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Chapter Nineteen
Charli couldn’t believe how the weeks sped by. She missed her grandfather, Poppa John, with a vengeance and had to stop herself from trying to find a way to contact him. But there was none. He was too precious to endanger, and in case Silverado had connected her to the night of the shooting – no sign yet that he had – then they needed to be on extra alert with her only family.
The lodge staff had been given strict orders that if they saw anyone who didn’t belong near John Madison, they were to contact Detective Crawley immediately. By all the reports Blake passed on – his thoughtfulness a nice surprise – things seemed quiet back home, and Charli could breathe easy.
Here in Fort Lauderdale, she spent the days resting or pretending to work on her fictitious blogs, which usually started off with some inane drivel no one could decipher. Then, with a smirk at her own inept silliness, she’d pass them on to the expert, Suzanne F, to totally redo before she’d post them.
And… she helped Kayla get assimilated into the nearby High School. The girl was woefully lacking the normal teenage necessities. Rushing, they bought her school supplies, a new phone and personal oddities like makeup and toiletries.
Next, Kayla’s wardrobe depressed Charli to the point that she used her own money to outfit the kid with some decent, modern shit: jeans, tops and underwear that fit.
Almost comatose from excitement by the end of the shopping trip, Kayla had finally put a stop to Charli’s spending. “No more, Charli. I love everything, but you’ve gone overboard. Besides, I don’t trust you when you say the budget covers all this stuff. You can’t make me believe the Government’s this generous.”
But the glow in Kayla’s sparkling browns spurred her on.
“Just a few more things. Come on, kiddo. You need a couple of bathing suits and shoes, right? I love shopping for shoes.”
By the time Charli ran out of wind, they’d hit most of the stores in the Galleria Mall and were loaded with shopping bags. She hadn’t expected to have so much fun spending her money, it hadn’t happened in a long time, and seeing Kayla’s excitement, her joy and disbelief in everything they chose made it worth every penny.
The evenings were relaxing and exactly what Charli needed. She and Kayla worked out together: yoga, defense lessons and taking turns exercising on the various machines Blake had chosen to outfit his private gym.
Other than the nightly drop-ins from Blake, who teased the teenager outrageously until they both dissolved into fits of laughter – Charli hiding her grins – the two females hit a plateau where they fit comfortably.
Charli admitted that Kayla was the more easy-going of the two and smoothed any friction between Blake and her with a well-placed quip. Her personality had blossomed from a girl used to keeping her thoughts to herself, to a happy-go-lucky teen, building confidence that pleased Charli every time she could see the new Kayla stepping forward, putting it out there… taking a chance.
After dropping Kayla off at school and maybe grabbing a few needed groceries, Charli would spend her mornings reading and snoozing by the glorious pool. The refrain that echoed daily –What a life!– was instrumental in her nerves relaxing their steel-like restraints and her changing sleep habits.
Now that Kayla slept in her own bed again, thanks to Charli’s offering to put baby monitors in their rooms so they’d be in instant communication, the nights weren’t near as restless. She’d managed to cut down her house inspections spurred on by random noises to only one or two a night.
The one bone of contention she had with their routine were the nightly visits from Blake, but because he’d pass on different messages to her from Crawly, who’d begun to drop by to see her grandfather every few days, she kept her mouth shut and just made sure they were never alone.
Instead, she watched him from afar, careful never to come into physical contact and continued to relive their breathless, electrifying… almost kiss.
Last night, he’d passed on what the middle-aged cop told him. That what had started out as part of Crawly’s job had become an activity he looked forward to, spending time with old-man Madison. Seems the men, both widowers, had hit it off, and Crawly enjoyed John’s witty, dry humor, the odd game of Shuffleboard and wine with her gramps by the pool at the lodge, one of her favorite pastimes, too.
Considering her gramps only had vision in one eye, and even that was slowly deteriorating to peripheral, he managed to play those Shuffleboard rocks well enough to have beaten her many times. Not that he’d boast about winning unless you could call a loud WOOWIE with a fierce high-five, a small dance and grins from ear to ear crowing.Yeah,Right!
Crawly had passed on a “John” story to Blake that still had him snickering, and Charli comically shaking her head when he’d shared it with her.
The men were in John’s apartment, and two of the young, pretty caregivers working at the lodge had stopped by to deliver John a blister pack with his daily pill – one pill mind you – ninety years old and only a blood thinner. He liked to mention that to her as often as… every freakin’ single time she saw him. Warmth spread through Charli and she missed her gramps so much it hurt.
She knew why the girls came. Sure, they had to deliver his pill, but he was a favorite, and they liked to fuss over him, to offer assistance in case he needed help at bedtime.
Blake continued, “Seems they gave a quick knock and entered the room. Then your gramps had looked at Crawly, winked and asked him,“Which one do you want?”Crawly said the girls just giggled and smacked the older man gently while shushing him. John grinned at them, but in an aside to Crawly, he retorted,“They think I’m kidding.”It took longer than it should have for Crawly to finish telling me this, but he kept cracking up before he could get the story out.”
Charli could tell by the way Blake talked that he’d gotten a huge kick out of the tale.
Still enjoying the humor of the story, Blake laughingly admitted, “I’d sure like to meet your grandfather. He sounds like a real character.”
“Me, too, Charli.” Kayla had sat entranced and had laughed uproariously at the old man’s antics.
“Oh, he is. Most of his life he worked on engines, in car garages in his earlier years, which kept him, Grandma and their kids, my mother being one of them, poor as church mice. Then he moved on, took a diesel mechanics course by working his regular ten hour days and studying late at night. My mom used to tell me how she’d come out to the kitchen in the middle of the night for a drink and find him passed out over his books at the table. After my parents were killed when I was ten, I moved in with them. By then, he’d been working in the mines where he did quite well, became a foreman, and his wages improved.”
“Did he work underground?”
“Of course, right at the face. He specialized in what he used to call the Moving Carpet where he fixed drills and all kinds of heavy-duty equipment.”
“Man… that had to be a hard life.”
