by Tina DeSalvo
Jewell couldn’t claim to be angry or disappointed that she didn’t say hello to Mimi. She hadn’t expected anything more from her than that. She was just grateful that Mimi didn’t seem to notice or care.
“We’ll talk about this later,” Beau told her, calling Jackson back to the defense table as Claude Monroe’s attorney approached them. Jewell sat down.
“Dr. Duet, I hope you’re happy now,” Ralph Bergeron said, his voice angry, but in hushed tones. He glanced at his boss Claude Monroe and Monroe’s attorney who were huddled with the prosecutors.
Beau immediately moved to stand closer to Jewell, placing himself in a defensive position next to Ralph. She knew he’d protect her from this man who looked angry enough to spit nails.
“The only good thing to come of this disgusting episode in the honorable Monroe family history,” Ralph continued, “is that the not-so-dear-Genevieve is rolling over in her grave, knowing her son’s bastard child with the most famous stripper in New Orleans will inherit half of the Monroe fortune.” He laughed, but it sounded more like a snicker. “It’s just what the bitch deserves.”
“I thought you were loyal to the family,” Beau said. “What are you not telling us, Ralph?”
He looked genuinely shocked by his question. His eyes widened. “Nothing.” He turned and rushed out of the courtroom.
“That was odd,” Jackson said. “I think that there is much more to that man’s story with the Monroes than we know.”
“There is,” Claude said, walking up to the table, scratching the peach fuzz on his chin. “My grandmother told him he’d be included in her will. He was not.” He shrugged. “She didn’t have a will. She didn’t think she needed one since I was the only heir…or so she thought.” He looked at Jewell. There was no resentment or ill intent in his expression. There was no warmth either. “She left him nothing after forty years of employment. No retirement, pension or bonus. He’s bitter. He feels betrayed.”
“I’m sorry for that,” Jewell offered.
“Don’t be.” Claude absently thumbed through some papers on the table without looking at them. Jackson moved them and placed them inside a folder. Claude stuffed his hands in his pockets. “I think it’s possible that Ralph stole the jewelry. He’s said a few things over the last few weeks that make me think that might be true, especially now with this…” He pointed to the prosecution table. “I’m hiring a private investigator to see what he can find out.”
“Good idea,” Beau said, leaning against the table. “I’ve wondered why Jewell would’ve been hired, with her connection to the Monroes. Ralph had to know about it since he intimately worked for the family for so long.”
“I think he wanted revenge against my grandmother,” Claude said. “Again, that’s from comments he’s made. It’s possible Ralph was hoping Jewell would blackmail me.”
“He was with me in the office for most of the day the jewelry went missing,” Jewell said, thinking about how oddly he’d acted just hanging around being creepy. “He had opportunity to take it, but I guess he always had opportunity as the trusted business manager. So why now and not another time?”
“Crime of opportunity, I suspect,” Claude said. “He said he saw you rush out of the office like you’d seen a ghost. He let the security guard go home afterwards. Ralph could’ve easily gone back in and taken the jewelry.”
“Innocent until proven guilty,” Jewell warned them.
Beau looked at her and smiled. Then he turned to Claude. “The judge hinted there was more to why you all wanted to have a gag order for this case.”
Claude nodded. “We told you about the security concerns and keeping our personal wealth private,” he answered Beau. “Also, we may have to sell off some of our investments to pay the estate taxes. It will be better not to let potential buyers know how desperate we are. Simple economics.” He looked at Jewell. “Um, if you have a free afternoon, maybe we can have coffee sometime. You know, might be kind of cool to have a sister.”
She stood and walked up to him. She extended her hand to shake his and changed her mind. She hugged him. “I’d like that.”
He smiled, looking timid and kind. “Oh, and Jewell. I’ve dropped the charges.”
A few minutes later, the judge came back to the bench and announced that the case was dismissed. The Bienvenu clan stood and cheered.
After Jewell hugged and thanked all of the Bienvenus who’d come to support her, she walked up to her Mimi and squeezed her hands. “It’s over, Mimi,” she said speaking French, her voice unsteady with emotion. “No one can separate us now. It’s you and me, together. You won’t be alone.” Jewell wiped away the tears on her cheek as she looked into her grand-mère ’s pale blue eyes.
“I have you, but who do you have, ma sucrée?’’ Mimi murmured also speaking French. Her voice just above a whisper. “You need more than me.”
She shook her head. “I’m happy that we have each other.” Jewell kissed her gently on top of the head. “I’m blessed. Now, let me gather my things and we can go home.”
Jewell brought Mimi to the defendant’s table and helped her sit in the chair behind it. Then she retrieved her books and binder. Beau was in front of the table talking to Jackson about the paper work they needed to complete.
“Congratulations, Jewell,” Jackson said, shaking her hand once he and Beau finished speaking. “And I’m pleased to meet you.”
“I’m happy to meet you, too. Thank you for your help, Jackson. I really appreciate it.”
He nodded. “It was all Beau’s doing. He had me run to your momma’s club to find her and gather the documents. He did the rest.”
Jewell introduced him to Mimi and he spoke to her a few moments. She smiled at him, and told him that he looked just like a man she once knew named Mr. Knucklehead. To Jackson’s credit, he took her statement in stride, albeit with a huge grin on his face.
Jewell knew she had to thank Beau. It was crazy that her stomach was in knots and her heart was racing just thinking about doing it. She was so grateful to him. But she knew thanking him wasn’t what was really upsetting her. That would be easy. Saying good-bye again would be hard.
She extended her hand to him. “Thank you, Beau. For everything.” He looked at her hand and frowned. She swallowed past the nerves, the emotion. “I would be in jail right now if it wasn’t for you.” She forced a smile. “I owe you the damages for wrecking your car and now for my legal fees.”
Beau grabbed her by the shoulder, then let her go. “Damn it, Jewell. You don’t get it, do you?” He stuffed the folders into his briefcase and dropped it on the ground. “I don’t want you to owe me. I just want you to…Oh, hell.” He shook his head, reached into his inside coat pocket and pulled out an envelope. “You got most of the story from Praline. Here’s the rest of it. This is for you. Tante Izzy took it upon herself to do it. I wasn’t involved.”
Jewell looked at the return address on the unopened envelope. GENE ID Foundation, Los Angeles, California. “What’s this?”
“A DNA test. Fingernail analysis. Tante Izzy wanted to know if Mignon was genetically related to the Bienvenus.” He hesitated, giving her a chance to understand what he was saying. “No one has seen the results. Read it if you want to know the answer to the final question in your search for Twinnie. Or tear it up. Our family has left that decision to you, to know if Mignon is Martine or not. We have all decided that whatever you tell us, we’ll accept. We also have decided that we don’t need DNA verification to have you and Mimi as part of our family.” He touched her hand, started to take it into his, but stepped back. “That decision is yours.”
She looked at the envelope and turned it in her hands.
“And, Jewell, you should know, that if Mignon is actually Martine, she’s entitled to a very large inheritance.”
“What?” She thought that maybe she should be angry that he’d never told her about the inheritance, but there had never been any reason she had a right to know of it. Besides, she knew how pro
tective Beau was of his family. She respected and loved him for that. Those feelings came from deep pain and deep gratitude. He hadn’t kept that information from her to hurt or deceive her.
He would’ve told her if she was entitled to know…which he was doing now—or giving her the chance to do for herself with the DNA test. Jewell shrugged her shoulders and laughed. “Beau, you might as well have told me I won the lottery. Not for the inheritance, but for the family I gained whether Mimi is a Bienvenu or not.”
“Jewell.” His voice deepened, softened. “Family isn’t all about genetics and history. It’s simply about…love. Love. Our family loves you and Mimi.”
Jewell’s eyes filled with tears. “Yes?” She lifted her chin. “But do you love me, Beau?”
He wrapped his hands around her wrists, held her at arm’s distance away from him. “From the moment I saw you slip down the barn stairs with that silly headlight on your head and the clunky tool belt around your waist.”
She stepped in closer to him. “Beau. I believed that man and woman only came together because of nature and science. I guess growing up with a mother like mine, I had to find a way to make sense of her claiming to fall in love dozens of times a year and jumping into bed with so many different men. I had to understand what it really was all about…to make sense of it…to make relationships between man and woman make sense, not my mother’s irrational ones, but the way it was supposed to be.” She shrugged. “I thought I had really figured it out. Until you made me realize an intimate relationship with a man and woman is much more than theories, hypothesis and linear thinking. It’s poetry, not science…” Jewell’s voice caught, she swallowed hard, fighting back tears. “It’s song and dance…heart and spirit and maybe even a bit of science…chemistry.”
“A lot of chemistry,” Beau kissed the inside of her wrists. She shivered.
“Yes. A lot of chemistry.” She smiled. Happy, warm tears that she couldn’t hold back slid down her cheeks. “The bottom line is that you took me out of the science with your humor, your love of family, your values, your good looks. You captured my heart. You made me want to …to create a history with you.” She gently freed her wrists and wrapped her arms around neck; the envelope clutched in her hand was forgotten. “Oh, Beau. I love you.”
“I love you, Boots. I’ll love you forever.” He leaned in and kissed her. It felt like a first kiss.
“You see dat, Mignon,” Tante Izzy said, pointing to Jewell and Beau. “Ta sucrée and my Beau won’t be alone anymore. And I didn’t need to give dem da love potion.”
“No, you didn’t.” Mimi squeezed Tante Izzy’s hand and winked at her. “You see, Sugar Mill Plantation was all the love potion they needed. History and love and family come together there.”
“You got dat right.” Tante Izzy hooted. “You a sly one. Dat old-timer’s didn’t slow down you matchmakin’ abilities one bit. You must be a Bienvenu.”
“I’m sorry, but she isn’t,” Jewell said, walking up to the ladies with Beau. She turned the DNA report for her grand-mère to see. “Mimi, you are Mignon, just like you always thought you were.”
“Well, I’ll still t’ink of you as my big sister,” Tante Izzy told her. “After all, you were sister to my big sister Twinnie. Dat makes us family.”
Epilogue
“…and Elli thinks we can have the consignment store open within a couple of months, Beau,” Jewell said, speaking in rapid-fire excitement with her eyes squeezed shut. “Thanks to you for giving us the huge, street level space in your downtown office building.”
“Keep your eyes closed,” Beau reminded her for the tenth time. “It wasn’t being used. Besides, I like the idea of you working just downstairs from me.”
“I like that, too. Mimi is excited to be part of it all. She’s truly happy. We’ll just have to keep an eye on her shoplifting the merchandise.” Jewell laughed. “She’s gotten quite good at it, to Ruby and Tante Izzy’s dismay.” The car slowed and Jewell heard the sound of the shell road crunching under the weight of the tires.
“Okay, now open your eyes,” Beau said, stopping his new BMW Luxury SUV at the first of the sixteen two-hundred-year-old oak trees that created a dramatic canopy across the drive heading toward his house. This was the place they’d made love the first time.
Jewell smiled. “Why did you stop here?” Nancy jumped on her lap and licked her face. Ben had tried to take the sweet boxer pup back from Beau when he’d returned from Orange Beach, but Beau had told him that she was his little girl now, and Ben couldn’t have her.
“Look,” Beau pointed to one of the oak trees.
She adjusted her eyes to the soft late afternoon light to see where he was pointing. Her hands flew to her cheeks. “Oh, Beau.” She rushed out of the car, leaving the door open behind her. The warm autumn breeze fluttered through her soft gold dress and her long loose hair. When Beau came around to join her, she took the hand of the man she loved more than she could ever have dreamed was possible. They walked to the first tree. She ran her finger along the deep lines where he’d carved their names into the thick rough bark of the old tree. A tree that would be there for hundreds of years more.
Beau loves Jewell
Then she spotted their names in the next tree and the next and the next…
He’d carved their names in every oak tree trunk lining both sides of the road except the last one. She threw her arms around his neck and leaped into his arms, wrapping her legs around his hips.
“I love you.” She kissed him.
He eased her to her feet and walked away, casually and with his comfortable swagger, toward the last majestic oak. He leaned against it and looked at her, his eyes beckoning her to come to him.
“Wait,” she said. “I have a present I want to give you.” She thought of how this was the perfect time, right here, right now, to give him what she had planned to give him at his house. She ran back to his car and returned to where he was still leaning against the tree. She handed him the old Aguste François Bienvenu bible.
He opened it to where she had a ribbon marking the page for the family tree. She pointed to where she’d written his name in beautiful calligraphy. He smiled. “All the names are here.” His eyes were so full of love. “Today is a day for gifts with a tree theme,” he said, emotion making his voice thick. He started to close the bible and noticed the envelope he’d given to her in the courtroom. The one with Mignon’s DNA results.
“This should remain with the family bible,” she said. “It’s part of the Bienvenu history even though Mimi isn’t a Bienvenu. I’ve added a page in with the envelope that explains what happened to Martine when she was just three years old and how she was loved by Mignon Duet as if they were biological sisters…twins. I also shared what a brilliant and handsome man told me when he claimed my heart…that family isn’t all about genetics and history. It’s simply about…love.”
He pulled her against him so tightly that she felt his heart pounding against hers. It felt right, good. She had never been happier. She glanced up at the bright blue sky peeking through the dark green oak leaves. But there was something on the tree behind Beau that caught her attention.
Another carving. A different one. She looked over his shoulder.
The outline of a rubber boot.
She smiled, and he sucked in a breath, dropped on his bended knee. Her hand went to her chest.
She looked at the thick, gray bark of the solid oak. Next to the carved boot, she read the words aloud…
“Marry me?” Her voice was barely a whisper and filled with so much emotion she could hardly breathe.
He handed her a small, sharp knife…she laughed, and started carving her answer into the tree.
Yes!
She turned to face him, her heart bursting with joy. “Yes, indeed, Beau. I’ll marry you. Yes, indeed!”
Beau’s eyes were bright as he reached into his pocket and pulled out the ugly pink ring Mimi had given him as a thank you for rescuing her from what she though
t was a car fire the day she rear-ended Tante Izzy’s truck. Jewell’s throat tightened, her eyes filled with tears.
“This is Mimi’s engagement ring,” he began, his voice thick with emotion, “I intend to propose to her, too. I’ll ask her if she wants to be part of my family. Our family. To be my grand-mère. To live with us.”
“Oh, Beau, she already thinks of you as her grandson. She loves you.” His beautiful green eyes held hers with all the depth of his love and vulnerability showing in them. “I love you.” He swallowed hard, took her hand into his and slid a large round, heirloom diamond engagement ring onto her ring finger.
“I couldn’t be happier,” he said, pulling her toward him at the same time she threw herself forward. They stumbled off balance and tumbled onto the warm grass along the roadside. Nancy jumped on top of them with her muddy paws and excited licks.
“Life will always be a happy mess with you, Boots. I’m a lucky man.”
Hope you enjoyed Jewell’s story. Please take a minute and leave a review at Goodreads, Amazon, or wherever you purchased this book. Tell your friends, family and co-workers, and then stay tuned for the next tale from Tina DeSalvo…
Abby
Up next Abby and Jackson’s story…
Jackson Bienvenu is home and ready to settle into life in Cane, working with his brother Beau in their small law firm. Years travelling the world in his military JAG career are over and he’s ready for a bit of peace and quiet. He agrees to hire Abby McCord, the best friend of his cousin’s wife Elli, as a law clerk even though she is vastly over qualified because, well, because Elli asked him to and he never refuses family.
Abby has had a successful career as a top California-corporate lawyer, but beyond that she is privileged Hollywood Royalty. Her parents and grandparents are movie legends. Unfortunately, the La-La Land princess has been forced out of work and out of town when thrust in the center of a media feeding frenzy after being named a suspect in the embezzling of the foundation that she and Elli co-founded.