AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“So this is your idea of fun, huh?”
Blaze stands beside me, panting slightly from the exertion of our hike uphill as we gaze out over the vista before us. I only half expected her to agree to join me, but I’m glad she did.
“Come on!” I sweep my hand over the view. “This is gorgeous!”
And it is. The mountains around here aren’t all that high, but the one we’re on now gives us an impressive view of the lake and the surrounding area.
All told, last weekend was probably the best 48 hours of my life. Between my shifts and her working hours, the week since has been drier than I’d like, but we managed a few hours of playtime when we could get it.
Blaze isn’t just sexy to look at; she’s sexy all the way through. I don’t think I’ve ever met a woman who is so open about her enjoyment of sex, who is so assertive about her needs, and whose appetite is in perfect synch with mine. If sexual compatibility is any indication of whether we’re right for each other, I should be on my knees proposing to her right now.
But sex isn’t everything. Christine was seductive, but we didn’t have a lot in common otherwise, even before I found out about the credit cards and everything else. Maybe if I hadn’t let my little head do so much of the thinking, I would have realized sooner that we weren’t a good match.
I want to see if Blaze and I have the same chemistry outside of the bedroom, and I’ve been wanting to do this hike for a while. She’s clearly not as outdoorsy as I am, but she was open to giving it a try and that’s a good sign.
I kneel down on the ground to let Jackie out of his backpack carrier. He hops onto the ground, gives himself a shake, and commences sniffing the plants and rocks in the area. “I can’t believe you’ve lived here all your life and you don’t even hike. This area is famous for its hikes and the scenery.”
“I have hiked,” She sits down on the grass beside me, tugging her short skirt modestly over her knees. “You walk up a mountain, then you walk back down. I’m not convinced it’s the most constructive use of time.”
“What would you be doing instead?”
She shrugs. “Reading a book?”
I nod wisely. “I knew reading a book was your idea of hard work.”
She gives my arm a playful slap then her expression grows serious. “Hey, did you see Scarlett’s op-ed in the paper this morning?”
Bill Mayer’s op-ed appeared in The Ridge, Welkins Ridge’s local paper, last Sunday, and it was great. As promised, he avoided taking sides between me and Blaze, and he didn’t mention Scarlett by name, but he came down hard on VivaVentis, warning against catering to the interests of big business at the expense of the broader tourist economy. “Killing the golden goose,” he called it. He asked people not to be swayed by the promise of some short-term, low-wage jobs and instead to focus on the town’s unique charms and invest for the long-term good.
Since then, there’s been an explosion of letters to the editor, and the town’s Facebook group has been lively with discussions and arguments over who should get the Addison. They’ve generally leaned in favor of either the fire station or the library, but now it sounds like Scarlett is going on the offensive.
I lean back on my elbows, close my eyes, and let the warmth of the sun soak into my skin. I don’t really want to talk shop right now, let alone be reminded of the rivalry between me and Blaze, but there’s no point not facing it head on. “How bad?”
“She basically reiterated what she said in her presentation. Tax dollars, jobs, yadda yadda yadda.”
“So nothing new?”
“Not to us, but a lot of people who weren’t paying attention before are paying attention now. She’s making it sound like between the new jobs and the tourists it brings in, the new spa will turn everyone in town into a millionaire overnight.” She picks a blade of grass and begins shredding it. “I’m worried, Jeremy.”
I sit up. I don’t like seeing her worried, but I do kind of like that she’s willing to be vulnerable with me. I enjoy the jokes and the banter, and I definitely enjoy the sex, but I also wonder if she’s using them as a way to keep some distance between us.
I put an arm around her and pull her close. “Hey, it’s not over. The July council meeting is next week, then it’s still another month before they actually make a decision. We’ve got plenty of time to get public opinion on our side. We can’t do anything about it right this minute, so let’s just enjoy ourselves, okay?”
She nods, a little reluctantly.
I decide it’s time to change the subject. “Hey, is this where they saw the flying saucers from?”
I don’t take the flying saucer thing too seriously, but there were a handful of sightings back in the sixties and seventies that became part of the town’s lore. I’m pretty sure they were sighted from one of these mountains. And I know Blaze likes to show off the town and her knowledge about it.
Sure enough, the question pulls her out of her funk.
She points toward the right. “Over there, that’s Welkins Ridge, that the town was named for. The Mayor—Bill Mayer, I mean—and a friend of his saw them first when they were in their teens, a bunch of lights zipping around in the sky. A few years later, a group of hikers got lost and were out past dark and saw lights in the sky again in the same area. Since then, every so often someone claims to have seen something, but those were the only times that more than one person saw them at the same time. Then the Mayor grew up and got on the council and decided the UFOs could be good for the economy. And that’s how we got YufoFest.”
“YufoFest?”
“The UFO Festival. Locals call it Yufofest.”
“Oh, right. I’ve heard about that. It sounds like fun.”
