A summer love story
A wandering mind is a dangerous thing and hers was about as far from safe as it could be as she watched him working in the yard. Several years her senior he had experienced the world more than she had in her short 18 years on this planet. Freshly graduated from High School and spending her last summer at home she was as green as green could be. The saying “Sweet 16 and never been kissed” still applied to her two years later and she didn’t find anything sweet about that.
He could feel her watching him from her bench on the porch, pretending to be reading every time he looked up. She was a pretty girl. The kind of pretty that most guys don’t appreciate until they have grown up a little and lived some. At 25 he had done some living and some growing up. This town was his fresh start. A girl like that could make a man real proud to have her on his arm. He looked over at her and smiled as she went back to pretending to read.
“Damn it, Mark, if innocence had a picture next to it in the dictionary it would be of her.” He chuckled to himself at that thought as he went back to planting.
“Who are you fooling?” She asked herself. “He knows what you are doing. You should at least say, ‘Hello’ or something.” She got up and went inside. It was getting hot and she was thirsty. She grabbed two glasses and a plate from the cupboard and filled them with ice cold lemonade and some homemade cookies and placed them on a tray.
When she went back outside the sound of the screen door banging shut made him look up towards her.
“Hey, you need a break?” She asked while lifting the tray up as an invitation.
He stood up, stretched showing off a peek of his muscular torso, and shot her a smile while walking over. She thought her ice cubes were going to melt from how hot this guy was.
She set her tray down on the porch as he reached out to shake her hand.
“I’m Mark. Mark Hansen.”
“Jessa Ames” she said shaking his hand.
“Well, Jessa, you are a life saver. A break was exactly what I needed.”
As they sat down on the porch steps she handed him his glass.
“Are you new in town, or just to this neighborhood?”
“I’m new to town. My great Aunt owns that house and she is letting me stay there and take care of it while she is in the nursing home.”
“That is nice. Are you a landscaper by trade?”
“No, that is just my hobby and part of our agreement.”
“Oh, well you are making it look real nice.”
“Thank you. Hey, did you make these cookies? They are delicious!”
“Yes, baking is sort of my hobby.”
“Wow! Pretty and you can bake! I’m surprised there isn’t a line around the block waiting to see you!”
Jessa blushed. Was he flirting with her?
“Thank you. I made them all leave when you moved in.” Did she really just say that?
Mark was surprised by her quick wit and bold come back. Was he the one blushing now? He laughed and said, “Lucky for me.”
They looked into each other’s eyes for a moment then Jessa cleared her throat and asked, “If you aren’t a landscaper what do you do?”
“I am starting my own construction business.”
“That explains the muscles.” Jessa turned three shades of pink realizing she just said that out loud.
Mark laughed, “I guess so!” He was falling for this girl. She was a refreshing change, so open and candid. “Well, I better get back to work. Thanks again for the break.”
“You are welcome.” She thought she had blown her chance for this to go anywhere but awkward as he walked away.
He turned around on the bottom step, “Maybe we can do this again sometime.”
“Any time.” She carried the tray back into the kitchen and smiled for the rest of the day.
Several days later nothing more had happened, but an occasional wave as they both came and went going about their daily activities. It was the weekend and Jessa woke up hoping to see sunshine and her neighbor back out working in the yard. Instead the skies were dark and gloomy. It was the perfect kind of a day for baking. She looked through the cupboards and realized that she was out of a lot of supplies.
“Mom, I am taking the car to the store.” She called down to her mom who was doing laundry.
As she was pulling back into the driveway the skies opened up and rain poured down in sheets. Jessa saw Mark run out of his house barefoot in just his pajama bottoms to his storage shed. He grabbed a tarp and was trying to cover up his freshly planted seedlings before the rain destroyed them. She hopped out of the car and ran over to help him.
“Here, let me help!” she said over the rain.
“You will get drenched!” He protested.
“I already am, give me a corner.”
No sooner had they covered the delicate plants when huge hail stones started pelting down. Mark grabbed Jessa by the hand and said, “Come on!”
They ran up his steps and into his house. Just as the door shut a huge clap of thunder shook the windows. Jessa jumped and Mark protectively wrapped his arms around her. It was the closest she had ever been to a man who wasn’t related to her and they had definitely all been wearing shirts. She wasn’t sure if it was the cold or the excitement that made her start to shake.
“Oh man, you are freezing! Are you okay?” He asked still holding on to her.
She looked up into his eyes and nodded. His lips were just inches from hers. She bit her lip as her eyes moved from his eyes to his lips and back to his eyes again.
“God, she is beautiful!” He thought. She was dripping wet, hair all a mess, but he had never seen anyone look cuter. A drop of water was about to drip off the end of her nose.
“You are beautiful.” He said aloud as he wiped the drip away. He put his hand against her cheek and instinctively she moved closer to him. And then as if in slow motion she was no longer “Sweet 16 (plus two) and never been kissed”. She was Jessa, 18 and in love with the man next door that she barely knew. She would never be that awkward girl from yesterday again. IN that moment she saw herself as a woman about to start her life.
As he held her Mark felt her body give into him. Caught up in the moment he let himself kiss her. This girl next door had drawn him in. He had never wanted someone in his life more. It was as if he was holding his future in his hands and he wasn’t about to let go of it.
A flash of lightening lit up the house. Mark knew he had to step away from Jessa or risk letting himself get carried away. He could tell she was inexperienced and he was afraid that wherever he led she would follow. He stepped back and looked at her again. She really was a beauty. A quiet kind of beauty that isn’t flashy and doesn’t even know she is beautiful.
“If we stay like this much longer we are going to catch a cold. I better go change. Let me grab you a blanket.”
“Oh, that is okay I can just run home.” Another flash of lightening illuminated the room and a gust of wind blew the trees outside.
“You better just stay here until this storm calms down.”
“Okay.”
Mark handed her a quilt from the hall closet and went down the hallway to his bedroom. Jessa looked around at the house. She suspected that everything was just as his Aunt had left it. It was a style that she would call, “Grandma sheik”; crocheted blankets on the couch and copper jello molds on the wall in the kitchen. She spotted a tea pot on the stove and decided to get it boiling for some tea to warm them up. With the water running and her back to the doorway she didn’t hear Mark come up behind her. Something about watching her in his kitchen just felt right. Without hesitation he reached around her waist with his strong hands as she placed the tea pot on the stove and kissed her on the cheek.
“Good idea.” He said.
Jessa’s whole body tingled at his touch as if something inside of her had been turned on instead of the stove. Finding her voice, she asked, “Feel better?”
“Yes, but you are still freezing. Can I loan you some clothes to change into?”
“No, I am okay, honest.” Jessa could only imagine what her Mother would think if she came home in a strange man’s clothes. Innocent or not she didn’t want to take the chance of her thinking the worst.
“Well, then please sit at the table and wrap yourself up in that blanket while I finish up the tea!”
“Okay.”
While the storm continued to rage outside they sat and talked and learned more about each other. Jessa was going off to college in the Fall to become a teacher. Fortunately it would only be a couple of hours away. Mark had been raised in a small town like this one as a boy, but then in High School his family moved to the big city. By the time the tea had been drank and they had warmed up the storm had calmed.
“I had better get home and get those groceries I bought this morning in the house.”
“Let me help you.”
