Page 51 of Axton
“That’s much easier than I tried to make it.” She giggled.
I took her coat and put it on the hanger before hanging it up. “You have your own bathroom.” I pointed at the other barn door then walked over toward the last door. “My bedroom is over there on the other side of the loft, but if you open this door there’s a second level balcony that wraps from one end of the house to the other. So, there’s two ways to access my room.”
“If it were warmer I’d likely enjoy sitting out there.” She said.
I was looking at that satin robe wishing she would take it off. “I can show you around downstairs. There’s some important features you should be aware of. I’ll have yours and Koty’s security clearance changed so that you can set my security system and be able to lock and unlock the doors.” She followed me downstairs. “It’s a simple kitchen. Fridge, dishwasher, gas stove. The pantry is here.” I slid the door open. “I don’t have much but I’ll stop by the commissary on my way home from work tomorrow. If you need anything in particular, just let me know. We can also order food from the mess hall. Care for a cold bottle of water?”
“Sure.” She was leaning against the counter, and I grabbed two bottles from the fridge and handed one to her. She was looking aroundthen looked at me. “For living somewhere so festive you don’t have anything like that here.”
I also leaned against the counter. “We didn’t celebrate Christmas much when I was growing up. I tried to make it nice for my sister, but we didn’t have much.”
“Where did you grow up?” She twisted the lid from her water.
“West Virginia, in the most poverty-stricken part of the state. We didn’t have much, and it was really just Kayla and I growing up.”
“Are your parents still living?” She asked.
I scratched my beard. “Yeah, my dad wasn’t a part of my life, but my mom lives close by with my sister. You’ll meet her and Kayla at some point. Mom works at a small café and bakery in Clarity, which is about thirty minutes from here, and Kayla is an attorney. She’s working under a few more experienced attorneys and still learning. You would really like Kayla, I think the two of you might have a lot in common.” They were both very innocent when it came to men.
She smiled. “I had what I considered friends back home, but I only associated with them during our Bible study. We didn’t gather and participate in any other kind of activities. I had a few when I went to elementary school. We played on the playground, and it was fun, but I was pulled out once I learned the bare minimum of what a woman would need to know. I could read and do basic math, but papa made an exception for me. I was able to homeschool through a program offered in Utah. He even saved some money to buy me a computer. My papa may have gotten a few things wrong, but he loved me. Obviously, he wasn’t the kind of father to chase me down and tickle me, he was a very old man when he was still fathering children, but when I was little I would sit on his lap, and he would read me some stories from the Bible. He liked to hold my hand and go for walks until he couldn’t do it anymore. He was good to Koty as well, but much harder on him at the same time. Koty never had much faith in my papa. Do you know where your dad is now?”
I almost snorted. “Yeah, he is in prison, actually, and he will never be released.”
“Do you visit him?” She asked.
I sighed. “I’m the one that put him there.”
She gasped.
“My dad is a very bad man, and he mistreated his family. He went to jail for abusing us, then did something terrible in prison and was sentenced to life with no chance of parole. I don’t care to ever see him again, but Kayla has made a few visits. I think it was more out of curiosity than anything. The world is a much safer place with him behind bars.”
“I’m sorry, Michael.” She generally looked concerned.
“I did better without him than if he was around, so I guess I got lucky. I was eight when he went away, and I didn’t need his influence to rise above my circumstances. If anything, he would have held me back.”
“Any other family?” She asked.
“I have grandparents in Charleston, two uncles, and a few cousins. They’re good people and they tried to be around for us, but things were rough. I never wanted anything to do with my dad’s family, they were as bad as him. Unfortunately, my dad was one of thirteen kids. I was related to most of the people who lived on that mountainside.”
Her brows lifted. “Does your grandmother have sister wives? That’s a lot of children.”
“No, they just didn’t understand birth control.”
“Oh, birth control. We have that practice as well.” She blushed a little.
“That practice? You mean condoms?”
She spoke but wouldn’t look at me as she did. “No, I mean natural birth control. We followed my ancestors’ laws. That kind of manmade foreign object placed inside a woman is a sin and very unhealthy. I saw something in a bathroom at my college once, and it was a machine selling them. I asked my older sister what it was, and she told mypapa. I was very embarrassed when he explained the sin and the definition of natural birth control. Relations between a man and his wife are only for the purpose of breeding. That’s one reason why men have so many wives. If he didn’t want to produce a child with a certain wife, he would go to one’s that he did want to produce one with. Women don’t have the same needs as men, and sometimes a woman needed a break between children. It’s not a recreational activity, it’s a duty for both men and women.”
Was she saying they avoided getting enjoyment out of sex? “I disagree, condoms are very healthy and necessary. One of the most important inventions ever. There are diseases and they help protect people, and they don’t make people sick.” Unless you were Patrick and got with a woman that suddenly became allergic, but I wouldn’t bring that up. “It’s also not just for…breeding.” That was a weird thing to feel I had to add.
She ignored my comment, and I loved the way she blushed. “Do you still speak to your grandparents?” She asked.
“I do, my grandpa is a dedicated Steelers fan, and he calls after he watches their games to complain. It’s football, and some people are diehard fans. I tell him I’m a Bengals fan just to get him worked up, but I’m actually more of a hockey guy. Magnus and Creed taught me between missions while we were in the service, and I got hooked. I’m actually a pretty good goalie. My grandma calls once a week to make sure I haven’t forgotten my manners and see if I’m eating healthy. Sometimes she calls because she read a news story about something that caught her attention. Just last week she wanted to warn me about using my bank card at gas pumps. I was surprised she just now caught on to that, but I played along and thanked her for letting me know.” The week before that she called to remind me that I was thirty-one and wasn’t married and had no children. Like that was something I’d forget somehow. I sure as hell wouldn’t tell Belle that, either.
“How old are you?” She took a seat at the kitchen island.
“I was thirty-one last month.”
