CHAPTER 1
Ralph de Clune stood waiting with his beautifully groomed wife Yvonne in the airport terminal looking at incoming passengers for Adele de Clune, sole survivor of her family Ralph's brother James and wife and their two other children were killed in a helicopter crash.
Yvonne and Ralph had spent a day in London with Adele after the funeral but she refused to return to America with them. That was nine years ago when she was eighteen. Boston-born Adele who had dual citizenship joined the British Army as an officer cadet, and emerged as a qualified engineer with specialist training in military intelligence and field communications. She'd served in various hot spots, including Iraq and Afghanistan where she lost her hearing temporarily during a night mortar attack on her unit.
After being repatriated to England against her will, angry at army superiors assigning her to a desk role at a training facility, Adele had resigned her commission and left the army. She called Yvonne and was invited to live with them for a month or two while she looked for employment.
"There she is," Yvonne called. "She's waving to us. Oh god, she looks almost as old as I do."
Aunt and uncle were shocked at the change in Adele's appearance, from being a soft-faced carefree teenager to a hard-faced, suspicious-eyed woman who was wearing hiking boots, loose-fit denims, a military green t-shirt under her denim jacket and her blonde hair appeared cut by a lawnmower.
"Oh darling, how lovely to see you again after all these years," Yvonne cooed.
"Hello Auntie," Adele said, smiling lightly and holding out her hand to shake Yvonne's.
Both Yvonne and Ralph ignored the outstretched hand and kissed their niece who didn't appear displeased.
"Daring, are you tired?"
"No."
"Oh."
Ralph asked, "Is this all the luggage you have?"
"Most of my possessions are coming in an airfreight container and will be delivered to your home."
"Well done. Well you two women come on slowly and I'll fetch the SUV to the passenger pick-up area. I'll be five minutes."
"Thank you sir."
"Adele, please call me Ralph."
"Very well."
"And I'm Yvonne. You are a grown woman now. Oh it's so lovely having you with us. You are the nearest we have to care for now. Alan a geologist is based in Western Australia and Brigit is a hospital deputy chief administrator in Ireland, but you knew that; you met in London a year ago."
"Thirteen months ago actually. She looked very beautiful."
"We visited her six months ago and tried to find where you were but it was Army hush-hush."
"Six months ago we were taking up our positions in Afghanistan."
"Oh and you won't want to talk about that?"
"No."
"Darling, tell me not to interfere if you don't like this but may I assist in converting you back into being feminine?"
"I'd love that Yvonne. Frankly I feel too apprehensive to start. It's something I haven't been trained to do. I anticipate it will take me out of my comfort zone and so we must proceed without haste. Here we are and here comes Ralph. Oh, you have a Range Rover Sport. I thought you'd be driving American?"
"Ralph has developed a thing about them."
As they were driving away Yvonne said, "Adele was surprised we have a Range Rover."
"Yes, our hire vehicle in Ireland was a Land Rover. There were things about it that appealed to me as I like going off-road and then I found there was this luxury version. Have you owned a Land Rover?"
"No, but my personal transport in Iraq and Afghanistan were military versions."
"Yes, of course. We don't have a machine-gun on this baby," he laughed and that went unanswered.
"That wasn't funny," Yvonne admonished and Ralph apologized but Adele didn't acknowledge that.
After a while Ralph asked, "Will you come out hunting with me?"
"Shooting what?"
"Deer."
"Yes, I'd like that."
"God I couldn't do that," Yvonne said. "It's too bloodthirsty for me." She was then shocked by the comment from the back seat.
"Toughen up Yvonne and you'll be surprised what you can do."
Next day Yvonne took Adele to her hairdresser. The usually charming Annette threw her hands up and almost cried, saying, "I'm not touching this."
"Bitch, I wouldn't want you touching my hair," Adele said, standing up and scowling.
Annette ran off crying.
The owner Michelle Black came down from the mezzanine floor to find out what was going on and smiled when Yvonne explained. Come up to my office dear and let me have a look at you. There's nothing to fuss about."
Michelle sat Adele on her office chair and made the assessment. "Right, here's what you do. All you need to do for the next month is to wash and condition you hair every second day and let the hair grow. And every morning and every night you brush it lightly 200 times. I suggest you allow Yvonne to do some of the brushing; that will help you to accept that it's worth caring about your hair. It will allow Yvonne to clip hair back and brush it in layers. I'll give you a soft brush Adele and for this next month I want you to only use that brush and no comb. Your hair needs to adapt to this extra and different attention."
"To be retrained?"
"Yes, exactly. Good girl."
"I'm not a girl."
"That is a term used as an endearment by an older woman Adele."
"Oh. Please make allowances for me."
"Certainly. You have an English accent. Care to tell me how your hair has suffered what appears to be years of neglect?"
As Michelle poured coffee for the three of them Adele explained how she'd had a traumatic experience of being thrown clear of the helicopter on impact, seconds before it exploded, killing her family. It had clipped a tree coming into land on the family estate.
"I suffered psychologically for a few weeks but that cleared. I sold the estate because I could never go on to that property again and then I seemed to have nothing left, although my grandparents were very good to me. Yvonne had urged me to come back home and live with them but I did not feel I was ready for that. So I joined the army. I had this urge to put wrongs right, if you can understand that. I'd seen myself leading a unit into an occupied village and sending the rebels on the run or killing them and freeing the villagers. But during pre-training before entering what your guys would call a military academy I was psychologically tested and underwent other tests and it was suggested my ideal vocation was engineering and although the focus would be on assault and defensive engineering my degree would be in civil engineering in civilian life. So I went with the flow. I was involved with 95% men so I found it best to stop being a pretty blonde and become one of the guys. I had a less complicated life than the females in our units who maintained their feminine style."
"Oh god, you poor darling," Michelle said in a matter-of-fact tone and shaking her head at Yvonne who was weeping. "That's all behind you. I trained as a beautician before I specialized in hairdressing. Would you like me to become your beauty adviser?"
"Yes please Michelle. I have plenty of money, heaps of it."
"I don't wish to be paid Adele. I don't have children so will act as your older sister if you'll allow that."
"Yes, I'd like that. I'll write out a check for $500 to cover product."
"That's an excellent idea. If you can do this I suggest you call in around this time every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. I aim to work on you, head to toe."
Adele laughed. "Does that include trimming my bush?"
"We'll discuss the options when we get down that far. But first your face and hands need my total attention. Your skin has aged but I'll get you to a specialist for skin therapy possibly involving micro-dermabrasion treatment or even chemical skin peeling. You then choose what you favor. It could cost several thousand dollars for on-going consultation and treatments."
"No problem. If it's not a waste of money I'll buy in."
As Yvonne and Adele drove off in Yvonne's Infinity G37 Yvonne said, "I couldn't help noticing you seemed to relate easier to Michelle than you do to me."
"Do you really want me to answer that?"
"Yes of course."
"She is a little laidback and talks to me in an easy manner. You heard her giving me options rather than leading me, although she was definite at times. But she wasn't overly sympathetic or judgmental or cloying. How can I put it? Ah, she treated me like one of her pals."
"So you don't want an aunt-niece relationship?"
"I thought you indicated that when you invited me to call you Yvonne?"
"Oh god, it's I don't know how to behave with you, isn't it?"
"Could be. Stop and let me drive."
"Oh Adele... this is an expensive new car and... Damn, I'm doing it again, aren't I?"
Yvonne stopped and they changed seats. Adele drove off and within a minute Yvonne said, "You are a much better driver than I am?"
"Yes but you're fine. I have no problem being driven by you. I just wanted to feel what this baby felt like to drive. It's better than expected though the gearshift is a tad disappointing, not as smooth as I expected. The interior is great and I love the real sports car seating positions. It's probably over-powered for you but then again it gives you a sexy image."
"Sexy -- me?"
"You have the money... you can be anything you want to be Yvonne. Let's go to a bar for a drink and chat."
"A bar? I never... Oh. Yes and think about picking up a couple of guys."
"Not this early in the day Yvonne. They'll only be bums. Anyway I don't want you to up-tempo too radically. Ralph mightn't like it and remember he has to adjust."
* * * On Saturday morning over breakfast Ralph invited Adele to his golf club if she were interested. She'd said she played competitively but her handicap had run out. "Yeah, it sounds fun. It's too windy for shopping."
There was no wind so Ralph laughed, thinking that was a joke and Adele smiled back at him. Yvonne said Adele wanted to be treated like a pal, not as a niece, and that obviously applied to him. Ralph had seen this brushing thing going at evenings and Yvonne had said they also did it in the mornings after he'd left for work, the idea being to allow Adele's hair to grow and be groomed back into good shape and for her to relearn to love her hair.
"Love her hair. What kind of goofy women's talk is that?" The man with his hair receding at the temples let the withering return look pass without comment, knowing his wife would regard that as 'ungentlemanly comment'. God she was so uptight at times.
Looking at Adele he said, "I'll book in from 10:30. It's men only until then."
"Are you sure?"
"Yeah, and I want you wearing a tight short skirt so I can see your ass move."
Adele grinned and Yvonne said, "Ralph, that is a disgusting comment. Apologize."
"No it's fine Yvonne. I've spent nine years in a male-dominated community. I know how the male mind works. If Ralph was prepared to say that in front of you it's nothing more than bravado. You could think it's your ass he should be interested in watching move but he'd denied that because of your choice of clothes."
