Innocent Milf

Chapter 40

Chapter 40

I was sitting on the back of an ambulance, facing somebody in a uniform. Something cold was on my eyelid, and I tried to blink it away without success. It smelled like salt-water. A pair of warm hands wrapped around mine, squeezing reassuringly.

Cary? I turned my head to look and found that it was sore. In fact, everything was sore. What had happened? I struggled to make sense of my surroundings. Dark. Outside of a bar. My vision was a little blurry. My mouth was dry. I smiled at Cary, and found that my mouth felt sticky. What the hell was going on?

Knife!

I jolted, and Cary's eyes widened in alarm. It came back in a rush. The ambush by townies, the fight, the guy pulling a knife on me. We had won. Right? Somebody shined a light in my eyes and I held my hand up to cover my face.

"No, hold on, bud. We need to look at your pupils." It was a woman's voice--strong, non-nonsense. It reminded me a bit of Liss. I struggled to focus, and slowly lowered my hand. I was looking at a paramedic in a dark blue ball cap. She flicked a little penlight towards my eyes, back and forth. After a moment, she said, "Okay, your eyes are fine for the moment. How do you feel now?"

I squeezed Cary's hand back. "Like a cartoon character who just got smashed by a steamroller," I grunted. I was alarmed to hear how raspy my voice was. Cary smiled, however.

"You're awake!Reallyawake!" She hugged me, and I winced. But I did reach over to touch her as tenderly as I could.

"Are you okay?" I asked. "Nobody got you, did they?"

Tears glistened in Cary's eyes. "Don't you remember? You protected me. Yousavedme. Again."

I sighed. "Jack? Jenna?Sascha? Did anybody find her?"

Cary smiled past her tears of relief. "Oh, yeah. Wait until you hear what she did."

The paramedic tapped my knee, briskly but not unkindly. "Sorry to interrupt. But now that you're talking more sensibly again, could you answer some questions?"

I nodded, and immediately regretted it. "Ow. Yes. Go ahead."

"Name?"

"Matthew James Baker." I tested my teeth, relieved to discover that I hadn't lost any: none were even loose.

"Do you know where we are right now? State, city, and so on?" The medic's words were rattled off with practiced ease--she probably did this ten times a day.

"Tempe, Arizona. A bar." I looked for a sign on the building. "The Basin."

The paramedic's lip quirked. "Reading the sign is kind of cheating, but I guess it still shows you're thinking clearly. What's today's date?"

"Friday the 16th," I said. After a moment, I shook my head. "No, wait, it's after midnight. So I guess Saturday the 17th."

"And what just happened?"

I coughed nervously. "Um. I just proposed to my girlfriend. After we were ambushed in a bar fight." I thought it over. "I think her ex-husband paid some guys off to beat the shit out of us."

"Okay. You can save that for the police," the medic said. "Complete sentences, linear thinking, alert and oriented. Your vital signs are pretty normal. You seem like you're in good shape, and I didn't find any broken bones. You probably have a concussion."

"Probably?" I rubbed my forehead. "Uh... isn't that sort of an important thing to know?"

"Yeah. If it's more serious and you have a head bleed, you get a stroke and probably die in your sleep. If it's a concussion, you wander around headache-y and sleepy for a while. Without a CT scanner in the back of our ambulance, they both look the same in the first few minutes. I suggest you go the hospital with me." She leaned over. "Your brand-new fiancée can ride up front if she wants."

"My buddy Jack--he got sort of beat up, too." I glanced over. "Is he okay?"

"The dark-haired guy with the black eye? Yeah, has some pretty nasty bumps and bruises. But nothing like your concussion. If that's what it is." The paramedic checked my pulse. "Well, you've got a few minutes while I make my rounds to check on other people. Think about it; you should probably see a doctor."

"Rounds?" I asked.

Her grim laughter echoed from the outside wall of the bar. "You and your friends managed to break some bones, knock out teeth, and give concussions to a dozen other people. At least when you go to work tomorrow, you reallycansay 'You should see the other guys.' I'd hate to be them right now." She made a sour face. "The bartender was stabbed several times when he reached for a shotgun. The bouncer has more broken ribs than whole ribs. The city is pretty busy tonight, so they only sent two ambulances. After the worst-injured were transported, I was left to run triage for the rest of you. The police have been asking questions for half an hour. The only reason they haven't questionedyouyet is because of your head injury."

"Half an hour?"

Cary squeezed my arm. "You were only unconscious for about thirty seconds, but it seemed like forever. You've been repeating yourself for a while. This is the clearest you've been."

I gingerly touched a bump on my head. "What did I say?"

Cary smiled despite her worry. "You kept asking me to marry you. I said yes each time. You also kept trying to warn everybody that one of the guys had a knife. And you asked where your friends were--Jack and Sascha and Jenna."

"Arethey okay?"

Cary nodded. "Yeah. Jack is the most beat-up besides you. But they werereallygunning for you and me."

"Eric," I growled.

Cary nodded. "Probably. He got away--he must have been sitting in the corner watching us. Sascha saw him try to get away out the emergency exit when he heard you telling the guys to find him and beat him up for the money he promised. He was wearing sunglasses and a baseball cap, but she recognized him. She broke a hockey stick over his back as he ran."

I laughed, and winced, and laughed again. "Fuck, I wish I could have seen that. Where on earth did she get a hockey stick?"

"It was on the wall next to an old article about the original bartender's college hockey days.That'swhat you're wondering right now?" Cary gently smoothed my hair. "I love you. My protector. My sweet, stolid, selfless man." She leaned against me slowly. It didn't hurt, even when she touched a bruise. "I can't wait to be your wife."

The wordwifesent an electric thrill through me, and I wanted to jump up and run in circles like a little kid. Instead, I took a deep breath and pulled her closer to me. "You're wonderful. My loyal, fierce, clever woman. I can't wait to be your husband."

We sat glued together for several minutes. The ache in my head didn't subside, but it dulled down to a pounding sensation. My dizziness slowly evaporated, so that by the time a tired-looking police officer walked over, I was able to stand and offer a hand to shake. He took it quizzically and invited me to sit again.

"Tell me what happened, Mister Baker," he started without preamble. So I did.

A multitude of witnesses, the bouncer, and the bartender all agreed that we had been backed into a corner, and had not been the aggressors. The officer said that they had already reviewed the security camera footage, and it was clear that we had been fighting to defend ourselves. They weren't able to get any positive ID on the "guy in the hat" who ran out the back, so they weren't able to corroborate Sascha's story. But at least they were asking ifwewanted to press charges, rather than carting us downtown to cool our heels in holding cells.

It didn't hurt our story that the group of attackers seemed to have been somewhat organized, attacking the bartender before he could get his gun and the bouncer in a coordinated manner. They had planned this ahead of time--working quickly to neutralize the people who could have threatened them or helped us. A shiver that had nothing to do with the night air ran through me; if Eric had set this up, I had a nasty feeling of what had been in store for Cary if we lost.

It was almost 3 a.m. by the time the police had finished interviewing us. The paramedic had long since ceased trying to convince me to go to the hospital, and had me sign some paperwork to the effect that if I died of massive cerebral hemorrhage in a few hours, I had been duly warned. We all went to a waffle house, where our rumpled graduation clothes, bloodied knuckles, and bruises drew stares but no comment from the wait staff. They had probably seen worse.

Jenna heaved an exhausted sigh and sipped her orange juice. "That was nuts," she said. "I think I'm going to go home and cry for several hours straight."

Cary nodded. "If I wasn't so happy,I'dbe crying right now. An actual fight is terrifying."

Sascha snorted. "That wasn't a fight. That was abattle." She bit into her syrup-drenched waffle. "Why are you so happy?"

Blinking in surprise, Cary looked around. "Oh. Oh! You didn't know!" She took my hand. "Matt asked me to marry him."

The resultant exultant din drew more stares than our battered appearance had. Jack congratulated both of us and hugged us so earnestly (and painfully) that I finally felt confident that whatever reservations he once had about our relationship had disappeared. Sascha was effusive in her well-wishes, but also gave us both a "told-you-so" look that get us laughing despite our aches and bruises. The staff kindly gave us a discount after we told them our happy news, and timidly asked what had happened.

I sat back and let Jack and Sascha tell the story--Jack grunted additions to Sascha's excited recounting of events. To hear her tell it, we had fought off a horde of heavily-armed barbarians in a smoky den of iniquity, whileCarmina Buranablared in the background.

I wondered what the events of my life would sound like recounted entirely by the wait staff of the various restaurants that had served as the backdrop for the dramatics of the past couple of years. Maybe the employees of Hooters and Waffle King could collaborate on a future bestseller. I could even have Liss write the foreword, entitledShit I Warned My Brother Would Happen.

She was going to be insufferable when I told her about this.

Cary and I eventually went back to our hotel room and showered before falling asleep--exhausted and sore. Despite the punishing events of the night, I was on Cloud Nine. My heart sang as I wrapped by slashed and swollen hands around my soft, slim, sleeping wife-to-be. I was going to get married.

* * * * *

* * * * *

By the time my interview with theSunset Gazettearrived, Cary and I had decided to get married next March. My family was cautiously thrilled--even my parents. Friends and relations sent encouraging messages. I got more than one call from the Tempe Police Department asking me to corroborate a few more details, and asking me to report any suspicious behavior I noticed in my day-to-day life.

We didn't get engagement rings, just wearing the tokens we had already bought for each other years ago. My white-gold ring with its hematite cabochon stayed on my left index finger. Cary's simple gold bracelet stayed on her wrist. And we stayed with each other as often as we could.

My interview went well; the hiring manager liked my breadth of experience and reading for somebody my age. He asked point-blank about my bruises, and I told him I had gotten attacked at my graduation party by hired goons. When he looked skeptical, I smiled and said, "Check the Tempe PD blotter. And I bet you could get independent confirmation." I frowned, hoping I didn't sound too cocky. "It's not a regular thing for me. I'm just lucky I have someaikidotraining and play with Bowie knives."

"You look older than 'just graduated,'" he observed.

I grinned cynically. "It's the eyes. I spent a year depressed."

He grunted. "Adds character. Good for you."

We talked about my sample story I had sent in, and the editor-in-chief even stopped by for a few minutes to meet me and give me some quick pointers on where I could improve to industry standards. By the end of the week, I had been hired for my first job out of college at $44k per year. Not great, but good for having no experience, and better than I had expected.

Because I was the young guy, the staff put me on "internet duty" as they called it--trying to build and maintain a web-page for the paper, and spending a day or two each week just trawling through the world wide web trying to find information or stories that might have been missed otherwise. I bought a few books about how to write HTML code, and spent so much time on Lycos, WebCrawler, Yahoo!, and AskJeeves that I started to see them in my sleep.

Of course, once I learned how to make websites, I made one for Instructor Joe's Bowie knife classes, too. And I cleaned up the one for Cary's gallery and updated it to look more modern. I was super lucky to have both Aaron and Sascha to be able to call and ask for help when I got stuck on some technical issue. And Cary--not surprisingly--had a great eye for what looked good, so I was able to make her a really nice website that actually got some more interested customers in her door.

But at work, even better than the internet duty were actual interviews with people out in the community.

That was how I found myself driving to Phoenix to interview Gary Tadwell, the Regional Manager for Neuberg and Associates. It was a pretty uninteresting to piece to me at first, but important for local financial news. Rick had been assigned to it, but had come down with some nasty stomach bug, so I raced out to the interview with a notebook full of Rick's research and questions to ask.

Apparently, there was some minor bookkeeping issue that had recently come to light, and the board of Neuberg and Associates was under some scrutiny from both the Better Business Bureau and the FDIC. I was just there to get some clarification on how this might affect the branch operating in our town. Gary was a patrician-looking man in his early 50's with an expensive suit and an air of self-assurance that even Ty would be hard-pressed to match.

Giving in to a little bit of mischievous impulse, I added a question at the end of the interview.

"We were looking into a small detail of history to see if we could shed some light on when these irregularities in accounting popped up, and I found a few references to a trip to Sacramento in 1992," I said blandly. "It sounds like perhaps a personal trip was incorrectly listed as a company-sponsored event for our local branch. Records showed that you were the organizer. Can you shed some more light on that event?"

A tiny sheen of sweat appeared on Gary's forehead. "I'm not sure I recall the incident in question," he answered smoothly. "We're talking about five years ago, and I go to so many conferences that it can be hard to keep track."

"Sure," I replied carelessly, as if the answer didn't matter at all. "Just being thorough. Thanks for your time today, Mr. Tadwell." I offered my hand to shake. His grip was firm, with the barest hint of a tremor. I felt fairly certain that Eric was going to get an uncomfortable phone call in the near future.

In June, we took the trip to Telluride in Colorado for the Bluegrass Festival. The tickets that Ty had given me were a generous enough gift, but we discovered upon opening the envelope that he had also booked us a bed & breakfast suite for the weekend--notoriously difficult to do for such a crowded event. It was a little off the beaten path, but we didn't mind the drive, and it had a porch that overlooked the San Miguel River in the near distance.

The music was great. The kids liked it well enough, although neither of them had much patience for sitting through a day of bluegrass in a packed, sunny field surrounded by tents. We made sure to take some time for them to do some fun things--I even agreed to skip out on a few hours of Sunday so that we could do some river rafting together. NowayI was missing Johnny Cash, Béla Fleck, or David Crosby, though. The kids would just have to be patient.

It was an amazing, magical present--one I felt that I didn't really deserve after all of my good fortune recently. Still, it was hard to feel guilty with Cary and I as blissfully happy as we were. Patrick and Annie were fascinated and entertained by a combination of Colorado scenery, Game Boy, and the books and games we had brought. Cary had wisely thought ahead and packed a few VHS tapes as well. It was tough to find a movie that a twelve-year-old and a nine-year-old could agree on, butJames and the Giant Peachcame to the rescue. We hadDragonhearton standby for tomorrow, if needed.

"We need a house," I said as Cary and I lounged in folding chairs on the porch. The distant sound of the river mixed with the sound of the movie inside. "There's not enough room in this apartment for all of us--especially not if you and I have kids."

Cary caught her breath. At her reaction, I turned to look at her. She was twisting her hair around a finger--it reached down to the middle of her shoulder-blades now. She smiled at me shyly and uncertainly. "Really? That's a big step. Are you sure?"

I chuckled. "I mean,marriageis a big step, but even with a concussion I knew what I wanted. Getting a house seems like a no-brainer."

"No, you big goof." Cary shook her head. "I don't mean the house. Of course, you're right. I mean kids." She was suddenly holding very still, watching me.

"Well... yeah." I frowned. "Of course. Unless you don't want--"

Cary lunged out of her chair so quickly it clattered to the ground, and she flung herself into my arms. My chair overbalanced, and we found ourselves tangled on the ground, embracing. The toppled chair poked distractingly into my back and wedged under my calf, but it was less important to me at the moment than Cary's enthusiastic response.

"I do," Cary said breathlessly into my ear. "I want to have a baby with you so much." She hugged me tight. "And... and we probably shouldn't leave it for too long, either." I could feel her flush against me. "You know... after forty..."

I smirked, despite a wooden plank from the chair starting to cut off blood flow to my leg. "I mean, I'm willing to start anytime." I feigned thinking about it. "I'd like them to be born with my last name. If we get married in March, and nine months before that is... " I started ticking months off on my fingers. "No, still too early by a hair. Better leave some buffer just in case. We'll just have to call tonight 'practice.'"

Cary giggled and pushed playfully at me, making me hiss. One of my ribs was still a little tender when I put pressure on it--it had probably been cracked when I shielded Cary with my body during the attack. It had only been a month ago, but it seemed like forever. I levered myself up with a grunt, and Cary's beautiful gray eyes took in my grimace with anxiety.

"I'm sorry. Does it still hurt?" she asked.

"Only a little," I replied. "Just when I put pressure on it. It's way better than it used to be." I stood our chairs back up, close enough to touch each other. I had finally gotten a call back from the police about the incident just before leaving for this trip. Several of our attackers had extensive criminal backgrounds. A few of them described somebody who matched Eric's appearance as having put them up to it, but most of them were paid by somebody else--somebody that they were unwilling to talk about.

I pushed those thoughts away. Tonight was wonderful--Cary and I were together, the kids were enjoying a movie, and I had just listened to some live world-class bluegrass. It was as much as I could ever ask for. "Hey," I asked, a thought occurring to me. "Whatwillyou do with your last name when we get married? Baker? Hyphenate it as Bernham-Baker? Or just stay Bernham?" I smiled, teasing. "You must be tired of getting your checks and credit cards changed."