Page 52 of Hard Corps (Selected Sinners MC 7)

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Summer 2014, Austin, Texas, USA

My Saturdays during the summer months had been spent doing whatever the weather permitted, but almost always it was something outside. Now, the only difference was that Katie was present. My time with her was something I enjoyed immensely, and it didn’t seem to matter what it was we were doing, I found it to be pleasant.

I quickly realized not only was she different than Suzanne, but that I found pleasure in doing things with her I would have never considered with Suzanne. After considerable thought, it was clear to me that what little time I spent with Suzanne was done more out of a feeling of necessity than out of desire.

I spent time with her because she was my wife.

Being with Katie wasn’t something that was expected of me, but it was exactly what I wanted.

“Did you see that movie with Josh Brolin? The one where he found the case full of money?” she asked.

We were hiking along the Colorado River northwest of the city, and the scenery was beautiful. The river had etched its way through the terrain hundreds of years before we arrived, through the solid rock formations, leaving a sheer rock cliff up one side of the river bank, and a shallow berm on the other. Both sides were lined with trees, rocks, and crevices that made the river perfect for hiking.

I stepped over a large rock, stopped, and responded to what she had asked me.

“I haven’t seen a lot of movies, except the recent ones. I’ve got about twelve years of catching up to do. When did it come out?” I asked.

She shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know, maybe like six years ago. Dad has it on DVD.”

“What’s it about?” I asked.

Dressed in canvas shorts, hiking boots, and a loose-fitting tee shirt, she sat down on a rock ten feet away from where I stood. I stepped back and sat down on the one I had just stepped over. As she situated herself on the rock, I pulled off my pack, set it to the side, and pulled out a bottle of water.

“Drink?” I asked.

“Sure,” she said.

I tossed the bottle into the air, and wondered as it began to fall if she was going to catch it or drop it. As it fell in the space in front of her, she reached out and caught it one-handed.

“Impressive catch,” I said.

“Thanks. It’s brutal out here, and I wanted a drink,” she said as she wiped her brow.

“That it is,” I said.

It was late in the summer, but unseasonably warm. I had yet to spend an entire summer in Austin, but from what I could see it was considerably warmer than Wichita. I gazed over my left shoulder and toward the drop-off to the river, admiring the deep blue color of the water.

“Here,” she said as she tossed the bottle of water in my direction.

Instead of tossing the bottle upward, she tossed it directly at me. Trying to catch it would have made a fool of me, so I rolled my shoulders back and let it slap against my chest. As it fell toward the ground, I reached down and caught it in my right hand.

“Yeah, that’s not going to happen here,” she said with a laugh as she stuck her chest out. “These things are like huge pillows.”

Katie was tall, probably five-foot ten or a little more, thin, and had an extremely large chest for her size. In believing she was probably self-conscious about her breasts, I had yet to mention them one way or another, and did my utmost not to ever stare. Apparently, however, the size of them was a subject she didn’t mind joking about.

“Probably not. You’ll need to work on your hand-eye coordination. So what about the movie?” I asked as I unscrewed the lid from the bottle of water.

“Okay, Josh Brolin. He plays a guy that’s maybe kind of like you. Maybe a little bit. The movie didn’t say, but you get an idea that he’s former military. It starts out, and he’s out in the middle of nowhere hunting. He shoots an antelope, and while he’s tracking it in the scope of his rifle, he scans across a bunch of abandoned trucks and SUVs. And there’s dead guys all laying around,” she paused and stretched her arms wide.

“So, he searches the vehicles and finds a ton of heroin. He leaves the dead men…wait…all but one is dead. So he leaves the dead men except for one who’s alive, and goes home. The next day he goes back and the almost dead guy is under a tree right beside the place where they were shot. He walks up to the guy, and now he’s dead, just like the others. And, he’s clutching a case with two million bucks in it. So he takes the money and leaves him there.”

“So, before I tell you the rest of the story, would you take the money?”

I didn’t even need to think about it. “Nope.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Really?”