Kara's View of Autumn Read online

  Roger altered the pattern, mildly smacking Kara’s bottom three or four times, then diverting to another gentle massage, the fondling growing more intimate and lengthy as the spanking play progressed. All the while, Kara responded with moans, soft laughter and wiggles of the bottom that had come to possess a pink glow.

  Sensing that Kara’s arousal was nearing a crescendo, and knowing that his was, Roger applied six gentle smacks, then began a serious session of deep caresses, his fingertips lingering and teasing until he moved to kneel behind her to violate the final phase of the joking, fake promise.

  It was mid-morning when Kara and Roger looked at each other with a smile as well as an unspoken recognition that it was time for them to get cleaned up and ready to check out of the hotel.

  Kara sighed and shook her head. “I have had so much fun this weekend. I got the tongue……I got vibrated……I even got spanked. And I loved it all.”

  Roger kissed her. “And I loved it all, as well.” Kara could see his expression change. “Kara……do you trust my judgment?”

  “Roger……of course I do. Why? What do you want to do to me next?”

  “I’m being serious right now.”

  “Ahhh. So was I.”

  “Kara…..!”

  “Okay, what is it?”

  “I want you to ask for full surveillance for a while, until we know that Dan Harlow is not an imminent threat.”

  “My Lover……I can handle it okay.”

  Roger signed. “That’s whet you said a week before Scott Candrun tried to get you.”

  “But, he didn’t get me. And now he’s locked away for a long time.”

  Roger shook his head. “You were offered extra protection that time, and you turned it down. This thing with Harlow just seems too similar. I want you to take the security.”

  Kara sat up in bed. “And I tell, you I don’t need it.”

  Roger joined her in sitting up. “Why do you always have to be so stubborn when it comes to threats?”

  Kara turned and smiled at him. “Look…..I love it that you’re so concerned for my safety. But Harlow has not made a single threat. He never has.”

  Roger leaned his head back against the headboard, then closed his eyes and shook his head again. “I know, but you’re being very literal here. I heard all about how everybody in that courtroom saw how he looked at you with that hate in his eyes….and how his eyes followed you when you left the courtroom. And don’t forget…..he assaulted a cop once for charging that crazy wife of his with drunk driving. That cop was twice his size, and Harlow was sober at the time.”

  “But….it all turned out alright with Candrun.”

  “Only because your security alarm went off. If you had accepted the deputies being in place, he would never have gotten that far. He got too close to you.”

  “Of all people, you know that when you work with criminals, this type of thing is part of the package.”

  “Kara……cops know when to call for back-up. Now today, why didn’t you just charge into that house?”

  “There was a child.”

  “That’s the only reason?”

  “Yes.”

  “You scare me. You really, really scare me.”

  Kara leaned over with an exaggerated pout. “How can I scare you? I’m just this little naked blonde woman…….”.

  Roger closed his eyes and sighed. “I’m trying to be serious.”

  She leaned over and kissed him on the chest. “But Lover…….Kara just wants to play…..”.

  Kara and Roger had lunch at the hotel restaurant after checking out, and then drove on to a casino. Having spent so much time at the hotel, they had to cut their time there short, but it was certain that neither minded. They gambled for a while, and then checked into the casino hotel late in the evening, and both fell promptly asleep.

  When morning came, in spite of the curtains being drawn, some sunlight crept into the room. Roger gently lay back down next to Kara, who was sleeping with the sheet down to the small of her back. Her eyes slowly opened and she woke to see Roger gazing at her.

  She yawned and smiled. “What are you looking at?”

  He smiled back at her and ran his hand over her bareback. “I understand one of the reasons your son-in-law married Susan.”

  Kara laughed. “Okay……you have me. What is this about?”

  Roger drew her close and kissed her. “I have always been told that if you want to know what a woman will look like in the future, look at her mother.”

  Kara gasped in mock indignation. “In other words…when she gets old.”

  Roger shook his head vigorously. “No, no. When she matures.”

  “You’re trying hard, but I think you’ve just stepped in it.”

  Roger uttered a theatrical moan. “How can I make amends?”

  Kara giggled. “Perform. Perform right now. You’ve had time to recharge, my mature man.”

  Roger poured each of them cups of coffee brought by room service, then motioned to the window that now had the curtain drawn away. Their room overlooked a wooded area behind the hotel. “I suppose you’re enjoying the fall colors?”

  “Yeh….it’s that time of year. The autumn colors will soon call me back to nature. Even when I was a kid, I was fascinated by the change of colors in the leaves, the way the chlorophyll goes away and allows the leaves to be seen in all their natural pigmentation. I even did a science fair project on it when I was a sophomore. Dad even thought I might go to college to study botany.’

  “I’ll take a day off soon. I watch a little chart in the newspaper each year that shows where the trees are hitting their peak of color. Then, I’ll go off to the countryside for my drive. As long as it’s not raining, and no matter the temperature, I’ll put the top down and drive along all afternoon. It seems as that’s always my best view of autumn. And when the leaves have all fallen, and winter sets in, I look forward to the next autumn.”

  Roger squeezed her hand as they sat against the headboard. “Kara…..I’ve always wanted to ask you something. When you’re not with me, or Susan, or at work……don’t you get lonely?”

  Kara nodded. “At times, but not like you may imagine. If I’m not with you, I spend any weekend time I can with Susan or watching little Michael so she and Kenny can have some time to themselves. And…you simply cannot believe how time seems to rush past when I’m painting. It’s not unusual for me to spend an entire evening or weekend afternoon in front of that easel.”

  She looked at him with an inquisitive glance. “Not that I mind……but it seems that you’re asking me questions most men would have asked long ago.”

  Roger shrugged. “Oh, I just never liked to pry, or ask about things that were none of my business.”

  Kara giggled. “Silly man…it’s not prying. I love to learn new things about you.”

  Roger laughed. “Well….guess what I think we should do? I think we should take a shower and get dressed, then check out and go to the mall. I think Grandma and her boyfriend should hit the toy store and get something for Michael.”

  Inside the mall, they sat down in a restaurant and ordered lunch. They made small talk, and Kara teased Roger about how much he enjoyed shopping for toys. Whether for Michael or one of his own grandchildren, he loved to shop for things for them.

  In the back of her mind, Kara was thinking of something else. Over the past couple of months, her conversation with Roger had taken a turn.

  His questions were much more direct in his probing of her life before they met. There was no question in her mind that the relationship was changing. She sensed that, although the word “love’ was never used unless it was attached to “making”; Roger was in that state of attraction.

  It was not hard for her to detect. She had to admit to herself that she now loved him, as well. What chilled her deep inside was that she was afraid that he would ask her to marry him. She was equally afraid he would not.

  They finished lunch and began walking leisurely past the
stores. As they passed a jewelry store, Kara could not avoid noticing that Roger seemed to keep his gazed fixed on the display cabinet. It made her feel wanted. It also frightened her.

  She would also have to consider another side effect of marriage: she could not move if Susan and her husband would relocate. But in her heart, she would have had to admit that she would not want to leave Roger.

  Kara and Roger had enjoyed a nice dinner at a rustic restaurant at the edge of town. Back as his apartment, they laughed as she looked over the stuffed animals they had purchased for Michael and Roger’s two youngest granddaughters.

  The colorful soft toys were lined up on the coffee table in front of the sofa upon which they were sitting. Kara pointed and laughed. “I’m sure officer. It was the pink penguin. I could never forget that face.”

  Both laughed and Roger put his arm around her. Suddenly, he turned to her with a serious expression. “I love you. Of course, I think you already knew that. You’ve become much more to me than someone to spend pleasant time with….in an exceptionally pleasant way.”

  Kara felt her blood turn cold, and then she laid her head against his chest. “And….I’ve fallen in love with you, too.”

  Roger kissed the top of her head. “How do you feel about that?”

  He heard her sigh. “It scares me…that we’ve fallen in love. I am been kind of freaked out lately that I am at this age already. It’s confusing.”

  “In what way?”

  “That one day I’m listening to classic rock music, and the next day I’m reading on the Internet about how to avoid the loss of bone density at ‘my age’.”

  Roger snickered at the remark. “And those ads about frequent urination unnerve me, for that matter. But we are at the age we’re at. You’ve always seemed to accept reality for what it is. Something change that?”

  Kara tilted her head as she thought. “Oh, in the past several months, a couple of girls I went to high school with have died. A couple of others have been able to retire already. Those things suddenly make me feel older.”

  Roger gave her a squeeze. “You certainly don’t act older.”

  Kara shook her head. “That’s what I mean. Maybe I should act my age.”

  “Kara……we don’t do anything other couples our age don’t do. We go out to dinner, we see movies and we have some great sex. Old age will come soon enough. Let’s enjoy being the way we are.”

  They sat in silence for a moment, and then Roger spoke. “Would you feel better about everything if we were married?”

  Kara turned her head slowly to look at him. “Is that a proposal?”

  Roger shrugged. “No pressure. I was just wondering how you’re seeing things.”

  “Well…..I’ll have to mull all of this over. I’ve been living alone for so long.”

  “Take all the time that you need. There are no deadlines. Only opportunities for our lives to get even better. ‘

  As Kara drove home, her mind was racing. The fact that Roger wanted to marry her made her feel cherished and secure. At the same time, the concept made her feel more secure and protected than she cared to be.

  Through childhood and adolescence, she had enjoyed the unconditional love of her parents. As she had been an only child, that caring and affection had been exclusive to her. When she was finally out on her own, she again had unconditional love, this time from Susan.

  Time passed, and as Susan went away to college, and her time in Kara’s home became more limited, Kara had adjusted well to living alone and being with others on her own terms and at times and places of her choosing.

  It was one thing to spend nights or weekends with Roger. It was another thing to spend every night and all her spare time in another’s company. She had become set in her ways, and did not have to compromise on use of a bathroom or how food was arranged in the refrigerator.

  She feared feeling smothered. Roger’s concern over her safety would only be heightened if they were living together. Of course, that issue would last only until she retired, but then they would be……older than she wanted to accept. They would not have many years of marriage on record before they were likely to see limitations that are more pronounced and health issues. Kara suddenly realized that this was the core of the issue. This woman, who had always prided herself in accepting the realities of life, was fooling herself into thinking that by being single and simply dating Roger, she was somehow staying young. By living alone, she had no constant reminder of aging to gaze at next to her each morning. That naughty thrill of spending the night at his apartment, or stealing away to a hotel seemed to mask certain truths. After all, that was the type of thing younger lovers would do.

  By the time Kara arrived home, she was distracted, and had to force herself to maintain the level of alert she usually used when arriving home when it was dark. Pulling into her driveway, she reached into her purse and had the .32 ready. This arrival, like all of them before, went off without incident.

  She would be rising early, and she needed to get to bed. She went into her bedroom, undressed and put on another Chicago bears shirt she often slept in.

  As soon as she lay down, her mind began to dance from Roger to the threat of a recently freed Dan Harlow, then to the time that Scott Candrun was caught in the bushes outside her home. Of course, whenever her thoughts and memories disturbed her, Kara relived the bedtime session with the teen boyfriend. Even at forty nine, she was stunned at the long-term effects of a single failure of judgment that took place so long ago. So many times in her life, she had used the vision of Susan’s face to console herself, now joined by the laughter of the toddler Michael.

  When she was nineteen, she had a meltdown at the dinner table. She began sobbing over her struggle with being a student and at the same time, trying to be an attentive mother to Susan. She had comprehended the stark reality that we all have one go at life, and she had altered her own forever.

  Her mother had walked around the table and hugged her tightly. She knelt down and began wiping tears from Kara’s face, then told her, “But, Kara……you’re doing the most important thing a person can do. You’re an exceptionally good mother, and your father and I are more proud of you than if you were going to Harvard.”

  She relived that moment often when she was young, struggling, and exhausted. Now that she was older, she did so to remind herself that her life had been worthwhile.

  More and more, when her thoughts drifted to Susan, she chastised herself for her need for bravado. Had she not proven herself to enough people and in enough situations? She could not explain to herself, let alone anyone else, her penchant for teasing danger. She wondered if it was perhaps some manner of making up for that one dramatic lapse of judgment by proving to others that her adult judgment was superior to theirs.

  Her elderly parents were at a retirement community and not in tune with her exploits. However, that daring side of her was the one trait that ever strained her relationships with Susan and Roger.

  Every wrinkle in her life was dropping in to visit her on this night. She hated going to the office on little sleep. When she did so, she faced some smirks and on rare occasion, a verbalized inference as to what had kept her up so late. She got up, walked to her kitchen cupboard, and poured a small glass of bourbon.

  She had a second alarm clock on the coffee table next to her sofa, so she set it and walked to her stereo. She put a Barry Manilow CD in the player, turned the volume to low, and then sat down on the sofa. She leaned back against a stack of pillows and slowly sipped the amber liquid as she listened to the songs that took her back in time.

  She finished the drink, but was feeling mellow as a result, so she simply pulled the Chicago Bears blanket from the back of the sofa, pulled it over her and drifted off. She dreamed of Roger, and then of taking little Michael to the zoo for the first time.

  Chapter 4

  It was 4:30 when Kara dreamed that her phone was chiming. In her sleep, she reached to pull it from her holster, but she was asleep on her sof
a, and the phone was in her bedroom.

  A few minutes later, the phone chimed again, and this time Kara was stirred from her alcohol-induced sleep. By the time she was fully awake, the chime had stopped, so she went to her bedroom and found the phone still on the belt holster of the jeans she had been wearing.

  She flipped the phone open, but before she looked to see who had called her in the middle of the night, her mind jumped back to her time with Roger, and their conversation during which he had floated the idea of marriage. She had to force herself to see to the missed calls.

  The calls had come from the Sherriff’s office, so she hit the button to call that number. When the dispatcher answered, she spoke groggily. “This is Kara Walling from the Probation department. Someone just tried to call me.”

  “Please hold.” Kara rubbed her forehead, feeling slightly lightheaded.

  “Ms. Wulling?”

  “Yeh…..this is she.”

  “This is Ebsen, the shift supervisor. I understand we have orders to inform you immediately if anything happens with Dan Harlow. Well, we got a report that somehow Harlow shook our surveillance. We think he may be back in Blanton.”

  Kara hesitated for a moment. “Okay….thanks for the heads up. Good night.”

  She turned off the phone then leaned forward and rubbed her hands over her face. She got up, walked to her alarm control panel, and made sure it was armed. Then she went to her bedroom, but only after retrieving the .44 Magnum from its special hiding place.

  Against all expectations, Kara went soundly back to sleep. When she woke in the morning, her hand was resting on the butt of the large weapon.

  Roger sat at his desk and stared at the e-mailed bulletin on his computer screen. Dan Harlow may have been released, and free to go where he chose. Still, the law enforcement community in three counties was interested in what he was up to. His volatility was as much of a concern as some of the crimes he had committed over a span of his twenty years of adulthood. Any officer who would have to pull him over for a traffic violation would likely call for backup before approaching his car.