Free L.A. Caveman by Christina Crooks Page A

orange-gold in front of the large window by the
elevators. Stanna waited alone for one of the sluggish lifts to
arrive, as everyone else had already trickled out. She leaned
tiredly against the wall, fatigued from the day's unexpected new
workload. It had taken her hours to tackle everything in her in
box.
    Usually she was the one waving goodbye
to everyone. When Ian was here she'd certainly had it easier, she
realized.
    The stainless steel doors finally
parted and she had to step aside as the vaguely unkempt
blue-uniformed cleaning people wheeled their equipment out of the
car.
    For some reason she remembered what
Jake said about her not trusting men. It resonated in her mind the
way only the truth did. How interesting that Jake, a man she barely
knew, would call her on it.
    But she had to modify his statement
for accuracy. She didn't trust men in relationships. Outside of the
man/woman love-bond, she trusted them fine. In fact, when she'd
rebelled as a child against her stepfather's overbearing,
narrow-minded chauvinism, the word 'tomboy' best described her. At
age eight, she didn't know she was different from other girls, she
just knew she liked climbing trees, building forts, and playing war
with the neighbor boys. At sixteen she’d had more guy friends than
girl friends. Her emerging grace and improving looks created some
awkward moments when many of the guys developed crushes on her.
She’d never dated any of them, and her impartial sisterliness
salved their egos. They even remained friends. As a benefit of
those friendships, Stanna got the inside scoop on men's behaviors
regarding women.
    She knew the schemes and devious,
selfish goals that made up the typical man's mind regarding women.
To an extent, they couldn't help it. It was just the way they
were.
    When a relationship surpassed
friendship, men couldn't be trusted. If she didn't already know
that from her supremely typical stepfather dominating her meekly
acquiescing mother, then she'd discovered it in later years
firsthand.
    Jake knew she didn't trust men, but he
didn't know the biggest reason why.
    She wondered what Jake would say if he
knew. If she told him about the dream that haunted her in words
whispered from her mother’s deathbed: “Chase your dreams, and never
slow down for any man. He’ll catch you and keep you, and you might
be content from time to time but you’ll never be happy. I
know.”
    It was a well-meaning chauvinist who
kept her mother from achieving her potential. Her own stepfather.
He'd suppressed her mother’s desire to sing in a country band,
something she'd done while married to her real father when Stanna
was a young child. After his disappearance, her mother seemed to
almost revert to childhood herself in her grief and helplessness,
and old Ray, her stepfather, stepped into the picture.
    Ray wasn't even a bad man. Just a
typical one. He was a good stepfather, paying for her college
education and providing for them both. He was kind, in a distant
way. But he had no concept of how a good woman could have ambition
to match a man’s. She remembered his comment once when she'd
visited them on a school break: "Any luck on that MRS degree?" The
crazy thing was, he'd asked in the same tone as one would ask about
any noble cause, with full seriousness and interest in her answer.
When she'd launched into a tirade about equality and chauvinistic
attitudes, he'd just laughed.
    Her mother was gone now, and her dream
with her. Stanna vowed she would never let a man do the same to
her.
    Her history wasn't exactly flooding
over with boyfriends, but that was by choice. The few she'd
consented to dating didn't inspire too many romantic thoughts. The
men who interested her now had one thing in common. They were
convenient, safe, and predictable. They didn't challenge her or get
in her way.
    Only once had she danced with a devil
who’d challenged her, and the resulting scars on her heart cured
her for once and for all against such folly.
    What