#264c
Joy stared at Warren for a long considering time. her blue eyes dark and unreadable.
"Please come take a drive with me, the family will be home soon and I would like to have you all to myself for a while. I'm not good at saying what I need to say, and the kids frustrate me with their interruptions."
Joy nodded and reached out to turn off the burner.
Warren drove around the back side of the lake, to a turnout he had noticed while fishing. Because the temperature was dropping and it had started to rain, he left the Rover on to provide heat.
With his hands draped loosely over the steering wheel, Warren started. "It has been so long since I have shared any of my emotions with a woman,".....................and they were still talking two hours later.
If Warren had thought Joy would throw up her hands and go mushy, moony eyed just because he wanted to claim he needed what she had said she needed; he was very much mistaken. Joy might have been the owner of a lonely heart, but that heart had been stomped on and left bruised; and she wasn't inclined to get it out from it's protective coating without a darn good reason.
"Did Lemmie tell you I wanted you to call?"
"Yes, I was out of the country on assignment. She wasn't very happy when she gave me the message; does she know something , that I should know?" Joy was direct as she asked the hard questions.
"Other than I've had a hard time coming to grips with my retirement. I worked because I didn't have anything else to do." Warren was trying hard to be fair and honest.
"I can understand that. It's the same reason I went back out. I am having to rethink my last mission, as you can see it didn't go well and I am going to retire...again." Joy gave a small laugh.
Warren picked up the casted hand and said knowingly, "what did you do?"
"I hit a little twerp that had a lot harder face than my hand." Joy could laugh about it now, but she was having trouble concentrating as Warren brushed his thumb across her fingers. For some reason, they were tingling.
They stayed and talked another hour. "I don't want to go back," Warren said with a smile, "but I'm afraid I must. Miss Joy lean over here so I may kiss you." Warren put two of his fingers on her cheekbone and kissed Miss Joy with a lot of pent up emotion. Miss Joy kissed him back, she liked trades to be fair.
The entire Linderman household heaved a big sigh of relief when Warren and Joy weren't constantly bickering and sniping at one another. It didn't ease Warren and Joy's other tensions, but they were being nice.
Clora decided it must be the water, or the time of the year with Christmas approaching; but a good many of the Lindermen men were having bad cases of 'girl-itis'.
Benny was over the moon, the little dark haired girl moved into his school and said "hi."
Milo, Teddy and Robert had dates for the Winter dance, and Clora was almost wishing they were ten again. Fussy about their clothes, their hair, their dance ability and worried about bad breath; she threw up her hands and went to bother their father.
"You need to do something about those boys," Clora leaned over and put her arms around Mark's shoulders. He was seated at his desk making out the December bills. She resorted to several tricks to keep his attention away from the check writing.
"They probably get it from their mother," Mark said dryly. "They'll settle down, but I may not," he warned.
The entire household was acting goofy. Lemmie and Hank weren't immune, they had come back from a Thanksgiving visit with Hank's daughter, and were planning a Christmas visit with Lemmie's son Emanuel.
"Christmas is Em's birthday and he's never met Hank," she explained.
Clora thought it was another case of 'indecent haste," and smiled to herself.
Warren and Joy bundled up and went for long walks, the fresh air and exercise good for the both of them.
Life was fine until the day after Christmas, when a severe blizzard kept all the Lindermen men homebound with a couple of feet of snow. Young and old men alike snorted and kicked at the barn door. All of them had made plans that had been interrupted and were feeling terribly inconvenienced.
Mark had made plans for another trip to the valley. The roads into the area had been impassible during the first trip, and he was going in by helicopter this time. It got so bad, Clora wished he'd just go. Wayne couldn't go this time, and Mark was going alone; not what Clora wanted.
Warren was cranky and crabby. There was a ring waiting at his favorite jewelers in New York, and the weather was holding up the parade.
"See, I told you a long time ago that this many boys was a mistake," Tess was as moody and touchy as all the rest of the kids, but she felt it was necessary to remind her mother that the overwhelming suffocation of boys wasn't to her liking.
The day the snowplow came by, nobody cheered louder than Clora, and she sent a sack of cookies out to the driver as a thank you.
.
