A Few Days in a Canyon Chapter 4
As they returned to their room, Grissom related a story of a young man in Las Vegas. "Typical hooker roll" left him broke without so much as bus ticket money and when he attempted to shoplift cheap food, Grissom was in the same store. And he offered to pay for the boy's food, offered to give him a ride to a safe location, hearing about his home village, and driving the boy to the parking lot that night.
"That kid—Don—grew up to be the man in the café. I came back, walked in, and spent three days with his family. When he got married, I came back—the only outsider invited to the wedding."
Sara thought about what he had told her, then asked, "You gave me a choice of places to eat. What if I had chosen the other place? Would you have met him this visit?"
Grissom pulled her close. "Sure. His mother runs the other café! He cooks for both places. I sent word I was coming." He had an arm around her waist. "He knew I was bringing a lady friend, too."
In their room, both realized hours of driving, hiking and swimming had exhausted them beyond words. Grissom stretched across the bed before Sara finished brushing her teeth and was asleep before she pulled a paperback book from her bag. He woke up when she removed his shoes, pulling her into bed and tickling her neck with his unshaven chin.
"Lose the book, beautiful woman." She threw the book onto the spare bed.
In the quiet darkness of this hidden oasis in a desert, two exhausted lovers found deep sleep in an austere room. For two people who lived alone, who had never shared a bed with another, one responded to the other in sleep as they did when awake. A turn of one, led to a move by the other and if seen from above, two bodies would appear as one, pieces of a puzzle fit so tightly together that only the keenest viewer would find it possible to separate one into two forms.
Grissom's fatigue kept him sleeping when Sara woke early in the morning. She watched him sleep. He was a good person, she thought. She knew he was passionate, smart, polite to the extreme, yet often ill at ease in crowds, with people he did not know. When he moved and mumbled a few words, she combed her fingers through his hair. He snuggled into his pillow and quieted. She slipped from the bed and found her book, dug a small flashlight out of her pack, and crawled into the empty bed.
Sara had read for an hour, her head underneath covers with the book and flashlight, when she heard his voice.
"Sara, come back to bed," Grissom said, his voice husky with sleep. "Why are you over there, honey?"
"I woke up; didn't want to wake you, you were sleeping so soundly." She crawled back into bed with him. "The sun is coming up."
His hands found her. "Yeah, and I'm rested." Sara giggled, a quiet sound waking up senses of touch and smell and taste as he began kissing her neck, bringing his nose against her hair, his tongue to her mouth. He knew where to touch, to find those secret places that caused a quick intake of air, to move her closer to him and create a passionate response that caused him to lose his balance, to tumble into a welcoming chasm of liquid warmth.
Nothing before her accidental meeting months before had prepared Sara for the experience of making love to Gil Grissom. His attention to her desires was unexpected; she still remembered the first time in a small room next to the ocean, learning the difference in a man's ability to entice physical emotions of making love and that of a boy's quick act of fervor, learning that the act was longer than a song on the radio, learning she had the ability to find passion that filled her life with something new.
All the feelings, emotions, excitement of what they did had almost overwhelmed each. They understood physical desire; neither could verbalize what was happening. Several times Grissom had tried to say words; Sara had never attempted.
Sara pulled the sheet around them in a white cocoon. She had grown to enjoy the close physical contact while they were in bed, touching and holding each other in a private world of their own making.
It was Grissom who, as usual, brought up their long distance relationship. "Move to Las Vegas, Sara. We could do this more often."
"I don't know if I can, Gil." She sighed, a sad sound to him as he kissed her hair.
"You can. Jim Brass would love you. We have a great lab; lots of money being spent on improvements and upgrades. We could be together every day."
Sara sighed again. Her head lay against his shoulder and he felt her hand swipe across her face. He closed a hand around hers. He knew there were times when her well hidden emotions surfaced. He saw it when her chin trembled or her words faltered, when her eyes dropped or when she put her hand against her eyes.
"Don't cry, Sara. I don't want you to be sad."
He heard a quiet sniff and her fingers remained at her eyes. She quietly spoke, "I don't think I'm sad. I—I have never known anyone like you." She took a deep breath. He waited for her to continue. "It's hard for me—I've never been close to anyone—not like this."
"It's okay." He whispered. He used his thumb to wipe a drop of moisture from her eye. Two of us, he thought, neither with the ability to say words; he knew words were overrated. "Let's go to breakfast. Don's family is waiting."