Mother Road Ch 02 Dangerous Curves

Author's notes: This story is a continuing romance between a married couple, Tom and Laura. If you haven't read the first Mother Road, to fully understand Tom and Laura's relationship you should. This story picks up 6.5 years later.

Thanks as always to my wonderful muse RiverMaya, to my editor/advisor Verbalinians, and my newest editing team member WindySwimming for volunteering their input and assistance on this one. With 3 parts spanning 36,000 words, I needed all the help I could get!

A special shout out to my readers steppinontoes, who wanted the story to continue a few years later, and to tentaclesforall, who said my stories needed to be longer. Your wishes have been granted!

In its entirety, (parts 2, 3, and 4), the story is a long one, spanning 13 months and involving the couple navigating the adventures and loves of four now-adult children and their partners.

•All sexual activity in this story is between consenting adults 18 and over.

•All characters and organizations named are purely fictional

•NOTE: This story contains no incest.

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SEPTEMBER -- The Dream Is Always The Same

I am dreaming of my wife Laura, as I often do when I'm travelling and she's not sleeping next to me.

In my dream, she's pregnant and contractions are happening. Laura is hammering her fist on the bed; I load her into the Ford and drive to the hospital birth center. They undress her and put her in a warm water birthing tub, some new-age-relaxation music is playing; six hours of contractions and pushing later, there's a tiny human head popping out between her legs.

The midwife tells me, "You can help by playing with her nipples," and I look at her, unsure I heard her correctly. The midwife frowns. "I'm assuming you've played with her nipples before, right? Wasn't that part of the process to make this baby?"

I put my lips on Laura's and give her a long kiss, then whisper in her ear as I twist her nipples, like a safecracker breaking into a bank vault. "Laura, you're so fucking hot, still my trophy wife. You like that, sexy momma?"

Apparently, she does; she gives out a huge shriek, a huge push, and the baby shoots out like a rocket. The midwife gets our daughter out of the tub and cleans the now-crying infant. She hands her to the assistant, helps Laura out of the tub and into a recliner, then lays our newborn on her chest.

Our newest blessing promptly takes an inky black squirtshit on mom; the midwife hands me the baby so she can clean up Laura. This angel miraculously falls asleep in my arms.

Then I hear a horrifying squish sound, like something out of a horror film. I look down and see my wife has just expelled the placenta. The midwife scoops it up and takes it away; all the blood on the floor makes it looks like a scene from a horror film, but my wife is still very much alive. "Get some protein in this woman as soon as you can," the midwife's assistant tells me.

Still holding the new baby in my arms, I lean over and kiss an exhausted Laura. "I love you so much," I tell her over and over, covering her sweaty face with kisses. My heart feels like it's bursting with joy.

"I want a double cheeseburger," she murmurs, then, like the new baby, falls asleep.

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I wake up from my dream in a hotel not far from the Santa Monica Pier in California. I pick up the phone and dial. It's 6:30am here, so it will already be 8:30am back home. Laura picks up the phone on the first ring, waiting for my call.

"Hey sleepy head, you finally waking up?" Even when I'm home, Laura is always awake before me.

"Yes, sweetheart, I'm up. I dreamed about you last night."

"Ooooh, was it hot and steamy?"

"It's always hot and steamy when I dream of you, but this time it was that one dream where you're in the delivery room."

There was silence on the other end of the line for a moment, then she said quietly, "Does that mean you decided you want another baby?"

"No, Laura, no decision. It just means you're as sexy pregnant as you are when you're not. I just called because I have a huge erection, and to tell you I can't wait to get home and take you to bed."

"Well, sweetie, my fun factory is closed right now. My period is going hot and heavy."

"I guess I'll have to buy a raincoat then. If I have to share you with 'Aunt Flo', so be it."

"Such a romantic! You always were a sweet-talker, Tom. I miss you, baby."

"I miss you too, lover. After this, I'll try not to travel as much, I promise. I don't want to risk some young stud driving down Route 66 and stealing you away from me."

"I'm afraid you're stuck with me, my darling,' she teases, "you know my loins ache only for you. Besides, if anybody tried to steal me away, the twins would beat him within an inch of his life."

I knew this was an exaggeration but given how big the twins had grown during high school it was certainly within the realm of possibility. Liam and James had just turned 19, both 6'2", 190 pounds, built like their biological father, Laura's second husband Glen.

Glen had been killed in an oil well accident when the boys were 7. Strange to think that when I'd first pulled Liam and his bike out of a muddy ditch, he was a short, skinny 75-pound 12-year old. What a difference 6 years makes.

"I'll see you soon, darling. I love you so much." Laura says, and I know she means it. I hear our 6-year-old daughter crying in the background. "Gotta go, Pearl needs me! Bye!"

My dream was, in fact, a little unsettling; the baby issue wasn't going away. The last time Laura visited her gynecologist, the doctor spoke with her about how risky another pregnancy would be at 40.

Laura is a very fertile woman (runs in the family, her mother had 14 children), but another baby meant a higher risk of things like high blood pressure, gestational diabetes, miscarriage, and low birth weight. Since birth control pills have strong adverse effects on her and she'd refused an IUD, we'd been primarily using condoms, oral and anal sex to avoid pregnancy.

I'm happy as a clam with the eight children we have (seven of hers that I adopted, one of ours) and suggested to Laura it would be much easier on her health if I just got a vasectomy. Laura remained uncertain because she really loves having little ones to care for. It's defined her for so many years that it's emotionally challenging for her to deliberately say 'stop, no more'.

We'd lain in bed together many nights debating about the right thing to do, until one of us touched the other one in a certain special way and the discussion was halted in lieu of more pressing issues of a carnal nature.

After many discussions and more than a few tears, I'd convinced Laura; I'd scheduled my procedure 3 weeks after I arrived home from this last assignment. It will be an outpatient procedure, just take a couple of hours then a few days of icing the tender parts. The doctor said I would still have semen, just not as much, and of course sperm-free; I'd be firing blanks.

Laura, however, kept pressing me to reconsider just one more baby. My wife is an amazing and strong woman, hard to refuse if she's got her mind set; but I stuck to my 'gun', as it were.

I'm on my final assignment for SustainArch, the architectural consulting firm I've been with for 14 years. It's fitting that Santa Monica is the location of my last assignment. The Santa Monica Pier is the end point for Route 66, one-time Main Street of America, also known as the Mother Road. I met my wife and the mother of our eight children while travelling Route 66 a few years ago; a temporary detour led to a full stop in Oklahoma.

After I get an upgraded fire protection/life safety system installed at our client's warehouse, I'm done. I've resigned from SustainArch and will hang out my shingle as an independent, consulting out of my rural home office outside Wellston, Oklahoma. My employer is actually cool with it; they plan on hiring me as a consultant for some upcoming jobs, so my business will hit the ground running.

I'm Tom McFarland, and I'm 35 years old. Laura is 40, and my second wife; the marriage to my first wife Beverly barely lasted long enough for the ink to dry on the marriage license. She wasn't a bad person; we were just a poor match.

I'm Laura's fourth husband; when I met her she'd been widowed twice, and deserted by a third husband. Neither of us had any inclination to get re-married, but one look at those green eyes made me change my mind -- I wanted this woman as my wife. After a crazy courtship that lasted a little under a month, I proposed and she said yes.

It's been six and a half years since I persuaded her to marry me, and I'm still crazy in love with this remarkable woman. I love her light red hair, (with a few gray ones now interspersed), her cute freckled nose, and those incredible green eyes. Even now, when she gets dressed up for our date nights she is still stunning.

Having given birth and breastfed a baby since we wed, her big wonderful breasts droop a little more and her nipples are a little longer, but they are still my favorite place to put my lips when I'm not otherwise preoccupied kissing her pretty face.

I'm even more in love with her now than I was on our wedding day. As mentioned, between us we have eight children. Seven of them were from her previous marriages, but when I adopted them, they all agreed to take my last name: Olivia, who's 21 and finishing college at Sooner State University, the twins Liam and James, 19, recently graduated from high school, Ava, 18, finishing her senior year in high school, plus three grade schoolers, Elijah, 10, Amelia, 9, and Lucas, 8. Pearl, the child that Laura and I had together, is 6 and in first grade.

A wise man once said, "Life is what happens while you're making plans." Well, life hit us hard one day in mid-October when Olivia called. A senior majoring in Chemical Engineering, she was set to graduate in April, seven months away.

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OCTOBER -- Olivia's Dilemma

Olivia being Laura's oldest, the two of them have always had a special bond. Olly and I have our own special bond, though. She never knew her birth father, who died a month before she was born. Laura's second husband Glen Carlson was kind to Olly, but the majority of his attention was on his biological children, Liam, James, and Ava.

Laura's third husband Christopher Palermo basically treated Olly like a nanny to his three children Elijah, Amelia, and Lucas, nothing more. As a result, when I first met her Olivia was shy and withdrawn, but it was clearly evident she was devoted to her little brothers and sisters. Somehow, the two of us hit it off and became pals not long after we met, thanks to our shared love of cooking.

When I decided to propose to Laura, I first asked Olivia to give me her blessing because she was so important to her mother. Then, I asked Olivia's permission to adopt her and be her real dad if Laura said yes (it was still not a sure thing that Laura WOULD say yes). Whether Laura said yes or not, I promised I'd pay for Olly to attend college because the kid had had a rough life and deserved a break.

When she unexpectedly put her arms around my neck and hugged me, I was all-in. In my heart she was now my little girl, and I swore to myself I'd always be there for her. When Laura's cell phone rang that day, little did I know that my simple oath would be put to the test.

After an hour of talking and more than a few tears, Laura hung up and led me into the cabin office I used for some privacy. In the past, being alone in the cabin meant us getting naked and sweaty, but today Laura sat me down and told me the news: Olivia was pregnant.

Sooner State University had been in session for a couple of months. Olivia had been invited to a Kappa Lambda Omicron fraternity party by a guy named Brad Maddox, a swimmer on the Sooner State University swim team she'd gone out with a few times.

Olly's not a big kid, a little taller than her 5'2" mother but weighing maybe 95 pounds soaking wet. A little alcohol goes a long way with her and, having been to a few frat parties in my college days, I knew damned well restraint in a frat when it came to drinking was practically non-existent. Young people and alcohol mixed, and the inevitable happened.

Olly told her mother the morning after the party, she woke up naked and alone in Brad's bed. She remembered drunkenly agreeing to have sex with him, but her request that he wear a condom had either been ignored or it had fallen off, she wasn't sure. Like her mother, birth control pills made her sick, so she wasn't protected. After she got up and dressed, she went to the bathroom only to see more than just the usual stuff come out of her.

Horrified, she went to her apartment and showered until the hot water ran out. She'd tired calling Brad multiple times, but it was obvious he was deliberately avoiding her. For the next two weeks she'd concentrated on her studies to avoid thinking about it, but three days after her period should have started an early pregnancy test showed positive -- not just once, but seven times. (Poor kid was probably dehydrating from peeing on all those sticks.)

Panicked, Olivia went to the Kappa Lambda Omicron house to find Brad and tell him. He was hanging out with friends in one of the study rooms and refused to be alone with her, so she blurted out, "I'm pregnant, Brad, and it's yours!"

He laughed and told her she was so drunk she probably fucked half the guys in the frat that night. She turned to run out and he called after her, "You're just another slut trying to trap me. Good luck finding another baby daddy!"

And that's when she called Laura. The two of them decided Olivia would vacate her apartment and move back home. She had classes three days a week, so she could drive the 45 minutes to campus on those days. She needed to be home, and Laura wanted her here. Truth be told, so did I.

Laura went to pick Olly up while I stayed behind and stewed. My daughter and best pal had been traumatized. I just wanted to hold her again and tell her Daddy would fix this. As for Brad, this assclown had NO idea how badly he'd just fucked up. I began designing a plan to unleash unmitigated Hell on his fratboy ass.

When Olivia arrived and got settled in, the three of us sat down around the kitchen table. I handed James a wad of cash, and asked him to take Elijah, Amelia, Lucas, and Pearl to see the latest Disney movie. As much of a jerk as he could be sometimes, James loved his siblings and was always willing to take care of them. I'd often thought he'd make a good father someday, if only he could find a woman who could tolerate his misanthropic personality.

Once home Olivia was, understandably, not her usual cheerful self. Laura and Olivia had already spoken in the car, so I just stated my piece. "Olivia, I once told you I wanted to be your real father; a dad that watches over you and scolds you. Well, given the current situation," I shook my finger at her as if she were a naughty child, "you're grounded -- no TV for a week."

Olly looked at me in confusion, then saw I was teasing and started laughing. "Daaaaaaaady," she whined like she was a tween again, "that's not FAIR!" Laura and I started laughing too, then I took her hand and kissed it. Her joy was back, at least for a bit.

I took her hand and patted it reassuringly. "Olly, accidental pregnancies happen all the time. You're hardly alone. I'm sure your Mom has already told you, but if you choose to keep that baby, after you graduate we'll take care of it so you can start your career."

"Thank you, Daddy, I've already decided to keep the baby."

Then I grew serious. "There's one thing though, that does need to be fixed. The way Brad treated you, I refuse to let that stand. Keeping the baby is totally your decision. How to deal with Brad is mine."

Olivia blurted out, "Daddy, please don't hurt him!" I was amazed at Olivia's kindness. Our daughter had a good and loving heart, and this shithead Brad had no appreciation for how sweet and kind she was. I was even more determined that smug bastard would pay dearly for insulting my Olly.

I patted her sweet face. "Olly, love, I promise I won't hurt him, but I promise you by the time I'm through he WILL apologize to you for the way he's treated you. He had no right to do that. Don't ask me how I'll get him here; this is the dirty end of the pool, and you don't want to be swimming in it. Just trust me, he'll be here within two weeks, or he'll live to regret it.

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NOVEMBER -- Payback

While working for 15 years within the construction industry, I've had to interact with some people who, shall we say, 'operate on the periphery of the law'. One such situation involved a retail center construction project in Kansas City; the developer was pushing to cut corners on fire safety, which I flat out refused to do. The developer, Ed Greco, asked me to sit down with him and his major investor to discuss it.

The major investor turned out to be Salvatore "Quiet Sal" Bartolo, alleged underboss with the Kansas City syndicate. After shaking hands, he got right to the point. "Ed here tells me we need to spend $2 million on a fire prevention system for the new building, is that right?"

"That was the initial estimate, yes." Looking at Sal's suit, I guessed it cost as much as the Ford Transit I hauled my kids around in.

"Well, think of it from a businessman's point of view. If I'm just going to turn around and sell this building, why would I spend so much on a safety system? That's the next guy's problem."

"I understand your perspective, Mr. Bartolo Let's look at it from a different angle. If you don't mind me asking, do you have any children?"

"Yeah, I got two, boy and a girl, 16 and 18."

"Well, I have eight, ranging from 17 to newborn. It's safe to say we're both family men. When I help build a building, the safety of my children is always in the back of my mind. I think about what if they were inside one of my buildings and something I did went wrong? In addition to the liability to my company, I don't want the emotional liability of hurting my children, or yours. You see my point?"

Sal shrugged, "Yeah, OK, but $2 million is still a lot of money."

"What I hear you saying is, you're in agreement with me on safety, but you're struggling with the cost, correct?"

"Yeah, exactly." He seemed to be open to compromise, this was good.

"Well, I'm not ever going to compromise on safety. I can help you with the cost, however."

The consultant from my company who wrote the initial bid was recommending premium control components imported from Germany, some of the best and most expensive on the market. I re-wrote the bid using American-sourced control components vendor, just as good but without the market share of the German company.

I also got an exceptionally good price on the sprinkler system hardware from a vendor I'd recommended to many clients in the past; he was happy to reciprocate by helping me out on this job. Bottom line, I was able to install an affordable system for under $750,000 without compromising safety system integrity. In the end, we both got what we wanted, and Sal told me he owed me a favor in return.

Today was the day I called in my favor. I'd stayed up all night finalizing my plan, and asked Sal for assistance in making Brad Maddox face the consequences of his actions. He offered me two of his guys, referring to them only as Mr. Green and Mr. Orange, after characters in the movie 'Reservoir Dogs', which Sal thought was funny as hell. (I must admit, Sal did have a wicked sense of humor.)

Mr. Green and Mr. Orange drove a one-way rental car two hours from Wichita, dropping the rental off at a parking deck in downtown Oklahoma City. This is where I picked them up in my wife's old 1974 Fury wagon. It's a good thing the Fury was so roomy; Mr. Green and Mr. Orange were both well over 6' and easily 250 pounds each. They dressed like cliches of bad guys - both wore black suits, black shoes, and white shirts with black ties.