Fireside secrets

Port Bellows

Port Bellows MA

" What do you mean January won't be coming for Christmas, did you tell her dad and I would send a car for her?" Andrea Holmes asked her daughter April.

" Mother, she did this on purpose. You know she's just being petty about my wedding to Adam. It's just like her to avoid us because of her jealousy." April remarked.

Calvin Holmes knew his oldest daughter was spoiled. He seemed to favor January, but his wife always favored April over her youngest daughter.

It was unfortunate that she felt January was a bit manipulative, especially when she had her panick attacks. Andrea just couldn't buy into it.

" She is a grown woman, it's time to let the past go, don't you think Cal?"

Calvin was passive when it came to raising the girls. He was on the Atlantic Ocean fishing and running the boat more than he was home.

He liked it that way. After learning about the claims against his best friend Ronald Parson, he thought it was just a misunderstanding, but when little January woke up night after night screaming to not let the monster hurt her....he knew the child wasn't making things up.

He was so angry that he nearly threw Ronald off the boat. Instead, he called the sheriff and took the boat back to Port.

That cost him a hundred grand as he didn't meet his fishing quota. But, the one person that he would give everything up for...that was January.

Now his daughter wasn't even answering her phone. April must have hurt her somehow...again.

************

The next day

He got up early and called the college directly, someone there should be able to relay the message to January. Surely she would speak to him.

The line seemed to be down. Flipping on the news, he saw the thick clouds with more on the way on the local am weather report.

All flights north were cancelled.

Now he was getting worried. It wasn't like January not to find someway to contact them.

He decided to call the local police.

" I'm worried, my daughter wasn't able to get out before the snow storm, we haven't heard from her in 5 days. Can you send a car to check on her at the the college?" He asked the operator.

" Sir, all the students got out, the security guards are very thorough.

They don't allow students to remain on campus at winter break, it's too dangerous.

The power and phones are down in three counties. I'm sure she left with a friend. She'll call you in a few days, I'm sure of it.

You know she is an adult right?" she tried to reassure him, it was the third call like this she had gotten over the past week the other two were a missing coach and a male student. The police had their hands full with other 'true' emergencies.

Calvin ended the call. Maybe she was right, January was a bright girl. She would find a way to stay safe. Unless...maybe she was mad at him for some reason.

It was true that he had stayed away from home, taking on larger and larger fishing quotas to avoid his family.

He opened the bathroom vanity and popped a couple of tums to settle his acidic stomach.

April called him up for lunch.

" Daddy, come eat. We are having lobster, Adam is here." She cried.

He didn't want to eat now. He certainly didn't want to sit at a table with that asshole Adam. He acted so f*****g entitled.

Little fucker, he hated him.

His wife called him now. "Cal! We are waiting for you."

Sighing as he passed by January's old bedroom, there was a picture of her and Adam on the wall.

"Who the hell put this up here?" he said ripping it off the wall.

He was pissed.

Adam fidgeted in his seat, he knew Calvin Holmes disliked him, but he didn't care.

He had the oldest daughter wrapped around his finger. But honestly he wasn't in love with her.

Yeah the s*x was good in the beginning when it was exciting to punish Jan for being such a c**k tease. But April was only in love with April.

He found her pretentious and shallow.

January was never rude or angry at him. She was the sweetest girl, shy and generous.

He now knew he had made a huge mistake. For April to tell everyone that they were engaged, now that was a big fat lie.

But he went along with it because he knew it was the only way back to Jan.

Hoping she was coming home, he secretly placed that portrait of them together. It was a reminder of how happy they had been before he lost his temper with her.

April told him everything and actually laughed at her sisters inability to be intimate because of the s****l abuse.

If only Jan had told him back then, he would have been careful and gone slower with her, poor girl.

He was sure that with all of Jan's issues, she would never find a man to love her, he was her only hope.

He was biding his time. Promising to win her heart back once she got home.

After dinner, April led him to January's old bedroom, saying that Jan's mattress was much more comfortable than her own.

She pulled a nightgown from the drawer, Jan's drawer.

April wore the long cotton gown, printed with little roses on it, not like the sexy lingerie that she usually wore to bed.

It smelled like January. He smiled, relishing the scent that he now fondly remembered, lavender and honey?

He inhaled the scent of sweet January in the bedding as April pulled back the covers, never feeling so excited before.

His d**k grew firm, pretending it was HER that he was f*****g and not her sister April.

He even cried HER name when he reach a fevered climax.

April smiled. She knew Adam was slipping away from her.

She would do everything in her power to manipulate him to marry her, just to stay in January's life.

************

The fire department had been trying to reach the dean of Greenmire college to inform her of an alarm that was going off for the past three days.

" Ma'am it looks like a false alarm, someone at the college silenced it about 15 minutes after it was triggered. We can't get up the road right now anyway as there are trees down over power lines and the power company has their hands full right now. How do you want us to proceed?"

Dean Angela Conners informed them that her security team had assured her that the college was cleared of all students and faculty.

"I will ask my maintenence guys to head up there as soon as the roads are passable. It's all we can do."

It was a bit of a worry and an even worse liability for anyone to freeze to death or burn in a fire under her watch.

She turned to her husband and poured him a Christmas brandy.

Her large country home was filled with guests. She had to press on and let go of work, she promised her husband Frank.

The weather report predicted a winter storm warning until Christmas. The snow was not letting up. The temperatures were expected be ten to twenty degrees below zero, deadly.