When Dan Carney had first stepped out onto the hotel patio at 9 am the heat of the sun had hit him like a wall of fire. Scrambling his six foot frame into his van had been like squeezing into an oven. Now that he was on the road with the windows wide open allowing the rush of warm air give some measure of relief, he reckoned that it had to be the hottest day ever. He pulled the peak of his baseball cap lower to counter the glare of the sun.
Not for the first time he wished he could afford a van with air conditioning. But he had to admit that his art work was not yet earning him enough to take such extravagant steps.
Dan was twenty six years old, and since leaving university he had been making just enough money from his art to keep the wolf from the door. That door was fixed on a tight little downstairs flat in a city which was a long way from where he was at present.
Most of his earnings came from doing carbon sketches of people. He could do caricatures if requested it, but mostly factual representation that, if he rendered them slightly flattering, usually ensured a better fee. Yes, a few successes with portraits in oils, which he was good at, had helped his bank balance, but he did not yet have the contacts or the stability to build on that.
He would admit to an equal expertise in landscapes, oils or water colours. This meant that his little flat was often uninhabited now. He was always on the move, chasing that illusive masterpiece. He maintained a dream of one day having his own studio, where people would come to view and buy his landscapes or to request a sitting for something more personal. But right at this moment all his art equipment, finished paintings, pads, paints, blank canvases and easels, were stored haphazardly in the back of this van
Hitting the main road east that the hotel manager had indicated, Dan sighed, as he recognised the fulfilment of his dream might be many years away. This near nomadic life he was leading had already cost him a two year hectic and hot relationship with Vanessa. She had been keen to show Dan how generous her voluptuous body could be in bed. Without ever commenting about it, Dan had sensed her motives very early in the relationship. It was her mistaken belief that attaching herself to this, then twenty three year old artist might one day repay her sensuous attention. Dan was the first to admit he had learned much from her profound sensuality.
It had taken her a year to learn that it wasn't easy to be good in bed with somebody who was rarely there. So six months earlier, Dan had returned to his flat from one of his trips to find Vanessa, and her whole wardrobe gone. A note, written on the back of an envelope, merely stated, 'Bye, bye, loser!'
Dan's regrets had been short-lived. Yes, he had looked forward to coming back to the flat to experience the avid attention she gave to his penis, hard or soft. But her frequent moaning and griping during those later weeks he did not miss at all. Now, she was gone, and near forgotten. Too active, he hadn't even tried to replace her.
On this particular day he was heading for the Arrowhead Falls, one of the features of the Ascow River, which he had noticed in a magazine photograph. The falls and various aspects of the river life intrigued him, and he hoped to do some justice to it in water colours or even oils.
This road he was on passed through ever changing countryside, mostly flat with occasional hump backs of hills. Open farmland, a mix of cereal, crops and cattle, shone in the bright sunlight. There was the occasional farmhouse set well back from the road. At one point, about two miles out of town he saw on a hill partly shaded by trees, a large white fronted house, which, he thought seemed slightly out of place in the general lay of the land.
Dan groped beneath his seat, and uttered a loud curse. Dammit, he'd left his water bottle back at the hotel. Intense heat had his shirt sticking to his back, and he could have done with a drink. He could just imagine himself having to slurp in some dubious stream to keep his thirst quenched.
He noticed a cross roads up ahead. Was this the one the manager had advised him to turn left at? Without giving it too much consideration he turned the wheel left. Apart from a few rise and falls the landscape remained very similar, farms, hills, and some woodland.
Driving two or three miles along this road there had been no sign of a river, let alone a falls, and he was beginning to wonder if he had taken the wrong turn. Then up ahead was a farm house, the first that had been close to the road, set just a hundred yards back. Maybe the farmer could give him some directions.
When he was level with the house he pulled the van up onto the verge, under a patch of convenient sheltering trees. He hauled himself out, and stood for a moment, stretching his legs and easing the shirt that clung to him. A wide gate blocked the drive up to the house, and Dan clicked it open, stepped inside and closed it behind him, having noticed a pig and several hens loose beyond what looked like a small garden in front of the house.
As he took the first few paces towards the house, a woman appeared out of the front door, holding a glass of something. She was about to sit down by a table on the porch when she noticed Dan's approach. She put her glass down, and stepped to the edge of the porch.
For some crazy reason, Dan had not expected a woman. From this distance he could not tell much about her. Her figure looked fairly neat in a yellow summer dress, and the way she stood suggested that she was not an aged old crone. Conversing with younger women always made him slightly uneasy, in spite of what he'd experienced with Vanessa.
Cassandra Masters, known to everyone as Cassie, wasn't expecting anyone as she watched the tallish man coming down the drive. Presumably the blue van out on the road belonged to him. Seeing a strange man approach always produced that initial frisson of concern, mainly because it was so rare. Ever since Gordon, her husband, had been killed two years earlier she had run the small farm.
Gordon had been the first and only man she had ever slept with. After succumbing that first time, she had found that she was pregnant, as a consequence, and under pressure from parents, they had married when she was twenty years old. The birth of her son, Vince, had brought some joy into her life, as, very early on, she knew the marriage had been a mistake.
Gordon owned the farm, and filled the role of farmer very well. The role of husband was a different story. His demands on Cassie were that she helped with the farm, kept the house tidy, cooked his meals, and, when he was in the mood, parted her thighs for him to relieve his physical tension. One of those cold couplings had resulted in a second pregnancy, and the blessing of her daughter, Angela, who was now eight years old. Cassie could not recall anytime when words of love had spilled from his mouth.
Both children were away at summer camp until the weekend, and she missed them terribly. Watching this stranger approach had her feeling that at least here was a break in routine.
As he strode nearer, she was taken by the easy movement of his body, a sway, a rolling walk that she found quite fetching, but didn't know why. She saw the damp patches under his armpits, and the way his checked shirt was glued to his broad chest by sweat. He took a kerchief from a pocket removed his baseball cap, and mopped at his brow. A crop of short, black hair curled out in all directions, and a smile creased his face, as their eyes met.
Something jumped inside her, and she was strangely glad that, because of the heat of midmorning, she had changed out of her working jeans and boots into her thin summer dress. She didn't even question why she was bothered about not having brushed her hair or applied any lipstick. She rarely wore lipstick.
His walk, his hair, the smile on his open face, all combined to scramble her thinking. When he spoke his voice had a deep brown quality that so fit in with the rest of his persona, as he smiled again, and said, "I'm sorry to trouble you, but I'm not sure if I've taken a wrong turning. I'm supposed to be finding the Ascow River, and particularly the Arrowhead Falls."
Cassie's breath had seized up in her throat. Somewhere inside her brain had developed the realisation that something was about to change. As she stood looking down at him from the porch, taking in the pure masculinity of him, noticing the deep brown eyes, the way his light blue jeans pulled tightly across his thighs, she struggled to formulate an answer.
