kayla wouldn't let me." Joshua suddenly remembered shopping trips like that with his own mother years before.

"I hear you, Jilly," he said, "I had some of those trips to the store myself. I think it's a lot harder when you're a kid, though, and if you could see the toy section from where you were, well, ..."

He smiled down at her, "I think that's just cruel and unusual punishment."

They laughed together; until Joshua pointed out that one day she herself would be shopping for her own clothes, and likely taking forever to do it as well.

"A guy like me, "he said with a shrug, "well I'm just doomed to die waiting."

"How come it takes so long, Josh?" she asked, looking up at him, "Does it take you that long to buy stuff?"

"Nope," he grinned, "almost never, unless I've got to buy a suit or something. Ladies shop differently, Jilly. For something that they're going to wear and be seen in, it's important to them to make the right choices. Me, I figure out what I want or need, pick a place where the price ought to be not bad, go there, buy it, and I'm done.

Like I said, one day, you'll be taking just as long – and maybe longer to buy your clothes."

"Uh-uhh," she said, shaking her head, "I'm gonna be like you, Josh. I'm gonna live my whole life in jeans. I'm gonna – "

Even Jillian stopped talking when she noticed that Kayla had stepped out of the dressing room wearing her new top. "Holy –"

"Yeah, " Josh said with a smile as Kayla walked over to them carrying her own top and a few other purchases, "that's why women take so long, Jilly."

He had absolutely no doubt that the entire store stopped dead.

They returned to the bike dealership, and Josh bought Kayla a helmet for the lessons that he's booked over the phone that morning as a surprise. Jillian flitted around the showroom happily, and stared at the almost continuous stream of machines thundering in and out of the place. Jilly asked Josh if the one that he'd left at home was like any of the ones that she saw there, and he walked her over to the same model.

She had only one word and it seemed to drag out of her mouth forever. "Awesome,..." was all she said in a whisper. Jillian made her pronouncement that it was the "right one" for him, and he laughed and tousled her hair.

"The right one, Jilly, is one that you have enough money to buy. That's the first thing. Then you get to choose one from those that you like at the price that fits the money that you have."

Joshua noted the looks that they got and enjoyed them. He'd never been that much for being prideful, but then in his book, there'd never been as much to be proud of. He felt as if he'd rented a family for the day.

They called in at the building supply store where Josh ordered some materials from a list that he'd made earlier that morning. He saw a display and stopped, thinking hard.

"What are you looking at?" Kayla asked as she walked over to where he stood.

Josh pointed toward Jillian. She was looking at the display as well, but said nothing.

"I just had an idea," he said.

"Well, since the side of your head's not made of glass," she smiled, "how about you tell me what it is?"

Josh smiled a little, "Rosie has an idea what she wants to try about putting in a little pond garden," he said, "We tried it last year. She didn't want to dig out something proper for a first try like with a rubber liner, so we put in one of these, but made of vinyl. The whole 'achieving the balance' thing is hard enough to do on her ranch, but Daisy ruined everything with her nails in a heartbeat."

He shrugged, "Looking at these ones here, the plastic is hard. I could put that in easily and Daisy likely couldn't wreck it when she wades in. I was thinking about getting her one of these since they're on sale, but won't be when Rosie has the thought again. Rosie wouldn't really be able to do much with it until it cools off at least some, and in the meantime, I think I know a little girl who might like a shallow pool to cool off in."

"I don't know," Kayla smiled, "I think there's almost enough room for a girl and her big goofy friend to splash around in on a hot day."

"I'd still have to try to keep Daisy out, though it likely won't do any good," he said.

"Daisy's not goofy. Who's talking about Daisy?" Kayla laughed, "But I'm beginning to have a little daydream about sitting in something like that to read if I threaten death and destruction to the first one who splashes me."

Josh turned to her, "You're serious, Kayla?"

"I dunno," she said, "try me."

One of the largest models was added to the order.

As they walked back to the truck, Josh paused to look in the window of the sporting goods store for several minutes. Jillian couldn't see what they were looking at, so Josh picked her up.

Kayla was looking through the window as well, but she re-focused to look at their reflection for a moment before including herself in the picture as well. She liked what she saw and wondered for a few seconds if any of what was there might really be possible. She didn't really want to think too hard or long over it, but without realizing it, she had begun to smile a little and Joshua noticed.

"What are you smiling at?" he asked her. Jillian was oblivious and kept staring at the things in the window.

"Nothing," Kayla replied. "You'd probably freak out and run if I told you anyway."

Josh looked at the reflection of them all standing there and nodded, "I get it. I don't know, Kayla. Maybe I might surprise us both."

As they drove off, she asked, "What were you looking at all of the bow hunting stuff for? Do you hunt?"

"No," explained Josh, "I don't have any problem with it, but I don't have an interest either. I've been thinking of taking up field archery. I don't have enough frustration in my life, and Rosie's got the space. I was just thinking back there that they might have, or be able to order a bow and stuff for me. They didn't have what I want in the window, though. I'm not into all those pulleys and attachments that they put on compound bows. I want to do something while I work my back, that is, when I'm not working my back around Rosie's ranch." he joked.

"Have you ever done that before?" Kayla asked him. When he shook his head, she thought a moment, and spoke up. "I used to compete in high school. I could help you get started. Of course, I'd whip your butt score-wise once I got back into the swing."

She looked over at him, "Are you sure that you can handle the embarrassment of that, Conan?"

Josh's answer surprised her. "Kayla, how could I be embarrassed? I'd expect that if we each made a list of the things that we're good at, yours would be longer. Where does it say that one of us has to be inferior to the other? I'd be happy just to do that with you even if you just let me flounder around, but I'd love it if you could teach me."