© 2023 Duleigh Lawrence-Townshend. All rights reserved. The author asserts the right to be identified as the author of this story for all portions. All characters are original, any resemblance to anyone living or dead is purely coincidental. This story or any part thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the expressed written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a review or commentary.

The genesis of this story came to me several years ago when a Physician's Assistant that worked in a burn unit told me in gushing terms how much she loved her job. To me, working in a burn unit would be a terrible job, but she loved working there and helping burned and disfigured patients. Ever since then I began to look at medical personnel and medical specialties differently, because in the end, all the kidding I give my doctors aside, it truly is about the love. This story was written for the Literotica 2023 Summer Lovin' Contest and for the 2023 Crime and Punishment Event. It is an expansion of my 2023 750 Word Event story with a similar name. Please read and give me some feedback, good bad or otherwise.

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SATURDAY EVENING

All is Not What It Appears

If Steve Anderson had a complaint about the Treasure Coast of Florida, it would be the heat. The heat was overwhelming, and being a transplant to Florida Steve was told often enough, "it's not the heat, it's the humidity." He was sure it was the heat, but he let the natives taunt him because taunting newcomers is their favorite sport. How do you tell a native-born Floridian? You don't have to, they will eventually tell you.

This is a different world than anything Steve Anderson was used to; he was raised on a farm on the Upper Peninsula of Michigan where the snow and the cold reigned for half of the year. Now the snow-covered forests of his youth gave way to sun blessed swampland and beaches, or should I say beach. Florida truly has only one beach, it's over one thousand three hundred miles long, it starts at the Atlantic coast of Georgia in the northeast and winds its way all around Florida and doesn't stop until it reaches the gulf coast of Alabama. The coastline of Florida is beautiful and seductive, and its siren song drew Steve to its pure white sands. Steve tried chasing beach bunnies for a while, he even learned to surf, and he liked every minute of it, but that interfered with work, and Steve truly loved his work. There's something about physical therapy that has always been attractive to him. Helping injured people regain a normal life, helping to ease chronic pain, helping to fight back the ravages of time, it was all wonderful to him.

After serving his country as a field medic, Steve returned to school at the University of Florida in Gainesville FL (GO GATORS!) and once the nightmares of licenses and certifications were straightened out Steve found that there was a lot of work here in Florida or what is also called "God's Waiting Room." His reputation for physical therapy became so good that he was being asked for by name, and the dream of being able to work at patients' homes without direct supervision of a doctor eventually became a reality. Then one day she called Mercy General and said that a friend told a friend who told her that Steve Anderson was a miracle worker, and could she get an appointment with him? It's rumored that a large donation to the hospital had occurred, this woman wanted Steve.

Steve was working in "The Dungeon," the name that the patients gave to the Physical Therapy gymnasium because PT really stands for Pain and Torture. (The PT therapists and nurses lived for Halloween thanks to those titles.) The RN for his group found him in his tiny closet called a "work room" where the therapists did their research and reporting between appointments. She handed him a tablet and said "Here you go Steve, Mrs. D'Amato asked for you by name. She's a sweetie, so be nice."

Steve looked at her chart and slumped, spinal damage after being run over on a Manhattan sidewalk. A car jacker lost control of the car that he killed another woman to steal and hit Mr. and Mrs. D'Amato while they were visiting Manhattan. Guiseppi D'Amato didn't make it, and neither did the carjacker. D'Amato died in the arms of the woman he loved, and the carjacker died doing something he loved most of all - heroin. A broken, shattered Annamaria Giacinta Bellini-D'Amato was left on that frigid Manhattan sidewalk to try to continue her life and raise her daughters alone.

But that's just the beginning, the last dozen pages of her report were merely a rehash of her main complaint - multiple sclerosis. The poor woman ignored the warning signs of MS as merely GERD and the ravages of losing the love of her life had on her mind and body. As Steve was reviewing the doctor's recommendations for Mrs. D'Amato a young volunteer tapped on his work room door and said, "Mrs. D'Amato is here, I have her on bench number four."

"Thanks Grace, I'll be right there." He pulled on a work-out jacket grabbed the tablet and headed over to therapy bench number four where he found a smiling woman who appeared to be in her mid-forties, maybe fifty making Steve doubt the hospital records that put her age at sixty one. Maria D'Amato appeared to be in very good shape for her age, long flowing black hair done in waves and ringlets, a pretty face with big, warm, brown eyes and a million dollar smile, and Steve was going to have to work very hard to avoid staring at those large breasts of hers. She unzipped her own workout jacket revealing her tight t-shirt and Steve realized that she wasn't going to make avoiding them easy. Then looking further down he saw those metal braces on each leg, and the wrist-cuff crutches, and he realized that they had work to do.

"How ya doin'?" she asked in a barely disguised Brooklyn accent extending a hand. They shook hands and she had an incredibly strong grip which came from years of walking on crutches.

"The question is how are you doing, looking at this chart here it shows a startling recovery from what was thought as paralysis."

Maria smiled a sweet, heartwarming smile and said, "If I was paralyzed you wouldn't have seen me, so I put in a little effort so I could see the amazing Steve Anderson."

"Flattery will get you everywhere Mrs. D'Amato, including a long hour of work, can I see what you got?" the young "Yooper" asked with a grin.

"And on first date too!" said Maria with raised eyebrows. "The young man moves fast!"

"I'm just trying to keep up with you ma'am. Now looking at your..."

"Maria."

"Hmm?"

"Maria, my friends call me Maria." There was a very long pause as their eyes met and Steve's mouth went dry. Mrs. D'Amato's eyes were beautiful, expressive, and they were calling to him as she continued, "I would love it if you called me Maria."

"Maria it is, and please call me Steve," and they shook hands again. A bridge was crossed and a patient-therapist bond was created in an instant. "Ok Maria let's take the metalwork off and lay back and lay back on the bench. We're going to do some range of motions."

The first appointment always goes long; the therapist needs to evaluate what the patient can do then compares that with the doctor's expectations. In that very long first appointment while Steve put Maria "through her paces," a friendship began to take shape. "I have all the numbers I need, next time we see each other I'll have a plan of therapy together."

"You medical people, always with the numbers. You convert everything that people are into numbers."

"That's the doctor's job," said Steve, "my job is to convert those numbers into something that makes your life better, like a solid plan of therapy."

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"How did the appointment go?" asked Darlene Colella. Darlene has been Maria's friend and nurse since she was released from the Manhattan hospital where she lived for months after she was run down on that Manhattan sidewalk a week before Christmas. Darlene was Maria's home nurse, a gift from Domonic Calvetta, Maria's and her late husband's employer. She helped Maria with everything including Maria's daughters Giannina (Jeannie) who was twenty two, thirteen years older than the younger Nadia who was nine at the time of her father's death.

Darlene helped not only with Maria's physical needs but was an extra pair of hands to help with Jeannie's wedding which was put off for months due to her father's death and Maria's hospitalization, and Nadia's needs. Nadia was a daddy's girl and she never fully recovered from her father's death. Nadia still insists that it was murder.

"The appointment?" Maria shrugged, "it went," she said and she tried to hide a grin as she put a pot on the stove then swung the pot filler out over it and filled the pot with water.

"We're making a dinner tonight, he must have worked up an appetite," grinned Darlene, then as Maria took a sip from her wine Darlene added, "and a thirst, as the kids would say."

"Oh hush, he's a very nice young man."

"... said the cougar on the prowl," grinned Darlene as she took the marinara and a block of parmesan out of the refrigerator.

"When we were done he gave me a leg and foot massage," said Maria, trying not to blush.

"Rrrroooowwww! Fffft! Ffffft!" exclaimed Darlene clawing the air like a cat.

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Steve Anderson set the que ball on the "kitchen line" close to the right rail, gave it a bit of top English to drive it through the balls then let fly with the que stick. With a solid crack the queue ball hit the formation of 15 balls between the second and third rows and drove its way in, striking the 8 ball and driving it toward the pocket. The 15 balls all scattered madly, the 8 ball nearly pocketed which would have won the game for Steve. "Not this time Captain," said Bruce McLaren, as the 8 ball stopped in front of the left corner pocket. "But you probably did fuck me over," he said as he studied the table. "What's with the shit eating grin?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about," said Steve with a poorly hidden grin.

Bruce studied the table and realized that all the best shots that he could have taken would have been toward the pocket that was guarded by the 8 ball. He took a shot at the 2 ball which was woefully weak and didn't hit a pocket, in fact it didn't hit a rail. Bruce was a detective with the Vero Beach PD and Steve's best and probably only friend. They served two tours in Afghanistan together and the one romp into bandit country that he missed was when Steve got injured. Bruce picked up the que ball and handed it to Steve. "Ball in hand, open table."

"There's fifteen balls on the table, I can't see how you missed all of them." Steve place the que ball exactly where he wanted it then in rapid succession sank the two ball, the five ball, and the seven ball, then missed an easy shot leaving Bruce with the high balls.

"You're still grinning and you left me with a shot. That's not like you at all," said Bruce as sank the eleven ball. "Who is she?" Bruce and Steve shot a game or twelve of 8 Ball every Tuesday at the VFW, neither was a member but they both hung out there. In Afghanistan Steve somehow ended up in charge of a small group of men even though he was just supposed to be their field medic. Eventually he ended up doing things that should not have been done and Bruce was his "wing man" through most of their adventures. Bruce sank two more balls and said, "You found the one."

"She might be," said Steve, as Bruce chalked his que stick.

"Yeah, she is," said Bruce, "wanna know how I can tell?"

"How?"

"You just sank the eight ball and gave me the game."

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"It's starting to get warm out there," said Maria as she arrived for their appointment, early as usual.

"My dear, I'm a Yooper, our ideas of getting warm out there are probably two different things," said Steve as he helped her out of her "iron maidens" as she called her leg braces.

"Water dripping from the icicles," said Maria, "that's what getting warm always meant to me."

"That's a good indicator, I didn't realize that it gets very cold on Long Island."

"It doesn't. It snows maybe twice a year, it's just that all the networks are in New York City so if it snows it becomes news. Imagine if the networks were all based in Minneapolis."

Getting serious for a moment Steve sat on a roll-away stool and looking at her chart he said, "Maria, what is your number one goal?"

Maria's beautiful, soulful eyes softened, and she smiled gently. "I want to dance at my granddaughter's wedding."

Sudden terror overtook Steve, he will do everything he could to help a patient achieve their goals, but if her granddaughter is engaged, there's no way Steve could get this beautiful woman ready in time to stand, let alone dance without her crutches. Even if they... "Steve? Is there a problem?" Maria asked, breaking through his wall of worry.

"How old is your granddaughter?"

"She just turned thirteen."

Relief washed over Steve as he said, "Ok, so we have a little time to prepare, let's get going," and thus began a provider/patient relationship that many healthcare professionals dream about having. They would meet twice a week, every Tuesday and Thursday. At one appointment Steve mentioned that he has rarely had Italian food other than infrequent visits to the Olive Garden or the occasional pizza parlor. Maria would then describe her favorite Italian dishes and how she learned to make them, which drove Steve mad with hunger, it all sounded so good. "So where are we today?" asked Steve as Maria lay on her back, and he began to flex her stiff legs.

"Pasta carbonara," grinned Maria. "I take three eggs, a cup of Parmigiano Reggiano, a half a pound of Pancetta..." she went on and on about her Italian recipes; simple, classic dishes that she loved to make but no longer could because there was no one there to cook for.

"Ok, ok, Maria stop, you're killing me. I'll come by and you can make a meal for me but only if I can repay the favor somehow."

"You come by Saturday and bring your bathing trunks..." a grin spread over her face, "I need a good pool boy."

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Steve found that Maria's neighborhood wasn't far from his apartment, it was a nice quiet neighborhood built long ago in an area that was once all grapefruit groves. After a few blights and a huge increase in the cost of farm labor and the owner of the groves went into real estate. Although pines and palms were the kings, the neighborhood was also populated with sycamore, weeping willow, southern live oak and many other types of shade trees. It was a great neighborhood, not far from Vero Beach, close to the Indian River which paralleled the ocean and created the barrier islands.

Nervous as a schoolboy he stood at the door shifting foot to foot, somehow, he had expected her to live in a gated community with guards, fountains, and chrome wheeled golf carts buzzing about, not in what he considered to be Real America. He found himself in front of a medium size three bedroom ranch dwelling next to a manicured, tree shaded open lot. Finally, he rang the bell and a call from within said, "Come in! The door is open!" Entering he found a very neat living room which looked like it had never been lived in, then behind that was a kitchen and dining room which looked like Maria's primary abode.

He stepped into the kitchen and raised his gift and Maria's heartwarming smile broke into a cry of "Two bottles of wine! Are you trying to take advantage of me?"

"Well... I..."

"As Virgil once wrote, beware of Yoopers bearing gifts."

"I think that was Greeks."

"Don't be silly," said Maria as she kissed his cheek, "Greeks never even heard of Yoopers. Come here, let me show you the pool," and she led him through the kitchen where she and Darlene were preparing dinner. Maria introduced Steve and Darlene to each other and showed off her kitchen. Everything was so neat and orderly as she prepared to prepare dinner, it looked like she was going to film a cooking show. "Right through here!" just outside was a nice, shaded patio with grill and sink built into what looked like a coral wall with a large refrigerator nearby. Wine glasses hung over the sink and there were plenty of cabinets. The pool was kidney shaped with seating all around the sides except for the deep end which had a rock feature wall with some sad looking plants growing on it.

Indicating a storage area Maria said "All the equipment and chemicals are here. There are refreshments in the fridge, and I'll be right here in the kitchen if you need me." Maria crutched back into the kitchen and began to make her late husband's favorite, chicken scallopine. First came the slicing, she sliced every mushroom perfectly, she's not going to trust her scallopine to a machine cut mushroom. She's making dinner for a man, not warming a hot pocket for a gamer boy.

As she worked, she could see Steve through the window working on the pool. He disappeared while she was pounding the chicken breasts to their proper thickness, but he soon reappeared as she dipped the chicken breasts into milk, coated them with flower and pan fried them golden brown and delicious. When finished with that she again turned to the huge windows and saw Steve in the pool with a scrub brush scrubbing the "bathtub ring" from the water edge tiles, she also heard water running, he was adding water to the pool.

She crutched her way out to the pool deck and said, "you're adding water?"

Steve looked up at her and said, "If we raise the water level up about three more inches it will make it easier for you to get in and out of the pool."

"Oh, I don't swim," she insisted, "this is for the girls and the grandkids," but Steve just smiled and went back to scrubbing and Maria went back into the kitchen. She peeked out one other time and he wasn't around. "Steve?" she called but he was nowhere to be seen until she looked into the pool and there he was at the bottom of the deep end. Before she could scream, he rose to the surface wearing a dive mask and snorkel and bringing up a hand full of leaves that were stuck in various drains.

Seeing the look on her face he said, "Did I scare you? I'm sorry, I should have warned you that I dive when I'm working on pools."

"You really are a pool boy?"

"Pools and gardens," he said with a nod and a smile. "It's how I worked my way through the University of Florida."

The look of relief and joy that washed over her face was priceless as Steve took a deep breath and went down to finish cleaning out the intake drain.

Later that evening the dinner Maria served was spectacular! Steve had never had chicken scallopine, chicken cutlets on homemade linguini with a spectacular mushroom sauce. "Oh God, that was a feast!" Maria just smiled as Steve wolfed down his dinner, it was so good to cook for an appreciative audience. "Where did you get these noodles!" gushed Steve, "they are delicious!"

"I didn't get them, I made them."

"You made them?" Steve sounded shocked that she made the noodles. "You have to show me how you make noodles."

"You've never had homemade noodles?"

"Never, I've heard of noodle making machines and always wanted to try though."

"I'm sure that I can teach you," smiled Maria as dinner drew near to a close.

They cleaned up and Maria made a plate for Steve to take home, then she disappeared into her bedroom and changed into her swimsuit while Steve carried their wine and glasses out to the patio. "I can't wait to see what you did with the pool," she said as she crutched out to the patio. The sun had set but the heat of the day was still on them. "I love this time of day," she sighed as Steve set up deck chairs near the edge of the pool. "It's nice and hot but the sun isn't blazing."

"Ok, check this out," said Steve as he went to a switch panel. The underwater lights came on, then the feature wall started gurgling then a waterfall splashed into the pool, lights hidden in the rock work illuminated the trickling water and there were plants growing in the nooks and crannies of the feature wall. It had been so long since those lights worked that she forgot that they were there.

"How wonderful! What did you do to it? And the plants! Where did you get them?"

"I just cleaned a few electrical connections and fixed a broken hose; the plants all came from your neighbor's garden."

"You stole plants from a neighbor's garden?" she was laughing now.

"They were growing over your fence. Stolen plants grow the best, everyone knows that, including Mrs. Weberman."

"My neighbor Mrs. Weberman?"

"Yeah, she's cool, I pretended not to watch while she grabbed some cuttings off of your plants and I returned the favor. She's from Wisconsin and she knows the golden rule about stolen plants."

Maria sagged into her chair shaking her head, "In a few hours you brought my pool back to life."

I'm going to do the same for you, thought Steve. The evening was sweltering hot, the music on the stereo was intoxicating, and the wine was delicious. Against her loudest complaints Steve eased Maria into the pool and they sat on the underwater benches, drank wine, and talked.

"What's your favorite color?" Maria asked.

"I was thinking about that the other day," said Steve. "Up north there's a tree called the tamarack. It's a pine tree that every year sheds it's needles and every spring they come back in such a brilliant, bright green that it's almost painful to look at on a sunny day. I love that green, it's probably called neon green but I'm going to call it Tamarack Green. And you? What's your favorite color?"

"Gold," said Maria showing off the golden necklace she was wearing. "Any woman that doesn't say gold is thinking of diamonds or just isn't thinking." She sipped her wine and said, "Favorite pet?"

"I had an orange cat named Morris when I was a kid. For a cat, Morris was my dog. He didn't fetch, and he wasn't a hunter, at least not like a dog, but he was by my side for years and he would fight anything. Then one day I came home from school, and he wasn't there anymore. Mom said she saw him heading off to the woods like he always did, maybe he found himself something too big to fight. What was yours?"

"I grew up in Brooklyn..." she started.

"Like Captain America?"

Maria looked over at Steve who was grinning gleefully. "Just like Captain America," she muttered, "pour the wine. So, we couldn't have any big pets like a cat or a dog, but for years we had a blue parakeet named Budgie and he could talk. He could say "Son of a bitch" and he could say "Fuck the Yankees" because when my uncles stopped by to watch a game with my dad, that was all you could hear from them. Ok, who was your first crush?"

"Denice O'Rielly, we were in the same grade, and she lived maybe two miles from me. After the school bus dropped us off, we'd grab our .22 rifles, hop on our bikes, meet up at the old grain elevator, hunt squirrels, and shoot rats until it was dark. In the winter we went sledding down the side of the Buckeye Ravine and in the summer, we rode our bikes all day long. How about you?"

"Anthony Leone," smiled Maria. "He was a bad boy, went to juvie for something when he was twelve. He was so cool, like the Fonz."

"Like the... what?"

"The Fonz... Fonzie, from Happy Days," but Steve still looked confused. "Arthur Herbert Fonzarelli... Fonzie was the epitome of fifties cool, he was played by the most uncool person you would ever know, Henry Winkler. If you don't know Fonzie you'll never get it. I always thought that Anthony was at the bottom of the class because he was too cool to listen to the nuns. It turned out that he was just stupid. Don't laugh! He was cool and at that age cool covered over a lot of sins." Maria took a deep breath and sighed. "Who was your first real kiss?"

Steve nodded that he understood, a "real kiss" eliminated mom kisses and kisses from aunts at family parties. A "real kiss" signified a kiss from a girlfriend or some other lover. "It was Claudia Holtz, we kissed from the eighth grade to graduation. Then I marched off to basic training and found that she had slipped a Dear John letter in my jacket pocket for my reading entertainment on the flight to Fort Benning."

"Oh my god, that was horrible!"

Steve shrugged. "It kinda helped, she gave me the urge to kill. That came in handy in Afghanistan."

"Were you infantry? Armor?" she asked.

With a chuckle he said, "I went to Fort Benning for Officers Training School, I was a field medic, a physician's assistant so I got lieutenant's bars." Then sipping some wine, he asked, "Who was your first kiss, was it that Fonzie guy? Did ya kiss him?" He punctuated his question with a wag of his eyebrows.

"No, my first kiss was Giuseppe D'Amato, he took me to the prom, and we were inseparable after that. We weren't blessed with many children, so we gave all of our love to each other... I'm the one to give him his first and his last kisses."

"Oh lord, I'm sorry," said Steve, "if I had known I wouldn't have brought it up..."

"It's ok, it was a long time ago. I miss him dearly, but we've gone our separate ways, maybe we'll meet again. Stop frowning! I have had more fun tonight than I have had since I lost Giuseppe... I forgot how great it is to laugh."

"Yeah, but still," groaned Steve, "I should have asked what your favorite kink or something is."

"That's horrible! You nasty man... like I would ever admit that I enjoy spanking to you!" She looked at him waiting for the laugh that never came. "You look nervous Steve, what's wrong?"

He paused for a while playing with his wine glass then said, "We have a session Tuesday and Thursday at the hospital and I'm going to be therapist Anderson, and you are going to be client Mrs. D'Amato, and we're going to work hard and you're going to go home in pain, but that goes away soon, but..."

"But what?" asked Maria, but in her heart, she was begging Don't say it, don't say it, please don't say it!

"I'm going to miss Maria who sings when she cooks and laughs at my jokes, and I'm going to miss being Steve the handyman/gardener/pool boy until the next time Mrs. D'Amato lets me come and visit my friend Maria. It seems like that may be a long time away."

"Steve, darling," Maria turned her face to him and said sadly, "You should be looking for girls your own age, not some broken down old woman. We can be friends on occasion."

"You're right, women my age are girls, and I don't want a girl whose idea of cooking is ordering take-out. I want a woman that can laugh and cook and love doing both. And you... don't call yourself broken down until I say you are. I can have you walking here, tonight, without crutches or braces, in a matter of minutes."

Her melodious laughter rang through the night. "Walk?

"I guarantee it. Would a Yooper lie?"

"I don't even know what a Yooper is," Maria called in that cheerful laugh of hers. "I just call you that because that's what you say you are."

"A Yooper is someone who is from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, the You Pee becomes Yooper."

She chuckled at the nickname then sighed, "and you're going to make me walk again."

"If you don't walk, I promise to weed that entire garden on the south side of your yard next weekend," said Steve bravely.

"And if I do?" Maria suspected that Steve was up to something.

"What more do you want lady? Ok, if you do walk, I'll thin out those bamboo clumps, maybe we can build a Gilligan's Island hut with all that bamboo, that would be cool." Her clumps of Bamboo were getting huge, they need cutting back.

"Deal! I need the bamboo cleared. What do I have to do?"

Steve stood and started walking around the pool. The pool was designed for adults to sit around and talk and drink and maybe swim a few lengths, there's a seat built into the side of the pool that goes around the pool at 16 inches below the edge of the pool while the floor of the pool changes depth. Steve found the right depth, memorized where he was, then he walked over to Maria. "Are you ready?" She nodded nervously and he scooped her up and carried her to the spot he found and said, "stand here." She looked nervously into those blue eyes of his and he said, "You can do it, you've proven to me that you can do this, now prove it to Maria."

Slowly she began to unfold, her legs straightening out and reaching for the pool floor, her glittering brown eyes locked onto his and soon her feet touched the bottom, and she was standing. Steve moved away carefully; he didn't want to make a current that threw her off balance. "You're standing, it's all you!"

"And a swimming pool!"

"Use the buoyancy as a tool like you used the braces and crutches and walk toward me."

And to her immense surprise she did.

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Since she became his patient, life has never been better for Steve. Every Tuesday and Thursday Mrs. D'Amato comes to the hospital for her physical therapy from Mr. Anderson. Every Wednesday when Maria was volunteering at the Humane Society, her pool boy and gardener came by to maintain the pool, gardens, and lawn, and every Saturday Maria's best friend Steve comes over for dinner and they talk and drink wine long into the night, quite often playing in the pool.

She never knows what to expect when Steve gets an idea in his head. She came home one evening and her pool shower was finally completed. Steve got his buddy at the VFW to plumb the simple cold water shower head, but then he split a piece of bamboo and hid the water pipe behind the bamboo ala Gilligan's Island. He used the rest of the bamboo to make a bamboo privacy wall around the shower.

One weekend at Steve's request, Maria made a picnic dinner and packed it up like they were going out for a picnic and brought it out to the picnic table by the pool. The patio has become their oasis ever since Steve installed a ceiling fan in the patio roof over her table and outdoor kitchen. "This looks awesome!" said Steve as he looked at the feast of cold fried chicken, potato salad, fruit salad, and Steve's favorite - roasted cherry tomato & goat cheese bruschetta. "Darling, this is perfect!" and instead of helping her sit down as usual, he started packing up dinner in a picnic hamper.

"What's happening?" asked Maria. "I thought you liked the dinner I made."

"It looks awesome!" said Steve. "I'm starving and I can't wait to try it. Let's go!"

"I don't understand," she said but she followed him around the house to his pick-up in the driveway and he placed the hamper in the back of the truck and helped her in the cab. "Where are we going?" she asked.

He climbed in the driver seat, started the truck, smiled and said, "On a picnic!"

"Wha...?"

"It's a beautiful park, you're going to love it."

Maria started to inspect Steve's truck, a glossy Ford F-150. "This is quite a truck," she noticed a plaque affixed to the dashboard with Arabic writing and asked, "A gift from an oil sheik?"

"There was a tiny province in Afghanistan that was overrun with every bad guy you could imagine, so the local law enforcement asked for my help, and I had a few spare bullets, and I found this waiting for me at home."

"It sounds like there's more to the both of us than what meets the eye," said Maria.

They drove up to Sebastian where at the north edge of town on Roseland Road there was a campground. Steve pulled into the campground and found the site that he had selected. The individual campsites were private, trees and bushes between the sites were thick and tall, separating the campsites insuring privacy. Rather than gravel, the floor of the campsites was a thick, soft bed of sand and Steve was tempted to get a tent, but Maria would never be able to sleep on the ground and get up in the morning.

Steve set up a four pole canopy over the picnic table and set her chair at the end of the table. Sitting on the bench of a wooden picnic table was a very difficult task for the raven haired beauty, Steve's job was to make life as simple and as easy as possible for her. As she sat in her chair at the end of the table, they enjoyed dinner while a campfire snapped and cracked in the fire ring next to the table. Campers out for their evening stroll would stop by to chat as Steve and Maria ate dinner.

"Are all campers this friendly?" asked Maria.

"In my experience they are," said Steve. "Somewhere in my collection I have a flag that says, "Coffee's On." My folks would hang that in front of our trailer in the morning when we were camping and folks out for their morning stroll would stop in for a cup of coffee."

As the sun set Steve got another folding chair for him out of the truck and he and Maria sat by the fire inviting campers to join them. Eventually a dozen people from all over the United States brought a chair over and sat around Steve and Maria's campfire swapping stories of campouts long gone by. Steve told stories of camping in the woods up in the "Yoo Pee" while others talked about South Dakota and Mt. Rushmore, Arizona and the Grand Canyon, or Northern California and Yosemite.

Finally, someone asked Maria if she had any camping stories. "Just one," she said. "A friend stopped by for dinner one afternoon and asked me to make a picnic dinner, as I made the picnic dinner, he set out the paper plates and cups on my patio table. When dinner was ready, he packed everything up including me and here we are."

The laughter was contagious, and eventually someone asked Steve, "what are you going to do when they want to rent out this site?"

"I rented this site for the evening; they'll have to wait for checkout before they can kick us out."

"You rented a camp site to take me on a picnic?" asked Maria, startled to hear his admission.

"Well... yes. The picnic shelters at the state parks get so crowded and I didn't want to be interrupted," said Steve, causing their new friends around the campfire to chuckle and nod in agreement. As they laughed Steve leaned over and gave Maria a gentle kiss on the lips. She wasn't aware of the kiss until after it happened, it was so sweet, so automatic, she just responded naturally and returned his kiss like she did a thousand times with Giuseppi, and when it was over she sat gazing in the fire, feeling the caress of his lips on hers.

It was a couple of hours later when some of the folks started heading back to their own campsites that Maria realized that she and Steve were holding hands and they had been all evening long. "Do you like camping with me?" he asked softly.

She lifted his hand to her lips and kissed the back of his hand softly. 'I love camping with you."

"If I bought a pop-up camper, would you go camping with me?"

Maria thought about it for a few moments then squeezed his hand and smiled. "Anywhere you want to go, I'll follow along."

Taking a huge, nervous breath he kissed her cheek softly and whispered, "I would love to continue camping with you except..." he cleared his throat softly again and he looked a bit sad then said, "Annamaria Giacinta Bellini-D'Amato, I don't think I can see you as a patient any longer."

Maria was horrified and with a quivering chin she sputtered, "Why not? Did I..."

"No, it's not what you did, it's what I did."

"Why? What did you do?" she asked softly.

Steve took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. "I think I fell in love with you."

Maria was completely taken aback by this statement from this young boy... he's just a youngster, about half her age, how can he possibly know what falling in love is all about? Then, a few moments later she heard a familiar voice, a voice from her past asking, "How can he not know?" It was her Giuseppi pointing out the obvious. Maria looked at Steve, now he had a face that clearly said he was in the middle of a heartbreak. "I think we should go home and think about it," she whispered. She watched him pack up the remainders of their dinner then fold up the awning over their table, he was so sad looking. "What's the matter?" she finally asked.

"Something is over," he said sadly. When she looked at him confused, he continued, "I love treating you. Your condition is a challenge and I truly love the challenge of treating you..."

When he dropped of the statement she asked, "What else? Is there more?"

"I love touching you, but it's clearly obvious that you don't love being touched as much as I love doing the touching... you..." His words were now catching in his throat, he just made an absolute fool of himself in front of the woman he loves. He fought back the tears and finished cleaning up. "I'm so sorry... I'm not being fair to you, I'll take you home and stop bothering you. I will have Doctor Albertson find a replacement and I'll see if there's an opening for me elsewhere."

"Wait," she grabbed his sleeve as he walked by and said, "what do you mean "find a replacement?" I don't understand."

"I guess I can't make it any worse," muttered Steve and he knelt down in front of her and made painful eye contact with the woman he loved. "Darling, I love you, which means that I can no longer treat you. We get too close to treat our patients properly. I wish I could explain it better, but my words aren't coming right now."

He started to get up and finish cleaning up, but Maria grabbed the collar of his T-shirt and pulled him back down. "You're saying that you can't treat me because I don't love you in return?"

"No." He gently took her hand and kissed the back of it. "I can't officially treat you. Being in love with the patient messes up our judgement, so we avoid working on the people we love." He started to get up again, but she pulled him back down.

"So, if I loved you, you could treat me?"

"No. But it would make the whole breakup go so much easier." And he started to get up, but again she pulled him back down to his knees.

"What breakup? Can't we still be friends?"

Steve's eyes filled with tears as he said softly, "Have you ever poured your heart out to someone only to have your feelings rejected? It's not..." He wanted to explain how painful the rejection was, how humiliated he felt. She never felt this because she found the love of her life when she was young and he returned her love, Maria would never understand because she's never been rejected. He clenched his jaw when he saw the hurt look in Maria's eyes. "It's not your fault, it's mine, this is all on me." He started to get up again, and again she yanked him back to his knees.

"What do you mean it's all on you? I don't understand."

"No, you wouldn't. Darling, you're a beautiful, wonderful woman. You never had to go through life pulling yourself back from someone that you found yourself falling in love with because you're just a dirt poor dirt farmer. You are an incredible, beautiful, sexy, successful businesswoman, and I'm just a busted up ol' Army medic that is so in love with you... let me be noble and thank you for the wonderful time we've had." He tried to get up but her grip on his shirt collar was too strong.

"No," she said forcefully.

"No?"

"No," she demanded. "Tuesday morning you're going to meet me on table number four like usual. You have to give me time to think about all of this. I don't get people throwing themselves at my feet very often, I need time to think it over." He started to look like he was ready to continue calling everything off when she demanded, "promise me!"

Steve kissed a tear away from her cheek and said, "I'm sorry, I didn't want tonight to end up like this." He helped her up out of her chair and she moved out of the way and sat by the fire as she pondered everything that had happened tonight. As she considered everything that was said tonight, another person sat down next to her. Maria glanced over and she realized it was their new friend Sally Anne, a camper from North Carolina. Sally Anne was about the same age as Maria and was traveling with her son Kent.

"Don't throw it away," said Sally Anne.

"Hmm?" Maria was not sure how much Sally Anne heard or understood from the conversations, but it was probably more than Maria hoped.

"I said don't throw it away. Loving Steve and traveling with him can be the most wonderful thing you'll ever experience, don't throw it all way. Live it, experience it." Sally Anne tossed a tiny twig unto the campfire and said softly, "Many people assume that Kent is my son because we have the same last name, but my son has a different last name than we have."

"Kent is your husband?"

Sally Anne smiled and nodded affirmatively. And as the realization swept over Maria, Sally Anne said quietly, "there's a lot of women our age who take another look the young lover in our lives after the man of our dreams left us."

"Mine was murdered," whispered Maria.

"My Albert worked himself to death for me," said Sally Anne, "he died of a heart attack at forty seven." She then leaned over and said softly, "loneliness is a curse, we can die from that affliction you know. Ask your husband if he sent Steve to help cure your loneliness."

The conversation was interrupted by Steve who packed and said he was going to the outhouse and wanted to know if Maria needed to go, he would supply help. "No thank you," said Maria and she returned to her conversation with Sally Anne, but Sally Anne was folding up her chair and getting ready to go, her young husband Kent was waiting at the entrance to the campsite talking with Steve.

"How do I ask him?" asked Maria as she struggled to her feet with her crutches.

"You talk to him every night, don't you?" asked Sally Anne, "We'll be here most of the summer, let me know how you come out!"

They rode home in silence, both feeling worse and worse about how the evening turned out, finally when they turned into her driveway Steve said, "Please don't hate me for embarrassing you in front of those people."

"Darling no, don't blame yourself for what happened this evening, if I were more receptive, I would have handled it better... give me utill Tuesday... please?"

"What is going to happen on Tuesday?" he asked sourly.

"You gave me the most prized possession a man could ever give a woman, and I wasn't expecting it and I didn't handle it well... please let me do better?"

"You need three days to do better?" he asked. He wasn't mean, he was trying to be humorous.

"I'm getting better," she said sadly. "I demanded three weeks out of Guiseppe."

"I suppose I should consider myself blessed," but he didn't sound blesses, he sounded defeated. He came around to her side of the truck and helped her down then grabbed the picnic stuff out of the back.

"You can pull a pop-up with this little thing?" she asked as she crutched past the back side of his pickup. She had seen the large pickups that were hauling the huge fifth wheel campers, she thought those were pop-ups because the trailer "popped up" in the front.

Steve pointed to the hitch under the bumper and said, "that's what that two inch chrome ball is for." He carried the food into her house then without his usual hug and reassuring smile he left without a word. Maria crutched her way into the living room and looked out the front window and saw that her driveway was empty and the immensity of what happened struck.

Darlene heard Maria return home and he heard Steve's truck leave almost immediately. She stepped out of her room into the living room and saw Maria looking sadly out the window and asked, "What happened?"

Maria remembered her confusion as a child back when they lived on a farm, when she hugged the baby chicks too tightly and they died, so she distanced herself and they grew up without her help, but they grew up without caring who she was like they cared for her sister Fabrizia. One day a young Maria was preparing to feed the chicks but when Fabbi approached the chicks ran to her ignoring Maria and her little bucket of feed. The loneliness, sorrow, and betrayal she felt that day overwhelmed her little four year old heart and she ran off crying... now that entire scene came back to her. "I think I broke something very precious..."

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Maria wandered the boardwalk alone, navigating her way through the motionless crowd. The boardwalk was filled with summer revelers escaping the crushing heat of the summer city, but here they were motionless and faded. She's had this dream before, and years ago the dream was terrifying, now it's merely annoying but at least she now knew what to look for. He's here somewhere, he's in a different location every time she has this dream, but she can always find him because he's the only animated one, everyone else is immobile and their color is washed out. It's like the creator of her dream always wants her to know that he's there for her. This time she found Guiseppi D'Amato sitting at the edge of the water, enjoying the feeling of the waves as they roll over his feet.

"I wish I could do that," she called from the edge of the board walk.

"Come on down and do it," called Guiseppi.

"I can't walk in the sand with crutches."

"How do you know? You've never tried," called Guiseppi, but it wasn't his voice, it was Steve's voice that said those exact words to her during their therapy sessions.

"Come get your Egg Cream before it goes flat," Maria called and sat in the shade of the gaudily colored steel umbrella over her table at the boardwalk candy shop they love so much. Guiseppi was there in moments; he hates a flat Egg Cream. Maria sat and watched Guiseppi enjoy his treat but soon he wanted to discuss something she was avoiding.

"Are you enjoying Florida?" he asked.

Maria frowned, in the past they both laughed about New Yorkers flocking to Florida as they approached their "golden years" then later they began to make plans to join the southward migration. Then their plans were shattered and Maria went to Florida with their daughters Jeannie and Nadia. Now Maria and Guiseppi were separated by time, space and worse. "It's warm, the house is nice, the pool is great, but you can't get an Egg Cream."

"You will find one, or maybe one will find you, it's going to happen." An egg cream is a favorite from New York City made from milk, seltzer water, and a little bit of chocolate syrup stirred up until a foam rises at the top of the glass. It has no egg, and no cream and she liked them but not nearly as much as her Guiseppi loved them. There's a theory that the name Egg Cream came from the Yiddish words echt krim which means real cream which is unlikely because there's no cream in it, or it came from the Yiddish words echt keem which means real sweetness which is more likely. Her murdered husband took a long drink and sighed, "Oh yeah, that's the real thing. How about you? I tried to find you the real thing. How is it working out?"

"If I just knew that this was right!" she cried. "Is this what you want for me?"

"How can you ask that question?" asked Guiseppi. "This is me, Juicy, and you know that all I ever wanted from you is that smile, and I see that smile whenever he is around..." Guiseppi reached out and took her hand in his and said softly, "give him that smile..."

And soon his playful smile was gone, and the feel of his hands holding hers faded from memory and the light from the rising sun pried her eyes open. She sat up and grabbed a tissue and with a resounding "honk!" she cleared the snot that clogged her morning sinuses. "Oh yeah, Steve is going to like hearing that in the morning," she complained to herself - but somehow, she knew he would learn just like her "Juicy" did, and her sister's husband and her oldest daughter's husband did, sinus issues were an issue with women that have Bellini blood in their veins. With the resurgence of the memory of her private nickname for him she knew that man in her dream was Guiseppi, her own Juicy, that spoke to her about Steve last night.

She snatched her phone from the nightstand and sent two quick texts, one was to Steve begging him to give her more time, and one to Sally Anne asking her to call back as soon as possible.

<><><><><>֎<><><><><>

Steve spent the rest of that horrible evening sitting on the beach watching the stars, cursing himself for ruining the most wonderful thing that ever happened to him. After sunrise he drove back up to Sebastian and reaching a small nature walk he parked the truck and grabbed a backpack out of the truck and went for a walk. The jungle was thick and enchanting, and the natural beauty almost took his mind off of the mess that he made of his life. He reached a spot on the path that paralleled a river, the water was filled with cypress knees and "pointy birds" on long legs that poked through the mud for snacks. He took off the backpack, unzipped it, and began unfolding. The backpack became an inflatable kayak and in just a matter of minutes he was paddling through the backwaters of the St. Sebastian river.

As the sun rose higher in the sky he pulled out his phone and turned it on. Ignoring the cacophony of tones and rings he dialed a number and held the phone to his ear. "At the sound of the tone please leave your message..."

"Doctor Albertson, this is Steve, I've had an issue arise and I need to take a personal day on Monday, I have an open schedule on Monday, so nothing has to be covered. I will be there on Tuesday, see you then."

He turned off his phone and put it in a Ziplock baggie and paddled along in the streams where Johnny Weissmuller played Tarzan for the movie cameras almost 100 years ago. That evening he drove into town and got some hot dogs and hotdog rolls and some grapes at the Walmart then returned to the park he rented a site from the night before. There he rented a primitive site where he put up his puptent and slept there in a sleeping bag. He caught his first sleep in 48 hours sleeping on a bed of soft sand.

On Monday he woke, reinflated his kayak and walked down to the river and went kayaking on the St. Sebastian river. He splashed along working his anger and self-loathing out with every stroke of the paddle and just as he was turning on to a side stream he heard an outboard motor approaching from behind and he thought he heard someone shout his name. "They can't be calling for me," he told himself, "I don't exist today." Steve paddled up the side stream that was partially blocked by fallen limbs and logs, a trip that a boat with a motor couldn't follow. Being inflatable, his kayak had a draft of maybe one inch, the motorboat couldn't follow him over the submerged logs he floated over easily.

Steve paddled along watching the birds skim over the surface of the water, branches that stuck out over the water were lined with turtles that would drop off the branch as he neared, hitting the surface of the water with a loud "ker-plunk!" Eventually the side stream curved back around and rejoined the St. Sebastian river where Detective Bruce McLaren waited for him in a rented 10' long motorboat. "You know I'm going to find you eventually captain."

"Not today, you're not going to find me today." When Bruce looked confused, Steve explained, "I don't exist today."

Bruce nodded, he understood that. In Afghanistan Steve would disappear, especially after a horrific kill, he would refuse radio traffic and orders that came in were not ignored, they just weren't acted on with the expedience that one was used to when dealing with Captain Anderson. "What should I tell her?"

"Whatever you want, I'm just taking some "me time" to clear my head." Steve sighed and his paddle bit into the river and he sailed away.

Maria "blew up his phone" with texts all day Sunday and Monday, and all morning long on Tuesday morning. Sweet little texts assuring him that she couldn't wait to see him on Tuesday and that she just needed time to get her head together also. He read every one of them at lunch on Tuesday out on the shaded patio outside of the cafeteria where he could sit in private.

Finally on Tuesday afternoon she entered The Dungeon and Steve was waiting for her on table number four. His heart leapt when he saw her, her hair was perfect, her eyes were glittering and her t-shirt clung tightly to her large, heavy breasts. She wore that T-Shirt just for him because she was daring him to stare at her boobs. "Missus D'Amato," he said, his throat was dry and it was hard to talk.

"Il mio amante," she said with a smile.

"I don't know what that means," said Steve as she laid back, her large breasts daring him to stare at them.

"You will," she promised, "soon enough." The Italian phrase Il mio amante means "my lover," and she had plans to help him with that translation. The appointment went smoothly and there was nothing but smiles for each other. As always, his hands felt smooth as silk as he gave her a "warm up" massage and the pain that she saw in his eyes on Saturday night disappeared as she looked up at him and traced the tip of her tongue around her lips and waggled an eyebrow up at him.

"Don't! You're making me laugh!" In reply she simply answered him with a kiss blown at him. He then followed up with a rigorous set of exercises that they had never tried before. Maria, who never liked the more strident exercises, actually began to enjoy these, they were working her leg muscles in a way that they hadn't been worked in a decade.

When the appointment was over, she looked up from the table panting, it was a good workout. Their last therapy set was a workout on "The Wall" a workout machine mounted to the wall that worked all parts of the body. He placed her against the wall with her right shoulder and right hip against the wall and a strap connected to pullies and weights on her left ankle. She had to raise her leg outwards and hold it for a count of ten. Then he turned her and did the same thing with her right leg. Once they did three sets of these "crotch busters" he handed her the crutches she had to live with but instead of taking them she put her arms around his neck and pulled him to her, "carry me," she whispered.

"Won't that be a little awkward?" he asked. "People are watching."

"Then carry me in your heart," she whispered and then gave him the type of kiss that she hasn't given anyone in ten years. Her tongue prodded Steve's lips and he opened to accept her tongue in and soon their tongues were gently sliding over each other, their arms holding tighter, a little whimper of excitement from both Steve and Maria escaped as they kissed. When their lips parted and their panting breath slowed, she whispered, "I know it's a little late... but... I love you too," and their lips met in another kiss that Steve could only dream about... until today. When their tongues retreated and their lips parted, she looked in his glittering blue eyes and said, "let's go find Doctor Albertson."

"Let's do that," Steve said smiling at her, and now she took her crutches. Ignoring the stares they received from Melissa Combs, an RN in the PT department, Steve led Maria to Dr. Albertson's office and Steve knocked "Shave and a Haircut" on his door, the little rhythm that the nurses and therapists use to let the doctor know that they have a problem that needs his immediate attention.

"Come in," the doctor called, and Steve opened the door and they entered. Dr. Albertson was a large, muscular black man with closely cropped hair and the look of a professional athlete about him. He was a trainer for an NFL team for a few years before he took this job in Vero Beach Florida.

Maria centered herself in front of Dr. Alberton's desk and boldly said, "I have a problem with one of your silly rules." She could hear Steve groan behind her, but Dr. Albertson looked up at her, trying to conceal a smile.

"And which silly rule would that be? I have quite a few of them."

"Steve says it's a rule that because we fell in love with each other, I now have to find a new physical therapist."

Dr. Daryl Albertson looked at Steve, who was trying to choke down his shock at her admission. There are ways that a woman can say "I love you too" that do not threaten a man's career, clearly Maria did not choose to follow that route. "Mister Anderson!" Dr. Albertson sounded terrifyingly like Hugo Weaving as Agent Smith from the Matrix as he said, "Would it be possible for you to conduct yourself in a professional manner while performing therapeutic ministrations in this hospital?"

"Pardon sir?" gasped Steve, shocked at the entire goings on.

"Can you keep it in your pants while working with Mizz D'Amato, Mister Anderson?"

"Uhhh yes sir."

Then turning to Maria, he growled, "Mizz D'Amato, would it be possible for you to maintain your composure knowing that Mister Anderson is making his living touching other women with the same intent as he has been touching you within these confines for the past months?"

Maria was shocked, she didn't expect this, and the question gave her pause. Of course, Steve would be touching other women... wait a minute - Steve would be touching other women? HER Steve? Maria hadn't thought of that possibility. How is she going to feel about that... She sighed and remembered the feel of his lips on hers and pitied the poor women who will never feel that and she said, "I will be at our home waiting for his return, trusting that he will retain his professional composure until he gets home to me."

"Good answer!" he looked back down at his paperwork. "Please enjoy the rest of your day... elsewhere."

As they left Dr. Albertson's office, Maria turned to Steve and said, "can you give me a ride home? I didn't arrange for an Über."

Steve's heart leapt at the thought that he had Maria for a few extra moments that day and he said, "sure." They took the elevator down to the employee's parking lot and when the door opened for a few nurses waiting for the elevator on the underground parking level they saw Steve and Maria kissing as the doors slid open, "excuse us," muttered an embarrassed Steve but Maria just showed off her crutches. She has learned that as a patient she can get away with almost anything.

"Do you mind if I call you Annamaria?" asked Steve as he easily hoisted her up into the passenger seat.

"I don't know, it's what my mother called me when she was mad at me." Then crossing her arms, she imitated her angry mother saying "Annamaria Giacinta Bellini! Lascia stare quei polli!"

"What was that?" chuckled Steve as he got in the truck.

"She yelled that at me quite a bit when I was little. She said, Annamaria Giacinta Bellini! Leave those chickens alone!"

"Leave the chickens alone?"

"When I was young we lived on a farm and when the chickens were young, I thought the chicks were pets. It wasn't until later I discovered that they were the main ingredient in some of my favorite meals."

"What was your very favorite meal?" asked Steve.

Maria smiled and said, "When I was a little girl it was zuppa di tagliatelle alla Paolina."

The words rolled off her tongue with the same artistic measure that she used when making incredible, delicious Italian specialties for him. Whatever it was that she just named sounded delicious and exotic. It must have been another amazing Italian dish that he's never had before. "What is that?"

"Chicken noodle soup made with Paolina," Maria said with a smile. "When I was little we had a huge red chicken that used to terrify me, Paolina was her name and we ate off that bird for days when her time came, and when I found out that Paolina went into that soup I was never afraid of a chicken ever again." She sighed at the childhood memories of Paolina. "I couldn't conceive that the bird that terrified me and chased me out of the yard was made of meat."

"Aww, that's cute... Can I call you Annamaria and not use your middle name?" They happily drove home relating stories of their childhood, they couldn't fully relate to each other's stories as Maria was a big city girl most of her life and Steve was a child of the fields and forest all of his life but they had fun explaining the eccentricities of their upbringing. As they neared the area where their route took them alongside the ocean, Steve said, "You've never been on a beach, have you?"

"Not here, at Coney Island I used to go all the time."

"Coney Island?" Like everyone from outside of the five boroughs, Steve thought of Coney Island as nothing more than an amusement park where you could see the ocean from the top of the roller coaster. He was sure the only thing it was famous for was a brand of wieners named "Nathans."

"It's usually really crowded but there is a beach there. On hot days Juicy and I used to meet there after school."

"Juicy?" asked Steve.

Maria suddenly blushed and mumbled an excuse but Steve kept pressing her until she finally said, "It was our first handjob, ok?"

"Handjob?" said Steve with a laugh. "Did you say handjob?"

Maria took a deep sigh and said, "I was a good Catholic girl and Giuseppe was a good catholic boy and I gave him a pair of blue balls that were so swollen they clanked when he walked."

"Oooo! The poor fellow. I know exactly how he feels," sighed Steve.

"I do that to you too?" said Maria with a tone of sorrow but deep down inside she felt some pride. She was old enough to be his mother and she gave him a case of blue balls... the thought was amazing to her; she couldn't believe that a woman her age could give anyone blue balls, let alone a vital young man.

"Every day we're together, I'm not complaining, but it does hurt." He pulled into a handicapped parking spot at the parking area for the beach access. They were the only car in the lot, but it was the middle of the afternoon on a Tuesday so the lot being empty was not unusual, folks would be showing up after work and after school. Steve walked around the back of the truck and gathered up his backpack from the back of the truck and came around to her door and as she tried to get out, he grabbed her crutches and said, "I have a surprise for you."

He took her crutches and popped off the endcaps then replaced the endcaps with new caps that were shaped like a large snowflake and six inches across. "What are those?" Maria asked.

"Something new we got in the hospital to try. Since we're trying this officially I can count this trip to the beach a project for work."

"So, I'm a medical crash test dummy?" she asked.

"Absolutely!" said Steve in the worst attempt at imitating Silvester Stallone that Maria had ever heard.

"Stop, you make a lousy Guido," she said as she headed toward the ramp that led them to the beach. Florida has beach entrances up and down the ocean front, this place was nice, it had parking, picnic areas, shaded walking paths, changing rooms, showers, and handicap accessible beach ramps.

Steve followed Maria up the ramp in case the crutch tips gave her problems but other than making sure they were placed a little bit further from where her legs were going to be, she was fine. When they got to the changing rooms Steve took off his backpack and dug around in it and handed Maria a bathing suit. "Why do you have my bathing suit?" she asked.

"The campground we were at on Saturday had a hot tub and I was hoping to get you in it."

Maria frowned, he had been injured in the army when an IED explosion toppled the wall of a building on him in Afghanistan and he had mentioned that hot tubs help his back. "Sorry, next time for sure." Maria couldn't wait for the next time he offered to take her to a campground, she had a surprise in the garage for him... no for them when they got home soon.

"Go change," he insisted and headed into the men's changing room. He finished changing and waited for her on a bench in front of the changing rooms and she eventually came out. She doesn't like showing off the "Metal Work," the metal braces on her legs so she normally wears ankle length skirts or loose fitting slacks. She eventually came out wearing her one piece swimsuit and her skirt and she handed Steve her blouse, panties and bra. He folded up her clothing before putting it in his backpack and took the opportunity to inspect her bra. "Thirty four double D, nice!" he gave her a lecherous grin.

"Don't mess it up, that size is hard to find," she warned.

He repeated the lecherous grin and said, "That's not necessary, I'll walk behind you and hold on to the girls for you," and he held out his arms, his hands cupped like he was going to clasp her boobs.

"You men!" she sputtered, "I was warning you about messing up the bra, not the boobs! Guiseppe offered the same service. Do all you men get together and share your fetishes?"

"Actually, our meeting is the second Monday of any month with less than 31 days... DON'T let anyone know that I told you but I'm supposed to bring refreshments next time."

"You goofy fuck," she chuckled. Although she is a sweet, kind woman, being a New York City native her speech was peppered with blue language and she needed to keep an eye on her tongue or the occasional "fuck" or "cocksucker" will slip out. Here in Florida, George Carlin's Seven Words were not acceptable, (shit, piss, cock, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker, and tits) but in Brooklyn they're a vital part of the New York City vocabulary. Normally she avoids using obscenities, but Steve would eventually find out that when they start invading her speech patterns it's an indication that she's getting excited or angry.

"Ah, ah, ah!" said Steve. "If you keep talking like that I may just take you up on your offer."

She looked back over her shoulder and grinned and said, "Fuck you," then merrily blew him a kiss.

They were on the ramp that led down to the sand and Steve wouldn't do anything to her and she knew it, but soon as she was on the sand she found that her crutches weren't going to sink when she put weight on them. As she marveled that she was now able to walk on a beach Steve took advantage of the empty beach and wrapped his arms around Maria from behind, one hand gently cupped and squeezed one outsized breast, the other pressed against her mound through her skirt. Her eyes rolled back in her head and she moaned in pleasure, her hips pushing her ass back against his cock.

It was the first time he had intentionally touched her in an erotic way, at all times his hands had been touching her as a friend but mostly as a therapist, now he was touching her as a virile young man who has taken interest in her as a lover. His interest in her makes no biological sense, she's far too old to bear children, he should be interested in the daughters she bore for Guiseppi. The oldest, Giannina Carolina Bellini-Tamaro, was already a mother, Maria's oldest grandchild was thirteen. He should be interested in her youngest daughter Nadia Graziana Bellini, a 21 year old student at the University of Florida. But Maria now allowed herself (with Guiseppi's permission) the realization that Steve loved her because she is Maria and for no other reason.

That thought coursed through her like liquid fire... a handsome, virile young man was in love with her solely because she was Maria and no one or nothing else. She's going to have to tell him about her past. He'll probably leave her because of that so for now she wants to enjoy her life. Steve scooped her up then gently carried her to a section of the beach below the high tide line which was clear of small shells and shards of broken shells that lie further up on the sand. She put her hands around his neck and laughed joyfully as the waves crashed on the beach and the gulls circled above in the clear blue sky. As he lowered her to the sand, a spasm of pain shot through his features, his back injury was making itself noticed. "Stop!" she cried, "stop before you mess up your back worse."

"It's ok, I'm not..." and he lowered her into the soft, warm sand then knelt over her and pulled off his backpack and T-shirt revealing his mostly hairless chest and a tattoo that combined the black Army star and the medical red cross. She traced her fingertips gently over his nipples causing him to shiver in the late June heat.

"Who's watching us," she whispered, her eyes filled with mischief, her dark black eyebrows flickered a promise she dared not say out loud.

"We're all alone."

"Are you sure? I thought I saw some people over that way," she gestured to her right with a roll of her head.

Steve rose up to his knees and said, "I don't see anyone... hey!" With lightning fast reflexes Maria reached up, grasped the waistband of his bathing suit and pulled it down to his knees.

As she pulled his suit down his cock sprang up and slapped against his abdomen and her eyes opened wide in surprise and delight. "For me?" she squealed. She grasped his cock with one hand and with the other hand she gently caressed his aching, sensitive balls. "Lie down next to me," she urged and Steve did exactly that which brought chuckles from Maria.

"What's so funny?" Steve asked, her laugher was starting to concern him.

"I was just thinking of an old quote. It went something like "when you have them by the balls, their hearts and minds will soon follow."

"Very appropriate quote," said Steve as he sank to the sand guided by her soft hand which cupped his aching balls.

Maria rolled onto her side and examined her new prize. It was long and circumcised, and fairly thick. When she wrapped her hands around it her fingertips didn't meet the tip of her thumb. She didn't know how to handle the moment, other than babysitting, this was only the second cock she has ever seen. She loved her husband so much that the pain of his death still rang in her heart, but this new love was fresh, exciting, and this was more cock than she anticipated. She gently squeezed his balls and he whimpered in pain. "Ooo, I'm sorry honey," and she kissed his testicles gently. In response his knees separated more and she was able to cup his balls more fully and now her hand was starting to move on his cock.

It's been a long time, her mind may have forgotten what to do, but her hands remembered. Her right hand began stroking his cock gently, up and down, while her left hand cupped his bloated testes to prevent the jiggling from stroking his cock which might cause him more pain.

Steve was in heaven because this quickly became the greatest handjob he had ever received. Her technique was perfection, her hands were gentle but she was able to cause intense pleasure as her hand moved up and down his shaft. In Steve's experience it was superior to most of the blowjobs he had ever received. He was paralyzed with pleasure, he wanted to get up on his elbows to watch but he couldn't bring himself to do it, what if she didn't like being watched? He had girlfriends like that, they would complain if he watched, and the fun ended there. Maria projected an aura of being a "good girl" yet she was a master at this, she stroked his cock with just the perfect pressure, just the right speed, and her cradling his testes made sure he had no pain at all from his aching balls. This woman clearly knew what she was doing.

"Cum for me," she urged, "come on baby, cum for me..." her hand moved faster up and down his cock and he was drooling precum. She reached out with the tip of her tongue and tasted it for the first time in years, and she was taken back to a time when this was all new and exciting. He tasted and smelled very similar to Guiseppi, and at the same time completely different which made this completely enthralling for her. Now her tongue joined her hand in pleasuring him, she swirled her tough around the spongy head of his rock hard cock and that finally got him to rise up and watch what she was doing.

She glanced his way and saw that he was watching intently. She began to flicker the tip of her tongue on the sensitive underside of his erection, right where the head of his cock begins. She learned long ago that this was the most sensitive area of Guiseppi's uncircumcised cock, it appears to be the same for Steve's trimmed cock but at the same time it seemed to be less sensitive, by now Guiseppi would be cumming, Steve clearly wasn't ready, something was holding him back.

Steve loved to watch Maria as she pleasured him. She was so beautiful, her thick black hair in falling to her shoulders in waves, she noticed he was watching as her tongue began to slither up and down the sensitive underside of his cock and she brushed her hair back so he could see better, then she gave him a sexy wink. He didn't know how to react, she obviously loved this, and in his life having a lover that enjoyed being watched has never happened to him. His confusion must have shown on his face because she kissed his cock and covered it with saliva then said, "cum for me lover" and her hand began flashing up and down his cock.

There was no holding back now, and they both knew it. Steve rolled his head back and with a strangled growl he said, "I'm cumming baby," and as his orgasm hit Maria took the head of his cock into her mouth. Surge after surge of exquisite release washed over him and she took every drop. His release was so huge that she had to swallow a mouthful and he still kept cumming. Finally, it became too much. As he jerked and shuddered from the post orgasmic waves, he dropped back to the sand and with one hand he grasped her stroking hand and stopped her stroking, with the other he placed his hand on her cheek.

Maria got the idea and stopped suckling his cock. She turned her pretty face and began to suck gently on his thumb, her tongue swirling over it like she teased the head of his cock. "Good God you're awesome," groaned Steve, and in response she gently squeezed his still aching balls. Finally, he realized that he was sitting on a public beach with his swimming trunks around his ankles and a beautiful woman with her head in his lap.

He slowly returned to reality, the sound of the waves washing onto the shore was intoxicating as was the sight of the pelicans gliding just three feet off the surface of the water, their wings locked as they sailed along, and central to it all was beautiful, fascinating Maria. The sounds and sights called out to him and an idea grew in his mind. "Let's go swimming."

"What? I can't go swimming with this," and she yanked up her skirt to reveal her metal leg braces. That wasn't anything that would slow down Steve and as she tried to fight him off but soon he soon had her leg braces off. "Is that how you treat all your beach dates?"

"Actually... yeah, this makes every one of them." Steve stood and helped Maria to her feet, then once up he scooped her up in his arms. "Surf's up girl!"

"Stop! What am I going to do if I get used to someone picking me up?"

"Well, when I get too old for this you can hire a Chippendale Dancer to whisk you around," he said as he carried her out into the surf. He carried her to chest deep water where she was now supported by her buoyancy. "Thank you so much for that earlier."

"That earlier what?" she asked batting her eyelashes innocently.

"You know, what you did."

Maria was shocked, he was blushing! That was completely unexpected. Here he was an army veteran and he was blushing. He still thinks that she was a sweet, innocent widow. She decided to see how far she could push him. "Well, you were pretty backed up, I'm not going to be hungry for a while... you blush so cute! Are you really in your thirties?"

"Stop! Be nice. I'm just a lill' ol' Yooper boy, I'm not used to you big city wimmin with your big city wiles," which caused her to burst out laughing. They stood chest deep in the water, holding each other close, letting the water lift them up as the small waves rolled in. They playfully taunted and teased each other, he was still shocked at the skill she used to bring him off, then swallowing every drop of cum! While he reveled in that memory she tried to get him to say "handjob" but he artfully danced around her taunting.

"Say it," she said as their lips parted. "What did I do for you?"

"You almost got me fired," he said, his eyes narrowed as their noses touched.

"I highly doubt that. I called Doctor Albertson yesterday and told him what we were going to talk to him about."

"And what did he tell you?"

"He said he was glad that we finally admitted our feelings for each other, now what did I do for you twenty minutes ago?" She was working his swim trunks down again.

"Handjob, all right?" he shouted. "You gave me the best handjob I've ever had in my life." Maria was about to tease him for blushing again, but this time he wasn't as bright red as he was before and Maria stopped his blushing with a long, passionate kiss.

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They had dinner at a little bistro on the way home, they split what both thought perfection in a sandwich, a Ruben. Corned beef, Swiss cheese, sauerkraut and Russian dressing on thick rye bread. "This sandwich says it all," said Steve, "ingredients from multiple heritages come together in harmony."

"Mmm, thank you," said Maria around a mouthful of sandwich nirvana, "this really reminds me of New York."

"We should go there."

"For Christmas! We could stay at my cousin Marcy's house on Long Island! You'll love it! The shopping, the store fronts, the crowds." As Maria breathlessly described the joys of Christmas in New York City (little of which sounded appealing to Steve) he gestured to a waiter who nodded and disappeared into the kitchen, then soon returned with a tall frosty glass which he set in front of Maria. She stopped her rambling about New York and stared at the class full of light brown liquid topped with white foam. "What is this?" she gasped.

"I had them make it for you, try it."

With a shaking hand Maria pulled the glass to her and brought the straw to her lips and tasted the first egg cream she has had in over a decade, as Guiseppi's words from her dream came back to her; "You will find one, or maybe one will find you, it's going to happen."

Steve watched in shock as Maria leaned back in her chair, clutching the glass tightly to her chest and the tears started to flow. He knelt next to her and held her tight as she peppered his face with kisses saying, "Thank you," over and over.

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"You need to back into the driveway," she informed Steve as they returned from the beach. Steve was reluctant to do that because she has to walk around the truck to get in her house, pulling the truck into the driveway nose first puts her passenger side door on the side nearest to the door to get in her house. "Don't worry," she said as she saw the concerned look on his face. She slid out of the cab of the truck before he could get around to her side of the truck.

"You ok?" asked a worried Steve, his truck is bigger than she is used to. She has a car but she doesn't drive, normally her youngest daughter Nadia drives it and she lives in Gainesville right now.

Maria got her crutches underneath her and made her way to the back of the truck. "Oh, you're such a mother hen."

"That's just what we need, we tell Doctor Albertson we can function together and you snap a hip hopping out of my pickup."

"I'm still mad at you, so relax."

"Me?!? What did I do?"

"You serenaded me, as we drove here, that was very sweet," she said as she patted his chest. "But you picked an ancient Beatles song and said it was something I could identify with. I'm not that old." Steve had sang along with a cover of I Should Have Known Better recorded by what sounded like a garage band.

"What... Beatles? No, that was from a group called Brian Wilson and T.B.B." It was a song that popped up as a suggestion in his Spotify oldies playlist.

"You don't know what T.B.B. stands for?" Steve looked utterly lost and she wasn't going to give him a break... not yet anyway. "T.B.B. is The Beach Boys, that's the name they used when they recorded some party songs like Bah Bah Bah, Bah Barbra Ann which was also ahead of my time."

Now he looked shocked, "I'm sorry, I've never heard it before."

Maria tried to stifle her laughter as she leaned back on the tailgate of his truck. "Here, I got something yesterday that I'm going to share with you, IF you're good." She gave him a kiss then pulled the remote for the garage door out of her purse.

As the door slowly opened Steve's eyes opened wide in surprise. There in the garage sat a brand new Forest River Rockwood popup camper. It was folded up but those models unfold easily. "What do you think?" she asked. Seeing the look on his face that had dollar signs creating worry lines she said, "This is mine. The truck is yours. Together we go camping, I'm not going to ask you for a dime."

"You're so crazy," he chuckled. He has no idea what her financial status is, but she's never worried when they talk about money and she can bore him to tears talking about money. All he knows for sure was that she and her sister were raised on a farm, then something happened and they had to move to Brooklyn when she was six. She and Guiseppe started out clawing their way up, but soon their business was a hit and when they were run over and Guiseppe was killed she had sold their business and retired early.

"Do you have to tow it out?" she asked. "The dealer delivered it and parked it here and I'm new at this."

"Nah, they're not heavy, watch me be a hero," and he pushed it out into the sunlight. For the next hour they moved the truck and set up the camper. Having strong arms from walking on crutches for a decade, she turned the crank to raise the top and turned the crank on the front jack to level the camper while Steve ran around and set up the stabilizing jacks, the fold out beds, and set up the canvas.

He showed her how to set up the stove inside, then he set it up outside which she loved. She gestured indicating the whole outdoors and said, "I finally have a kitchen big enough!" Finally taking a break, Maria sat in the dinette and said, "If you don't love it, I'll send it back, but for what we want to do, Sally Anne said this should work."

"This is your camper," said Steve. "Don't worry about me, you and a sleeping bag are all I need. YOU need to be in love with it." He looked at her as she relaxed and said, "Can you live for a weekend or more without a bathroom?"

"Hmmm... that campground we were at in Sebastian had a nice bathroom, are there a lot of places like that?"

"Yeah. Not all but many places are like that... and while that place was nice, I've seen a lot better."

"That's all I need." Then she frowned, "Shoot! We can't go this weekend; the Humane Society has their election of officers. I need to be there." She loves her work with the humane society, because she's not mobile enough to have a dog, she has two very nice fish tanks and a pair of cockatiels named Spot and Rover but she hopes to get a support dog someday.

"That's ok," he got a playful look on his face. "I can pull it around back and we can camp out by the pool. That way we'll know what we need for our first official campout."

"Where will we go for our first campout?"

"Anywhere you want, as a disabled vet I can get into any state park for free," he grinned.

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Now that their love was out in the open, life changed for Steve Anderson in an incredible way. He no longer had to suppress his feelings for her, he didn't have to watch every word that he said and he no longer had to fight back the urge to reach out and touch her. He no longer had to invent excuses to go to her house just to spend a precious moment with her. Discovering what made Maria tick was now a full time pleasure. Every day after work he raced through his daily chores, he checked his mail, addressed any bills that came that day, then he raced over to her house. On the days that she was at the Humane Society he worked in the yard and on the patio and pool area. On Sundays they made it a family meal inviting Darlene and Bruce McLaren and whoever his current girlfriend was at the time over for dinner and Maria gladly made a huge Italian feast.

The day after she showed him her pop-up trailer he arrived at her house with the back of his truck loaded with camping gear and he headed out back to set up their little palace. A pop-up camper was like camping in a large tent, with added benefits, like a heater, sink, stove, and in Maria's case a roof top air conditioner. There is a huge bed that over hangs each end and in the middle is a small dinette that can be folded down to a single bed that will also fit a couple of kids. The beds at each end have a curtain for privacy.

This is the same type of camper that Steve and his family camped in; being the only boy, he slept on the dinette which was only used as a dinette when it was raining. His parents slept on the front bed; his sisters (one older, one younger than him) slept on the rear bed. His family went camping constantly, and he loved it, even if it meant that he was with his sisters. He didn't get along with them, at some point in their young lives the girls decided it was them against him and he no longer felt welcome in his own home. Back then they camped year 'round, winter was a challenge but they did it, the only nod to the "civilized world" was the gas heater inside their camper. They camped all over the UP, in Wisconsin and Minnesota, but also on their farm and Steve became an expert at cooking over an open fire. His parents weren't survivalists, they just loved the outdoors and were cheap.

As Steve tended to Maria's flower garden on the west side of the large lot he wondered how Maria's family fared in their camping adventures. She mentioned that they used to go camping until their father moved the family to Brooklyn, did they tent camp? Did they trailer camp? She was too young at the time to remember fully; she just remembers the whole family spending weekends in the woods. He decided when they meet to ask her sister, Giannina Tamaro, whom everyone called Jeannie.

As the sun set, Steve skimmed the leaves and bugs off the "pond" as Maria called her grass edge swimming pool, then he put the tools away. When the stars started to glow in the inky black sky his real job was ready to begin. Steve is starting Maria on a new course of aquatherapy and she seems to be responding well.

The temperature was still in the 90's long after sunset, it was a hot Florida evening in the land of the Year 'Round Summer and Steve was not done for the day. He had cut the lawn, weeded the garden, and made sure that Maria's yard was perfect so they could relax when she got home; she even put some beer in the fridge on the patio for him, which really helped when he worked outside.

He was filthy, covered with sweat and dirt after spending the day working in the garden and on the lawn; he stepped under the shower by the pool still wearing his T-shirt and shorts and rinsed off. He took off his shirt and shorts, wrung them out, then he started the fire in their firepit. Maria and Steve wanted a real campfire, propane fires looked like a fire, there were ceramic logs and propane flames, but the sound was wrong and they just don't smell right. Campfires are a living thing, they crackle and snap, they move as the wood is consumed, they get hotter, and cooler, the flames are always changing as the wood is consumed also. But realizing that with the click of a switch the fire comes on, another click and it goes off, Maria and Steve went with propane. He lay down naked on the lounge next to the camper, cracked open a beer and waited for Maria...

Maria crutched her way through her kitchen and stepped out onto her patio; home from the fancy fund raiser that ate up so much of her time lately. Steve partially opened one eye and saw her looking around the yard in awe, the flickering glow of the tiki torches placed around the yard illuminated all of Steve's efforts. She was probably re-elected secretary for the Humane Society again, but right now the sight of her yard drove away all thought of her activity today, Steve had performed a miracle in her yard!

She crutched over to where he lay, he had almost drifted off to sleep and she was leaning over him, whispering, brushing her hand against his cheek, asking "Why don't you go out and find a nice girl your own age?" her New York Italian accent coming through loud and clear. "Don't hitch your wagon to a fading star."

"You know I hate it when you say things like that."

"I say it because it's true, and hating it doesn't make it different," she said as their lips met. "You spent your day off working in my garden, you should go, find yourself a nice Yooper Girl..."

"Why should I when I have you?"

"But you don't have me." She knew she lied, but she couldn't admit that it was a lie, not to him, and not to herself.

"Why don't you go out and find yourself a nice guy?"

"Who would want me? A broken-down old cow that doesn't have long for this world... the only thing I have going for me is this house which you make look so beautiful, and that's not even your job!" Maria took the beer from his hand and leaned back in a chair and took a long swig.

"Feeling sorry for yourself again? You know what that means," Steve swung up on his lounge and started unbuckling the aluminum braces from her legs and placed them next to her forearm crutches. She fought back as he unbuttoned her skirt from waist to hem, her laughter increased as he unbuttoned her blouse, and he playfully threatened to take advantage of his superior weight and strength.

"I'll scream!" she threatened.

"Oh, we both know you are going to," he grinned as he pulled off her panties (with her lifting her hips to help) but she leaned back then threatened to drop her in the pool with her bra on.

"Not with that chlorine!" she cried and took off her bra before Steve could damage it. Then Steve scooped a naked Maria D'Amato out of her lounge chair and carried her to the pool. "There's got to be a more dignified way to do aquatherapy," she muttered as her favorite physical therapist carried her down the stairs and into the water.

"There is, but you always say you liked this better," he said as their lips met.

"Mmmm, I do like this better," as they held each other tight.

Steve carried her to the point that he had selected, where the water depth would come up just under her armpits when she stood and said, "Now take a deep breath in, fill your lungs with air..." Then he released her, and she was free! The horrors and weakening of MS was gone and she could stand under her own control, naked as the day she was born, with a hot young man at her side.

They did an hour of aquatherapy, even the kicking exercises with the paddle board were wonderful on this magical evening. Her legs that were weakened by the ravages of injuries and Multiple Sclerosis were listening to her tonight and obeying her commands.

Maria was treading water gently near one of the underwater lights so he could ogle her large, buoyant breasts. "How am I doing tonight? Do I get a cookie?"

Steve smiled and said, "I think a reward is in order," he said as he tugged his Italian beauty to the shallow end and lifted her to the artificial grass deck laying her on a beach towel. Her immaculate skin was hauntingly beautiful under the flickering light of the tiki torches. He crouched in the pool, put her legs over his shoulders and leaned in to kiss her pussy. She groaned in delight as he spread her lips with his thumbs and began probing her cunt as deep as he could with his tongue.

"Oh God!" she cried, she grabbed his wrists and placed his hands on her large, wobbling breasts where he pinched and twisted her nipples drawing groans from her throat. Her fingers twisted in his hair holding him to her promised reward. Her gasps and cries filled the night air as he skillfully brought her to a shaking orgasm that rattled through her stricken body, relieving the stress of the day.

He stood and supported her crippled legs in his arms as she reached down for his cock and lined him up. The look of desire on her face said it all, he eased his cock into her pussy until she nodded letting him know she was ready. She was warm and soaking wet as he eased his cock in and out. "Oh Jesus!" she gasped as his thick cock eased deep into her, piercing her like nothing else ever has. He eased in and out, enjoying the clasp of her pussy as it grasped his cock, almost reluctant for it to ease back out. But each time she slammed back in, eliciting a delighted grunt from his Italian beauty, Soon he sped up, fucking firmly, rewarding her for an excellent therapy session. The sound of their bodies slapping together filled the night as did their cries of delight. Another orgasm washed over her and she gasped and cried out as Steve continued to fuck her, driving her out of her mind.

Steve leaned over her and increased the speed of his pounding thrusts into her silky depths. She grasped her legs and held them wide open, offering up her cunt to this savage fuck and she begged for more as her large breasts wobbled in time with his thrusts. Steve watched as Maria's dark pink nipples traveled in circles, propelled by the slamming of his hips into Maria's groin.

"Cum with me," she gasped softly, "cum in me!" It felt so deliciously dirty to say that to someone that wasn't her husband, not only say it but to take this young man's sperm into her womb. She hooked her arms under her knees and opened herself up even more. "Fuuuuck meee..." she groaned knowing that her salty language embarrassed him and at the same time egged him on to faster, deeper thrusts. She looked up at her young lover who was grinning down at her in the pale moonlight.

His face twisted up in delighted agony, "I'm cumming!" he groaned and as they came together she clutched him with her arms and legs, the relief of their mutual climax washed over them and their tongues caressed each other in a breathless kiss of undying love.

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Their week was filled with the most beautiful lovemaking of their lives, quite often out by the pool late at night with the tiki torches lighting their lovemaking. Steve's hard work on the yard gave them a beautiful love nest but then on Friday it hit, one of the most horrible parts of MS is the sudden onset of exhaustion. It's an exhaustion of the body, mind, and spirit. Steve has coached her through a couple of these, but they are horrible. He was thinking of talking her into installing a hot tub on the patio, there's plenty of room on the other side of the shower and he's got plenty of bamboo to make another privacy wall...

"No honey, that's not necessary for me but I will order one for you."

"I really don't need..."

"Yes you do!" she insisted forcefully. It was a tone of voice that he never heard before. "I've seen the pain in your eyes when you carry me, I've seen how you turn on the heater on your truck seats the moment you get in, but only on days that you've been carrying me. I'm not going to have that on my conscious... and what if your back spasms the next time you carry me?"

"Spasms?" he demanded.

"Yes!" she nearly shouted. "Neuro-muscular spasms. The kind of thing that will make you drop me when you're lifting me!" That time she was shouting.

Steve glared at her; his eyes were dead which worried Maria. "You've read my medical history." It wasn't an accusation; it was a statement of fact. He has had neuro-muscular spasms that paralyzed him for up to ten minutes. The debilitating spasms he feels have only been mentioned to one agency, the VA. Steve loved his VA medical team, it took him long enough to build a team that he had faith in, his doctors, NPs and technicians he has faith in them all, but their management were all political stooges as far as he was concerned. "You and I both know that my records are supposed to be protected. Look darling, I love you more than life itself, but this..." his tone suddenly grew as icy as hers, Captain Anderson just came out of retirement. "I need to know where the leak is."

"I can't tell you, just know I did it out of love for you... and fear."

"You're afraid of me?" he demanded... shit, with that tone of voice any woman would be afraid of him. A long time ago he needed people to be afraid of him because sometimes combat medics need their orders followed or people die. He was now a disabled veteran because some jerk didn't follow one simple order, "Stand fast!" which means don't move a muscle.

The jerk moved exactly where he shouldn't have and set off an IED that killed him and two other soldiers. Steve threw himself over the soldier he was preparing for medevac to shield the guy and ended up with a stone wall on his back. The agony of those long minutes in the "front leaning rest position" (the up position in a pushup) while the squad dug that soldier out from under him still comes back to haunt him. His arms cramped so badly from holding himself and a section of wall up off the injured private that he couldn't raise them for two days. Then once the private was clear and heading for the Chinook and a ride home, Steve collapsed to the ground, his job was done. He woke up hours later in a hospital in Kandahar.

"Afraid of you?" she scoffed. "No, I'm afraid of my family. If you dropped me they would not be happy with you at all."

"I'm sorry, I'll dial it back, but your daughters don't scare me."

It's not my daughters he should be worried about, she thought. "They're concerned." Her tone suddenly softened. "When we get married do you mind if I change my last name to Bellini-Anderson?"

Maria, her sister, and her daughters all retained their maiden name Bellini after marrying, he's never seen anything like it. "You Bellinis, you really love your family kinship, if you want to change it, you can change it to anything you want."

Maria grinned through her pain and exhaustion. "Do you realize that you just agreed to marry me."

"Do you realize that you're now stuck with me?" Steve finally realized how much he wanted to love and care for this beautiful woman every day for the rest of his life. "I'm not getting rid'a you any time soon, capeesh?"

Maria found herself fighting back tears, this kid doesn't know what he's getting herself into... he's already in it so deep, how did she let it happen? How did he get so deep in trouble? "No, I... I'm sorry, it's not right."

"Who should be at your side more than a combat medic?" Steve kissed her forehead. "If you want I can have Father Ewen from Holy Mother come over, take our confessions and marry us.

"You're Catholic," she said in disbelief.

"Uh, yeah! It's not just micks and dagos in the mother church, there's a few Yoopers too... what's so funny?"

"I haven't been called a dago since I was twelve," said Maria who was now laughing hard but working harder to hold it back and was losing the fight.

"I was going to use mackerel snapper but I thought was a bit dated."

"I never heard that one."

"It's what they used to call Catholics. I'll get Father Ewen over here day after tomorrow, can you get a gown in time?

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Steve's estimate was a bit optimistic; it took two weeks for Steve's priest to prepare for the wedding. Father Ewen MacCailein came over to the address Steve gave him, and he brought a deacon as a witness at Steve's breathless request. Father Ewen doesn't like to do last minute weddings, there's formalities in the Catholic church like the Pre-Cannan Conference, a series of meetings with the priest, but when a war hero asks, former USMC chaplain Ewen MacCailein responds ASAP. With him he had all the forms that needed to be signed to make their wedding legal for the state of Florida. To make it a binding marriage in the church will take some effort after their honeymoon.

"Where is my couple?" asked Father Ewen with just a hint of a Scottish accent.

"This is me," said Steve. "My bride is still in hiding." He was wearing the only suit he owned, his Army dress uniform. When he put it on he was shocked, he was expecting it to be small but it was large on him. He was bigger when he wore it last, more muscular. He's lost body mass since then; he hasn't lifted weights seriously since before his last deployment that ended his service.

Just then his bride came out of the bedroom along with her home healthcare nurse Darlene. Maria was wearing an ivory colored dressing gown that did little to hide those magnificent breasts of hers. Darlene was wearing a pale blue dress that she was still tugging into place. Steve will never remember Darlene's dress because he only had eyes for Maria. She had threatened to put her hair up but she knew how Steve loved her long flowing coal black locks.

As for Maria, Steve was doing introductions but she didn't hear a one. She knew that Steve was in the Army but she didn't pay too much attention, he never told her any "war stories" and she remembers him talking about OTS once which sounded like basic training on steroids. When they talked about their past he mostly talked about his youth in the forests and fields of the Yoo Pee. Now he looked like Audi Murphy, covered in ribbons and badges. She glanced again at the engagement ring he got her last week it cost far too much and she was sure he wiped out his savings account for it but he answered her complaints with "you are everything to me and that ring symbolizes that sentiment even more now."

She touched the ribbons and badges then asked Darlene to take pictures of them together, then she whispered, "there's a suit for you in Nadia's bedroom."

"You don't like my uniform?"

"That's a little out of date for us."

Steve nodded and agreed with her, "but if the suit is ugly I'm going to wear this," which made Maria laugh. This truly is the man she will spend the rest of her life with... suddenly her heart leapt with joy at that thought.

"Honey, Father Ewen asked you a question," Steve's soft voice burst through her dazed mind.

"Oh! I'm sorry Father, I was... brides nerves... I just..."

"That's all right, it happens to more brides than you could believe, even widows. I asked where your usual parish is and who do you feel most comfortable with for confession."

"Oh, Sacred Heart, I see Father Sarducci."

Father Ewen smiled. Steve had told him he was marrying a woman from New York City, her saying she went to Sacred Heart proved she was from New York, Sacred Heart attracts many replants from the Big Apple, especially the Italian American community so Father Sarducci was a good pastor for them. And Father Ewen didn't appear to be startled at Maria's age; she could be eighty five, Steve clearly was madly in love with her and both appeared to be in sound mind. "Are you ready for confession?" Maria nervously looked at Steve and Darlene, then Father Ewen said, "Darlene, could you wait outside?"

As Darlene stepped out to the patio Maria asked, "What about Steve?" Father Ewen give Steve a scolding look and Steve shrugged and followed Darlene out to the patio. There they met Father Ewen's Deacon Alfeo Gronchi.

"Sorry, but we're not going to need you as a witness," said Steve to Alfeo. "We have Darlene and we want this tiny,"

"Any reason for that?" asked Alfeo.

"Maria and I both have family and we will be buried under a barrage of demands that start with "Why wasn't I invited?" so nobody is being invited. We will send out pictures and answer their questions in person."

"Who is your photographer?"

"Darlene said she would take pictures."

"How is she going to take pictures if she's in the ceremony?" asked Alfeo. When Steve looked embarrassed Alfeo said, "I'll take pictures for you and send you both the pictures."

"Cool, thanks!"

Finally, Father Ewen came out to the patio and said, Steve, are you ready?"

"Let's do it padre, where's Maria?"

"She's waiting in the bedroom, Darlene, could you join her? And we'll start right after you're finished."

Steve followed Father Ewen into the living room where Father Ewen sat in a chair and near him was a pillow to kneel on, the traditional Catholic posture for confession. Instead, Steve took a chair from the dining room and placed it facing Father Ewen and sat. Making the sign of the cross Steve started, "Forgive me father for I have sinned, it has been..." Steve rolled his eyes and thought, "it's been way too long since my last confession..."

"It's been about eight months, my son," said Father Ewen.

Steve rolled his eyes and thought back. "I guess you're right. There's been a lot of sins I missed in previous confessions, either I forgot, or most likely I was afraid to say them out loud. Just about any sin you can commit with a mouse and a keyboard I have committed... my excuse has always been loneliness but that's a lie too..."

"I'm not here to judge my son, that's God's job we've been through this, have we not?" Steve and Father Ewen had famous discussions on the teaching of the church compared to the teaching of the bible. "To save time, why don't you think of me as a buddy and you're telling me of what is on your heart and we'll let God deal with the sins."

"Well, that's how I've always approached confession Father. We both know that confession is about being forgiven and not about being judged."

"It's also about forgiving yourself my son. Let's proceed, start with what lays heaviest on your heart and we'll go from there."

Steve nodded and cleared his throat. "Well... I've murdered several men..."

Father Ewen listened to Steve's confession praying that he hid his horror at the sins he heard as Steve continued. He was such a nice guy; how could someone have carried this on his heart for so long? His response was always the same as it is for so many other emotionally shattered soldiers, "it was a war my son, sometimes we are ordered to do things that go against our teaching Steven..."

"Yes father but I was a medic and I was ordered to treat our prisoners, these were guys who murdered noncombatants, raped then murdered homosexuals, I took over for God and removed them from the gene pool... and my full name isn't Steven, it's Stephaton."

"Stephaton?" Father Ewen asked, "you were named for the bystander who offered crucified Christ a sponge filled with vinegar to pacify his thirst?"

"It wasn't vinegar!" Steve nearly shouted. "It was wine. Water wasn't drank and the only wine available was a cheap wine, everyone drank it, it was bitter but the water there was poison, the Jordan was a urinal for every sheep and goat and human being in Palestine." Suddenly Steve was quiet. He slid out of the chair and his knees hit the pillow. "For that one act of kindness, for giving a drink to a dying man, Stephaton was beaten, expelled from the legion, and left in the desert to die."

Father Ewen wanted to raise his voice at the young man, they've had theological discussions in the past that got heated, but both enjoyed the chance to flex their mental muscles, but this wasn't an argument, it sounded like he was recalling a past injury, what is going on in his mind? He reached forward not knowing that Maria hasn't revealed her past to her future husband and gently placed his hand on the back of Steve's bowed head. "It's ok son, that battle is long over, your fight is done." To Father Ewen's shock Steve burst into tears of relief.

From her bedroom Maria heard Steve weeping for the deaths he caused but not hearing the full conversation, all she knew was that her future husband was in moral agony. She had her hand on the doorknob and was ready to burst through the door and end the whole ceremony, declaring to the world that Steve was hers and pull him into her bedroom. "You had your say with Father Ewen in private, let them finish," scolded Darlene.

Maria took a deep, shaking breath and then let it out slowly. "How did you get so smart so fast?" Maria asked Darlene, who was ten years younger than she was.

Darlene shrugged and said, "I just followed your example... and did the opposite."

"I have no idea why I keep you," Maria said to her friend who has been her nurse since she was hit by a car a decade ago.

"You keep me because Domonic Calvetta hired me to keep you alive."

Father Ewen looked at the 32 year young man who was blowing his nose and working his way back into his seat and slowly shook his head. Maria was thirty years older than her groom; they were both in ruinous physical condition but both were made for each other. How did these two find each other? When they stand before the throne of judgement they will know thanks to these long, soul purging confessions that they were cleansed of their sins... but what about Father Ewen who consumed their sins?

Once their guilt purging confessions were over and the couple waited for the sacrament of matrimony, Father Ewen excused himself, retired to the bathroom, and locked himself in. There he fell to his knees and wept for all the lives that were extinguished by those two, then prayed that the horrors that Maria and Steve had kept secret, locked away in their hearts where those horrors rotted their souls were fully purged from that couple, then would be purged from his.

Ewen emerged from the bathroom wearing a simple white cassock (robe) with a three inch wide red cincture emblazoned with gold crosses. He could have worn his most "Fancy robes" (as Steve said Maria wanted) but he never wore the chasuble for weddings, that would detract the viewers eye from the bride. "Shall we begin?" he asked as he saw that Steve had put on a black tuxedo with silver waist coat.

The moment Steve saw Maria emerging from her bedroom in a peach lace floor length gown he tried to etch that vision permanently into his memory. Even the plunging neckline that amply displayed her beautiful cleavage did not distract Steve from bathing in the joy in her sparkling eyes. The only other thing he noticed was that she was walking without crutches. Her gait was slow and jerky, Darlene was there to catch her if needed, and Maria was fighting for balance the whole way but she made it to Steve's side.

"Where are your crutches?" Steve asked.

"You are my crutches now," she whispered.

"Let's get started," said Father Ewen, the emotions of her statement were getting to him too. Before either of them knew it Father Ewen was saying "I now pronounce you man and wife" It was a short kiss but the most meaningful either had ever had.

"You two look marvelous together," said Father Ewen as he folded up the cincture and zipped up his robes in a garment bag. "Where are you off to now?"

"We have the camper packed up for a camping trip, but first a short cruise," said Steve, as he held his bride tightly.

"He took two weeks off and we're not going to waste them here," said Maria, her eyes never leaving her young groom. "A week in the Bahamas then we're going up to West Virginia and explore some civil war parks."

"That sounds marvelous but what if your MS hits?" demanded Darlene.

"That's the nice thing about yachts and camping, if you want you can spend the whole time relaxing." Steve gave Maria a little kiss. "We do too much, sometimes we should just put our feet up and read a book."

Two hours later they were at the courthouse dropping off their signed marriage documents, then each received a State of Florida marriage license. She was now wearing the simplified version of her wedding gown and Steve was still wearing his tuxedo.

"When do I have to have this back?" said Steve who was starting to worry. They were heading for their chartered yacht to whisk them off on their honeymoon and he was still wearing his tux.

"Take what back?"

"This tux, when does it have to go back?"

"Honey, it's yours. We can take it back for alterations after we get back."

"It's mine?" The concept of owning a tuxedo never occurred to him.

"I made sure we can expand it," she said and she patted his flat belly. "I intend to fatten you up. There's no such thing as a skinny husband who claims that his Italian wife can cook."

"I can't afford a tuxedo!"

"I, I, I," she scoffed. "What did father Ewen say? There is no I, it's now WEEEE!" and she rigorously rubbed his belly.

"OK! I'm a potential fat guy with a tuxedo," but she wouldn't stop teasing him until he kissed her at the next traffic light.

Their honeymoon cruise was on a luxury private yacht and for a week they cruised the waters of the Caribbean stopping at tourist resorts and Nici Arcadia, a wonderful private island where they could sail and splash on private beaches to their heart's content. The island was owned by a fellow that Maria knew quite well, he owned an air transport company and his wife was a judge that Maria also knew.

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Both Steve and Maria had their phones turned off for the week, and when they got back their phones chimed all the way back to Vero Beach with messages and emails and for Steve, photos from the wedding. They got home at the time they promised even though it required a speed run up I95 which they both hate. They pulled into the driveway exactly at 11:00 AM and Maria's nurse Darlene pulled in next to them and helped haul luggage and souvenirs into the house... their house. Steve and Maria were exhausted, but so much in love. "How did the wedding pictures come out?" she asked.

"Don't know, we just got them," said Steve as he sat down on the couch next to Maria. Then he noticed she was pale and sweating, he pressed a palm to her forehead as one would do to a sick child, her skin was cold and clammy. "Oh darling, is it happening?"

"Oh shit," she groaned. "Well, at least we had a week together without MS interrupting us." She smiled through the onset of mind warping and body paralyzing exhaustion, she even got to go fishing and caught a sailfish, it was undersized but it was a sail fish and the fight was exhilarating. Years of walking with crutches made her arms strong enough to easily win the fight with that fish. "Is it ok if we don't go on that campout?"

"It's fine," said Steve. "I can move the camper back over to the pool and we can camp there."

"You sure you don't mind? I'm so sorry..."

"It's ok... it truly is." Maria's sorrowful look showed Steve she didn't believe him so he gave her a kiss and said, "There's always time for us, and if you feel better in a while we'll go up to Sebastian and you can show off your new husband to Sally Ann and Kent."

Darlene took Maria's blood pressure then sat down on the other side of her. Sometimes snuggling is despised by MS sufferers but on rare occasions it's appreciated and luckily this was one of those times. "Let's see those pictures, I want to see how fat I look," said Darlene.

"Here's the one with all of us and Father Ewen," said Steve as he handed his phone to Darlene.

"I look so fat," groaned an average sized Darlene, "but your phone takes great pictures."

Steve showed the picture to a slowly sinking Maria. "That wasn't my phone, the deacon used his phone and sent them to me, my phone has been shut off since before the wedding."

"What was the deacon's name? We should send him a thank you card," said Maria.

"He's a New Yorker like you too, his name was..." Steve thought hard for the guy's name, so much has happened this week! New Yorker... starts with A... his mind spun as he tried to remember. "Weird guy said he was from Honkers so I thought he was a goose hunter..."

Darlene and Maria both started laughing, "Not Honkers, YONKERS!"

"Yeah, he said the same thing, I like my version better... Alfredo! That was it, he was named after unhappy noodles. Alfredo Grouchy." Steve looked proud of himself that he was able to get a name he only heard once right.

Both women went silent, finally Maria said softly, "do you mean Alfeo Gronchi?"

"Yeah that's him. I like my version better."

Oh Steve, that deacon just signed our death warrant... I think I can save you... "Honey? Can you carry me to bed?"

"You must be feeling bad," said Steve sadly as he carefully scooped her up from the couch.

"I am." Oh God how could this have happened? Shit, shit, shit! "I can't even move my legs!" She started jerking in his arms and he nearly dropped her. "Nadia! I need Nadia!"

Darlene pulled back the covers of their marriage bed and Steve laid her down carefully. He was so concerned for Darlene that he didn't notice that this was the first time he's ever been in her bedroom. "Please," she begged, "If you love me you'll get Nadia for me."

"She has your car; can't she drive it?"

"She wrecked it yesterday," sighed Darlene and showed Steve a picture on her phone. He took a look at the small blurry picture and recognized that type of damage. He's seen it in the streets of Afghanistan, and Iraq, and Lebanon.

"Someone tried to kill my stepdaughter," he growled. He did feel a twinge of pain over this. Nadia is his daughter now, his responsibility.

"What? No," said Maria, then she switched to a tone of voice that she prayed Steve understood. "It was an accident darling, that's all it was." She couldn't stop lying to him, she knew he would find out about her past eventually, but she wanted her dreamworld to go on.

Steve wanted to argue, he knew bomb damage when he saw it, but Maria continued to insist it was an accident. He didn't marry her because she's stupid, quite the opposite, she's one of the most intelligent people he's ever met and he can't wait to start spending the rest of her life with her. "Ok, it's about 200 miles from here, I need to get going and see if my stepdaughter is ok."

He leaned over to kiss Maria and she whispered, "You really mean that, don't you."

"Yeah, knowing she's your daughter gives me a feeling of kinship with her, I can't wait to meet her and Jeannie."

Maria looked happy through the pain. "You really don't know how happy that makes me. Take the Rat Killers along with, she said she wants to see them."

"We should be back by midnight."

Maria reached up and grabbed Steve's shirt by the collar and pulled him down for a kiss, their lips met and their tongues danced gently together. Steve wanted to take it easy but even though her MS was ravaging her mind and body, Maria was on fire. Their kiss grew hotter and hotter, their breathing more ragged, their hands roaming over the bodies they loved so much. Finally, as the kiss ended and both of their heads were spinning. "Be back by midnight, please!" she gasped as the trauma of MS washed over her.

"You tell that daughter of ours to be one hundred percent ready to go when I get there and I'll be back before 11:30, ok beautiful?" She was the most beautiful woman he has ever met and his eyes drank her up, he pulled out his phone and prepared to take a picture of her.

"Stop! I look awful!"

"You look like you just fucked your way through the Bahamas, now give me a sexy smile and say... cunnilingus."

Maria smiled and said, "eat me!" and Steve took the shot. "Oh, Darlene, give him the envelopes." When Maria said that Darlene handed Steve three large nine by twelve manilla envelopes, and Maria shouted "GO! Come back FAST!"

With final goodbye peck on the lips Steve sprinted out to the trailer and opened the large storage compartment door on the front of the small trailer, beneath that was a gun safe that was carriage bolted to the frame of the trailer. He unlocked the combination lock and opened the safe, in there were two rifles, two shotguns, and two pistols in cases along with lots of ammo. He grabbed the pistol cases and two boxes of 10mm ammo then closed the gun safe and the bed then ran for his truck.

The moment Steve's truck pulled out of the driveway Maria got up out of bed and started crutching her way to the door, slowly and painfully. Darlene grabbed a travel bag from under Maria's bed and followed her. As they reached the door there were several loud bangs and Darlene's car slumped to one side. "They shot out my tires."

"I have to call Fabbi" groaned Maria. She hit the speed dial on her phone for her sister Fabrizia Lidia Bellini-Scordato.

"What?" demanded Fabbi, she didn't like her lunch interrupted.

"They found us; they shot Darlene's tires out," wept Maria into the phone.

"I warned you not to marry him," said Fabrizia. "That goombah Vinnie Gronchi called me three days ago and said, I found your sister. I tried to call you but your phone was off."

Three days ago, they were making love on a tropical beach under a silver moon, now tears came to Maria's eyes. "We were on our honeymoon," moaned Maria. "Can you send somebody?"

"Look, Benny and Sal are almost there, where's your husband?"

"I sent him to get Nadia... I'm going to go be with Guiseppi tonight, aren't I."

"I want to keep you around sis, I love you," it sounded to Maria that her sister Fabrizia was crying too. "It's time for Annamaria Giacinta Bellini-D'Amato to get back to work. I will be there tomorrow; I want to talk to you and my new brother."

"Yes my sister. Love you too." She struggled back to her crutches and called to Darlene, "we're back on active duty."

Darlene walked back to Maria's bedroom carrying a pair of Ithica "Roadblocker" 10 gauge semiautomatic shot guns. "I'm way ahead of you."

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When the radar detector was silent Steve let her fly, his black F150 Platinum was a rocket sled, and the tweaked 5.0 liter Ti-VCT Coyote engine didn't let him down. The all-aluminum, 302-inch V-8 cranked out 412 hp at 6,500 rpm out of the box, but Steve had modifications made and now his engine puts out substantially more horses, 565 ponies that just ate up the road. He made the 200 mile run in just over two hours having to slow down to the speed limit only going through the Orlando traffic nightmare. He pulled up to the address Maria gave him, a Starbucks and he saw a familiar face peering at him from a bus stop just a few car lengths ahead of him. It was Maria.

She looked like the same woman he married, the exact same flowing ebony hair, the beautiful face and a figure like a goddess, round hips, narrow waist, and tube top displaying large heavy breasts that bobbled as she walked toward him with suitcases instead of crutches. He started to get out to help her with the suitcases but she shouted, "STAY IN THE CAR!" Yeah, that was Maria. She was sweet as honey, until she needed you to understand her instructions, then her tone of voice required obedience.

She swung a heavy suitcase over the side of the truck too late to discover that the bed of the truck had a hard top. She walked around to the back to find the tail gate silently lowering for her. Damn! She didn't know pickup trucks had such a thing, she also noticed that the truck was lowering. WTF. She slung her suitcases onto the back of the truck and the tailgate slowly closed. She hopped into the front passenger seat and glared at Steve, a look he only got from Maria when he questioned a decision of hers. "So, I'm supposed to call you daddy?" she said with a sneer.

"Call me what you want, just don't call me late for dinner." Nadia, the spitting image of Maria, rolled her eyes in contempt, but Steve continued, "I prefer Steve, it's easier on the tongue than my real name."

"And just what is your real name?"

Steve smiled with the memory that Maria never asked that question, when she saw it on the marriage license she just said, "That is so unique!" it was the first time in centuries that someone thought his first name was beautiful. He cleared his throat and said, "Stephaton."

"What the fuck is that?" demanded Nadia. She may have the face, the hair, and the figure of his darling wife, but she doesn't have her mother's social skills.

"Are you sure you're 21? You act like a sixteen year old punk." He was weaving in and out of traffic trying to get back to I 75 which would take him south to Florida 91, Florida's Turnpike, a conduit from Wildwood to Miami where he could light the afterburners and let his truck roar.

"You don't know shit," she muttered. "When did my mother buy you this truck?" her voice had that petulant sneer again.

"She did not buy this for me, she never spent a dime on it. Anthracite was a gift from an Afghani warlord."

"You named this truck?"

"I didn't name it, Naveed did. He thought Americans calling coal a black diamond was funny."

"That's such bullshit." She turned her head and glared out the passenger side window. "What was his name?"

Steve answered without a pause, "Naveed Salama Muhammad."

"Who's that?"

"Look it up, I'm driving."

Nadia picked up her phone and began typing, "How do you spell Naveed?"

"N... A... V... E... E... D." Rolling your eyes while driving is a bad idea realized Steve as he swerved around a Kia. Steve was wondering how Maria's daughter got to be such a cantankerous punk, her mom was so wonderful.

Nadia was quiet for a long time as she read the article she found, then said, "Bullshit. You didn't know this guy." She continued to read the document that the search on her phone brought up. Naveed Salama Muhammad was a warlord that unofficially ruled the Kapisa province and enforced the real leader's orders. "So, this guy was the strong arm of the sitting government and you did what for him?"

"Favors." Steve wasn't going to answer further until he got to know this chick, right now he doesn't trust her. When he gets to sit down with her and her mom they can talk

"What, like cutting the lawn? Feeding the chickens?"

"Something like that."

"You're so full of shit," Nadia looked up from her phone in exasperation. Her mother married this liar? "This guy didn't give you shit, 'cept maybe a case of the clap."

"They still say that?"

"Fuck you."

"Look in the glove compartment, red envelope."

Nadia opened his glove compartment and found something she's never seen in a glove compartment before, a pair of gloves. Who or what was this guy? She also found a large red envelope and in there was a greeting card with Arabic calligraphy on the front in gold, on the inside was handwriting in Arabic followed by handwriting in English with a different colored pen that said "Naveed says thank you for your service and extends his wishes for Allah to guide you safely to your home where the gift of Anthracite awaits you. We hope you like the color." Inside the greeting card was a photograph of Steve in an Army uniform holding a huge rifle, his arm was around the shoulders of the man she recognized from his Wikipedia page, Naveed Salama Muhammad.

She put the card back but kept the gloves and she looked at Steve who was pointing to a plaque affixed to the dashboard. It said "Thank you for helping us clean our province" in English and she guessed the same thing in Arabic beneath followed by an unreadable signature etched at the bottom of the plaque. Nadia looked up at Steve who was concentrating on the road. "What does that mean, to clean our province?"

Steve fought for the proper words and finally came up with, "When I saw how the people were being treated I was in a position to stop the abuse without worrying about the politics of the region."

"So, you were enforcement for the local government?"

"I guess you could think of it that way... I'm proud of what I accomplished, but not how I did it."

Nadia was quiet for a long time then said, "Mom said you brough a rat killer, can I see it?"

"It's under the seat."

Nadia reached the seat and pulled out a hard shell pistol case that she popped open and found a nice, clean Glock G20 Gen 5 MOS 10mm semi-automatic pistol. The G20 Gen 5 is simple, reliable, and shootable. Simply put, it's the perfect handgun for killing something; the G20 Gen 5 10mm pistol is even considered adequate protection against bears. She looked over the gun carefully, admiring the satin finish on the metal and smiled, this was the perfect killing machine.

She ejected the magazine and found it empty, being safety conscious like this can get you killed. "The ammo is in the arm rest," said Steve as he anticipated the question.

She popped up the armrest and found a box of flat nosed 220 grain hard cast ten millimeter bullets, the heaviest load she had ever seen boxed up by a manufacturer. She slid them into the magazine one by one, hefting the weight of each bullet before pushing it in. It's been so long since she went shooting, her mom and her Aunt Fabrizia took her to the range ages ago. The bittersweet memory of that day, the last time she spent a full day with her mother, Aunt Fabbi, and her sister Jeannie... and this bastard took it all away. Her eyes teared up as the bolt sprang home jamming round number one of fifteen into the chamber and she pressed the barrel against the side of Steve's head.

"Why did you sell out my mom to the Gronchi family?"

"What are you talking about?" demanded Steve.

"Don't tell me you didn't know about the faida?"

"Look, I don't know what you're talking about and I'm sorry we didn't tell you about the wedding. We didn't tell anyone, ok? It was just me, your mom, Darlene, Father MacCailein, and that deacon of his. And we didn't request him alright?"

Nadia felt a sharp pain in her side and looked down to see that Steve had a "rat killer" in his hand and he was pressing it into her side. "I love your mother more than anyone or anything I've ever known, I was prepared to throw away my job, the only job I've ever loved, for her, so what are you saying to me?"

She could see that he was genuinely confused and she pulled her gun away from his head. "You don't know? She didn't tell you?"

"Tell me what?" Steve pulled his arm back and set the safety. "What didn't Maria tell me?"

"About her job, about dad, about getting run over..." Nadia shook her head in disbelief. "She didn't say nothing?"

"She didn't say anything," Steve corrected his stepdaughter.

"God! You're just like my dad!" Nadia stared at Steve in disbelief. "I can see why she said yes when you asked..."

Steve interrupted Nadia, "I didn't do anything, she picked me. She went to Doctor Albertson at the hospital, the head of the entire Physical Therapy Division and requested that he assign me to be her physical therapist. And when we straightened out our feelings for each other, she went back to him and told him that we were in love and she demanded that he not fire me. I did not ask her to marry me, we agreed on it together."

"Why would she pick a burnout like you?"

"I am a good physical therapist; I actually had her walking without her "iron maidens." I was able to get her to realize that she can walk without her leg braces for more than a few steps, and she does! We think that we might beat her MS." Steve had worked himself into a fury, he was getting ready to lash out at this punk and McLaren wasn't here to stop him. McLaren was his top sergeant in the sandbox (Iraq), in Afghanistan he was Steve's most valuable weapon, and now he's a detective with the Vero Beach PD. With Steve's side job, a friend in the cop shop is a handy thing to have.

"Gee-zus! Relax dad!"

"DON'T CALL ME THAT!" demanded Steve as they hit I75. As soon as they were in the open he pressed the gas pedal to the floor and the big 5.0 liter monster sprang to life. He continuously and nervously checked his phone for messages. "I'm sorry but please don't call me that until you're ready to accept that your mother and I are married and we love each other deeply," he said softly.

"I don't know who you think my mother is, but she isn't a pie baking artisan,"

Steve looked at Nadia, which made her a little nervous at 113 MPH in traffic. "We already decided that if it's Italian it's hers, she does all the cooking, I do all the grilling, but she occasionally lets me bake."

"Baking, cooking, what's the difference," scoffed Nadia which earned a glare from Steve.

"Same rule applies to you now."

"You don't know shit," Nadia was still agitated. "You don't even know what mom did for a living."

"She said that she was in the garbage business. Your dad was in charge and she was the secretary." He shrugged and said, "That's that she told me, am I not supposed to believe what she said because you weren't there when she told me?"

"To an Italian that means something different."

"Yeah, I know, it means she's in the Mafia." Steve suddenly felt very, very ill. This whole thing was starting to come together. "Alexa, dial Maria..."

The familiar voice of Alexa came up and said, "Dialing Maria Anderson..."

"I can't believe you taught Alexa to say Anderson..." then as the phone started to ring, "she's not going to answer," said Nadia. Steve cheered up momentarily as the phone was picked up on second ring but it went right to voice mail.

"Shit," spouted Steve under his breath, "her phone is shut off," then called out, "Alexa, dial Bruce..."

"Dialing Detective Bruce McLaren..."

"You can't bring the cops into this! This is family business."

"I don't give a shit about family businesses. This isn't running quite right," said Steve. "What kind of family business is this?"

The phone picked up on third ring, "Captain, where are you?"

"Captain? You're a cop?" shrieked Nadia.

"There's no department that desperate," said the voice on the phone. "Where you at sir?"

"Bruce, this is Maria's daughter Nadia, please, explain to her..." groaned a desperate Steve as he fought to keep Nadia's hands away from the phone controls.

"Steve and I were in the Army together. That knuckle head you're riding with couldn't make up his mind if he wanted to be a medic or a sniper. Steve, where are you?"

"I went to Gainesville to get Maria's daughter, I'm heading home now, we're just coming into Orlando... Bruce, can you get over there, please?"

"Your apartment?"

"Maria's house, please! I moved out of that apartment." Steve was almost shouting in fear, Nadia's anxiety had him worked up.

"What's going on Captain?"

"She's not answering her phone."

"Is that all?"

"I don't know, Nadia here says there are threats against Maria, if you don't clean it up, I will."

"Fuck... Roger that," and Bruce hung up.

"Your cop buddy is going to get my mother killed," grumbled Nadia as Steve slowed down to work his way through Orlando traffic.

"Bruce was a sergeant that was assigned to my medical unit. He was supposed to guard us as we patched up dying soldiers," said Steve. "He helped us as we went off protocol, his real name is Leonard McLaren. Now, enough hints and dancing around the subject, what aren't you saying about Maria?"

"So, you don't have any idea why she chose you?" demanded Nadia forcefully.

"NO!" shouted Steve. "Why don't you ask her yourself?"

"Because I can't!" shrieked Nadia. She sat trembling, holding back the tears, then slowly she raised the gun to her temple.

Steve had seen enough soldiers at the end of their rope and recognized the anxiety that Nadia was going through. He gently wrapped his hand around hers and pulled the gun away from her head. "Talk to me, pretend I'm someone that you can talk to. Now tell me, why can't you talk to your mother?" The speed limit in this area was 65, Steve was doing 72 trying not to raise notice, now is the last time he needs a cop on his tail.

"Because she's dead." This wasn't a petulant little punk; this was a terrified young woman and her panic lit a fire of terror in Steve's heart.

"Talk to me... please."

"She wasn't my father's secretary; she tells that story to everybody. Where did she tell you they worked?"

"Like I said, the garbage business that was all. I know that to some people it means the Mafia; she realized that I understood what she meant the moment she said it and later she thanked me for not asking her any more about it."

"So yeah... but dad was her secretary." Steve softly released her hand and Nadia stared at the gun in her lap. "Mom was a "made man" at 21 when she whacked August Flaminio in Las Vegas posing as a prostitute. That's when she took the omerta. Dad was her wingman, covering her when she worked, he was made also but she was much better, she could get closer to the client so he was her support. She was six months pregnant with me when she took down Vinnie Jossic, again dad was at her side." She looked up at Steve who was concentrating on the road. "No reaction?"

"I want to hold her and tell her she can talk to me; I did some things in my past that I... I was also..."

"God damn it!" She threw the gloves she had taken from the glove compartment at the windshield. "No wonder why she picked you... you're just like dad." Steve handed her a tissue and she continued. "That was dad's job too. She wasn't cold, each hit caused her to break down and dad was there to build her back up... six months before she was hit in Manhattan she was contracted to hit Jimmy Rossini. A few months later mom took him out and a contract was put out on her and that's why they were run over."

"She was run over by a hitman? I thought she said that he was a junky."

"He was just a random, homeless piece of..." she clenched her jaw fighting back at the tears. "He was just a punk. The hitman offered a junkie a G and a few grams of heroin to run her over. When the punk stole the car and ran my folks over, the hitman put a needle in his arm and filled him full of fentanyl. The junky died painlessly and his mouth was shut. We always thought that Franko Leone was the hitter but he died in Reno months before that. We never found out who it was."

"I didn't realize we had such similar jobs," he muttered and as they cleared the traffic congestion around Orlando, Steve turned a large knob on the center council and the truck started to lower and his foot pressed down further on the accelerator. By the time they reached Kissemmi traffic was bad again and he raised the truck back up so he could see over traffic and he began weaving his way through the crowded highway. "Contracts on other families are pretty rare, what is with this back and forth hitting?"

"It's a faida, a blood feud between our families, We've been associated with the Calvetta family for decades."

"We meaning the Bellini family?" Nadia gave him a nod while she blew her nose. "The Bellini family has gone to war with the Calvetta family?"

"No, the Gronchi family has gone to war with the Calvetta family and we got sucked into it. Mom was easy pickings."

Steve's world suddenly imploded. A buzzing ringing filled his head and his vision started to narrow. He suddenly felt flush over his entire body and he started to go numb right down to his fingertips. Alfeo Gronchi was there at the wedding, he probably sent their pictures to the rest of his family.

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It was late when Deacon Alfeo Gronchi tapped on Father Ewen MacCailein's office door in the rectory of the Holy Mother of God parish rectory. Father Ewen was finishing his homily notes for Sunday's 9:15 mass when Alfeo tapped on his door, he was writing his notes out by hand as he has always done for the past four decades. "Come in Alfeo! I always have time when you knock on my door. What would you like?"

Alfeo looked around the office, the ancient dark wood paneling gleamed in the candlelight, Father Ewen loved working by natural light, the Lord God's second creation, everything that man attempts to make to replace natural light is a vile insult and falls far short of His creation, especially LED lights which are so painful to the eye. "You look happy this evening Father Ewen, is there cause for celebration?"

"There truly is! His Holiness has seen fit to ordain me as a Chaplain of His Holiness for my work as a military chaplain with our fighting men in Afghanistan! I don't know if it is a cause to celebrate but I am happy."

Father Ewen was a modest man and his modesty often made Alfeo smile, besides, it carries a title that is becoming rare in today's church. "Let me be the first to address you properly... Monsignor MacCailein... Ah, I do see a smile!"

"Enough Alfeo, lets concentrate on you, What can I do this warm Saturday evening?"

"Sadly, there was a death in the family, I must make a perilous journey to my family in Italy. I was wondering if you could hear my confession before I leave tonight."

"Absolutely Alfeo! Should we do it here or..."

"Oh please, Monsignor, I am a traditionalist! If it isn't too much to walk over to the confessional?"

"By all means." Father Ewen made one last entry in his journal then blew out candles and put his notes away in his drawer then the two men left the beautiful old rectory designed to look like a building that would have been built by the original Spanish priests that first worshiped in Florida 500 years ago. They walked over to the main building which was lit inside only by the scores of flickering red votive offertory candles by the two side altars and the soft LED exit lights on the aisles.

Monsignor MacCailein stepped into the center confessional and prayed for mercy and guidance then he slid open the privacy screen and saw the dim outline of Deacon Gronchi. Actually, it could be anyone over there. "How may I help you my son?"

The dim light in his confessional winked off when Monsignor MacCailein opened the panel and Deacon Gronchi said softly, "Forgive me father for I have sinned, it's been two days since my last confession."

"Go ahead my son." Two days may not sound like a long time since his last confession but he's taking a transatlantic flight and if something should go wrong he will die with a cleansed soul. Monsignor Ewen was glad that Alfeo was taking the Sacrament of Reconciliation seriously.

"I've betrayed a trust twice," said Alfeo Gronchi. Then he took his Baretta 92 SB 9mm pistol and fired two rounds through the privacy screen into Monsignor Ewen MacCailein's head. "That's three times now." He promised himself that he would say confession as soon as he got to Italy. He got up and stepped out of the confessional, cleaned off the pistol then slid the gun under the central curtain and it came to rest under Monsignor Ewen's slumped, lifeless body. Thirty minutes later he was heading north at exactly two miles per hour under the speed limit in a rested Toyota, rented under the assumed name, Lindsay Davis. Mr. Davis was going to Jacksonville airport where he would catch a flight to JFK. After a quick stop at JFK in New York he would become Mr. Walter Hagan and board a Lufthansa flight. In Rome he will catch a train to Pordenone where his apartment is waiting for him, Walter is a contractor with General Dynamics at a nearby American air base and he will be living in the land of his grandparents while commiserating with the Americans of his generation.

<><><><><>֎<><><><><>

The last hour of their high speed run from Wildwood to Vero Beach was spent speaking softly about Maria. Steve and Nadia both realized that the worst had probably happened when Nadia said that "the Calvetta family has gone to war with the Gronchi family and drew us in with it." At one point Steve was so focused on Maria's plight that he nearly slammed into the back of a minivan full of tourists when his anger took over and his body locked up. He saw the minivan in the lane ahead of him but he was so focused on Maria and Darlene that he couldn't slow down, he couldn't change lanes, he couldn't do anything until Maria shouted "Brake!"

It wasn't Maria, it was Nadia that shouted, her voice sounded just like his wife. "I'm sorry I just... I want to say a prayer."

Nadia was a bit shocked, her uber Catholic mom never mentioned this side of her new man... he wants to stop and say a prayer before wading into a gunfight? He's just like dad! "Tell you what, I'll pray, you drive, capiche?"

"Capiche," a shaking Steve said, and he took her warm hand in his, and for the first time since her father died on a frigid Manhattan sidewalk Nadia prayed. They held hands and prayed together that they didn't have to return to a life that both had given up.

The flashing lights of police cars and ambulances could be seen from blocks away. "Please no," muttered Steve, "please God, not again..." over and over, his stomach twisted in knots and he knew this was not going to have a happy outcome. The image of Alfeo Gronchi as he grinned while taking pictures of their wedding was burned into Steve's memory and Steve chose to focus on that as his world started to crumble. Alfeo had no idea what kind of hell he was in for.

Now turning onto Sandhurst Road where Maria and Steve lived they saw a sea of flashing lights at the end of the block surrounding what just a few hours ago had been Steve's new home and was going to be Nadia's new home starting that night. Steve and Nadia squeezed each other's hands praying that their fear would be unfounded, but nothing they saw told them otherwise. Steve groaned in agony as an ambulance moved out to head off to wherever it was heading. Once it was clear of all the other vehicles its flashing lights shut off, whoever was inside was gone, there was no need to rush. Det. Bruce McLaren heard the rumble of Anthracite, the name that was on the side of Steve's truck, as it approached the crime scene and he began to walk toward the truck, his face set in a practiced frown.

Steve didn't notice his old friend walking toward him, he pulled into the first spot on the street he could park at, his neighbors Gene and Betty Weberman were standing at the end of their driveway under their palm trees, their faces were masks of shock. "What the hell happened?" asked Gene. "We heard guns firing, it went on forever!"

"And you, Nadia," said Betty, "If there's anything we can do, you come to us. Ok?"

"I will Missus Weberman," she said as they hugged. "I don't think I will go back to that dumbass school," she muttered.

"Don't make any decisions now," advised Mrs. Weberman. As Mrs. Weberman hugged Nadia, another image of Maria appeared out of the darkness, another mirror image of the woman that Steve loved, this vision was pregnant and leading a small girl. "Oh no," said Nadia sadly, "Jeannie brought Emma."

"Who?"

"Your granddaughter," Nadia said softly and squeezed his hand as a silent plea to act nice to the child. Over that past hour they drew closer as the dreaded scene ahead of them became inevitable. By the time Steve parked the truck, Nadia's wall of petulant self-protection was falling and they were now conversing politely. "Steve, this is my sister Giannina Bellini-Tamaro. Jeannie, this is Stephaton Bellini-Anderson."

As they shook hands. "What is with the last name?" Jeannie demanded. She sounded angrier than Nadia had been when she met Steve.

"When I married your mother... we promised each other we would honor both families... please don't be mad at me but..." he was shocked when Giannina threw her arms around him and began to weep into his shoulder. As she cried Steve saw Bruce approaching them with his face set in the same look he had in Afghanistan when he had to report that their unit lost somebody, and any hope Steve had, no matter how distant, was now gone.

"Thank you for making my mother happy," said Jeannie when she was able to formulate words. "Whenever she called me all she spoke about was how happy she was having a man who loved her."

"He's so much like dad," said Nadia as she joined the hug.

Detective Bruce McLaren stood off to the side and waited for the weeping family to steel themselves for his report. Finally, they turned to him and Steve introduced Maria's daughters to the detective and finally asked the question that was burning in his heart all night, "What happened Bruce? How is Maria?"

"Steve, I can't... not with family here."

"Bruce, that's my wife in there and that makes me family too. Just give it to us, and I'll deal with the fallout."

McLaren sighed in defeat; fallout was what Steve was best at - mostly creating it. "Ten bodies were taken out of the Anderson home..."

"Anderson home?" asked Jeannie and Nadia at the same time.

Bruce flipped the notes on his clipboard and said, "County tax office has this house listed under Steve and Annamaria Anderson." He looked around for any complaints, then hearing none he continued. "The bodies of eight men were found in the house, initial investigation shows that they probably died of gunshot wounds. They are all still unidentified. Two women positively identified as Annamaria Giacinta Bellini-Anderson and Darlene Colella... Mrs. Colella also died of gunshot wounds. There's traces of blood of several other people in and about the house."

"And Maria?" Steve asked, his mouth and throat were so dry the words could hardly form.

"She received two bullet wounds neither of which was life threatening, so Mrs. Anderson died of yet to be determined causes, possibly a heart attack, the coroner will have to do a full autopsy."

A woman that Steve recognized from past meetings as Bruce's partner came up and said, "They're asking for you."

"Stay here, I'll keep you informed," said Bruce and he returned to the house.

The sun was coming up when Steve decided that he needed to go somewhere and just rest. His head was pounding and his heart was shattered, a love like he never thought existed was his, and then it was ripped away... he wanted nothing more than to go be with Maria any way it takes and after a full night of being ignored by the local police and the FBI, he realized that they weren't going to get any more information. Steve backed his truck into the open lot next to Maria's property where the camper was folded up ready for the camping adventure Maria and Steve had been planning on taking right after their little cruise.

"Where the hell you going?" demanded a chubby man in a Vero Beach PD uniform. His New Jersey accent made answering his questions something that Steve wasn't happy to do.

"Where am I going?" Steve squinted and saw the man's name tag, Patrolman Rivelli. "I'm going away."

"Not with that camper you're not."

"This was not part of crime scene, I'm taking it with me, and you can't stop me you chubby puke." Steve continued to couple the trailer to his truck, along with safety chains and electrical connection for the lights.

"Goddamnit I've had it with your attitude!" the cop bellowed and with a hand on his holstered weapon he started walking toward Steve. In response Steve approached the cop with his hands out to the side in a non-threatening posture, then when he got where he thought he was close enough Steve pointed to the officers hand on his gun.

"You gonna shoot me?"

Across the front lawn Detective McLaren saw what his old captain was doing and knew what normally happened next. "Steve! Let's dial it back."

"Talk to this fat shit here, I'm trying to go lay down somewhere."

Rivelli's partner, patrolman Michael Lane watched the scene unfold and he realized that Rivelli was one more taunt away from shooting Anderson. Lane was just as rotund as Rivelli, together they were known as the Jelly Roll Patrol and only their union and Rivelli's family kept them employed.

"Steve don't," warned Bruce. He also knew Patrolman Rivelli. Rivelli didn't have a sense of humor and wasn't very good at taking a joke, but McLaren knew Steve better, and Steve wasn't joking.

"I'm going," said Steve, "and that fat asswipe won't..."

Patrolman Rivelli had enough of Steve's abuse. He snarled in anger and pulled his pistol. At the same time with a lightning fast move Steve twisted the pistol out of the fat cops hand then handed the gun to Bruce and said, "let me go."

Bruce looked at the gun that Steve handed him, a Springfield Armory hammer fired XD-E, it was nothing close to police issue. The hammer was cocked back and ready to fire, and further inspection showed a full magazine and a bullet in the chamber. Rivelli was carrying fully loaded gun with a bullet in the chamber that would have gone off at the touch of the trigger. "This isn't your issued sidearm, patrolman. Where did it come from?" demanded Bruce. Instead of answering Rivelli ran.

"Stop that officer!" Bruce shouted as Rivelli waddled off.

"I need to go," Steve said softly and started to turn.

"Captain," Bruce was quiet and respectful and he was sure he knew what Steve was planning. "Can you stay local?"

"I'll stay inside of Indian River county," Steve fought to keep from screaming in agony then finally said, "I'm flat broke, my truck is all I got... I can't stay here, keep me updated."

"Will do."

Steve pulled a key ring out of his pocket and dropped it next to Bruce's foot and said, "Look at what you just found," then walked away, it was a ring of keys for the house so they didn't have to break down doors in their search. As he headed to his truck which sat idling, the matching black popup camper hitched and ready to go, Nadia came up to him and clutched his arm. When they first met, she was an angry woman that was ready to kill him, now she's a broken hearted daughter mourning her lost mother and her only connection to her mother now was a man that she only heard of in texts and phone calls. She stopped and pulled him to a stop with her.

"Where are you going?"

"Back to the beginning." She gave him a confused look and he patted her hand, "a campground up on the Saint Sebastian river." When she gave him a questioning look he said, "you can stay here or you can come with but I'm going to go up there and crash for the night."

"Where are we going Dad?" Jeannie asked as she came up behind him holding a confused little girl.

"A campground in Sebastian, it's on Rose Garden Road."

"We'll follow you if that's ok."

Steve looked around for Nadia and saw that she was getting in the truck. Nadia was an image of Maria as she sat in the passenger seat and Steve realized that image was the only thing keeping him alive at the moment. "Let's go."

As the black truck and camper disappeared into the remnants of a hot summer evening followed by Jeannie's Lexus, a patrolman came up to Detective McLaren with Patrolman Roselli in cuffs. "What should we do with this guy detective? He was carrying this," and the patrolman showed a police issue 9mm Baretta to Detective McLaren.

"Where did he have it?"

"Ankle holster."

Now why would a street cop carry his issued revolver in an ankle holster and another 9mm with a round in the chamber in his holster? Simple, he was going to kill someone with the XD-E and say he found it on the scene. "Process him, attempted murder. He had this one also. I want a full background on this pistol." He handed the XD-E that Steve took off of Rivelli to his own partner Detective Lisa Clark.

Far down the street Bruce saw the pickup and camper pass through the pool of light created by a streetlight, when it disappeared it was followed by a white Lexus. Bruce remembered when an elated Steve told him that he found the woman that he had spent his life looking for, the one to build his life around, and now he's got to plan her funeral on a hot Florida morning.

"Detective? You need to see this," said a patrolman at his side.

Bruce turned, his heart breaking for his friend, it was a long night and this was going to be a long, long day. He sighed and repeated the words he hates to say, the words that TV police dramas are based around... "What do ya got?"

<><><><><><>֎<><><><><><>

Inside the popup trailer the air conditioner roared, barely keeping ahead of the heat wave, it was 101° outside, almost 10° above the average temp for this time of year, and with 95% humidity the heat was a nightmare. The sisters, Nadia and Jeannie clung to each other, wishing this whole thing would just go away and trusting that Steve would keep them alive long enough to see their mother's funeral.

Jeannie's husband Derick and older daughter Anna had arrived and were inside the camper and Steve distinctly felt unwelcome in sharing his new family's grief and he stepped outside unnoticed. He sat at the picnic table under the shade of the pop-up camper's awning and a gentle rain began to fall. The words "Till death do you part" echoed in his mind, haunting him, and he needed to talk to somebody, anybody. He decided on Father Ewen, they've been friends for a long time and the priest told Steve to call any time. In fact, Steve was surprised Father Ewen hasn't called him yet. Steve dialed the rectory at Holy Mother church and waited until somebody finally answered. Sunday at Holy Mother of God Roman Catholic church was a workday so there should have been somebody in the rectory. Finally, a woman's voice came on, it was Estell, the church secretary and head of the rectory staff. "Holy Mother of God Catholic church, how may I help you?"

"Estell, this is Steve Anderson, can you leave a note for Father Ewen to call me as soon as possible? I had left a message last night..." his voice choked and he was sure he was going to start crying again but recognizing Steve's voice as a friend of Father Ewen's, Estell interrupted him.

"I'm sorry Mister Anderson but we can't find Father Ewen, he didn't give the eight AM mass and we've been looking for him ever since." There was a tinge of panic in her voice.

"Tha... thank you Estell," said Steve as he hung up. A metallic rattling broke through the noise in his head and he realized that the percolator on the stove he mounted outside was perking noisily so he turned off the stove and poured himself a cup. Where would Father Ewen go? The question spun in his mind, he wouldn't just run off like that and not tell Estell where he was going, Father Ewen once mentioned that he was going to be named a Chaplain of His Holiness by the pope, he wouldn't run off when that was going to happen... Steve turned and banged on the door of the camper and called, "I have coffee out here if you want some."

Soon Derick stepped out and poured himself a cup. He held the percolator up and considered it from all sides before setting it back on the stove. "A bit old school isn't it?" Derick is the husband of Maria's oldest daughter Jeannie, which made him Steve's son-in-law. He and his thirteen year old daughter Anna showed up not long after Steve got the trailer set up.

"It works, it's cheap, and it doesn't need electricity," said Steve with a shrug.

"I'm sorry about what's going on," said Derick as he sat down on the coffee table bench. "We didn't mean to leave you out."

"It's ok, you guys are family, I'm not even Italian... I'm just the..."

Derick stopped him by grabbing his wrist. "Stop. It's not about being Italian. It's about Maria. And no one is going to call you whatever it was that you were thinking."

"Boy toy."

"Stop it!" demanded Derick. "That demeans yourself and Maria." Derick was a handsome businessman, the kind of guy that polo shirts were invented for. He should be playing golf at some swanky country club and schmoozing investors, not mourning his mother-in-law's death in a senseless mob hit. "Maria never thought of you that way, if you were some boy toy late life crush she wouldn't have told my Jeannie everything about you since day one."

"I'm sorry... I didn't mean..."

Derick topped off Steve's coffee and said, "is there any friend you can call?"

"There's Bruce, but he's the cop investigating the case and I tried to call Father Ewen."

"Friend of yours?"

"He married us and took our confessions..." gears that Steve didn't like were starting to mesh in Steve's mind. He grabbed his phone and called the rectory again. "Hello Estell, it's Steve Anderson again, can I speak with Deacon Gronchi?"

"Yesterday was his last day, he returned home to New York last night."

It was then that he remembered Father Ewen's habit of calling everything an appointment and marking his calendar, something that Steve tried to emulate. "Can you check Father Ewen's calendar please? He may have had an appointment out of town."

"Let me check," Steve heard Estell fighting with Father Ewen's balky desk drawer, the lock on the desk needed a shot of WD40 but Father Ewen never got around to that, he always seemed to enjoy the fight to get the drawer open. Steve finally heard Estell pick up the phone and say, "It just says "Conf. AG" at ten PM, why would he have a conference with the attorney general at ten PM?"

"Thank you Estell, I'm sure he had his reasons."

Derick sipped his coffee; he had a few gears meshing also. "Deacon Gronchi?"

"I know..." groaned Steve. "If someone had told me about a certain family feud I would have dragged your mother-in-law to Las Vagas and have an Elvis Impersonator perform our wedding." He hit speed dial and soon he heard Bruce McLaren's exhausted voice.

"Why don't you ever call my desk phone?"

"Because you don't answer it, look Leonard, our priest is missing."

Bruce's shoulders sagged, Steve never uses his real name, everyone calls him Bruce after the Formula One racing car driver Bruce McLaren. Even in Afghanistan with bullets flying past them Captain Stephaton Anderson only called him Leonard once, and that was before that stupid private set off the IED. "What's going on Captain?"

"Father Ewen MacCailein of Holy Mother of God church, the priest who took our confessions and performed our marriage, is missing. The last entry in his calendar was last night a ten pm conf. with AG."

"Shit," muttered Detective McLaren, "What else?"

"The deacon who was at our wedding was Alfeo Gronchi."

"Shit!" sputtered Bruce. "What else do you have for me?"

"Alfeo Gronchi is missing also.

"Shit, shit, shit, shit...."

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Detective McLaren arrived at the church at 9:30, fifteen minutes into the 9:15 mass. The parishioners of the Holy Mother parish weren't happy that Father José Lopez was saying the mass without forewarning. People are creatures of habit, they come to the 9:15 service because they've always come to the 9:15 service even though masses are also said at 6:00, 8:00, 10:30, and 12:00. Also, they were here to hear their weekly homily delivered with the soft Scottish voice of Father MacCailein and not the staccato delivery of Father Lopez. Some had chosen to come back for the 10:30 mass hoping that Father Ewen would be there.

Bruce McLaren rang the doorbell again at the rectory front door, a Spanish mission style building with stylish black iron bars over the windows. Finally, a distraught looking woman answered the door. "May I help you?"

"Mrs. Neil? I'm Detective McLaren from the Vero Beach Police Department, this is my partner Detective Lisa Clark, we're concerned about Father MacCailein, and Steve Anderson asked us to take a look into his whereabouts."

"Please come on in," said Estell Neil. "I've been here taking care of Father Ewen for years now and I've never seen him miss saying a mass, and now we can't find him." Miss Neil led Bruce and Lisa to Father Ewen's office where the office was neat and clean, and incredibly orderly. One wall was covered with the works of Charles Spurgeon.

"Now why would a Catholic priest study the works of a man that hated the Catholic church?"

"Because they agreed on everything else," said Estell without a pause.

"So many candles!" gasped Detective Clark. She was starting to wonder if there were rituals taking place in the office.

"He liked the pure light of the flame," said Estell.

"Nothing better for reading than a kerosene lamp," said Bruce as he looked through the papers on the Priest's desk, touching them with the tip of a pen knife and not his hands. He noticed the strange looks he was getting from Lisa and said, "What. Ain't you ever been camping?" The detectives gently taunted each other over the advantages of propane lanterns versus kerosene hurricane lanterns, then Bruce put on the surgical gloves and opened the desk drawer to find the priest's schedule. "Does he keep his data on a computer?" Bruce asked Miss Estell.

"No, he hand writes everything and gives it to me to enter in the computer. He doesn't like computers; he says they take the humanity out of writing."

Bruce pulled Father Ewen's leather bound planner and slowly paged through it. Ewen's handwriting was neat and orderly. "I wish I could write like this, this is a work of art. My handwriting is chicken scratches."

"No shi... uh, no kidding," said Lisa.

"Careful!" teased Bruce as he turned to today's date in the planner. It was nice and neat, he was planning to say 8:00 AM mass, 9:15 AM mass, and the noon mass leaving the 6:00 AM and 10:30 masses for Father Lopez. Bruce flipped through the planner and saw future appointments, meetings, classes, and every Tuesday and Thursday he saw Conf. scheduled at a few points throughout the day. "Miss Estell, what happens every Tuesday and Thursday at 10:00 AM?"

"That's when confession is heard."

Bruce flipped back to yesterday's schedule and saw at 10:00 PM Conf. AG. Reading over his shoulder Lisa asked, "He does confession for the Attorney General?"

Bruce tightened his lips and said, "Miss Estell, please don't touch anything in here, we're going to have Crime Scene look through here."

"Do you think that Father Ewen...?" Estell couldn't bring herself to say "murdered" but she's watched enough TV crime dramas to know what the term "crime scene" implied.

"Miss Estell no, we prepare for the worst," said Lisa, "then if he's found with a broken down car on US 1 after giving someone a lift to the airport and we all feel better."

"What do I do?" asked Miss Estell.

"Do what you always do... which way to the sanctuary?"

Estell led the two detectives to the church building where Father Lopez was preparing the altar for the 10:30 mass. "Father José," called Bruce as he approached the altar. "Where does Father Ewen prefer to hear confession?"

"That would be that side," said the young priest pointing to the left side of the church.

"Thank you," said Bruce and he led Lisa toward the back of the church. In the rear corner was three doorways covered with curtains. "The priest sits in the middle room and the parishioners go into either side and they speak through a window to the priest."

"How do they know the priest is in there?"

"When the priest sits down there's a switch in the seat and the kneeler which turns on the light above the door so you know if someone is in there."

'You mean like that one?" Lisa pointed to the right corner in the back of the church where there was an identical set up. There were three curtained doorways and a light was glowing dimly over the center door. They walked quickly to confessional on the right hand side of the church and Bruce parted the curtain and peered through the opening. Father Ewen's body remained in there, still slumped against the side wall.

"Call it in, I'll talk to Father Lopez," said Bruce. As Lisa called their dispatcher Bruce turned and saw that Father Lopez was approaching and was almost there. Bruce intercepted him and said, "Father Ewen has passed away, you need to call the Bishop and do whatever he says, but we are going to treat the building as a crime scene.

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As it often happens in this section of Florida, rain was pouring from the sky by late afternoon. Steve spent the day fighting back the tears, not speaking to anyone except Nadia, and to her he occasionally said, "This is my fault, I'm sorry." Nadia rarely said anything but by the time Detective McLaren arrived at Steve's campsite she was ready to scream "Will you shut up about it?"

The girls Anna and Emma were playing in the warm downpour and splashing in the puddles while the adults sat under the awning that Steve erected earlier that morning. Folding his umbrella under the awning Bruce took a cup of coffee that was offered him and he sipped it. "Lifer juice," he grumbled.

"What?" asked Jeannie.

"It's an Army thing, old timers who were in the military for life drank strong coffee, we called it lifer juice," Bruce explained.

"We said it in the Air Force too," said Lisa who snapped her umbrella open and closed to release drops of rain before folding it up.

Steve was sitting at the picnic table with Nadia since their horrible meeting twenty hours ago they've become inseparable. To Bruce they looked like a glum picture of Steve and Maria, both mourning the sudden amputation of the central focus of their lives. "Hey Bruce..." said Nadia, her voice cracking from hours of weeping.

"...what do ya got?" said Steve, completing the sentence, his voice hoarse also.

"You know I hate that," grumbled Bruce. He was about to read off his notes but he was interrupted by another clone of Maria, Jeannie Tamaro. Both women were a snapshot of Maria captured in time, Nadia the young Maria, getting ready to step out into the world, young, sexy, looking for a man. Then Jeannie was a picture of Maria after several years of responsibility were placed on her shoulders, marriage, children, a job. Still beautiful but a touch of exhaustion setting in, her features show a knowledge that the young Nadia has yet to learn.

"Hold on for Aunt Fabbi," said Jeannie. "She just called and said she found the park."

"Who is Aunt Fabbi?"

Steve shrugged and Nadia didn't react so Jeannie answered Lisa's question, "she's Maria's older sister, she's the matriarch of the family." She went on to explain how Fabrizia Bellini-Scordato ran the show while Bruce was watching Steve and Nadia.

There was a pack of cigarettes on the table and with trembling hands Nadia reached for the pack and extracted one smoke but fumbled with the matches. Steve gently took the book of matches out of her trembling hands and struck the match four times then gave up and tried a second match which finally lit on third try. Cupping the match in his shaking hands they got the cigarette lit, then they gently swapped the smoke back and forth, each taking a trembling puff. He wasn't sure about Nadia, but Bruce knew for a fact that Bruce quit smoking years ago when his last tour in Afghanistan ended.

Bruce turned so his back was to Steve and motioned Lisa closer. In a soft voice he said, "When I brief them on the shootings keep an eye on Steve and Nadia for me."

"You suspect them of something?"

"No, as a friend I want to know what is going on between them." When Lisa looked at him with a scolding glance Bruce said, "I don't know if Steve can get through this on his own, maybe Nadia can help and vice versa."

Just then a black Mercedes-Benz S Class pulled up and parked across the drive leading to the campsite. The driver got out dressed in suit and tie, then opened an umbrella, opened the back door, and assisted Fabrizia Scordato out. He held the umbrella for Fabbi as she walked up to the camp site, she stood a full head taller than her younger sister but the resemblance to Maria was unmistakable. Fabbi was slimmer and was wearing an elegant black dress and a single string of pearls. Bruce felt like he was standing in a crowd of clones. Even the young girls Anna and Emma had a resemblance to Maria... or did they all resemble Aunt Fabbi?

As Jeannie and Derick welcomed Fabbi, the matriarch's only greeting was, "where is Benny and Sal?" she received blank stares from everyone there. "Benny and Sal were supposed to be there," she demanded as Derick set out a folding chair for his wife's aunt.

Finally, Bruce stepped forward and said, "We have eight bodies in the morgue that haven't been identified yet. You're welcome to come see if your people are with them." Fabbi merely glared at Bruce from her folding nylon and aluminum throne. "I'm Detective McLaren and this is my partner Detective Clark."

Fabrizia Bellini-Scordato glared at Bruce for a few moments then said, "Did you know my sister?"

"Yes, I am glad to have counted Maria as one of my friends. If Steve had made their wedding a little more public I would have been his best man."

"And you would have been dead too. I suppose you are investigating this occurrence?"

Bruce looked at her strangely, her sister is laying in the morgue and to her it's an "occurrence?" "Yes, I am the lead investigator."

Fabbi looked over at Steve and Nadia and they both looked like they were in shock, neither has spoken since she got here, neither has participated in the obligatory "Greet the Matriarch" event that Giannina, Derick, Anna, and Emma Tomaro all performed. "Do you have any information for us Detective McLaren?"

"I have nothing good. We're still trying to identify the eight males that were found dead in Maria's house, it looks like they were tourists, they all had separate flights on Southwest from Orlando back to NYC for tonight, all were dead from gunshot and shotgun wounds. Darlene died of multiple gunshot wounds, and Maria had two gunshot wounds but died of a heart attack we believe brought upon by loss of blood. If it's any consolation, she wasn't conscious when she died."

"When can my brother-in-law and his stepdaughter move home?" asked Fabbi.

"Crime scene will be working for another week, when they are done I would give a good contractor a week maybe two weeks to repair the damage those bastards made."

"I will handle the repairs," said Fabbi.

"What about that fat cop," asked Jeannie, "the one that pulled a gun on Steve."

"Patrolman Rivelli has lawyered up. Our organized crime unit says he may have been batting cleanup, if the target is missed then he takes a swing at it," said Det. Lisa Clark. "Steve you need to keep your head down."

"What about Father Ewen?" Steve's voice was dry and cracking, he was trembling again.

Bruce looked especially glum, he wasn't a church goer but he went with Steve a few times and got to like Father Ewen. "He was found in his confessional with two cranial bullet wounds. The shooter shot him through the screen then dumped his pistol under Father Ewen's body to imply it was a suicide."

"Are you sure it wasn't suicide?" asked Fabbi.

"The only prints on the gun were from a piece of human debris named..." he flipped a page or two on his clipboard, "Alfeo Gronchi. He tried to wipe down the gun but like everything in his life, he failed at that too and left several partial prints."

"Where do I find him?" asked Steve.

"New York somewhere, he flew to JFK from Jacksonville under an assumed name right after killing Father Ewen." Bruce snapped closed the lid on his clipboard and said, "look, if there's some kind of blood feud going on, I don't think I can help you, most of this stuff is getting turned over to the FBI."

"FBI," scoffed Fabbi's son Marco, but a raised finger from his mother stopped the laughter.

"I'm sure your department and the FBI will do some marvelous work, Detective. I'm going to make inquiries myself."

Steve heard none of that, all he could think about was poor Maria watching her friend getting shot to death while those bastards advanced on her, how she couldn't move out of the way, she could only watch them coming... then Father Ewen, killed by his own deacon, shot in the confessional... Steve suddenly felt the bile coming up and he turned and dashed to the palmetto bushes and undergrowth that surrounded the campsite and began to vomit, the acid in his stomach burning every inch of the way scorching the length of his esophagus then hitting his mouth burning it and leaving the foulest taste behind which caused more vomiting... the dry heaves is what his mother called it but she's gone too...

He finally stopped heaving and his entire abdomen ached, even his ribs hurt, then he heard a voice and turned and saw them all staring at him. He could see the hate, the accusation in their eyes telling him that he caused the whole thing, that he caused the death of someone very precious to them. He couldn't bear it anymore, the self-loathing, the hate, and the pain and terror he put Maria through, so he ran. The rain had let up and he had to get away from them, away from the memories, away from himself. He saw an opening in the underbrush and ran for it.

"Marco, Derick, go after him, don't hurt him. Nadia you come with me, Jeannie, keep an eye on the babies." Fabbi stood and saw Bruce and Lisa staring at her, "Detectives, you look dead on your feet, go home and rest."

"Ma'am, Steve is my brother," said Bruce, "I have to..."

"You have to catch those bastards." And she walked quickly after Marco and Derick, and Nadia practically had to run to keep up with her aunt that was three times her age.

"I can't believe you asked the police for help, Aunt Fabbi."

"I didn't ask them for help, I told them to do their jobs. Besides, they're not our enemy, they keep the worst of us in line, hopefully like those animals that killed your mother."

Nadia felt the weight at her hip reminding her that she was still armed, at some point in their ride up here she put her mother's ratkiller in its holster and clipped it to her belt and she remembered seeing Steve doing the same thing with the other 10mm Glock when he set up the camper. "Aunt Fabbi, he's armed."

"That makes things a little sadder," said Fabrizia as she led her niece through the path that was marked by walls of bushes, weeds, ferns, and palmetto plants. They came around a corner and saw Marco and Derick standing at the start of a narrow boardwalk that stretches out over the wetland then out to the St. Sebastian river.

Marco whispered, "he said, "don't come near" and it looks like he has a gun."

Fabbi hushed her son with a finger to her lips then slipped off her pumps and handed them to Marco then she motioned to Nadia to stay here. She started out onto the boardwalk with silent steps.

At the end of the dock Steve knelt, clutching his pistol to his chest, shuddering, trying to get the words out. Finally, his tears of anguish subsided and let him say his last confession; "Forgive me father for I have sinned, it's been one week since my last confession. I disobeyed my boss and fell in love with a patient and that caused the death of your servant Father Ewen. Please take him into your arms and tell my love I'll be there with her soon..."

He raised the pistol to his chin, and for some reason a pair of warm arms surrounded him and a soft, feminine voice whispered in his ear, "No, not now, you have to stay here."

"I... I have to go, please don't stop me..." but he didn't fight as Fabbi eased the Glock from his grip.

"You have to stay and help Nadia; she lost her mother and she's in the same pain that you are."

"I don't think I'm in much shape to help anyone." He slowly stood and allowed Fabbi to lead him back toward Nadia, Derick and Marco.

"You cured Maria's broken heart, you can do the same for Nadia, and maybe yours too. I need you to try, for Maria's sake." When they got to the end of the board walk Derick and Marco walked with Steve back to the camper while Nadia walked with Fabbi.

"That could have been me out there with the gun," said Nadia softly.

"But it wasn't, I'm proud that you are holding yourself together," said Aunt Fabbi. "I need you to help Steve, he lost so much, and his only friend is investigating this case so he can't talk to Leonard either."

"I don't know what to do..."

"Just be there, talk to him, keep his mind busy." Nadia gave Fabbi a confused look and Fabbi continued, "I need you to try, for your mother's sake."

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After cleaning up a bit they drove up to the Fish Shack, a local restaurant that serves traditional and modern takes on seafood. Steve wasn't sure how it got there but he ended up with a blackened flounder filet covered with a mango/pineapple chutney. It looked like what he left in the weeds when he threw up. The family was speaking softly about Maria and Steve could barely hear their words. He had Nadia to his left and Bruce on his right and occasionally he noticed laughter especially when someone mentioned Maria and her chickens.

The evening was revealed to Steve in pieces, he would look at his plate and he decided that his food looked strange, but when he looked at it again, some was missing. Eventually his plate was empty, his stomach full, and he had no memory of eating. He looked up and noticed that everyone was staring at him and the last word he heard was "Guiseppi." He realized that they were afraid to talk about Guiseppi with Steve sitting there. He cleared his throat and said, "It's ok, Juicy was a big part of her life, and a very big part of Nadia's and Jeannie's. Don't stop on my account."

"Who is Juicy?" asked Nadia.

"Juicy?" gasped Jeannie, "Why did you call dad Juicy?"

It appeared that Steve let slip a secret, and it also appeared that his stepdaughters were not let in on the secret by their mother, but he looked across the table to his sister-in-law Fabbi who raised her wine glass to him in a toast and winked at him as Nadia and Jeannie demanded more information. "Juicy was your mother's nickname for your dad."

"But where did Juicy come from?" demanded Nadia. She squeezed Steve's hand and for the first time he realized that they were holding hands under the table.

"I don't know, she mentioned something about him and creamy eggs." That did it perfectly, feigned ignorance of New York delicacies gave the sisters something to educate Steve on. Steve knew egg creams, he made Maria an egg cream on the yacht and she said it was perfect. Soon a desert of Italian Ice was served and Steve again made another intentional faux pas by calling it "Sherbert" which allowed Anna and Emma an opportunity to make fun of their new grandpa.

"You smiled," said Nadia softly.

"So did you."

When they stepped out into the parking lot they discovered how late it was. "We're not going to make it home before two," said Derick.

"Y'all can stay with us," said Nadia.

"Do you have room?"

"No problem," and as Nadia laid out the sleeping arrangements Steve was trying to understand her use of the word "us." Once the sleeping arrangements were agreed upon and the girls began bouncing and cheering that they were going camping, Nadia mentioned the envelopes that Maria gave them and Steve's heart sank again. He had no idea what was in the envelopes, and he's terrified what is in there.

Back at the camp site Nadia and Steve worked together to convert the dinette to a bed for the girls. "No sleeping bags?" demanded Emma.

"No, we got blankets and quilts," said Grandpa Steve, "if you want sleeping bags you will have to bring your own next time."

"YAY!"

Steve felt even worse now, Maria was laying on a cold morgue slab and he's camping with her grandchildren. At least she'll be near Father Ewen, she liked him. He stepped out of the camper and let the Tamaro family settle down the kids and slumped down at the picnic table where the flickering light of the citronella candle illuminated the sad, drawn face of Nadia. "I'm sorry I freaked out on you today... I just... I lost two people that meant the world to me and I couldn't handle it."

"If I remembered that I had mom's rat killer on me I would have been right next to you." She wiped the tears away and said, "Mom and I had started getting along so good! When she got hit and dad died it was horrible, when we found out that she had MS I started going through puberty so it was all about me... I'm surprised that Darlene didn't beat the shit out of me."

"When I was thirteen I went to my first deer camp without dad, it was the boy scouts and I was going to get me a buck! And I dropped one, so I was scouting it down and Sherrif Tillman come looking for me... my house burnt down, my whole family was gone 'cept my older sister Kate, she was at a sleepover... I never told your mom."

"She knew."

"I never told her!"

"Here, give me your hands, I want to hold them so you don't beat me."

"I'd never beat you."

"Mom knew that too... No, she wasn't psychic or something, she had Fabbi check you out before she even asked the hospital to assign her to you."

"Is Fabbi a secret agent or something?"

"No, but she employs a few. Fabbi deals in information."

"Does everybody get the deep state investigation in your family?"

"Uh huh. I think I had maybe two guys approved and they were dorks. You turned out kinda hot."

"Well, if I'm such a nice guy why did you give me so much crap when I picked you up?"

"Because I didn't want her married to anyone, I wanted Mom all to myself, then her car got blown up and you show up with the most cringe worthy vehicle..."

"Your mom said she loved my truck."

Just then Derick poked his nose out the door and said, "The kids are asleep." Steve and Nadia shelved their conversation, blew out the candle and quietly slipped into the camper, and that's when the plans of girls in one bed, boys in the other must have been changed without their notification, Derick and Jeannie took the rear bed and closed the privacy curtains.

Steve whispered in her ear, "I'll get in first so if you feel the need to jump out you can."

"Ok."

Steve stripped off his shoes, socks, and blue jeans then climbed into the bed, closed the privacy curtains, then took off his t-shirt and pulled the comforter over himself. Having the curtain closed made the bunk like a tiny bedroom, it was kind of nice. Finally, Nadia climbed in and pulled the comforter over her quickly before Steve could see that she wasn't wearing a bra under her t-shirt.

About ten minutes later she kicked back at him gently and whispered, "Are you asleep yet?"

"No."

"Me too..." She paused for a very long time then quietly asked, "Do you think mom's in heaven?"

Steve thought for a moment, then fought down the lump in his throat and said, "I think she's with your dad right now, and for your mom, it won't matter where they are, that will be heaven." That's when the tears he kept at bay all night came back. It wasn't fair! HE wanted to spend eternity with Maria... or at least the year she had left. He pictured Maria and Guiseppi together at a table on Coney Island sharing an egg cream, only having eyes for each other, not for him. Then a walk on the beach healthy and happy, walking past him without looking... it wasn't fair.

That's when he realized that Nadia was crying too. She was lying on her side with her back to him, her small frame shook by the tears she tried to suppress. Trying to stifle his own tears he curled up behind her and held her close, and instead of being pushed away she clutched at his arm and snuggled back at him, and within a few minutes they were asleep.

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Nadia awoke sometime after sunrise and smelled fire and coffee. What a magical combination of scents! And was there bacon mixed in with it too? She pulled on a pair of shorts and wriggled out of the bed trying not to wake Steve and at the last moment she looked and realized he wasn't in bed. The girls were still asleep, Emma was clutching the ugliest stuffed animal that Nadia had ever seen, then she stepped outside to a world that she hated, a world without her mother.

It was a cool morning and a thick fog had moved in giving the world a prehistoric look where a pelican could be a pterodactyl and the screeches and cries coming out of the woods could be any creature. Steve was sitting in a folding chair by the fire ring, a small fire was warming the coffee pot and the smell of the fragrant smoke and the hearty coffee made a Maria-less world just a bit less painful for Nadia.

Seeing Nadia come out of the trailer Steve set up a chair for her and poured her a cup of coffee. "Thank you for last night," she whispered.

"I didn't do anything."

"You were a gentleman," she insisted.

Steve was quiet for a while then said softly, "thank you for letting me be a gentleman."

"What are we going to do?" she asked.

"I'm trying to find a hotel suite to stay in until the house is done. Two bedroom and kitchen suite kind of thing, but it's tourist season and rooms are hard to find."

"If you can, y'know, be a gentleman a single would be ok we can work it out. And we could go to Aunt Fabbi's house and do laundry." With a fist bump Steve took out his tablet and began searching for a suite with a kitchenette. Soon the Tamaro's came out, at least Jeannie and Derick, the girls were still asleep.

"Would you like some breakfast?" asked Steve.

"No, we need to get going," said Jeannie, "Derick needs to get to work so we'll grab something on the road." As Derick answered an email on his phone, Jeannie went back inside the camper and woke up the girls and soon emerged with a grumpy little Emma in her arms followed by a complaining Anna.

"Aww, can't we stay?"

"Potty first, then we have to get home." When the girls came back from their trip to the bathroom, they got in Jeannie's car, because Derick was going to drive straight to work he left right away.

"This is for you, I guess," said Steve as he handed Jeannie a large manilla envelope with Maria's script handwriting that simply said, "Giannina."

"When did she give you this?"

"Saturday, about noon, it was the last time..." his voice caught and he stopped there, unable to continue. It was their last kiss.

Jeannie hugged her sister and Steve and said, "When I get home I'll call you guys," and moments later she was gone leaving Steve and Nadia horribly alone.

The rest of the day was spent straightening up the camper and walking around the park. There were several nature trails that followed the backwaters of the St. Sebastian river and through the native jungle where Tarzan once prowled. "Say it," demanded Nadia after a long period of silence.

"Say what?"

"There's something on your mind, so, say it."

"I wanted to do this with Maria so much," he finally blurted out. "I was even thinking of getting a rickshaw to take her on walks..."

"That's sweet, we both could have taken her."

"She walked without crutches when we got married, she came out of the bedroom..." He stopped before he started to cry and he found Nadia had wrapped her arms around his arm.

"It's ok."

Time passed slowly on that agonizing day of loneliness and when they ate it was a small steak that they split between them and a potato that was baked over the fire. "When we get the house back we're going to eat properly," said Nadia and started naming off Italian recipes that Maria taught her to cook.

Later in the camper they sat in the dinette and opened the two envelopes which carried copies of Maria's will, a letter she sent to her lawyer putting the house in Steve and Nadia's names and a list of accounts and a couple of credit cards. Both envelopes had a short handwritten letter telling them to help each other.

"She knew it was coming," said Steve said softly, "she never told me she was in hiding."

"She wasn't in hiding," said Nadia. "She was retired, everyone agreed to leave her alone, there's no honor in shooting a cripple. There's no reason to target her."

Steve felt nauseous, he looked up the accounts with his phone and he suddenly has money in the bank, retiring in luxury kind of money. Never working again money. He realized that he was going to need a lawyer. "Are we going to fight over this money?" Steve asked.

"No," said Nadia. "Let's just worry about getting to sleep tonight."

His head was spinning from the emotional roller coaster and he had to lay down. He climbed into bed and said, "Turn out the light when you're done."

He was nearly asleep when the light clicked off and he heard her climb into the other bunk. Soon the sound of the night animals began to penetrate the canvas walls of the camper but they weren't loud enough to mask Nadia's tears. Soon Steve's curtain opened and Nadia climbed in bed with him. Night terrors aren't so terrible when there is someone to hold.

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Maria's funeral was held at her church, Sacred Heart, on the day after Mother of God church mourned the passing of Father Ewen. Father Sarducci waxed eloquently on how love came to Maria in the last months of her life and how joyful she was, but you never know when you were going to be called. He stretched that into twenty minutes. Steve sleep-walked through the arrangements and he allowed Fabbi, Jeannie, and Nadia to pick everything, but Steve insisted that Maria be buried wearing her wedding ring from Guiseppi on her finger and the ring from him on a chain around her neck. There was no grave side service, it was too hot.

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The contractors took two weeks to complete work on the house, so brutal was the damage. When Steve left to pick up Nadia on that terrible day, Maria and Darlene dropped the metal roll up hurricane shields on all the windows turning the house into an armored fortress. The attackers tried chain saws and battering rams on every door and window until the front door shattered under repeated blows.

Steve and Nadia were unsure whether they were going to move into the house, it was the scene of a bloodbath but they had to inspect it once the contractors were finished and sign off on their work, then they could decide what to do with it. On inspection day they found that the house was exactly the same on the outside as it was before, but on the inside the house was a blank slate. The walls were painted a neutral gray and the floors looked like hardwood rather than the 12 inch square tiles. The kitchen was upgraded with the newest appliances and the look in Nadia's eyes showed that she wanted to keep it.

The contractor droned on and on about the condition of the house and what he had to do to repair it. So much of the walls, carpet, tiles, and furniture was blood soaked that the living room and Maria's bedroom had to be stripped down to the frames and rebuilt completely. As the contractor described the condition of the house which included finding Maria's birds dead and the fish tank shot apart, Steve's visions of Maria's terror returned and he stepped outside thinking he was going to vomit again. When he looked and saw that her paradise was overgrown and weedy and the pool was starting to turn green from neglect. "I can get someone here to fix this up," said Fabbi, as she put a comforting hand on Steve's shoulder.

"No ma'am, but thank you, this is my specialty. I need something to do."

"Good, I want you and Nadia to work together on the house before you start on anything else."

Steve looked at his sister in law, she knows something. "Yes ma'am." He opened the refrigerator door and found it was stocked with beer. "You know how to bribe a man, don't you."

"You got work to do," she gave a half smile and said, "Those two guys I sent to help Maria, Benny and Sal, their bodies were found in the swamp out by Fellsmere.

"Someone tried to feed the gators," said Steve as he opened a beer. Nadia appeared on the porch and looked at the yard and her lip curled up, then she took Steve's beer and walked back into the house.

"I'll leave you to this," said Fabbi as she followed Nadia into the house, then added, "Check out the garage when you get a chance."

Steve grabbed a basket out of the shed and a kneeling pad and got back to work on the garden. Nothing like weed warfare to clear the mind, as he set to clearing the weeds and filling the basket with their corpses.

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The summer was filled with working on the house getting it back to where it was, then taking it a step beyond. Steve and Nadia both chose to sleep in the small side bedrooms, neither could bring themselves to go into Maria's bedroom, and Steve realized that the one time he put Maria in bed, just before he left to get Nadia, that was the only time he had been in her bedroom. Before that their lovemaking was in the camper, the spare bedroom, the living room and once in the kitchen.

The months passed and life eventually became easier for Nadia and Steve, they still leaned on each other for support, but they also leaned on each other because they liked to lean on each other. They cooked and cleaned together, splashed and played in the pool, and relaxed in the hot tub after a stressful day. Twice a week they went to a local range and shot numerous rounds through the 10mm Glocks. Steve was an incredible shot but he didn't show off, he worked with Nadia to get her skills up, they might need to depend on each other's shooting in the future.

Thanks to Aunt Fabbi the garage had become a gym with weight set, lifting bench, treadmill and an exercise bike. Steve hadn't done any serious lifting since he left the Army, and he missed the way he could burn off the anger in the weight room and soon he was back to a regular routine. Nadia soon joined him and it wasn't unusual to hear weights clanking and rock music blaring in the garage during the early morning hours and splashing and laughter in the pool almost any time of the day. The best days were when Anna and Emma stayed overnight and they all slept in the camper that Steve set up in the backyard.

December drew to a close as Steve and Nadia came out of the movie theater holding hands and berating each other for choosing that film. Vero Beach was decorated with Christmas decorations and Christmas is just a few days away, which to Steve felt weird, Christmas is a cold weather holiday, it doesn't feel right in the endless summer of the treasure coast of Florida. The couple decided to head to a favorite restaurant a few miles away so as Steve opened the truck door for Nadia they kissed, twice. The first kiss was just a little buss on the lips, but the second kiss was soft and passionate and suddenly Nadia grew quiet.

Steve got in his side of the truck and asked, "are we ok?"

"I don't know, what kind of kiss was that?"

"The first kiss was a "Thank you for a fun evening kiss."

"And the second kiss?"

"That was a "You mean so much to me kiss." Steve suddenly realized he was skating on very thin ice. Was she trying to lure him into a dangerous position? "Help me out here, you were there for the kiss, what do you think?"

"Do you want the truth?"

"I can handle the truth."

"Ok," Nadia crossed her arms under her magnificent breasts and said, "The first kiss was... yes, that was a thank you for a fun evening kiss."

"And the second kiss?"

Nadia turned and gave him a sad, stern look. "Seven out of ten." Inside her heart was leaping, she's waited so long for this kiss. They started as adversaries, then they became heartbroken family, together they had to navigate the sorrow of losing her mother, his wife and be ready if whoever had it out for Maria came back for more. They became teammates cheering each other on, holding each other up, someone who cares for you and someone to care for. And now friends... close friends...

"I want a rematch," demanded Steve.

"I want a margarita," demanded Nadia as they wheeled into a Mexican restaurant.

They settled into the restaurant and ordered a couple of house margaritas (on the rocks, easy on the salt) and sat at a small table holding hands across the table, their eyes dancing. "So did I get marked down for the timing?"

"No, I think your timing was spot on, definitely not too soon, and if it was too late I would have been moved out by now."

"Quality? Is that what took me down?"

"No, for a first kiss it was actually dead on, full ten out of ten on that."

"That leaves quantity, too much?" Her lowered eyebrows nixed that. "Not enough?"

"Hell yeah! After the crap that we've been through, the hell we've been dragged into, building each other up, now I'm feeling your boner bump me in the ass every night, I need... no I deserve more."

Just as they leaned across the table for "more," their drinks and nacho's arrived as did Bruce McLaren and Lisa Clark. "Feliz Navidad! Did we interrupt something?"

"YES."

"Don't mind us, we've been doing police flavored things," said Lisa as Bruce pulled up a pair of chairs.

"You guys look so cute together," said Bruce as he sat down next to Lisa. "Hey, I know it's late notice but can I bring Lisa with to Christmas dinner?"

"The more the merrier," said Nadia, "Just as long as she wears that rock on her left hand."

"What?" gasped Steve and sure enough, Lisa was wearing an engagement ring.

"Us girls notice that stuff," said Nadia.

"What gave you that idea?" asked Steve.

Lisa and Bruce looked at each other and finally Bruce said, "I've been chasing her for years and suddenly she turned around and caught me."

Nadia squeezed Steve's thigh and whispered "Gotcha."

Later that night as they looked at Maria's bedroom from the doorway Steve said, "Do you like it?" The room was mostly white, the king size bed had a huge white headboard with inlaid pink roses, the dresser and vanity were all white as was the replaced carpet.

"No, it's not me, I like more color, golds and browns. Mom got all this stuff right after dad died, I think she was planning to become a nun," said Nadia.

Steve could handle the memories now, the pain has faded and he can smile at her memory, but this room... he can't go in here, this is where she died. Maybe if Nadia makes it hers...

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Christmas dinner was raucous and fun, so much better than the family gathering at Steve's camper so many months ago. Emma and Anna and their baby sister Maria were allowed to bring one toy to play with even though there were gifts under the tree for them in the rarely used formal living room. The family room has been converted to a dining room by adding a large table with folding chairs and the girls had the run of the house. Nadia was in her glory cooking for her first big family gathering. She and Jeannie and Lisa ruled the kitchen and chased the men outside where they could watch the game on the TV in the outdoor kitchen.

When Derick got up to change the baby Bruce leaned over and whispered, "We finally got something out of the FBI on your case, every one of those men that they took out of this house was Black Ridge."

Black Ridge was familiar to Steve, they were a paramilitary guns for hire company that poached some of his best men away. "What the fuck? Why did a bunch of mercenaries have it in for Maria?"

"I don't know, but these jerks know they can't operate in the US, somebody must have waved a lot of money their way."

"Is Terry Hill still with Black Ridge?" Terry was an incredible special ops asset, he was in Steve and Bruce's unit and the guy could do it all, and in the end he went to the highest bidder.

"Yep." Bruce smiled and finished his beer. "He's in Okeechobee."

Steve and Bruce grinned at each other and said, "Road trip!"

"What road trip?" demanded Nadia as she stepped out onto the patio wearing an apron that said, Seduce The Cook.

"After dinner," said Bruce as he opened another beer.

"Tell me now." Nadia had the sexiest pout.

"After dinner, please? Besides, if it's bad information we don't want to bum everybody out. Now, speaking of bumming people out, are you ready for my cranberries?" Steve made cranberries from scratch and a bowl of them was waiting in the fridge for their call to glory.

Dinner was a success and the turkey was perfection. Steve and Nadia brined it in a brine solution that contained ginger, all spice and a myriad of other flavors for hours before roasting and the meat came out tender, juicy and extremely flavorful. Mashed potatoes, yams, green bean casserole, fruit salad, and Steve's cranberries which were a hit with Anna and Emma.

After dinner the filled up guests retired to the formal living room so Anna and Emma could open their presents before everyone was presented with leftovers and the Tamaro family was on the road home. The kitchen was cleaned up, leftovers set aside for Bruce and Lisa and the four friends retired to the patio where a propane fire kept the night chill at bay. "What is the information?" demanded Nadia.

"The FBI has released information on all the men that were killed here and each of them was an employee of Black Ridge, a group of mercenaries," said Bruce.

"So, what's with the road trip?" Nadia asked.

"An old army buddy of ours is in Black Ridge," said Steve, "and he lives in Okeechobee. We're thinking of heading over for a bit of a reunion and maybe our buddy might have heard a thing or two."

"No harm in asking," said Lisa as she drained her beer.

"I'll get us a vehicle from the motor pool and we'll head out to Okeechobee tomorrow afternoon," said Bruce, then he turned to Nadia and said, "Don't get your hopes up, this is just a fishing expedition."

"I won't," said Nadia, but she felt an excitement rising, it's been so long since her mother died, and now some solid information. She and Steve escorted Bruce and Lisa to their car, said their good nights and as Bruce slowly cruised up the quiet street, each house decorated with lights, Nadia turned to Steve and said, "Do you think we will find something?"

"I remember Terry and he was a hound; he loved the pretty girls. I bet you anything that Lisa is just going to smile and bat her eyelashes and memorize everything he says while Terry tries to impress her."

After a quick kiss good night Steve crawled into bed, exhausted from a wonderful Christmas day celebration. As he reached for the light Nadia tapped on Steve's bedroom door. "Can I come in? I can't sleep." She didn't wait for him to answer, she never does, nor does Steve when Nadia gets in her bed first. She came in the room wearing the babydoll nightgown that Steve had given her, "You like?" She did a slow turn then struck a pose. If anything, the cute babydoll containing Nadia's lush curves was one of the sexiest things that Steve ever saw. He's going to have a very hard time getting to sleep with this image on his mind. He raised his phone and took picture.

"Don't take my picture!" she cried in mock horror, then she struck another pose. "Get my ass, I want to see how that looks too." After he took another shot, Nadia demanded, "You like?"

"I love. And the nightgown is pretty too."

Nadia climbed into bed and snuggled up next to Steve to look at the pictures then something clicked in her head. "Did you just tell me that you loved me?"

"If you're going to need time to process my answer I'll give you all the time in the world," said Steve as he gazed into her dark brown eyes, "because you are worth the wait, so yes. I love you."

She leaned over Steve and gave him a sweet kiss. "I love you too." Again, they kissed, this time longer and more passionate until Nadia broke it off suddenly. "If we love each other why do we sleep in separate rooms?"

"Well for one thing I'm technically your stepfather, and for another thing we never sleep in separate rooms. We commute every night."

Her eyes rolled with mischief; a sly grin crossed her features. "When we have sex I can call you daddy! Won't that be fun?" In answer Steve started tickling her. Nadia whooped and squealed with laughter and she tried to roll away from him as he tormented her but she was helpless, a prisoner to his tickling hands. Soon she was gasping for breath and trying to tickle him back but it didn't seem to affect him as much as her.

Finally, the tickle fight ended and the lovers lay side by side catching their breath. Nadia whispered sadly, "you were thinking of her, weren't you. Sometimes I can see it in your eyes, you get wistful."

"Sometimes when we're active like just now. We could never do something like that, she was too fragile and it makes me sad knowing that."

"Do you see my mother instead of me when we snuggle like this?"

"No, now that I know you and really come to find out more about you, how very similar but very different you and your mom are. I probably know you better than any other woman I have ever known. You really are a wonderful woman and I'm so in love with you. I cannot wait to see what is ahead for us."

"Misery, pain, taxes... lots and lots of taxes..."

"You're so cheerful," and he tickled her some more.

"Let's go swimming." She jumped out of bed and dashed off with Steve following behind. He grabbed a towel from the linen closet and headed out to the patio. The temperature was cool, 70 degrees (for Floridians that's chilly) and the patio was magical. Gentle carols filled the air and Christmas lights lined the roof, the café lights that illuminate the patio were now softly changing colors, and the pool lights fluttered in the waves from Nadia's swimming. To the side the fake burned merrily, shame it doesn't smell right. However, there were occasions like tonight when turning on some flames with a click of a switch came in handy.

Nadia was already in the pool, only head and shoulders above water, her babydoll nighty was draped on a chair on the patio. "Come on Daddy, show me the goodies. I want to see what I'm getting."

"I'm not some cheap floozie who'll drop his boxers for any hot, beautiful brunette," said Steve as he slipped his boxers off.

"Whoo hoo! Hubba hubba!" Nadia called.

Steve slowly entered the pool, the water surprisingly warm compared to the cool surface air and he swam over to Nadia where they melted into each other's arms. "You're not going to play hard to get?"

"Not from you, and not on Christmas." Her small hand circled his cock as they kissed, their tongues entwining, naked wet bodies pressing together as Nadia and Steve stopped holding back and let their passions soar. She released his cock and wrapped her arms around him, a small whimper escaped as the man she loved held her tight and his tongue danced with hers. Hearts beating faster, a million emotions raced through their heads, fear, excitement, and so much love. Finally, the kiss ended and the lovers clung to each other, breathing in pants, their eyes fixed to each other's eyes and neither knew exactly what to do next. Hands gently stroking each other in the warm water, they were now united by a burning love for each other.

Foreheads touching between gentle kisses Steve whispered, "let's go inside."

Nadia's hands cupped Steve's ass and said, "What's wrong with out here?"

"It's getting chilly and there's an issue of shrinkage."

"I heard about that, I'm sure there's something we can do for that," but Steve led her up the stairs and out of the pool then wrapped her body in a bath sheet. Her nipples crinkled into hard points as Steve's assets sounded their own retreat. After clicking off the fire he led her into the house, by now her teeth were chattering from the cold. "Oh, look at this kitchen!" she groaned.

To Steve's eye it wasn't too bad, but Nadia was a kitchen perfectionist like her mother so there's something amiss that male eyes are not able to spot. The 21 year-old lady of the house did a marvelous job of putting together a Christmas dinner party for three couples and three children, it was a lot of work and so was cleanup, but it was a joy to watch Nadia captain the effort. "There's always tomorrow," said Steve. "Did I tell you how proud I was of the dinner you made?"

"Yes, it was my favorite Christmas present."

As he led her to his bed and watched her climb in bed showing off her perfect body. "How did I ever get so blessed... again," he muttered, then dried off quickly, turned off the light and climbed into bed with a sleeping Nadia.

He kissed her forehead and she smiled then mumbled, "I'm sorry, I'm so tired." She snuggled closer and drifted back off to sleep.

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"You could have gone for it and got some last night," insisted Nadia, not caring if Bruce and Lisa in the front seat heard her. "I might have woken up."

"Sex with an unconscious woman is not my idea of sexy." Steve and Nadia were riding in the back of a large SUV that Bruce was driving to Okeechobee a small city 50 miles from Vero Beach, it's located on a huge freshwater lake and it caters to fishing and tourism.

"Ok you two, put up or shut up," said Bruce into the rear view mirror. Nadia stuck out her tongue in reply and went back to apologizing to Steve. "Ok, hang on," Bruce said as he pulled up to the police station. "We'll be right back." Bruce and Lisa entered the police station and presented documents showing that they were investigating a murder in Indian River County and wanted to question a local citizen. "We want to ask Terry Hill a few questions, do you know him?" Bruce showed the Sergeant a picture taken of Terry in Afghanistan.

"Oh yeah, he's a regular down at the Bass Lounge," and the captain gave Bruce and Lisa directions to the bar. They found it on the lake front and looked around. It wasn't a seedy bar but it looked like it got a fair crowd of regulars.

Steve stepped up to the bar and asked the bar tender, "Do you know Terry Hill?"

"Why? You a tax collector?" the bar tender asked without looking up, "or a cop?"

"Terry and I were in Special Ops together and I heard he was in town."

The bar tender just tilted his head to the end of the bar and there hidden behind a few revelers sat the remains of Terry Hill. He looked like he has had a tough life since he left their unit. He was skin and bones living on a diet of beer and scraps.

"Terry dude! It's me, Steve Anderson!"

"Oh, hiya Doc, how long has it been?"

"You remember Bruce, right? Come sit with us." They found an empty table and plied Terry with a couple of beers and began to ask him about how life in Black Ridge was going.

"Dude, you wouldn't believe the places they sent us, and the money they gave us. I've been to places I never knew existed." He spun stories of battles, drugs, sex, and a brotherhood, but it sounded like the brotherhood was breaking up, or weeding out those that weren't measuring up.

Bruce whispered, looking around, "I heard of an op here in Florida that went bad, you lost four or five people."

"Fuck, we lost more n' that," Terry was getting bleary now, "It was a smash and grab, some dirt bag was holding lil kids so a guy hired us to bust in, grab the kids and kill the dirtbags. The house was a fortress, we finally get in and they got canons! I boogied before I got my ass shot off, took one in the arm..." He took a long drink from his beer and said, "Fuckin' Battle of Vero Beach."

Steve felt Nadia starting to tighten up and he hustled her out of the bar before she started screaming and once he got her out of the bar she screamed. "That son of a bitch!" she screamed as Steve held her tight, "He killed my mother!" Suddenly they were back to square one, holding and supporting each other as the shock of his confession ignited flames of hate and anguish that they thought were quelled. "He killed my mother," it was a whimper now as they sagged to the curb. They sat on a curb holding each other ignoring everything as people walked past, soon cops started to arrive and not much later Bruce found them.

"I'm sorry guys, I didn't realize he was in on it, I hoped he had a few clues but he spilled his guts. I arranged a ride home for you guys, Lisa and I have a shit-ton of work to do..." Bruce's voice faded into the miasma of internal noise, the memory of seeing the neighborhood filled with flashing police lights, that horrible sinking feeling...

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"Where's that man of yours?" asked Aunt Fabbi as she arrived unannounced the next day.

"He's done weeding and cutting the lawn, now he's skimming the pool, it's what he does when he's angry." Nadia's eyes were red rimmed from crying all the way home and long into the night.

Fabbi looked around the house then finally said, "It appears that no one is sleeping in the master bedroom."

"Is that an accusation?" said Steve as he entered.

"Just an observation dear brother, no need to be angry." She stepped up to Steve and kissed his cheek. "I'm rooting for you two," she whispered.

"We hate the furniture in that room," Steve whispered in Fabbi's ear.

"Then by all means change it! It's your house! And why are you angry?"

"A fellow I served with was part of the mob who broke in here, and..." he shook his head in impotent rage. "I realized how much danger we're in."

Fabbi looked at the young couple, they were both caught up in anger and rage and they didn't know how to deal with it, and she couldn't lose this last remainder of her sister. They reminded her so much of Giuseppe and Maria when they were young and courting. "Look you two, you've been together day and night for how many months? Seven?"

They nodded and Fabbi continued, "maybe you need to spend some time apart, Steve, you can go hang out at the VFW, Nadia you can come with me to Manhattan, we'll do some shopping, catch a show, just a girls week out and then you can decide what you're going to do with yourselves, sound like a plan?"

Nadia looked over at Steve, and he looked shocked. "No? Steve come here and sit in this chair, and Nadia, you sit in his lap." They eased together into a familiar posture, it felt so good to be in contact again, it had been nearly twenty four hours since they touched last. "Now tell me why you can't take separate vacations."

Nadia softly whimpered, "I can't sleep without him, he makes me feel safe, but last night he was up all night out by the pool. I understand how angry he is but sometimes it felt like he was mad at me."

"I was never mad at you, I was so mad at Terry Hill, but I was also mad at me. I didn't realize how much danger we were in. All Gronchi has to do is hire some more mercs and we're gone. It's all too real. I was afraid I might lash out and you could get hurt," said Steve.

"That's very noble, now why don't you want to take a nice vacation somewhere?" asked Fabbi. "You could take that camper up to the UP and shoot some squirrels and drink beer." It was hard to tell if she saw herself as an inquisitor or a game show host.

Steve thought for a long time trying to put some complex feelings into words and finally said, "Every time I love someone and I leave, sometimes for just a little while, when I come back they're ... gone. No more, Maybe we can get married, have kids, and live happily ever after, after this is done. Bruce is tracking down Alfeo Gronchi for me. I will end it."

"That's why you said Not Again when we saw the lights," whispered Nadia, and Steve nodded. "Were you serious when you said getting married and having babies?" Nadia whimpered, and again Steve nodded.

The room was silent for a long time as Steve and Nadia clutched each other, and soon Aunt Fabbi realized they forgot she was there. "Ok, pizza is on the way, I found a place that makes a proper New York pie, then tomorrow I swing by at noon and we're going shopping for your master bedroom." She snapped her purse closed and got up. As she left she said, "Be sure to tip the delivery man nicely." And she was gone.

Her son Marco held her car door open for her and she got in and gave a huge sigh of relief. She never wanted Steve to marry Maria, when she looked at his background she wanted him to marry Nadia, he's better suited for that headstrong girl, but he made Maria so happy... What's wrong with being happy for the last year of your life? Fabbi sighed and said, "We haven't been to Cobalt in a long time, let's dine there tonight Marco."

It truly was a great pizza and with a full belly and the air cleared, Steve and Nadia found their eyes had gotten too heavy and they climbed into bed and drifted off to sleep in each other's arms. But about three AM Steve was awakened by gentle kisses. Nadia was gently kissing his shoulder then she slowly kissed her way down to his nipple, then she lingered there with kisses and licks that caused thrills that Steve never felt before. He reached over and turned on a small light and Nadia smiled at him. "I can't wait any longer... I know I'm ready now."

Steve wasn't the most experienced man, but he did realize the implications of what she just said. "You've never...?" The question hung in the air between them.

"No... I have fooled around some but I never met someone that I really wanted... and I want you..." She looked like she was going to cry.

Steve pulled her close and began kissing her as he unbuttoned the shirt she was wearing; it was one of his shirts. Between kisses he said, "You look sad, do I scare you?"

"No, it's just, it seems like every time we get to a point where we can be real something else happens to set us back."

"Turn your phone off so the world can't find us," said Steve as he shut his phone off then placed it in his nightstand and Nadia did the same. "Ok this is your first time, what do you want? Playful? Rough? Sweet? Romantic? Orrrrr maybe the Venus Butterfly?"

"What's the Venus Butterfly?" Nadia was starting to laugh now.

"It's just a little thing that became popular in the sixties, but we need a blindfold, some silk rope, and a jar of mayonnaise."

"Instead, can I get sweet and romantic with a side of playful?" she smiled as she lay back and Steve opened her (his) shirt revealing her body. He could have spent the rest of his life at this moment gazing at Nadia's naked body. Her skin was flawless, her breasts large and firm, eraser size nipples centered in coral pink areola, a narrow waist and flat tummy with a tiny belly button, round hips and two perfect legs that needed no metal braces. If Maria entered his thoughts at this moment, it was just to whisper thank you.

"Thirty four double D?" said Steve breaking his reverie.

"On some bras yeah, how did you know?"

"Who does the laundry around here?" and with that he leaned forward and gently suckled on her right nipple, his tongue flickering over the tiny bundle of nerves causing her to gasp and run her fingers through his hair, holding him to his task. His free hand went to her left breast where he twirled her nipple between his thumb and forefinger then at the same time he nipped her right nipple with his teeth and pinched her left nipple causing her to gasp and arch her back.

Nadia felt lightning bolts shoot from her nipples to her clit as Steve pleasured her far beyond the stumbling encounters with stoned boys at UF Gainesville. Steve was kind and gentle, maybe a little too gentle but she can work on that. Now he began kissing his way downward, lower and lower pausing only to tickle her belly button with the tip of his tongue. Now to her bikini trimmed bush which he plucked at with his teeth before moving southward.

To Steve, Nadia smelled like the fresh mown hay of the spring, fragrant and earthy, something he relished in his youth, and then he began to run his tongue up and down the folds of her lower lips. She was red and swollen with excitement and possibly confused, her hands were in his hair, sometimes pushing him away, and other times holding him close to her, allowing him to lick and probe her pussy.

Nadia's gasps soon filled the room as Steve's loving attention to her vagina gently roused her building delicious tension. She lifted her knees and spread her legs wide, opening herself up to him and he took advantage of the opportunity. Gently spreading her nether lips open exposing her tiny clit he began to pepper the so sensitive bead with gentile kisses and fluttery licks knowing that too much stimulation could cause her to demand an end to it all right now.

But Nadia was in heaven, never had she experienced such a patient, gentle lover. The days of the fumbling oafs that could be sent away with a halfhearted blowjob was over. Now Steve slid a finger into her tight pussy as he continued to worship her clit, then a second finger which eased in and out, exploring her moist depths preparing her. And she was ready, the thrills he was churning up had her at the edge of screaming, "Fuck me!"

"Hmmm?" Steve looked up at her but continued to suckle at her clit and now he introduced a pinky finger pressing at her tight ass.

She didn't mean to say it out loud but the cat's out of the bag. "Fuck me... Oh god I'll never be more ready."

Steve eased up over Nadia and lubricated his cock with saliva then said, "This really is your first time?" In response she nodded nervously so he took her hand and put it on his aching cock and said, "guide me in."

She looked a little confused but she held his slippery cock and it felt so big now, so hard. She rubbed the head of it up and down her labia until it felt right... "right there, yessss" She arched her back as Steve eased inside of her, slowly spreading her open and delving inside and the thought that there was a man inside of her... The fascination of having the man she loved actually inside her body overwhelmed her and she was starting to cum before he was all the way in. She clasped his back and growled, urging him on.

Steve started fucking with shallow strokes, keeping an eye on her beautiful face looking for signs of pain or fear, and seeing none he probed deeper with each thrust. Their love making didn't last long, they were too eager, they had been waiting so long. Nadia came long and hard, her hips rising off the bed trying to get Steve in deeper, her cries and gasps of passion filled the air as waves of sexual bliss washed over her and never seemed to end. Finally, as her orgasm finished Steve came with a loud growl of pleasure, his cock throbbed as he fired volley after volley of semen into her willing depths, and only now he thought to ask if she was on the pill.

Slowly they returned to earth, hugging and kissing, their shared bliss softening to a sweet exhaustion. "Was it everything you hoped for?" asked Steve as Nadia held him tightly.

"Yes," she said dreamily, "for starters." Then her satisfied smile broke into a huge grin, "and I want more." They snuggled together glowing in their satisfaction dreaming dreams of building a life together when they're safe, but that won't happen until Alfeo Gronchi is dead.

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Fabrizia Bellini-Scordato loved to visit Manhattan in the winter. Even though her home is in the unending summer of South Florida, she still loves to walk in the cold crisp air of Manhattan in January. There's always an exciting, vibrant feeling in the air, the chill of winter makes it even sharper. As always she stopped and laid a rose at the site of the "accident" that claimed the life of her brother-in-law Guiseppi D'Amato and permanently injured her little sister. The rose will be gone soon, her tears will be gone too, and this whole incident needs to be ended.

Her next stop was a little restaurant in North Merrick, a bedroom community on Long Island. Eddies Place was a small upscale eatery that served old world dishes to a generation just discovering the old traditions. As she followed Marco inside she saw a gentleman far in the back of the eatery raise his hand and wave her over. "Fabrizia! You look marvelous!" said the man who rose and kissed her cheeks. "Not a day older than we last met." The man was in his seventies with a balding pate, a pleasant smile and a round belly announcing to the community his wife's cooking skills. They both looked like they were dressed for church, she was in a plain Navy blue dress with a string of pearls and he was in a gray flannel suit with white shirt and blue tie.

"Flattery will get you anywhere, Dom. This is my son Marco. Marco this is Domonic Gronchi. Could you give us some privacy Marco?"

Dom turned to the man next to him and said, "Freddy, why don't you join Marco at the bar, have them put in on my tab. Thank you." When the young men left the head of the Gronchi family smiled at Fabbi and said, "What brought you out of the warmth to come up here. It can't be the bagels."

"It's your nephew Dom," said Fabbi as Domonic poured her a cup of tea.

"Alfeo? I thought getting him out of the way in Italy would settle things down."

Fabbi leaned forward and glared at him. "On the way out, he killed my sister."

"Fabbi, there's no proof!" Dom shrugged and held his palms skyward. "Some weekend warriors mistook her house for a kidnappers hideout. He told me himself."

"Four survivors were rounded up and are singing. They all identified Alfeo as the man that hired them."

Dominic's smile faded. "Idiota," Dom groaned. "I'm done with that stronza. But I cannot correct it... he's family."

"Just before he left, he shot a priest in confession. They have the pistol with his prints and a witness that puts him in the building at the time," said Fabbi. Dominic knew that everything that Fabrizia said was true, she built an empire on information collection and she's renown for her honesty. As Dom wrestled with the shame of having a family member sink so low as to kill a priest, Fabbi continued. "Maria's widower is ready to go to war, he was special forces in the Army and is very angry. He is training her daughter in weapons and tactics, they could drag us all into a war that we thought ended ten years ago, we don't want that, do you?" Dom shook his head and Fabbi said, "I want them to have something we never had, a quiet, happy life."

"What do you propose la mia amica?"

"Bring him back and let the Florida cops pick him up at JFK. He pleads guilty if they agree to wave the death penalty and he spends his years in a federal pen of your choice. Otherwise, I assure you it will get ugly and we can't afford that. Neither of us."

"It's the only thing to do," agreed Dom, "you're a wise woman as always. Is there anything else?"

"Come down and visit some time, I'll make fresh Shrimp Fra Diavolo and Risotto."

"You were always my favorite Fabbi."

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The occasion was Nadia's twenty second birthday, and her first birthday without her mother so the family is compensating with a gathering around the pool on a warm Saturday afternoon. "I love it here," grinned Steve as he handed Fabbi and Nadia a tall, ice cold lemonade as they lounged on the patio. "In the UP in March I'd be shoveling the driveway, here I'm watching my garden bloom." He noticed the sideways glare he got from Nadia and amended that statement, "our garden."

"And how is work?" asked Fabbi as Steve got in a floating lounge chair and relaxed in the pool. Steve returned to the hospital for work in January and it's been a tough two months getting back up to speed but he's finally back in the groove of things.

"It's getting better, Nadia meets me at noon and we have lunch. Doctor Albertson said he's going to recertify me for home health care next month if I want."

"Do you want?"

"What do I want? I want Alfeo Gronchi's head on a silver platter and I want Nadia to be the happiest woman on earth. Nadia came over to the pool, leaned over and kissed her man.

"Hand me that platter and I will do anything you want." With a happy growl Steve pulled Nadia into his lap, upsetting the floating lounge and they both ended up in the water. They came to the surface kissing.

Anna and Emma came out of the house after changing into their swimsuits as Jeannie followed holding four month old Maria, and Derick took up position at the bar. As the sun set and the tiki torches were lit, Steve got out of the pool and started the grill. A hot Saturday Evening in Florida with family and friends, cold beer, burgers and dogs. Steve looked at the chrome serving platter next to the grill and was about to say something when a voice cried out, "EVERYBODY!"

Lisa jumped up and screamed, "TURN ON CNN!" Lisa was holding her phone to her ear and pleaded for everyone to hush.

Derick turned the TV to CNN just in time to see... "This is Ashley McKenzie live at JKF International Airport where this amazing arrest just took place."

The scene changed to show people coming out of customs at JKF and many being shuffled to the side by TSA agents. That's when Alfeo Gronchi could be seen exiting customs and walking toward the camera. Suddenly Bruce and two NYPD officers stepped up to Alfeo. The sound was a bit muffled but they could hear Bruce say, "Alfeo Gronchi, I'm Detective Leonard McLaren with the Vero Beach PD and I have an arrest warrant for you in the murder of Father Ewen MacCailein and two counts of Solicitation of Murder and two counts of facilitating murder in the deaths of Darlene Colella and Annamaria Anderson, furthermore the City of New York has opened up an inquiry into the death of Guiseppi D'Amato. You have the right to remain silent..."

As Bruce walked past the camera everyone was stunned, staring at the tv in silence. Then the scene went live and Ashley breathlessly announced "New York City developer Alfeo Gronchi has been arrested and is being charged with the murder of a beloved priest in Vero Beach Florida, and is also charged in connection with a shootout just blocks away from the church that left ten people dead and nearly half a dozen injured..."

Cheering went up as everybody was overwhelmed with relief, it's over! The fear of Alfeo Gronchi returning to finish the job was gone! "NADIA! DIDJA HEAR THE NEWS?"

Nadia turned in Steve's arms and saw Mrs. Weberman leaning out of her window. "Yes we did Mrs. Weberman! Come on over!" Several neighbors did come over and it became a very lively bash. It eventually attracted the attention of the Vero Beach PD who walked around the garage to see if this party was getting out of control.

Nadia did something that she never thought she would ever do, she threw her arms around the nearest cop and cried, "Thank you, thank you, thank you!"

"I'm just here to check out the noise, ma'am."

"Didn't you hear? The shoot out that was here last year, they just caught the guy!"

Steve continued to grill every burger and dog they had but he called out, "Lisa! Your friends want you!"

A fairly tipsy Detective Lisa McLaren explained the party to the officers as a celebration of her husband's starring role on CNN live. While she did that, Steve and Nadia took a cheeseburger over to Fabbi who remained in her chair with a wise smile on her face. Steve proffered the burger and said, "Thank you."

"I didn't do anything," she said as she took the burger and tried a dainty bite.

"You spoke to someone in the Gronchi family, didn't you," said Nadia.

"I had a lovely cup of tea with an old friend and invited him to come down and I would make him fresh Shrimp Fra Diavolo and Risotto." She smiled as she nibbled the burger. "I may have asked him to place a phone call. So do you two feel safe?"

"How long is Gronchi going to be in prison?"

"It shouldn't be too terribly long," said Fabbi as she lifted the bun and inspected the burger. "Word got out that Mister Gronchi named many Black Ridge names at his deposition and there appears to be some unrest in the Black Ridge members of the prison community." She looked up at a joyful Steve and Nadia with an innocent smile.

Steve put his arm around Nadia's narrow waist and said, "Thank you again Aunt Fabbi."

"It's Aunt Fabbi now? Not sis?" the matriarch asked.

"No, your niece and I are free to make plans for our future now. I think our familial relationship will change in the near future."

"We will talk more lovebirds, but for now, enjoy your victory