INTRODUCTION
We've all no doubt read our fair share of Loving Wives stories where the husband, upon discovering his wife's infidelity, suddenly reveals himself to be a top-secret super spy with ten years of training as a ninja warrior before his distinguished career in with John Wayne in the Green Berets. So equipped, he wreaks fantastic vengeance upon the wife and her paramour, usually, at least in part, in the form of destroying lover boy's testicles with repeated phantom kicks to the gonads.
Sue me if you will, but I tend to enjoy these stories. Few of them are even remotely plausible, but they are still a nice fantasy.
Having been in the Army, though, and having also met my fair share of soldiers in the Airborne, the Rangers, and Special Forces, I've never met any of the superheroes for whom I root in the stories I read here. Also, while I'd probably dream of beating my wife's paramour half to death if she ever got herself such a thing, I'd still do no such thing. Sorry, but jail scares me a hell of a lot more than being called a wimp by an ex-wife who cheated on me.
Thus, please consider this my modest contribution to the genre. Yep, there's a soldier boy, a paramour, and a confrontation. Sure, none of it would probably go this way, but it still has--I hope--the stamp of plausibility. I've also thrown in some characters from past stories--including a descendant of Ernie the Pug from The Bar and Grill--love interests, flirty students, and main characters who are lost. This is the story of how at least a few of those lost characters find their way.
Sorry, but it's pretty slow going at the beginning, and there's no sex until the finale. The pace of the story is necessary, though, as it sets up the rest of what is to come.
It's also pretty long, and I'm sorry for that, too. I seem to have had diarrhea of the word processor on this one, and there only seemed to be a few natural breaks for multiple parts.
Thus, this is being submitted on consecutive days in three parts of roughly equal length.
As always, I ask that you all please take the time to comment, both good and bad. Obviously, the more detail to your comments, the better. Still, we're all pretty busy, so even just a few words of what you like or dislike is greatly appreciated.
CHAPTER ONE
My right hip hurt like a son of a bitch from the moment I awoke.
"Bad weather on the way?" Whitney murmured, her half-open eyes following my limping figure to the bathroom.
I only grunted in response.
Days like this were the worst. Most people looked forward to Spring, but not me. Spring meant cold and damp, which, in turn, meant that my old hip injury would ache almost constantly for two months or more. And my mind would be flashing back to those terrifying hours leading up to the cause of my hip pain.
After taking a leak, I stared at myself in the mirror while washing my hands. The face staring back at me was still somewhat chiseled. Okay, not really chiseled so much as not covered with sagging jowls and two or more chins like most of my contemporaries. My gray eyes looked tired and lined with a few crow's feet, my short-cropped hair was now sprinkled with gray, and the flab of my chest and skin was noticeable as my body began feeling the inevitable effects of age and gravity. Still, I was only seven pounds more than the day I'd graduated the Point, and my body seemed to be holding up as well as could be expected.
Everything except that damned hip. And the visions that would now be popping up more frequently and at the worst times.
"You okay?" Whitney said through her yawn, leaning against the doorframe.
"Yeah," I said, watching her stretch her tiny, lithe body behind me.
Any other day--and any other mood--and I'd have been sporting thoughts of a morning jump. There she was, her soft brown hair a tousled mess, her tiny, petite body covered only in an old tee shirt and a pair of skimpy panties. And beneath it all, I knew, was the sex drive of a tigress in heat, an unquenchable passion and joy for carnal delights that exceeded that of any woman I'd ever known.
"Your hip?" she said, now nudging me aside and reaching in the drawer for her tooth brush and the tube of paste.
"It's gonna rain today," I said.
"The dreams?"
"Bad," I confirmed.
"You were tossing and turning all night," she said.
She started to brush her teeth, and I reached for my toothbrush to join her in our morning ritual.
Once done, Whitney hopped into the shower while I shaved. After finishing and rinsing my face in ice cold water, I trudged down the hall to awaken Kyle and get him ready for the day.
Fifteen minutes later, I was sitting at the table, sipping coffee and reading the paper while Kyle ate his bowl of Corn Puffs and munched on a piece of toast.
"I got my second grade assignment," Kyle said with a mouthful of food.
"Don't talk with your mouth full," I said, lowering the paper.
He finished chewing. "I said I got my second grade assignment yesterday."
"And?" I asked.
"Miss Palmer," he said.
"So what do they say about Miss Palmer?"
"She's cool," he said. "Kinda old, though."
I tried to suppress my smile. A 7-year old's idea of old was relative.
"As old as me?"
He frowned. "Not that old. More like Mom."
"I won't tell her you said that," I said.
"Why?"
"It's not nice to tell women they're old. It's not nice to tell anyone they're old--man or woman--but especially women."
"Why?"
I shrugged. "Just one of those mysteries of life, little man."
"What mysteries of life?" Whitney said, buttoning the last button on her blouse as she entered the kitchen. She was perfectly coiffed and professionally dressed in a white blouse with gray skirt and jacket, ready for another day saving the citizens of Lincoln County from its felonious predators.
"Nothing," I said.
"Dad was saying that I shouldn't say people are old even if they are. It's not nice."
She chuckled, pouring herself a cup of coffee.
"Did you call your Dad old?"
"No," he said, ignoring my finger-to-lips shushing gesture. "I said you were old."
She laughed aloud at that.
"So you're not mad I said it?" Kyle pressed, shooting me a 'told you so' look.
"Your father's right," she said, pulling out a chair and sitting with us. "It's not polite."
Kyle said nothing to this, preferring to finish his cereal in silence.
"He got his second grade assignment," I said.
She raised her eyebrows, sipping her coffee.
"Miss Palmer?" I said.
Maggie nodded. "Sure. Kristin Palmer. She started four or five years back."
"Then how is she old like you?" I said, grinning.
"We graduated together," she said. "High school. She got her degree pretty quick, I think. Didn't start teaching again until she came back up here and got divorced, though."
"Same age?"
"Yep."
"So is she any good?"
Whitney shrugged. "Dunno. She was real popular back in school. Prom queen, head cheerleader. You know the type. We didn't exactly run in the same crowd. She didn't have as much time for books and studying. What, with her busy social calendar and all."
"Jealous?" I tweaked.
"Not any more."
"Meaning?"
"Tyler Collins?" she prompted. "The writer?"
I nodded. "Sure. Lives out on Twin Oaks Road somewhere."
She nodded. "Her ex-husband. The first one. The second one was a cop from around here. So no, I'm not jealous."
I nodded. "But she's a good teacher, right?"
"Not a clue," Whitney said, putting her coffee down and looking at her watch. "Can you hurry up? I really need to get into the office. Final preparations on that hearing today."
"What hearing?"
"The LaBruzzi drug case," she said, impatience creeping in. "Their motion to suppress the evidence."
I nodded, pushing back from the table, putting my coffee mug in the sink, and going back to hop in the shower and finish getting ready before relieving Whitney so she could get to the State's Attorney's Office. Then I'd finish getting Kyle ready for school, drop him off, and make my way to Rensinger Hall at Chadwick College for my morning Classical History II class.
In a nutshell, just another weekday morning around the Patterson household.
* * * * *
Driving to Chadwick, something was niggling at my brain.
It was Whitney. Her moods. She'd been more impatient, silent, brooding, always on the edge of saying something before pressing her lips in silence. Something was bugging her, and that something was more than the typical stresses of her job.
I mulled this over as I parked in the faculty lot and grabbed my briefcase.
The wrist on my watch confirmed I was twenty minutes early. As usual. Oh well, old habits die hard.
* * * * *
It was almost seven-thirty when Whitney walked in the door.
"You guys already eat?" she asked, hanging her coat in the foyer closet before turning to me.
"I fed Kyle," I said, marking my place in the massive tome on the Punic Wars before setting it aside and getting up to greet her. "He's in his room doing some homework. I decided to wait for you."
She gave a weary smile. "You didn't have to do that. You must be starving."
"You, too," I said.
She shrugged.
Her face was weary to the bone, a combination of frazzled and dead tired.
"Everything okay?" I asked, pulling her into my arms and giving her a hug. "You seem really . . . I don't know . . . distant lately. Something on your mind?"
She murmured something into my shoulder, then hugged me tighter and held me there. This was the same response I'd been getting for the past month. She just wouldn't open up.
