Storm Shells (The Wishes Series #3) (38 page)

“He’ll calm down.” I could hear how empty my words were.

Adam started pacing around the small room. “My kid will never, ever have her worth judged by the size of her bank balance. Do you understand me?” I nodded because I thought he needed to see it. “She’s not ever going to feel pressured by us. She’ll go her own way.” He threw out his arms in exasperation. “Whatever she wants to do. She can dig ditches for a living if that’s her bliss. Got it?”

“Yes, Adam,” I replied. “I’ve got it.” I wasn’t taking his rant personally. It wasn’t meant for me. I was hearing all the words his father would’ve copped if he’d had the decency to stay on the line another few minutes.

Adam’s anger faded the second he realised he was taking it out on the wrong person. He stopped pacing, looking lost and in total need of rescue.

“He cut us out.” His voice was calm voice but laced with bewilderment. “Who in their right mind would deny a beautiful, perfect child because she doesn’t fit in with their master plan? It’s the most ridiculous...”

His voice trailed off as he reached a horrible conclusion. “Oh, my God,” he muttered. “I’m just like him. I did the exact same thing.”

“No, you didn’t. You’re here.”

Nothing I could say was going to be enough to talk him through the light bulb moment that had just gone off in his head, so I said no more. I watched him walk into the cold night air, hoping that time was all he’d need to get back on track.

July 1

Adam

I drove fifty kilometres in a bid to clear my head, ending up at a gas station in Sorell. I headed inside, purchased a huge amount of the chocolate koalas I knew Charli liked, and drove fifty kilometres back. I walked in the door feeling like a total dick. Charli acted as if I’d never left.

“Hi,” I said meekly.

“Hey.”

I walked over and flopped beside her on the couch. “I’m sorry,” I muttered contritely. “I behaved like a child.”

Charli twisted and rested her legs across me. “Adam, did you ever get around to reading
Peter Pan
?”

“I did,” I admitted. “Twice.” She slapped her hands on her knees and I knew there was a quote coming. “Off we skip like the most heartless things in the world, which is what children are, but so attractive, and we have an entirely selfish time, and then when we have the need of special attention we nobly return for it, confident that we shall be rewarded instead of smacked.”

She’d recited it in one breath, in a voice like that of a pantomime actress.

“How the heck do you know that by heart?”

She laughed, a sweet sound that I hadn’t expected to hear again that night. “It’s Alex’s favourite quote. He used to quote it all the time, especially when I’d been tormenting him. Basically it’s about being a cocky brat.”

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 the 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.