The Summer of '67 thru '68

Caelan gave them buckets and little shovels, and got them started on sand castles in the wet sand a few dozen yards away.

"Baby, please rub some lotion on me; I think I'm burning already!" Barbara Ann purred under hooded eyes. "You can't be burning already; we just got here and it is too late in the day to burn, anyway," he replied with a raised eyebrow. "I know, but you know how delicate your little wife's skin is, and this is our first day on the beach all year!" Her voice lowered an octave and she cajoled, "Besides, you know I love it when you rub me with lotion."

"Okay, but you know where that leads, Princess. We won't make the dance if we get started." She giggled, "I promise to be good, but you packed everything, drove all the way down here, opened the house up and unloaded the car, and then you brought everything down here to make our camp! You have totally neglected me all day! I need to feel your hands on me and know you still love me."

He laughed at her manipulation, but slowly and sensuously applied the lotion anyway.

"Mommy, are you all right?" Sean Michael asked as he looked up from his castle building. "I'm fine, honey; it just feels good when Daddy messages me with lotion."

An hour later, she announced, "I'm going up to the shack to shower and get ready. Bring the kids in a half hour so we can get them cleaned up and feed them before the babysitter arrives." Caelan muttered his agreement, and continued helping build the mother of all sand castles a little further down the beach.

Barbara Ann kissed her hubby and kids, told them she would see them in a few, walked back to grab her towel from camp, and sashayed toward the house in her little green bikini. A carload of college boys in a red convertible came to a noisy halt right in front of her and engaged her in conversation. A bemused Caelan watched from the beach as she posed and flirted, deflected their efforts to pick her, and then walked around the car and up to the house with the rapt audience watching and hurling praise.

She made a production of rinsing off in the outside shower, even tossing her long, dark hair around. They continued watching as she wrapped herself in a towel, skillfully removed her bikini pieces from under the towel, rinsed them out, and hung them on the drying rope.

Without further acknowledging her audience, she climbed the stairs; their catcalls and whistles confirmed what she knew -- that they were getting glimpses of her delicious, partially exposed derriere as she climbed. She paused at the door, waved to them, and disappeared inside.

Caelan enjoyed her performance, and knew he would see the second scene play out tonight at the dancehall. He also knew that his little exhibitionist flirt was fully and completely devoted to him and their kids, as she had proven every day for over six years, since that fateful night at Scholtz Tavern.

He had, at first, resisted the idea that it was his child she was carrying, but something in the way she, and those who loved her, assured him she had been with no other since she left the Corpus Christi hospital, convinced him.

Well, actually, he had remained somewhat skeptical, even though they were married as soon as possible thereafter. When the baby boy had his unusual blood type, and looked just like his baby pictures at his first birthday party, the last of his suspicions died.

The 1968 football season saw the rebirth of the Longhorns, even though they opened with a tie against Houston, then lost to Texas Tech. The new 'Wishbone' offense had not produced with Super Bill at the controls, but caught fire when his backup, James Street, took control. They won eight straight games and a conference championship before defeating number 8 Tennessee in the Cotton Bowl and finished third in the nation in the polls. Caelan firmly believed the best lay ahead for his teammates, and that proved prophetic with a three-year run of national championships.

While undoubtedly a Gallagher Girl, Barbara Ann matured into a combination of her grandmother and mother rather than Peggy. She was as devoted to her husband and family as her grandmother, but was handsy, cuddly, and kissy in public, and needed to take naps on weekend afternoons with her hubby when the kids took theirs, like her mother. She also took the kids to her parents' house or Aunt Peggy and Uncle Gary's house -- both had moved close by - quite frequently so she could scream and howl to her heart's content.

For his part, Caelan continued to enjoy the assets and activities of his darling wife, who regained her weight and form within a few months after each pregnancy, and who 'worked out' as much as her forever-hunky hubby. She was pushing 28, but she still got carded wherever they went, and she got flirted with by high school and college students, as well as all other males under 100.

Having been thrice burned, Caelan adopted an Old Russian proverb as his guide -- Trust, but Verify. Neither he nor the PIs he kept on retainer for periodic fidelity testing ever found any indication of deceit, and God knows there was never a decrease in her voracious sexual appetite.

Caelan's wife still stopped traffic in a mini-dress, brought a hush to the crowd when she entered a bar or dancehall dressed to thrill, and she still made men run into objects when she wore her tight jeans. In fact, the scruffy singer from Pozo Seco actually wrote and recorded a hit song to immortalize that effect: 'Baby's Got her Blue Jeans On'.

After all, she can't help it if God made her that way!