Steal My Breath (Elixir #1)

by Nina Levine

  I picked Callie’s neighbour up from the hospital two hours ago. Callie couldn’t get the day off work, so I offered to bring Mrs Harper home. It’s been an adventure, to say the least. We’ve been to the chemist, the supermarket and the newsagency so far, and she’s just advised me she also needs me to pick some supplies up from the hardware for her. She’s also just started to grill me on my relationship with Callie.

  “I can assure you, Mrs Harper, that my intentions are absolutely pure.” Well, except where Callie’s body is involved. There are no pure thoughts there.

  She narrows her eyes at me. “Tell me why I should believe you.”

  Jesus, if I had a daughter, this is the kind of woman I hope would be in her court.

  “You have no reason to believe me, but I’ll tell you I fell for Callie months ago. It had nothing to do with her beauty and everything to do with her heart. She has this way of being completely her without any bullshit or pretence. It’s refreshing. And I never want to change her. I love Callie for every little thing about her.”

  My answer seems to give her reason to pause. “I’ll be keeping an eye on you, Mr Hardy. And if I see any hanky panky, I won’t hesitate to caution Callie.”

  My lips twitch and I hold back the grin forming on my lips. But for all the amusement I’m feeling, I’m also grateful Callie has a woman like Mrs Harper looking out for her. I nod. “I understand.”

  She returns my nod and beckons towards the TV remote. “Pass me the remote before you leave for the hardware store, please.”

  I do as she asks and then make sure I have everything she requires on my list. For a woman who must be ninety not out, she sure does have her faculties about her. She’s after tap washers, light bulbs, paint and a new sink plug. Fuck knows what she plans on doing with paint, but it wouldn’t surprise me if she gets a paintbrush out and starts slapping it on the wall.

  Once I’m sure she’s okay and has everything she needs, I head out to the hardware, calling Callie on the way.

  “Hey, sexy man,” she answers.

  “Your neighbour adores you. Did you know that?”

  She laughs. “Why do you say that? And I wondered if she liked me. It’s hard to tell some days. She’s so bossy and serious.”

  “She just drilled me with questions regarding my intentions towards you. I told her my intentions were purely sexual.”

  “You did not!”

  I chuckle. “No, but I considered it. Just to see what she’d say.”

  “How is she?”

  “She’s doing well. I think the doctor was keen to see her go home. She probably gave him hell. Her hip isn’t too bad now so she can at least hobble around with her walker, but, babe, I’m not sure how she’s going to cope on her own.”

  “Yeah, I think I’ll have to check in with her every day for a little while. I’ll definitely do all her shopping for her.”

  “You’re a good woman, Callie. She’s lucky to have you.”

  “Did you take her to the supermarket?”

  “I wouldn’t have dared stray from your instructions, baby.”

  “I’m poking my tongue at you right now. You know that, right?”

  “I can picture it clearly. And to put your mind at ease, we did the supermarket, chemist and newsagent, and I’m just heading to the hardware for her now.”

  “Okay, I’ve put my tongue away. Thank you, Luke. I owe you.”

  “Oh, I know. And I’m collecting tonight. Just so we’re clear, tonight’s an A-game night.”

  “Dude, I’m at work. You can’t say shit like that when I’m at work.” She sounds flustered, which I fucking love.

  “I’m just getting you ready. I want you wet as fuck for me by the time I get to you.”

  She sucks in a breath. “Oh, God… I’m hanging up now.”

  “Baby?”

  “What?”

  “I love you.”

  Silence. After a beat, she says, “I love you, too, Luke.” Her voice is all soft and it hits me fair in the chest.

  Fuck, I love that woman.

  * * *

  Callie’s surprised eyes meet mine that night when she finds me in my kitchen on her return from work. She frowns. “Why are you here? I thought you were working tonight.”

  “I hired a new staff member a couple of weeks ago and he’s finally ready to take on some of my shifts.”

  “You never told me you’d done that.” She dumps her handbag on the kitchen counter and closes the distance between us.

  I snake my arm around her waist. “I didn’t want to tell you until I knew for sure he’d work out.”

  Her face breaks out in a huge grin. “This is the best news I’ve received all day. How often do you think you’ll take the night off?”

  “Not sure yet, but I’m aiming for at least Monday to Wednesday night off and to cut my hours back on other nights so I’m home by midnight or just after.”

  She practically climbs up my body. Her arms circle my neck and her legs wrap around me. She then blesses me with a kiss that shoots all kind of need through me. “You know what this means, right?”

  “I know what I hope it means.”

  “You tell me yours first.” Fuck, I love it when Callie gets excited. She’s like a grown child bursting with happiness, and I can’t help but get caught up in her excitement. She makes me feel more alive than I’ve felt in years.

  “I hope it means more time with you.”

  She sighs. “It definitely will.”

  “What were you thinking?”

  Her eyes sparkle. “It means more A-game for you.”

  I groan because I can hear Sean running through the house towards us, and all I want to do is sink as deep inside her as possible and lose myself to her love. I wouldn’t have it any other way, though. Any time spent with these two is time I would never give up.

  Callie moves out of my arms and smiles as Sean rounds the corner. “Callie!” He squeals with delight and flings himself into her arms.

  She pulls him up and wraps him close as she presses a kiss to his forehead. “Hey, mate. I missed you today.”

  “Daddy said we could have ice cream for dessert!”

  She laughs and meets my gaze. “Really? I bought a treat home that I thought we could have, but I guess we can have ice cream instead.”

  Sean’s eyes bulge. “What did you bring?”

  I lean against the counter and cross my arms. “Yes, Callie, what did you bring?” She knows I don’t allow dessert most nights, but I would never begrudge her giving him something special every now and then. I love the relationship she’s building with my son.

  She wrinkles her nose at me. “This is just between me and Sean. You’ll have to stick with ice cream, buddy.” Turning to Sean, she whispers something in his ear. The way his body moves with delight tells me she’s hit gold.

  “Yes, yes! I want that,” he exclaims.

  “You know you can’t have it and ice cream, right?” Callie says.

  Disappointment crosses his face, but only for an instant. He nods. “Yes.”

  Callie grins and lets him down before shaking his hand. “It’s a deal.”

  I lift my chin in the direction of the bathroom. “Go wash your hands, little man. Dinner’s almost ready.”

  After he’s gone, Callie eyes me. “You wanna know what you’re missing out on?”

  “I’m intrigued. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him pass up ice cream so fast.”

  She opens the paper bag to reveal cookies. “They’re from that paleo café near my work. Banana and dark choc chip cookies. Much healthier than ice cream.”

  The love I have for her expands. The fact she knows Sean loves bananas as much as he does shows how hard she’s worked to get to know him and gain his affection. Then to find a healthier dessert for him just takes the whole gesture to a new level.

  Reaching for her, I bring her close and press my lips to her forehead. I hold her there for a long few moments before saying, “Thank you.”

&nbs
p; She embraces me. “I’m just glad to have found something he’s keen to eat.”

  I shift back so I can look her in the eyes. “No, thank you for loving my son.”

  A smile touches her lips and I know my words mean everything to her. “How could I not? He’s part of you and I love every single part of you.”

  My response to Mrs Harper today flashes through my mind. I love Callie’s beauty, but it’s her heart I want to hold onto for eternity.

  It’s Callie’s heart and soul that make her the most beautiful woman I know.

  27

  Callie

  It’s amazing to me how someone can become everything to you in the blink of an eye. How you can go from knowing nothing about them to knowing so many intricacies you never imagined existed before. Like how I now know that when Luke sleeps, he has this tendency to bite his lip; and how he has this OCD habit of stacking cutlery in the dishwasher in groups with forks all together and so forth; and how when he drives, he weaves in and out of the traffic in an effort to reach his destination faster.

  We’ve been together for four months now. Luke’s the first person I’ve shared every single piece of my soul with. I’ve held nothing back—not my fears, my vulnerabilities and certainly not my faults. He knows them all and he loves me fiercely because of them.

  I love him just as fiercely. For the amazing man he is, as much as the vulnerable man he’s become since having his life ripped out from under him.

  It’s on a Friday afternoon, late November, that I begin to wonder about love. It’s just a whisper of wonder at first, but it quickly progresses into full-blown uncertainty. Is love ever really extinguished or do the embers glow forever, just waiting for the right moment to rekindle a fire that once burnt brightly? Is it possible to fall back in love with someone after you’ve stopped loving them?

  Luke calls me just before four. “Baby, I’ve got a huge problem for tomorrow and I need your help to fix it.” Luke never sounds stressed, but he kinda does right now.

  I balance the phone between my ear and my shoulder while I finish typing up an article for next week’s paper. “Sure. What’s up?”

  He starts to speak again, but the sounds of his bar muffle his words.

  “Luke, I can’t hear you over the noise in the background. Are you really busy this afternoon?” He doesn’t usually start to get busy until after five on a Friday.

  “Fuck,” he mutters. A minute passes before he says, “Is this better? I’m in the office.”

  “Much better. Now, what’s up?”

  “The woman rang about Sean’s party tomorrow. They’ve double-booked the party room, which means one party can’t go ahead. Because we booked it last, it’s Sean’s.”

  I sit forward in my seat. “That sucks.”

  “It’s a fucking pain in the ass, is what it is. If I wasn’t stuck at work all night, I’d have the time to come up with something else and let the parents know. That’s where you come in.”

  “Oh, shit, you want me to come up with an alternative for a five-year-old’s party? Luke, I am no mother. These kinds of things are not my forte. I can ring around parents no worries, but to make plans and execute them isn’t something I think you really want me doing.”

  “Callie, you’re amazing with Sean. And trust me, I have no clue on this kind of thing either. It was only because Glenda suggested that party venue that it was going to take place there. If it had been up to me, he would have been running around the park with his friends and some cake.”

  I consider what he’s said and realise he’s right. Surely Google will have ideas for me. “Okay, I’ll figure something out.”

  “Thank you. The list of kids coming and their parents’ phone numbers is on the fridge. I can try and find someone to do my shift tonight, but I’m fairly sure no one’s available at this late notice.” His relief is clear when he thanks me, so I decide to take this weight off his shoulders completely.

  “No, don’t do that. I’ll take care of this. It’s not a problem. You just focus on work and let me focus on Sean tonight.”

  I hear the breath he exhales. “I love you.”

  “Love you, too, but I better go now so I can get cracking on this.” My mind is already spinning ahead trying to figure out party ideas. Pinterest is looking like a good option right about now. They have stacks of ideas on there.

  As we end the call and I type the Pinterest website into my browser, I suddenly remember it’s one of my colleague’s last days at work today.

  “Shit,” I mutter. I wanted to say goodbye to her and she told me to come by around four. I push my chair back and make a mental note to get back to Pinterest as soon as possible. I’m beginning to feel all kinds of nervous about this endeavour. What if I screw Sean’s party up? What if he hates it? Oh, God, the things a mother must go through in her life. No wonder most of the mothers I know drink copious amounts of wine as often as they can.

  “I’m going to miss you,” I say to Marion as I enter her office. She’s my favourite person here, so I’m really going to miss her.

  She smiles as she loads another file into the box she’s packing. Marion has been reporting on news and crime at the paper for fifteen years; she has a lot of files to pack. “I give it six months tops until they move you off events and start giving you juicier stories.” She picks up the next folder in her pile. “Like this one,” she says.

  As she holds it up, pieces of paper flutter out of the folder and onto the floor. I bend to retrieve them and freeze when I read the headline on the article. Looking up at Marion, I say, “Did you work on Jolene Hardy’s case?”

  She nods and opens the file. “Yes. That was an interesting case, that’s for sure. One I was never happy with.”

  I stand and pass her the pieces of paper from the floor. “Why?”

  She shifts her weight onto one leg. “I interviewed her and I honestly believed everything she told me. But as much as I believed her, all the evidence stacked up against her. It was hard to put my faith in a woman who was supposedly a cold-blooded murderer when there wasn’t much evidence in her favour. Except for the old man who was her neighbour at the time. He swore she was home at the time the murder took place. It corroborated her testimony. But the prosecution slaughtered him on the stand.” She pauses. “I still wonder about her, though. Something didn’t feel right.”

  I’m rooted to the spot and my skin prickles with apprehension. “What felt wrong about it?”

  She pulls a face. “They painted her as this cold, calculating woman, but I didn’t pick up on the calculating part of her personality when I spoke with her. Sure, she can be cold, but I think that’s only when she feels threatened. Once we moved past her mistrust of me, she was anything but cold. She struck me as a very unhappy woman who felt trapped in a marriage with a man she struggled to believe loved her. Her childhood was full of bullying, abuse and a lack of parental love, so I don’t think she ever learnt how to love. But she was desperate for it underneath that bitchy coat she wore to protect herself from hurt. Her husband was amazing throughout the trial, always by her side, supporting her however she needed it. And yet, she couldn’t see the love he had for her. I think a calculating person would be more in tune with what other people are thinking. Smarter, you know?”

  My legs are weak and my head is spinning.

  Marion touches my arm. “Callie, are you okay? Do you need to sit down? You’re so pale all of a sudden.”

  I nod and take the seat she offers me. “Have you got any water?”

  She leaves me for a couple of minutes to find water. When she returns, I’m feeling a little better. “Thank you,” I say as she passes me the glass.

  Sitting opposite me, she says, “What happened there?”

  I take a gulp of water. “I know her husband.”

  “Do you know her?”

  I shake my head. “No. I only met him just over a year ago. My best friend works for him.” I omit that I’m in love with the man.

  “I feel sorry
for him. Either way, he’s been screwed over.”

  I lean forward. “What does your gut tell you about the murder?”

  She exhales a long breath after thinking for a good minute or so. “Honestly, I’m inclined to think she’s innocent. I researched it for months but came up short. And I know her husband hired a detective, and he found nothing that helped. But I still have this doubt at the back of my head.”

  Oh, God.

  This is bad.

  Very, very bad.

  I bite my lip. “Would you consider leaving your file with me so I could keep looking into it?”

  She frowns. “I won’t leave the original documents here, but you could photocopy them now before I go.”

  “Thank you.”

  As I exit her office with the file to photocopy, she calls out, “I’m available anytime you want to go over something. Two heads and all.”

  At this point, I’m not even sure I want to go over the file, but my gut is screaming at me to at least get a copy of it so I can read through it.

  Maybe not today.

  But soon.

  When I work up the courage.

  Because if this is as bad as I’m beginning to think it could be, it will alter my future in ways I’m sure I can’t even imagine.

  * * *

  I reach for the glass sitting on the table in front of me. Throwing back every last drop of vodka that’s left in it, I scrunch my eyes and then squeeze my eyes shut for a brief moment.

  What a day.

  It started off great and ended being so fucked-up.

  It’s close to midnight and I’ve spent tonight organising Sean’s party and reading over the file Marion had on Jolene. The party turned out to be far easier to put together than I originally thought. But that could be because Marion’s file hovered over me like a dark shadow making the party preparations feel uncomplicated.

  I’ve read the file from back to front, two times over. I’ve also spent an hour looking online for any articles I can find. There are a lot. And not one of them portrays Jolene in a light other than a calculating murderer.