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Becalmed

By Normandie Fischer

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Chapter One

Out here on the water between Shackleford Banks and the islands fronting Taylor Creek, the wind can turn as skittish as those barrier- island ponies. Some days, it blows up a stink as it whips through the Beaufort Inlet and across the low dunes of the Cape Lookout National Seashore. Other days, it just lies down flat.

Tadie Longworth didn’t mind which way the wind played its tricks when she sailed alone. But with Hannah on board and the breeze a dimming memory, she cared. Her best friend sat forward in the cockpit, wilting like the edges of her floppy red hat as she poured bottled water down the front of her shirt.
“You want me to soak a towel?” Tadie asked. “Drape it over your legs to cool you?” She plucked at her own shirt, damp with salt water. “It helps.”

Hannah fanned her face. “Just find us some wind,” she said, elongating a sigh.
Tadie bit back a grin. Such a drama queen. Trust Hannah to milk even discomfort.
In the stillness, the loud rumble of an overtaking speedboat grabbed Tadie’s attention. Fool. He had plenty of water to steer clear of them, but no, he’d rather throw a wake at Luna’s beam as he flashed past in a blur of yellow.
Luna’s sails snapped, whip-like. Tadie pushed away the wooden boom and scanned the horizon for some sign that a breeze might waft this way before Hannah cried mutiny. Yet even the gulls were silent, sitting placidly on glass.

A loud ringing from her satchel startled them both. Hannah, closest to the bag, dug out the cell phone and glanced at the screen before handing it over. “Don’t recognize the number.”

Tadie released the breath she’d been holding against images of an ambulance and Elvie Mae rushed to the hospital. Absurd flight of fancy. It was only a lumpectomy, after all, and not until Friday.

She spoke a hello, but the half-whisper that answered almost made her drop the phone. She hadn’t heard that smooth, dream-shaper voice in years. Too surprised to hit the End button, she said, “Alex?”

“Who else?” The tone seemed amused. She could almost see his smirk, perhaps a brow lifted and lowered. “I’m back and I’ve missed you, Tadie. Missed us.”

Cat’s paws disturbed the water about a hundred yards out, but the only wind on board at the moment came from Alex’s sigh—and from her own gathering ire, which sounded in her head like the whoosh of water past her ears during a deep dive.

Hannah’s eyebrows nearly hit her hairline. “Alex?” she mouthed. “Matt’s brother? That Alex?”

Tadie covered the phone’s mike and frowned. “The one and only.”

Hannah settled back against the cushion, the long nails of her left hand beating a nervous tattoo against her plastic water bottle.

Tadie whispered, “Shush now,” before bringing the phone back to her ear.

Bored, that’s what she’d been. Hot and bored. Why else would she have answered her phone, like Pavlov’s dog responding to a bell? Now look where her curiosity had gotten her.

She corralled her frustration and spit it at Alex. The creep. “Us?

What us? The us you flicked off like so much dust sixteen years ago?” She’d thought they’d been in love, for heaven’s sake. Promised.

“Now, Tadie, don’t go rehashing that. We were good friends, even more than friends.”

“And then? Poof! All gone.”

“You know sometimes things happen beyond our control.”

Was he delusional? “Zippers don’t usually slide open without help. There was no immaculate conception.”

Hannah hooted, then slapped her hand over her mouth.

“Look, I’m sorry,” Alex said, a bit of a whine creeping in. Tadie had forgotten that whine. “I said so then,” he continued. “I’m saying so now. But after all this time, I thought we could be friends again and take Luna out. We could swim off the shoals like we used to.”

“That’s not happening, Alex. Not in this lifetime.”

“Don’t tell me you don’t sail anymore.” He paused. “Or are you seeing someone? Hannah didn’t mention anybody.”

“Alex, you have a wife. Go play with her.” She hit the End button, huffed, and pushed the tiller hard to port, trying to eke out enough momentum to shift Luna into that patch of breeze, and then pointed to the cleat near Hannah’s back.

“You want to loose that jib sheet? Hold it and be ready to pull in on the other when I give the word.”

Hannah, roused from her half-recumbent position, uncleated the line. “Aye, aye, skipper. If you think we need to bother.”

“I’m hoping so. If not, we’ll improve our arm muscles with those paddles stuck there behind you.”

Hannah sipped from her water bottle without comment. Then she slowly screwed on the cap, set the bottle in the cooler, and fluttered her painted nails toward the bag and Tadie’s now silent phone. “You gonna tell me about that?”

Tadie ignored the question. “You didn’t say Alex was already in Beaufort. Or that he might be on the prowl.”

“I don’t get him calling you, but I told you Matt needed help running the business and Alex was coming. He started back yesterday, after he and Bethanne got settled out at her parents’ place on the Straits.”

“I’d like to know how he got my cell number.”

“It wasn’t me. Or Matt, not knowingly,” Hannah said, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “I bet Matt’s got you in his Rolodex at the office. He’s got the world in that old thing.”

Blowing out a loud breath, Tadie leaned down to peer under the boom at the water ahead and corrected course slightly. “You think something else is going on I should know about?”

“Like what?”

“Like some issue between him and Bethanne. You know Alex. He was a sneaky, conniving snake when he left the first time, and it doesn’t look like he’s shed that skin.” Tadie’s words slapped the air. She wished they could have connected with Alex.

Luna’s bow crossed into the short wind waves, and a breeze caught the main.

“Jib,” Tadie said, nodding toward the lee sheet.

Hannah grabbed the line and pulled it taut while Tadie settled their direction from the helm. At her nod, Hannah set the line in a quick-release cam cleat at the centerboard well. She could free it if things got dicey as they sometimes did in these waters, especially when Luna sailed near a headland where dunes or trees blocked or shifted the wind.

“You want I should leave it stuck here or cleat it?” Hannah asked, still holding the line’s tail.

Tadie glanced from the water to the sky at their stern. An anvil- shaped cloud had formed over Shackleford Banks, but it shouldn’t toss anything their way for a while. “Looks like a wind shift, probably from whatever’s brewing on the Atlantic. Leave it while we see what happens.”

The afternoon sun danced off the water, little diamond sparkles on the short waves. If a storm came, the water would turn ugly, from this silvery blue to a darkened pewter that spewed whitecaps.

“Will we beat it home?” Hannah nodded at the heaping cloud mass as she tightened the chin strap on her floppy hat so a gust couldn’t grab it.

“If the wind behaves, easily.” “And if not?”

“Don’t worry. I’ve run from a storm before. And you’ve been with me.”

“And gotten soaked in the process.” “Trust me.”

“Said the spider to the fly.” Hannah reached back to readjust her cushion.

Finally settled, she stretched her legs and wiggled red- painted toes that matched her fingernails and those hat stripes.

Tadie grinned at her friend’s fascination with scarlet. “I think that was what the snake said to the boy.”

“Kipling?” “Probably Disney.”

Hannah huffed, and she lowered her sunglasses down the bridge of her nose to show off a scowl.

Tadie wasn’t buying it. “You remember the movie. We saw it together.”

“Fine, the movie, the book. Whatever,” Hannah said, fluttering again. “What I want to know is why Alex called you? He hasn’t before, has he, when he and Bethanne came to town?”

A disgusted half-whistle was all Tadie could manage. “Never.” She just wanted to forget the call—both Alex’s tone and his words.

Hannah didn’t let her. “What’d he say?”

“Loose the jib a little.” Tadie let the main sheet slide through her fingers as she pointed them a little off the wind, heading north. “That’s good. Right there.” Then she answered Hannah’s question. “Your esteemed brother-in-law wants to be friends again and go sailing with me. Lands, Hannah, we haven’t been friends since we were nineteen.”

Hannah’s lips pursed. “Did he forget he’s married?” “Seems like it.”

“But still …”

“But still, what?”

“Well, I don’t get it, looking back and all.”

“Looking back’s the problem, isn’t it?” Tadie said. “My memory is exceptional when it comes to those days.”

“I know he hurt you, but at least he did the right thing by Bethanne and the baby. And it’s been a long time.”

Tadie shot a glare Hannah’s way. “What’s got into you? Where’s that solidarity, the old, ‘How could he do that?’ Weren’t we both members of the We-Hate-Alex-for-Being-a-Scumbag Club?”

“I’m just saying …”

“Is this all because he came home to help Matt? I mean, I know Matt loves his brother.”

The hat shaded Hannah’s face, but her silence seemed awfully loud.

“Hannah?”

“We need Alex. Matt says he gave up his job and his house in Connecticut just to come home and take up the slack at work. I’m counting on things being different now. On Matt getting well again.”

Did she imagine a choke in Hannah’s voice? The hint of tears? “Has something else happened, something with Matt’s heart?

Something you’re not telling me?” “No. Nothing.”

Her friend’s brittle laugh didn’t sound like nothing. Tadie blinked. “He keeps saying he’s fine,” Hannah said, “but I can tell. I can see it. And he won’t slow down.”

“Maybe with Alex working, things will ease up.”

Hannah didn’t answer, but she did suck on one long nail.

The growing breeze and a beam reach had propelled them toward the Beaufort waterfront and the anchored boats. Tadie eased the tiller to port and released more line as they entered the creek.

Luna was a flat-bottomed sharpie, a lovely little boat that sailed easily over shoals with the simple lifting of her centerboard, but she became tippy if unbalanced when a gust hit. She loved to gad about on an easy reach, and now that they’d come within the protection of the headland, she zipped forward.
Tadie checked out the various cruising boats that filled in spaces between long-time residents hooked to mooring balls. “Look, will you? That one’s from Hong Kong.”

And there bobbed another, a lovely cutter-rigged boat with a dark green hull.

She tried to read its stern before she had to focus all her attention on the boat traffic ahead. The Nancy-something, out of Delaware. Gorgeous lines, with brightwork that made Tadie’s fingers itch to touch the satiny varnish. So many of the big new boats were just plastic tubs, but this one had wooden caprails that someone maintained to perfection. Considering her own hard work on her much-smaller Luna, she knew there was love poured into that sailboat.

A little red-haired girl and a man—her daddy?—bobbed in a dinghy, looking as if they’d just come off that beauty. The man rowed them toward shore, while the child’s chatter drifted across the water, turning into laughter when a motorboat’s wake bucked their small boat, and the waves rolled under and headed toward Luna. The child waved at Luna’s crew.

“Hey!” Tadie called, returning the wave as she pointed Luna across the wake.

“Welcome to Beaufort!”

Hannah was still watching the pair when Tadie turned her sharpie’s bow around and into the wind. The breeze spilled from the sails, and Luna glided gently up to her dock. Tadie grabbed a line she’d left looped on an outside piling, cleated it inboard, and tossed another line around the dock cleat.

Setting lines, cleaning up, and putting on sail covers took time, but eventually they were on the dock, carrying bags and cooler up to her house.

“I’ve got sweet tea in the refrigerator. You want to sit out here or inside?” she asked Hannah.

“I can’t stay. I’ve got a zillion things to do, especially if that storm’s coming this way. We’re due at the Straits house.” With a sniff, Hannah began separating out her things. “Bethanne’s cooking. I’m not looking forward to it.”

Tadie couldn’t imagine sitting through a dinner with either of them, but the fact of Alex’s call festered like a red-ant sting. “If Alex calling me indicates some new and erratic behavior, do you think Matt ought to worry? I mean, can Matt trust him?”

Puckers appeared between Hannah’s brows. “I don’t see why not. Alex owns part of the business.”

“I thought you said he sold his shares to Matt.”

“Only half. That still leaves him with a quarter, so he’s bound to want the company to do well.”

Hating that she’d caused her friend more worry, Tadie hefted the small cooler into Hannah’s trunk. “Of course. I’m just thrown off by that call, you know?”

“I get it.”

“Let me know how the dinner goes.” Hannah slid behind the wheel. “I’ll call.”

Tadie watched until the car had backed out of the drive before she climbed her
front steps and hipped open the door. If only she could fix things—make Matt better, send Alex back to Hartford, and see Elvie Mae cancer free.

She kicked off her sailing shoes and tucked them in the closet next to a pair of waders, then wandered barefoot into the living room and yanked open the drapes. The rings clicked against the brass rod, waking Ebenezer. The large tabby blinked once, licked his nearest paw, and settled back into the down cushion he’d appropriated.

“Hello to you too.” Tadie scratched behind Eb’s ear, sighing when he ignored her. She should have listened to Hannah and brought home a dog.

Her bare feet dragged across the oriental carpet that protected the old waxed floor from scuffs. She preferred the coolness of the bare wood and welcomed it when the rug ended. Her fingers trailed along the edge of the mahogany hall table and across the raised door panel into her silent kitchen as Alex’s words hovered.

Closing her eyes, she whispered, “Breathe. You’re happy. You like
your life.”

She did. She had her business and her house and her friends.

Certainly, loneliness and grief had laid her low as deaths multiplied around her, but she’d recovered. She’d even grown stronger. Or was that merely another delusion?

Once, time had crept. When had it decided to rush headlong at endings? When she was twenty? When thirty loomed on the horizon and then blipped on by, right off the radar screen?

“You’re overreacting,” she told the empty room, because her cat obviously wasn’t interested. “It was only a phone call.”

Tadie opened the refrigerator and stared inside before closing it when she couldn’t remember what she’d wanted. She braced against the counter and stared unseeing out the back window.

The kettle. That was it. “Tea,” she said, as if the spoken word would anchor her.

She set the kettle on the stove. But tearing open a new box of Earl Grey and collecting a cup and spoon provided no distraction at all. Imagining murder did.

A little shiver slithered up her spine.

She’d use her mama’s silver carving knife, the one with the steel blade and the worked handle that lay in its felt-lined slot, honed and ready. All she had to do was lift it out, hunt up Alex, and plunge it deep into his throat. Blood would ooze. He’d raise a hand to beg forgiveness for stealing her youth and choke on the words. She’d toss her head and turn away.

Ha! Perhaps she should write murder mysteries instead of designing jewelry. Or take up wood carving so she’d have something physical on which to loose all this anger. Chips would fly, and she’d end up chiseling the wood down to toothpicks.

She blew a tickling hair off her nose. At her back, the kettle whistled. She poured boiling water into her mug and waited while the tea steeped.

If only she were happily married. A man on her arm—and in her bed—babies filling the rooms in this big empty house of hers. Then she could thumb her nose at the past. Instead, she languished here in her childhood home, morphing with each passing day into one of the town’s odd, decrepit singles—a maiden aunt to nobody.

She had wanted more. Especially with Alex. Oh my, could that man touch things in her. His kiss … But something, even with Alex, had always stopped her from going any further. Call her old- fashioned. Call her a fool.

Or, perhaps, the way things had turned out, call her smart. Only, now, here she was.

Why did he have to phone and get her stirred up again?

The tea bag landed silently in the trash, and the only sound was the slight clack of silver against ceramic as she mixed in a dollop of honey. Dinner didn’t sound appetizing, but she plucked two truffles from her horde of Godiva.

Balancing the full saucer in one hand, she flipped light switches with the other as she made her way upstairs. A breeze wafted in her open windows, stirring the curtains and dispelling the afternoon heat.

While her huge tub filled with orange-scented bubbles, she sipped tea and bit into the chocolate. Its raspberry filling oozed over her fingertips. Licking it off, she sighed, savoring another bite, another sip, before loosing a small smile. Yes ma’am. Spinsters had to take their pleasure where they could, and, as far as this spinster was concerned, chocolate and bubble baths ranked right up there on the decadence scale.

She laid a hand towel next to the book she’d been reading and lowered herself into the water. And wasn’t this one of the blessings of being single? Doing what she wanted, when she wanted, how she wanted, with no man telling her to fetch and carry?

And no man to touch her or to take away the loneliness.

Stop it. Now.

She’d made the choice to be here, hadn’t she? To say no to Alex and the others who had offered to take what she’d been reluctant to give. She needed to get over herself.

Easier said than done.

She tried to focus on the story in front of her. The book’s sleuth had become almost a friend, cheered on through mystery after mystery.

Her gaze lifted from the page. Somehow, the heroine’s London antics seemed trite. Tadie set the book aside and sank deeper until bubbles covered her breasts. Finally, prune-fingered, she climbed out and rubbed most of her body dry before slipping into the lightest of her sleep shirts. She retrieved her book and collapsed onto the cool sheets of her bed.

Maggie, the heroine, dashed madly through a foggy London. Tadie tried to follow her meanderings up one street and down another, but when the phone jangled in her ear, she reached for it before realizing she should have checked the caller ID.

“What?”

“Hey, it’s me.”

“Ah, Hannah.” It must be the story making her so jumpy, the story and her day.

“I thought you were dining out.”

“Bethanne was delayed at the Dunes Club. I suggested we try for another night, but she just talked right over me. We’re to go at eight, which means she’ll serve at nine. Nine? Does she think this is the big city?”

“Poor Hannah. Have a snack.”

“I’ve fixed us both some scrambled eggs and toast so Matt could take his blood pressure medicine. Anyway, I called because of that little girl we saw, the one with the cute father. Leastwise, I assume it was her father.”

Tadie’s eyes closed as she slid into a reclining position. Cute father, cute daughter. Wasn’t that the truth? “Mmm, yes.”

“Woohoo! I knew it. I saw you looking.”

“Stop it. They have a gorgeous boat. It made me dream of the cruising life.” How could she not wish—just for a moment—that she had been aboard that lovely sailboat? She tried to stifle a sigh.

“I imagine the mother was below taking a nap.”

“There’s no telling.” Teasing laughter lingered in Hannah’s voice. “He could be a single parent. Maybe divorced.”

“Not likely. I can’t imagine a man taking on the work of sailing and managing a child on a boat like that, not all by himself.”

“Maybe they were just out for a quick sail.”

“That’s not a quick-sailing boat.” Tadie longed to see the boat’s
insides, the homey comforts that child’s mother would have insisted
on before she’d go cruising.

“I’m thinking you ought to take Luna out again tomorrow.”

“You think?” Tadie wiggled farther down on the mattress, but something—a wrinkle, a pea—poked at her right buttock. She flipped to her left side and resettled the phone at her ear.

“I wouldn’t mind keeping you company on a sail-by. We could see who’s on board, you know, just to be friendly.”

“Hannah, stop. I’m not desperate enough to go chasing sailboats or sailors. Have fun at dinner.”

She disconnected, swung her legs off the bed, and padded over to the window. The sky’s purplish-grey cast a gloom on the creek.

Squinting, she searched the shadows where Luna’s white-tipped mast bobbed against the darker water. Was that a heron on the dock with its neck retracted in a swooping curve? Headlights from a passing car raked the nearby marsh, rendering the rest invisible.

Katydids chirped as they’d done many evenings, back when she used to wait and dream. Alex’s image superimposed itself on the fleeting picture of a perfect boat. Blue eyes flashed from under too-long lashes. His easy smile had made her believe, if only in his presence, that they had a future, that she was beautiful. She’d fended him off in the back seat of his Chevy and behind the dunes, because some part of her had wondered and doubted. She’d had a mirror,
hadn’t she?

And boys lied.

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