Redwood Bend

back of her SUV, lifted the hatch and the floor and pulled out tools and—his eyes almost popped out—a pink tool belt.
“Whoa,” he said as she buckled it around her hips. “Katie, baby, I’m not going to be able to concentrate on the joints and trusses if you wear that thing around your hips.”
She laughed as she secured her belt, then reached back into the SUV for her toolbox. “We’ll have this thing together in no time. I’ll do some measuring and you can dig the holes to secure it.” She pulled on gloves, grinning at him. “Wanna get going here?”
“You don’t know what I want to do,” he said.
“Get the post digger. The one Conner left. And get ready to work.”
They started at nine-thirty in the morning. At two in the afternoon they stood looking at the finished product, the posts still settling in fast-drying cement. Given there would only be two rambunctious little boys at a time on the jungle gym, there was no concern about it not being quite dry when they were home from their summer school.
“Perfect,” she said. “Want a quick shower?”
“After a quick something else…”
“I’m all sweaty…”
He got an evil grin on his face. His eyes were glowing. “I know.”
“Are you ninety-nine-percent testosterone?”
“I want you. I’ve been fighting it all day. That tool belt…”
“Want to sing a round of ‘YMCA’?” she asked with amusement and a lift of her eyebrow.
He approached her looking lethal, grabbing her around the waist. “Sadly, the tool belt will have to go…”
“What if Conner comes early…”
“Won’t he be surprised,” Dylan said, undoing the tool belt. “You and me. Now.”
She sighed and took him by the hand. “Come on, Dylan. You know, I think I give in to you way too much.”
“If you’re suffering, I’ll back off,” he said, but he said it with his usual naughty smile.
“You take very good care of me,” she said. “But I’m not sure how you survive in Montana if you don’t get involved with the local talent. For someone so determined to never marry, I’ve never met a man who needs a good wife more than you.”
Katie’s words really hit home with him. Not so much because she was right, which he realized she was, but because he’d never been in a relationship like this. Thirty-five years old and she was his first steady girl since high school. Never mind all his determination to remain single and childless, he’d never met a woman who was so hard to leave. A woman whose special scent and the perfume of her hair and skin made him love drunk. Her body beneath his hands put a fire in him; her voice lulled him and brought him ease. Her laugh lifted his spirits and her self-confidence somehow made him more sure of himself.
Katie might be the one woman in the universe he wanted to touch, to caress and possess, but she was hardly the first person to make this observation about him—that he needed a good, one-man woman in his life. Lang and Adele had made similar comments, though not based on any knowledge of his sexual needs, needs he’d never before been so aware of. Satisfaction usually set him free; sex with Katie only left him wanting more.
Adele had witnessed, while Dylan was growing up, how much he had longed for a safe and nurturing family unit and would often remind him, “Remember that TV family is make-believe, Dylan. Don’t depend on it for love.” And his best friend would see him around his own family, around Sue Ann and all the kids, and often remark that Dylan had himself all wrong—he was probably the most marriageable man around. “It’s obvious you take to it,” Lang often said. “You’re calmer hanging out around all these little hoodlums than I am.”
It was true. The one thing he had long been avoiding was a connection like the one he had with Katie. He feared it more than anything else. He wasn’t sure where she found her strength, but he wasn’t made of the same stuff. Having her and losing her, by any means—death, divorce, even malignant discord, it would kill him.
The boys were wild about their play set. Dylan and Katie sat on the porch and watched them risk life and limb testing the limits of the jungle gym. Katie interjected commands like, “Not upside down, please,” “That’s too high!” and “Don’t do that!”
And once Dylan said, “Andy! It’s Mitch’s turn!”
And they all stopped dead still and stared at him.
“What?” he asked.
“You can tell them apart,” Katie said