7. Jacinthe
Jacinthe
S o many people surge into the inn once the ribbon is cut that it’s at least twenty minutes before I catch sight of Maman again.
I shake more hands than I can count, doing my best to smile and act friendly even as my attention keeps drifting over to the front door while I stand in the lounge.
I swear I saw Tess out there with her.
I guess it’d make sense, considering the whole freaking town is piling into the building. What I don’t know is why the thought of Tess watching one of the biggest moments of my life is making shocks of electricity crackle up and down my arms.
I’m in the middle of accepting congratulations from the manager of Café Cloche when Maman finally joins the stream of people coming through the door.
My breath catches when I get a look at her face.
She’s wincing with every step.
“ Excusez-moi ,” I say to the manager. “I have to go talk to my mom.”
I rush over and guide her to an empty corner of the lounge next to one of the windows.
“ Maman , you’re hurting.”
She waves me off. “I’m fine, ma belle .”
“No, you’re not. It’s a bad day, isn’t it? You said you’d tell me if it was. Did you drive here?”
She shakes her head, grinning as her gaze drifts to something over my shoulder.
“No, I bummed a ride with Miss Tess.”
I whirl around, and there she is.
Again.
This woman keeps on popping up out of nowhere.
She’s got a worn pair of jeans on under a long-sleeve t-shirt that clings to her muscles. There’s a smudge of dirt on her forehead that somehow just makes her look extra rugged and tough instead of dorky.
I ignore all of that and ask, “You drove her?”
“Um, yeah.” She’s got her hands in her pockets, and she shifts her weight between her feet like she’s nervous. “It just seemed like?—”
“Thank you.” All my breath whooshes out of me, my shoulders drooping with relief. “That was, uh, nice. Really nice.”
Even the thought of Maman stuck driving and fighting through a crowd on one of her bad days is enough to make my stomach churn with guilt.
“She made the whole crowd move for us,” Maman says. “I never would have seen you cut the ribbon if it weren’t for Tess.”
She’s smiling like the sun itself shines out of Tess’s butt, which would probably piss me off any other day, but today, it just makes me grateful.
Tess shrugs. “It was nothing.”
I shake my head, a lump forming in my throat that keeps me from telling her it’s not nothing to have my mom here to see the start of the biggest project of my life.
All I can manage is, “Thank you.”
“She showed up at the house just in time,” Maman explains. Then she jolts like she’s just remembered something and turns to speak to Tess. “Oh, didn’t you want to talk to Jacinthe, chérie ? That’s why you stopped by, right?”
Tess shuffles her feet. “Oh, I—yeah.”
I tilt my head. “You want to talk to me?”
She glances around the room like she’s looking for an escape hatch.
“Uh, yeah. I do.”
I don’t know why the idea of her wanting to talk to me has those same weird electric zaps from earlier shooting up my arms and into my chest.
We stare at each other for a moment before Maman coughs.
“It’s about the back, right?” she says in a patient tone, like she’s explaining something to kindergarteners. “About renting?”
“It is, yes,” Tess says with a jerk of her chin. “Just some…questions.”
I raise an eyebrow, and Tess seems to realize how ominous that sounded.
“It’s no big deal,” she rushes to add. “I totally forgot the grand opening was today. Uh, congratulations. This place looks amazing.”
Maman claps her hands in agreement.
“ C’est magnifique ! Oh, how sweet. La maquillage .”
She points across the room, and we all turn to watch as a little boy with his face painted to look like a puppy races across the lounge, his dad shouting for him to slow down.
As he gets closer, I can’t decide if he’s supposed to be a puppy or a cow.
That’s what I get for hiring one of my cousins and paying her with free food and some beer.
“We have some stuff set up for the kids,” I explain. “Face painting. Beanbag toss. I’m doing pony rides later this afternoon.”
“Where is your daughter, Tess?” Maman asks. “She should be out here having some fun!”
“Shel is with my mom. She’s visiting us for a few days.”
That does not stop my mother.
“Invite them both!” she orders. “They’re only down in Saint-Jovite, right? Do they have a car?”
“Uh, yeah, my mom’s got hers.”
Maman wags her finger at Tess. “You call them right now, ma belle . I want to see that little cutie again.”
“Is that okay?” Tess asks me.
I shrug. “It’s an open house.”
I can feel Maman glaring at me, and I realize that came out a little blunt, even for me.
“I mean, yeah, of course,” I try again. “They should come over.”
Maman supervises Tess’s short phone call while I shake a few more hands. It’s only a couple minutes before Tess confirms they’re heading over.
“Oh look, it’s Natalie’s parents,” Maman says as Tess is hanging up. She waves at the next couple to walk through the door. “I’m going to go sit and chat.”
I watch her wander off into the crowd until I’m forced to face the reality of being alone with Tess for the first time ever.
Not that we’re really alone, but there’s something about Tess that makes it hard to process anything more than two feet away from the shimmering cloud of energy that seems to surround her like an invisible force field.
It’s probably because she’s so obnoxiously tall and muscley. She’s like a statue that’s too big for the room.
“So, you want to talk to me?” I ask.
“Yes.” She pauses as another decorated child skips past us, this one either supposed to be a shark or some kind of sea lion. “It’s not urgent, though. I definitely don’t need to interrupt your special day.”
I can’t help chuckling. “It’s not like it’s my wedding. I’m here to talk to people. If you have a question, you can ask it.”
She nods and presses her lips together. They’re shiny, like she just put Chap Stick on a few minutes ago.
I wonder if she just uses plain Chap Stick or if it’s a flavoured one.
Then I ask myself why the hell I’m wondering that.
“I just…”
Her shiny lips form the words and then press together again as she lapses into silence for a moment.
“I guess I’m just wondering…”
I’ve got to stop staring at her lips.
“Do you not like me, or something?” she asks.
That does the trick. I jerk my gaze up to her eyes and take a step back, my mouth falling open.
“Because I don’t have to take the lease,” she continues, the words tumbling out at warp speed now. “I don’t want to make you uncomfortable or mad or anything. It’s your home. I want you to feel okay about it. If I’ve done something, or said something, or?—”
“No. You haven’t.”
“Oh,” she says, her eyes flaring wide at the force in my tone. “Okay.”
I didn’t think she’d noticed how annoyed I am for no good reason whenever she shows up. I didn’t think she’d noticed much about me at all.
Yet here she is, all tensed up like she’s afraid I’m about to bite her head off just because she needs somewhere to live.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I’ve been kind of a dick.”
“Um, what?”
“I’m sorry,” I repeat. “I’ve had a lot going on, with the farm and this place and…stuff. I guess I wasn’t feeling super welcoming, but I should have been more polite to you.”
I force myself to smile, doing my best not to look like a deranged puppet as I squirm my way through the awkwardness of the moment.
“I thought maybe you hated me.”
Tess flinches like she didn’t mean to say that out loud.
“I don’t hate you.”
I say it just a little too quietly, quiet enough that she has to lean in closer to hear.
Her lips really are ridiculously shiny. I don’t know how anyone in the room is looking at anything else.
“Jacinthe, can you check if the—oh.”
I spring away from Tess like a searchlight just beamed down on us, but it’s only Natalie tapping me on the shoulder.
I crank my neck around to glance at her behind me. She’s staring straight at Tess with the kind of grin that can only mean bad news for me.
“Who’s this?” she asks.
I should probably say something, but my heart is pounding so fast from Natalie’s sneak attack that all I can do is clutch my chest.
When it’s clear I’m not jumping in, Tess lifts her hand in a nonchalant wave. She’s slipped right back into that easy, commanding swagger.
“I’m Tess.”
Natalie steps around me and sticks her hand out for a shake.
“Natalie. I don’t think I’ve seen you around before?”
Anybody else would think Natalie is being nothing but friendly, but there’s a sickly sweet edge to her voice my ears are trained to pick up on. It means she’s about to fuck with me.
“I’m new to the area,” Tess tells her. “I just took over a farrier business.”
Natalie lets out a delighted gasp, like an evil Disney villain.
“Oh my god, you’re the hot farrier!”
I squeak.
I literally squeak .
Then I jam my elbow into her rib cage. She lets out a satisfying oof .
“Excuse me,” she says, clutching her side. “I meant to say Jacinthe has told us so much about you.”
I make a mental addition to my calendar:
2AM: break into Natalie’s apartment and smother her with a pillow in her sleep.
“Wow, it’s really nice to meet you,” she gushes, ignoring the threat of another elbow jab. “I should get Brooke and Maddie to come say hi. They would love to meet you too.”
She starts to step away, but I catch her by the wrist. I have to take action before she calls in back-up.
“That’s fine,” I grit out through a clenched jaw. “We’ll see them around.”
Natalie slips her wrist out of my grip with some kind of subtle ninja maneuver.
“No, no, no. Let me go find them. They need to see?—”
“We’re busy ,” I hiss.
Natalie raises an eyebrow. “You are?”
I scramble for an excuse that will get us both out of here.
“I’m, ah, giving Tess a tour.”
Natalie blinks and then shoots me another evil grin that has me considering moving her smothering appointment to earlier in the night.