Shadow in the Water

Chapter 3

When the following Friday rolled around I wasn't even aware of what day it was, let alone the time. From up in my tower bedroom, through the open window, I heard the crunch of gravel as a vehicle drove up to the front of the castle. I put down my work on translating the Gaelic text that Mr. MacLean had loaned me and crawled off of my bed to look out the window. A silver Dodge pickup truck parked next to my aunt's bright red Corsa in the circular driveway and a tall, broad man with tanned skin climbed out of the driver's side.

Dad was home from his most recent work trip. This one had taken him to the States for several months. The trips seemed to be getting longer as I got older, but I didn't mind. Raising me to be a good kid had been his way of coping with mom's death. Now that I was old enough to support myself (although my aunt and uncle insisted on taking care of me, so I just put most of my money in a savings account) he had chosen his business as a way to keep himself occupied. He owned a franchise of restaurants called the Four Horseman, a pub that had made it big. He traveled around personally to every one of the separate restaurants around the world to make sure that things were running smoothly, taking the time to make sure that both employees and customers were happy.

I decided that I deserved a break. I'd been working feverishly to translate the book, only bothering to take a break to dash down to the kitchen for food, and was nearly finished with the first section that appeared to be a recounting from a blacksmith when he was asked to forge a silver hand for the first known king of the Tuatha De and the struggles he went through attempting to create such a thing. 

I swapped my pajama pants for a pair of jeans and the baggy t-shirt for a tank top, pulled my hair up into a ponytail, then made my way down to the living room in the main hall to greet my dad. When I got there I found him helping the staff bring in his luggage.

"Hi Sweet Pea," he said with a wide smile when he saw me approach.

"Hi papa, its good to see you again."

He enveloped me in a big hug that smelled like the air fresheners he kept in his truck to keep the smell of smoke at bay, and the cigarettes that caused said smoke. He'd quit the habit before I was born but picked it up again after mom died. Stress tended to do that to people. I didn't blame him. I pulled back and looked up at him. He was a foot taller than me at 6'2" with short dark hair and a beard that was gaining the salt-and-pepper look.

"How was your trip?"

"More difficult than the last. I had a few pain in the arce managers who weren't treating the staff the way tha' I would have liked. I dealt with them the way tha' I always do though." He gave me a sideways grin and a wink.

"You know you can't threaten to beat up your employees, it's going to get you in trouble one day," I told him as I helped move luggage.

"I would never," he scoffed, but had a twinkle in his eye. "I only suggested tha' if they continue to treat their employees like shite tha' I would do the same to them."

I laughed and shook my head. Dad had always been an old fashioned man with good strong morals. He thoroughly believed in the "treat others as you want to be treated," idea, but he also had never had a problem with beating the crap out of somebody if he thought they deserved it.

"Gale called me yesterday," he mentioned casually as he helped load the last of his bags onto a dumbwaiter.

"Oh?"

"He mentioned that you stood in the water a few days ago." His voice held a note of pride.

"Yeah," I said and wound a strand of hair around my finger, embarrassed that my uncle had witnessed the event. "I went down to the beach to talk to mom and decided that it was about time for me to start getting over my fear of the ocean. I only put my toes in the water but... it was something."