He nodded his head. "In this air I could work up quite an appetite, but we did have a late lunch." He had more important things on his mind than eating dinner.

"Well it will take me a while to get organized in here. Suppose we eat in an hour or so?" she said closing the refrigerator door.

"Swell, Mom! Ah, you mind if I take a walk?" Rick said quickly, and he added, "Thought I'd walk up to the Boyds' camp before dark… See if I can find it! O.K.?"

Linda smiled, "O.K.," and she watched her son as he crossed the living room to the front door. He turned as he opened the door.

"Any messages?"

"You might tell Mrs. Boyd that I'll say hello tomorrow morning… I'm much too tired tonight. Guess the drive wore me out?"

"Yeah, you should take it easy tonight, Mom! And don't worry about the dinner, either…" His voice cut off as he closed the door behind him.

Hurrying toward the bridge over the Big Sur River, Rick felt a little guilty about leaving his mother alone when they had only been there a few minutes, especially since she was so agreeable. If she had said no, he wouldn't have been very upset, as he liked being around her. She was nice to look at – a helluva lot more attractive than any other woman her age. As far as that went, she was downright sexy! She was always going out of her way to do things for him, and that in turn made him want to do things for her… if she'd let him. He had to admit it was difficult to just leave her alone in the cabin, but the familiar twitch in his pants was becoming demanding. He had to let Karen know he was there, and maybe, if things went right, he could take care of that twitch then too. At the very least he had to be sure he could find the camp later that night if Karen couldn't get away just then.

Linda finished putting the kitchen in order, then opened the refrigerator to get something out for dinner.