Alan

She tiptoed downstairs as quietly as she could, being careful not to wake anyone. She remembered that the third from the last step creaked so she made sure not to skip it.

Without a backwards glance, she made her way to the kitchen and stepped out of the back door into the cool summer air. She lingered but a moment to breathe in the fragrant scent of sycamore trees and hurried down the beaten path that led from the house to the barn. The barn needed a fresh coat of paint and looked gray and dull in the moonlight. David said that he would paint it every year but somehow, that just hadn't happened yet. Quickly she made her way to the place where she would hold her clandestine rendezvous, under the largest tree where a '57 Chevy was broken down. When she reached her destination, she was alone. She glanced down at her watch, her smooth brown skin pale in the moonlight. I'm a minute early, she thought to herself, and pulled the sheer silk robe around her firm but supple breast, in response to the light breeze in the air.

Suddenly, as if on cue, there was a voice behind her.
"Erica".
The voice was low and gruff and she turned at the sound of her name. There he stood, illuminated in the moonlight, and looking rather ghostly. He wore what he always wore; letterman jacket, ripped up jeans, white t-shirt.
"Alan", she answered breathily and the two of them closed the gap between them quicker than a moment and he swept her up into his arms. His hands were cool to the touch and the letterman jacket was rather cold and it sent a pleasant shiver through her body, make her nipples stand at attention. He leaned down to kiss her and she opened her mouth to his, letting out a small moan. He pulled away and said, "'You're late. I've been waiting for a minute".

"Sorry about that", she replied.
They walked around to the side of the tree where the tire swing was and sat down on a blanket.

"Thanks for coming to see me play today. I was kind of nervous..." he smiled sheepishly and squeezed her hand tight.

"I wouldn't have missed it", and she gave him a knowing smile. They chatted under the moonlight for a few hours and kissed, smiled, touched, and laughed. When it was near dawn, he whispered I love you sweetly into her ear and she closed her eyes to kiss him. After that, he was gone.

The next morning, she slept in. Around noon, she went downstairs to find David putting on a fresh pot of coffee. "Late night?", he joked and kissed her on the forehead.

She fixed a cup and wandered out onto the porch to watch her two children playing in the large yard. The house was on a small piece of land, about four or five acres and was left to her when her father passed away several years ago. David wanted her to sell the place but how could she? This is the only house she's ever lived in, and she wanted to raise her two daughters here.

There was another reason she was so adamant about not selling the house. It wasn't the creek where her and her friends used to play when they were kids, or the tire swing out in the back by the barn. It was something else much sweeter than that. It was Alan.

She knew that selling the house meant never seeing Alan again; that she wouldn't have.

David came out onto the porch an put an arm around her. The day was unusually mild but still very sunny. The children ran and darted in and out of the shade of the tree in the yard.  "Erica...how about we take a vacation? Just you and I and the kids. We could drive up to Tennessee. Make a week of it."
She tensed at the thought of being away from home for such a long period of time. "Oh, I don't know baby", she started to say.

"Come on Erica. You need a break. Hell, I need a break. The kids could use a change of scenery. I know that they're bored out of their minds since school's got out."
She watched her two children run around and chase each other in the yard. There wasn't another house around at least for a mile in both directions. However, she enjoyed the solitude. They didn't keep animals or grow crops, but she did have a small vegetable garden that she tended to. It gave her peace and she taught her daughters how to tend to the plants.

Her daughters were Roana and Rose, six and seven respectively. When asked about the choice of names for her children she simply replied, "They're beautiful".

"I'll let you know about going to Tennessee, baby, OK?" She looked at David with her deep brown eyes and managed to offer a reassuring smile. "Besides," she added, "Do you have an extra weeks worth of vacation time? You know the family reunion is in July and you're already taking a week off for that."

After awhile she called the kids in for lunch. She fixed lunch for everyone and afterwards, David went to go work in the barn. She got out the paints and let her daughters paint pictures while she painted her own, escaping to her innermost thoughts of Alan.

He was young and beautiful and always looked the same whenever she saw him. He was a football player on his high school team, best quarterback the school had in years. He was six feet tall with broad shoulders and a muscular build. He used to live down the road at the next farm. He would visit her every night although she wasn't always able to meet him. If he was upset that she missed a meeting, he never made any mention of it. Sometimes she would feel guilty about sneaking off to see him. Only Sometimes.

It's not that David wasn't good husband or  a good father to the kids. He provided well enough, had his own practice as a lawyer. He was always there for her and the kids; he was dependable. And she loved him. No one could deny that. But she oftened questioned whether she was in love with him.