from the sky at any moment. “I’ll take a side of pool boy and butler to go with that. A gardener wouldn’t hurt anything, either,” Kayla added, frowning at the poor, wilted ivy that sat on a plant stand in front of a window at the end of the hallway.
Slipping through the door to her room, she stopped beside her bed and turned on the radio. Blake Shelton’s voice wafted out of the speaker and she danced her way into the adjoining bathroom. As the music washed over her, soothing away the stresses of the week, Kayla reached in the shower and started the water. While the icy stream heated, she set her beer down near the sink, toed out of her Eastlands and stripped out of the jeans and uniform shirt she wore at the construction office. She fingered the emblem on the collar and pondered what it would be like not to go there every morning anymore after she graduated from nursing school. But it was a good job. Kayla knew that. The benefits were excellent and there was no doubt the construction company definitely paid the bills, but she needed something of her own. Something she’d accomplished by herself. And by summer she'd see that dream fulfilled.
With little regard for the hamper, Kayla tossed the shirt to the side and shimmied out of her bra and panties then pulled her socks off with her heels, something her mother had hated when she was growing up. Mama said it stretched them out beyond reckoning, although Kayla couldn’t tell the difference. She looked at her body critically in the mirror. Her breasts were average size and that she didn’t mind. However, she did sometimes cringe at the way they sagged a bit now and how she was striped with stretch marks from nurturing her babies. Although it bothered her, Kayla often heard that she was beautiful and how the marks were signs that she’d fed a child, given of herself, and that it was just plain sexy. Maybe so, but she’d like to see any man give that much of himself and not complain and whine occasionally. She twisted side to side a few times looking at her stomach and thighs wondering if that ab cruncher she’d purchased from QVC was doing a bit of good and if that thigh toner contraption hadn’t just been a rip off. Maybe not totally, she thought, running her fingertips over the side of her leg noticing some definition finally appearing.
With fog overtaking the mirror, Kayla retreated to the comfort of a hot shower.
As she worked fruity smelling lather through her long blond hair, she sang along with Miranda smiling at her reference to a tattoo. Kayla’s daddy didn’t like her tattoo either but never stopped loving her after she came home at age eighteen sporting a pink John Deere tractor on her hip. Now Kayla’s boyfriend? That was a different story. He loved it.
In fact, he’d been the one to pay for it and the one to hold her hand while the burly man in Zeke’s inked her. God, was she really that young once? Now here she was four kids, a car payment and a mortgage later. Kayla hadn’t lost her lust for fun though.
When the water started to run cool, Kayla shut off the shower and stepped out into the bank of steam billowing around the bathroom. After squeezing the water out of her hair, she wrapped a towel around her middle and secured it just above her breasts.
Leaving a trail of water droplets, she made her way back to the bedroom and into her closet. Anticipation of the evening she'd planned swelling in her chest, Kayla flipped through the hangars trying to make a decision. Jeans? No. It was spring and the weather was agreeable. The long camel brushed suede skirt with the sterling silver fringe woven belt? No. She wasn’t easily accessible without the tail of it being over her head. She laughed a bit at that image. Hello mini-skirt.
Kayla snatched the scrap of indigo denim off its hangar then grabbed a red, sleeveless button down shirt with black fringe on the bodice to go with it. She tossed the clothes on her bed and went back to the
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