The Charmers (28 page)
Authors: Elizabeth Adler
But I'm young, I'm healthy again, and I am much stronger than I ever was. That frightened girl running from “the cheater,” and the bad marriage, is no more. Soon I shall move in with my handsome Colonel. We shall marry as soon as I am free, and I shall become stepmother to two delightful girls who are as needy for a mom as I am to be one.
If anyone needed a happy ending, it was me. (Or do I mean “I”?)
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Chad Prescott
I find myself once again at the Nice airport, awaiting a flight to Paris, delayed naturally, and from there, flight to Rio de Janeiro, where I shall overnight, just long enough to take in its staggering beauty. Flying into Rio is a wonder in itself, over that green, green ocean, those white surf-swept beaches, those twin mountains and of course the most spectacular of all, Corcovado where the statue of Christ the Redeemer holds his arms wide in welcome. I shall dine there in some white-tiled hole-in-the-wall where you can get the best feijoada, a dish of black beans cooked with pork and other succulent bits and probably unmentionable pieces, and which will most likely be the mainstay of my diet for the next couple of months. In the Amazon villages where I am going, there are no supermarkets, no corner stores, no cafés and local bistros, where a glass of red and a fresh-cooked omelette can make your day. And there is, of course, no mobile phone reception. It is the latter I regret most.
In just a few weeks, I'd fallen in love. I have become used to Mirabella's soft voice, to her presence in my life, to opening my eyes in the morning and seeing her red hair spread on the pillow next to me, her sleeping face so tranquil, as though all the traumas and danger of the past weeks has finally disappeared from her mind. I've become used to thinking of the Villa Romantica as “home,” the place I shall always recall with longing and, to which I shall always return. It's no longer just “my land” and “Mirabella's land,” the two are joined together as inextricably as we are ourselves.
How could this happen? I've asked myself a hundred or more times. Here I was, the long-range doctor, content enough with my hardworking lifestyle, the quiet times alone at the villa on the South of France coast, where omelets were offered at every café and wine flowed from carafes placed automatically on the table, along with the basket of bread, and the good Normandy butter, and the small bowl of olive oil from the mill around the corner. I'll still miss all that but, for the first time, I will miss a woman.
This is not just any woman. She is Mirabella Matthews, writer of detective novels of the kind I read myself with great enjoyment, in those free hours snatched from my work. She is Mirabella Matthews, the brave woman who faced up to life-threatening danger, took on a man so powerful, so clever and so ultimately evil, he would have sacrificed her along with the donkeys, and Verity, who had almost joined them on the wall.
Now, though, waiting for my delayed flight, the young man behind the bar offered me a glass of champagne. I refused. I was not in a champagne mood. No celebration. I was leaving the woman I loved behind. And I had not told her I loved her.
I ordered a beer instead, downing it, all the while staring morosely into space, not hearing the usual chatter, the gossip, the flights calls, uninterested in anything but my own thoughts. Which were all of a woman I was leaving behind.
I ordered a second beer, though I should have known better. Booze does not fix a broken heart. Not that mine was broken yet. But it was about to be if I got on that flight and ended up thousands of miles from where I was meant, right now, to be.
I canceled my flight, grabbed my old leather duffle, and made for the taxi line. As usual it was a mile long. It was also beginning to rain, that thin kind of rain that soaks you without you even noticing until it's too late to do anything about it.
I stood there, in my old parka, clutching my battered bag, my wet hair stuck to my brow, scowling at a world that for the first time I did not want to leave, ignoring the car horns, the honking, the buses skidding to a stop, the people standing in line grumbling. Then I heard her voice.
“Get in here,” she yelled, throwing open the door of the miniature car she drove these days. I guessed it was better than the blue Maserati she'd crashed over the side of the canyon.
I got in, slamming the door shut as she took off, escaping the threats and catcalls coming her way.
She was grinning from ear to ear. Her red curls had gotten wet in the rain and she looked young and kind of innocent, despite the cocky grin.
She threw me a sideways glance. “You didn't think I was going to let you get away that easily, did you?”
“I was hoping you wouldn't,” I replied.
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Mirabella
It was much later, and we were still in my room, in the bed where we had made love. Chad took my bare hands and held them flat in his. He inspected the shriveled skin that without the gloves pulled my fingers down into the palms. My nails were perfect, but my hands curved like claws. I was ashamed all over again and I began to cry.
“Tell me about it,” he said.
In all the years since the accident I had never spoken to anybody about it. Not even the psychiatrist who assured me I would be better, “cured” I guess he meant, if I unburdened my soul.
I did not then, or ever, but now I wanted no secrets between my lover and myself. He had to know what happened.
“I was twelve years old,” I said. “I'd gone with my mother to a friend's farm. We were playing in the barn, as kids do, hiding behind bales of straw stored for winter feed for the cows. They had only a few cows, three in fact, but they were looked after like children, brushed until they shone, picked-up after like they were thoroughbred racehorses, so beautiful with their liquid brown eyes and long straight lashes. I was a city girl, I didn't know about farms and machinery. It was a playground for me. I climbed up into the rafters, you know the big king-beam a barn has, and all the others coming from it. Well one beam stuck out right over where I was hiding.
“There was a round metal machine at the end of it, sort of rusty looking, obviously something that had not been used in years. So of course, daredevil me, I had to give it a try. I thought I'd just grab onto the rope, swing out over all the kids below, and push the machine in front of me. Well, that's exactly what I did. The rope was old. The machine was old. Everything broke and I fell. I clutched at the rusty apparatus for some reason, trying to save it, I suppose. I landed on a cow. It probably saved my life, but I broke its neck. I was distraught. I had killed a helpless trusting animal. Don't worry, people said to me. Thank God you're alright. It was just a cow. Besides, look what it did to your hand. Of course the cow had done nothing, it was all my own fault. And yes, silly though it might seem, it has left a scar on my memory. I love animals, I take in stray dogs and cats, I help at the local animal shelter, I do all I can for them.⦔
“To atone for the cow,” Chad said.
“Oh, Christ, can you believe how ridiculous that is? All those years ago and I still can't forgive myself. My arrogance and stupidity.”
“That's all it was?”
I could see he did not believe me. I had to tell him. “I also landed on my friend. She fell off the hay bale. I thought she had died. I screamed to them to come help. She did not die but she had broken both legs and it was over a year before she could walk again. Years later, I was a bridesmaid at her wedding. She was still limping. âYou see, I'm walking on my own two feet,' she said to me with a big loving smile. It was then I learned about forgiveness.”
Chad said, “And now it's time to learn to forgive yourself. Mistakes are made. We all make them. There are times when I feel I could have done more for my poor children out there in the wilderness, that I should have done more for them, should not come back here and left them alone. Then I remember who I am. I do what I do, all I can do. I have my own life to live, my own world to live in. And so do you, my poor Mirabella. Can you leave it all now, and go forward? With me?”
It was the best question any man ever asked me. Apart from saying will you marry me, of course. But that came later.
And, wouldn't you know it, the canary sang.
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When I think about Jerusha, I recall her sad story, but I remember also the joyous times she lived through and the success and the happiness that was hers, until it was all taken away from her.
I like to remember her as a lovely, smiling young woman, glad for the love she had, and glad to give that love. She was a true star in the firmament of life.
Now, Chad and I are able to enjoy the beautiful home she built with such hope and care. We think of her when we hear a voice echoing from the beach, or the great splashing roar of winter-night waves against the rocks, or smell the elusive scent that still sometimes lingers. We remember her, and thank her. She will always exist not only in our hearts, but in the way of life that she helped create, for those who came after her.
We would like you to know it was not for nothing, Jerusha.
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Also by
Elizabeth Adler
There's Something About St. Tropez
In a Heartbeat
Sooner or Later
All or Nothing
Now or Never
Fleeting Images
Indiscretions
The Heiress
The Secret of Villa Mimosa
Legacy of Secrets
Fortune Is a Woman
The Property of a Lady
The Rich Shall Inherit
Peach
Léonie
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ELIZABETH ADLER
is the internationally acclaimed author of thirty-one novels. She lives in Palm Springs, California. Visit her at
www.elizabethadler.com
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