Summer on Mirror Lake

by JoAnn Ross

  “Of course I knew she was growing older. But she’d always been so strong,” Bastien said. “I’d call her every Sunday, from wherever I was, timing the call between when she got home from early mass and before she opened the restaurant for the after-church crowd. Not once had she so much as hinted that she had a heart condition. I learned about that from your father, who, like I said, tracked me down in Paris, where I was living in the Oberkampf—”

  “Where, despite making a good enough living to live in one of the pricier arrondissements, you preferred to hang out with musicians.”

  “That would only be natural since I am a musician,” he said. Although he only played in public occasionally these days. “The only time I ever was comfortable with pricey things was when I wanted to show off for you. Rather than take you to my very plain room with a cranky old landlady who watched with an eagle eye for me to bring home a woman, or a man, if I were so inclined, both of which were against my rental agreement, I splurged and booked that hotel room.”

  The color in her cheeks and the way her eyes turned a little dreamy told him that he wasn’t the only one who had bittersweet memories of that twenty-four hours they’d spent together.

  “At any rate, Augustin told me that the restaurant was wearing her heart out, but she refused to sell. She insisted that she’d keep working until they put her in a box. Which was exactly what she did until last month, two years after I came home to help her run it. In truth, at the end, she spent her last six months sitting in a chair, bossing me around her kitchen as if I were a mere line cook, but despite her failing health, we passed a good time together, her and me.”

  “I’m so sorry.” She reached out and touched the bare skin beneath his rolled-up sleeve, warming Bastien all the way to the bone. “But at least you had that special time together.”

  “True. It’s a debt I owe to your father. Have you ever thought what a coincidence it was that we both grew up so many years with our grandmothers taking on our mothers’ roles? I’ve often wondered if that was another reason why we connected.”

  “But I never knew my mother, so I suspect that was easier for me. And my father was always there.” Unlike either of his parents.

  “Grand-mère’s passing put a lot of things in motion. I’d already hired my cousin Octave as a sous chef. She left the restaurant to me, so, after staying a few months to make sure he could handle it, I sold it to Octave, whose wife is having their second child this fall. And voilà.” He lifted his hands. “Here I am.”

  “Why?” Desiree asked again.

  “To see you, cher.”

  “And do you have plans beyond that?”

  “Bien sur. I’m opening a restaurant. I checked this town out online and it’s definitely lacking in dining choices. So I decided it would be a perfect location to open a Cajun café.”

  She tilted her head, and put her hands on her hips. “You’re opening a restaurant here? In Honeymoon Harbor?”

  “I am. I find the name prophetic. I saw a couple getting married in that pretty little gazebo as I drove by. What would you think of us exchanging our vows there? Or would you prefer being married in New Orleans, where your father can walk you down the aisle in the same cathedral where you received your First Communion and confirmation?”

  “I’m certainly not going to marry you.”

  “Of course you are,” he said easily. “Because we’re soul mates. But don’t worry, I’ll give you all the time you need to get used to the idea.”

  “You gave me that soul mate line that day you asked me to join your band. After you’d heard me sing.”

  “It wasn’t a line then. And it isn’t now. It’s the God’s own truth. And while I’m being truthful, here’s another fact for you. I wouldn’t have cared if you could sing or not. I just wanted an excuse to be with you every day. That, by the way, has not changed.”

  “You’re out of your crazy Cajun mind.”

  “Over you,” he agreed. “And here’s the best part.”

  She folded her arms over her white apron with Ovenly written in pretty script on the bib part. “I can’t wait to hear it.”

  “I’m opening up that café in the space next to your boulangerie. Which will make us neighbors.”

  “You are not.” Her remarkable eyes were now shooting flaming daggers. “That space only became open last week and I’m expanding Ovenly into it.”

  “Have you signed a lease?”

  “No, but—”

  He flashed her his most sincere smile. The one that had usually charmed Sister Mary Constance out of assigning him to detention.

  “I’m sure a compromise can be worked out. But why don’t we discuss that later, cher?” He glanced down at his watch. “We’re running out of rehearsal time and you wouldn’t want to disappoint the brides.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  WHILE DESIREE AND BASTIEN were going through the song choice list Brianna had given them, editing it to take out a few that they felt had been overdone and adding others, two of the bedrooms were a hive of activity. Gloria Wells, owner of Thairapy Salon, was styling the bridal party’s hair, as well as that of many of Mai’s family members who’d flown in from Hawaii for the occasion. In the other bedroom, Gloria’s daughter, Jolene, who’d arrived the previous day from Los Angeles, was using her pots, pencils and powders to create her own kind of magic.

  “I love it that you kept me looking like myself,” Kylee Campbell said, closing her eyes as instructed while Jolene spritzed the rose water setting spray on her face. “But so much better! We need to add credits at the end of the wedding video. Just like in the movies!” She held up her hands as if framing it on a screen. “Makeup by award-winning Jolene Wells!”

  “Being nominated is a long way from winning. It’s a long time until the awards ceremony in September.”

  “But there were so many TV movies and series made last year,” Kylee said. “And you ended up making the top tier! I’d vote for you to win in a heartbeat.”

  “Me, too,” Mai, her fiancée and about-to-be wife, said. “Besides, how many more Tudor-period TV series does the world need? There is no competition.”

  And wasn’t that exactly what Jolene had thought when she’d seen the list? “I love you,” she told Mai. “You, too,” she assured Kylee.

  “Love is all around!” Kylee, who seemed to be talking in exclamation marks today, said.

  “We probably should have credits,” Mai seconded Kylee’s suggestion. “How many people have not only a famous makeup artist, but also a three-time award-winning singer at their wedding? I can’t imagine how you pulled that off,” she told Brianna, who’d arrived to get her makeup done for her role as maid of honor.

  “Bastien Broussard fell into my lap,” Brianna said. “Actually into your kitchen. It turns out he’s an old friend of Desiree’s who’s in town to visit her. From New Orleans, by way of Paris.”

  “I love Paris,” Kylee said with a sigh. “I once dreamed of living there, in some little attic apartment on the Left Bank.”

  “You’d definitely fit in with all the other artists and bohemians,” Brianna agreed.

  “I would have back then. But I don’t regret a thing. Because if I had settled in Paris, I might not have met Mai, and we wouldn’t have Clara.” She laughed. “Of all the ways I imagined my life turning out while I was growing up, I never, in a million years, would’ve guessed I’d be happy as a typical suburban mom.”

  “In the first place, this cottage is not in the burbs. Honeymoon Harbor doesn’t even have suburbs. And you’ll never, ever, be typical. You still do beautifully creative photography, so it isn’t as if you’ve been completely domesticated.”

  “That would certainly be true,” Mai said as she left the room with Kylee to get their hair styled, then be helped into their gowns.

  “You’re my next victim,” Jolene said, turning to Brianna. “Not
that you need much work. Fortunately, not everyone has your perfect skin, or I’d never get my makeup line launched.”

  “I’ve been using the night cream I bought from your mom at the salon. And the day cream with the sunscreen,” Brianna said. “They’re so light, I can’t even feel them on my skin. When you do launch it, it’s going to be a smashing success.”

  “From your mouth to God’s ear,” Jolene said as she spritzed a lavender rosemary toner on Brianna’s face. “This will keep your skin hydrated when you’re spending so much time in the sun,” she said. “The lavender is mostly to relax you. You’ve been running around like the Energizer Bunny all day.”

  “I want Kylee and Mai’s day to be perfect. As maid of honor, it’s my responsibility to make it happen.”

  “It’ll be wonderful. Beautiful. And as perfect as everything you always do.”

  If Brianna hadn’t been so nice to her during those high school bullying days, Jolene could have been jealous of her ability to multitask seemingly a gazillion things at once without so much as having a honey-blond hair slip out of place. She began smoothing a moisturizer on her face. “And even if you messed everything up, Kylee’s so high up in the gilded happy clouds, I don’t think she’d even notice.”

  “She’s definitely dialed her usual enthusiasm level up to eleven,” Brianna agreed.

  Jolene dabbed on a bit of foundation. “I don’t want to gossip, but is Amanda Barrow always so quiet?”

  “She’s not the chattiest person in the world, but then again, I’m usually not, either, so I’ve never noticed. But now that you mention it, she might be a bit more subdued today. Why?”

  “She had what looked like the last stage of a bruise on her right cheek. And it was a little swollen, like a bruise tends to be. So, not wanting to bring it up, since we don’t know each other at all, I massaged her face, to help break up the blood, with Arnica gel. It’s a homeopathic herb that I’ve found works very well with bruises after face lasering.”

  “Ouch.” Brianna’s hands lifted to her own cheeks. “I can’t imagine doing that.”

  “You’re not in a business that requires women to remain forever young,” Jolene said.

  “Thank God. My problem used to be just the opposite. I was young enough that sometimes it was hard to be taken seriously. Especially by older wealthy men who were used to more staid, gray-haired butler types.”

  “You were young, blonde and pretty. Like nearly every other woman, you’ve undoubtedly encountered your share of unwanted male attention.”

  “And isn’t that a polite way to put it,” Brianna said, confirming Jolene’s statement. “Getting back to Amanda—who, by the way, created a fairyland out in that garden—she’s a landscaper. Although she has a crew, while she was doing the work on Herons Landing, I watched her carrying big rocks around and planting trees and shrubs. I suppose bruises could be part of that.”

  “Makes sense,” Jolene agreed. “So, I noticed your brother arrived a while ago,” Jolene casually commented.

  “Seth came because his mom’s officiating. I sort of coerced Aiden to come to catch up with him. He’s been staying at the coast house for a few weeks.”

  “Really?” Jolene was proud of how her voice showed none of the nerves that had been tangling ever since she caught sight of the one man she’d rather never see again, talking with Seth and Caroline Harper in the back garden. “Is he on vacation?”

  “More like decompressing. He recently came back from Los Angeles—”

  “Aiden’s been in LA?” What would she have done if she’d known? And the second question: Had he known she was living there?

  True, she didn’t have her face on a billboard on Sunset Boulevard, but the announcement of the award nomination was listed in the Los Angeles Times, LA Weekly, Los Angeles Magazine and Variety. And other papers she hadn’t even known about until she’d discovered her mother had gone online, downloading and printing out every mention of the nomination she could find. Jolene made a note never to go to a movie she’d worked on with her mother. Gloria would probably take a photo of the screen when her name appeared. Way, way down toward the end, after nearly everyone had left the theater.

  “Aiden joined the LAPD right out of the Marines. He started in SWAT, then moved to different departments. Funny, I was so caught in my own career at the time, I didn’t make the connection about both of you being there. I guess you never ran across one another?”

  Jolene shrugged. “It’s a big city. The odds would have been against it.”

  “I imagine that’s so,” Brianna said. “Las Vegas wasn’t nearly as large, but I know how we all run in our own worlds and spaces. But now you’ll have an opportunity to catch up.”

  Fortunately, Brianna went on to talk about how wonderful Mai’s family was, most of whom were staying at Herons Landing, which saved Jolene from responding.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “YOU CAN’T DENY that we still blend together perfectly,” Bastien said after he and Desiree had sung for thirty minutes.

  “Our voices,” she qualified. “Though you never sang all that often when we were a four-person band.”

  “We put you in the front because you were the prettiest,” he said. He glanced out the doors again at the gathering guests. “I’m going to run out and see if any one of those guys in the Hawaiian shirts happened to have brought a uke. That’d be cool if we could sing the ‘Hawaiian Wedding Song’ to that.”

  “I doubt they’d have it here at the house, even if they’d brought it on the plane.”

  “True. But this is a small town, so wherever they’re staying can’t be that far away.”

  “They’re all either at Brianna’s bed-and-breakfast or the Lighthouse View Hotel. Neither of which are very far away.”

  “I thought Brianna Mannion was a wedding planner.”

  “She’s helping out today. The brides recently adopted a baby, so their lives got too busy to take care of details, which was when Brianna stepped in. She used to be a concierge for the mega-rich at some of the best hotels in the country, then decided to slow her life down and come back home from Las Vegas. To make a long and somewhat winding story short, she and the contractor helping to restore the Victorian house she was renovating are now engaged.”

  “Long and winding stories that end up happily are my favorite,” he said.

  She refused to fall into that conversation snare. Their own road might have been long and winding, but she wasn’t going to allow her heart to tumble again. She’d done the right thing breaking up with Bastien. She’d have to remember all the reasons why leaving had been for the best. And why their lives were still not compatible.

  “I mostly know the melody to the ‘Hawaiian Wedding Song,’” she said. “Enough to keep up if I knew the words. Which I don’t. And I really can’t wait for you to try to track down a ukulele. I have to go change into the dress I’m wearing to the wedding. Jolene, a Hollywood makeup artist, insists on doing my makeup along with all the other women’s. She’s the daughter of Gloria, who runs the salon and is in charge of hair today.”

  “It’s going to take me some time to catch up on all the small-town connections,” he said, as if he was actually going to be staying here in Honeymoon Harbor. He wouldn’t last a month. “You’re gorgeous just the way you are,” he said, unaware of her thoughts, “but you should have time to go online and check it out while she fancies you up. You always were the quickest of us to memorize lyrics.” He flashed her another of those damn cocky grins, then went off in search of a ukulele.

  Shaking her head, she went off to get “fancied” up. Since baking in a hot kitchen could melt off makeup, it had been years since she’d worn anything but a bit of moisturizer. When Gloria Wells had started selling her daughter’s organic products at Thairapy, she’d fallen in love with the light and smooth lotion.

  “Well,” Jolene said, as Desiree sat
down in the chair in front of the dressing table. “I’ve been gilding a lot of gorgeous lilies today. But it’s still fun.”

  “Other than a bit of lipstick and sometimes a touch of powder for New Orleans humidity, I haven’t worn makeup since I used to sing, which was years ago,” Desiree said.

  “Brianna told me you were in a rock band.” Jolene swept a moisturizer over her face, then followed up with a light-as-air primer. “That must have been fun.”

  “It was blues rock. And it had its moments.” Desiree smiled for the first time since Bastien had appeared in the kitchen. “Who am I kidding? It was fun. For a few years. Then I decided it was probably time to grow up and get a job where I could earn a living down the road. The music business, like Hollywood, was and still is extremely sexist. Not every woman can have a career for as long as Cher or Carly Simon.”

  “I suppose you can probably do makeup as well as I do.”

  “Stage makeup is different,” she said. “As you probably know from working in Hollywood. The bright lights take more. I layered it on with a trowel.”

  “You’re striking enough to get away with going over the top.” Jolene stood back and studied her. “Your eyes hold such a wonderful element of surprise when contrasted with your skin. What would you say to a smoky cat eye with some glitter?”

  “That it might be a bit much for an afternoon garden wedding.”

  “True.” Jolene sighed. “But it’d be fabulous. If I weren’t leaving after the wedding to Ireland for a shoot, I’d want to really get creative with you so Kylee could take your portrait. But for today, we’ll skip the cat eyes and glitter and just go with a bit of smoke.”

  As she got busy with her artistry gathering up her brushes and colors, Desiree went online and looked up the lyrics for the song. Which, fortunately, were short and simple. And perfect.