“Just for an hour or two,” he pleaded, unsuccessfully trying to conceal his smile.
“You’re crazy. It’s dark and cold, and that’s a stupid way to spend our night together.” I waved vaguely at the black windows.
“I have a surprise for you,” he admitted.
“What? A new power sander?”
“No,” he murmured. “The one Alex lent me works just fine.”
“So, what is it?”
“You’ll see,” he replied, giving nothing away.
He stood and pulled me to him, and as his lips melted on to mine I closed my eyes, concentrating on nothing other than remembering how to breathe. I felt too weakened by his touch to speak. I didn’t even notice when he stepped away to grab our coats. By the time I opened my eyes he had his on and was holding mine out. The metal press-studs snapped loudly as he buttoned my coat all the way up to my neck, as if I was five years old.
“I don’t want you to be cold,” he explained, grinning craftily. “Okay. Ready?”
“No.”
“I’ll make a deal with you.” His tone was sweet but the look on his face convinced me he was still scheming.
“No deals.”
“I’ll go surfing with you in the morning if you come out to the shed with me tonight.”
I saw no lack of honesty in his eyes. He’d made no secret of his acute dislike of the ocean – the thought of swimming in it at least.
“Really?”
“You have my word, Charlotte.” He placed his hand on his heart.
“Fine,” I surrendered. “Let’s get this over with.” He picked the throw rug off the couch on our way out.
His surprise had nothing to do with the boat. He slid the huge shed door open and the fluorescent light flickered a few times before settling, casting enough light for me to see that the boat looked exactly as it had the last time I’d seen it.
Something in my expression made him smile. I watched in silence as he walked to the far end of the shed, picked up an old milk crate and brought it back. Bundling up the throw rug as a makeshift cushion, he dropped it on the crate.
“Sit, please. I just have to find something.”
I got the impression we were going to be there a while. Adam rifled through boxes of tools and the pockets of a coat he’d left there earlier, searching for the surprise.
“If you tell me what it is, I could help you look for it,” I suggested.
“I can’t believe I’ve lost it,” he said, glancing across at me as he upended a box of junk on to the shed floor. “I only picked it up this afternoon.”
“Is it big or small?”
“Small.”
“Well, the light in here is not very good,” I reasoned. “Why don’t you wait until morning?”
Ignoring the mess he’d just made, Adam stepped over the pile of tools and headed back towards me. I met him half way, happy to take his hand when he reached out. He stood in front of me and I studied his face closely. His eyes were never cold and piercing as blue eyes often are. They were cerulean, intense and deep, like the rest of him. Finally, his lips, cold from the night air connected with mine, sending a shudder through me.
“Charlotte,” he whispered, leaning back to look at me again.
“Yes?”
“You have to breathe,” he reminded me.
I felt my body tense as I sucked in a much needed breath. My fingers began to tingle and I wasn’t sure if it was due to a lack of oxygen or the cold night air. His hand moved to my neck and he popped open the first two buttons of my coat. My chest was heaving with each gulp of air that I forced into my lungs but I didn’t flinch as his cold hand slipped inside my coat.
“Your heart is hammering,” he said, sounding bewildered by my over-the-top response to his touch.
“I know,” I said, struggling to regain some control of myself.
His hand slid free of the warm confines of my coat. His body shifted away and I wished I hadn’t said anything.
“You are so beautiful,” he said, walking back to the tools he’d dumped on the floor.
“Why do you do that?” I asked, failing to conceal my frustration.
He continued throwing tools back in the box, pausing to glance at me.
“Do what?”
“You know what.”
For a moment, I had been hopeful that the not-so-good side of him, the side that peeked at me through the mirror while I was half naked and helped me cheat my way out of detention, was winning. The heat radiating from our bodies might have been enough to numb the chill of the air but it wasn’t enough to numb the good, responsible side of Adam.
“Do you really want to do this here, Charlotte?” he asked quietly, making me wince as he threw a spanner into the box at his feet. “In a cold shed?”
“I wanted to stay inside,” I reminded him, making it known why I’d protested leaving the house in the first place.
His eyes drifted up to meet mine. He spoke seriously. “When the time is right, we’re going to have the whole night together, not a few rushed hours while Gabi and Alex are at dinner.”
The mere mention of Gabrielle and Alex killed the mood instantly. He might as well have doused me with iced water. An entire night alone was impossible. There was no way my brother would loosen the reins that much. Adam should know better than to even hope for that kind of scenario, and I told him so.
“So he’d rather you sneaked around behind his back?”
“Of course he would,” I snapped. “That’s exactly what he expects from me.”
A tool crashed into the box, making me wince. He was annoyed.
It was a pointless argument that neither of us was going to win. Thankfully Adam wasn’t as stubborn as me. He knew when quit, expertly changing the subject to something trivial. He was also good at compromise, spending only a few more minutes looking for the mystery package before giving up for the night.
We returned to the warmth of the house and I spent the rest of the night curled in his arms on the couch, half watching a movie that was so tacky it had gone straight to DVD. Adam gave up even pretending to watch it after a few minutes, opting for one of Gabrielle’s French novels. A foil gum wrapper fluttered out of the book as he flipped it open. Leaning across, I picked it up from its landing spot. I’d never known Gabrielle to chew gum. The sticker on the spine of the book indicated that the tattered novel was a library book. Realistically, the forgotten litter could have come from anywhere.
Something about my expression made him question what I was thinking.
“I remember my mum used to chew a lot of gum,” I said, smoothing the wrapper on my knee. “The smell of peppermint, and gum wrappers as it turns out, always reminds me of her.”
He smiled, snapped the book shut and gently placed it on my lap. “What else do you remember?”
“Not much. I remember her singing to me, always singing to me.”
“They’re nice memories to have, Charli,” he whispered, tangling his fingers through my hair.
I picked the book up and handed it to him. “Will you read it to me?” I asked, craning my neck to look at him.
“Shall I translate?” he asked, amused.
“No, read it in French.”
“You won’t understand it.”
“I don’t need to understand it. I just need to hear it.”
I had been drunk only once in my life. Nicole and I had stolen a bottle from her parents’ liquor cabinet when we were fifteen. The way Adam sometimes looked at me reminded me of my headspace after first few mouthfuls of whiskey – warm and giddy, tinged with euphoria. Thankfully the puking, headache and morning-after lecture from Alex never followed.
“You’re so incredibly special, Coccinelle,” he said, manoeuvring my body so my head rested in his lap.
“Just shut up and read, piglet,” I replied, making him laugh.
I closed my eyes, concentrating on his voice but not attempting to decipher his words. He could have been reading from the TV guide fo
r all I cared. His accent captivated every bit of my attention, which is why I didn’t hear Alex and Gabrielle arrive home.
“Ready to go?” asked Alex, jolting me back to reality.
I sat up, peering over the back of the couch to look at him.
“Now?”
“It’s after eleven, Charli.” Something about him was off.
Our night was over and a twinge of sadness hit me. Our nights together were limited – and that knowledge was beginning to sting.
The drive home was quiet and tense. Alex had a habit of stewing over things. If he was upset about something, I was sure to hear about it eventually. I leaned my head against the cold car window, gazing upward at the night sky as it whizzed past.
“Do you want me to wind the window down?” teased Alex.
I smiled. “No. How was dinner?”
My gaze returned to the darkness outside as he replied. I was only half paying attention to his reply until he mentioned something about Nicole working the next day. It jogged my memory and I realised I’d double booked myself.
“Oh, Nicole can’t work tomorrow. We’ve made plans,” I told him.
The look Alex gave me was dark. I smiled at him, still marvelling over the fact that my social life had picked up enough for me to be double booked in the first place.
“If she doesn’t work it, I’ll have to,” he said.
“I know. Please, Alex. Please, please,” I begged, batting my eyes at him.
He laughed hard, just once. “Does that look work on anyone?” he asked.
I grinned. “Yes. You. Every time. You just don’t realise it.”
16. Confession
It wasn’t until I arrived at Gabrielle’s house the next morning that I realised it was a ridiculously early time to be visiting. Adam Décarie was clouding my every thought and any common sense I once had was long gone. I crept on to the veranda in stealth mode, unsure if I was going to be waking anyone.
I hated sleeping in on weekends. The thought of wasting a single minute of a free day sleeping was ridiculous. Obviously the Décarie’s thought differently. It was so quiet that if I didn’t know better, I’d have said the house was deserted. I didn’t want to knock. Visions of Gabrielle coming to the door, furious with me for waking her from her beauty sleep, popped into my head. I really did not want to knock on the door.
I tiptoed along the veranda, heading towards the back of the house. The sun shone brightly for the second day in a row, glistening off the ocean like a multifaceted jewel. I stood for a minute taking it all in, wondering how Gabrielle managed to score the most prime real estate in the Cove.
Something else caught my eye. Lying on the wet grass was the white mohair blanket from the night before – except it wasn’t white any more. It was dirty and stretched out in an odd shape. I was definitely glad I didn’t knock on the door. If she didn’t kill me for waking her up early on a Saturday morning, she would surely kill us for ruining her blanket. I scooped it off the ground, rolling it up.
The blanket wasn’t the only discarded item on the lawn. Next to it was a small brown velvet box. It took a long minute before I bent down and picked it up, gingerly as if it might explode in my hands. Shoving the box into my pocket and ignoring the small voice in my head screaming at me to open it, I continued around the house to Adam’s window.
The white curtains were sheer but peering through them, I saw nothing. Tapping lightly on the glass didn’t rouse him so I changed tack and tried my hand at breaking and entering.
The window slid open remarkably easily considering the frames were wood and constantly battered by salty ocean air. I smugly considered a career as a cat burglar until my entrance through the window brought me back to my senses. There was nothing catlike about it. My foot got stuck on the ledge as I levered myself up, sending me toppling to the floor with a thud. Unbelievably he didn't wake. He didn’t even stir.
I watched him sleep for a minute, his face even more perfect than usual. His body was covered by a thick quilt, leaving only his bare arms exposed. I had to touch him. My fingertips were only millimetres from his skin when I jerked back with fright at the unexpected sound of his voice.
“I’m awake, Charli.” He smiled but kept his eyes closed.
“For how long?” I asked, too mortified to be angry. “I’ve been staring at you like an imbecile and you’ve been awake the whole time?”
Reaching for my hand, he pulled me the short distance across the bed. His warm arms wrapped around me as I lay with my back to him. He rested his chin on my shoulder, smoothing my hair with his hand to keep it out of his face.
“I woke when you fell through my window,” he murmured. “Is there a reason you’re gracing me with your presence so early?”
“Are you complaining?”
“Never,” he whispered.
He tightened his grip around my chest and planted a quick kiss on my neck. Suddenly the brown box was burning a hole in my pocket.
“I brought Gabrielle’s blanket in. We left it outside,” I told him. “It’s ruined, Adam.”
“I’ll buy her a new one,” he replied, unconcerned by the damage we’d done.
“I found something else.”
“Really?” he asked, failing miserably at sounding surprised. “What did you find?”
I knew even without looking at him that he was smiling. He knew exactly what I’d found and he was going to make me tell him.
“This,” I said, reaching into my pocket and pulling out the dew-soaked box.
“Did you open it?”
Twisting myself in his arms, I turned to face him. “No. I didn’t open it. It doesn’t belong to me.”
Adam took the box from my hand and balanced it on my hip. “It does belong to you. Open it,” he urged, grinning.
“What is it?”
“Open it,” he repeated, tapping the lid with his finger. I caught the box as it began to slide off me. “It’s just a trinket, I promise.”
I could handle a trinket. It wasn’t going to be the magnitude of the million-year-old boat. I wasn’t going to have to find a way to politely refuse.
“Do you know what it is?” he asked, watching my face as I flipped open the lid.
I held the necklace above me. The teardrop-shaped black gem encased in the silver pendant shone as it caught the morning sun. Beautiful ribbons of red and green flickered through it.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” I breathed, awed by the unusual stone.
“What do you know about opals?” he quizzed.
“They’re symbols of hope, courage, happiness and truth,” I whispered.
“Très bien. I thought it was the perfect gift for someone about to set out on a voyage of the world. I had Floss make it for you,” he said, murmuring the words against my throat.
I touched his face with the hand that held the necklace. The fine silver chain tangled around my fingers as I pressed them to his cheek. He leaned forward to kiss me again but I gently held him back, needing to see his eyes.
“You are the best person I know,” I whispered.
A sweet, perfect smile swept across his face and I wondered how I’d got so lucky. I didn’t want to move. I could have stayed there forever and never moved again but the hold he had on me lasted only a minute.
“Are we surfing today?” he asked. “I assume you’re here to make sure I honour my side of the bargain.”
“No. I’m here to let you off the hook, actually. I have to cancel. I forgot that I made plans with Nicole yesterday,” I said regretfully.
“I’m so disappointed, Charlotte.” The wily grin betrayed him. It was the look of a boy who’d just been given a reprieve. He’d probably regretted making the deal since the offer tumbled out of his mouth.
“Liar.” I laughed, breaking his loose hold so I could slide off the bed.
“Are you leaving already? You just got here.”
I had to leave. He was in danger of making me stay, just by the way he was looking at me, an
d that wouldn’t have been fair. Poor Nicole had been pushed to the backburner so many times over the last few weeks that changing today’s plans would have been nothing less than criminal.
The thought of Gabrielle catching me in his room that early in the morning was another incentive to get out of there. I heard the shower running and knew it would be a good time to escape.
“Are you going out the window or through the door?” he teased.
“Which would you prefer?”
“I’d prefer that you stay here with me.”
His dark blue eyes locked mine. I turned away because I needed to. Untangling the chain from my fingers, I draped the necklace around my neck, fumbling with the clasp for a few seconds before he appeared behind me. He swept my hair across one shoulder and quickly fastened the clasp. I wasn’t paying attention any more. I was too focused on staring at him through the mirror.
Standing in front of him shielded little of my view. It was as if it was the first time I’d ever really looked at him. Strong, muscular arms wrapped around my chest, holding me to him. Much taller than me, his body hunched forward to rest his chin on my shoulder, emphasising every muscle on the side of his chest that wasn’t obscured by my body. Obviously, there was merit in running recreationally. He had gifted me the beautiful gem as a token of protection and strength. At that moment, I didn’t need it. He shone brighter.
Dragging myself away, even for a few hours, was harder than I imagined it could be. I should have been preparing to let him go. The smart thing to do would be to start distancing myself from him now. But I wasn’t smart. I wanted to leave with him – to never have to face time without him – but even in my hazy reasoning I knew it was impossible.
My preoccupation was obvious to Nicole the minute she met me at the front door.
“Nice bling,” she complimented, pointing at my necklace. “It’s like those ones we saw in Floss’s shop, remember?”
I did remember. It was the sole reason I’d accepted it so willingly. A trinket that Floss had made was much easier on my fragile psyche than the Huon sloop.