Her gaze slid down the table to where Jolie sat quietly concentrating on her dinner, not bothering with the conversations flowing around her, as stoic and unyielding as a riverbed rock.
“Work schedule or not, it’s lovely to meet you, Hope. Patrice and Claude were so excited when Andre told them Jolie was bringing her girlfriend along for the holiday,” Connie continued with a smile, unaware of the small detonator she had just set off under her dinner companion.
Andre? Andre is behind this whole mess? Why am I not surprised?
Of all the lame-brained, idiotic… Hope glared down the table. Several places to Jolie’s left, Andre had Amy in hoots of laughter, unaware of the hot look roasting him from afar.
At last it became abundantly clear where the mix-up had come from. Relieved that it would all soon be set to rights, Hope sat back and enjoyed her meal. Across from her, Patrice was chatting animatedly with Paulie’s mom, Shirley. Marie, Leone, and a cousin called Angelique were having a heated debate about an opera they had seen recently. Between these small groups were several others, consisting of Garouls whose names Hope could not immediately recall. All had grinned affably and shaken her hand when she arrived for dinner. The atmosphere was hopping with laughter and raucous talk. It was a happy family gathering of industrious and intelligent individuals, bound by more interests than mere family gossip.
Claude sat nearby, chatting with Godfrey and Paulie, who Hope noticed absolutely adored his uncle.
“Do you go hunting with Claude a lot?” she asked.
Paulie blushed brightly as he answered her. He was at that age where he was still crushingly shy. But his eyes sparkled with enthusiasm for his subject.
“Oh, yeah. He teaches me all kinds of stuff. Not just about hunting and fishing, but about the woods, too. Because we own the valley, we have to learn how to manage it.”
“I never thought of it that way. I always assumed trees just took care of themselves.” Hope was immediately engaged. Something about Paulie’s awkward but honest love for what truly mattered to him reminded her of Jolie. Was she looking at a callback to Jolie’s own youth?
“No, the woodland needs managing. And the roads and parking areas, too. My dad”—he indicated a man Hope knew as Robért—
“maintains all the cabins and the compound area. Well, he has help, but he heads it up.”
“It’s like a little cottage industry your family has going on here. But I suppose it’s a small price to pay for the luxury of having a holiday homestead of this size and privacy.”
He nodded. “That’s what it’s all about. The privacy. You have to work hard for that.”
Despite the earlier calamity, there seemed to be more than enough fruit and pumpkin pies for everyone, even for those who wanted second or third helpings. Hope had never seen a family with such appetites as the Garouls. Food just disappeared. It was effortless for them to clear every overflowing dish on a table that had practically groaned with the amount of food placed upon it.
“Okay, before the cleanup team begins, we quickly need to tweak the sleeping arrangements,” Marie announced to the table as after-dinner coffees and port were poured. “We have to reshuffle a little, as Andre and Godfrey managed to arrive today. The boys are in one of the larger two-bed cabins and are sharing with Pierre and Mandy.” She looked across at a young couple who smiled happily at the arrangement. “And, Paulie, I’m afraid Angelique has called dibs on your room, so you’re on the bed settee in Jolie and Hope’s cabin. Is that okay with you guys?”
“Okay with me.” Paulie seemed happy enough.
Hope blinked in dismay and quickly looked over to Jolie, who had a similar look of muted panic on her face. She sat staring at the table, frantically twisting her pinky ring until Hope thought her finger would start to smoke. Then another emotion swept across her features, one of shame and inevitability. The time for truth had arrived.
As angry as she was with Jolie’s recent behavior, Hope’s heart went out to her. Jolie cleared her throat, and a frown creased her brow.
Already Hope could see the red bloom of embarrassment of her cheeks.
Jolie’s eyes became guarded, as if a shutter had been drawn between her real self and what she was now compelled to announce to her family.
“Hmm, about that.” Jolie cleared her throat again in preparation for her own denouement. “There’s been a misunder—”
Hope interrupted. “It’s no problem at all.” Her voice rang out loud and clear down the table to Marie. Jolie looked up startled, and Hope held her gaze with a cool, level stare before turning to Paulie.
Jolie sat glued as Hope chatted amicably to Paulie, organizing his move up to their cabin. What did it mean? Why was Hope doing this?
Was it some new form of torture? Because Jolie had already more than her fair share today. She was still sick to her guts thinking of Andre asking Hope to carry his cubs. Tired and confused, and so out of her depth with this entire situation, she shifted her gaze to her father. He sat impassively watching her. Then his whiskers twitched and a broad smile broke over his face, like the sun coming out, bathing her in warmth. He tilted his head to one side and gave her a sly wink before rising to leave.
“Come here, son,” he boomed down the table to Andre, indicating they should go for a stroll together. Andre looked surprised but happily followed his father. With a cheeky grin, he blew a kiss to Godfrey, who was left to pick up his dishwashing duty.
“Jeez. What happened to that rabbit?”
“That’s Tadpole. And he’s not a rabbit.”
Jolie couldn’t help but grin at the conversation drifting in from the living room as she quickly shuffled her bag into Hope’s bedroom.
She stood and looked at the huge double bed with its bright patchwork quilt.
I’ll be lying on the floor all night. Who’d have thought I’d miss that lumpy old couch? Maybe she should just sneak out and go hunting?
She sighed. Confusion and misery sat on opposite shoulders whispering sweet nothings about her inadequacies into each ear.
The door swung open and Hope entered. The air in the room reduced quicker than sauce, and congealed in Jolie’s lungs. She stood planted at the foot of the bed and waited. Hope perched a hip on the edge of the high mattress and sat facing her.
“The things I have to do to get you to talk to me,” she murmured.
Jolie watched her silently. “And maybe it’s still not enough?”
The silence stretched like an elastic band. Hope decided to see what would snap first. She wriggled herself into a more comfortable position. Jolie still stood ramrod straight. Hope picked some imaginary lint off her skirt while Jolie’s eyes darted around the room in a shifty little dance. Hope relaxed back against the headboard and watched her, a small smile playing on her lips. And three…two…one…
“I didn’t mean to kiss you. But you can’t do it,” Jolie blurted in a tight voice.
Bingo. “Do what?”
“Have his cu—babies. You can’t. No. I won’t allow it.”
“Is that because he’s your brother, or because I’m your mistress?”
“Ack.” Jolie choked.
“Excuse me?” Hope calmly regarded her, hands folded on her lap.
Jolie’s ears flamed and high spots of color brushed her cheekbones, accentuating the dangerous glitter in her eye.
“Sit here.” Hope patted the quilt beside her, misreading Jolie’s heightened color as understandable embarrassment. Jolie slid onto the bedspread and they sat facing each other.
“I’m sorry you’re upset. I really don’t know where the rumor came from. I never said anything. I didn’t start it,” Jolie said. But I want it, and everyone knows it but you. “I told Dad the night we arrived and were given this cabin. He said he’d sort it out. I was going to ask him after dinner what was going on, but he disappeared with Andre.”
She felt angry, powerless, and exposed. It was bad enough her inner fantasies had been ripped apart for everyone in her family
to see, but now Hope was peering into the open wound as well. For Jolie it felt unbearable and shaming.
“I kind of guessed there was a misunderstanding somewhere, and it turns out Andre got everyone’s wires crossed,” Hope said in a kinder voice. “I know now you’re not responsible, but I came here as your guest and employee, Jolie. It’s a mess, and you and Andre have to clear it up. I can hardly look your parents in the eye without feeling like an impostor. And it feels terrible because I really do like them.”
Jolie’s body actually ached with all this. Every way she looked at it, it hurt her. She was upset that Hope was socially embarrassed at being perceived as her lover. Worried that her pack would be disappointed, because they genuinely liked Hope and Jolie knew they approved her as a suitable mate. And most of all she was embarrassed for herself. This whole extraordinary situation was a mockery of her newly discovered need to claim Hope for her own. And it had been publicly exploded before she’d even realized how deeply it ran.
“I’ll kill him.” Her whole face darkened at this news of Andre’s involvement.
“Please wait until after the board meeting.” Hope sighed and rubbed her forehead as if her bosses were the biggest headaches ever. “And for the record, about that surrogate mother thing, Andre was teasing you in his own bizarre, cruel twin way. It’s not going to happen.”
Jolie’s whole body jerked with relief, then tensed with further anger at Andre’s meddling.
Hope watched her curiously but said nothing more on the subject.
Jolie needed to be defused before she incapacitated Andre for the foreseeable future. Carefully, she changed tack.
“Okay. Disaster recovery time. Let’s just get this presentation behind us. It’s what we came here to do. This mess can be tidied up after we get back to the city. A few phone calls and all will be well.”
A small nod greeted her idea. “I’ll sleep on the floor tonight.” Jolie stood and moved away as if to add emphasis to her statement.
“Are you doing that because you kissed me? Because if so, it’s a little late for token gallantry.”
Jolie’s face scorched again. She squirmed in her shoes.
“I’m sorry about that. I was angry and I don’t know why I did it,” she mumbled, looking slightly to the left of Hope, refusing to meet her gaze.
Hope nodded, deciding to let her off the hook. She didn’t know what to make of it any more than Jolie did. For the moment she was content to wait until she could process it further. So far, it had turned into a truly ludicrous day. She needed to let the last twenty-four hours pass over her. Tomorrow and the next day she would do her job, and then she’d go home. Only there would she find the space to think about Jolie Garoul and her clumsy kisses. The tip of her tongue played with the small gash inside her lower lip. A reminder of Jolie’s headlong, passion-filled exuberance. Sucking on the tenderness, Hope made up her mind.
“It’s a big enough bed. We can share. We’ve both slept with other women before without leaping on them.” She gave a hard glare, remembering the biting incident. “I’m sure we can contain ourselves for the next few nights.”
Jolie was dubious. She had never slept in a bed with another woman who wasn’t a Garoul. She had never done anything in a bed with another woman. It was a thing of myth for her. Mating was a bond for Jolie: all or nothing. There was no space in between for anything else. She had waited a lifetime for someone she didn’t know she was waiting for.
Jolie watched Hope stand and straighten the bedspread. The irony was not lost on her that her “someone” didn’t know she was being waited for, either.
Hope glanced up and misinterpreted the befuddled, distressed look. “I swear, Garoul, you sleep-bite me again, and I will be the biggest nightmare you’ve ever had in your entire sorry-ass life.”
“So,” Andre’s father asked as they trudged along the creek path, “what do you make of her?”
“Hope?” Andre couldn’t think of anyone else so central to his parents’ thoughts at the moment. “I love her to bits. She’s been a good friend of mine for years and years.”
His father seemed to approve of this news. “Is that why you told your mother they were a couple, because you liked the idea?” he growled in a woe betide you if you get the answer to this one wrong way. Andre gawped at him.
“What?”
“You heard.”
“I did hear, and what?” They stood looking at each other. “Dad, what are you talking about? I never told Mom that. I said Jolie was bringing Hope down with her to help with the presentation.”
“Did you?”
“I…I…think so. Shit, what did I say? I can’t remember.” He was speaking more to himself than his father as he tried to recall the exact conversation. He shrugged. “Well, that’s what I meant. I can’t help it if Mom got the wrong end of the stick.”
The fact they both knew Patrice Garoul could grab the wrong end of any stick and twirl it like a baton of confusion did not lessen the glower on his father’s face. Andre swallowed hard.
“You didn’t answer me.”
“Sorry. What was the question, Dad?”
“Do you think they’re right for each other?”
“God, yes. Yes. I’d love to see that happen. I’ll do everything I can to make it happen.”
But his father had heard enough. His arm fell across Andre’s shoulders and they turned onto the path home.
“Dad? Why didn’t you say something if you knew there’d been a misunderstanding?”
His father smiled. It beamed out from under those magical whiskers and lit up the cloudy day.
“Because I’ve no doubts at all that this is the one for Jolie. As far as I’m concerned there is no misunderstanding, just a little mistiming, maybe. That’s all. Hope came here to Little Dip as the intended mate for Jolie, and I see no reason why she shouldn’t leave the same way.”
“I’d love for Jolie to have someone like Hope in her life. That’s why I had them work together. You have no idea of the struggle Jolie put up—”
His father gave him a hard squeeze that momentarily took the air from his lungs. Andre blinked, suddenly transported back to an age when he barely reached his father’s belt loops, and a particular homeward trek in the evening dusk after a hard day’s logging. He had worked so hard that day, and had been so tired out, but then, as now, he felt his father’s love and pride wrap around him like a warm blanket.
“I love my family, Dad.” It came out a little tight, a little moist and emotional, and he felt embarrassed because his butch gene was such a wuss. His father’s arm tightened around his shoulders again.
“I love you, son.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
For most Garouls, Thanksgiving ended with an early evening.
Jolie, Hope, and Andre had a last-minute strategy session to confirm they had everything more than covered. Through his profuse guilt at being the creator of evil misinformation and cruel conjecture, Jolie suckered Andre into doing loads more than he’d originally intended. But accepting for once that Jolie had the moral high ground, he complied with only the merest bitching. Satisfied with the re-jigged schedule, they retired to their respective cabins.
“Where’s Paulie? He out late?” Hope asked as they returned home. Jolie had a good idea exactly where Paulie was—out patrolling the valley with her father as wolven. And she couldn’t help but envy him the simple pleasure. She hoped that after the meetings were over she, too, would have a little time to stretch her claws.
“Oh, he’ll be back. We’ll leave the door unlocked for him.”
“Okay.” Hope took Tadpole out for his evening toilette. He still refused to explore more than five yards from the steps. On a brave day he made it as far as the tree line, but mostly he snuffled around the porch, raising his whiskery snout every so often to give a concerned sniff at the breeze blowing in from the forest. Hope was convinced he was feeling poorly even though he still ate like a small pony and had fallen in love with the ham bone she ha
d brought back from dinner as promised.
Jolie got ready for bed while Hope saw to Tadpole’s supper.
She was loitering awkwardly in the bedroom in her large T-shirt and sweatpants when Hope returned.
“Can you put Taddy into his bed while I get ready?” Hope asked, grabbing her nightwear and disappearing into the small bathroom.
Tadpole and Jolie swapped an evil-eyed look.
Her face was washed, her teeth brushed. Now came the part she was still coming to terms with. Taking a deep breath, Hope popped her prosthetic eye and rinsed it under the tap, removing the day’s dirt.
She examined her face in the mirror dispassionately. It wasn’t too bad.
Lord knew there were people out there with worse disfigurements.
She should be grateful. Her fingers manipulated her upper and lower eyelids as she examined the empty socket. The flesh was healthy, red and vibrant. Just another part of the inside that not many people get to see. She knew she was one of the lucky ones. It could have been a whole lot worse.
“So, where do we go from here?” she asked her reflection. It seemed she was slowly getting over the initial shock of her prognosis and the operation. Life went on and she had moved with it. She was managing at home and in work; she had kept up her friendships and her social interests. She’d done everything right according to the hospital’s recuperation handouts. But she was still only partway there. She looked at the empty socket.
“I’ve got more than one void still to fill.” With a sigh, she popped her eye back into the socket.
Her confidence was slowly being restored, thanks to her friends.
But a huge part of the process had been her initial tussles with Jolie.
Talk about finding her feet fast! If she hadn’t, she’d be on the floor on her ass, for there sure as hell wouldn’t have been a chair to sit on.
Ambereye Page 12