# Car 54

####
© 2005 / revised 2014
K Pelle

### Chapter 43:
Detour - Bridge Out

When we woke and found that the blizzard had blown itself out, we all rushed outside, then for several minutes, pandemonium had reigned as snowballs flew and we all expressed our relief. Eight very young people confined in a house for three days had been a trying situation.

I don't think anyone who hasn't lived through a raging blizzard while being isolated can understand what even a short period of confinement in close quarters can do to people. Nor would they know the feeling of elation that rushed through us that day when we were again able to go outside in relative safety. I think the youth and energy of our group was also a factor. Confining several emotion laden young people in a small space for three days was a near explosive situation. Thankfully four of us were well on our way toward adulthood and had managed to maintain some control of the situation.

Once everyone was outside and felt the freedom of fresh air, some of the excess emotions and over abundant energy just had to be burned off. Everyone grew loud and boisterous, then handfuls of snow started to fly as several of us tried to make snowballs using snow that was just too cold to clump into a ball. Soon we were creating a mini blizzard or our own, but it was mostly done in fun.

At one point though, I noticed that John was being smothered in a very lopsided snowball fight. It seemed that each of the younger girls was out to let him know that by cooperating they had him at their mercy. I think he was near panic when I called them off. At that point they had him on his back in a snow drift and were threatening to fill his britches with snow in order to cool him down. Up until then I don't think he had actually realized that his previous actions had been bothering anyone much. From the look on his face though, I could see that it had sunk in when he'd been almost buried in the snowbank. I kept an eye on him afterward and saw that he was being a lot more thoughtful and considerate to the girls than before, so I put my worries on that score aside for the time being.

After only a short time, being outside and fooling around in the snow seemed to pall for everyone, yet we wanted to do something besides hang around the house. I didn't get any arguments when I suggested that we eat breakfast, then tackle digging out and finding what we needed to do to re-establish some order in our lives. For one thing, I wanted to try to get the younger girls back to school and Lucille back to her job just as soon as possible.

I was standing on the porch and Sandy came up the steps to stand at my side as everyone trooped back indoors after beating and brushing themselves clean of snow.

"Did you want something?" I asked her.

"Unh huh. Just a second," Sandy said very quietly as we waited for Jess and Jean, to follow the others inside.

"You guys coming in or not?" Jean asked.

"In a bit. You go ahead," Sandy waved at her.

"What's up?" I asked Jean grinned as she waved a hand and closed the door behind her.

"Nothing really. I just wanted to be with you and away from everyone else for a bit," she sighed. "I think the cabin is going to be lovely when it's all done, but it needs doors with locks on the bedrooms. With six other people in the house besides us, it was starting to feel small and crowded."

"Oh," I chuckled. "Well, I've bought and paid for the doors, but they haven't come in yet. The lumber yard has them on order though."

"Well, the thought counts for something I guess, but they aren't doing us a darn bit of good wherever they are," she laughed and wrapped an arm around me.

"Should I get a couple of gate hinges and a piece of plywood to put up on the bedroom doorway tonight then?" I kidded her.

"Only if this goes on much longer," she chortled, then stepped away and punched me. "Let's go out to the barn and see the horses while the others make breakfast."

So I stuck my head inside the door to tell the others we were off to the barn for a few minutes. Then we waded through the snow to see how the horses and cattle in the main barn had fared overnight. Sandy really wasn't that interested in them; what she wanted was to snuggle close while no one else was around.

"It's just not the same with so many people around watching our every move," she sighed, wrapped tightly in my arms. "Don't you feel crowded?"

"Yeah, but I've felt crowded ever since Matt and John moved into the cabin," I grinned at her and kissed her nose. "If anything, having you gals around has taken some of the pressure off of me."

"How can you possibly say that?"

"Easy, I haven't had to dig everyone up little jobs all the time. Instead everyone has been working like beavers at anything we did, just so no one would be bored. We've done a lot of labour intensive crud in the last few days."

"Well, it was either that or kill each other," Sandy laughed. "The four Js were about driving me nuts."

"The four Jays? Oh, you mean Jasmine, John and your sisters? I didn't notice them being all that bad."

"That's because you and Matt would go out at the same time. That's when they'd raise hell."

"Well, you could have said something to us."

"I was going to ... this morning, but the blizzard had eased off, so I'm telling you now."

"Okay," I sighed. "I guess we'd better go eat, then we can start digging our way out of this mess. The sooner we get started, the faster you can all go back to town."

"Well, if it was just you and I, I wouldn't mind sticking around, but the girls need to be in school and Lucille has her job."

I just nodded and took her hand to head back to the house.

Digging out was not an easy task. That first morning, I took my new snowmobile and surveyed the job ahead of us. The level portions were relatively easy, but some of the areas on the grade climbing out of the valley were drifted full of snow and I knew that they were going to be tough to clear. The problem wasn't getting at the snow; getting rid of it was the tough part. The worst problem was that the deepest drifts were in the narrowest sections of the roadway.

Luckily we had brought Dad's little D4 Caterpillar tractor up to the ranch to backfill all the trenches and level the soil around the new construction. Since it ran on crawler tracks, snow wasn't a problem, and since we'd mounted the front end scoop to handle soil, it was set up fairly well for snow. The only problem was that after a short time on that old seat, the driver was cold as blazes. To keep the operator warm we devised a heater with a few pieces of wood bolted to the hood as spacers, then a small canvas tarp, which redirected the warm air from the engine back to the operator's seat. The wood kept the tarp away from moving parts and the tarp was tied down tightly, so it wouldn't get into anything.

Because that old cat rode so rough and since I also had the old International tractor with a front-end loader on it, we split up. Matt took over the job of clearing the road, but John was willing to give him a break, so they planned to take turns driving the crawler. Meanwhile, I got the old International started and began cleaning up around the yard and the corrals. The girls dug in and helped too, finding shovels and clearing areas I couldn't get at, especially around the cabin and the vehicles.

Both my pickup and my Jeep started easily, but Lucille's car and mine were a different matter. They seemed to dislike the cold and the battery in her car was low. I tried boosting the car, but it still didn't want to start, so I told her we'd charge the battery and plug in her block heater as soon as we had hydro. As for my car, I wasn't too worried. It could sit for a while. Besides, there was nowhere to drive anyway because the road up the hill was still blocked by deep drifts.

Even with everyone working on the task, it took most of three days to reach the section of road that the hydroelectric company had plowed in order to be able to repair their downed power line. We'd known they'd plowed the road even before we got the ranch road completely clear, because our power came on during the second afternoon of the calm spell. The telephone started to ring not much later.

Once the power was on, I'd plugged in an extension cord to connect Lucille's car's block heater and had also put her battery on charge. Then in the morning, once we got the engine started, I had John put the chains that I'd bought for my car on Lucille's rear tires. That way we were almost ready to leave by the time the road was clear, and it wasn't long before we were on our way to town. I lead the way in the pickup with Sandy and Jasmine riding along, while Lucille followed in her car with the twins, as well as Matt and John as passengers. Once we were down to the main road, I swung right to take Jasmine home, but instead of following me, Lucille turned left and headed straight for town. I wasn't worried by that, although there was snow on the road, it wasn't deep and what was there hadn't turned to ice yet from heavy traffic.

We dropped Jasmine off at Uncle Tom's house, then went home and saw my folks for a short while before we followed Lucille toward town. Once Sandy was dropped off at her house, I picked up the guys and headed downtown. They wanted some better winter clothing, and I wanted both groceries and fuel for the tractors. However, we didn't want to waste time because it would be dark soon, so we wanted to be back at the ranch to do the chores. I was feeling edgy too, probably a bit worried because we were all away and if another storm blew in, there'd be no one there to look after things.

It turned out that I needn't have worried. We were back in time to do the chores at last light, then I cooked supper, which felt strange since there were no girls around. That evening, the cabin felt empty with only the three guys there and my bed felt even emptier.

The next day, early in the afternoon, Dad and Mom showed up with all on the interior doors in the back of Dad's pickup and they were followed by Mark Jackson, the surveyor who'd been working for the Hydro Electric Company in the summer. Dad had hired him to see how much trouble it would be to run in a road between our places on our own land or else find a way to climb the cliffs on a road that wouldn't drift in so badly. I felt he was throwing money away, but reserved judgement. Besides, I thought the winter was a stupid time to do any surveying.

I was wrong.

Mark wanted to do the job after a blizzard like the one we'd just had so he could see the drift patterns of the snow. He didn't plan to spend a lot of time surveying, he was just assessing the job in the winter so his work in the spring would be based on what he'd seen beforehand. That idea did make sense to me.

So Mark stayed with us for two days and I lent him my snowmobile to get around. At the end of those two days, he handed me a sketch of the cliff and the hillside above it. The sketch illustrated that if I planted several hedges of drought tolerant bushes or temporarily put up snow fences along the lines he'd drawn on the map, I'd break up the drift pattern of snow. He thought the hedges would cut the deposited drifts by as much as seventy-five percent. Then if I could raise the road surface by cutting a ditch on each side that was at least four feet wide and two feet deep and use the soil from the ditches as fill to raise the road surface I'd be able to reduce that even more. He threw around figures in the range of seventy to eighty percent less drifting for the majority of the worst areas.

"You've gotta be kidding me," I stared at him in astonishment.

"Nope. If you go up on the edge of the plateau above the valley, you can see how the trees are shaped by the wind. It must blow through here from the west or else the northwest most of the time."

I nodded, but didn't say a word.

"Okay, then all you need to do is put up a break to that wind and make it either lift or slow down. Hedges along those lines will do that and if you put in an application with the District Agriculturist, and show him this drawing, he'll be able to get you a discount to buy 'Caragana' plants from Bowden Nurseries. You'll have to pick them up and plant them yourself, but they won't cost a lot. In fact looking at the amount of snow you had to move in the last few days, I think you'd pay for that cost in one winter," Mark grinned. "I don't know why I'm telling you this. I think I just talked myself out of a cushy job in the spring."

"Oh, I think Dad still wants you to have a look at the drop off with the idea of running a road down it," I shrugged. "He seems to think we need a secondary route, just in case."

"Well, to be honest, I looked at that job too. The grade is really too darn steep. The terrain must drop more than five hundred feet in less than two or three thousand. That's darn steep terrain to run any kind of road on. It could be done, but a lot of soil and rock would have to be moved and that would mean blasting in some areas, Even then there'd probably need to be a switchback or two in the road to keep the grades down to anything reasonable."

"Don't tell me, tell Dad," I lifted my hands as if to ward him off and grinned. "He's the one with the bee in his bonnet."

"Yes, I'd best go talk to him now," he laughed as he headed for his pickup. "Thanks for the use of your snowmobile and the place to stay. When you get it done, this house is going to be great."

Within the hour of Mark leaving us, a chinook arch appeared on the horizon. Two hours later the temperature had risen from deep freeze to full melt. Then an hour after that, Sandy, Jess and Jean drove down the hill in a year old Jeep Wagoneer. It looked like a station wagon, seemed twice as big as my old CJ5, and although it was only three years newer, it made mine look ancient.

"What do you think of my new car?" Sandy bubbled as she bounced out of driver's door and threw her arms around me in a hug. "Frank hunted it up for me so I could come visit you every weekend."

"That's great. And your car looks nice, but darn expensive."

"Oh, it wasn't that bad," she laughed and wriggled against me. "You're holding a working woman. I'm Frank's new secretary/receptionist, so I got the Jeep at his cost."

She took a deep breath then and her expression sobered.

"The insurance on Dad's car came through, so the Js and I wanted something that would be comfortable, but had four wheel drive. Whether you know it or not, we love it out here," Then she changed the subject. "And what have you been doing for excitement?"

"Well, you'll be happy to know that the bedroom has a door," I grinned. "On top of that, Mark Jackson, the surveyor, was out here for a few days and he showed me a possible method to control the drifting on the road down the hill."

"Oh, how would you do that?"

So, I took her inside to show her the drawings that Mark had left with me and showed her the other work we'd done around the house. In the three days she and the girls had been away, we'd not only put doors on the bedrooms, but we had the upper floor of the addition almost finished. All the painting was done. The tiles were all installed on the walls of the upstairs bathrooms and we'd even whipped together bed frames for the beds in the spare bedrooms. They were awkward to move around, but they were functional. We'd set one bedroom up for John to stay in, because although he'd never had a room of his own before, he found he liked being by himself. That way we could start to work on the farm office where he had been sleeping.

The next two days were great. Lucille showed up on Saturday morning and stayed until Sunday night, which made Matt quite happy. Yet, for some reason I felt that the girls all seemed slightly reserved, almost as if they were waiting impatiently for something to happen. The only time they relaxed was when Tom showed up and spent the evening with us on Saturday night, but everything quieted down again after he'd left. When Lucille went back to town, the twins went with her, but Sandy stayed behind for an extra night. It was after we went to bed that I found out the reason.

"Chris, we've got to talk," she said as she snuggled against me.

For some reason a chill ran down my spine, but I think I managed to hide it. Instead I hugged her close and kissed her forehead since she was snuggled so tight against me that I couldn't reach much else.

"I'm listening. Just what do you want to talk about?"

"Well, you know I've been on the pill since early this spring, don't you?"

"Yes."

"And, I've been taking it faithfully every darn day."

"Okay."

"Well, my period is more than three weeks late, so I went to see Dr. McGraths about it on Friday morning. Neither he, nor the doctors in Calgary warned me, but some of the medications I was on after the accident could have affected the pill. Now, there isn't anything positive yet, but I could be pregnant. Dr. McGraths sent off a blood sample and we'll know in a week or two, but he did warn me that all the trauma I've gone through in the last while could cause me to miss a period," she sniffed and seemed to try to snuggle even closer. "Now you might get annoyed at this, but if I am pregnant, I'm not trying to force you to marry me. Instead, I want to wait. I love you, but I don't want you to feel forced to marry me or anyone else."

"Now wait a minute," I growled, getting annoyed despite trying to hold my temper. "If I got you pregnant and you have a kid, I want to be that kid's father."

"Oh, I'd never try to prevent that," she sniffed. "I think you'll be a great daddy one day. A lot better than mine ever was. I just don't want to have what my Mom and Dad wanted to have happen come to pass. I refuse to insist that you marry me if I am pregnant."

"And what if I want to marry you anyway?" I chortled, seeing a funny side to all of this. "Besides, if you are pregnant and I didn't marry you, I'd look like a schmuck. You need to realize right now that the woman who's in my bed is not the same ditsy teenager that I took out on a date in June. In the last four months you've changed a tremendous amount."

"I know that," she sniffled, then lifted her head and tried to smile through her tears. "I also know that you still have a thing for Carissa and she feels the same way about you."

"What?" I stared at her.

"Oh she does, but she has Jackie too."

"Hell, I've hardly seen Carissa since the accident," I snorted.

"Oh, Chris," Sandy sighed heavily. "Carissa thinks you're the best thing since sliced bread and to be honest, so does Jackie."

Then she broke into a grin. "You seem to have that effect on women. Look at poor Lucille."

"Lucille?" I frowned at her. "Lucille is jumping Matt's bones."

"Not hardly," Sandy laughed aloud. "They haven't had sex. They just cuddle."

"You're kidding me, right?"

"Unh uh. Matt knows she's carrying a torch for you and although he'd love to ask her to marry him, she made it plain that he's got no chance of that. So, since he's so strongly religious, they aren't doing anything except letting their fingers do the walking. However, Lucille chose that way to do things rather than sleep with you anymore. She's still hung up on the incest thing, even though she knows that biologically, she isn't related to you."

All I could do was stare at her. I really didn't know what to say.

"Now, that's three more reasons why I don't want to force you to marry me," she sighed softly.

"Look, I like all three of them, but I feel a lot more comfortable and a lot closer to you," I sighed then. "Besides, I'm one of those guys who feels obligated to marry a girl if I got her pregnant."

"Well, if I'm pregnant, you've got a problem then," she broke into giggles.

"What do you mean?"

"Jackie is definitely pregnant and while Carissa loves her to pieces, she's also jealous as hell."

"Oh migawd," I groaned. "But Jackie and I only ..."

"Unh huh, I know. You were golfing."

"I was golfing?"

"Yep, you got a hole in one," she giggled again. "At least with me, you took your time and played the whole course."

"Sandy, this is not funny."

"I know, but I've got to laugh or else I'll cry," she kissed me then. "You know the strange thing is that what Mom wanted is happening, only it's not in BC with old men. It's here in Alberta with a young stud."

"Jeez, what am I going to tell my folks? Mom warned me to use condoms."

"You don't even have to tell her. She knows already."

"What?"

"Unh huh. Jackie and Carissa told her when they were stuck down there during the blizzard. Jackie didn't want to tell you, but when I talked to your Mom today in the doctor's office, she suggested that I tell you about both of us."

"Mom knows?"

"Unh huh, and I don't think she's really upset either. In fact she hugged me so tight I thought I'd burst."

"Oh cripes," I just shook my head.

"Oh by the way, you can't say anything to Jackie yet, okay. She likes you a lot, but she loves Carissa and the Coulters. John and Wilma have promised her that they'll treat her baby like it was their grandchild and will support her just as if she was one of their own girls," Then Sandy got very serious. "The unfortunate thing is going to be the fact that the gossips around town are going to go crazy, especially if I'm pregnant too."

"So Jackie wants to raise the baby by herself and not have it know I'm its father?"

"Oh no!" she shook her head from side to side quite vigorously. "She likes you a lot, she just doesn't love you as much as she does Carissa. She's going to want you to be involved too."

"This is crazy," I shook my head slowly. "What in hell am I going to do?"

"I'm not done yet," Sandy pulled away from me and sat upright, turning to face me. "Your Mom talked me into going with her to the hospital after we left the doctor's office and you might be annoyed about it, but she told Grampa Bender everything."

"Oh migawd. Why did she do that?"

"Because you're like he used to be," she snickered and ran a hand across my chest. "Your great-uncle, Toby, had more than one woman who used to visit him, even after he married Matilda. None of the women admitted it to others and none of them raised a stink about it with him, but he thinks he was the father of four kids. However none of those kids were his and Tilly's. Why do you think he was so supportive of your father and mother when you came along?"

I just stared at her again. I really didn't know what to say.

"Oh by the way, one of those women that loved your Grampa is still alive and you've talked to her."

"I have?"

"Unh huh, Leila MacArthur, the woman who breeds dogs. She still comes to see him in the hospital, you know. I think if Toby really wanted to, she'd love to have him move in and live with her."

"Holy Cripes."

"Unh huh," she grinned and her hand started heading south. "Now all this talk about you men and your harem of willing women has gotten me going. Since I'm still on the pill and off of all those medications, sex should be safe, whether I'm pregnant or not. Could we, please?"

It took a while for her to get me to get into the mood, but she accomplished the task.

After Sandy left the next morning to go to work, and after I knew Beth would have left for school, I drove down home to talk to Mom and Dad. They'd just finished the chores and were going inside when I got there. To my astonishment Mom looked at me and grinned, shaking her head slowly.

"Well, I can see that Sandy finally said something to you," she came over to me and hugged me. "But, what's happened isn't the end of the world you know. In fact, in some ways we've been expecting it."

"But ..."

"Shh," she lifted a finger to my lips. "Neither one of the girls is unhappy about being pregnant, so get that out of your head to start with. Actually, if you know anything about Mormons, the girls in families that practise polygyny normally are pregnant at fourteen or fifteen so neither of them are exactly surprised. The fact that they both managed to get pregnant so quickly was more than they expected, especially Jackie, but it's exactly what they were raised to expect."

"And Chris, we aren't upset," Dad added when Mom paused for a breath. "Although I did expect that Corinna and Wil would beat you to giving us grandchildren. I'll be honest, I don't think they'll be far behind you though."

"You should have heard Wilma Coulter when she found out about Jackie though," Mom grinned. "She's almost as bad as Carissa."

"Huh?"

"Carissa is jealous of Jackie and when she finds out about Sandy, she's going to curse a blue streak," Mom shook her head slowly. "I simply do not understand that young woman. She wants to walk both sides of the street."

"Unh huh," I agreed. "Unfortunately, I found out that she's also bossy and manipulative."

"So you're not interested in her at all," Dad grinned.

"No, I can't say that either," I sighed. "Right at the moment I don't know what I feel about any one of them."

"Well, of all four of them, the one I like most is the least likely to be with you," Mom nodded pushing me into a seat at the kitchen table and handing me a mug of coffee. "Lucille is trying to put a brave face on things, but she has a real crush on you and I really like her."

"But we've never ..."

"Chris, she loves you. Period. End of statement. Okay?" Mom snapped. "A woman doesn't need constant sex to make her love someone. Unfortunately, she still thinks of you as her cousin. On top of that she knows that Sandy loves you. She feels too old for you. She knows that you're the father of Jackie's unborn child. And she likes all of your girls, even Carissa."

"Oh cripes," I sighed.

"Oh, Chris, quit being a worry wart," Mom leaned over and rested a hand on mine. "There are a lot of guys in this world who'd envy you. And, since Uncle Toby has given you control of the ranch, you aren't exactly a homeless vagrant who can't support a few children."

I was left speechless again.

Actually I was in a daze until the end of that week. I functioned, but not well. I just couldn't seem to wrap my head around the fact that four gorgeous young women wanted to be involved with me in one way or another. Somehow I'd handled Carissa and Sandy during the summer and had even grown to like Jackie in the short time I'd known her, but adding, first Lucille and then at least one pregnancy to the mix, threw me out of kilter completely.

On Thursday morning, Dad called and asked me if he could 'borrow' Matt and John for a few days to help him out with rearranging the equipment in his new implement shed. I lent them my car and they were gone by noon.

I'd hardly had a chance to start feeling lonely because the cabin was so empty, when I heard a car drive up. When I got to the door, Lucille threw a bag on the floor, then launched herself into my arms.

"Unh, Hi," I managed to say, then I was smothered in a kiss.

A moment or two later she pulled back and grinned.

"Hi, yourself," she giggled then and rubbed her belly vigorously against mine. "I give up and I'm giving in to my base urges. Aunt Liz called me at work and let me know that I had you to myself for the night and I use an IUD, so you can't get me pregnant like everyone else."

"Huh?"

"Oh quit playing dumb. You want to screw me just as much as I want you, so get real. Let's go up to bed and later on I'll cook your supper in order to give you more energy for later tonight."

"Well, I thought you were ..."

"You thought wrong. Grampa Bender talked some sense into me. Love and sex don't always mean marriage. Now, are you going to screw me or not?"

My body took over. My big head knew that I might be making a mistake, but right then, my little head ruled. She wasn't that big and I was aroused. I flipped her body over my shoulder and carried her upstairs in a fireman's carry, then tossed her on my bed. My clothes went flying and so did hers. By the time I dove onto the bed to join her, we were both nude. Then we did what we'd each wanted since the day we'd met.

Afterward, as we both lay side by side, gasping for breath, she broke into giggles.

"Wha's funny," I managed to blurt.

"Shh," she gasped, still giggling softly. "Talk later."

"'kay" I mumbled and pulled her against me.

I think I dozed off then, but I awakened to find her tracing a finger along my jaw. When she saw my eyes open, she rested a finger on my lips.

"Aunt Liz has decided that you and I should get married, that way I really will be a member of the Bender clan," she announced with a grin.

"But ..."

"Shh. I told you to be quiet," she grinned, sliding all her fingers over my mouth. "The first thing you should know is that Sandy isn't pregnant. Secondly, neither is Jackie. I argued with Aunt Liz that I was too old for you and she shot me down. Then I argued about what people would say about my being related to you and she just laughed at me, telling me that everyone that mattered had been told I was an adopted child. She said no one else mattered. By the way, Gramps thinks it's a wonderful idea."

"Gramps?"

"Yeah, Grampa Bender to you," she kissed me on the nose. "And, I give up on trying to keep you quiet. All you do is ask dumb questions, but I'll listen and answer you if I can."

"What about the girls?" I frowned.

"Well, Gramps thinks all of them are walking time bombs," she giggled. "But while I agree with him, I'll also admit that they're all really sexy time bombs. He did warn me that I might not be the only mother to your children though. He says you're too much like he was when he was your age."

"But ... what about the pregnancies? Sandy sounded so certain."

"Sandy was just late. Jackie is another matter. They think there might be some complications from the accident. She's been booked into the University hospital in Edmonton in a few weeks so she can be checked out," Lucille got a distant look in her eyes. "In a way, I'm worried about both of those two. The way their parents raised them, they're not really normal. Sandy was raised to be a mantrap and her whole life was calculated toward ensnaring you into one form of marriage or another. On the other hand, Jackie is simply an unenlightened and inexperienced young woman. Her parents intentionally kept her innocent of the world to the point where she doesn't understand many of the complications of life."

"And what's your opinion of Carissa?"

"Well, she's likeable and darn smart, but at the same time, she's almost dictatorial and quite a devious schemer. Surprisingly, I like her the best of all three of them, but it's not that I don't like the other two. It's just that she's got something special about her that appeals to people in some primitive fashion. There aren't any words for her appeal. It's visceral."

"So what am I supposed to do about the three of them, if you and I are to be involved?" I asked.

"Well for now, whenever they're in bed with you, I want you to wear a condom," she laughed and rolled on top of me. "After we're married, you can get all of them pregnant for all I care."

"So, is this your way of proposing marriage?" I grinned at her as she wriggled until my growing hard-on was positioned between her thighs.

"Unh huh, but you could say it's an arranged marriage," she brought her left hand up and showed me a ring on her third finger. "Grampa Toby gave me Gramma Tilly's engagement ring and said to tell you that he'd hold her wedding ring for you until our wedding day."

I just grinned, then grabbed her waist and pressed her body toward my feet as I heaved my hips upward.

"So," Lucille grunted, then relaxed and managed to smile. "Is that hard lump poking me in the lower belly a sign that you're going to tell me yes?"

"Nope, it isn't. That's simply my body's reaction. After all, I'm a sixteen-year-old guy, and my body is showing its appreciation for a sexy twenty-two-year-old woman who wanted sex and demanded to be taken to bed."

"What do you mean?" she stiffened and pressed her upper body more upright, then supported herself on her elbows.

"Well, in the first place, you're jumping to conclusions on a basis of only part of the facts. In the second place, you're attempting to make binding decisions for me, but basing them on your point of view, not mine. In the third place, Mom is interfering in my life once more," I spoke quietly but forcefully. "I'll tell you right now that I don't like any one of those things, not even a little bit. I'm getting very tired of women trying to run my life and I'm not about to stand for it any longer. From now on any decisions that affect my life strongly are going to be made by yours truly and no one else."

"But ..."

"Lucille, be quiet for a moment and let me speak," I growled, interrupting her. "Just because Sandy isn't pregnant doesn't change my feelings about her. It doesn't change the fact that I have feelings toward the other two young women either. On top of that, although you and Mom may have wrapped your heads around the fact that you were adopted, I really haven't come to grips with it. And, before you argue about it, yes, we did just have sex, but part of the thrill of doing that is the basic hint of incest. Even sleeping in the same bed as you gives me erotic feelings. It seems as if we're breaking or at least bending the law and that seems slightly obscene in some way or another."

I paused for a moment and she was about to speak, but I looked her in the eye and shook my head.

"Then too, I still don't know you well enough to trust you implicitly," I added quietly. "I spent years thinking of you as a snotty little bitch, so part of the thrill of having you around is a sense of risk. I've really only known you for a little more than a month, but I've known Sandy and Carissa for years. Your father and his cohorts took advantage of us for years and mentally I still have a hard time thinking of you in any other terms than as someone who rode to wealth on our backs. Whenever you act kindly toward me or my friends, I find myself looking for a reason that you're doing it. It's almost as if I'm wondering if you're planning to take advantage of our trust or something. I can't help that; it's the way I am. I guess I'm simply not an exceptionally trusting person."

"But your Mom and even Uncle Toby have learned to trust me. I mean, Uncle Toby even gave me Aunt Tilly's ring," she protested, vehemently.

"Ah, yes, the ring," I nodded and sighed. "Grampa Bender had that ring on a rawhide cord around his neck for years. I'd be willing to bet when he took it off, he left it on that cord and actually told you to give the whole thing to me, didn't he?"

"Uh, well, yeah. When he gave it to me it was on a leather cord, but the cord stank and ..." her nose curled, then she frowned as her voice slowly lost volume.

"Unh huh. It probably did. After all, he'd worn that thing around his neck for years," I managed not to grin at the thought of her holding the cord and smelling the odour of years of Grampa Bender's stale sweat. "However, he didn't tell you to take that cord off and put the ring on your finger, did he?"

"No," she admitted very quietly. "He told me to give the whole thing to you. Then he told me I should take you to bed and prove I was a woman. He said that if you were smart you'd make the right choice."

"That's what I thought. I think the point he was making to you was that the choice was mine, and then it was your choice to accept or reject what I decided. I don't think Grampa Bender would have tried to dictate something like that to either one of us."

"Yeah, I guess I fucked up," she admitted, using her right hand to slip the ring off, then handed it to me.

"Thank you," I surprised myself and managed to say it without smiling, then I reached over and set the ring on the night-stand beside the bed.

"I didn't even throw the cord away. It's in a plastic bag in my purse."

"The cord isn't important to me."

"It is to me, because it was important to Uncle Toby," she sniffled. "I'm sorry I screwed up."

Then, she flopped down against my chest and began to quietly cry, so I simply held her and let her cry herself out. She actually fell asleep lying fully on top of me and at first, I was surprised, then I decided that I liked the idea. I realized that if she fell asleep in such a vulnerable position, it meant she was comfortable, but it also meant that she trusted me. I decided that I really liked that.

I slid one hand to the middle of her back and the other hand down to cover one cheek of her butt, then relaxed myself. I had some thinking to do and it seemed like a very good time to do any thinking I might want to do.

First, I had to decide on a way to get Mom to keep her nose out of my love life. It seemed to me that she was changing her mind about who was the most suitable woman in my life on almost a weekly basis. On top of that, she'd decided I was some sort of reincarnation of Grampa Bender, but I knew that wasn't true either.

Second, I had to let everyone around me know that I wasn't in any rush to get married. After all, even though I'd been declared a legal adult, that didn't mean I was willing to settle down and get married. I felt I was too young to be saddled with a wife and kids, and I wanted to do a lot of things before I got married, most of which involved education of one kind or another. Mostly, I wanted to take several courses about farming and ranching, but I still had a niggling urge to know more about electronics.

Third, I decided that it might be an idea to buy a large supply of condoms and remind myself to use them at all times. I did not want to go through the worry about unwanted pregnancies that I'd suffered earlier in the week, not at any time in the future. I reasoned that it wasn't up to the women I was involved with to protect themselves, in fact after the two scares I'd had, I wasn't certain I trusted them to do that. Entrapment by way of pregnancy was too damn easy.

Fourth, I decided I'd been too trusting in many ways. I seemed to have a blind spot where women were concerned. I didn't want to become a misogynist, but at the same time, I didn't feel I should give my trust as easily as I had been either.

I sighed deeply at that thought and disturbed Lucille, who woke from her nap. She surprised me by smiling slightly.

"Umm, I like this, lying in bed with you, I mean," she murmured softly and wriggled slightly. "Unfortunately I need the bathroom and we didn't pull up the covers, so the cheek of my butt that your hand isn't covering is cold."

"But ..." I frowned, wondering at the change in her reactions.

"I've been awake for a few minutes, so I watched your face and I know you've been thinking," she announced. "I want to know what you've decided, but I really need the can right now. Just wait, I'll be back and you can tell me about it."

With that, she pushed my hands away and rolled out of bed. As she ran across the floor to the master bathroom, I got the urge to go as well, but since the cabin now had three bathrooms, that was no problem. Lucille was back in bed and snuggled under the covers when I returned. She smiled widely this time and lifted the blankets to invite me back to bed, then snuggled tightly against me.

I stared at her in surprise. She simply wasn't reacting like I'd expected her too. I wasn't complaining, but I'd expected her to get angry and I certainly hadn't expected her to be cuddly.

"What is going on with you? I thought you'd be disappointed or even angry with me," I said quietly.

"No," she sighed. "I was disappointed at first, but when you were talking it dawned on me that I didn't know you any more than you know me. I was always taught that your side of the family was silly to stay on the farm, but at the same time I knew how much the money from the farm meant to everyone. Now that I've been getting to know you, I'm ashamed of my parents and that whole group. I can understand exactly what you mean about feeling they were acting like leeches and I even sympathize with you not being able to fully trust me yet."

"That quickly?"

"Oh, come on. It hasn't been all that quickly at all," Lucille snapped as she lifted her head to stare down at me. "I moved away from home almost two years ago because I didn't want to live with a control freak. Then when I moved from Calgary and took a job in the local hospital, I literally got disowned by the old prick."

She sighed then and flopped down, but pulled away from me slightly, then I could see tears come to her eyes. "I think subconsciously, I even tried to use the bastard's own techniques in order to get you to marry me. When I think about it, I was pushy and overbearing, so it's no wonder you're having a hard time trusting me."

"So, is that why you wanted me back in bed with you, to try to convince me that I was wrong?"

"Nope," she said flatly, then slowly her face twisted into a grin.

"What is it your reason then?"

"Well, I have an ulterior motive. Cuddling in bed with you is great, but sex with you is wonderful. And, you're probably right, part of what makes it great is that deliciously naughty feeling that we're family. Even though I know it really isn't true, it feels like we're committing incest. It adds a certain spice to the act of screwing each other," she broke into giggles then. "You can call it weird and twisted if you want, but in some ways I hope that feeling never stops."

"Never?" I grinned at her, reaching out and caressing her gently under the covers.

"Never!" she grinned back. "Not until both of us are old and helpless. The only other thing I want from you is a promise that I have a chance to do it for a long, long time."

Then she paused and frowned. "I think I'm going to make a pact with Sandy and Carissa."

"Oh, what sort of pact?" I was frowning now.

"Just that no matter who you marry, the other women in your life won't be shut out," she smiled slowly. "I'm like your Mom and Uncle Toby, I think you're a natural born polygynist and I don't think we should fight it."

"I think I'm just young and taking advantage of all the willing women who've been throwing themselves at me," I laughed aloud.

"Well, catch me then," she giggled and rolled toward me.

So I caught her, and tried my best to show my approval of her change in attitude.

### Chapter 44