For shame deny that thou bear'st love to any

"Cat, I have bad news."

"What's the bad news, love?"

"They expect me at work tomorrow. It's our last day together until the weekend."

"No, Mr Policeman, you can't leave me all day at home. Who knows what crimes I might commit unsupervised?"

Jared laughed. "Now Cat, don't be too naughty just because I have to go to work." I heard a growling stomach. "Hey, I'm hungry. I'll go fix up lunch."

The hot tub without Jared wasn't as appealing so I got out.

Then found myself staring at Jared as he walked toward the front door. His butt just hypnotised me, I couldn't move until he was going around the corner.

I am going to have to make sure that he dresses like that frequently. Even if I have to pull him into the hot tub daily. That could be a plan.

"So, honey, what should we do after lunch? I'm game for what you want to do."

I ate slowly as I thought about that offer. A few possibilities came to mind. But which to do first?

"Well?" Jared asked impatiently.

"Give a girl time to decide. The pasta is good, my tummy is still a bit off after those waffles from earlier." I tried to divert his attention.

"This idea better be worth the wait." Damn, he has a one track mind today. Of course, I'm not really much better, I just need to decide what to do.

We finished lunch and I came to a decision. "I think you are wearing too much, Jared. Let me help you out of all that."

He squeaked, "No, woman, get away from me. What are you doing?"

"Come on, Jared. You said you were up for anything." I was still giggling at his reaction.

"Not here, honey. We have a lot of huge windows and no curtains. What would the neighbours think?"

"That the new neighbours are newly weds, who are very much in love and feeling frisky. But you could be right, I don't want to share that fine butt of yours with anyone. Let's go make sure that the bed is where we last saw it."

We raced up the stairs and reached the bedroom door at the same time. I continued walking toward the bed. After a moment, I noticed that Jared was still standing by the door.

"Love, why aren't you coming to bed?"

"Just admiring the view first," he replied. "It's a very fine view from here."

I stopped, wiggled my butt at him, then looked back and winked. "Better not wait too long. I might change my mind."

Jared virtually dived for the bed with that threat. "Don't you dare change your mind now. Not after that display, it would be downright cruel."

I joined him under the sheets then sighed. "I hate the idea of you going back to work. It's been lovely since we moved in. We have all this space, all to ourselves."

"Well, at least we are making the most of our time. Shall we make sure the bed is sturdy enough?" He didn't have to make that suggestion twice. We conducted a very thorough bed test. Fortunately, it passed inspection. It might have been bad if the bed had fallen to bits while we were testing it.

We spent quite a while after that  holding hands, kissing, hugging. Telling each other things we particularly loved about the other.

"Cat, honey. I was wondering if I could go off to a class today? I'd like to learn a bit of painting and well, I don't want to do it after work over the next few days." He grinned at me. "I'd rather come straight home every day."

"Jared, love, that's fine. I'll invite the band over, we can get some practice in." I waggled an eyebrow at him. "A little rest before our next round of exercise might be a good idea." So I got on the phone to the new band. Dad is, of course, one of them. Merlot Pinot Noir and Ice Crisp are the others.

I have to rethink my band. Merlot is a musician and works nights. Ice works days at a restaurant. Makes getting a practice together very difficult.

Merlot was just arriving when my tummy started protesting again. Damn those waffles, how long are they going to bother me?

Seriously, this is just ridiculous. Why are they still bothering me? It's the third or fourth time I've had to throw up in the past day.

Dad, Merlot and I got in a few hours of practice before Merlot had to leave for work. By that time, Jared was home and Dad didn't have anywhere he needed to be soon.

"Hey, Dad, do you know something slow?"

"Sure Kitten. Want to change the tempo?"

"Yep." I turned to Jared. "Hey, handsome, want to dance?"

At first, it went really well. He and I had a nice little groove going. I might have been moving my hips a bit more then strictly necessary, but my handsome hubby didn't object. Not since we were very close.

And we did several nice turns, it was very graceful.

Then Jared came down with a really bad case of left foot syndrome. He just couldn't stop stepping on mine!

"Owww, Jared, that was my foot! That hurt."

"Sorry, honey."

"Give me a minute and we can dance more." I waited until my foot stopped hurting too much. A few minutes later and then I was ready to go again.

"Jared! What is wrong with you." My poor foot, Jared isn't exactly a featherweight. Not when most of him is on a toe.

"I am really really sorry honey. I didn't mean to step on your foot again."

"Will you forgive me, honey?"

"I will but man,  I think we need to stop doing this. My poor foot can't take much more of this today."

Jared nodded and I told Dad that he could stop for today. It took a moment to break through Dad's concentration, he was really focussed on playing.

"Honey, look over there." Jared sounded pretty excited so I turned to have a look.

"What is it, love? I don't see any..." then splash.

"Ha, I got you!" Damn, a water balloon. How could he?

"You are so going down, mister. Just you wait."

It had been a pretty warm day, so a bit of water was welcome relief.

"Ha, you can't hit me when I'm watching"

"Just you wait!"

"And that's for the sneak attack. You rat fink!"

Not quite the romance of earlier today but we did have fun.
---

My poor baby. Age does not suit you Thomas.

Cuddles in bed

Jared needs slightly less spectacular undies.

Hot times in the hot tub.

Where the hell did you get that top?

Merlot looking cute as he leaves for work.

Johnny gets into playing that bass.

He is such a clone of Sammy - barring his hair is his mom's.

Cousin Picasso and his son. The family still has Autumn Cusack's red hair.

The world will be thy widow and still weep

While I could have wished that our first night as a married couple would have been under our own roof, that just wasn't to be. We just didn't have time to settle the paperwork on the new house after the wedding.

Jared and I were still pretty happy about everything though.

"Whatcha so excited over, Jared?"

"Cat, I just married the prettiest girl in town and I found out that work gave me a few days off." He waggled an eyebrow at me. "Can you guess what I think we should do?"

I pretended to concentrate on the question. "Let's see. Maybe you think we should spend some time with the Save the Llama foundation?"

He shook his head sadly. "No, that wasn't it. Try again?"

"Read for the blind?" More sad shakes of the head. "Adopt a cat?" "Start a new exercise regime?"

"Now you are getting close. I think we need some exercise." He was wearing the cheekiest grin. "Actually, I think we need a lot of exercise."

I had to grin back. "I do believe that you are a wicked man. Good thing I can keep you from corrupting any poor innocent girl." I looked at the treehouse which was dark and quiet. "Shall we?" I pointed.

The ladder up to the treehouse was a bit scary, it wasn't very sturdy. But the treehouse itself was very well made.

Sturdy yes, but unfortunately not very well sanded. There were definitely some splinters in the floor. That was an ouch. It was worth every moment of that ouch though.

Dad was outside finishing his latest sculpture and keeping an eye out that Mason or Dixie didn't interrupt us. Not that they'd do it deliberately but it's not a very big house.

After exploring the treehouse pretty thoroughly, we settled in for a nice long soak in the hot tub.

"Hey beautiful. When do the kids go to bed?"

"Soon, why?"

"I think I need some more exercise, if you catch my drift."

We both stopped to listen but the sounds of my young siblings seemed to have vanished. "I think we're good. Hey, Mr Policeman. You want to frisk me for hidden weapons?"

"Hmm, now there's an offer a cop doesn't hear. Now let me see." Technically, my bikini didn't really cover that much but Jared did an admirable job of checking. Just in case.

The next morning, bright and early, we heard that final paperwork on our new house had just come through.

I will miss this little house. It may be small but it has everything you could want.

Like the best dad ever.

"Daddy, we have to go."

"I know, Kitten. I know." He pulled me into a big hug. "Barnacle Bay isn't that big. I expect you to visit here a lot." He grinned. "With my first grandchild in tow. Have a son for that guy of yours, he'll love it."

I pretended a pout. "But Daddddddy. Does that mean you didn't love me?"

"Always Kitten. I've always loved you."

I gave Dad another big hug. "Don't forget, you are my bass man. I'll arrange some band time soon." There was a small beep from the car. Dad gently shoved me toward the door. "Go on, we will survive."

Jared had an old clunker of a car that he'd bought with his policeman salary. It certainly wasn't much but it would have to do.

"Catherine, this is it."

I looked at the front. "This can't be right. That's twice the size of Dad's place."

Jared checked the paperwork and the number on the letterbox. "Definitely the right place." He looked at me. "How did your dad swing this? I know he does ok with selling his sculptures but this place would be worth a pretty penny."

I shrugged. "Dad swears he found a genie and it granted him wealth. Let's go explore!"

"Oh no you don't, my new bride. I carry you in. That's the law and you know I have to enforce the law."

"You going to insist on silly old traditions?"

"Unless I think of some silly new traditions I like better." At this point, he'd already swept me off my feet and so just went ahead and carried me inside.

"Upstairs or downstairs first?" I asked.

"I want to find the kitchen. I'm hungry. I'll make a batch of my famous waffles for our first breakfast."

I left Jared to the kitchen while I explored the rest of the house. The upstairs consisted of two really quite large bedrooms and a tiny little bathroom. Downstairs was a big lounge, a big kitchen, a dining room and another tiny little bathroom.

By the time I had finished, so had the waffles. Black smoky waffles. "Those are famous waffles?" I asked.

Jared huffed at me. "I never said what they were famous for. In this case, famous for awful." He winked. "I think the stove is a bit hotter than I was expecting. They'll be better next time."

We survived the breakfast. Having been in boarding school means that I'm kind of used to food that's not that great.

"So, we've seen the house. Now, what should we do today?"

"I think we need to go on a date. Really enjoy the town while we can."

So we did a few of the tours around town. City Hall, the theatre. Unfortunately it was still too early for the first show of the day.

We stopped by the local art gallery. Dad and Muffin were there.

I suppose that Dad is allowed to play squeaky toys with Muffin since he's donated a lot of work over time to the gallery. It was a surprise to see them playing though.

Eventually, we wandered home again to find that our new home also had a hot tub.

It was a perfect end to a perfect first day as a married couple.


---

For reasons that are not adequately explained, Catherine's cousin Leonardo moved in with Johnny and family after Cat and Jared moved out. Leo just turned young adult, a lack of empty houses is the only reason that he didn't just find himself a place to live.

Mason has a job and is dating Shandra Fleet.

---

Bonus pics

Mason, put down the drink before you pillow fight.

(sigh killed game trying to track down unicorn.)

Too many clothes when cooking Jared - better not get used to that.

Help! Someone stole our car.

New house which will be getting work done as we go.

pre makeover

post makeover

bedroom pre makeover

Bedroom post makeover