Amy Jo walked down to the beach where she found her King of her Jungle sitting watching the ever changing patterns in the water. She remembered those early months as if they had happened yesterday and also how scared she was he would leave her for a younger woman. As he glanced up and smiled at her she could tell that sadness she had seen almost from day one of their marriage had taken hold. As he stood up to walk toward her he adjusted his shorts so she could see her brand. Inside she could feel herself melt all over again. When he stopped to give her a quick kiss before heading into his hideaway she had wanted to go back to that Saturday and throw caution to the wind and ignore the Little Bitty from up the beach who thought the beach in front of their house was hers and show George once again that her passion was not dead. Following him into his tent she smiled as she knew she had one of a kind. While all of her friends husbands had spent fortunes on toys, the only thing her George wanted was this less than two hundred dollar tent which was really a car canopy with a side door that became an awning and screen windows. As she took a seat on the love seat that had been relegated to his domain she smiled as she was reminded of the numerous nights they never made it to the bedroom and how he had to explain why he was kneeling in front of her to two very young little girls. His quick reply that he was paying tribute to the queen was now a joke in the family the fact both had remained dressed and she had had a blanket over her, which he had crawled under, had kept those eyes from seeing what was really going on. Laying back and putting her feet up she caught him glancing up from his notebook and when his hand touched her leg she closed her eyes and was taken back.
For years Amarinda Josephine had always worn conservative suits cut to accentuate her figure. She changed that when she realized our George liked her legs and she began including skirts in her attire. It was in a chance moment in time when he happened to come into the staff dining hall when she was working late and getting ready to enjoy a late snack that she waved him over. As he joined her she knew he had noticed her legs but did not let his eyes linger there. As others would come up to him she noticed especially with the girls who worked the nightclub coming in for dinner, though he noticed the skimpy outfits and even complimented a few he did not let his eyes linger or stare; when he talked to others he looked them in the eye, both men and women. She hardly even got a chance to talk to him as it seemed every swing shift employee had something they needed advice on including the manager on duty who had come in and asked what he would do in a certain situation and her mountain man must of known what guest was complaining as he told the manager to tell Mrs. Jones that he would take her to the waterfall in the morning.
Our queen had stopped him when he had a break and asked why he was taking Mrs. Jones to the waterfall. He had looked up startled by the question and she realized she had sounded accusatory. Almost instantly he told her she was welcome to come along as he was leading a group up to see the upper falls, looking down at her feet he told her that she would need to wear comfortable hiking shoes. Looking down at his shoes she noticed the cowboy boots and mentioned they were not part of his uniform. Apologizing he said at the moment they were what he had to wear so unless she wanted him to go around in his socks or barefoot she would have to deal with it. When the General Manager walked in as he was preparing to go back to work, the Queen mistakenly thought he was there to see her and when he walked over to her George and then walked out with him laughing at something George said in reply to a question, the soon to be Amy Jo made the decision they needed to talk.
She missed the hike he lead for a convention group but heard the stories told by both guests and employees who had gone on the hike and how he stopped someone from stepping on a rattle snake which he picked up and moved and then when they encountered a cougar getting a drink how he kept everyone calm by talking quietly to the cougar; according to everyone she heard tell the story the cat seemed to understand what he was saying. She did not see her jungle man for almost a week and when he came in next he was showing a deeper tan and a haircut well actually his hair had been shaved and she saw the scar. She asked if he was okay, before he could answer one of the younger members of the communication committee came in, and having been out on maternity leave had not met George, and asked who he was. George who had taken to sitting next to her majesty when he showed up to the weekly meetings raised an eyebrow when our Queen said he was spoken for.
After that weekly meeting they walked back across the resort grounds; he asked what she liked to do, when she said she liked to go dancing, he nodded and asked where and when. That was it and when he went to talk to the chef at the Japanese Steak and Sushi House it was settled he would meet her on Thursday for dinner at her favorite dance hall. She had smiled to herself as she thought at least he would not need to buy new shoes. What she had not told him was that Thursday was family night and she and the girls went every Thursday. She hardly noticed those two days but did finally ask what he did for the resort. Her boss said whatever was needed to be done he helped out in getting it done, but was sad to say he was leaving at the end of the season.
As always she joined her friends for their night of line dancing with their daughters. George was already waiting sitting on the tailgate of his truck. As he dropped down from the huge crew cab, she inhaled as she knew what those cost and there was no way an employee of the resort could afford anything half the price on what they were paid. Once they were settled for dinner her best friend asked George where he was from, smiling George said here and when the woman asked what he meant by here, George smiled and said at the moment he lived here so this is where he was from. One of the other gals asked where he was from before he was from here and he shrugged and said he had been around. Amy put her hand on his arm and asked him to play nice. Raising his eyebrow he smiled and said he had been in the mountains before coming to the desert to look at the stars. When he was asked how many he had met he laughed and said since he was stuck on the earth and had no interest in breathing air out of a can he had not met any stars and was not all positive he would want to as they were filled with way too much gas and hot air for his taste. Several of the teen girls spewed their sodas when they started laughing at his dead pan answer. When Amy Jo told him she thought maybe there was difference of definition he smiled and winked and said as for those actor types that lead pretend lives he knew plenty of them. She had looked at him and asked when he had met them. Shrugging he said he met them in different places, some here in the desert, some in the mountains, some on planes, others in the cities.
Raising his hand he said he thought they had come to do some dancing and getting up grabbed Amy Jo’s oldest daughter’s hand and took her out onto the dance floor. Walking over to the DJ booth he put on some old beach music and had the teen girls doing some squirmy dance. That came to a halt when the line dance instructor, who was another good friend of Amy Jo’s, took over. As the woman tried to teach a new dance George kept everyone laughing as he did his own thing. As the night wore on and two of the moms took the girls home Amy Jo’s best friend Emily asked how old George was and what she knew about him. Amy Jo shrugged and said he was old enough to own a really big pickup and have a job. She was asked what exactly his job was and Amy shrugged. One of the secretaries spoke up as she sat down and said at the end of the season he was leaving the resort, to do what she did not know but the upper management of the company was not very happy and had offered him really huge salaries to stay with the company. Their conversation was stopped as George pulled her onto the dance floor and showed he did know how to dance. By the time they were done she wanted him to ask her to go home with him.
That night as they left she knew he had had a couple of drinks put in front of him early on but had not seen him touch a single one since the dancing started, that had intrigued her. When he got her away from her friends she saw something almost wild and when he had her up against his truck and kissed her Amy felt a shock like none other and knew no matter what, this was the one for her. As he pulled back and walked her to her truck he made sure she could walk straight. Helping her in he asked if she wanted to go with him on Saturday. When she said yes, he smiled tipped his hat she did not remember seeing and walked off. Friday she took off to attend one of her daughter Jenny’s softball games. Her other three girls harangued her the entire time asking if she had kissed him and if they were boyfriend and girlfriend. Over ice cream and pizza she finally admitted he had kissed her and that yes he was taking her out on Saturday so they needed to get up early and clean the house. Saturday came and they found when they woke up George already at the house working on their yard. When she asked how long he had been there he said he could not sleep so when it became Saturday he came over and started helping out and had fixed her broken sprinkler, cleaned the pool, fixed her barn door and cleaned the barn, but left the outside paddocks for the girls who might want to be careful as he had fixed the electric fence.
Going to his truck he pulled out two heavy duffels and said now that they were up he would do the horses hooves. Forgetting she was still in her robe she followed him to the barn where he already had an anvil set up along with a small furnace and a bucket of water. She and the girls watched with awe as he wrangled the grumpy old mare talking quietly to her, in less than ten minutes he had her old shoes off and her feet trimmed and looking up he said she really had hard enough hooves that she did not need shoes. Amber the youngest asked if was raised on a ranch. Shaking his head he said no but he had spent a couple of years helping out an old vet and farrier. Samantha the outgoing half of the twins asked if he had a girlfriend. Without missing a beat he said he had hundreds of girls that were friends maybe even thousands. Amber asked if he kissed them all and standing up he shook his head and said that she was a little young but since she asked he could count the number of women he kissed on one hand without needing to use a single finger. Amy knew he meant she was the only one and could not believe she was the only one he had ever kissed and had put her hands on her hips letting her robe slip open. How he managed to make it look like he had not even noticed when he led the mare out and whispered to her that she might want to get ready for the day caused her to take a good long look at him as he walked out to the pasture and caught the next horse with an easy flick of a rope.
On the way into the house she jumped into the pool and swam several laps before walking into the house as bare as she always did after swimming. By the time she was dressed with a bikini on under her sun dress her daughters had come in, gotten dressed and cleaned the kitchen; he was mostly cleaned up from the waist up and cooking breakfast. After breakfast he went back to the barn and used the muck room shower. When he came up wearing only a pair of jeans he asked if it was okay if he left his stuff in the tack room as it took up too much space in his apartment. Amy nodded and said only if he made her breakfast every Saturday. Shrugging he said he would try. As she followed him out to his truck she watched as he walked and realized he reminded her of a cat. Looking back he grabbed a shirt out of his truck and slipped it on. The sleeves were missing and the buttons went only half way up leaving his chest exposed. All four of her daughters whispered to her they wanted him as their new dad. Her oldest told Amy if she did not want him she would take him.
Amy Jo gave her daughter that look and Sabrina said he was not that much older than they were. Amy said she did not believe she was hearing her right. Amber said he was only like twenty one. Amy rolled her eyes and said they did not know his age. When he came back up with a smile he said he was ready. Looking down at his feet she saw he had a pair of ninety-nine cent flip-flops on. She looked at him and he shrugged saying he was at the store last night and realized boots at the pool looked funny. Amy asked whose pool and he said his apartment complex had five of them and now that it was getting warmer the cement might not be so pleasant to walk on. Amy caught all four of her daughters looking him up and down and then settled on his chest. Amber asked where they were going, George looking at their mom said she looked like she wanted to go swimming somewhere so he was thinking the beach and asked if she had ever gone surfing.
The girls had all wanted to go but Amy was glad that George said it seemed to him on a date it should be one on one time. The drive to the coast was quiet as he let her drive part way while he napped. When he took over and stopped in front of a house he smiled and said he needed to get something. Walking back out with two surfboards and four young women in tow he smiled and Amy gave a halfhearted smile, when he climbed in one of the girls told him where the swell was best that day. Amy asked if those were some of his girlfriends. As he drove down the coast he told her two were his cousins and two were friends and he had held hands with both of them when he was little and was forced to when they went somewhere. Amy asked if he really had never kissed a girl. Smiling he said not like he kissed some pretty thing he had met at the honky tonk the other night, but he forgot to get her name and only knew her as Ma’am. Amy said she knew his name, smiling he said it was kind of hard to miss since he had to wear a name tag like he was in kindergarten and the royalty did not. Amy asked who was royalty and he said all those who did not have to wear name tags were royalty. Looking in his console she found some individual icing tubes and he said he had decorated a birthday cake the other day and those were left over. Amy took one and used it to write her name on her cleavage which in a moving truck and backwards was kind of hard to do.
When they stopped at the beach under the nuclear power plant they received waves from many of the other beach goers. Before she could ask two more young women came running over and jumped on his running boards. One of them looked at Amy and started giggling and asked George if he could not remember who his current girlfriends name was. Taking the tube he smiled and looking at the horrid attempt he wiped it off with his fingers and licked his fingers before writing Queen Amy Jo in icing. Looking at Amy Jo he said they had better behave as they were in the presence of a queen and he would hate to be forced to spank them in public. As they opened the door for her she could not help laughing as the two gals bowed to her and then helped her take off her sun dress. She caught George glancing sideways at her before focusing on changing under an Indian blanket. Half a day she watched and was made to feel at home by the mostly younger crowd all of whom would bow to her when they addressed her. It was from these young people that she found out he had been raised by a whole mess of people some state agency foster parents like some of them and some family members and when he would wander off he would be taken in by someone until he was found and brought back to southern California.
Amy asked what they meant by wander off, one of the older men, who said he had once been one of George’s pseudo daddies, told her he and his wife woke up one day and found him gone and a note saying he was going to go fishing. A year later the authorities found him helping an Inuit family bringing in their catch. That was after he had been found to be underage aboard a large commercial boat and been put ashore with his pay. When George came out of the water he was asked when he took off to go to Alaska. He smiled and said it was just before he turned ten. Amy shook her head and asked how he got to Alaska. George told her that he had bought a plane ticket so he flew to Alaska and had to ask this old fella he knew from the beach to pretend to be his grandpa and buy him a ticket as well. Amy shook her head and asked why some old guy would just up and go to Alaska, George shrugged and said the ticket was free and he had never been to see his grandson who lived in Anchorage. Amy asked why he went since he could fish here. George smiled and asked if she knew how much a fella could make in one season in Alaska. Queen Amy Jo said that was hard to believe they would let a ten year old just up and start working on a fishing boat. With a frown he said he had been as tall as the Japanese crew or most of them at least.
Looking around, he said some of them folks who had helped raise him did so out of kindness but he heard the arguments over money and could tell their children had to sacrifice so when he found something that he could do to help he did. Amy asked about school; George shrugged and said he knew how to read and since mostly teachers told you what you could read on your own or worse not even that as some told you what they wanted you to believe well he could do just fine reading and thinking for himself or asking someone who knew about what you wanted to learn to teach you and if there is a problem you need an answer to, if you studied the problem long enough most of the time you could figure it out. Amy let it go at the signal from one of the older women who came over to let everyone know the food was on.
Sitting by the fire while George went around the group like the host of some grand party until he ended up in a pickup volleyball game, she watched as he was personable but kept an invisible boundary between him and others. When the game was over she helped wipe the sand off him and asked if he was going to introduce her to these friends. Smiling he looked at the players and apologized and putting his hand out he said he was George sometimes the curious one and sometimes the one from the jungle. One of the girls smiled and said anytime he wanted to play he could come to her jungle better known as Santa Monica and her name was Brie. The young man shook George’s hand introducing himself as Cody and said if he ever needed a partner when he went pro to look him up and he would drop his current partner, the last girl told George, after telling him her name was Simone, he could call her anytime and then wrote her phone number on his hand said they were all playing in Huntington Beach the coming week. George smiled and said he would have to check with his queen as he put his arm around Amy.
Later in the late afternoon as they said good bye to his friends she drove over the mountains and when she came down into the desert he woke up and told where to go. They ended up way out in the high desert far from any man made lights. She realized they were next to some huge sand dunes. As he led her up them to the top he had removed her and his shoes. Even though the night was cooling off the sand was still warm. Putting a blanket down he helped her sit down and then lay next to her. As she watched him look at the stars she was mesmerized. Looking down she saw she still had some of the gel frosting on her chest. She could not help herself. When they were both spent and she was listening to his chest and the wind he told her then that this was for life. She had sat up and asked if he was asking her to marry him. George had sat up and told her it seemed that they were a little late for that as according to the Good Book, becoming one flesh kind of seals the deal.
Amy asked what if she was pregnant; with a smile he said that he would be there to catch. Amy smiled and said that was being romantic, as he chuckled she could not help herself and tackled him. When they were done again with him holding her down albeit not very forcefully they both knew she was pregnant and all of those questions went by the way side as they now had to face the joining of two households. As he had carried her back down to the truck and then made another trip as naked as the day he was born to gather their clothes she could not help but smile and then it hit her she did not know his age if he had children, really other than where he worked and that he had had an unusual childhood she did not know much about him. When he got into the truck she blurted out asking him how old he was and he told her he was twenty three but not to worry most people thought he was ten years older. Amy Jo said she felt like she was going to be sick. She had never felt such gentle hands and as the feeling passed she took out another tube of gel icing and used it to brand him. Smiling as he looked down he said he had an idea. Helping her get dressed and then throwing on his jeans he had shoved everything in the back seat and then drove like a mad man half the time across the desert without his lights on. When she realized there were tanks all around them she asked where were they. He had said they were with the good guys. Pulling up to a small encampment of what she realized were Marines from the high desert base he jumped out and went over to an older marine and when they walked back George told her to meet one of his daddies, Colonel Sparks. The old black colonel smiled in the night and told her congratulations on taming down those most wandering feet ever made and hooking herself a prize specimen if he said so himself.
Amy had to shake her head at the forthrightness when he asked her if she was okay with George getting branded permanently. When she looked at George he pointed to the words she wrote and then said he wanted to tattoo it on his hip. Amy asked when, George said right now. Looking at George she said he was crazy and then nodded. A large jacket was brought for her as George lowered his pants slightly as a young marine wearing her hair up stepped forward and told the colonel he was not supposed to know she was the artist in the bunch. Looking at George just standing there waiting the sergeant shook her head said for this she would walk to hell and back. Thirty minutes later George had his pants pulled back up and a fresh brand on his right hip that read Property of the Queen. How he managed to make it home before dawn and get her into bed before her girls woke up she did not know but as she lay there recalling last night she smiled and cried as she realized that tattoo was her wedding ring. Then it hit her what did she tell her girls, her parents, her friends, she had accepted George’s argument as it actually made sense to her. She fell asleep crying asking herself what she had done. George was there when she woke up and it seemed he had spilled the beans to her daughters who would have figured it out anyway. As a family they formulated a plan as not everyone would understand the concept or rather his concept of how marriage started. When George pulled out rings she started crying again. She then asked how he paid for it. George said with money of course.
She then looked at him and told him she had an idea what he made at the resort. George said that pay covered his current bills as he had stopped to breathe for a while as he looked at the stars but he had never intended that as a career just something to keep him from spending his savings or using credit cards. As she sat down he asked how much debt she had. She looked up and said she still owed twenty more years of payments on the place and her truck she had another year and the horse trailer another three. Amy sensed an argument was coming but then she saw George stop before his next sentence a sad look came to his eyes and he said as he held out the rings If they were too much he would take them back. She told him she liked them but.., before she could continue he said he had to get home and check on his dog that was not used to binge left in the care of neighbors. That brought up the question of where he lived and when she found he lived practically next door to the resort she said that was convenient. He happened to mention that so was having five pools to choose from and the store two blocks down.
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