After the Storm (Chambers of the Heart Book 3)

by C D Cain

  Gentry tugged at her arm to pull her in closer to her lips. “Have you?”

  Sam kissed her sweetly and whispered, “Oh, but I have and it was amazing.”

  Gentry’s heart fluttered with the sensation of Sam so close to her. She tried to discount it as related to pregnancy hormones alone but she knew better. True, her hormones were in rare form with the absence of her and Sam’s regular rendezvous. They had not been physical or kissed more than a typical kiss of friends since Sam returned from Atlanta. Gentry rubbed her swollen belly and thought she either was completely unappealing in her present form or Sam’s guilt of their coupling was too much to bear after she saw Rayne. Either way, Gentry made do and accepted either as truth.

  “Come meet my very best friends.” Sam held her hand as she walked with Gentry.

  Gentry pulled the flannel shirt over her belly as if she could hide it in some way. She ran her fingers through her hair and nervously tucked her other hand into her pocket.

  Sam squeezed her hand and leaned into her. “Stop. You look beautiful.”

  “Says you.”

  Violet stepped ahead of Jazlyn. “Hi, I’m Violet.” She extended her hand and shook Gentry’s warmly. “It’s so nice to meet the woman responsible for my Sam’s smile. Even though, you did take her entirely too far away from me.”

  “It’s nice to meet you too,” Gentry replied.

  “Are you a hugger?” Jazlyn stepped in between Gentry and Violet. “I’m a hugger. Do you mind?”

  Gentry looked at Sam and then extended her arm to Jazlyn. “I don’t mind at all.”

  Jazlyn was careful to hug over the top of her belly. “This place you’ve got here is amazing.”

  “Thank you.” Gentry intertwined her fingers in between Sam’s and held it tightly. She felt Sam’s thumb rub over her finger. “Would y’all like a tour after dinner? We’ll be walking back this way anyway.”

  “Wait. We’re walking to dinner?” Violet stopped abruptly and looked at the table with lighting above it. “But I thought…” She pointed to it.

  Sam nudged her with her free arm. “Keep it moving, sister. You’ll live.”

  Violet laughed…a little. “But, I mean seriously. We’re really walking. Like, how far are we talking here?”

  Sam patted her pockets. “Damn, I forgot my credit card. I’ll be right back.”

  Gentry stopped her with a pull of her arm. “I’ll get it. You stay with your friends. Show them the view from the rocks we like to sit out on.”

  Sam smiled and kissed Gentry’s forehead. “You got it. But hurry back. I’m freaking starving.”

  Gentry strolled to Sam’s SUV. She needed a moment to catch her breath and this gave her the perfect excuse. She did fine in crowds. It wasn’t that. It was more the expectations of what new people would want to talk about. The whole getting to know you concept made her completely uneasy. She looked in the glove compartment of Sam’s dashboard and then her cupholders but couldn’t find a card.

  “Aw,” she said as she flipped down the visor. A small paper photo fell into the driver’s seat. She held the ultrasound photo in her hand and watched Sam as she walked with her friends. She felt a nagging pang in her gut. “Expectations,” she murmured. She tucked the photo back under the visor.

  “This place is kickin’ tonight,” Sam said to Katie, the waitress.

  “You two should’ve been here last night. The fishing’s been good this week so everyone’s letting off a little steam and celebrating.” Katie tucked her pencil behind her ear. “Got you some new ones with you tonight.”

  “Katie, these are my best friends from back home.” She pointed to Violet and Jazlyn as she called their names.

  “Nice to have you up this way. Come over here. I think I’ve got a place where you might actually be able to hear each other talking.” Katie directed them through the open-air establishment.

  Many of the eateries favored by the locals were much like this one with most everything set up outside. There was a large prep area with steam pots and grills on the right. A couple of the cooks waved at Sam and Gentry as they passed by. The women squeezed in behind Katie to fit through the men and women standing at the bar. They came to a table tucked in the back corner next to a clump of trees.

  Jazlyn was careful not to hit her head on the Coca-Cola umbrella above the table when she sat down. “This place is fantastic.”

  Sam smiled. “I thought you would like it. It’s a local favorite.” She nudged Gentry. “We’ve been coming a few weeks now, haven’t we? The food is great. I think Gentry comes because she likes the music.”

  “Hey, it’s hard to find a place that plays good rock-n-roll anymore.” Gentry sat down on the bench seat. “Play me some good stuff tonight, Katie.”

  “You got it.” She winked at Gentry. “Alright, ladies, what’ll you have to drink?”

  “Let’s have three Atlantic Real Ales and a water.”

  “You got it.” Katie kneeled down next to Gentry. “I got some of that decaffeinated prickly pear hibiscus tea I told you about. Want to try it?”

  “Sure,” Gentry said excitedly. “I’d love to.” She smiled at Sam. It was nice to have another option other than water.

  “Scratch that,” Sam said. “We’ll have three Atlantic Real Ales and a special tea.”

  Violet sat next to Jazlyn. “That was nice of them to order a special tea for you.”

  “Yeah, they’re pretty cool here,” Gentry said.

  It wasn’t but a few minutes before Katie returned with the drinks. “This rounds on Earl, ladies.” Katie nodded her head to the bar and set the beers down on the table. She put the tea in front of Gentry. “I hope you like it. By the way, Big Earl says you owe him a dance.”

  Everyone at the table looked around to see a large man grinning from ear-to-ear. When he saw the ladies looking his way, he stood up, tucked his thumbs inside his suspenders, and brought them away from his body.

  “You better watch that baby if he starts gyrating around you. His belly is at least four times the size of yours.” Katie used her pencil as a pointer. “Earl, sit your ass back down and leave these ladies alone for once.”

  “Sam, I’m gonna get Bertha this year, I tell you,” Earl screamed out.

  “You better build a bigger trap then, Earl,” Sam yelled back at him.

  Earl scoffed her off with a wave of his hand, grinned again, and raised his beer in the air at them. “Cheers.”

  “Alright, we having the usual tonight?” Katie asked.

  Sam glanced at Violet and Jazlyn. “Y’all want a menu or do you want us to order?”

  Violet shrugged to Jazlyn. “Go for it.”

  “Looks like it’s the usual, Katie,” Sam said.

  “You got it,” Katie said and walked to her next table.

  Jazlyn tasted the beer. “Whoa. This is pretty good.”

  “It sure is. It’s a local brew. The brewery is right down the road. We thought we would take you there after our hike tomorrow. It’s nothing like I expected. When you drive up, you think you took the wrong turn because it looks like someone’s white house with an ivy growing up their front porch. But it’s actually the hops growing there. It’s crazy cool how their crop is planted all around the place.”

  “Our hike?’ Violet asked Sam. “You hike?”

  Sam laughed. “Yes, I hike. I’m taking you to Great Head Trail. You’ll love it. It’s got some tricky inclines but not too bad. The whole hike is stunning.”

  “Are you going with us, Gentry?” Violet asked.

  “I’m working and would otherwise meet up with you for a part of it, but they’ve put me on rested duty in the Welcome Center.”

  Sam leaned into Gentry’s side. “Stop. It won’t be much longer now. You know you don’t need to be alone on those trails when you’re seven-months pregnant.”

 
Gentry rolled her eyes. “Yes, Doctor.” Gentry turned her attention to Violet and Jazlyn. “It’s a gorgeous hike. The start is from the east of Sand Beach with the trail leading you along the cliffs. If you’d rather go up the steep inclines more than down them, go to the right at the start of the trail. That’s the one Sam and I do. Well, before I became fifteen-months pregnant we did. Now I’m a slug and don’t do anything at all.”

  “We’ve been watching her blood pressures,” Sam said.

  “Ah,” Violet said as she nodded.

  Sam gestured to Violet. “Violet’s the head of the Department of OB/Gyn at UAB, where I used to attend. She’s one helluva surgeon.”

  Violet had made an internal vow to herself not to bring up anything relating to Sam’s career or rather lack thereof, but this open door was too much for her to pass up. “Not nearly as good as you would’ve been had you stayed in it.” She took her eyes from Sam to Gentry. “She had the best hands I’d seen in a very long while. She reminded me of myself when I was starting out—only better.”

  “On that note, I’m going to grab another beer.” Sam stood up of from the picnic-style table.

  “I’ll come with you,” Jazlyn said before she drained the last of her beer. “Are you about ready, Vi?” She picked up the bottle in front of Vi and swirled it. “We’ll grab three.”

  Violet watched as they walked up to the crowded bar. She closed her eyes and held her lips tightly pierced. “She hates when I say things like that.” She lightly slammed her fist down on the table. “I told myself not to say anything about her career on this trip. Finally, I’m starting to see my friend again. Finally, after all she went through. Damnit if I could stop myself from saying something to bring up the past.” She rubbed her temples with her middle fingers. “I’m a terrible friend, Gentry. Just terrible.”

  “I wouldn’t say that.”

  “I wish that were true, but you don’t really know me.”

  “I know how your friend describes you. I know all of the things she has told me about you. How her face lights up when she talks about you. I know how much she has been looking forward to this visit. She’s planned out every second that you’re going to be here. There’s nothing about any of that which tells me you’ve been a bad friend to her.”

  Violet’s eyebrows raised as she listened to Gentry. “She will be a wonderful doctor whatever practice she chooses. I shouldn’t pressure her.”

  “She is a wonderful doctor. She doesn’t feel pressured by you. She knows it’s because you miss her. I will tell you this—the clinic loves her. Her patients love her. I listen to them talking when I’m sitting in the waiting room. She’s already made a name for herself here.”

  Violet craned her neck to look over Gentry’s shoulder toward the bar. Jazlyn and Sam were right in the mix of the crowd, laughing and talking as they drank their beers. “She looks happy. You’ve been good for her, Gentry.”

  Gentry looked over her shoulder to see Sam lift her chin in the air at her. She was standing next to Big Earl, no doubt hearing some wild fishing tale. They shared a smile. “She’s been good for me too. We’ve become really good friends.”

  “Friends?”

  Gentry’s eyes were with earnest of her words. “Yes, friends. Great friends.”

  “And the baby? What’s to become of your friendship with the baby.”

  Violet was a beautiful woman. She had delicate facial features with high cheekbones, a slender nose ending in the tiniest of points, lips full yet proportionate to her thin face, and soft brown eyes that gave no inclination to the woman beneath them. Gentry did not feel threatened or mind her directness at all. She rather appreciated it and admired it. “I hope it can continue.”

  “Unchanged?”

  “I hope so.”

  “Okay so, Big Earl says he’s building a trap to catch Bertha.” Sam laughed as she set Violet’s beer in front of her. She and Jazlyn had brought back two each for themselves.

  Jazlyn scooted in next to Violet. “Vi, you’ve got to hear this. Craziest shit I’ve ever heard.”

  “There’s a story of a lobster that is four-foot-tall and at least ninety-pounds in these waters. One night, not long after we started coming here, Big Earl came over to visit. We made friends and the next thing we know, he’s got us out on his fishing boat. That man eats, sleeps, and breathes lobster fishing. He has had a license since he was ten years old. He is one of a few who fishes year-round. Anyway, he was out there telling us about this huge ass lobster they’ve named Bertha and how he was going to be the one to catch her one day.” Sam nudged Gentry with her arm. “I was looking at the traps he used and asked him how he was going to catch a four-foot lobster in a three-foot trap.”

  Gentry laughed and said, “She did, and he looked at her like she had two heads.”

  “The man had never considered that. He scratched his head and huffed.” Sam directed the rest to Gentry. “Apparently, he wants us to be there the day he launches it.”

  Violet’s face still held her and Gentry’s conversation on it, though she did give a small laugh. Jazlyn, however, was wiping a tear from the corner of her eye. She was rolling as Sam told Violet the story.

  “That Big Earl is a character,” Jazlyn said.

  Sam leaned over closer to Gentry. “I’m afraid you’re in trouble tonight.”

  “How so?”

  “He figured it out.”

  Gentry turned on the bench to face Earl. He had been watching to see her reaction when Sam told her his message. He stepped away from the crowd and did his best impression of John Travolta’s disco dance.

  “Oh dear Lord,” Gentry said.

  “Exactly that,” Sam said. “He’s been trying to get Gentry to dance with him ever since she and he talked about music. She told him if he ever figured out her favorite singer, she would dance with him.” Sam winked at Gentry. “Afraid he’s got you tonight.”

  “This I have to see,” Jazlyn said.

  “Hope you brought your appetites,” Katie said as she placed her tray on its stand. She unloaded four circular tin platters from it to place them in front of the women. Each tray had a lobster in the center surrounded by freshly steamed clams and mussels. She placed two empty beach pails in the center of the table. “Don’t forget to save room for blueberry pie.”

  “You have pie tonight?” Sam asked.

  Katie smiled. “Yep.”

  Gentry picked up a clam. “Better go ahead and get the wheel barrel to carry me out of here tonight.”

  Katie laughed. “You got it, girlfriend.”

  “Rayne would say these are the biggest crawfish she’s ever seen.” Jazlyn didn’t catch the slip of the name until she felt Violet’s hand slap her leg under the table. Her mouth flew open. “Sam, I’m sorry.”

  Gentry wiped her fingers on her napkin and placed her hand behind Sam’s back. She rubbed the small of it tenderly with her thumb. Sam bent over to kiss Gentry lightly on the shoulder. “No worries, Jaz. I’m okay.”

  “I see that,” Violet said as she smiled at Gentry.

  Gentry didn’t notice the lull in the music as she was intensely trying to clean her hands after making hash of the seafood platter in front of her. Gentry’s eyes instantly went to Sam when she heard the song’s introduction with the snare drum. “You’ve got to be kidding me. He figured it out.”

  “That he did.” Sam’s eyes went toward the direction of the movement behind her.

  Gentry didn’t have to turn around to know she was watching Big Earl walk through the picnic tables to the grassy area where people would dance when the mood hit them.

  “They’re playing our song,” Earl yelled out.

  “Did you help him figure it out?” Gentry asked Sam.

  “Not one bit.” Sam was getting a pretty big kick out of Earl doing it all on his own. She straddled the bench seat for a better position
to watch them dance to Tom Petty.

  Gentry shook her head and ran her hand down Sam’s arm to hold her hand as she stood up. With their arms stretched out together, she sang, “We’ve got something we both know it. We don’t talk much about it.” She swayed her hips to the music as she danced backward toward Earl, never taking her eyes from Sam.

  For the briefest of moments, Sam forgot where she sat. She didn’t hear the chatter of the conversations surrounding her or the noise from the bar. She didn’t even give mind to the expressions on Violet and Jazlyn’s faces. What she did sense was the dusk of evening with a chill in the air and utter absorption of Gentry’s dance. The woman herself was in a different world. Escaped somehow into a song. She danced next to Earl as if she had no recollection or acknowledgment he was next to her.

  Gentry’s head boughed and her shoulders rocked. Sam watched as her lips sang, “Somewhere…somehow, somebody must’ve kicked you around some.” A pang to her heart stabbed her like a spear to the truth of those words. But then as if a force of energy had shot through her and the basketball-sized belly she carried, she threw her arm into the air to point her index finger to the sky. This time, Sam not only saw her mouth move, she could actually hear her singing, “Honey, it don’t make no difference to me, baby. Everybody’s got to fight to be free.”

  Jazlyn drummed her hands to the beat on the wooden table. “Look at her go. She looks like she’s dancing on air.”

  “She is.” Sam realized in the moment of being entranced with Gentry’s dance that every piece of her seemed to fit together like a puzzle—right down to her favorite singer. Sam was beaming as she stood up quickly to join them out on the grass.

  Jazlyn nudged Violet. “Come on, woman. Let’s get our groove on.”

  Violet laughed and took Jazlyn’s hand. The three of them sang together as they circled Gentry and Earl. “You don’t have to live like a refugee. Baby, you don’t have to live like a refugee.”

  At the end of the song, Earl wiped the sweat from his brow, grabbed at his chest, and tried to catch his breath. “You ladies rock. Next round’s on me.” He stumbled off back to his stool at the bar.