Wildest Dreams (Thunder Point #9)(3)

“First, what’s your name?”

“I’m Charlie,” he said, sticking out a hand. And with one finger on the other hand he pushed his glasses up on his nose.

“Nice to meet you, Charlie. I guess you know me already.”

“I asked Cooper who you were and he said you were racing in Australia and I looked you up.” He shrugged. “You have a pretty good record.”

“Thanks,” Blake said, raising a brow in question. In fact, he had a great record. “What else did you find out about me?”

“Well...you had to teach yourself to swim.”

“That’s right.”

“How’d you do that?”

“The same way I learned almost everything— survival. I fell in a pool. Or maybe I got pushed in, I can’t remember. And I couldn’t swim. Went down like a rock.”

“Did you have to get rescued?”

“Nope. It was in college and I was at a pool party. I don’t think anyone was paying attention. I held my breath and walked out. My lungs just about exploded.”

“You walked out?” Charlie asked, astonished.

“That was my only option at the time. I was an expert on depth because I couldn’t swim. Every time I was near a pool I made sure I knew where the shallow and deep ends where. I fell in the middle, eyeballed the shallow end and walked. It was slow. Nobody knows the depth and contour of a pool like a kid who can’t swim. Then I taught myself to swim because walking out in water over your head isn’t a good experience. I read about swimming, practiced it. I watched some video of little kids taking lessons.”

“That pool you walked out of wasn’t that big, I guess.”

“Any pool when you’re in over your head is big. After that I learned to tread water and then, since I knew nothing, teaching me to swim was kind of easy—there were no bad habits to unlearn.”

“They start you out with a life jacket?” Charlie asked.

“Nah, that’s not the best way to learn to swim. Best way to stay alive if you have an accident, though. Even experienced swimmers will wear flotation jackets under certain circumstances. The best way is to learn to respect the water, learn the moves, breathe right, understand buoyancy. They teach babies, you know. They don’t use any flotation devices. They teach them to hold their breath, fan the water, to kick, to roll over on their backs to breathe, to... Hey, you swim, right?”

Charlie shook his head.

“You live on a beach and don’t swim?”

He shook his head again. “I don’t live here. My mom works for Mrs. Banks. Since I come with her to work every day, I’m going to go to school here in town but we live... We live a few miles away.”

“And you don’t swim,” Blake said again.

Charlie shook his head. “That never came up before.”

Blake laughed. He understood that completely. “So, what’s up with Mrs. Banks?”

“ALS. She’s doing good. She’s not end stage,” Charlie said, as if he understood such things. “She still walks a little bit but never alone and my mom is optimistic. But she needs a nurse and it’s not my mom’s first ALS patient. I’m really sorry she has ALS but I think I’m going to like the school... Well, for as long as my mom works for Mrs. Banks.”

“Hopefully a long time,” Blake said.

“Yeah, for her sake, for sure. So what made it a good race? You got beat.”

“Gimme a break, will you? I came in second—that’s a damn good show. Like you said, McGill beats me regularly. This time, though, he announced his retirement.” Blake made a face. “Gonna really miss that guy.” Then he laughed. “Seriously, I had good times. I was close to my personal-best swimming and, in case you haven’t figured it out, that’s not my easiest sport. But I run like the wind.”

Charlie just grinned at him.

“I guess I better come next door and introduce myself to Mrs. Banks, huh? After I clean up, of course. What’s her schedule like?”

“After her nap, right before dinner, everyone is usually around. And she’s downright perky.”

“Everyone?” Blake asked.

“Well, Mrs. Banks’s daughter, Grace, and her husband, Troy, are there. And there’s Mikhail. He’s been hanging around ever since he found out Winnie has ALS. Mikhail used to be Grace’s coach. For, like, years. She’s a champion athlete, too. So you’re not the only one.”

“Is that so?” Blake asked, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Figure-skating gold medalist,” Charlie said. “A while ago, though. She retired.”

Blake frowned. The name “Grace” didn’t sound familiar at all.

“I guess she used to be called Izzy when she was skating.”

“Oh, Jesus, Izzy Banks?” he asked. “You’re kidding, right?”

“And her mother—Winnie Banks,” Charlie said. “Grace is like a second-generation champion.”

Now, what were the odds? Blake asked himself. Winnie and Izzy were famous mother/daughter skating icons. Winnie Banks had quit skating to marry her coach and they’d produced one of the best known women’s figure-skating champions in the world. “Unreal. What’s she doing now?”