Jewell (A Second Chance Novel Book 2)

by Tina DeSalvo

  “I’m a plantation girl,” Mimi said easily, having all of the Bienvenus turning their heads, giving her their full attention.

  “I thought you were from France,” Ruby stated as if it was fact. “At least that’s what I heard from some people who heard you and Jewell speaking French to one another at the Simoneauxs’ garage sale.” Ruby sighed. “I guess Ann got her information wrong.” She looked at Steve pointedly, then took a bite of her sandwich. He smiled, then took a bite of his sandwich, too.

  “I was at a garage sale?” Mimi asked Jewell. “Did I buy anything?”

  “You got your rings there, and it wasn’t a garage sale,” she corrected. “It was an estate sale.”

  “Was it at my plantation?” Mimi asked.

  “Which plantation are you from, Mignon?” Beau asked, his light eyes steady on Mimi. Of course, this moment would not slip by Beauregard Bienvenu, Jewell realized. He said he was like a dog with a bone. Her heart began to pound fast and hard in her chest and her ears. Before she could do anything to interrupt or stop her grand-mère from making the biggest mistake of her aging life, Mimi smiled and waved her hand like a queen would wave her scepter. The regal wave was directed at the big beautiful plantation to their right.

  “Sugar Mill—c'est ma maison.”

  “Sugar Mill?” Tante Izzy gasped, standing. “You is saying Sugar Mill is you home? Oh, alors pas. You confused. You live in dat camper trailer. You must have dat old-timer’s.”

  Mimi shook her head. “No. I have dementia.” She looked at Jewell for confirmation.

  Jewell nodded sadly, searching for the right words to interject that wouldn’t irrevocably hurt Mimi’s spirit and soul. The first time she claimed to be home after the Saints game, no one challenged her. Her words had just passed by. Now, she wasn’t so lucky. What could Jewell say now that would change the course of what Mimi had so innocently set in motion from what she honestly believed…What Jewell wasn’t sure she believed but would never tell Mimi. Besides protecting her, explaining what her grand-mère was speaking of would have other repercussions. There would be unemployment. Eviction. Financial worries. And there would be unfulfilled dreams for Mimi.

  Jewell wouldn’t allow that.

  She stood next to Mimi, grasped her hand in hers and looked at each of the Bienvenus one at a time. No one said a word. They were waiting for her to explain what Mimi had meant claiming Sugar Mill was her home.

  “Mimi believes she once lived here at Sugar Mill plantation,” Jewell stated, purposely not offering Mimi’s dementia and confusion as an excuse to negate her grand-mère’s beliefs. She wouldn’t embarrass her grandmother in front of these people she seemed to like. Not in front of anyone.

  “Mon Dieu. It sure sounds like da old-timer’s to me.” Tante Izzy walked to stand directly in front of Beau, leaning her head far back to look into his eyes. “Da half of my friends dat aren’t dead talk nonsense like dis. Da other half dat ain’t got da old-timer’s, forget where dey live most times I’m driving dem home. And the other half don’t remember dere chil'ren’s names.” She glanced at Jewell a moment and asked her in Cajun French if she believed what her grand-mère was telling her.

  Jewell swallowed hard past the lump in her throat. Mimi was staring at her. The hope and need in her cloudy eyes for her granddaughter to believe her was clear. Jewell felt it like a vise around her heart. “I do.” She told her in French. Then, she spoke to Beau in English. “Can I have a word in private with you, Beau?”

  “Oh, crap,” Steve told Ruby. “I hope this isn’t going to be one of those never to be shared attorney-client privilege conversations.”

  Ruby had her phone in her hand, poised to make a call. “Me, too.” She narrowed her eyes at Steve. “Let’s make a pact. Let’s keep each other informed on whatever we find out about Mignon’s claim on Sugar Mill.”

  Steve shook hands with Ruby. “Absolutely, cuz.”

  Tante Izzy walked over on thin but strong legs and smacked Steve in the back of the head at the same time she dug her fingers in the fleshy part of Ruby’s arm.

  “Oo yi yi!” they complained at the same time.

  “You two sound like school chil'ren. So, I’ll treat you dat way.” Tante Izzy scolded. “Dis is family business. Don’t y’all forget it. It’s personal. We stick togedder. Nobody is goin’ to say nuttin’, you hear me?”

  “Yes, Ma’am,” Ruby and Steve said at the same time, guilt lowering their voices.

  “I’m sorry, Tante Izzy.” Ruby sighed. “I would never disrespect or be disloyal to the family.”

  “Damn right you won’t.”

  ***

  Jewell walked in silence with Beau to the front steps of the plantation. He suggested that would be the best place for them to talk so no one could hear them or interpret their body language. In the three-minute walk there, she quickly assessed what her goals needed to be.

  Right now, she knew she’d have to focus on just a couple of things. First she’d finish the job she was hired to do because she needed the money, she had to repair her damaged work reputation, and she owed it to Elli, who was counting on her. Secondly, she needed to stay around Cane and Sugar Mill Planation to search documents and records to find out if Mimi’s claims were true that this plantation or another one had once been her home. Thirdly, and this had been what had driven her to come to Cane in the first place, she had to see if her grand-mère had a sister called Twinnie who was still alive. She hadn’t yet figured out how to accomplish those goals, however. She’d have to trust her decision-making skills and her ability to focus.

  “Okay. You have my undivided attention,” Beau said, as they reached the front of the plantation. Jewell looked out in front of them where the live oaks and cypresses created a wide esplanade from the bayou side to the formal entrance of the plantation. This was how guests would have arrived for balls and social events, by horse drawn carriages.

  Jewell exhaled and looked up into thick limbs extending their arms overhead to create a canopy of dark green leaves and wiry gray moss. The fall didn’t bring the dramatic colors of a changing season in south Louisiana, but it did bring a darker, richer hue.

  “It’s so beautiful here,” she said, turning to face Beau who was sitting on the third step leading to the grand galerie of the Acadian style plantation. He rested his forearms on his knees.

  “Yes, indeed. It is,” he agreed, looking toward the bayou. Jewel nodded. “It helps to have our conversation in this peaceful, special place.” She inhaled deeply, taking in the earthy scents of moist soil, healthy foliage, fallen leaves and nature. “Thank you for speaking with me in private.”

  She sat on the step just above him, so she was closer to eye level with him. He slid to the same step she was on. He didn’t like being in the inferior position. Fine. That was okay. She could understand that. Jewell stood.

  “I ask that you to listen to what I have to say, Beau. Don’t cast judgment as judge and jury. Please keep an open mind.”

  He nodded.

  “I'm here to work for Elli and Ben.” She looked at him, expecting to see an eye roll or some expression that said he didn’t believe her statement. She was pleased that there was none. The fact that he maintained a poker face gave her marginal relief. “I need this job. I want to do a good job for them. A great job, really. That’s my primary reason for being here.”

  Jewell swallowed past the nerves. She wiped her wet palms on her jeans, then moved down a step so Beau wouldn’t see that her legs were unsteady.

  “It was when we arrived for the job that Mimi announced to me that this was her home.” Now, here would come the eye roll for sure, she thought. She waited for it, but it still didn’t come. He leaned back onto his elbows.

  “Go on.”

  “There were hints before then. More like statements and claims really. They were disjointed. Odd. Even for her slipping mental abilities. It didn’t make sense to me.”

  “What kind of things did she say?” he asked, keeping his eyes
steady on her.

  “Well, she first started talking about someone named Twinnie. She didn’t mention any plantation at that time.” Jewell took in a deep breath, remembering the first time she spoke of Twinnie while they were enjoying an evening meal on their front porch. That evening she had only mentioned how they’d hide their peas in their sleeves at the dinner table and feed them to the pigs afterwards. “She would often just talk about how she missed her.”

  “How long ago did she start speaking of Twinnie and the plantation?” Beau asked, bringing her back to focus on what needed to be said. What needed to be accomplished.

  “A few months back.” She shook her head and brushed away a few blades of grass that stuck to her rubber boot. “It was so odd to hear the stories at first. I didn’t believe her.” She looked at him. “I’m not sure I believe her now. But, the footstool…” She sighed. “This was my grand-mère telling me these strange things. She was the one who had always told me stories of her growing up in a convent in New Orleans with her mother, Adelise, after they had arrived in New Orleans from Lisieux, France.”

  “How old was Mignon when she said she came to America?”

  “Eight months old.” She said, not really liking the way he worded his question. Jewell all but heard the word “allegedly” thrown in there.

  Beau bit his lower lip as he thought about that. “Where was her father?”

  “Her father, Jean Duet, had died in transit from a shipboard illness.” Jewell didn’t like this tit-for-tat slow Q&A thing they were doing. She didn’t have the nerves or patience for it. So she didn’t wait for his next question to tell him what she knew. “I looked for a record of his death. I couldn’t find any. I did find his birth, baptismal and confirmation records in a small Catholic church just outside of Lisieux.”

  “So the man, Jean Duet, did exist?”

  Jewell nodded. “I didn’t find their matrimonial certificate anywhere nor did I find his name on any ship’s manifest.” She extended her legs in front of her and crossed her boots at her ankles. “Not finding the documents doesn’t mean they don’t exist, though. I may not have looked in the right place. Yet.” She shrugged. “Or it could mean they were destroyed in a fire, or boxed in some obscure place. All I know is that Mimi had said her parents had eloped and moved to a port city where they worked until they raised the fare for their passage.”

  “Did you ever meet your great-grandmother? Hear this story directly from her?”

  “No.” Jewell shook her head. “Mimi had my mother late in life…in her early forties. By the time I was born, Adelise was deceased. She had died in a traffic accident. She was in her seventies. I have a few framed photos of her with Mimi in my home. One was taken on the docks in France when she was departing for America. She’s holding Mimi in her arms. Two suitcases were near their feet.” She smiled. “Adelise was beautiful.”

  “I imagine she was,” he said, smiling for the first time. “Do you look like her?”

  She shook her head. “Not at all. She was petite. Light eyes.” She smiled. “I may have her dark hair and nose.” She touched her nose with the tip of her finger and shrugged.

  “I look like my father. Except for this. This is all Momma.” He tapped the tip of his straight nose.

  She laughed softly. “We wear our history.” She looked down the tree-lined esplanade to where a blue heron had just landed along the bayou’s edge near a white A-frame swing. “You know, talking about other people’s history was how I spent most of my day at the university.” She shook her head. “Sharing my personal family history feels odd. This is uncomfortable and difficult.”

  “You asked to speak to me,” he said, his tone even.

  “Don’t misunderstand me. I’ll tell you what I know.” She had to. She knew that Elli and Ben trusted Beau to advise them. For him to believe her motives and not recommend that Elli and Ben fire her, he’d have to hear Mimi’s entire history.

  “You were telling me about Jean Duet,” he prompted.

  “Yes. Well, because I was unable to locate a ship’s name, I had no further leads to help locate Jean Duet’s grave. I tried other ways to find it.”

  “What did your great-grandmother say about where her husband was buried?”

  “Mimi always told me that her mother had told her that Jean Duet had been buried with the thousands of other poor souls who didn’t make the long arduous journey. He’d been buried in a paupers’ cemetery along the Mississippi River somewhere. I tried to find it, but…” she shrugged. “There were a few religious men who tried to mark the lives of the dead with graves, but…” she shrugged again and sighed, “nothing.”

  Beau put his hand on her shoulder and squeezed. He did it easily. Automatically. She could see by the furrow in his brow that the story touched him. She imagined in his work as a small town lawyer, he heard many sad and tragic stories that would tear at a person’s heart. He cared. She’d seen it with the way he hugged Tante Izzy, with the way he’d warned her not to harm his family. How did a man who cared about others manage to deal with the realities of the awful parts of the world that ripped into his work?

  Jewell touched his arm briefly as a sign of understanding, then dropped her hand to her lap.

  “Oh, hell.” He frowned, his head dropped forward. “I can’t like you, Jewell. I can’t be softened by how nice you appear. By the way you care for your grandmother.” He turned his head to look at her. “I can’t.”

  “We don’t have to be enemies, Beau.”

  “Friends?” He blew out a breath. “Merde.” He cursed again in Cajun French. “We can only be adversaries, Boots. I have to protect my family. I can’t make any mistakes where they’re concerned.” He shook his head. “No. We definitely can’t be friends. Friends need to trust one another.”

  He looked at her; his rich green eyes looked so honest, so vulnerable and yet, so determined. It frightened her. He frightened her. How he made her feel when he looked at her frightened her.

  “You will not blindside me because I want to believe you,” he said, his voice strong, determined. “Hell, I do want to believe you, but I don’t. God, that would make life a lot less problematic. You weave a good tale, chère. I’ll give you that.”

  His words stung. Bruised her pride. Yet, she wouldn’t let her personal feelings detour her mission. She was fighting for Mimi—the dear woman whom Jewell shared nearly every part of her history with, the woman who heartbreakingly would soon not remember her, or that history. That thought was impossible enough to deal with every day. She didn’t need to add any useless emotions to the mix.

  “I’ve asked you not to judge me hastily, Beau,” she began, her voice firm, confident. “You haven’t heard the entire story that got us to this conversation. I trusted that you’d be fair minded.” She paused, waited for him to acknowledge he understood what she was saying.

  He nodded. “I’m sorry. You’re right. I’m listening.”

  A rush of gratitude swept over her. He was going to be decent, civil and maybe even with a little luck, just. She stood and moved in front of the steps. She needed distance from him. She didn’t want her appreciation of his cooperation, her respect for his kindness and her empathy for his defense of his family to keep her from fulfilling her promise to Mimi. The bottom line was–he had openly told her he didn’t believe her. That was a tall hurdle to clear.

  “So, I had the family story that was told to me my entire life,” she began, facing him with her arms folded over her chest. “I had no verification that my grandfather came over by ship from France and was buried in a riverside pauper’s grave. My grand-mère had a few dear friends, cloistered nuns at the St. Therese Monastery, who verified she and her mother were seamstresses there and lived at the convent for many years.”

  She reached up and refastened the elastic that had slipped to the end of her ponytail.

  “Fast forward to a few months ago,” she continued. “Now I have my grand-mère who has advancing dementia starting to claim that she spe
nt her childhood on a wonderful Louisiana plantation with Twinnie.” She put her hands on her hips. “Twins? Sisters who look like twins? What’s their relationship? Or, has her dementia confused real life with a movie scene that she may have seen at some point in her life? You know, the long-term memory is usually better than the short term. Does Twinnie represent that long-term memory or a confused memory?” She threw up her hands. “I just don’t know. But I owe it to Mimi to find out. She deserves to find her sister, friend, whoever she is, while she has the ability to recognize and enjoy her. While she’s present enough in this world to understand. Soon, she might not remember. She’s already had a few episodes where she didn’t even remember the person she raised as her very own child…me.” Jewell’s voice caught. A heavy lump formed in her throat. “She’s already forgetting me.”

  Beau was on his feet, reaching for her, drawing her up and into his embrace before she took her next breath.

  “Don’t. Don’t be so nice. I can’t take it. I can’t accept it. Especially when you were just my adversary a few minutes ago saying you don’t trust me. Don’t be nice to me, Beau.”

  “I’m still your adversary.” He rubbed her back with his strong wide palm. “This is just…damn, I don’t know what the hell this is. Shhh. I know it doesn’t make any sense. Just give us a few moments here. Okay?”

  He pulled her tighter against him. He smelled so good. His body felt warm. Safe. She no longer felt like she was on the blasted ledge alone in a Cat 5 hurricane. He had her. No matter how much he distrusted or disliked her, he wouldn’t let her fall into the bottomless, scary, lonely cyclone. A tear slipped down her cheek. At least, for this moment, she was safe. In the next, he’d probably release her and let her plunge to protect his family.

  She gripped the tight, thick muscles of his shoulders. She knew her fingers would leave marks where they held, but she couldn’t ease away. She couldn’t stop the tears either. They embarrassed her, but she didn’t have the strength to let go, turn away. Stand on her own. Just a few moments, he’d said. She sucked in a breath. God, it was so hard to breathe.