When Ordinary Isn't Ch. 07

He poured himself a bowl of Wheat Chex and sat at the island with his laptop and reviewed the technical publications which would accompany the announcement of TIGAP . It occupied about an hour and a half of his time. As a board member, he was on the hook for all things Sarbanes-Oxley related, so he was careful to examine every dotted i and crossed tee, especially the safe harbor statements.

He digitally signed his approval and sent the document back to Lance's administrative assistant.

Then, he contacted the ranch and spoke to Dalton for about a half hour. He was thrilled to hear Mickey had called and spoken to them. Several of the staff were planning on driving to Dallas to pay him a visit and take him a few comforts of home.

Finally, he phoned his builder who advised him that his initial gut feel was the house would need about $300,000 and three months of repairs and that it'd take him a few days to finish a more detailed estimate.

When he arrived at Orange County Regional Hospital, Eric checked with the information desk and asked where Doctor Foreman's department was located. He was directed to a visitor's lounge on her floor, and he settled into a seat there.

It was only thirty minutes later when she called him.

"Hey, babe," he answered.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"Oh, you know. Just sitting around."

"Feel like lunch?"

"Sure."

"Yay!" she cheered. "I'm on my way out right now. I'll come get you. I'll be home in about fifteen minutes."

When he saw her pass through the double doors, he sneaked up behind her. He succeeded in surprising her with a hip-check.

They ate lunch together in the hospital cafeteria and enjoyed their mid-day meet. Eric left the grounds as Peggy resumed her work. She indeed, looked appealing in scrubs and a coat.

He spent the rest of the afternoon shopping, ending with a half-hour at the supermarket buying a few things for dinner and afterward. He went for a quick dip and explored the pool more thoroughly, putting his plans in motion. He prepared grilled pork chops with steamed broccoli and glazed carrots, and had finished making some iced tea when Peggy returned home. He poured her a glass and handed it to her when she found him in the kitchen.

"You've been busy," she noted, seeing the tasty-looking meal.

"Nah, this was nothing," he said, pouring his own glass. "I pretty much sat around all day watching TV," he feinted.

They enjoyed their dinner outside in the relaxed atmosphere of the setting sun on the patio. Eric enjoyed watching how Peggy's hair seemed to change colors along with the sky. Sandy blonde transitioned to golden, to almost auburn in the waning sunlight and red-hued sky. The only thing unromantic about the dinner were the bugs which started flitting about when the landscape lighting came on.

They took their dishes into the kitchen and cleaned up the dinnerware.

Eric whispered, "I'd like to go swimming with you again."

"You would, huh?" she asked, wrapping her arms around him and giving him a sensual, tender kiss.

"Yeah. I think you might like it, too."

"Yeah?" She smiled sweetly. "Let's go."

He walked out to the pool, not having noticed she'd shed her clothes somewhere between the kitchen and the doors until he turned around to say something.

"Have you--Whoa. Dayuhm you look so good nekid ." He accented the words humorously and smiled broadly.

She grinned back, pushing the buttons which made the resort-like area come alive as he disrobed.

They waded, hand in hand, into the pool and held each other close.

"Remember what I said on the plane last night?" she asked.

"Which part?"

"That I want to have fun with you in the cave," she said with the most seductive expression.

"Yeah, I remember."

"Well, come on, then," she said before she dove under the surface and swam through the waterfall.

She was waiting for him when he came through, and enveloped him in her arms.

She waded to the edge near the deck.

"What the hell?" she laughed, seeing a beach pail holding ice and a bottle of champagne. There were two plastic flutes sitting on a tray.

She found the wrong thing first, which he wasn't expecting, and had to think up a slightly modified plan.

Eric hopped out of the pool, sat on the deck, and popped the cork from the bottle. The echoing sound of it in the cave amused them. He poured full measures into each plastic flute and carefully situated the glass bottle back in the ice.

"Champagne, huh? What are we celebrating?" she asked.

"Us. We're celebrating us because, my love, what we have is worthy of note, in my humble opinion," he said, handing her one of the flutes.

"Yeah! To us!" she said, holding out her flute. He tapped his against hers and they both chuckled at the decidedly unsatisfying click they made in the contact, a far cry from the delicious low musical tonality of crystal.

They sipped.

"I could so get used to coming home to treatment like this."

"I'm very happy to give you a nice end to your day."

"Things are going to be different for you now that you're not working full-time, huh?" she asked.

"Yeah. And I'm okay with that. I mean, I'm still working. I'm getting $300K per year as a board member at Reiter-Marlin, and RM is not the only board on which I sit. Plus, Lance and I agreed to a certain program of patent royalties. It's going to be a big deal if TIGAP takes off the way we expect.

"There's other kinds of work, too. For example, the endowment to Children's took months and months to work out, and it is, I hope, only the first of several such programs I want to explore.

"I plan on donating much of my capital gains to such things. I mentioned when we were having lunch with Nina and Stephanie how I've got a pretty nice-looking balance sheet. When I started out, I wanted to conquer the world. Now I want to focus on bettering it.

"Plus, I'm going to be taking on a much more active role at the ranch, especially now that Mickey is out of commission for a while. He might even decide to retire, and I'll need to work on finding a replacement if he does because there's no way in hell I'll try to talk him out of it."

"Yeah. That sounds like my guy," she said with a tender smile, stroking his penis softly under the water.

She peered into his eyes, amazed with him. Ordinary Eric. So ordinary, yet extraordinary. When she'd first met him, he was nervous and guarded. In front of her then, he was comfortable and relaxed, yet still exhibited the same subtext of boyish charm. He was so much more comfortable in his own skin, and it drew her to him even more. His soul mingled with her own in such harmony. In her mind, despite his domestic descriptions, his masculinity made her throb.

"Shit, Eric, I love you so much," she cooed into the crook of his neck and shoulder.

He chuckled. "I love you, too. But I thought you said the words 'love', 'shit', and a name can't go together in the same sentence."

"Yeah. Right. Good point."

She was silent for a few moments. She drew his erection into her and wrapped her legs tightly around his hips.

"Don't move, okay? I just want to feel you inside me," she sighed, clutching him with all her limbs.

"Listen to me, Eric. Just... oh, hell you feel so good," she said before sinking her teeth into his shoulder. An unexpected orgasm poured over her rapidly and intensely.

His tongue entered her mouth and licked the back of her upper teeth.

"I love this," she sighed, tenderly nipping then kissing his skin and resting her head on his shoulder. "I absolutely love this. It feels so right. When we make love, there's usually dominance and submission."

"Oh?" he asked, pushing the head of his cock against her cervix.

"Ooh!" she groaned in pleasure. "Yeah. When you are on top or behind me, you're in control. When I ride you, I'm in control."

"Yeah. And I love it when you are."

"I love both , Eric. I love giving myself to you, and I love when you give yourself to me. But..." she said softly, drawing him out and back into her body, "right now, floating like this, we're equal."

He knew the time was right and whispered, "I think maybe we should lower the lights."

"Yeah. I think so, too," she cooed, enjoying the satisfaction of being thoroughly and completely filled.

He waded with her around his body to the panel near the edge. She reached for the buttons.

"Eric?" she said, bewildered, seeing what he'd hung there.

"Yeah, Peggy?" he answered, feigning ignorance.

Her eyes were wide, and she wore a tremendous smile. He even felt her surprise deep within her body with involuntary muscle clenches in her pelvis. Seeing her happiness was one thing, but he could feel her body react. She carefully removed the platinum necklace from which was suspended a ring, also of platinum, atop which was mounted a two carat, flawless, emerald-cut diamond. He'd bought the set that very afternoon.

"What is this?" she asked.

"Do I really need to tell you?"

She stared at the ring, marveling at its perfection.

"No." Her voice caught as she whispered with a beaming grin. Her voice was just slightly louder than the falling water of the falls. She was about to cry in joy. She was making love to the man that filled her both physically and emotionally.

Their souls were joined and knitted, and he sealed them together with his words.

"Margaret Erin Foreman, my love, marry me. I want to be your husband. I want you to be my wife," he poured his words over her as she clenched him inside her. "I have no more words to tell you how much I love you and how much I want you to be in my life forever. Please, will you please marry me?"

"Yes, Eric, I'm yours," she cried.

He could feel the shuddering inside her pussy. Her answer, her joy, and those sensations ended him. He erupted deeply inside her.

"You're cumming!" she said with an enormous, cheeky grin.

The grunts she heard plus the throbs and warmth she felt inside her were all she needed for confirmation. She squeezed him tightly with her muscles, pulled his head to her shoulder, and stroked his hair.

"Yes, my love. My Eric. My fiancé."

"Oh," he groaned when he was empty. Her answer gave him gooseflesh. He lifted his head and kissed her tenderly.

She smiled sweetly. "We're going to have to come up with a different proposal story to tell our friends."

"Why?" He grinned. "I kind of like this one."

She laughed. His softening state prohibited him from remaining in place.

She looked at the necklace and ring again, moving it under one of the shafts of light from the ceiling of the cave, marveling at the reflections and refractions.

She cried. "It's so beautiful. It's incredible."

"If you prefer something different, we can go to the jeweler and exchange the setting for another."

She stared at him. "Listen, mister. If I didn't like it, I'd tell you. I adore this. It's not like those gaudy looking things I see all the time at the hospital. What made you think to put it on a chain?"

"Two reasons. The main reason is because I'm imagining you're not going to wear it on your finger during surgery."

"Oh, that's definitely true. A lot of the doctors and nurses tie their rings on their scrub pants, but one of my colleagues tied his wrong and tossed his pants into the hospital laundry and didn't realize his ring was still attached.

"You really thought about this, didn't you. This necklace has some serious strength, so I'm not worried it's going to break. Put it on me, please?" she said, offering the set to him and lifting her wet hair from her neck.

"The ring finger is symbolic because it was believed the fourth finger's veins lead directly to the heart," he said, looping the chain around her neck and allowing the ring to settle against her chest between her beautiful breasts. "Right there, it's as close to your heart as can be."

"You're so thoughtful." She smiled warmly, feeling the substantial weight of the ring against her skin. "I love it. I really, really do. What was the second reason?"

He chuckled nervously. "I don't know what size ring you wear."

She laughed hard. "That's as good as your first. Any time I'm not working, I want it right here. I have to be honest with you," she said, slightly cautiously.

"I wouldn't want it any other way."

"You know I overheard you tell Lance that you were going to ask me to marry you."

"Yeah. I figured."

"I want you to know I about screamed my head off because I was so happy, but I decided I didn't want to put pressure on you. I'm telling you this right now. I was going to ask you in a few weeks if you didn't ask me."

"I would've said hell yes !"

Epilogue

Eric and Peggy exchanged their vows a year to the day later.

The ceremony took place on their ranches. A carefully surveyed property line was marked for a short distance between Eric's land and Peggy's. Each stood on their own side of the marking on the closed section-line road with their hands bridging the two. When they sealed their vows with the kiss, they symbolically joined their lives.

A county judge officiated, with Lance as Best Man and several friends as groomsmen. Stephanie, as the maid of honor, plus Nina and two other ladies tended to the bride.

They honeymooned in Glengariff, Ireland, and adored the experience of touring a number of the country's distilleries where they sampled numerous delightful Irish whiskeys, and a few which were far from it.

The couple had the majority of the wine which was stored in their house in Orlando sold at auction, which turned into a media event. It fetched almost four million dollars, all of which was donated to Orange County Regional Hospital's pediatric unit. The remaining two hundred or so bottles were carefully packed and shipped to Texas.

The research unit at Children's Hospital was in full swing, and early trials of Peggy's own project had begun.

The couple sold nine of the eighteen more-distant sections of her land to the tenants who had been leasing them. Peggy decided they'd be better off keeping the other half she owned, predicting they might continue to expand Eric's operations.

Peggy also earned her Private Pilot's license, seeing the benefit of an easier weekly commute back and forth between their homes in Oklahoma City and their Texas ranch.

She loved piloting a plane as much as Eric did, and the two would often go for a "Hundred-Dollar Hamburger" whenever the mood would strike them. They bought a second plane, a Cessna Skyhawk, for her, though they both used whichever fit any particular flight.

Eric flew back and forth to cities where corporations on which he served as a board member were located. That entailed six two-day trips each quarter to places like Dallas, Austin, Tulsa, and Lubbock. Outside of those responsibilities, he worked whenever and however he wanted.

Unless his responsibilities required him to be elsewhere, Eric went with his wife to Oklahoma City whenever Peggy was working, then they'd stay at the ranch. They settled into a comfortable harmony, with vacations to Orlando when distant respite was wanted.

He sold the Citation, but employed Executive Jet Services whenever they needed or wished to use a private jet and crew.

Mickey Anderson did, indeed, retire. After spending three weeks in recuperative care and twelve in the external fixator, he underwent four months of occupational therapy. He suffered irreparable nerve and muscle damage resulting in reduced sensitivity and agility of the fingers of his right hand which made tasks requiring manual dexterity very difficult to perform.

The Reiters continued his salary for the entirety of his recovery, and added four additional months so he could train his replacement. Dalton's responsibilities expanded, and they placed him in the role of assistant foreman.

The newlyweds enjoyed their secluded, hidden Orlando cave, surrounded by rock and water. Peggy worked with a designer to have a pool to end all pools added to their Texas estate. Doctors Eric and Margaret Reiter made slow, tender, equal love in the water the very night it'd been completed.

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