Shane was mesmerized by the scene before her. Oliver stood in front of their bathroom mirror wearing nothing but the cream colored towel tied around his waist. He was performing his daily shaving routine and Shane had paused her morning preparations to observe him. She told herself she would just watch for one more minute. She had loved watching him meticulously perform this routine since the first time she had seen it on their honeymoon. It has felt so intimate getting to see him do something that only she was privy to. The care he took as he lathered his face thoroughly, and then meticulously slid his multi-blade razor over his skin. It was practically seductive and Shane nearly found herself drooling every time she watched him.
Oliver had noticed her in his peripheral vision and he chuckled to himself. After 4 months together he would have thought the novelty of married life would have worn off a little, but he still discovered her watching him most mornings. Although he had to admit, he rather appreciated the admiring look he saw in her eyes each time his gaze found hers. He turned his head to fully look at her now, unsurprisingly he was rewarded with that glint in her eyes. She smiled sheepishly at him.
Having been caught, Shane tore her eyes away from her gorgeous husband, and headed to the closet to get dressed. She would lose good wife status if she made them late for work.
Oliver stepped out of the bathroom just a minute or two later to find Shane in nothing but a matching lacy purple bra and underwear set standing in the closet while she made her clothing selections for the day. He quickly made his way to her.
"Perfect timing," he murmured as he wrapped his arms around her waist. His hands caressed her silky skin, and she laughed lightly as she leaned into him.
"You are a vision in purple my love."
"Oliver, you say that about everything I wear."
"Do I?" He asked, amused.
"Yes you do!" Shane informed him.
"Well I mean it every time," Oliver said as he kissed her neck and down her shoulder.
"Mmmm," Shane gave a quiet moan as her hands roamed up his bare chest. She inhaled his clean scent as she tested the effectiveness of his razor with her palms. His smell was practically intoxicating to her. She felt his hands move up her back, and then down as he explored her curves.
"Oliver, if you don't stop we are definitely going to be late for work." She kissed him sweetly, "but I will give you a rain check for later tonight."
He pulled her closer, enjoying the feel of her body against his for just a moment more before leaning down to her ear, "I will definitely take you up on that," he answered huskily.
Reluctantly Oliver moved away to his side of the closet to dress. Shane smiled to herself. Oliver often hindered her as she dressed in the mornings in order to take advantage of her different states of undress. It secretly, and maybe not so secretly, thrilled Shane to be on the receiving end of his affection and flirting. Unfortunately for her, what she had said was true, if they didn't get moving they would indeed be late for work.
Monday morning was full of problems for the United States Post Office. A sorting machine malfunctioned and everyone had been called down to help sort out the mess of letters and postcards that had been torn or scattered around the room. Norman had been crucial to the mechanical repairs and after 2 long hours they had the machine up and running again. Norman, Rita, and Charlie were still helping sort out the mess while Shane and Oliver returned to the DLO with a crate of the damaged letters.
The couple went to work repairing what they could and getting the letters en route to their correct destinations. They were almost finished with the stack when Shane called out, "Oliver look! This is one of the letters that Norman found jammed in the gears of the sorting machine."
Shane held up a mostly intact letter with a shredded envelope barely holding on around it. They could just make out the name Maria P as the intended recipient, and the street name canyon something or other. All the other information that had been written on the envelope had been lost to the faulty machine.
"Hmmm, the machine surely did some damage to this one," Oliver said, "we don't have a lot of information to go on from the envelope."
"May I?" Shane hesitantly asked, looking up at Oliver to get his approval before she would open the letter to read it.
"Yes it looks like we'll definitely have to start reading in order to find out where it belongs."
Shane unfolded the letter and started reading.
-My sweet girl! I am writing again, still hoping that one of my letters will make it to you. You already know that your father is sick. He will not let me anywhere near you so I am staying with Uncle Albert a little ways upstate. If there is any way for you to contact me I will take you away from there in a heartbeat. We will go somewhere to be together far away from here. I pray that I will hear from you soon. All my love, Mama-
There was an address and phone number written at the bottom.
"Oh Oliver, we have to help them," Shane said, already heading towards her computer.
She searched for Maria P, which seemed much too daunting until she narrowed it down to addresses with canyon in the street name. This gave her only 2 possibilities, and a quick family search found one Maria Perez age 15 with a mother named Rosa and an uncle named Albert on the mother's side. There wasn't an address listed for Rosa or Albert, but she already had one for Maria. She jotted down the information then called, "I found her Oliver." She jumped up from her computer and headed to the coat rack for her purse and jacket.
Oliver hesitated behind her, he wasn't so sure that this was going to turn out the way that Shane hoped.
"Aren't you coming?" Shane asked, looking back at him.
Oliver recognized the determined look on her face and he knew he couldn't let her go alone, "Uh yes, of course, I'm right behind you," he said, grabbing his jacket from the rack as well as he followed her out the swinging doors.