This Land Is Mine

"Nothing right now." I answered and filled her in on my plans for the upstairs.

"Danged, if you ain't got all this figured out right down to the last detail," she said with a chuckle. She turned, looked out the front windows of the house, and told me, "That is a great view, you can even see the lake from here. This is a really great place for a house."

"You should see the view from upstairs, its even better." I told her.

"Can I?" She asked turning back toward me.

"Sure you can, but there's a dollar admission charge," I said with a grin. "I've got to pay for this place somehow." She laughed and started to dig in her pocket. "Never mind, I'll just take it off what I owe you for the ideas."

I followed her up the spiral stairs and enjoyed a view that was worth a whole lot more than a dollar, believe you me. Her tight ass was working under the shorts right in front of my face and as we made the turns going up, I got several good glimpses of her breasts under that short blouse. By the time, we reached the second floor there was something very tight in the front of my shorts.

The staircase exits straight at the front wall. The view is the first thing that you see as you rise above the floor level.

"Oh my God, this is great," she said and walked over to the glass wall. She admired the view for a while as I continued to admire her. I still hadn't seen any sign of a tan line and I wondered if she used a tanning salon to get an all over tan.

Finally, she turned and looked down the length of the unfinished area. She walked over to the far wall and looked back out the windows before looking at me with a grin on her face. "Boy, you talk about a bed with a view, making love in here would be almost like being outdoors. With the bed here, you'd wake up to this every morning and go to sleep with a sky full of stars."

"That's what I wanted, a place to sleep that would let the outdoors in," I said grinning back at her. Visions of us making love in here were flashing through my head and not helping my tightness problem at all. I decided it was best to let the love making part of that sentence pass without comment.

She continued to look at me for several seconds, after I quite speaking and then she tilted her head slightly to the side. "You're not wearing a wedding ring, does that mean you're single?

I glanced at her left hand and saw that it was bare also, as I answered, "My wife passed away a good number of years ago, and my kids are grown and out on their own. I don't have a girlfriend at the present time, if that's your next question. I'm presently alone and I haven't been looking for anything or anyone. I've been way to busy building this place and getting settled in."

With a grin I added, "No, I'm not gay and yes, if I find the right lady and she'll have me, I'll probably marry again, someday."

She laughed and said, "Damn, such a straight, full answer to such a small inquiry. I've got a feeling that somewhere in the near past, you've been hurt by someone you really liked."

I chuckled and replied, "Not only are you smart but you're a mind reader too."

"It's just a female thing," she said with a grin. "It's our secret weapon, you know. We sense things that men have no knowledge of and it's another way we keep you in the dark."

I chuckled and said, "All this time, I thought it was just the fact that no woman, wanted to see a happy single guy. I thought that there was a law of nature, that every man should have a woman to torture him, which would keep her happy."

Linda laughed and shook her head, "You're smarter than you look, if you've figured that out. Mother Nature is a woman after all and she's the one to blame for those laws."

I laughed at that and then stood there looking at her for a moment. I realized that I had a smile on my face and had, had since she had arrived. "You know, I've enjoyed your company immensely. I hope you come back and visit me some time."

"I've had a nice time myself and you're not a bad guy as men go. I'd love to come back and visit you," she said with a smile of her own.

"When?" I asked jokingly.

She looked at me for a second and then grinned, "I work tomorrow and Friday in the office but how about this weekend. We can watch the cement cure, together."

I laughed and replied, "Great, I'll make sure there's a case of beer on hand so we have something to toast the curing with."

She laughed and headed for the stairs. "Yeah, you're just like the rest of the guys I know, get a girl out in the woods, get her drunk, and take advantage of her. What time should I be here?" She asked as she went down the stairs.

I chuckled and answered, "Make it early, so I can take advantage of you a couple of times."

She laughed and headed across the room to get her briefcase and phone. "Promises, promises," she said. "All I ever get is promises."

I stopped at the bottom of the stairs and said, "Any lady that looks as good as you should have no problem getting anything and everything she wants."

She turned and looked at me. "Yes, you're right, the only problem with that, is finding the right someone to give it to me. You wouldn't believe the number of assholes in this world. Married men, men with girlfriends or fiancées, losers, boozers, abusers, the list is endless. In my few mad moments of depression, I feel like all the good guys are taken already."

I laughed and replied, "I understand that, I've seen them all and I can't understand why they all have such great women at home and all I can find are women with more head problems than brains."

She looked at me for a long minute and then smiled, "I guess us women aren't the only one with problems finding someone. I just never thought of it from a man's point of view before. I know both types of women you're talking about. The ones with an asshole for a partner, they're all the time bitching about how bad they are treated and threatening to leave but they always stay or come right back. The head cases as you call them are another story all together."

She paused thoughtful for a second, looking out the front windows, and then added, "I think I used to be one of those, until I took responsibility for and charge of my life. That's when I ditched the loser I had and got my act together. It was a hard road for a long time, but I got a good job and lost a ton of weight. I decided that life was too short not to be what I wanted to be."

Taking a deep breath, she let it out sharply. "Some things are still hard, living alone, eating alone, being alone, fending off unwanted advances, some of which aren't really so unwanted but are unwise, shall we say."

She stopped talking suddenly and looked over at me, a sad look on her face. I took a half step towards her, I wanted to take her in my arms and just hold her. She took another deep breath and tried to smile before she said, "I'm ok and I'm sorry I spilled my guts all over your new dinning room. I'll have to remember to clean it up when I come back Saturday morning." She did smile then and started walking toward the door.

I followed her out to her jeep as all the things she had said replayed through my mind. As she was getting into it I said, "I'm sorry I made you sad, that was the last thing I wanted to do."

She grinned and replied, "You didn't start that, I did remember. I'm the one who asked if you were married, it just snowballed from there. Anyway, this week is nearly over and I always get depressed on the weekends when I don't have work to keep me busy."

I grinned and said, "If work is all it takes to make you happy, I have enough around here to make you ecstatic."

She chuckled, started the jeep, and replied, "I'll see you Saturday. Do I need to bring anything?"

"Just your beautiful self and maybe your string bikini to entertain me," I said with a laugh. "You can get some sun if you want to, I won't be a slave driver."

She slipped the shifter into drive and grinned as she said, "I don't wear anything when I sunbathe."

With that, she made a tight turn and headed off up the driveway, as I stood there with my mouth open.

*****

I spent Thursday morning on the tractor, mowing the open patchwork of fields on the hillside below the house. When I returned for lunch, the work crew was already busy with the framing for the slab of the addition. The foreman had a couple of quick questions about the staked area for the shop but otherwise; he seemed to have everything under control. He said he'd have no problems finishing up the dirt work and the framing today.

The sun was low behind the trees by the time I finished my mowing. I parked the tractor by the portable building I used for temporary storage and headed toward the house. A shower would sure feel good, the day had been warm, and I'd had my shirt off for most of it. The mower had kicked up quite a bit of dust and I was covered with it.

With the sun almost down, it was cooling off rapidly. I spent a few minutes checking on the construction and it all looked like it was ready for the concrete. I headed on into the house for my shower.

*****

As I was toweling off after my shower, I thought I heard a knock at the front door. I wrapped the towel around my waist and took a look out the bathroom door. I couldn't see anyone through the glass wall and chalked it up to my imagination. Who would be out here at this time of the evening? I took off the towel and went back to drying my hair, using a blow dryer.

When I finished, I headed for the bedroom and a clean pair of shorts. As I crossed the open area by the stairs, I definitely heard a knock at the front door and then it opened. Linda's head appeared in the opening and there was a big grin on her face.

"Oh shit!" I said as I took four quick steps and entered the bedroom.

I heard Linda laugh and then she said, "Sorry, I didn't mean to catch you at a bad time. Not that anything I saw looked all that bad." She laughed again as I heard the front door close.

"Very funny," I said as I got my shorts on and grabbed a t-shirt. "I've definitely got to put a signal bell on that front gate or a security gate up, one." With the t-shirt on, I headed for the front room.

Linda grinned at me as I came out of the bedroom. "Oh, you're not happy to see me? I was very happy to see you," she said with another laugh.

I grinned and shook my head. "You caught me at a bad time, but I'm very glad to see you. I just didn't expect you until Saturday."

"It wasn't a bad time for me," she replied with a chuckle. "It didn't look like it was going to be very busy tomorrow, so I decided to take an early weekend. I hope you don't mind me showing up unannounced."

"No, I don't mind at all. I just hate giving a free show." I replied with a chuckle. "I do have to do something about that gate. I've gotten into a habit of running around here naked or only half dressed at best. A guy could get into trouble doing that."

"I don't have a problem with nudity," Linda said. "Some of the other ladies around this county might, but I don't. I run around my apartment naked most of the time."

I grinned, as a vision of Linda nude floated across my mind, there was also a twitch in the front of my shorts.

She chuckled and added, "Oh, you find that idea interesting, do you? Well, be careful what you wish for, you might just get it and then where would you be?"

I looked at her sharply for a second and then grinned as I replied, "Hornier than I am now and probably a lot more embarrassed."

She laughed and shook her head. "Spoken like a true dirty old man. At least you're honest about it. That's more than I can say about most of the guys I meet. Most of them would have asked why I still had my clothes on."

I chuckled and told her, "That thought crossed my mind, I just didn't say it. But now that you've mentioned it, why do you still have your clothes on?"

Linda looked at me for a moment with a grin on her face before she said, "Give me time to get to know you a little better, and I'll probably be out of them most of the time."

She paused and then chuckled. "Hmmmm, that could be interpreted several different ways, couldn't it. I think you know what I mean though. I feel comfortable around you and...." She paused another time and then added, "Well, I guess the word is safe."

I shook my head and then laughed. "Well, there goes my reputation. When women start thinking they're safe around you, then it's all over. I might as well pack up and head for the dirty old man's retirement home."

Linda laughed and shook her head. "That's not what I meant, and you know it."

I chuckled and asked, "Have you had supper yet?" When she nodded, I said, "Well, I haven't and driving that tractor all day has me hungry as a wolf. Come on and have a beer while I fix me something."

*****

Linda sat at the end of the counter in the kitchen and sipped a beer while I made my supper. I learned that she had been raised on a farm not far from here and had married right out of high school. She had lived in a large city up north, where her husband had found a good job. She had been pregnant when they married and had a daughter. The daughter was twenty now, married, and lived in town.

"Yeah, the more money he made, the more he spent, and the more time he spent at work or somewhere other than home," Linda said as I sat down next to her with my plate.

"I was always home with our daughter and felt trapped. We never went anywhere together. He stopped most nights at a bar with his friends and came home drunk. He never was physically abusive but mentally, that was another story. I made up for my loneliness by eating and the bigger I got, the less time he was home and the more he pushed me away. It just kept on getting worse and worse."

Linda paused to sip her beer. "Kathy was about fourteen, when I caught on that he had a girlfriend on the side. That snapped me out of my depression and made me mad. For the first time in my life, I started to think about my daughter and myself. Did I really want to continue to live like I had been and did I want my daughter to think our relationship, my husband's and mine, was the way life had to be."

She paused and stole a green bean off my plate. "You don't cook to bad for a guy. At least you eat on the healthy side."

I grinned and said, "I learned to cook in self defense. My wife didn't like to cook, it was a chore to her, and the food tasted like it too. As for eating healthy, I'm showing off a little bit because of all the weight you said you'd lost. This is not, shall we say, a normal meal. I know I need to lose some more weight and that I should eat like this all the time but I like food. I needed exercise more than I needed to change my diet. This place has given me something to do and has gotten me up off my dead ass. I haven't lost much weight but I have lost a lot of inches off my middle."

"You don't look bad at all. When I left my husband, I weighted twice what I do now. The only things I miss are my boobs," Linda said with a smile and a shake of her head. "That was the first place I started to lose weight."

"Large breasts are overrated," I said with a grin. "They may be nice to look at but they play hell with your back and sooner or later they end up in your lap."

Linda laughed and nodded. "You seem to know a lot about tits, not to own a set."

I chuckled and replied, "I'm a man, they're something I think about a lot."

She laughed and shook her head. "I think you're the first guy I've ever heard admit that." She looked at me for a second and then went on, "I think that's one of the reasons I decide to come out here. I don't date people I work with, nor do I date customers. There's something about you that I trust and I don't think you'll take my being here as a sign I'm easy, if you know what I mean."

"Yeah, I know, I'm safe. Boy, talk about a blow to the old male ego," I said with a deep sigh.

Linda laughed and then leaned over to kiss me on the cheek before she said, "You're not that safe. I am, but you're not."

When I looked at her and cocked my head questioningly to the side, she laughed again and got up off the stool. "I think I'll have another beer on that note. Are you ready for one?"

"Sure, why not," I said as I got up and carried my plate to the sink, so I could rinse it. I loaded the dishwasher and turned to see Linda watching me. "What? You didn't think I was going to leave all this in the sink did you?"

"Most men would." She replied with a grin.

"Well, haven't you figured out yet, that I ain't most men?" I asked with a grin of my own.

"I'm beginning to think that way." Linda replied as she handed me my beer. "To bad we don't have a fireplace to get cozy in front of."

"That is going in the master bedroom upstairs. I wanted one down here but haven't figured out where to put it." I told her.

"Are we talking wood or gas?" She asked as she walked towards the living room.

"The one upstairs will be gas. I can't see carrying wood up the stairs. I'd like to have a wood burning one down here. I thought about putting one on that bedroom wall but the chimney would have to pass through the bedroom upstairs, so that won't work. I guess that outside wall would be about the only place but would it look right, that's my only question," I said as I followed her.

"Instead of the conventional hearth and mantle, how about if you lay your firebrick in a square, and face it with stone. Build it up about three feet or so. Stack firebrick against the wall and then hang a black wrought iron box above it with a large diameter stack coming out of that through the roof. It would be open on three sides and would look something like a blacksmiths forge." Linda said slowly.

She was standing in the living room and turned toward me. "How does that sound to you?" She asked.

"You are a genius! I could just kiss you, you're so smart," I said with enthusiasm.

She grinned and said softly, "Well, why don't you?"

I looked at her for about a heartbeat and then stepped forward to do just that. My hand was on her waist as our lips met. I had only meant to kiss her softly and sweetly but as our lips touched, a current seemed to surge between us. She slowly moved forward as I did and our arms went around each other. About the time there was smoke coming out of my ears, Linda broke the kiss and took a slow half step back.

She blew out a noisy breath and whispered, "Boy, talk about being careful of what you wished for."

I wasn't sure if she was talking to herself or me but I knew what she meant. "I'll second that," I said softly.

She grinned at me and took another step back. "I think I had better sit down and drink my beer, like a good little girl."

"Uh huh," I said with a grin of my own.

She walked over to the couch and sat down. Slipping off her shoes, she curled her feet up next to her butt and leaned back with a sigh. I sat down in the recliner and let my eyes wander over her. She was dressed in jeans and a peasant blouse, probably what she had worn to the office.

"Hard day at the office?" I asked.

She chuckled and nodded. "A long day is more like it." She took a sip of her beer and added, "I like my job, but I hate all the paperwork. I would much rather be out selling buildings or inspecting jobs, anything but doing the paperwork. The boss can't see it my way though." She chuckled again.

I grinned and said, "Ok then, I'll just work you this weekend and not make you do any paperwork. How does that sound?"

She looked at me for a second with a big grin on her face before she replied, "Hmmm, there's several ways I could take that and both of them sound interesting."

I chuckled and shook my head as I said, "You know what I meant, but now that you mention it...." I let the sentence trail off.

She laughed and said, "Down boy, roll over, heel."