Right Place, Right Time

"I'd like to meet him someday," she said very sweetly as they got ready to sit down.

"Yeah. Sure. Someday," he told her as she winked at him, indicating she might just know that she was 'him'.

"Beautiful and smart," Aaron told her with a smile and a wink of his own as Sally asked for their plates.

When Kristen finally got home late that night, she knew Bonnie, who was a night owl, would still be up, so she called her and hoped the ring wouldn't wake her husband up.

"So?" her friend asked without saying 'hello'.

"It was...wonderful!"

"Really?"

"Yes. Really. I like his whole family, too."

"Too?" Bonnie asked playfully.

Kristen laughed happily then said, "Yes. Too. Oh, and Ginger, Aaron's sister, named her baby Aaron, and he is too-die-for cute!"

"Just like his uncle, huh?" Bonnie teased again.

"Aaron—Uncle Aaron—is so handsome! And...we kissed."

"You did not!"

"We did. Several times."

"Get outta here!"

Kristen spent the next few minutes explaining her evening to include Marvin's comments both before and after she nearly left.

"No family is perfect, right?" Bonnie said encouragingly.

"No. Of course not. And all in all, Marvin has a heart of gold and Sally is as sweet as they come."

"You didn't mention Ginger."

"Sorry. She's great, too. We talked for quite awhile after dessert, and we have a whole lot in common. In fact, I may be watching baby Aaron for her if she goes back to work!"

"I am just SO happy for you!" Bonnie told her friend sincerely.

"Thanks. I'm kinda happy, too."

"Well, you deserve this, girl. And I want to meet Aaron as soon as possible!"

"Big Aaron or Little Aaron?"

The way Kristen said that told Bonnie she was smiling.

"Both. But I'll settle for the handsome one for now and hope to see the cute one at some point later on."

Kristen nearly giggled because she was so happy.

"I still can't believe how this all happened," she said to Bonnie.

"Yeah. It really is strange how life works sometimes, isn't it?"

"It really is."

"Maybe this is just a case of 'right place, right time'," Bonnie suggested.

"Yeah. Maybe so. Whatever the reason, I couldn't be happier."

"Do you think this budding relationship has legs?"

"I don't know yet, but if it turns out that it does, I think I'd like that."

"Then go for it, Kristen. And who knows? You may not ever find anyone this perfect for you again, the age difference aside."

"I agree. It'll take some time to be sure there's nothing hidden that would be a deal-breaker, but so far, I like what I see. A lot."

"Oh, he does have a job, right?" Bonnie asked.

Kristen laughed and assured her friend that he did.

"He repairs elevators. Just like his father."

Not sure how to respond to that, Bonnie said, "A job's a job, right?"

Kristen explained about the time and training it took, and like her, her friend was very surprised and more than a little impressed.

"I had no idea," Bonnie replied before saying, "and if you like him, that's great. I'm just happy to see my best feeling good again."

"It does feel good, Bonnie. Really good."

"Okay. I'll let you go, but you better introduce me to Elevator Man in the very near future!"

"I will. I promise," Kristen said before thanking her friend for being there and telling her she loved her.

"Back atcha, sweetie. Night. And pleasant dreams."

"Oh, they will be. I can promise you that," Kristen assured her friend before hanging up and smiling until it hurt.

Although she promised herself she'd take things slow, Kristen couldn't get enough of Aaron, and she accepted every invitation he offered to spend time with him.

Hello and goodbye kisses soon turned into make out sessions, and those gave way to petting, and within a month, Kristen happily gave herself to him for the first time.

The sex had been great. Wonderful even. But it was already so much more than just the physical.

As she and Aaron got better acquainted, they connected on every level, and by the time they made love for the first time, she was truly convinced he really thought she was beautiful. And while she'd made every effort to wear makeup and nice clothes, Aaron had seen her without any makeup in sweatpants and a tee-shirt and still told her, and convincingly so, that she was beautiful. It went against everything she'd internalized over a lifetime of experience, but she'd never met anyone like Aaron Corbett before.

In spite of telling him many times how little things and money meant to her, he almost always showed up with something he'd 'just found' for her like perfume, jewelry, or flowers. Aaron turned out to be as attentive and romantic as he was funny, and she'd come to dearly love his sense of humor. With Gavin, laughter had been rare, and she always felt like she was trying to earn his love. But with Aaron, love flowed from him like it was coming from a firehose, and because she was so thirsty for it, she drank it all in and gave back as much as she got.

Just two weeks after they made love, Aaron took her to dinner and told her that he loved her for the first . She teared up again when he did, and trying to be funny, asked him what took him so long. He'd laughed at her attempt at humor then kissed her without trying to explain. When the kiss ended she told him she loved him, too.

One of the things Kristen loved the most was Aaron's sense of adventure, something she'd been unaware of the first week or so. But within a month they'd gone skydiving together and then started taking scuba diving lessons.

One weekend they climbed 'rock walls' and the next they played paintball. The weekend after that they rode horses then went to a polo match together.

Life with Aaron was non-stop fun, romance, and adventure, and they were soon making plans to climb Mount Hood, Oregon's highest peak. They would have to wait until the following summer because they only made that decision in October, but it gave them time to climb smaller hills and mountains in preparation before it got too cold to do so.

Just after Thanksgiving dinner with the Corbetts, Aaron asked Kristen to move in with him, and she said 'yes' without hesitation. She put her house up for sale and it was snapped up with multiple offers the first week. She put her half of the profits in the bank, and moved into a much smaller, but still cozy home with the younger man she loved.

They spent a very romantic week in Aspen, Colorado, skiing over the Christmas holiday, then came back and continued training for the big climb, indoors at first then outdoors once the weather warmed up.

In March, they climbed a smaller mountain that was just over 5,000 feet high, and when they got to the summit, Kristen felt exhilarated.

"This is the most amazing feeling ever!" she told Aaron as they stood there in the cold looking out over the area below them on a cold, clear day.

"I'm hoping I can make you feel even better," he told her as he took off his gloves and fished around in his parka's inner lining.

"Oh, my..." she said as he found the small box and got down on one knee with no one else around for miles.

"Kristen? I've had a really good life. Before you came into it, I couldn't imagine it getting any better. But since the day I interrupted your daydreaming on that park bench, it's been even more amazing than I could have ever dreamed, with me loving you more each day. So will you do me the honor of being my wife?"

Kristen's gloved hands were covering her mouth as she wept openly. When he finished proposing, she nodded and held out her left hand.

"Well, that's just not gonna work," Aaron said flatly as the glove hand stared him in the face, preventing him from putting the ring on her finger.

"Sorry!" she said as she pulled it off.

Aaron slide the ring on then stood up and went to put the glove back on her hand.

"Uh-uh. Don't you dare!" she told him as she held her hand out and admired the beautiful diamond.

"You don't want to get frostbite, do you?" he asked as he held her close.

Rather than answer his rhetorical question, she buried her face in the crook of his neck and said, "I love you more than anything else on earth, Aaron Corbett."

"Then that's just one more thing we have in common, sweetheart," he told her quietly before she looked up and smiled.

He kissed her for several seconds then asked if she was ready to go back down.

"Nothing can bring me down today," she told him, her smile glued to her face as she let Aaron put the glove back on before starting their descent.

Bonnie, who'd met Aaron and liked him from the moment they first met, was the first person Kristen told about their engagement followed by her parents who were forced to admit their daughter really did love this much-younger man they still hadn't met. But they assured her she had their love and support and promised her they would at her wedding no matter when it would be.

When Aaron suggested they get married on the same day they'd met in the park, Kristen happily agreed. She didn't need a big wedding this time around, and Aaron didn't want one. All they needed was family and friends to share their love, so they married one day in Marvin and Sally's home then a week later they climbed Mount Hood together.

Even in August it was very cold at the summit of the 14,000 foot mountain, but Kristen Corbett's heart couldn't have been warmer as she and her handsome, young husband again looked down on the world together.

"I am SO happy!" he told her as they stood there, their arms around each other with the wind whistling between them and the other climbers who'd made it to the summit.

"Can I tell you something I think will make you even happier?" Kristen asked, a smile on her face as she looked up at him.

"If that's possible, sure," Aaron told her.

"I'm...pregnant," she said, waiting for his reaction.

"You're...what???"

"I'm pregnant. We're going to have a baby!" she bubbled.

"Honey. Why didn't you tell me? Why did you climb Mount Hood if you..."

She put a glove over his mouth and said, "That's why. You wouldn't have let me. I'm fine, the baby is fine, and now I'll never have to ask 'what it'. Okay?"

"You're really having a baby?" he asked, now getting very excited.

"Yes. Yes WE are," she reminded him.

"I'M GOING TO BE A FATHER!" Aaron shouted from atop the world.

"AND I'M FINALLY GOING TO BE A MOTHER!" his wife called out right after him.

Their sense of adventure was severely moderated after the birth of their child almost eight months later, but their love for each other never diminished. In fact, the birth of their daughter, a beautiful little girl they named Ginger Marie Corbett after the woman who'd really been responsible for them getting together, only brought them closer to one another.

As painful as it had been to hear she was no longer of any interest to someone she'd once loved, Kristen knew that had that not happened, she'd have never been sitting on that particular bench on that exact day when the man who would love her for the rest of her life would walk by and strike up a conversation.

Bonnie had been exactly right. Kristen had been at the right place at the right time that day, and the rest, as they say, was history, and a very warm and loving history at that.