Girls of Summer

by C. E. Hilbert

  The creak of the metal hinges snapped her attention to the lone door as Cole shuffled into the room, his ankles shackled together. His uninjured arm was linked to his waist with a single handcuff attached to a wide chain. The wounded arm was bound tight to his chest in a sling. But despite the chains and the plain prison jumpsuit, he still looked like her Cole.

  And with that vision her heart cracked at the loss of her friend.

  Cade guided Cole by the elbow to the chair on the opposite side of the table from her. The chains clinked against the metal and a shot of pain rippled across Cole’s face as he lowered himself to sit. Leveling his gaze to hers, a slow smile crept to his lips. “This is an unexpected surprise.”

  A chill tiptoed up her spine at the reflection of cold cruelty shining in the depths of his eyes. “I’m full of them today.”

  “Georgie, you get five minutes. You’re down to four fifty.” Cade leaned his shoulders against the cement brick walls of the room. He faced Georgie, but never lifted his gaze from Cole.

  “Yes, well, I’m hoping this will only take one,” she said. “Cole, did Anton Dorokhov murder my mother?” She could feel Cade’s stare shift to her. They hadn’t discussed his theory about her mother’s death since the night they’d shared root beers and she’d convinced him Charlie didn’t have any connection to her mother’s death.

  “Georgie, cancer took your mother. You told me yourself.”

  “My mother died in a car accident, on the way to a cancer treatment. My father was supposed to drive her, but he was detained. The brakes gave out on the car. She and the driver both died due to their injuries.”

  “Why do you believe Anton is connected?”

  “Charlotte would have inherited half of my father’s estate. She was still young enough her mother would have assumed at least some control. Fifty percent of a multinational corporation was a good motive a year ago when you infiltrated my father’s company. I would imagine this was not the first time the thought was floated amongst your group of friends.”

  Cole shifted in his seat, clanking the chains against metal. “Well, you have developed an interesting theory, Georgie. I may still call you Georgie, yes?”

  She nodded. She could almost feel the wheels clicking in his mind. Her heart thumped like a dog scratching an itch. Would he answer her? Did he know the truth? He was young enough he may not have been a party to a scheme concocted over a decade earlier. Her heart knew Cole held the answers to the litany of questions burning in her spirit. Each of those questions hinged on the answer to the first.

  But could he be trusted?

  Cole was intelligent. He was cunning. And he was an Academy Award winning liar. And yet, she believed she could still trust his answer. Despite everything, she believed, rather, she hoped, he would still give his friend honesty.

  “I will answer your query, but I would rather tell you the answer in private,” he said, with a glance over his shoulder.

  “Forget it.” Cade said. “I’m not leaving. You want to spill your guts. You’re gonna have to do it with me as your watchdog.”

  Georgie stretched her hand across the table. “Please, Cole, if we were ever truly friends. Please tell me if Dorokhov had any connection to my mother’s death.”

  His gray blue eyes conveyed his friendship to her; the care she’d so often sought in him over the last year. With the singular glance she knew he held the truth. A truth she was convinced he wanted to share.

  “Tell me what you know.”

  “Lean closer. I will whisper in your ear.”

  She stretched forward, meeting him over halfway. The thumping of her pulse was so loud in her heart, she was surprised it didn’t rattle the metal table. The smooth surface was cool through the worn sweatshirt, but the ripple of goosebumps were not driven by the flash of cold to her skin.

  The soft compassion reflected in Cole’s eyes swiftly flipped to cold cruelty. He snapped his bandaged arm from the sling and clutched Georgie’s throat in his wide grip.

  Her eyes went wide. Choking and sputtering, she grasped for a single breath through her slack mouth.

  Cade’s shouts to release her reverberated off the cramped walls, but did little to deter Cole who dragged her across the metal table, clutching her to his body, a human shield against the thundering footsteps pounding toward them.

  Still chained on the left side of his body and at his ankles, Cole shuffled backward, dragging Georgie by the neck. Her feet landed with a thud to the floor. Scratching at his hand locked around her windpipe, she struggled to suck in a breath. The cinderblock room tilted to the left, Cade’s form wavy in her vision. His edges sifted to fog. She heard shouting, but the words were muddled.

  Dylan and a female agent slammed open the door, guns raised toward Cole and her.

  Cade raised both hands, free of firearms, and slid in front of the agents, placing himself in the target range.

  Cole suctioned her body to him. His chained hand clamped his fingers into the soft flesh at her waist. Searing fire radiated from the spot, snapping her back to consciousness. Clawing against the hand clutching her neck, she could feel a spurt of warmth oozing through her sweatshirt onto her back.

  With both of her hands, she yanked down on Cole’s forefinger with a snap and slammed her right shoulder into his opening wound, checking their bodies into the cement wall. A guttural screech bellowed through Cole’s frame, releasing the tension on her neck and waist. She stumbled forward to her knees, landing with a crack. In an instant she was smashed flat to the floor a single gunshot ringing through the room. Georgie tried to cup her ears to block the sound, but her hands were clamped to her side.

  The thud of weight thumped near her feet.

  A blanket of silence cocooned her, her breaths shaky but steady.

  The shuffle of footsteps paced the slowing of her heart.

  Shouting grew clearer. Closer to her cocoon.

  “Bus!”

  “Medic!”

  Words took shape as she felt her body sliding across the floor. Arms wrapped around her frame, cuddling her to a wide chest. Forcing her eyelids open, she stared into the tear-filled eyes of Cade.

  He grazed his knuckles over her cheek with a touch as light as a butterfly’s wing. Kissing her forehead, he rocked her like she was an infant, murmuring unintelligible words in her ear. His care seeped through her body warming her with sparks of fire tingling under her skin.

  Raising a hand to his cheek, she wiped a tear with her thumb. “My hero.” Her voice sounded as if she’d woken from a hundred years sleep, but the world was beginning to fade around her and she needed him to hear her. “I love you, Cade Murphy. Thank you.” Her hand dropped to her waist and she floated until the darkness pulled her under.

  47

  Charlotte stretched her fingers against the final glow of the setting sun warming the wide window in her hospital room. Resting her forehead against the glass, she released a slow breath, fogging the surface. Since Mac received the text from Murphy nearly three hours ago, she’d been unable to sit patiently in her bed waiting for news on Georgie. Why had her sister gone to Charleston? What had possessed her to see Cole Vasil?

  Answers.

  Georgie wanted to know the ‘whys’ behind Cole’s artful deception.

  Charlotte couldn’t argue with the desire to know the truth. She wanted to understand Mama’s about-face as well. How was the most selfish woman Charlotte had ever known willing to sacrifice her whole life to save her daughter? Charlotte turned from the smoldering remnants of God’s daily masterpiece and reached for the letter she’d left lying on the end table. She’d read the letter over a dozen times since she’d first opened it early this afternoon. After the initial shock, she tried to process the contents, seeking out the hidden artifice clinging to the simple sentences.

  Settling into the stiff one-and-a-half-person loveseat angled toward her hospital bed, Charlotte held the letter stretched between her two hands. The words blurred to her strained eyesight, but she
could almost recite them from memory after hour upon hour of reading.

  My Darling CharlotteI wish I could write this letter with joy in my heart, but my pen is filled with regret piled upon regret for the mother I’ve been to you. You, my malyshka, my baby girl have been the one good thing I’ve done in my life, but you were the source of that good, not me.

  I did not create you, you created you in spite of me and your father.

  I regret, most, that I kept you from him. I was afraid you would leave me, choose him and that woman over me, and I would forever be alone. But you were always a good girl and you chose your Mama. Even when I didn’t deserve your love and protection, you gave it.

  I want you to know that I did not plan for your gallery, or anything in your life, to become involved in Anton’s I mean, my mess, but I saw no other way to solve the problem. As with most of my life I took the easy path. You, malyshka, never had an option for an easy path. You always had a hard road to follow and I only threw more rocks in the path. For that I am truly sorry and beg for your forgiveness.

  Now, I choose the hard path and though I know it doesn’t make up for who I’ve been, I hope you will find it in your heart to forgive me. And maybe, Charlotte, you will be proud of your Mama, who chose you when it mattered.

  With my love,

  Mama

  Charlotte scrubbed her face with her hands. Rereading the letter didn’t give her any clarity or direction. Every rational part of her person wanted to rip the letter to threads. Too little, too late. But the six-year-old who could still see the smudged mascara under her mother’s sad eyes wanted to run to Mama and hold her until she felt better.

  She refolded the letter and stuffed it into the torn envelope. Stretching to stand, she began to pace the small space between the sofa and her door. Thankfully, her IV drip had been removed earlier and she could seek her answers through motion. She may not be able to run, but she was always clearer-headed when her arms and legs were swinging. On her fifth turn of the room, the door to the hallway creaked open.

  “I’z coming in. If you not decent, make it so.”

  A smile tugged at Charlotte’s lips. “Baba!” She rushed to stretch wide the door revealing her diminutive grandmother gliding into the hospital room. Snatching her in a hug, she breathed in her floral and spice laden scent. “What are you doing in South Carolina?”

  Baba patted her back. Stepping back from Charlotte, she lowered herself onto the edge of the chair Mac had vacated four hours earlier. “I came to see if you were alive. You like to be near exploding t’ings since you move away. I never knows if you are alives. I must see for self. My heart iz happy you are alives. But if you nots gets in the bed, you catch cold and die. And I makes long trip for nothings.” She swatted her hand in the direction of the hospital bed and Charlotte gladly conceded.

  “Now I see you OK, why not tell my whys you pace, hmm? Wear hole in floor? You drop through. No good for healings.”

  Charlotte curled to her side, snuggling her head into the scratchy hospital linen stretched across the pillow and faced Baba. How could she ever have thought her grandmother would have been involved with her mother’s drama? “It’s Mama…”

  48

  A grin tugged Mac’s lips into a curl with the soft chatter floating into the hallway from Charlie’s room. Pressing the door open with his wide palm, the ever-present exhausted tension stretching his shoulders seemed to ease in an instant as he took in the idyllic picture of Charlie with her grandmother.

  Alla Bickford was a stunning woman. Not stunning for her age. Simply stunning. She sat on the edge of the chair he had called his second home for the past five days. Her ankles were crossed and tucked, barely grazing the floor. Stark white hair was twisted in a neat knot at the base of her neck. Her spine appeared as if she had a metal rod melded to her frame. Draped in black silk, topped with a fur stretched across her shoulders, she looked to Mac as if she was holding court, deigning to give the joy of her presence to her subjects. And her number one subject was curled on her side, head resting on a folded arm gazing at her grandmother with loving peace exuding from her.

  “Excuse me ladies, may I interrupt this party?”

  Charlie flipped over to face him, her lips stretched wide. A sparkle sizzled in her eyes warming him to his core. “How’s Georgie?” Charlie pushed herself up to sit. Her eyes shuttered for a moment and she sucked in a slow steadying breath.

  Mac closed the distance between them in two strides. “Whoa, honey, you OK?” He stroked her back and hitched his hip onto the edge of her bed.

  She nodded, lifting a finger. “Georgie?”

  “She’ll be fine. A little bruised up, but fine. She should be halfway to Colin’s Fancy by now. Murphy swore he would escort her personally. And, I imagine, Savvy will stuff her so full Georgie won’t move from the house for a week.” Lacing his fingers through hers, he gave a soft squeeze. “How are you? Are you sure you should go home tomorrow?”

  She nodded. “I’m fine. Just a little bruised up, but fine.” She gave him a wink and a soft nod to her grandmother. “Mac Taylor, I would like to introduce you to Alloochka Antonov Bickford, my Babushka. Baba, this is my Mac.”

  My Mac…

  His heart burned with Charlie’s words as he shuffled around the end of her bed. “Mrs. Bickford, it is an honor to meet you.” He stretched his hand forward to her, thankful the tremble he could feel shudder through his body didn’t reverberate through his fingers.

  She nodded and placed her four fingers across his forefinger. Diminutive but strong. He lifted her hand to his lips and pressed a soft kiss to her knuckles.

  “The pleasures to meet ‘my Mac’ iz mines.” She nodded shifting in her seat to focus on Charlie. “Dorogoy, you getz betters.” She stretched to stand, lengthening her body with the grace of an eternal ballerina. “I go home. Much to consider. You come visit, no?”

  Charlie nodded. “As soon as I can.”

  “You follow heart. Not time to be Russian. OKz?”

  A cloud seemed to douse the joy reflected mere seconds earlier on Charlie’s face. “I will think about it, Baba.”

  “Goodz.” With a nod, she twisted to face Mac. Clamping her long fingers against his jaw her dark gaze pierced his. “You takes care of my baby. She all I have. Now she yours.”

  “Yes, Ma’am.”

  Loosening her grip, she patted his cheek, with the faintest smile tugging on her lips. “Charlotte tells me you loves Jesus and the baseballs.”

  He chuckled. “Yes…”

  “Goodz. All goodz. Must go.” She leaned over Charlie and pressed a soft kiss to her cheek, whispering something in Russian Mac couldn’t understand. But the unspoken language of love translated to a soft trickle of tears streaming down Charlie’s face as she gripped her grandmother’s hand. “Please stay, Baba. You could come back to Colin’s Fancy. Eat too much of Savvy’s food. Meet Georgie. Wouldn’t that be nice?”

  Alla patted Charlie’s hand. “Another day, dorogoy. Today must return to home. Much to do. You come see me when you betters. Bring ‘My Mac’ to your New York.”

  “Yes, Baba. I will. I promise.”

  “Ya lyublyu tebya,” Alla said, with a kiss to Charlie’s palm.

  “I love you, too, Baba. Be safe.”

  Alla nodded, wrapping the fur stole tightly around her ramrod straight shoulders. Her soft footsteps closed the distance to the doorway in seconds, but she seemed never to move. With a glance over her shoulder, she nodded again to Charlie and then to Mac. A slight sheen glistened in her eyes. “Take carez. Spokoynoy nochi.” With a raised hand she turned and glided through the doorway, her spicy, floral scent lingering in her wake.

  Mac glanced down at Charlie. Her palms were pressed against her eyes. Tears shook her frame, echoing through Mac’s spirit.

  Resting against the edge of her bed, he drew Charlie into his arms.

  ~*~

  The feel of Mac’s gentle embrace poured strength and peace into Charlotte’s spirit.
Drawing in a deep breath, she tried to settle the tremble shimmering through her frame. The seemingly ever-present tears slowed and she wiped her cheek against Mac’s soft sweater. The heat from his body seeped through her pores, warming her skin, but her heart remained shaky and frozen.

  Pressing away from him, she settled into the hospital grade pillows and looked into his deep brown gaze. The etched lines of worry and concern stretched across his forehead. The burn of acid bubbled in her stomach and pulled her hands to her lap. Clamping her bottom lip between her teeth, she dropped her gaze to the twilight shining through the far window. A new night with endless possibilities. Possibilities strewn with dangers she was all too aware were real. Choices needed to be made. Was she able to face the dangers? The choices?

  “Hey,” Mac said, tenderly clasping her jaw in his hand. “Where did you go?”

  “I’m here.” She shook her head and looked into the kind comfort of his chocolate brown eyes. “It’s just tough to see her go.”

  “Did you tell her about Stasi?”

  Swallowing against the rising bile, she nodded.

  “Was she as surprised as we were?”

  “Baba’s hard to read, but I think she’s proud of Mama. Proud her daughter made a good choice.” She reached for his hand resting beside her, lightly floating her fingers over his wide knuckles. “I told her about you…about us.”

  “I see. ‘My Mac’?” He raised a single eyebrow.

  Heat burned against her neck and chest. “Are you OK with the title shift?”

  “I might miss the scowl and ‘Taylor’, but I think I can adjust.”

  “Oh, the scowl and ‘Taylor’ can come back with a snap, buddy.”

  He leaned forward and pressed a gentle kiss to her lips. Tingles of electricity rippled through her frame from the simple touch.

  “I think we can think of a better way to use those lips than a frown.” He rested his forehead against hers and she felt his deep intake of breath.