Storms of Passion

by Lori Power

  It was the same old story. Always a different example, but every conversation ended with a statement about how Vivian wasn’t married. Headline news in this house in bold capital letters—Vivian Margaret was not married.

  Starring at her mother biting her lip with her front teeth, Vivian fought the urge to throw her napkin on the table and leave.

  Agghh, Vivian wanted to scream, but her parents would see it as an emotional collapse and recommend a nice doctor, who wasn’t married. Why did they only focus on her failures? Why couldn’t they see her success—the café and shop? Oh, yes, they’d say that accomplishment was due to her business partner’s vast abilities as a chef. What about her fairly prominent position within a publishing house doing a job she loved? No, not tangible either. Reality remained, Vivian wasn’t married and hadn’t provided them with grandkids. Her brothers married and reproduced soon after. Obviously her parents thought something was wrong with her, and as a result, they treated her like a child.

  Vivian tried again to justify her plans, taking a different tract outlining her trip as a simple vacation. “It’s just a chance to get away. I need a break.”

  “Hell of a time to take a break,” her father jumped in, having finished his dinner and wiping his face with his napkin, “Leaving your business partner, with two small kids of her own, to hold down the fort.” He shook his head. “Running off is irresponsible, that’s what I would call this little break of yours. We should review your first quarter financial statement before you go running off somewhere. Maybe it’s time for a reality break. Time to get your priories in order.” He emphasised his words, lifting his hand to make air quotes.

  Vivian pressed her lips together and didn’t speak of her trip during the remainder of dinner. She allowed her brothers and their wives to monopolize the conversation, finally releasing a sigh of relief when it was time to leave.

  As she gathered her coat and purse from the closet, Vivian’s mother held her purse while she pulled her coat over her arms. “Now, promise me.” Her mother tapped Vivian’s cheek. “You’ll cancel this foolish trip and plan something nice with one of your girl friends.”

  Having endured the battle of dinner, Vivian would not surrender. Taking a step back from her mother’s reach, she straightened her shoulders. “No, Mother. I’m not going to promise. You think I’m foolish, but I’m a thirty-one year old woman who will do as I please.” She grabbed her purse from her mother’s hands.

  Her mother rolled her eyes and storm off to the kitchen.

  “Now who’s acting like a child,” Vivian muttered under her breath as her brother walked toward her.

  “Don’t fuss, Sis,” Tyler said, reaching in the closet to get his wife’s jacket. “You know our folks are the way they are. So set in their ways. Mother wouldn’t think of getting groceries at a different store for heaven’s sake. You go for it. Have fun. You deserve it. I’ll even drive you to the airport.” He gave her a kiss on the cheek.

  Vivian turned to leave, smiling for the first time all evening.

  Chapter Three

  “Shit,” Tuck muttered, slapping the palm of his hand flat on the water’s surface. Taking a deep breath, he lifted the goggles from his eyes and settled them on the top of his head.

  “Brother, you just don’t know how sweet this is.” Nate gloated as he boosted out of the water with one arm to perch on the side of the pool. “Kicking my little brother’s ass in the pool, at long last!”

  “Yeah, yeah, little brother, whatever. You’re older by what, eight minutes?” Tuck grinned, moving into Nate’s lane to smile at his twin. Though Nate’s features were similar to his own, they were not identical. “Enjoy victory while you can.”

  As Tuck alighted from the pool, Nate continued the banter. “What you need, little brother…” He wrapped his arm around Tuck’s shoulders as they headed to the men’s dressing room. “Is a good woman. Enough of the fast food crap. You need a good woman to keep you home, happy, and satisfied.”

  “We all can’t be as lucky as you to grab them out of the cradle and convince them you are the only one in the world. No, some of us have to hunt.” Tuck smiled, happy his brother and Emily, high school sweethearts that they were, had each other. They gave Tuck hope that perhaps someday, when he was ready, he would settle down. But the trauma, or drama, depending on how you looked at it, of the last couple of years, made him shy of opening up to anyone again. Burned is what some may call him, and twice shy.

  Nate walked to the men’s shower humming We Are the Champions anthem while Tuck hung his goggles in his locker and grabbed a towel to wrap around his waist. Tuck and his brother were reservists in the Coast Guard. Tuck having just recently re-joined upon his untimely return home, while Nate, who never left home, made Tuck’s reintegration that much smoother. Rescue reservists were expected to be available in states of emergency and obligated to maintain a certain level of fitness.

  “I have to get my time up if I’m going to be any good in the open ocean.” Tuck, a rescue swimmer, bemoaned his time in the pool today, while Nate was a marine ships navigator and didn’t need to be fast. “Just goes to show, swimming’s not enough. The last couple of years away from the fight of the open ocean have certainly taken its toll, if you can beat me.”

  “Don’t let losing to me get you down, little brother. You can always try again next week.” Nate flashed a smug smile as his large hands soaped his heavily muscled chest. Years of pulling ropes and the heavy ships labour had made his body as hard as a ship’s deck.

  “I hear there’s a single this trip.” Nate changed the subject as Tuck stepped in the shower beside his brother. While Nate was wide across the shoulders and powerfully built, Tuck was lean muscle, which made him look taller, even though they were exactly the same height. “Ma and Emily got into quite the conversation when Ma said it’s not right for a woman to be travellin’ alone. She’s so old fashioned. Emily had been fired up about her talk with Ma last night at supper. I reminded Emily, she’s known Ma long enough to know when she should drop the subject.”

  “I’m sure that won you points with the wife,” Tuck said, casting his brother what he knew was a knowing look. “Your Emily’s a firecracker though. She can’t drop anything.” His words garbled as he tilted his face directly into the shower spray, loving the feel of the water sluicing across his body. If he had found an Emily, he’d never let her go. Passion and compassion combined in equal measures. She always sought out the underdog. “She’ll give Ma a go as Matriarch of this clan before long.”

  “Emily thinks it’s grand this woman wants to learn to sail. I have to agree it’s brave, if nothing else. In all the year’s we’ve been running the Learn to Sail School, this is the first time a woman has come on her own.”

  “Maybe she misunderstood and thought it was a sale school for shopping.” Tuck guffawed at his own wit. “I’ll have to spell check the website.”

  “Ohmigod, imagine the shock if that were the case.” Nate joined Tuck’s laughter.

  Tuck’s family have been a sea faring family for generations. They had their fortunes attached to the ocean tides in one manner or another. Just like the ocean moulds and shapes the environment upon which it abuts, so too had his family adapted over the generations. From merchant sailors, sometimes referred to as pirating, depending on who was telling the story and whether they were in their cups or not, to fleet runners, fishermen, and ship builders, to modern day teachers of the ancient technique of sailing, the MacLean’s continued to align themselves with the briny deep.

  Tuck found his feet enveloped in the bosom of his family’s welcoming embrace after being away for many years, striving to find his own foothold in the world. Sometimes, when he considered what was and what may have been, the reality had been a devastating awakening to realize his feet were better suited to the place he longed to escape for so many years. This had been home all along, where comfort found him.

  “So a woman on her own. I hadn’t thought much about the booking
when it came in.” Tuck ran a towel over his body, and then glanced over his shoulder at his brother. “Billy’s off tomorrow, so Ma’s sending me to pick up our guest at the airport. I have to run to the city to get some stuff anyway so it’s no big deal. We need an ADSL as a back up to the Wi-Fi and the CCD needs to be replaced.”

  “Oh, little brother, how you turn me on when you start talking dirty. Those FMG’s mixed with the OMG’s of cyber space.” Nate glanced under his raised arm, smirking at Tuck. He rinsed the shampoo from his hair, shaking his head like a dog, splattering Tuck. Nick uproariously laughed. “Here I am telling you about an eligible woman coming to our fair town and you respond with geek talk.”

  Tuck didn’t have time for women. Not seriously at any rate. When he divorced Suzy, after less than a year of marriage, the last thing he wanted to consider was entering into a relationship. Sure, the divorce had been finalized for more than year, but it had made him gun-shy at the very thought of commitment. Casual, to cover his needs, is where he lived. It’s where he intended to stay.

  “If you only knew, old man, how truly sexy the geek talk can get in certain circles, you’d actually pay attention when someone’s trying to teach you something.” Tuck flicked his towel at his brother before wiping the splatter drops from Nate’s dog-style spray across his face. “You’d learn how to check your own email and stop bugging me every time you want to order something online.”

  Nate ducked and ran to his locker, dodging the sting of Tuck’s towel.

  A recurrent of sadness swept Tuck. If only his brother knew. At one time, Tuck did have it all. A successful business, the high-rise penthouse condo, the trophy wife. Oh, she was a sweet bit. Reliable too, so long as Tuck had money. He should have known better. Everyone warned him about Suzy. And goddamnit, they were right. As soon as things got tough, his wife left. The condo was next and finally, despite his best efforts, his business.

  Tuck ran his fingers through his damp hair, refusing to give in to the past. Recently Emily and Nate seemed intent on matchmaking, pointing out one local girl or another as eligible. Tuck would have nothing more to do with romance. He was done with love. It was as gone as his wife, his business, and the life he had built in the city.

  ****

  Vivian had been nervous, despite her outward bravado with her friends. Although she had previously spoken to Mrs. MacLean, who insisted Vivian call her Lynette, her stomach still twisted in knots when her brother drove her to the airport.

  “Enjoy yourself,” Tyler said, carrying her two bags to the terminal. “We’ve got Snicker. You know the kids love him and may not give him back.” He laughed, and placed a hand on her shoulder. “Really, you can count on us to take good care of him.”

  She hugged him and kissed his cheek, before checking in.

  Lynette MacLean had said they lived in a small town a couple of hours from the airport. She reassured Vivian one of the boys would pick her up and drive her to the local bed and breakfast, cosily called, The Mariner’s Roost. Vivian would stay at the Inn the first half of her two-week vacation, while she learned the basics of the ship prior to launch. Thereafter she would be at sea for five nights. After the trip, she planned to stay a couple extra days to take in the sights before returning home.

  She had high hopes for her adventure, but missed home already. Her cozy cottage and the shop where she loved to get dirty playing with her gadgets and treasures, restoring them to their original condition. Then she’d display her wares in the gift corner of the café to sell to someone else who would appreciated the hidden treasures in life. She missed home, where potted lovelies grew on her back patio, and where her garden and rose bush grew in one spot surrounded by weeds—the trouble spot by the garage where nothing but weeds would root despite her best efforts. She missed home, where Snickerdoodle ran free amongst the acres of farm land, never caged, and slept at her feet by the fire.

  Vivian had wisely booked her trip before the start of the tourist season for a number of reasons, not least of which it being cheaper. This time of year meant her business was less busy and most important, easier for her to leave her work and obligations for a while. She knew Marcy would keep the shop in fine stead however, Vivian remembered her father’s words that left her with an added pang of regret thinking he was right and she had left her best friend in a lurch.

  ****

  The little boy, sitting beside her on the plane, dug his finger into his nose surely sinking the digit through to the knuckle. His mother, reading a book in the aisle seat, was oblivious to her son’s quest for gold. To hide her smile, Vivian turned to the window to watch the land fall to the ocean. Somehow a little boy picking his nose seemed natural, almost cute.

  Speaking of natural, she wondered if she was too old to be going away alone on some quest for—what exactly she didn’t know? The slight turbulence broke her reverie as the plane turned and banked toward the land for arrival. She watched the green hills and roadways come into focus. A fissure of excitement skipped through her veins as she realized she was really going through with this trip. Leaving on her own for a couple of weeks seemed so completely unlike her. Nervousness and anticipation overwhelmed her, wondering what would happen over the next few days.

  The plane shuttered on an air pocket during the descent and she grabbed the hand rests. The little boy beside her laid his small hands on top of her own. Vivian was comforted by his gentle touch. She smiled down to the round face with big brown eyes.

  “It’s okay,” he said, patting her hand. “It’ll be okay.”

  Vivian nodded, placing her right hand over his. “Thank you. You’ve made me feel better.” She smiled, and sat straight to regain her poise. The little boy smiled, revealing the loss of his bottom teeth. His mother spared him a quick glance before returning to her book.

  Vivian released her grip on the armrest by window, and gazed at the approaching tarmac. About to begin her adventure, her stomach curled with apprehension. Her quest for fun teased that little fissure of something inside her she had always tried to squash when it peaked the surface. She inhaled a deep breath and smiled, awaiting the first step in her journey.

  ****

  “Well dear, this is not an auspicious start to your vacation,” Lynette lamented when Vivian called her from the airport arrival area to report no one was here to retrieve her. Vivian didn’t expect such a volume of embarrassment and frustration in the older woman’s voice. She wouldn’t want to get on Lynette’s bad side and knew the driver would suffer the brunt of older lady’s wrath. “Where can that boy be? I’ll skin him alive when he returns. What’s your cell number, dear? I’ll contact him and call you right back.”

  Vivian pulled her cell out of her purse and scrunched her face. One bar. No cell service.

  “I’m afraid my cell number won’t do much good. The signal’s pretty weak inside the airport.”

  “Well, if I don’t call you back in five minutes, you call me back from the payphone land line and reverse the charges.”

  Vivian agreed and waited. When her cell did not ring, she decided to move forward on her own. Taking that first step is part of the adventure. Where was the fun, if she couldn’t take charge of her own destiny?

  With a sense of confidence, she smiled, walked to the payphone, and called Mrs. MacLean to relay her decision.

  “I can’t reach his cell phone either! Honest to God! Excuse my language, but I will brain that boy of mine! You won’t believe this, but this is not usual. The Parson’s and the Jordan’s were picked up just yesterday, no issues at all. I am so sorry, dear.”

  Vivian didn’t understand what braining her son meant, but it certainly didn’t sound good. “Don’t fuss, Mrs. MacL…Lynette. I’ll get a car and a map, and will see you tomorrow. I’ll be fine, really. Don’t fuss.”

  “I’m an old woman dear, fussin’ is what I do. It makes me happy,” she said.

  Vivian had a mental image of a hen-like woman sitting on her eggs waiting for them to hatch.

  L
ynette sighed. “Okay dear. You come by tomorrow for lunch and we’ll chat. It’ll give us an opportunity to get to know one another before Randy and Nate, that’s my dear husband and other son, train you on the boat basics with the rest.”

  Vivian could get accustomed to being called dear. She understood the word to be part of the vernacular of the area, but her own mother had never used the flattering remark. The endearment was so charming Vivian couldn’t wait to meet Lynette, but pitied Lynette’s son, whom Vivian assumed to be about seventeen to eighteen-years old, learning the ropes and utterly failing in the one task given to him today. She wouldn’t want to be him when he returned home for supper today.

  She bent to place the information package into her carry all, and reaching for the long handle of her suitcase, she stepped away from the payphone. At the same time she was being swept away with a renewed sense of self-assurance, Vivian suddenly collided with a solid object—the hard wall being the chest to a very tall man. Her gaze travelled the distance from his brown loafers, to his casual beige khakis, and untucked cotton shirt with rolled cuffs to the elbows. Continuing her scrutiny, she eyed the open collar revealing a tanned neck, and then a beautiful smile. Her gaze moved to his formed forearms that lengthened to strong hands, which she quickly realized were holding her shoulders in a steady hold.