AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Oh, sweetheart, that girl doesn’t know what she wants ‘til it’s thrown right in front of her, and you best believe you’re somethin’ she wants. I wasn’t born with these two eyes for nothin’, sugar. I see everythin’ and sometimes more than the two folks who are gazin’ right at one another.” She nudges me lightly in the arm, and forces the latest, stolen bottle of champagne into my hands. “You give me an hour, and then you come on down to Summer’s cottage. Carry on the party without the rest of this bunch of snobs around, eh?”
I hesitate, feeling my toe edging over the line of what’s right. “Her cottage?”
“You got a phone?”
I’m handing it over before I can stop myself, and she’s typing something in.
“Now, I ain’t tellin’ you what to do, but I’ll send you a message to let you know if you’ve got your timin’ right or wrong,” she says. “The rest is up to you. If you want to go, you go. If you want to leave her be, you leave her be. All I’m sayin’ is, I know somethin’ good when I smell it bakin’ in the summer heat, and there’s somethin’ mighty fine cookin’ between the pair of y’all. Might need a little care, a few extra ingredients, but it ain’t half bad as it is, so… you decide. Lord knows, she won’t do it for you.”
Ms. T seizes me in an almighty hug that could crush a lesser man, and plants a smacker on my cheek, before heading off the way she came. But not before tossing one last remark over her shoulder, “And if you do go to her, don’t you do the drivin’. I’ve seen how much you’ve been drinkin’, ‘cause I’ve been doin’ the pourin’. There are cabs out front. Why not see where one of ‘em takes you.”
She says it casually, but I hear the soft warning in her words. It’s not necessary; I wouldn’t drive drunk if you paid me. But, right now, even taking a cab seems impossible. If Summer left, Summer doesn’t want me to follow.
My phone buzzes: a text from Ms. T that chills my blood.
A woman always wants the man she likes to follow.
I peer up at the steps to the upper terrace, wondering if there’s not something a little magical about Ms. Thibodeaux.
21
SUMMER
“Thought I might find you here,” Ms. T’s voice floats over the soft whisper of the tide as it nudges the rushes and the reeds across the sand of the little inlet where I sit, digging my toes into the cold grains; the coarse friction tickling my skin.
I hug my knees, not bothering to look back. I can hear her picking her way through the tangled brush, swearing under her breath without actually swearing; she’s more of a “heck” kind of woman, saying “pardon my French” before uttering even the mildest cuss.
“You not gonna talk to me?” Ms. T presses, as she thuds down onto the sand at my side, while coyly covering her legs with the frills of her long, flowery skirt. She’s a southern belle, through and through, and I feel like the Eliza Doolittle that she’s tried to make into a proper, respectable young woman.
“Usually, when someone makes an Irish exit, they don’t tend to want company,” I reply, not exactly sullen, but not exactly enthusiastic either.
Seeing Levi again, in that drunken, malicious state, just brought back a thousand unpleasant memories, putting me right back where I was two years ago, in the parking lot of the Quarter Mile. Only, it was Ben who saved me, that time. Today, it was Rowan, and if this is fate’s idea of a joke, it can shove its tricks where the sun don’t shine.
“Well, I’m not Irish, and I don’t believe in lettin’ someone leave without sayin’ goodbye. It ain’t proper manners, and my momma and daddy taught me that, in this world, manners mean everythin’.” Ms. T kicks off her high heels and wiggles her toes into the sand. “If it makes you feel any better, I saw Benjamin Senior goin’ to town on Levi. Thought he was gonna get out his white gloves and start slappin’ the bastard—pardon my French—for crashin’ his fancy-pants party.”
I muster a smile. “It’ll make me feel better later, once I’ve scraped his words out of my skull.”
“What did he say to you, hun?”
I tell her, reliving the jarring encounter for a while, as an owl hoots from the trees behind us. It feels a little like an omen, but bad or good; I can’t tell.
“So, hanging around didn’t seem like a wise idea,” I conclude. “Alcohol and awful memories don’t mix, and no one wants to be the weepy loser standing at the bar, bringing down everyone’s mood.”
Ms. T nods slowly, and I can tell she’s processing what I’ve just said. As I wait for her judgment, I gaze out at the rippling water, watching as the first molten shafts of sunset refract and splinter across the wavelets. And when a fish jumps and splashes, stirring the surface, I close my eyes and pretend I’m in those warm waters with Ben, letting him tempt me into an evening swim, though I’m petrified of sharks and gators and water moccasins—all things he swears to me aren’t there, and if they are, he’ll protect me.
“Relax. You’re safe with me,”I can almost hear him.
“Do you swear?”the memory of me—a different me—replies.
He nods.“On my heart.”
“Levi Montrose is a bona fide, class-A, top shelf asshole,” Ms. T says, at last. “I don’t like to speak ill of no one, but that man—if killin’ weren’t a crime, I’d have buried him under my bookstore by now.”
I can’t help but laugh, imagining the scene. “If anyone’s read enough crime novels to know how to cover up a murder, it’d be you.”
“Oh, the cops wouldn’t have a hope in all heck of findin’ out it was me, but I do have me a pesky conscience. Not so good with hidin’ guilt, so if they put me in any sort of interrogatin’ room, I’d buckle like a newborn foal on ice,” she replies, putting an arm around my shoulders and pulling me into her. “That’s why I have to tell you that there was someone back there who was mighty disappointed to see you leave without so much as a word.”
I cast her a sideways glance. “I’ll see Grace and Lyndsey tomorrow.”
