This chapter is also rated M.
The first thing Holly was consciously aware of the next morning was a warm male body pressed to hers, skin to skin, a certain part of his anatomy already wide awake and pressing against her stomach. Opening her eyes, she lifted her head from Roger's chest. They had shifted while they were asleep but never left each other's arms; Roger was now lying on his back, his arms securely wrapped around her, and Holly was lying on her stomach, half on top of him, their legs tangled together beneath the covers.
Holly moved off of Roger to stretch slowly and carefully, feeling the delicious ache in her muscles from all the lovemaking she and Roger had done last night and into the wee small hours of the morning. Last night had far surpassed every dream and fantasy she'd had about Roger for so long, and waking up in his arms like this made her feel a joy deep in her soul that she had never felt before.
After stretching, she snuggled half on top of him again, laying her arm across his stomach, resting her chin lightly in the middle of his chest, watching him sleep and reflecting that even in sleep, he looked happy and at peace. She thought then of the wedding rings she had safely stashed in the drawer of the nightstand on her side of the bed. We have the rest of our lives together, she thought happily. And someday, when the time is right and we're both ready, I'm going to ask you to marry me, and you're going to say yes, and then we'll use those rings.
Roger murmured her name then, making Holly smile even more than she already had been. He was awake and had been since the instant he had registered the feel of her warmth pressed against his side when she shifted upon waking up herself. The loss of her warmth while she stretched had worried him that last night had all been just another dream, but when he felt her warmth pressed against him again, felt her breathing, he knew last night had been amazingly, beautifully real. He stirred, turning his head, then opened his eyes to her beautiful face, her eyes shining with obvious, unmistakable love and happiness as she looked at him with a soft, sweet smile. Roger smiled back at her as one of his hands began lazily stroking up and down her spine. "Good morning," he said, his voice soft and rough with sleep.
"Good morning," Holly replied just as softly before lowering her face to his, nuzzling his cheek before gently kissing his lips. As the kiss deepened, Roger's arms wrapped around Holly more tightly, and Holly shifted, her hips gently pressing his into the mattress, his erection trapped between their bodies.
Roger broke the kiss, both his hands now stroking up and down her back to her hips and backside. "Waking up with you in my arms like this is better than all my memories," he said, looking up at her happily.
She kissed him again, softly stroking down his jawlines, enjoying the feel of his morning stubble against her fingertips. "Mine too," she agreed. Leaning in to kiss him again she murmured, "You know, it's later."
"Yes, it's morning," Roger agreed.
Holly drew back and looked at him. "No, honey, it's later," she said. Seeing that he still didn't quite get what she was saying, she shifted again, tossing the covers to the foot of the bed and straddling his thighs. "Remember, I started to do something last night and you asked me to stop because you wanted to be inside me again, and you said you did want me to do that but later? Well...it's later." To emphasize her point, she slowly, tantalizingly trailed one hand down his chest, to his stomach, to his waist, following her hand with a trail of hot kisses, before wrapping her hand around his cock and looking at him with an arched eyebrow.
"Ohhhh," Roger said, drawing out the lone syllable as comprehension dawned. "Right. It's later." He lay back, inhaling sharply when, with her hand grasping the base of his shaft, she drew him into her mouth, wrapping her lips around his tip as she stroked her other hand down his groin to cup and then fondle his balls.
Roger fisted one hand in the sheets and tangled his other hand in Holly's hair. She felt him shudder as she caressed the length of his shaft with her tongue, her name falling from his lips in a strangled whisper. She took him deeper into her mouth, drawing a long, low moan of satisfaction from low in his chest as she made love to him with her mouth and hands, pumping him in hard, firm strokes while she drew first one then the other of his balls into her mouth, rolling and teasing them with her tongue. Roger was beyond all coherent thought and speech now, and he gasped aloud as she took his shaft in her mouth once more, sucking him harder as she lightly squeezed his balls and then gently pressed the pad of one finger to the soft skin beneath them. Roger let go of Holly's hair and the sheets beneath him and, fumbling behind and above him, found the headboard and held on to it with both hands in a white-knuckled grasp as Holly continued alternately caressing him with her tongue, stroking him with her lips, and sucking him into her mouth while gently squeezing and pumping him with her hands as he writhed beneath her.
The orgasm building in Roger was intense, and Holly knew he was close to climaxing when she felt his balls tighten and clench like a fist. She increased the pressure of her mouth and hands, dragged her tongue up the length of the sensitive underside of Roger's cock, and his whole body shuddered, his orgasm rippling up from his toes. His whole body jerked upwards as his eyes rolled back in his head, then slammed shut. He hoarsely cried out, "HOLLY! YES! OH GOD, YES!", the tidal wave of pleasure surging through his entire being cresting and falling forward on itself in a rush of pressure as he came hard and hot in her mouth.
Holly caught every drop of him, reveling in the taste and heat of him as the result of his climax slid down her throat. Roger collapsed back onto the bed, panting hard, as Holly bathed his cock with a few slow, gentle strokes, removing all traces of his orgasm. As the trembling ebbed from his body and his breathing slowed and evened out, she pressed small kisses from his groin all the way up his torso until she was lying beside him. "You taste really good," she whispered in his ear before kissing him. He groaned and sucked her tongue into his mouth, tasting himself. He pulled her tightly into his arms as they kissed, holding her against him.
Roger broke the kiss, pulled in a deep breath, and looked up at Holly. "That...You..." He trailed off, exhaled, and concluded, "Amazing."
Holly grinned a self-satisfied grin. "Everything about us is amazing," she said, running her fingers through his chest hair.
"It certainly is," Roger agreed, pulling Holly into his arms. They lay there holding each other for a few minutes, her head resting in the crook of his neck, one hand stroking his chest, as one of his hands moved up and down her back. "What do you want to do today?" he finally asked.
She sat up then, so he sat up too. "Well, first, I want you to go down the hall and get your things," she began. "I want you to stay here with me. Unless you'd rather I move into your suite..."
"No, I'll move in here," Roger replied. "We have some excellent memories in this suite. I would love to stay here with you until we find that house we were talking about last night." The lift of his voice at the end of that statement made it a slight question instead of a sentence.
"Yes," Holly said firmly, definitively, before kissing him quickly. "While you're doing that, I'll take a shower-"
"You know, we've never taken a shower together before," Roger interrupted her with a hopeful smile on his face.
"You're right, we haven't," Holly realized. "How about that, we still have some firsts left." She smiled back at him, snaking her arms around him before continuing, "I thought we could go exploring today. We really haven't seen much of Bay City, and now that we're going to be living here, we should see exactly what there is here."
"Absolutely. Let's go exploring," Roger agreed, nuzzling her neck.
"Mmm..." Holly murmured. "I meant explore the town today," she said, amused. Reluctantly she pulled away from him, leaning down to snag his shirt from the floor where he had thrown it the night before. She handed it to him, then got out of bed and walked across the room naked to retrieve the key to the suite from the top of the dresser. Roger was out of bed now too, picking up the rest of his clothes from the floor. "Get dressed. Go. Pack," Holly said, handing him the key. "I'll be in the shower."
Roger quickly threw on his clothes and took the key from Holly, tucking it in his pants pocket before kissing her gently, passing a hand through her hair, then hurrying out of the bedroom and through the living room. After she heard the front door open and close, Holly moved around the bedroom, smiling and humming, getting out her own clothes and shoes for the day. Then she padded into the bathroom to start the shower.
Since Roger had packed the night before, it took him only a couple of minutes to grab his two suitcases, the two suit bags hanging in the closet, and to tuck his toothpaste, toothbrush, and deodorant in his shaving kit. So he returned to Holly's suite...their suite, he corrected himself happily...stowed the suit bags and suitcases in the closet, stepped out of his shoes, and carried his shaving kit into the bathroom. Holly had left the bathroom door open, and he set his shaving kit on the rim of the sink. Holly was focused on adjusting the temperature of the shower. Roger quietly stole up behind her, wrapping his arms around her waist and lowering his head to first kiss then nuzzle the tender spot between her shoulder and her neck.
"That was fast," Holly said, a smile in her voice as she leaned back into him, resting her hands on his arms.
"I packed last night before I came over," Roger admitted. "I was hoping you'd want me to move in."
Holly turned in Roger's arms, twining her arms around his neck as he rested his hands at her sides. "I do," she affirmed. She stretched up to kiss him, softly, the kiss both affectionate and arousing. When she pulled back, she touched his face before getting into the shower.
Roger stood, mesmerized, for a long moment, watching the hot water sluice over her. Then he quickly shucked his clothes, kicking them into the corner, and joined her in the shower.
The hot water was refreshing and arousing as it poured over them. Their hands glided over one another's slick skin, caressing, exploring, arousing. "Turn around and tilt your head back," Roger murmured as he ran his hands up Holly's stomach and breasts to her shoulders before reaching for the bottle of shampoo. He poured some shampoo into one hand, rubbed his hands together, then transferred the strawberry-scented foam to Holly's hair, gently massaging her scalp with his fingertips. She sighed happily. "I love the way you touch me," she said breathily as he worked the shampoo through her hair, then rinsed it out. "I missed it so much."
"I missed touching you," Roger said, letting his hands fall to her shoulders, which he began to massage. "In fact, I plan to continue touching you as much as I can for the next...oh, thirty years at least."
Smiling, Holly turned in his arms. "Now do I get to touch you as much as I can as well?" she asked, as she reached for the shampoo bottle herself, poured some into her palm, and worked it into his hair.
"Yes," Roger replied as he bent his head so Holly could reach his hair better. "Lots of touching is highly encouraged."
"That's good to know," Holly said as she finished rinsing the shampoo from his hair. "You know, I just thought of something else we've never done together."
"What's that?" Roger asked.
"We've never made love in the shower before," Holly replied, rubbing herself against him, feeling his body respond to hers.
Roger gently pushed Holly's wet hair off her face. "That's true, we haven't," he said, swallowing a groan as she ground her pelvis against his. "And there's no time like the present."
"I was hoping you'd say that," she said, raising her knee up to Roger's hip and rocking against him before kissing him, sweetly, tenderly rubbing her lips over his as their tongues dueled and danced.
Roger lifted Holly up, holding her tightly, and she wrapped her legs around his waist and her arms more tightly around his neck. She could feel his erection pressing against her belly, and then he gently pressed her back against the wall of the shower and a few seconds later, he was inside her, both of them moaning happily at the feel of being intimately connected once more.
The breathless moans and gasps they were drawing out of each other echoed in both of their ears, and Holly felt her body tighten as Roger's thrusts became faster. She wrapped herself around him as tightly as she could, her heels digging into his back, and he moved as deeply inside her as he could. Her hips undulated against his, meeting him every time he slid inside her, the tension building stronger and stronger, then all that glorious tension exploded and they plunged over the crest together, both crying out as the powerful mutual climax surged through their bodies.
They clung to each other as their shudders subsided, then Roger helped Holly to stand, bracing one hand on the shower wall behind her and resting his head on her shoulder as he struggled to catch his breath. Roger lifted his head, and he and Holly looked into each other's eyes, their eyes saying everything that mere words couldn't express.
Holly adjusted the temperature of the water, then reached for the bar of soap, working up a good lather before running the soap all over Roger's neck, chest, back, shoulders, arms, hands, and stomach. Then she knelt to wash his thighs, legs, and feet, finishing by gently washing his groin area, the fact that he twitched in her hand when she did so not escaping her notice.
When she stood up again, Roger took the soap from her, set it back on the ledge, and after quickly rinsing himself off, he picked up the soap and lathered her up, starting with her back, then working his way around to her neck and chest, lingering at her breasts, feeling her nipples harden when he touched them without the soap between his fingers and her body. Stepping around her, he gently moved her under the shower's spray to rinse her back. Then he lathered up her belly, hips, thighs, legs, and feet. Finally he ran the soap up her inner thighs, first one and then the other, before lathering his hands thoroughly and stroking her folds, washing her most intimate flesh and mightily arousing her in the process.
When he stopped stroking her folds, he remained kneeling, looking up at her through smoldering eyes. He watched avidly as she rinsed all the soap from her body and pushed her wet hair back off her face, her eyes never leaving his.
They looked at each other for the space of a few heartbeats before Roger reached out, gently grasping Holly's hips and nuzzling the curls at the juncture of her thighs before dragging his tongue up the length of her opening a few times before flicking at her clit. She moaned, grabbing on to his shoulders to keep herself on her feet. The warm water from the showerhead rained down on them as Roger continued licking and sucking at Holly's intimate flesh. Then he slid two fingers inside her, thrusting them deeply and rhythmically inside her while continuing to move his lips and tongue over her clit. The sounds Holly made and the way her fingers tightened on his shoulders both spurred him on and aroused him as he pleasured her to a dizzying climax, her breathless, exultant cries echoing off the acoustic tiles surrounding them. He held her steady when she sagged against him afterward, resting his cheek against her stomach, feeling her stroke his hair as her breathing returned to normal.
Then he kissed his way up her body as he got to his feet. When he was standing again, he said, "We're insatiable."
"Only about each other," Holly replied. "And after two years apart, we're entitled." She kissed him then, and he responded eagerly. When the need for oxygen forced them to stop kissing, she said, "If we're ever going to get out of the hotel today, we'd better go now." She turned off the shower then, and Roger opened the shower door, stepped onto the bath mat, and grabbed one of the sandbar-colored bath sheets from the rack beside the sink. Then he turned back, wrapping Holly in the bath sheet and lifting her out of the shower and onto the bath mat before drying her off. The bath sheet was so big that after she was dry, Holly took it from Roger and dried him with it before reaching for a regular-sized towel to dry her hair.
Then they went into the bedroom, where Holly dressed in the khaki pants, white blouse, and royal blue V-neck sweater she had set out. Roger put on a pair of black pants and his socks and shoes, then returned to the bathroom. Holly followed him in there and blow dried her hair while Roger shaved. After they were finished with their respective tasks, and after Holly had put on some makeup and they had both brushed their teeth, Roger pulled a light blue button-down shirt from one of his suitcases and put it on. When he was dressed, they put on their coats, Roger slipped his wallet into his hip pocket, Holly made sure she had the key to the suite in her purse, and they headed out together to explore Bay City.
Since Roger's car was still being repaired after Dinah had taken a crowbar to it in Springfield the day before, they took Holly's car, and Roger drove. They stopped at Perkins for breakfast, where Holly had the eggs Benedict, hash browns, and fruit, and Roger had the Brioche French toast and scrambled eggs. So fortified, as they were leaving the restaurant, Roger said, "So, where should we go first?"
"Let's just drive," she said, squeezing his hand. "We'll stop and look around when we see something interesting."
"Okay," Roger agreed, squeezing her hand back.
They drove downtown first, passing Cory Publishing and Hudson Enterprises and TOPS restaurant. Roger made a right turn down a cobble-stoned street lined with little specialty shops. "Oh, look over there!" Holly exclaimed suddenly, pointing.
Roger followed her gesture to the shop at the end of the block, larger than the others since a spiral staircase was visible through the large plate glass window with COVER TO COVER painted on it in gold block letters outlined in red. A secondhand bookstore. Roger pulled into a parking space in front of the store. "This is dangerous," Holly said, her eyes gleaming, "me in a secondhand bookstore with a loaded credit card."
"So we'll look for a four-bedroom house and make the fourth bedroom a library," Roger replied. "I can't think of anything you would find more interesting...in public, that is...than a secondhand bookstore, Hol."
"Just don't let me spend all day in there, because I could, very easily," Holly said.
"Deal," Roger said.
They spent an hour wandering the bookstore, Roger happily trailing in Holly's wake as she eagerly scanned the books on the shelves, pulling several volumes off the shelf to examine them more closely and exclaim over them. Seeing her so clearly in her element and so excited warmed his soul, and he could only watch her with a big smile.
Then he spied a familiar name on a nearby bookshelf and pulled out a blue hardcover volume with gilt letters on the cover: Collected Poems of Robert Frost. Roger knew that Holly was partial to Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Browning, but the store had no first editions of their works since they were over a century old. "What have you got there?" Holly asked, returning the volume she had been paging through to the shelf and noticing the book in Roger's hands. He held the book up and her face lit up for the hundredth time since they had entered the store. "Robert Frost," she said. "I love 'The Road Not Taken.'"
Roger read over Holly's shoulder when she opened the book to look at the table of contents. "453 pages," he said. "Unabridged?"
"If not, it must be pretty close," Holly replied.
"You don't have a copy already, do you?" Roger asked.
"Not a first edition," Holly said.
"So let's get it," Roger said. "You haven't bought anything else, and there's room in our suite for the collected poems of Robert Frost." He moved closer, his hand brushing the small of her back. "You can read some of them to me sometime," he whispered. "Or I could read to you." She turned to look at him with a smile and nodded, and they headed to the cash register then.
After leaving Cover to Cover with the Robert Frost book tucked in a bag, they drove to the newer part of town, to The Galleria, Bay City's premier shopping center, two stories of nearly 150 stores and restaurants. As they walked down the main concourse hand in hand, they passed the Hallmark store, and Roger spotted something in the window. His eyes lit up, and Holly wondered exactly what he had seen in the window. He pulled her into the store, bypassed the window, and headed to the racks of boxed keepsake Christmas ornaments. Letting go of her hand, his eyes scanned the racks and when he found what he was looking for, he pulled the box from its rack and held it out to Holly with a triumphant flourish.
The box itself was red with the Hallmark logo emblazoned across the top and sides, and the clear plastic front revealed the ornament inside: a man in a green coat and stocking cap and red scarf and a woman in a red coat and stocking cap and green scarf kissing. Engraved in gold script on a delicate crystal snowflake above their kissing profiles were the words 'Our First Christmas 1996.'
The light in Roger's eyes, the grin on his face, prompted a one-word answer from Holly: "Yes." Since Thanksgiving was in nine days, they would probably be spending Christmas at The Bayshore as well, since the only thing they had decided on for certain was to buy a house in Bay City together, but there was room in the suite for a small Christmas tree, and this ornament would have a place of pride on that tree, and on every Christmas tree they would have in the future.
And standing in that Hallmark store in The Galleria, looking at that keepsake Christmas ornament in Roger's hand, was when it hit Holly: she and Roger finally have a future together. She had known, of course, since Roger had said the night before that he wanted their new beginning to start at that very moment, but she hadn't realized the difference between knowing she and Roger are back together, and having the reality, in all its wonderful depth and lack of limits, hit her. It was all she could do not to gasp aloud as a feeling she had never felt before, a jumble of joy and peace and rightness mixed up with the knowledge that for the first time in her nearly five decades, she has what she wants, what, deep down, even when she wouldn't admit it to herself, she has always wanted, coursed through every fiber of her being, filling her with all kinds of urges she couldn't act on because she was in a public place, the urge to kiss Roger senseless, to dance, to sing out loud, to shout for all the world to hear that she loves this man in a way she didn't know it was possible for her to love anyone, and he loves her the same way, and they are finally, at last, after all that they have been through over all the years, together, and they're going to stay that way for the rest of their lives.
Roger had bought and paid for the ornament, not realizing that Holly was still rooted to her spot in front of the racks until he turned from the cash register and saw that she was still standing there. He hurried over, and when she looked at him, her eyes shining and her face glowing, she wondered why he looked so anxious and concerned. Then his arm was around her waist and he was hurrying her out of the Hallmark store and to the first bench he saw, gently pushing her to sit on it. "What's wrong?" he asked worriedly.
"Wrong?" Holly asked, puzzled. Nothing is wrong. Nothing in the world is wrong as far as she's concerned.
"You're shaking," Roger pointed out. "Are you dizzy? Do you feel sick? Do you need to eat? It's been..." He glanced at his watch. "...almost five hours since we had breakfast, and we didn't get a lot of sleep last night."
Holly looked down at her hands and was surprised to see that they were trembling, ever so slightly, as were her arms. "I'm fine," she promised. "I just... Us. It just hit me."
Now Roger was puzzled. "What just hit you?" he asked.
He had set the Hallmark bag at his feet, so she reached out and took both his hands in hers. "I have you," she said, wonder suffusing her tone. "And you have me. We finally, really have each other."
"Forever," Roger said firmly.
"Yes, forever," Holly repeated. "And everything that that means just hit me for the first time looking at that Christmas ornament in your hands back there." She wasn't sure if she was explaining it properly, if she even could explain it properly, but she tried. "I mean, obviously, I knew last night that we're together now, but the fact that we're together from now on and what that really means didn't hit me until a few minutes ago, and I didn't even realize I was trembling until you told me. I'm sorry I worried you. I'm okay. I can honestly say I have never been better in my entire life." She smiled at him reassuringly.
Roger stroked the backs of Holly's hands with his thumbs. She wasn't shaking anymore. "You're sure?" he asked.
"I've never been more sure of anything," she replied, letting go of one of his hands to touch his face. Roger didn't completely understand the difference between knowing they were back together and having it hit Holly in such an emotional way, but she wasn't shaking anymore, and she didn't look ill. Holly could see that Roger was still a little worried about her, so she said, "Why don't we get something to eat? There's a Ruby Tuesday right over there."
"Okay," Roger agreed. He picked up the Hallmark bag, and they crossed the concourse to Ruby Tuesday. After a leisurely lunch, they exited the restaurant and wandered further down the main concourse holding hands.
When Holly spotted a photo booth, she pushed Roger inside it, and they posed for four pictures: one with her kissing his cheek, one with him kissing her cheek, one with them kissing, and the fourth picture saw both of them facing the camera and beaming happily.
When they saw a Tower Records, Roger insisted on going inside, where he purchased a Neil Diamond CD containing "Holly Holy" and "Thank the Lord for the Night Time."
They passed the lingerie shop that Holly had been to with Donna a few months before, and Holly suggested that Roger "do the guy thing and go across the way to Sharper Image" while she looked in the lingerie shop.
"Yes, dear," Roger said with a grin. She turned to leave, but he stopped her by not letting go of her hand. When she looked at him questioningly, he looked at her earnestly for several seconds before he leaned in and said softly right in her ear, "Clothes and lingerie don't make you look sexy. You make them look sexy. Those coffee cup flannel pajamas and white cotton panties last night were the sexiest thing I've ever seen you in, because they're you."
"Spoken like a man in love," Holly said fondly, tugging her hand from his and smiling at him.
"Completely," Roger agreed.
After Holly went inside the lingerie shop, Roger dutifully turned to go to Sharper Image across the concourse, but his eyes were stayed by the jewelry store next door, with its display of engagement rings in the display window. He wandered over to look at them more closely, spotting a beautiful diamond in a platinum setting that looked to him like it was made specifically for Holly's hand alone. The diamond was a perfect circle, not so large as to be ostentatious or unable to be worn while doing everyday tasks and not so small as to be invisible, and was flanked by two smaller round diamonds. It's too soon, he thought. You have the rest of your lives. The last thing you want to do now is spook her by buying that ring and pulling it out tonight and proposing to her. There's time for that. She's not going anywhere, no matter what happens. With one last, lingering look at the ring, he headed into Sharper Image, where Holly found him half an hour later, sitting in one of the massage chair recliners. "Replaced by a chair," she remarked dryly.
"Never," Roger said, turning the chair off and bringing the chair upright. "I'd much rather have you massage me than a chair. Although the chair is nice..."
"Yeah, well, Christmas is coming," Holly replied.
Noticing the pink-and-white-striped bag in her hand, he said, "Maybe tonight," as he stood up.
"Maybe," Holly said evenly.
Exiting Sharper Image arm in arm, they spotted Bath and Body Works at the same time, and the same idea entered both their heads, causing them to talk over each other at the same time.
"You know what else we haven't done together?" Roger.
"I just thought of something else we haven't done together." Holly.
They laughed in unison and Roger said, "Bubble bath?"
"Bubble bath," Holly replied. "Great minds think alike."
Roger was a bit nonplussed by all the different varieties of bubble bath available. He nixed Sea Island Cotton as an option, explaining, "I don't associate crisp white cotton and clean linen with a bath, although I do look forward to associating them with you."
Neither he nor Holly wanted Brown Sugar and Fig. "In a dessert, yes. In a bubble bath, no," Holly said, and Roger instantly agreed.
Roger suggested Sensual Amber, reading from the back of the bottle, "'The allure of bare skin warmed by the glow of sunset with a seductive blend of lotus petals and golden amber.' That sounds good, don't you think?"
Holly had picked up a bottle of Moonlight Path. "'A soft blend of lavender, lilies, oak moss and musk,'" she read from the back of the bottle.
"That sounds good too," Roger said.
"We could get both. It's not like we're only going to take one bath," Holly pointed out reasonably.
Then they both spied a bottle of Carried Away, which was a combination of lush raspberries, white jasmine, and whipped vanilla. They bought one bottle of each.
When they reached the end of the main concourse, they were surprised to see a full-sized carousel, the calliope playing loudly as one mother and her giggling toddler daughter rode the carousel, the mother holding the daughter steady on a beautiful painted pony.
"A few more years, and we can bring Kevin and Jason here to ride the carousel," Roger said, resting his cheek against Holly's.
Holly smiled, picturing herself and Roger with Kevin and Jason on the carousel in the future. The mother and toddler disembarked the carousel when it stopped at the end of their ride, and Holly said, "Let's ride the carousel."
"Without the boys?" Roger asked, surprised. He hadn't been on a carousel since he was five years old.
"Why not?" Holly retorted.
And Roger couldn't think of a single reason. "Yes, why not?" he agreed.
They chose two horses side by side, and the carousel motor ground to a start, the calliope wheezing until it gained steam, and then they were off.
Passing by the carousel, Vicky Harrison was struggling with her almost three-year-old son. "Kirkland Ryan Harrison," she said in a warning tone, "if you don't start behaving this instant, you're in for a long time-out when we get home."
"Cut him some slack, Vicky," Marley Frame told her sister. Marley was pushing her own son, eight-month-old Christopher, in his stroller next to Vicky and the squirming, protesting Kirk. "He's a boy, and he's almost three, and he hates shopping."
"It's very easy for you to say that, since your son is still in a stroller and half-asleep," Vicky said with a scowl at her twin. But then Vicky caught sight of the couple on the carousel and chortled gleefully, confusing both Kirk and Marley. "Would you look at that," she marveled.
Marley followed Vicky's gaze. "Aren't those Donna and Michael's friends?" she asked when she saw the couple kissing on the carousel, seemingly oblivious to the fact that their horses were moving up and down beneath them.
"Yeah," Vicky said. "Roger and Holly. A.K.A. this year's floor show."
"Oh, right, that dance at the dock party," Marley remembered.
"Mommy, I wanna ride the carousel!" Kirk announced then.
"As soon as Grandma and Grandpa's friends are done," Vicky told her son.
Kirk looked at the carousel and frowned, looking a lot like his father Ryan when he did. "Where's their kid?" he asked.
"They didn't bring their kid with them," Marley replied.
"Why not?" Kirk asked.
Marley looked at Vicky. "He asked you," Vicky informed her sister. "You need the practice anyway. Christopher will be asking you plenty of 'why' and 'why not' questions before you know it. Besides, someone has to call Mom and tell her about Holly and Roger." Vicky pulled her cell phone out of her pocket, hit the correct speed dial number for Donna, and left Marley to answer Kirk's question while making their mother's day with the news that Holly and Roger were making out on the carousel at The Galleria.
After their carousel ride, Roger and Holly decided to skip looking at the second story of The Galleria. It was late afternoon, and the sun would be setting soon. "Wanna go for a drive?" Roger suggested as they made their way across the parking lot to the car.
"Sure," Holly agreed. After stowing their purchases in the trunk, they headed out with no particular destination in mind. They were headed into the countryside almost before they realized it, the leaves on the trees in their full autumnal splendor, brilliant hues of red, orange, and gold catching the setting sun.
"This is beautiful," Holly said, her voice hushed.
Roger spotted a lone building in the middle of a field on the left side of the road and pulled over. "Let's walk," he suggested, putting the car in 'park.'
"What is this place?" Holly wondered as they walked towards the building.
"I don't know," Roger said.
A footbridge suddenly appeared around a bend in the path, and they followed it right to the door of the building. Roger tried the door, and it was unlocked, so he and Holly went inside. The building was a single story, concrete and wood, with a large mill wheel taking up most of the far wall. "It's an old mill!" Holly realized.
"Do you think it's open to the public?" Roger wondered.
"I guess so," Holly said.
"It'd be a great place to bring a picnic sometime," Roger reflected as he watched Holly walk around, looking at the mill.
"Oh, yeah, we have to do that," Holly replied. "Maybe wait until the weather warms up, though, sometime next spring," Holly replied. She stopped in the doorway and looked outside.
Roger moved to stand behind her, wrapping his arms around her waist from behind and lightly resting his head against hers. "I'll keep you warm," he said.
She rested her arms on top of his and leaned back into him. "I have no doubt about that," she said happily. "I have no doubts about anything when it comes to you, and to us."
"Neither do I," Roger said, tightening his hold on her.
"Look, the sun is setting," Holly said. They stood in the doorway of The Old Mill and watched the sun set in comfortable silence. When the sky had turned from purple and pink to midnight blue, Holly turned in Roger's arms, putting her arms around his neck. His arms went around her waist, his clasped hands resting at the small of her back. "Let's go back to the hotel," she said softly, raising up on her toes to brush a quick kiss across his mouth. "We can order dinner from room service."
"And then I'm going to give you a full body massage," Roger said, his hands finding their way under her coat only to encounter her sweater and, beneath that, her blouse. "Too many layers," he grumbled good-naturedly.
"November in the Midwest," she pointed out, "which also means snuggling together to keep warm."
"You have a good point there," he agreed.
When they got back to their suite at The Bayshore, Roger left the Neil Diamond CD in the living room by the stereo and carried the 'Our First Christmas' ornament into the bedroom, putting the bag on the desk in the corner. Holly put the Robert Frost book on the desk next to the Christmas ornament, put the bag from the lingerie shop on the top closet shelf and admonished Roger, "No peeking in that bag," and then, as she carried the bag with the three bottles of bubble bath into the bathroom, she stopped in the bathroom doorway, looked over her shoulder at Roger, who was taking off his coat, and said, "Get out the new room service menu, would you? It's in the nightstand," and she waved a hand in the general direction of the bed, flanked by the two nightstands with lamps, before disappearing into the bathroom, leaving the door open.
Roger figured the new room service menu (the new menus had been distributed to all the rooms and suites in the hotel three days before) was in the nightstand on Holly's side of the bed, since she had been living in the suite alone until last night. So he opened the drawer of Holly's nightstand. Right on top was a folded piece of paper on top of a small rectangular jewelry case of black velvet.
Roger pulled the piece of paper and the jewelry case out. He unfolded the piece of paper and saw that it wasn't a piece of paper, it was a heart. He recognized it instantly: it was the heart he had cut out of a memo at WSPR for Holly on Valentine's Day two years before. He looked up from that paper heart to the bathroom, where he could hear Holly putting the bottles of bubble bath away, and smiled.
His curiosity getting the better of him (Blake got it from somewhere), he opened the jewelry case, and after removing the folded receipts that rested atop the contents, his breath whooshed out of his lungs and he sank down on the edge of Holly's side of the bed, his eyes riveted to the his-and-hers platinum wedding rings inside the box.
Holly had worn a plain gold wedding band when she was married to Fletcher. Roger remembered that far too painfully well.
These rings were not gold. They were platinum. And there were two of them, one larger than the other and clearly meant for a man's finger.
Holly's words at The Old Mill came back to Roger then as he stared at those wedding rings. I have no doubts about anything when it comes to you, and to us.
Had Holly bought wedding rings for herself and him? Is that what these were?
Roger hadn't understood what Holly had meant earlier in the day at The Galleria when she had been shaking and she told him that she knew they were back together but the meaning, the reality, of that fact hadn't hit her until she saw him holding the 'Our First Christmas' ornament out to her for her approval in the Hallmark store. But sitting here looking at these wedding rings, he understood exactly what she had meant, and how she had felt, because now he was feeling it for himself.
From the moment Holly had turned up at his door at the country club in Springfield six months ago, she had asserted that all she wanted was him, that the only thing she wanted was to be with him for the rest of her life.
Had she really been thinking this permanently all this time? Did she want to marry him as much as he wanted to marry her?
Roger felt dizzy now, and a bit shaky himself. He had meant it too at The Old Mill when he had told Holly that he had no doubts about her or about them either. He didn't. For the first time in their lives, he knew with absolute, incontrovertible certainty that Holly wasn't going to leave him for any other man. They both took it as fact that they would be together for the rest of their lives. And yes, Roger wanted to marry Holly; he had wanted that ever since Acapulco, when they had finally hashed out the past and found forgiveness and resolution and moved forward. He had proposed to her more than once in the past, but they had never been on the same page regarding marriage in the past.
And Roger didn't want to push Holly on marriage. He figured that he would get a clear sign from her when she was ready to discuss it.
The fact that Holly had these wedding rings in her nightstand drawer was a flashing neon sign.
Wasn't it?
The receipts. The receipts would have dates on them. Roger fumbled with the folded receipts, his fingers nerveless, his mouth dry. He had just gotten one receipt open enough to see the word 'engraving' when Holly exited the bathroom, taking off her coat. "Did you find the new room service menu?" she asked as she tossed her coat on the chair with Roger's and adjusted her sleeves. "Do they still have the-"
Holly stopped talking abruptly and froze in her tracks as she took in the sight of Roger, sitting on the edge of her side of the bed, the open box with the wedding rings in his palm, the receipts crinkled in his other hand. He looked up from the receipts to meet her gaze, shock and hope warring in his eyes. Holly took a deep breath, holding his gaze as her heart ascended to her throat and she wondered what he was going to say and how she would respond, because she didn't want to push or rush him into anything.