Calmer Secrets: Calmer Girls 2 (Calmer Girls Series) Read online

  CALMER SECRETS

  CALMER GIRLS II

  This book is a work of fiction. The characters, places, incidents, and dialogue are the product of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real, or if real, are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, either living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2017 by Jennifer Kelland Perry

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the prior written permission of the author/publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  FIRST EDITION

  March 2017

  Take The Plunge Publishing

  ISBN: 978-0-9953085-1-0

  Published in Print and Digital formats in the United States of America

  Calmer Secrets

  CALMER GIRLS II

  Jennifer Kelland Perry

  Table of Contents

  April 1998

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  To my children, Denise and Brian,

  for their endless love and encouragement.

  Calmer Secrets

  CALMER GIRLS II

  April 1998

  When Samantha Cross picked up her boyfriend’s ringing cell phone that morning, she knew the call couldn’t be any more ominous than the last time she’d answered it for him.

  She was dead wrong.

  While she listened to her mother’s frantic words spit into her ear, she swiftly discerned their implication. In that slim fraction of time, her entire world tilted. The terse call over, she gaped at the device still grasped in her trembling hand.

  She couldn’t reconcile the normal, everyday sounds around her against her rising panic: the radio that played on the nightstand, the steady patter of the shower against tile that echoed from the master bathroom, the heavy mechanical sigh of a city snow plow groaning and creaking its behemoth way through the storm's aftermath, somewhere out of sight. Samantha pictured it as it forced a path through the snowdrifts, cutting a narrow tunnel through the winding adjacent street around the corner, growing closer and closer to clearing their way out.

  Closer, but not fast enough. She knew it could be hours before side streets like this one were plowed and made passable. The main thoroughfares always took precedence after a major blizzard.

  The timing of this late spring snowstorm couldn’t have been worse. How, in the name of all things holy, would she get to her family when they needed her the most?

  Dazed from the news, she released the phone. It clattered on the nightstand. She made a move to rise from the bed, but brilliant white stars bloomed in front of her and her knees turned to jelly. She fell back against the pillow, woozy and lightheaded. Until that moment, she hadn't realized she'd been hyperventilating.

  “Did I hear my phone?”

  Samantha looked up at the smiling young man walking toward her. Wearing only a thin towel tucked low around his lean hips, he now stood inches from her, water droplets dripping from the ends of his shaggy hair onto the unmade bed.

  She nodded, and tried to form the awful words to tell him what had happened. She stared at his bare, flat midsection before her vacant gaze flitted away, the shower-fresh scent of him filling her nostrils.

  His smile vanished. “Sam, who called? You're as white as a ghost!” He sat beside her on the rumpled sheets. His cool blue eyes searched her face. “And you're trembling! What the hell happened?”

  “I have to go.” She burst into action. Hoisting herself to her feet, she pushed past him. “How am I gonna get to Momma through all this snow? How’s the ambulance gonna get through? Oh, God, how—”

  “The ambulance?!”

  She filled him in while she fumbled through the puddle of clothes on the floor, pulling on the sweater and jeans she'd cast off the night before. She wished it were a bloody nightmare and she could wake up. She saw his face crumple while she forced the words out.

  “…and Momma said he wasn't breathing, and she…she lost it altogether then. I asked her if she called anyone else and she said she called 911 for an ambulance, and she tried to reach Ronnie but got the answering machine.”

  “Did she give him CPR?” he asked, dressing in haste before he followed her out of the bedroom.

  She nodded. Her head swimming with morbid images, she decided against trying to put in her contact lenses because her hands shook too much, so she dug out her glasses from the bottom of her purse and put them on. She peered through the front window at the towering peaks and waves of snow in the driveway. The old Hyundai hatchback was barely visible, a vague outline under a huge dollop of whipped cream. “I should call for a taxi. It'll take ages to get the car shovelled out.”

  He ran to the foyer and flung open the coat closet, pulling out a down-filled parka. “Nah, I'll get ’er out. The taxi might get stuck on its way.” When he opened the door, a heavy gust of bitter wind flew in, covering the floor in a layer of feathery, white snowflakes. He bolted out and slammed the door behind him.

  Samantha watched from the window as he attacked the mountain of snow with a shovel. He hadn't paused long enough to zip his parka or put on a cap. If there had been two shovels, she'd have been out there with him, but she knew he would make short work of getting his car out and ready. Despite all the troubles the two of them had weathered these past weeks, she knew she could count on him at a time like this.

  The phone jangled again, and she jumped. Her heart slammed into her ribs as she ran to answer it. She heard her mother again, crying harder than the first time.

  “The paramedics are here, and we're taking him to the hospital. Please come, Sam,” she sobbed, her breath hitching. “But you need to get a hold of Ronnie. I keep getting the machine.”

  “Is he breathing now, Momma? Did they get him to breathe?”

  She heard a muffled exchange on the other end. Then her mother bawled, “Have to go. Find his mother!” The line went dead.

  Fingers quivering, Samantha punched in her sister's number at Gina’s. When the answering service cut in, she left an urgent plea for Veronica to go to the Janeway Hospital Emergency Room. There'd been an accident, she added. It was the gentlest explanation her panicked mind could come up with.

  She hauled on her boots, zipped her jacket and ran outdoors. Kalen tossed the shovel aside and brushed the rest of the thick snow from the car roof and windows with a quick hand.

  “Come on,” he shouted, his voice gruff. “I'll get you there. I promise.”

  Chapter One

  “I would like more sisters, that the taking out of one, might not leave such stillness.”

  ― Emily Dickinson, Selected Letters

  Mid-December 1997 - Four Months Earlier

  Clutching her purse and her bag of purchases
, Samantha broke into a sprint by the crowded food court, the Intermission, weaving and dodging around the throngs of holiday shoppers. She hurried out through the Avalon Mall entrance/exit doors at the same moment her Metrobus route number careened around the corner. Catching her breath, she stopped on the sidewalk behind the line of people boarding the bus. Diesel exhaust blew into her face and she grimaced.

  “Sam?”

  She swung around to see a plus-sized young woman pressing toward her through the flood of humanity leaving the mall. It was her sister's best friend. “Gina. Hi! Merry Christmas to you!”

  “Hey! You make it sound like it’s here already. I'm nowhere close to finishing my gift list yet.” Gina hitched her thumb in the direction of the parking lot. “Come on, save your loonie. Let me give you a ride home.”

  “You sure?” She hesitated. As much as she preferred a bus ride to one in a car, she didn’t want to appear rude and refuse the favour. “You know we moved from Military Road, right?”

  “Of course, hon. You're on Kitchener,” she said. “On my way there anyhow, in fact.”

  Samantha struggled to keep up as they hurried through the jammed-to-capacity parking lot. For a woman of her proportions, Gina could certainly gun it! At last, they reached her car, a tired-looking Pontiac Sunfire with blotches of rust and missing hubcaps. Climbing in, Samantha dumped her shopping bag over the seat into the back and buckled her seatbelt. The old car thundered to life, announcing with a boisterous roar that, chances were, it needed a muffler as well.

  “How's the west coast treatin' Sammie Cross?” Gina promptly lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply as she cracked the window open a couple of inches. She maneuvered her way expertly out of the maze of rush hour traffic onto Thorburn Road. “Art school everything you thought it would be?”

  Samantha nodded. “Everything and more. Silly me thought I'd have more free weekends but I'm always swamped with assignments or preparing for exams.” She smiled. This was the way she preferred her life: so consumed with busyness, it left her zero time to think about anything or anyone else. “This is only my second trip home since September.”

  “You have much longer to go?”

  “One more year after this one and I'm done.” She knew, after that, the hardest part was yet to come; not the final exams, but the dreaded job hunt. Who would hire a young Newfoundland woman with a visual art degree clenched in her paint-and-ink-stained hands, anyway? She frowned, then promptly dismissed the worry like she always did.

  Samantha watched as a trio of laughing young teenagers jaywalked across Freshwater Road in front of them. Gina slowed the car, grinding to a halt as the teens escaped impact with an oncoming SUV by inches. With a sudden brake and a screech of tires, the driver of the SUV leaned on his horn, blaring his anger and outrage.

  “See that?” Gina yelled. “Those stupid kids have a death wish, or what?”

  Samantha recoiled from the onslaught of traffic noise. A sickening and familiar surge of adrenaline coursed through her body, her stomach leaped, and her mouth turned dry as gravel. The memory of the horrific car crash with Ben Swift more than four years ago remained fresh and vivid, tattooed on her brain, leaving her jumpy and hyper-vigilant wherever driving was concerned. She wondered if she would ever get over it. Could she bolster her nerve enough to try for her driver's licence? Heck, she had to build up her nerve to learn first. Just as well. She could hardly afford a car. Darlene didn't own one; she and Veronica drove Cash's jeep when needed. They had tried to persuade her to go for the driver test, but she’d declined. She’d studied and passed the written portion of the test and earned her permit, but crushing anxiety prevented her from sitting in the driver’s seat unless she remained safely parked in the driveway.

  She’d long suspected post-traumatic stress as the culprit.

  “I hear Ronnie moved in with you last month?” she asked, knowing the whole story from her mother. Still, she was curious to hear what Gina thought of the arrangement. When their mother had packed up and moved in with Cash at the beginning of November, her sister Veronica had wasted little time packing her own bags, begging her pals Gina and Mandy to take her in.

  “Yup.” Gina tossed her half-smoked cigarette out the window. “She needed a place and we had the spare room sitting empty, so of course we said yes. It’s the least we could do for her.”

  Samantha nodded. She already knew Gina and Mandy were an official couple now, ever since Gina had broken it off with Charlie, her long-time boyfriend. Without missing a beat, Mandy had suggested they find an apartment together near MUN, the university they attended. Veronica had filled Samantha in about it when she came home for fall semester break. Devoted to her best friend ever since primary school, Mandy had Gina all to herself at last. The girl of her dreams, she'd gushed to Veronica. Samantha could only imagine how blissful she must feel to have her fantasy romance come true.

  “She's pretty lucky to have you and Mandy take her in, bag and baggage like that. Though it must get kind of hectic sometimes, with Henry and all.”

  Gina threw her a cheerful grin. “We manage alright.”

  They drove onto Kitchener Avenue and stopped in front of a squat, grey bungalow with white shutters, a wide railed veranda and a square patch of dead lawn. So far this winter, snow that fell on the city had yet to stay on the ground for more than a few hours. Samantha wondered if it would be a green Christmas this year. She got out, scooped up her package from the back seat, and noted the absence of Cash's red Jeep Cherokee in the driveway. Her mother's boyfriend was still at work, she presumed. Gina followed her in the front door.

  “Thammie!” The small boy ran toward her. His gait awkward because of the squirming white cat he dragged along, he looked determined to close the gap between them as fast as his short legs could manage.

  “Come here, my precious dot,” Samantha cooed, stashing her purchases on the closet shelf for the time being. Gently, she pulled the wriggling cat from his clutches and freed her. Gathering the boy in her arms, she swept him up high in an embrace, spun him around the living room, and planted a resounding kiss on his round, dimpled cheek. “Are you Auntie's man, Henry? Come on, give us a big bear hug.” Without hesitation, the child threw his little arms around her neck and squeezed, startling Samantha with his strength.

  “Are you gonna thtay for thupper?” he lisped, his inquisitive gaze hopeful and expectant.

  “You betcha,” she answered. “Where's Grandma?” With her nephew still in her arms, she swept past the personal computer set up against the adjacent wall and entered the kitchen.

  “In here!” Darlene’s voice called from down the narrow hall. “Be right out.”

  Samantha deposited the child in a nearby kitchen chair and administered an ample round of jabbing tickles under his arms and into his ribs. “The tickle-birdies are back, Henry!” The boy rocked with laughter, his gale of high-pitched giggles like sweet music to her west coast ears. “Oh, how I’ve missed you! Two months is too long to be away from my little guy.”

  “He's too freakin' cute, is why,” Gina said, sitting down across the table from him. “Henry, where's your momma?”

  Samantha's mother waltzed into the kitchen, all smiles. Arms outstretched, she closed the space between her daughter and herself and pulled her into a clumsy hug. “Welcome home, Sam. Ronnie should be here any minute, Gina. She's finishing up her shift at Othello's.”

  Samantha pulled away from Darlene's arms and scanned her face. Her mother's eyes seemed a touch out of focus and a whiff of mouthwash was evident. Had she been drinking while babysitting her grandson? Then again, why should that surprise her?

  “How was the bus trip?” Darlene asked.

  “Oh, the usual. Mind-numbing, endless and boring,” Samantha replied. “I got some gift shopping done at the mall, though. What’s for supper?” She glanced around the small kitchen. No signs of food preparation were apparent, nor were there smells coming from the oven of anything cooking. “I suppose I should’ve eaten there t
oo.”

  “Now, Sam,” Darlene chided. “Before you start in on me, Cash is bringing home fish and chips for us.” She busied herself setting the table and putting the kettle on. “It's tricky getting anything done while taking care of Henry. He's such a handful these days, you know. Stay for a bite, Gina?”

  “No thanks. Ronnie asked me to pick her up here. We're going to Sailor’s for supper.”

  “Doesn’t she have plans with O.J. tonight?” Darlene asked.

  “Nuh-uh. They split up yesterday.” Gina clapped a hand to her mouth. “Me and my big trap. That's all I'm saying, and please don't tell her I told you.”

  Samantha sighed. Veronica blazed through boyfriends like some people go through boxes of Kleenex. This latest fellow, an international university student from Nigeria who also drove for one of the city’s taxi services, had struck Samantha as cute and likable when she’d met him in October. Veronica told her his cabbing buddies had, with great affection, nicknamed him O.J. because they thought it suited him better than his actual name, Emmanuel. Likely, Samantha guessed, he was the first black dude most of them had ever seen in the flesh.

  “Hey, wanna come with us, Sam?” Gina asked.

  Samantha looked to Darlene as she filled Henry’s neon green, two-handled plastic cup from a carton of milk and placed it in front of the child. “Could I?” she asked. “Or do you need me to stay with Henry tonight?”

  Between dating and working at the restaurant, Veronica often enlisted her mother to take care of the boy. Darlene almost always obliged, unless she had work herself. At those times, Gina or Mandy took him off her hands. Some of Veronica’s boyfriends were also known to watch him at the times she'd been in a pinch. Samantha often wondered if her nephew ever gave a thought to the variety of “gentleman callers” his young mother had paraded through his life thus far.