Cougar Cruise

On the way home, he suggested they all go out for dinner, and when he did, Virginia said she didn't want to be a third wheel.

"What? Are you kidding?" Gavin said before Natalie could reply. "We insist, right?"

Natalie agreed immediately and it was obvious Virginia loved being included.

"Well, if you're sure," she told him.

"Yep. One-hundred percent!"

During dinner, Natalie noticed a man who kept looking over at their table. Gavin noticed her looking and asked what was wrong.

"That man keeps staring at us," she said.

When Gavin looked his direction, the other man turned away.

"He's been doing that since we sat down," she said.

Her mother overheard them and looked to see who it was, and when she did, the man smiled at her. When she smiled back, Natalie's eyes opened wide in disbelief. Then when the man got up and walked over to their table she was too stunned to speak.

"Good evening. I know I've been staring, and I'm truly sorry," the man said. "But well, in my defense, I couldn't really help myself."

He looked at Virginia, smiled at her then said, "I mean, you're a very attractive woman, and unless you're with this handsome young man here, I was hoping to introduce myself."

With the 'cougar cruise' fresh in their memories, the thought of Virginia being with Gavin made all three of them laugh.

"I must have said something funny," the man said as he looked around the table.

"She's single," Natalie said, finally smiling without explaining why. "I'm the lucky girl who's with this handsome guy."

"Well, then this is my lucky day," the man, who was still standing, said.

"Before you introduce yourself," Virginia, who'd been smiling, said very seriously, "just how old are you?"

The nearly white-haired man had a puzzled look on his face but said, "I'm 63."

When Virginia said, "Oh. A cub!" Gavin and Natalie laughed again.

"I'm sorry. I never should have interrupted," the man said, feeling very embarrassed.

"No. You're fine," Virginia said. "It's an inside joke I'll explain on our first date."

"Mom!" Natalie said before Gavin reminded her this 'cub' was 63 years old.

"Oh. Right. Sorry. Go ahead, sir," she told him.

He introduced himself as did Virginia.

"My name is Daniel Hodges, and I'm a widower who doesn't date much, but I rarely see anyone as beautiful as you who catches my attention," he told her.

He looked at everyone once then back at Virginia and asked, "Now that we know one another...may I call you sometime?"

Virginia was beaming as she gave him her phone number. The 'cub' was a very nice-looking man himself for someone in his 60s, and after apologizing again for interrupting their meal, he promised Virginia he'd call her the next day.

"Thank you, Daniel," she told him, a very big smile on her face.

Daniel was a retired investment banker, and when he paid for his meal he also told his server to charge everything at 'the table with the three very nice-looking people at it' to his card along with a 25% tip. He never mentioned doing so, but he did say goodnight to them on his way out.

"Mom, you are positively glowing!" her daughter teased.

"Had I not gone on that ridiculous cougar cruise, I'd be making some kind of sassy remark about how I'll be glowing...later on."

Gavin laughed when Natalie's eyes got big again as Virginia continued speaking.

"But I've learned my lesson, so I'll just say he seems like a very nice man."

"For a cub, right, Mom?"

"Well, he is five years younger than me, so..."

Everyone laughed again just as their server brought over their check with 'paid in full' stamped on it.

"Courtesy of the distinguished-looking gentleman who said to tell you he finds you...enchanting," she said to Virginia.

"He's not only handsome and generous, he has very good taste," Virginia said in a way that got a laugh out of everyone including the young woman who asked if she could bring them anything else.

As they lay in bed that night Natalie told Gavin how much the way he treated her mother meant to her.

He turned over on his side so he could look at her and said, "I really, really like your mom, so it was as fun for me as I hope it was for her."

"She had THE best time today, Gavin. And thank you for that."

Natalie kissed him softly when he said, "And you should know I really, really like you, too."

"Really?" Natalie teased using the word again.

"Yes. Really."

"I'm...really...glad because I really, really like you, too, Gavin."

He started to ask, "Really?" but didn't say it.

"I want you to meet my mom and dad," he said instead.

"Oh, wow. Are you sure?" she asked, feeling old again all of a sudden.

"My dad knows about you, and yes, I'm sure. I'm...really...sure," he told her.

"Okay, yes. In that case, I'd love to," she said as she looked into his eyes.

"We joked around about calling each other 'baby' but I'm more of 'honey' kind of guy, myself."

"Oh?" she asked, her heart beating fast.

"Uh-huh. I am...honey," Gavin told quietly her as he gently touched her cheek.

"I like 'honey' better than 'baby'...sweetheart," she told him just as sweetly before asking him to make love to her again.

Gavin hated leaving her, but both he and Natalie knew he needed to be home in Tucson for Christmas with his family. But that didn't mean they couldn't spend more time together before work and school started, so they made plans for her to drive south and spend a few days with Gavin on the 27th.

The one thing above all else that was clear to the Freeman family was that their only son was in love with this older woman from Phoenix.

Neither of his parents had ever seen Gavin so on top of the world. His dad had been 'greasing the skids' with his mother by dropping hints here and there and telling her how young this Natalie woman looked without doing so in a way that would make his wife jealous.

So by the time Natalie arrived in Tucson, Gavin's mother was as ready as she could be to meet this woman who'd 'charmed away her son'. But by the end of the first day, she liked Natalie so much she no longer seemed like a threat but a friend she'd known for years.

Both parents highly valued education and loved that teaching was Natalie's chosen profession. And as much as Gavin's mother hated to admit it, when she saw him with Natalie, they looked much closer in age than she'd previously imagined. It wasn't until she met Virginia a few months later that she realized that she, and not Natalie, was the kind of woman she'd imagined 'stealing' her son away from her.

But even Virginia proved too charming for her to resist liking, and they became almost as close as she and Natalie. Most surprising was that Virginia didn't come alone. She brought along a very attractive older man named Daniel she'd met at dinner one evening with Gavin and her daughter, and from all appearances they were getting as serious as the younger couple (with 'younger' being relative.)

Once the reality of work returned to their lives, Gavin and Natalie spent most evenings on FaceTime talking and sharing their day with the other person. On the weekends they burned up the interstate between Tucson and Phoenix until the end of the school year.

Just before the 4th of July, on a day that hit 117 degrees, Gavin casually mentioned that Tucson had schools; schools that were always looking for qualified teachers. To that comment Natalie just as casually asked if that was a hint of some kind.

"No. No hint. It's actually a request. And a rather hopeful request, at that."

Not ready to move in with him without some kind of promise of a longterm future together she kind of coyly asked, "What kind of request? One in which I would say...become your roommate?"

"Among other things," he told her as he got the hint.

"Well, whenever you're ready to tell me what those 'other things' might be, ask me again, okay?" she told him just as coyly.

Her reply settled things in his mind, and that evening he stopped by Virginia's to ask her the most important question of his young life.

"Yes. Of course you have my blessing, Gavin," she told him as soon as he asked for her daughter's hand in marriage.

"I only wish my late husband could have met you. He'd have loved you as I much as I do."

She smiled, kissed him on the cheek, then said, "But not as much as our daughter does."

Gavin hugged her thanked her then asked how things were going with Daniel

"Oh, my. Um...swimmingly!" she told him with a very bright smile.

"I'm very happy for both of you," Gavin told her.

She thanked him then brought up the cruise.

"Had I not had that 'bright' idea, Natalie wouldn't have met you. That means we wouldn't have gone to dinner that night. And, of course, that means I'd have never met Daniel. So as foolish as the whole 'cougar cruise' thing was, it was quite possibly the best decision I ever made."

Gavin laughed then told her he agreed completely.

"I've told Darren that more than once. He's still not ready to give up on the whole cougar-cub thing, and as a matter of fact, he's talking about going on another 'cougar cruise' this December."

"Well, I wish him all the luck in the world. He's a nice young man, he's just not ready to settle down."

She smiled then said, "You, on the other hand, have always struck me as mature beyond your years, and I couldn't be happier to call you my son-in-law."

"She hasn't said 'yes', yet, Virginia."

"Oh yes she has," the now 69-year old woman replied.

She smiled then told him, "Just not to you. Yet."

Knowing how close Natalie was with her mother, she invited her—and Daniel—to join them at the same restaurant where the latter couple had met the following evening after taking Virginia with him to a local jewelry store.

Once they'd finished eating, it got very quiet, and both Virginia and Daniel both had smiles on their faces so big it made Natalie uncomfortable.

"Mom? What's going on?" she asked as she looked at her mother and her 'younger' boyfriend.

"Don't look at me, honey," her mother replied as she looked at Gavin and smiled.

"Natalie? Honey?" Gavin said to get her attention.

The way he was looking at her also told her something was going on.

"Will someone please tell me why everyone is acting so...weird?" she demanded.

"Patience, honey," her mom told her as Gavin produced a small, black box with a white interior in which a huge solitaire diamond sat.

When he got down on one knee, Natalie's hearing stopped functioning as her entire body began shaking. The only words she heard were, "So...will you marry me?"

She also didn't remember saying, "YES!" so loudly that it turned every head in the room. Well, those that already weren't watching the handsome young man proposing to a beautiful woman at their table, anyway. She also didn't hear the applause or the calls of 'congratulations!' until her mother told her to look around.

Natalie smiled and then, as the only thing she could think of to do, held up her left hand for everyone to see. That brought on another round of applause along with many well-wishes for a long and happy future together.

Neither Gavin nor his new fiancé were aware until the following day that Daniel had proposed to Virginia later that night himself at the restaurant where they'd met. He'd been planning if for a month, but when he learned about Gavin and Natalie, he had no intention of stealing their moment of happiness. But after they said goodnight, he too, asked the older woman he loved to marry him.

Unlike her daughter, Virginia didn't even tear up. She just held out her hand then said, "We're not getting any younger here so what took you so long?"

Daniel laughed, kissed her then told her how much he loved her.

"Then take me to bed and prove it!" she said, her 'sass' suddenly back with a vengeance.

But this time it was a sass that was now tempered with genuine love for this man who'd made her feel like she was the most important person on earth, a sentiment her daughter shared when it came to the younger man she loved even more.

Virginia resigned from the school district two days later and with the help of her handsome young fiancé, moved to Tucson and applied for a job. Within a week she interviewed at three elementary schools and accepted an offer at the one where she was promised she could teach second grade.

Even though her mother was a little over a hundred miles away, Natalie couldn't have been happier with her new life in Tucson. She loved her new job even more than her old one, and the reason why was obvious. Each night she got to go home to the man she loved, and that made everything in life seem amazing.

They settled on a day to marry, and both of them agreed it had to be the 8th of December, a day neither of them would ever forget. With her mother there to serve as her Maid of Honor and Darren serving as his best friend's Best Man, Natalie was so happy she was moved to tears as she said 'I do' the amazing man she'd met in the most unusual of places.

Daniel and Virginia also married not long after Gavin and Natalie and had another 15 wonderful years together; time neither of them thought they would ever have with anyone else, let alone someone else they would love so much.

As wonderful as that first year had been, life got even better when Natalie learned that she was finally going to have a baby, and better still when her husband picked her up and swung her around out of pure joy.

Before the 'cougar cruise', Natalie Freeman had thought her life was fine. She had no real complaints and a job she loved. But as her handsome, younger husband took their baby girl from her for the first time as everyone she loved stood around her waiting their turn to hold the new life she and Gavin had created, Natalie could finally say her life was now full and complete.