Storm Shells

by G. J. Walker-Smith

  I reached for her hand. “I was; and I’m sorry.”

  “Not really.” She was far more forgiving than I deserved. “You’ve got some things to work through, Boy Wonder. What your dad did was hurtful, but not honest. He lashed out because he’s upset. We’ve all been there.”

  I traced the lines on her palm so I didn’t have to look at her. I knew him better than that. My father never said a single word he didn’t mean.

  Charli took her hand away and sat up straight, resting her head on my shoulder. “I’m glad you came back. There’s nothing on TV.”

  I let out a quiet laugh. “Are you going to reward me or smack me?”

  “I’m too tired to smack you.”

  “How about I reward you then?” I reached into my pocket and dumped a heap of koalas onto her lap.

  “Oh, Adam,” she crooned, gathering them up. “My hero.”

  I kissed her cheek. “I would’ve bought you stars or diamonds, but I shopped at a gas station.”

  “Good luck finding diamonds at a servo,” she replied, chuckling.

  Charli scooped up the koalas with both hands, leaned forward and dropped them on the coffee table.

  “You’re not going to eat them?”

  “No. I’m going to save them.”

  “For what?”

  “For the day I can fit back into my skinny jeans,” she replied. “I’ll be craving a chocolate hit so badly by then, I’m going to need every one of those suckers.”

  I leaned closer to her and whispered in her ear. “She was a lovely lady, with a romantic mind and such a sweet mocking mouth.”

  Charli arched back and stared at me, brown eyes bright with surprise. “You did read Peter Pan.”

  “I told you. Twice.” I held up two fingers. “Better late than never, right?”

  “Always better late than never, Adam.” She pressed her lips against mine. “Always.”

  July 2

  Charli

  By the next day I was going a bit stir crazy. Bridget was hardly a party animal. She slept and she ate.

  “I think we should go for a walk,” I announced.

  Adam was on the couch, patting Bridget’s back as she slept on his chest. “I think you should take it easy.”

  “I don’t want to. I’ve just spent nine months taking it easy,” I told him. “Pack your daughter up and let’s get out of here.”

  He continued patting the baby, making no attempt to move. “Yes Ma’am.”

  * * *

  The main street was where we ended up, which wasn’t the brightest of ideas. Stopping every two minutes to show off the baby meant we didn’t get very far.

  “She’s lovely, Charli,” said Mrs Daintree, abandoning the customer at the counter to come outside. “Your father was very cagy when I asked him about her yesterday.”

  “Really?” I tried not to smile. “What did he say?”

  Valerie pulled a sucking-lemon face. “He told me that she was present and accounted for.”

  Adam’s laugh was cut short by the snarky glare she shot him.

  “We should keep moving,” I said, tactfully. “You have people waiting on you.” I pointed at the post office window, namely the old lady who waiting at the counter for service.

  “Yes,” agreed Valerie, making no attempt to go back inside.

  I saw her customer walk away from the counter. When she got to the door, I realised it was Edna Wilson. Adam recognised her too. He let out a low disgruntled groan.

  Valerie pointed at the letter in Mrs Wilson’s hand. “Shall I take that, Edna?”

  “Thank you, dear.” She handed it over and Mrs Daintree disappeared back into the post office, leaving us alone with Crazy Edna.

  “How are you, Mrs Wilson?” I asked.

  She ignored me, focusing her attention on the baby strapped to Adam’s chest. He moved his hand to cradle her head, perhaps to hide her.

  “Ah,” cooed Edna, leaning in for closer look. “Post procella phoebus.”

  She glanced up at Adam and he smiled, obviously understanding her mumbo jumbo perfectly. The last time I’d heard Edna say procella, she’d been in the midst of predicting doom and gloom. It bothered me to hear her say it again.

  The conversation went a step further when Edna reached up and touched Adam’s cheek with a shaky hand. “Si vis amari ama,” she mumbled. “You do deserve it. Understand?”

  He nodded as if in a trance. The moment lasted an uncomfortably long time, then Crazy Edna dropped her hand, wished us well and wandered away.

  I gave Adam a moment to recover before grilling him. “Since when do you speak witch?”

  “It wasn’t witch. It was Latin.”

  I hooked my arm through his and we continued our slow walk. “What does procella mean?”

  “Storm,” he replied. “She said that after the storm comes the sun.”

  I could no longer deny that Crazy Edna had epic skills in magic.

  “The day Gabrielle and I went to her, she kept harping on about a procella baby,” I told him. “She knew then that Bridget was a storm baby. She also said I was going to run out of time. Maybe she wasn’t banking on Alouette.”

  He smiled and kissed the top of our baby’s head. “Maybe not.”

  “What else did she say?”

  I didn’t buy the apathetic shrug he gave. Whatever Edna said had nearly reduced him to tears. I stepped in front of him, forcing him to stop. “Please tell me.”

  “She said, ‘If you want to be loved, love.’”

  Then she’d assured him he deserved it, which made me worry because I knew he thought he didn’t. “Do you want to be loved, Adam?”

  His smile was slight but pronounced enough to make his cheek dimple. “Ad infinitum, Charlotte,” he murmured.

  “And what does that mean?”

  “For infinity.”

  “You do deserve it,” I promised.

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “Because I say you do. Stop beating yourself up.”

  “I’m not sure I can forgive myself.” His voice was barely there. “If you’d gone through with –”

  I shifted my hand to cover his mouth. I didn’t want him to finish the ugly thought. “But I didn’t, Adam. She’s here and she’s fine. Love and you’ll be loved for infinity.”

  It wrecked me to see him looking so tortured. I knew his regrets were huge, and the drama with his father wasn’t helping.

  “Everything is exactly as it should be,” I asserted.

  I felt his smile under my hand. I also felt our little baby wriggle, unhappy that we were crowding her space. I took a step back.

  “I love you, Charli Blake,” he fervently declared, patting Bridget’s back to settle her.

  I grabbed his free hand to get him walking again. “It’s Charli Décarie to you,” I replied. “And I love you too. When I can fit back into my skinny jeans again, I’ll seal the deal.”

  * * *

  We only made it a short distance when Adam stopped walking again. I was ready to give up and head back to the car. We were getting nowhere.

  “Do you want to turn back?”

  “No. Charli,” he muttered, “what is this place?”

  I looked at the old stone building that had caught his eye. “It used to be a bank back in the day – about fifty years ago,” I explained. “I’ve only ever known it to be vacant.”

  Adam ran his hands along the rough stone wall. He was weirdly tactile when it came to architecture.

  “Who owns it?”

  “The Tates, I think.” They owned the majority of real estate along the main street, derelict or not.

  “Can we get in?”

  I looked at the boarded windows and padlocked door. “I can get us in.”

  He returned the wicked smile I flashed him. “I don’t doubt it for a second.”

  We slipped around to the back. Adam unclipped the baby sling and handed Bridget to me while he jimmied the board off one of the windows with a steel rod he found on t
he ground. “I’m so proud, Adam,” I declared.

  He was halfway through the glassless window already. “Why?”

  “Our daughter’s first break and enter is a bank,” I replied. “It doesn’t get any grander than that.”

  I heard his laugh echo as he walked through the building. The back door creaked open a few seconds later.

  “Ladies,” he announced, waving us inside.

  Clearly we were the first people to go in there in years. It was a three-roomed derelict shell, but undoubtedly a bank. The old service counter still stood and there was a vault in the back room.

  “I can work with this,” announced Adam, turning slowly around. “Look at this old fireplace. Why would a bank need a fireplace?”

  “It’s an old building,” I replied. “Probably a hundred years old. They all had fireplaces back then.”

  “There are no bars on the windows,” he noted.

  I shrugged. “There’s no glass either. We’re a trusting lot here.”

  He turned back to face me, grinning excitedly. “I want it.”

  His enthusiasm made me smile. “You can’t have it. I don’t think it’s for sale.”

  “Everything has a price, Charlotte,” he retorted. “Besides, Mr Tate owes me a favour. I did him a good deal on the Audi. He promised to return the favour.”

  I doubt he’d meant it. John Tate was as ruthless as Meredith. But there was no talking Adam out of it. And truthfully, I didn’t want to talk him out of it. Renovating the old bank building was exactly the kind of project Adam needed.

  * * *

  The weather the next day was cool but bright. Adam made the most of the unseasonably calm ocean, talking Alex into giving him a lesson in the surf. It was remarkably generous of my father. Alex didn’t usually get out of bed for a less than stellar swell, let alone venture out there to babysit a Sunday surfer like Boy Wonder.

  I was enjoying my morning alone with the baby. I wasn’t a natural like her father, but as the days passed my confidence grew. I had no choice but to get the hang of it. My little person was relying on me to keep her alive.

  When Bridget woke for her morning feed, we headed outside to enjoy the sunshine. “Consider it a picnic, baby,” I told her, sitting at the shabby old picnic table. I was concentrating on nothing other than the warm sun on my back and the tiny noises the baby made as I fed her, which is why I missed seeing Flynn cross from his yard into mine.

  “Hello, Charli.”

  He startled me so much that I jerked Bridget in my arms. I moved to rearrange her blanket, making sure I was completely covered.

  “Hi Flynn,” I replied coolly.

  He craned his neck, leaning forward. “Long time no see.”

  I couldn’t work out if he was trying to get a better look at the baby or my chest. Either way, it creeped me out.

  “I’ve been a little busy.”

  “So I see,” he said quietly. “My Grandma told me the baby came early. Congratulations. I hope everything went well for you.”

  “Fine, thank you.”

  “And Adam’s back, right?” he asked. “That’s a bit of a coup. You get rid of one bloke and another turns up the next day. You must enjoy the company.”

  I could feel bile rising in my throat. I had no idea what he was insinuating but felt sickened by the smarmy spin he’d put on it.

  “You seem to know a lot about the goings on here, Flynn,” I muttered. “Perhaps you should stick to your side of the fence.”

  He frowned at me. “I think you and I went a little off track somewhere.”

  “There was no you and I,” I snapped. “I don’t know what you want from me.”

  Flynn took a step back, having the nerve to look slightly wounded. “I don’t want anything. I came over here to congratulate you on the baby.”

  I was tired of treading lightly where Flynn Davis was concerned. I decided it was as good a time as any to lay it all out there.

  “Have you been in my house while I’m not there?” I asked.

  “Excuse me?”

  I knew I wasn’t going to get a straight answer. I studied his body language instead, which was pointless. He was nervous and fidgety on his best day.

  “You heard me.”

  “Why the hell would I do that?”

  I looked straight at him. “I have no idea. But someone’s been going into my house while I’m not there.”

  His face darkened. “What do you take me for?”

  A creepy obsessed neighbour who frightened the hell out of me. I just couldn’t bring myself to say it out loud.

  I rearranged my shirt under the blanket, cutting Bridget’s lunch short. I stood up to leave, ignoring the fact that she’d begun to cry. “Stay away from me,” I ordered.

  As I passed him, he grabbed my arm. “Charli –”

  It was a stupid move on his part. I went from being marginally creeped out to hysterically terrified in two seconds flat. I burst into tears. “Get away from me!”

  He held both hands in the air and backed away as if he was trying to escape a cornered animal.

  “Don’t ever come near me or my house again,” I added, rushing to the veranda.

  “You’re crazy,” he told me. “Absolutely mental.”

  I carried Bridget inside and bolted the door, convinced that I wasn’t the crazy one.

  * * *

  I’d had enough where Flynn was concerned. When Adam arrived home that afternoon, I told him everything – from the very beginning.

  “What makes you think he’s been coming into the house?” he asked, remarkably calmly.

  I wasn’t sure I had a decent answer, but I tried. I told him about windows being left open, the flowers he’d sent me and the numerous attempts he’d made at asking me out.

  “I would never leave windows open,” I told him. “At first I put it down to forgetfulness, but it’s happened a few times.”

  Adam thought it through before speaking again. “Is anything missing?”

  “No,” I conceded. “Nothing’s missing.”

  He stood up and carefully handed me the baby. I called out as he got to the door, “Where are you going?”

  “To sort this out,” he replied. “Stay here.”

  I worried that it wasn’t going to end well. I spent the next few minutes trying to work out how much cash we had in the house in case I needed to post bail. Threatening a police officer would probably be costly. If he went a step further and belted him, I’d probably have to consider selling the baby to cover it.

  July 3

  Adam

  Anger drove me as I marched across to the house, but by the time I stepped on to Flynn’s porch, common sense kicked in and I slowed my roll.

  Charli had been through a lot over the past few months. It wasn’t much of a stretch to think she could have blown things out of proportion. A few windows left open hardly constituted a break and enter. She’d said it herself – nothing had been taken. And Flynn was a police officer. As smitten as he might be with my wife, breaking into her home was a little extreme.

  By the time I knocked on the door, I was feeling slightly foolish.

  Flynn looked less than pleased to see me. “I take it Charli sent you over here,” he said sullenly.

  “Look,” I began. “I don’t really know what’s going on, but –”

  He cut me off. “Nothing is going on. I went over to congratulate her on the baby and she freaked out and accused me of breaking into her house.”

  I nodded. “Yeah, she did.”

  “Has your wife always been crazy?” he asked.

  “Have you always been in love with my wife?” I shot back. “Because I’m fairly sure that’s why she’s so sure freaked out by you.”

  The tables turned in an instant. The look on his face proved that Constable Creepy had just lost the upper hand.

  “Charli made it very clear that she wasn’t interested me. I sent her flowers once, that’s it.”

  I stepped off the porch. “That wa
s where you went wrong then,” I taunted. “She hates getting flowers. You should’ve sent chocolates instead.”

  He called out as I walked away, “If Charli genuinely thinks there’s a problem, she should make a police report.”

  I turned back. “Yeah, I’ll keep it in mind.”

  “How long are you in town for?” he asked.

  It was the million-dollar question that I was sick to death of hearing. I answered him anyway. “I’m here to stay, Flynn. My wife and daughter live here.”

  * * *

  I wasn’t looking forward to dealing with Charli. She truly believed that something underhanded was going on. The problem was, I didn’t.

  She collared me the second I walked through the door. “What did he say?”

  I took her by the hand, led her to the couch and sat her down. She didn’t appreciate the gesture one bit. She pulled her hand free the second she hit the cushion.

  “I think you’ve been under a lot of pressure lately,” I said gently.

  “I’m not imagining things, Adam,” she retorted.

  “I didn’t say you were.” I smoothed my fingers through her hair. “I just think you might be mistaken about this.”

  “I don’t think I am.”

  I wasn’t going to win this one. I’d be lucky to escape the conversation unharmed. I continued trying to reason with her anyway.

  “I think you should just take a breath and put things into perspective. Flynn is a police officer, Charli. Why would he risk everything by getting caught breaking into someone’s house?”

  She was quiet for a moment. I hoped that meant she was thinking it through. “I don’t know,” she conceded.

  “And nothing is missing,” I added. “It makes no sense.”

  She nodded. “Did you tell him to stay away from me?”

  I relaxed a little. “Yes. I’m sure he got the message loud and clear.”

  “Fine.” She got up. “It’s over then.”

  * * *

  John Tate wasn’t an easy man to deal with but I was persistent. He’d initially refused to entertain the idea of selling us the disused bank but money talks, and I had plenty of it.