Big Yellow Taxi

He likes to hunt

Rowan woke up to the sound of Tank snoring next to her.  She thought about rolling over and cuddling up with the big dog, but a snort followed by one of his more extreme smelling dog farts sent her flying and giggling out of bed.  That one smelled like it might have burned the sheets.  Rowan kicked around the clothing on her floor, searching for something reasonable clean to wear.  She stopped to yawn and stretch out her shoulders.  

Finding that there wasn't much on her floor that wasn't in bad need of a wash or covered in dog hair, Rowan pulled her closet open and peeked inside.  Her mother had washed and hung her favorite comfy black dress up for her inside.  Rowan smiled as she grabbed for the garment.  She pulled the large shirt she had slept in over her head and dropped it on the floor, then pulled the dress on.  

Next she opened the drawer she kept her underclothes in.  Poking through the pairs of faded and well worn cotton panties, she found what she was looking for.  Rowan didn't care much for fancy lingerie but she had one pair of lacy black underpants that didn't leave much to the imagination.  They made her feel sexy and confident.  She saved them for special occasions.  Rowan kept the panties in her hands as she sifted through the collection of small colorful glass jars on top of her dresser.  Finding the one she was looking for, Rowan dabbed a bit of sandalwood oil onto the tip of her finger and rubbed it into the crotch of her underwear.  After she pulled them on, she rubbed a bit more of the oil behind each ear.  One more dab went between her breasts before she was done.  Since she felt it had brought her luck the day before, Rowan grabbed her grandmother's long fringed scarf and tossed it around her shoulders.  She held the end of it to her face and closed her eyes as she breathed in the smell of the campfire from the night before.  

Heading down the hall, Rowan peeked in on Ayla first.  The young woman was asleep in her bed.  Rowan tiptoed in and pulled the covers up over the her shoulders, leaning down to place a soft kiss on the top of her blonde head.  They had fallen asleep together but Rowan guessed that sometime during the night Tank had climbed into bed and crowded the other woman out.  

Rowan's next stop was her mother's room.  She turned the knob and eased the door open just a crack.  Since her mother's door was closed, Rowan knew the woman had an overnight guest.  She knew she really shouldn't pry, but Rowan was too curious not to check and see if her father was indeed the man her mother had spent the night with.  Her mother slept soundly but the slight noise of the door had woken the man who's chest she was resting her head on.  Rowan's father smiled and held his hand up to motion her silently into the room.  

Rowan crept around the bed and grasped the man's hand in hers.  He whispered to her in Sioux, telling her good morning and that he had missed her.  She leaned down and kissed him on the smooth skin of his cheek.

"You smell good," he whispered, switching over to english.  Rowan smiled at the compliment.  Her father had always been partial to the smell of sandalwood.  Her mother wore it whenever he was coming for a visit.  For that reason Rowan always associated the smell with romance and lovemaking.  

"I missed you too," Rowan whispered, "Go back to sleep.  I'll come back later and visit with you."  Her father smiled, giving her slender hand one last squeeze before he adjusted his body and sunk deeper under the covers, pulling her mother's body closer to his.  Rowan's hand rested on the doorframe as she paused in the doorway, casting one more lingering glance at the couple.  Seeing them together made her feel indescribably happy.  All her best memories of childhood were of times when the three of them were together.  

Anyone who invited a guest to stay the night in the guest house was expected to help out with the meals.  Rowan often helped out anyway, but she was especially excited that she actually had an overnight guest of her own to provide for.  It was so early that most if not all the people in the guest house would still be asleep.  Rowan briefly considered heading over to the guest house and just climbing directly into bed with Daniel.  The morning air was cool against her bare legs and the thought of curling up in a warm bed with a beautiful man was such a pleasant thought that she stopped walking and sighed out loud.  She had felt the warmth radiating from his body when he held her in his arms the night before.  Sleeping in bed with him would be like sleeping with her own heated blanket.  

Rowan sighed again and forced herself to head down towards the west garden instead.  She hadn't even made love to that man. Not yet.  So sneaking into his bed uninvited was probably a bad idea.  The last thing she wanted to do was scare him off or make him think she was some kind of creep.  And there was also a possibility that his brother had found his way back to the room they were given to share.  That had the potential to get awkward in a hurry.  And while she couldn't wait to get closer to Daniel, Rowan had no desire to be in his brother's personal space.  She wasn't happy about the way that man had treated her friend.  Ayla was young and naive in the ways of love.  Rowan was realistic.  She didn't expect every man her friend slept with to immediately have the burning desire to marry her, but Ayla still deserved to be treated with some measure of kindness and respect.  Everyone deserved that.

"Where's Eron?," Rowan asked Jeff as soon as she spotted him.

"He's sleeping in," Jeff told her as he leaned in for a hug, "I got up early so I could take him breakfast in bed."  Rowan grabbed a picking basket.  She and Jeff chatted back and forth, switching subjects from the party to breakfast to her father being in town for a visit.  Fall was Rowan's favorite time of year.  There was so much to pick from in the garden.  The trees were starting to turn beautiful colors as they readied themselves for winter.  Squirrels and chipmunks scurried around, hiding nuts and bits of food so that they wouldn't go hungry when the air got cooler.  

Rowan was looking forward to taking long walks in the woods.  She usually went alone or with her dogs, using the time to clear her mind and center herself.  But Rowan let herself entertain the idea of how nice it might be to have someone to take a walk with that would want to enjoy the quiet of the woods with her.  Daniel said he liked to hunt.  She hoped that meant he also enjoyed just being outdoors.  He had seemed interested in her father’s hunting cabin.  A plan was starting to slowly form in her mind.  She would offer to take Daniel out to see the cabin.  This would leave them alone together in the woods.  And she did just happen to already be wearing a very skimpy pair of black panties and no bra...

“Earth to Rowan,” Jeff sang out.  He had asked her the same question now three times in a row.  She wasn’t answering.  Instead she was running her fingers over the leaves of a tomato plant with the dreamiest look on her face, like she had forgotten he was even there.  

"Huh?," Rowan asked.  

"I said do you think it would be alright if we cut down a few of the sunflowers?," Jeff asked with a big smile on his face.  In his opinion, Rowan was always gorgeous.  But with that sweet dreamy look on her face she was almost otherworldly.  He wouldn't mind being the man that she was thinking about when she looked like that.  Jeff had never been attracted to a woman before.  He was more than well aware that his crush on Rowan bordered on adolescent.  It was the sort of crush a little boy might have on his teacher.  Eron liked to tease him about it just to see his pale cheeks flush with color.  

"There's so many," Rowan assured him, "I'm sure it's alright if we take just a few flowers.  That will leave plenty of them left to seed."  While sunflowers were pretty to look at, they actually grew them for the seeds, which could be roasted and eaten or hot pressed to release their oils.  Picking them to make bouquets was frowned upon.  However, it was the end of the season and a festival and Rowan didn't think anyone would get too worked up over her and  Jeff making the guest house look pretty.

"I wish they smelled as pretty as they looked," Rowan commented, pulling the sunflower she had picked away from her nose and frowning at it.  The handle of her picking basket was slung over her arm, filled with the ingredients she planned on using to make a breakfast hash.  She had found a wonderfully ripe acorn squash, and dug up some purple potatoes and yellow amarillo carrots.  For a little more flavor she grabbed a few of the last sweet peppers of the season and snipped the flowering tops off a few lemon basil plants.  But the best find of all was the sunflower in her other hand. 

They grew many different types of sunflowers.  Rowan's favorites were the red toned blooms.  And the one she had found was such a lovely color that she almost felt bad picking it.  It was such a deep dark shade of red that the petals were only slightly lighter in tone than the black center of the flower.  Rowan had a small bundle of other pretty flowers in her basket on top of the vegetables she had picked.  But the one in her hand she had picked special.  For Daniel.  She wasn't sure if she was going to give it to him.  Rowan didn't know if such a masculine man would like getting a flower as a present.  But she figured she could at least show it to him.  He liked the rosemary she had picked the night before and Rowan was certain he would appreciate the unique color of the flower.  

More people joined them in the kitchen, bringing with them the ingredients to cook up whatever they had decided to make as their breakfast contribution.  Rowan took so many tastes and tiny bites of the things that were being made that by the time she got her hash fried up she wasn't even hungry for it anymore.  Jeff set a plate of it aside to take to Eron and the rest was dumped into a casserole dish and covered up so it could be carried over to the guest house.  By the time they were done cooking, Rowan's large black dog had finally decided to drag himself out of bed and come looking for her.  Tank was given a bowl of fried potatoes and a few scrambled eggs before the small group of breakfast chefs packed up the food they had made and set off to carry it over to the guest house.  

Rowan had to force herself to slow down and keep pace with the rest of the group.  She was so eager to see Daniel again that she wanted to run ahead.  When they finally got inside the building, Rowan handed the food she was carrying off to Jeff and hurried towards the back hallway.  Her stomach felt like it had a whole flock of butterflies flapping around in it before her hand even touched the doorknob to the room he was sleeping in.  While Rowan eased the door open to find Daniel still snoring in bed she almost woke him laughing at herself.  

On the tiptoes of her decorative sandals, Rowan crept into the room.  She peered down at the man.  Just looking at him again made her feel warm inside.  Daring him to wake up and find her staring at him, Rowan reached out and gently brushed a piece of hair from his forehead.  She pulled her hand away and lifted it to her mouth, the tip of one finger gently tracing the outline of her lips as she thought about how good it had felt when he was kissing her.  

"Just wake him up already," Jeff hissed from the doorway.  He was holding onto Tank's collar to keep the large dog from charging into the room.  Tank hated being held away from Rowan more than he hated anything else in the whole world.  The large dog let out a high pitched whine, looking dangerously close to shaking free of Jeff's hold like the slim man was no more than a rag doll.  Rowan rushed from the room and hurried to close the door before Tank really started barking and woke the entire house up.  

"You're really not going to wake him up?," Jeff teased.

"He looked tired," Rowan whispered back.  She tucked the flower she had brought for Daniel behind the small chalkboard on his door.  Then she lifted up the small piece of chalk that was dangling from the board on a string and left a note.  "Do you think that sounds dumb?," Rowan asked as she reread the note she left.  

"Don't wipe it off," Jeff said, catching her wrist with his before she could smear away the cute little note she left.  "If he asks when he gets up where do you want me to tell him you are?," he asked.  An adorably wicked grin broke out across Rowan's face.  

"Don't tell him anything," Rowan said, unable to hide her smirk.  When Jeff raised his eyebrows at her she added, "He did say he likes to hunt."  With that Rowan was off.  She ran down the hallway towards the backdoor with her long hair bouncing and her dog thundering behind her.  Jeff smiled after the woman until she was gone.  Then he headed back down to the common room to get the coffee and tea brewing.