The Proposal Ch. 03

"Really?"

"Yeah. We're all going to go down this evening, I assume you guys are staying."

"Oh, absolutely." Jonathan picked up a part of the newspaper, and cast a glance towards Amber, who was busy playing with the smaller members of the family.

He let his eyes linger on her beautiful form as she ran around the tables, carrying a little girl on her back, a mob of toddlers and young kids chasing her. She looked so natural and normal with kids, and the happiness on her face was truly beautiful. She saw him starring at her, and she blew him a kiss, then kept going. Ah, how he loved that boundless energy.

Mrs. Mathews walking up, and sitting down on the bench next to him interrupted his view of her, and he could tell by the look on her face that this was no social call.

"Jonathan…I really think you are a nice guy…but I have some concerns…"

"Karen." Her husbands voice was sharp and decisive, but she ignored it.

"I mean…where do you see this in twenty years? Do you see yourself having kids? And what if Amber wants to get a job."

He smiled at the woman, buying himself a second by taking a sip of coffee. "Well…I hope she gets a job. What else is she going to do? At least for a little bit she should work, get that experience, see what there is in the world that she wants to do. You have a very smart daughter, and I think she'll be a very capable accountant. Or whatever she wants to do. It's not like I have to work. So if she wakes up one morning and decides that she wants to be an accountant in Miami, we'll be there by nightfall. And the kids thing…I have a daughter of my own. Samantha, she's eighteen. I've changed diapers before."

Karen nodded, smiling at the man. The smile was pure form, but he knew that. He had been around the block once or twice. "And in ten years? Twenty? When she is in her early thirties and wants to do things? What will you be doing?"

He had been thinking about that a lot. Trying to decide what twenty years really meant in the scheme of things. How much of a difference did it make? And he had come to a simple conclusion in his thinking. "I don't know. But I do know that I make your daughter happy now. And when the time comes when I don't make her happy anymore, I'll fondly remember the times I did and wave goodbye as she pulls away."

He could see husband sending wife signals with looks out of the corner of his eye. He could see wife trying to subtly send signals back, but she was directly in front of him, so success was eluding her. "Mrs. Mathews…"

"Call me Karen."

"Karen then." He smiled at her. "I know what you are worried about. That twenty years from now it will be over, and your daughter will be forty, well past the prime age for starting a family and such, finding a good husband who will love her and take care of her. I think about those things with my own daughter. How would I feel if she came to me with some thirty year old? And I can only hope that I'm the kind of man that makes your daughter happy."

"You don't care what I think, do you?"

"Care enough to pretend that I do."

"I figured that. Bill?"

Her husband looked up from the newspaper at the mention of his name, a questioning look in his eyes. Again the look signals, and he would have bet his Gulf stream that they had talked about this last night in the privacy of their bedroom, and had come to one of those married agreements where the wife wants something, the husband agrees, and then passes into sleep, which resets his settings back to neutral, and wipes out whatever it is that he said yes or no to the night before. Women as experienced as this one should really know better, he thought.

"Mrs. Mathews…Karen…you can just tell me how you feel."

"Well…ok." She sighed, looked over at Amber, then back at him. "I have a friend, who is a member of the same club, or whatever, that you frequent back home. She called me a while back, and told me that a woman that looked surprisingly like Amber had been in a brawl in front of the club. I didn't believe it at the time, but when I asked her about it yesterday, she confirmed it. I do not like my daughter being involved in a relationship with a man whose ex-wife is crazy enough to fly across the country, and start a fight in the middle of a street. Nor do I like my daughter being involved with a man who feels the need to refurnish her room and spend inordinate amounts of money on her. What are you paying for? What are you trying to buy?"

He smiled at that. He figured that the money would come back to haunt him. He had seen Amber's insurance bill, and it was incredible. Thousands of dollars annually for the privilege of driving. He would never pay anything like that for Sam, he had already decided that.

"Well…your daughter makes me very happy. And since she quit her job, I felt I could help her out. It meant nothing. All it did was create more opportunities for us to be together."

"And us to save money." Bill finally did chime in, but the look from Karen made it clear that his input was not appreciated.

"Why exactly did she quit her job?"

"You would have to ask her that."

"I did. And she would not tell me. She was very evasive, which is not like her."

He found that a bit hard to believe. He was pretty sure that Amber had been a hellion to raise. They had told him so yesterday, and good money said that she had not developed that fierce streak in three years of college.

His jaw was about to open when he felt her fingers on his shoulders. The touch told him that it was she, and she slid behind him, wrapping her arms around him and kissing the back of his neck. "What you guys talking about?"

"I was asking your friend here what his intentions are." Her children had never known Karen to beat around the bush.

"Don't give him a hard time. It's not his fault he got molested by me and I haven't let him go since." She dragged him away by his arm, back into the house, and into her room, slamming the door shut.

"Don't attack me again."

"Not yet. I'll get you later. What did she want?"

He sat down on the bed and told her, while she bounced around the room. The girl had way too much energy today.

"Can I ask you something?"

"Anything." She hoped on the bed with him, jumping up and down on her hands and knees.

"Do you want kids?'

"Yes."

"My kids?"

"Absolutely."

"How many?"

"Two."

"What are their names?"

"Emily and Jacob."

"Good to know." He smiled at her, and she jumped onto him, pinning him down and kissing him all over.

"You know how to ride a horse?"

"Yeah…"

"Lets go!"

He had been wrong in his initial assessment of the woods. They stretched forever. Or at least it felt like it as they rode through them, the horses slowly walking along as they talked, and looked at the sun shinning down through the leaves.

"I love coming out here. My uncle owns all this land, and he keeps talking about how he's going to develop it, and get rich of it. But until then, nobody is out here except my family. And they don't like coming out here."

"I thought you said your family sold most of the land."

"To my uncle. He had great plans, like you, to develop Lincolnton. Never happened, not really sure why."

He nodded, trying to stay balanced on the horse. He did know how to ride; he just hadn't done it in about ten years. She slowed down to let him catch up with her, and he could already tell by the look in her eyes that she had mischief on her mind. As soon as they were even, she pulled her shirt over her head, her breasts swaying freely as the horses continued to move. He gulped, his eyes fixated on her pink nipples, and again complementing her on her skin.

"You say that a lot."

"Because you have beautiful skin. Naturally beautiful skin, it doesn't come out of a bottle."

"You are such a sweet man."

The path turned, and then dipped down towards a river that widened into a small pond. He could see fishes moving around in the clear water, and a grassy spot on the far side that had clearly been made by man. The rock border was a good indication of that. The horses trotted through the water at a fjord that kept their stomachs dry, then naturally turned onto the meadow, and started to graze. They seemed used to this routine.

He already knew what she was going to do, so he just watched her hop of, strip naked, and jump in the water. The girl was crazy, but it was fun to watch her splash around. Apparently the pond was much deeper in the middle, as she would dive under, swim through the swarm of fishes that was moving from side to side, and then burst back to the surface.

"You coming?"

"You going to try to drown me?"

"Maybe once or twice." She was smiling at him from the water, small drops pearling down her skin, pooling at the tip of her boobs, and falling into the water. He sighed, climbed of the horse, and took one last look around. Ahh, what the hell.

He swam to her, and they treaded water in the middle, with the deepest part at least four or five feet below him. As most pools of water, it looked bigger once you were in it, and he tried to remember when the last time was that he swam in a natural body of water like this.

"First time I ever had sex was on that grass."

"When, last week?"

"Smartass." She exploded out of the water, her powerful legs propelling herself upwards, and trying to push him under with her hands. But he was read for her, so he let himself slip beneath the surface, with her crashing down into the water on top of him.

His arms embraced her, and they rolled in the blue weightlessness, kissing and holding each other. Air finally became an issue, and they rose to the surface, still holding on tight. Her breasts were mashed into him, and he liked the feeling of her hard nipples poking him. She was rather partial to his spear rubbing against her, and she told him so. He only laughed, and they swam back to the edge of the water.

Reaching into the pack she had strapped to the back of her horse, she spread a blanket on the grass, and they sat down for a more relaxed make out session, taking the time to kiss all the parts that had been a bit less accessible before. She lay back, letting him reexamine the body that he so loved, his lips and fingers taking their leisurely stroll down her chest, across her stomach, back up her back, down her arms, to her legs, up the insides, through her ass, and finally ending with him eating her pussy.

She cried out his name, and pushed him down further into her with her legs as he dove in, his tongue devouring her, flicking her clit, sucking the juices out of her, and taking her to the places only he could, the places she loved to go. The sensation was always part flying, part falling, all pleasure, and he did not disappoint this time.

She let him go until she could not take it anymore, her body shaking, the wetness on her skin no longer from the water, but from sweat. Pulling him up to her face, they kissed again, her breathing fast and shaky, the smile on his face seemingly never ending.

"Listen here, Mr. Games. I know that my mom was giving you a hard time. And I know that you are a silly, silly man, and that you are worrying about the same things, even though you have specific instructions from your call girl not to worry about it. If you don't behave, I'll have to spank you."

"That right?"

"I have a riding crop, and I'm not afraid to use it."

"You scare me sometimes." But he kissed her anyway, holding her close. She whispered in his ear as he clutched her to him, and when the tears came, he didn't hold them back. Happiness was not something to be ashamed of; he had learned that along time ago. And it only made their passion that much sweeter when they made love on that meadow.