Heavy Traffic Ch. 02

"I'm honored to witness your awakening," said Amanda.

Sean sensed that she was going to be a bigger part of his awakening than merely being a witness to it. He set an intrusion sensor and locked the front door of his cabin. He then led Amanda out the backdoor and locked it. Continuing to the garage, he opened the door revealing a shiny silver Volvo XC-90 SUV. Pushing a button on the remote, he unlocked the doors and opened the passenger door for Amanda. She climbed in as Sean went to the driver's side.

As he settled behind the wheel she said, "You'll have to forgive me if I seem to be reaching for the steering wheel from time to time. Where I come from it is usually on this side of the car."

Sean laughed and said, "You'll probably be too focused on trying to find the brake pedal to worry about steering. I'm a pretty aggressive driver."

"Hit me with your best shot," she said as she buckled her seat belt and tied her hair into a ponytail. "What about your generator? Do you leave it running all the time?" she asked.

"It starts up only when the batteries that power most of the house need charging. With the solar power system and plenty of sunny days, there is enough fuel stored for it to run at least another two weeks. If I'm not back to close things up for the summer then I'll make arrangements for a diesel delivery far enough in advance to keep it running until I do return."

Amanda sat in silence as they drove, but her mind never drifted from thoughts of the man beside her. He was obviously more than a warrior, with apparent resources and skills that belied his attempts to seem more primitive and simple than he really was. His military training could explain his physique and the tidiness of his home, but not his gentleness. He definitely wasn't lacking for money, if his house and car were any indication, but he didn't offer any suggestion that he wanted to discuss his true occupation so she didn't pursue it.

They were just entering Bainbridge when Sean asked Amanda. "Do you know what a Wal-Mart is?"

"I'm familiar with them," she said, "but I've never shopped at one.

"Do you have a clear enough idea of what you would want to purchase that if I stopped at a Wal-Mart you could run through the store and make your selections without a lot of decisions?"

"As long as the store has signs indicating where specific items were located I could get everything pretty quick. I don't need much really; just daks and a pair of shoes that fit would cover me for days."

"What are 'daks'?"

"I'm sorry," Amanda said with a laugh. She had a soft laugh that resembled a purr. Sean knew at once that she had no idea just how sexy it was.

"Daks are slang for pants in Australia. I'll try to be more considerate in my language."

"Please don't. I would love to learn more slang from Australia if you don't mind explaining it to me when you use it. Anyway, I don't want to rush you that much," Sean said. "Maybe you could select the daks and shoes while I picked up shampoo or other toiletry items you might want."

"I can be a girly girl when circumstances call for it Sean, but it's not who I am. I was raised on a sheep and cattle ranch and have dedicated my life to helping orphans in remote under-developed countries. Shampoo is not important to me unless it matters to you."

"I just want you to be as comfortable as circumstances permit. There's no reason to play the martyr and forsake either hygiene or comfort unnecessarily."

"You are absolutely and uncategorically the sweetest thing I have ever seen. I'll tell you what, I'll go get shoes and pants and you can go find me some decadent chocolate to eat. It's too early for a beer, but you can buy me one of those later. How's that?"

"A girl who likes beer and chocolate but doesn't want to shop till she drops. I'll be beating guys off you for the rest of my life," he teased.

"American boys are so easy," she said in mock exasperation.

True to her word, when Sean stopped at the Wal-Mart in Bainbridge, Amanda had selected shoes, socks, three T-shirts and two pairs of jeans before he had decided on which chocolate to buy her. She teased him about this until they returned to his car. Amanda also noticed that almost every woman in the store stole a glance at Sean, and once she had joined him at the checkout lanes, the visible envy of her being with this man was obvious. Once back inside his car she immediately went about changing out of the sweat pants into a pair of the new jeans without any consideration for Sean seeing her in her underwear. The sweat pants, Glenn Parker's socks, T-shirt and Tango Three's shoes were tossed into the far back section of the Volvo SUV. Amanda then relaxed in her seat as Sean drove them north towards Atlanta.

After a few miles she said, "Thanks for the clothes. I'll pay you back as soon as I can get my status here straightened out."

"Don't give it a second thought," Sean told her. "I am glad to treat you to your first American clothes."

After a few miles she said, "Sean, since we're going to be driving for a while, do you want to talk about your recent hibernation?"

Sean was surprised. Yes, he was surprised that Amanda had remembered his earlier comments and decided to explore them, but he was more surprised by his not being adverse to the idea of sharing his history with someone else. Maybe it was just the right time, but he suspected it was more that Amanda was the right person to share this with.

"The impetus for it was a betrayal by my former fiancée, named Kimberly DuPont. We met while I was attending Vanderbilt University for my MBA. I had completed my undergraduate degree prior to joining the Corp and felt that I owed it to my father's legacy to take my education to the next level. We met at a fitness promotion event on campus though I was there only because it was on my normal cycle training route. She was handing out water bottles promoting some local gym and I was thirsty so I took one and we started to talk. A few days later we ran into each other on campus and she suggested we meet later for drinks. Now that I think back it, our chance encounters seemed awfully coincidental. Anyway after dating for about nine months I proposed and she accepted."

"Why?" Amanda asked.

"Good question," said Sean. "I guess I felt it was the logical thing to do. Kimberly and I always seemed to have a good time together. I missed her when we were apart, and I could envision spending the rest of my life with her. I recognize now that I had become comfortable with her more than actually loving her."

"So what happened?"

"From the beginning Kimberly had this strange rule that she wanted to have friends who were male, and according to her, no threat to her and I, but she always wanted to keep them secret from me. She felt that she needed to have someone who she could get an unbiased male perspective from in order to better understand how she could please me. I wasn't so insecure that the idea of her having male friends threatened me, but I always had issues with her insistence that they be kept secret. I broke off our engagement when she was hanging out two or three nights each week with her friend Mark, but still refused to introduce him to me. A couple of weeks later she came to me claiming that she had ended her friendship with Mark because I couldn't handle it. I wasn't mollified, but after a month or so of her not seeing her male friends, the engagement was back on. Within a month of us setting a date for the wedding, she said that her brother Jim was coming to town and she wanted to spend some time with him. I said that was great and that I looked forward to meeting him, but she could never find a convenient time for the three of us to get together. Her and her brother would meet for lunch, dinner, and drinks, but never at a time where I might be able to join them."

"Suspicious," said Amanda.

"You think?" said Sean. "So the next time that my schedule conflicted with a dinner that she had planned with her brother I decide to surprise them. I arrived at the restaurant about five minutes after her and waited for her to greet her brother in the foyer of the restaurant. Let's just say that they were a very passionate family. It was almost as if they were flouting their relationship for everyone to see. Once they were seated I asked for a table across the partition from them so I could hear them but they couldn't see me. Well, it should go without saying that her brother Jim was actually her friend Mark. In addition, Kimberly had apparently learned from someone who my father was and this is what prompted her to conveniently bump into me so often when we first met. She sat at that table with Mark discussing the five year timeline she had for her marriage to me before she would be entitled to half of my assets and after she divorced me they could then live happily ever after. I walked around to their table, asked her for my ring back and when Mark tried to be chivalrous, I laid him out with a squeeze to his Brachial plexus. I then forcibly removed the engagement ring from Kimberly's finger and walked out never to see her again."

"I know what the Brachial plexus is. Do you have medical training too?"

Sean chuckled and said, "I have very limited medical training, focused upon first aid and battlefield first response. My knowledge of anatomy comes from training in close quarter combat and identifying lethal and non-lethal pressure points and other targets on the human body."

"L'amour sans confiance n'est rien."

"You're absolutely right," agreed Sean. "Love without trust is nothing. I realized that what I had with Kimberly all along really couldn't have been love because I never trusted her, so I can't really complain of a broken heart where she is concerned. I was more disappointed than anything about admitting to myself that I had been prepared to 'settle' for Kimberly at the cost of my dreams."

Amanda reflected on her own past relationships, or lack thereof. She had been raised in one of the most remote sections of Australia, home schooled until college, and had very limited exposure to boys her own age for most of her adolescent life. She didn't have any dates until she was away from home at college, didn't kiss a boy until she was 19 years old and there had only been two other opportunities since that first time. She knew that her self-imposed lack of relationships had been influenced by what her parents had demonstrated to her as the perfect life between a man and a woman and the subsequent expectations that she had developed for any man to garner her attention. Sean Wallace had her attention now.

Restraining her desire to know what Sean's 'dreams' were and who Sean's father was as it influenced this Kimberly woman's intentions relative to their marriage, Amanda asked, "So is that when you began your hibernation? After breaking up with Kimberly?"

"Shortly thereafter," Sean confirmed. "I had business responsibilities that I couldn't just walk away from so I had to appoint some people to act on my behalf and to make critical decisions in my absence. I've been monitoring things from afar and focusing on some other business concerns. Now I need to get back to work and take the reigns myself once more. Enough about me, I want to hear about you for a change."

Amanda studied him for a minute and then said, "There's not much to tell."

"I believe differently, and you know differently," Sean said. "Fair is fair Amanda, plus I am genuinely interested in getting to know more about the mystery woman who has so adeptly penetrated my shell. I know that self-deprecation is a British trait, but I never realized it had spanned the Queen's domain to include Australia," teased Sean.

"I don't know what in my life would interest you," she said.

Sean recognized a trait that he had himself in her reluctant demeanor. He really did want to get to know more about her, but he didn't want to make her uncomfortable in sharing what she felt important while maintaining some degree of privacy where she felt it necessary.

"Why don't you just start with a chronological summary of your life so far and I'll ask questions along the way?"

"Should I lay down doctor as I recount my childhood?"

Sean chuckled, but waited for her to continue.

"I was born Amanda Jean Wallace on March 18, 1989," she began.

"What?" Sean interrupted, glad that there were no other vehicles in the lanes next to his as his reaction caused him to stray into other lanes as he kept stealing glances at Amanda. "You didn't mention that your last name was the same as mine."

Amanda couldn't restrain a laugh. "I thought it might freak you out, even though Wallace isn't that uncommon a name in the English speaking world. I doubt that we are related, but it might be fun to compare family trees sometime. My father is reported to be descended from William Wallace himself." Leaning over and squeezing his hand she said, "I'm certain we're at least kissing cousins."

"I think it's great," said Sean with a grin. "It will make checking into a motel with you seem less seedy. Now continue with your life story."

"Okay, so I was born the first daughter of Leonard and Olivia Wallace. I had a brother Michael who was four years older than me but no other siblings. We lived on a seven thousand acre ranch that was a combination of properties from both my parents' families. They had grown up on adjoining ranches in the Northern Territory, about 80 kilometers east of the city of Katherine. When they got married, the two ranches were combined into one. My brother and I worked on the ranch when we weren't in school and when my parents were killed in a plane crash five years ago, he and I took over total management of the family business operations. I say that he and I took over but it was mostly just him. I was in nursing school and could handle financial and other transactions remotely by computer or on the phone, but he had to remain at the ranch overseeing actual operations of it and our other holdings."

"Sorry to hear about your parents," Sean said.

"Thank you Sean," she said. "Unfortunately, my brother died eighteen months after my parents did. He had an undiagnosed heart defect that surfaced suddenly and with the ranch being so remote, there wasn't any opportunity for the right medical treatment to get there in time to save him. With both my parents and my brother gone, I had no reason to return to the ranch, so I rolled it into a holding company with our family's other enterprises and have trustees managing it all for the time being. Since I was suddenly an orphan myself, I decided to devote my nursing skills to helping others in the same situation, only younger. That pretty well brings you up-to-date on my life."

"Do you plan on returning to the orphanage after this is over?" Sean asked.

"I haven't thought that far ahead," she said. "My motivation for going there was largely my sense of loss, and I've gotten over most of that. I am financially secure enough to explore other options for my life. I just don't know what those might be at this time."

"Sounds like you may be about to awaken from your own hibernation," he said.

"Well," she teased, "You do make it sound so exciting; maybe I'll follow your lead and give it a try."