To Brie or Not to Brie (4 page)

“I found you at last,” Prudence said.

“At last,” Iris echoed while brushing lint off the peacock blue tote bag inscribed
with her company name and slogan:
Iris’s Flowers
.
Growing Stronger.

“What’s going on?” Meredith said from the platform.

Edy tugged on the base of the dress to keep Meredith in place.

“Nothing, sugar,” Tyanne said. “I’ve got this. Don’t you worry your pretty head.”
She directed Freckles to shuttle Meredith and the twins behind their screens and marched
toward Prudence. “Let’s talk out in the shop.”

“No.” Prudence folded her arms across her chest.

“Yes, let’s,” Iris said, uncharacteristically taking the lead. I couldn’t remember
her ever having an opinion, let alone a backbone, not even when chairing the garden
society meetings. She hoisted the strap of her tote over her shoulder with a grunt—what
did she carry in that thing, gardening tools?—and said, “C’mon, Pru.”

Prudence didn’t seem to have heard, not because she was staring daggers at Tyanne;
she was glowering at me. What was up with that?

“C’mon, Pru,” Iris repeated. By nature, Iris was a fixer, though a tad zealous and
somewhat misguided. She was always tweaking things—her garden, her neighbor’s garden,
the church garden. She pulled her friend by the forearm.

Begrudgingly, Prudence moved.

“Who else wants to come with us?” Self-consciously Iris plucked her shaggy wheat-toned
hair, which reminded me of a dandelion, so feathery and sparse that it all might blow
away in a strong wind.

“Me.” Edy loped past them and held open the curtain. “Charlotte, Tyanne, are you coming?”

She certainly seemed keen on leaving the stockroom. Did she want to keep her ears
tuned to whatever Prudence might have to say about her former employee?

“While we’re here, Pru”—Iris pushed through the curtain—“we can look at a couple of
quilts to hang on the walls of your shop. Redecorating will cheer you up.”

As we followed them out of the stockroom, Tyanne whispered, “If that’s all it took,
I’d buy Prudence the quilts myself.”

I would have laughed, but Prudence whirled around by the cash register and glared
at me as if she wanted to squash me like an ant.

“What?” I said, instinctively on the defensive.

Tyanne said, “Lookie here, Prudence, if you want to talk to me about the Harvest Moon
Ranch deal—”

“She doesn’t.” Iris sagged, her Pollyanna essence fizzling. “She wants to discuss
that thing your grandmother is doing, Charlotte. I tried to talk her out of it.”

“What thing?” I asked.

“That production of
Hamlet
.”

“Production?” Prudence sniped. “That spectacle, you mean.”

Here we go
. Providence Playhouse offered a variety of works. The theater had garnered all sorts
of awards. However, for the first time in years, my grandmother had chosen to do a
classic.

“She’s putting it on in the Village Green,” Prudence said. “Of all the nerve. With
a Renaissance theme, no less.”

“No less,” Iris echoed, retreating to her comfort zone of passive friend.

“Won’t it be fun?” I said, trying to defuse Prudence’s fury. “She’ll enlighten people
about the times. There will be a winepress and pretend sword fights and—”

“It will draw the riffraff of Ohio,” Prudence snapped.

“Oh, button it, sugar,” Tyanne said.

Prudence spun around and stabbed a finger at Tyanne. “You can’t talk to me like that.”

“I may and I did.” Tyanne mirrored the finger-pointing. “Having a highly respected
Shakespearean play in our park will educate our townsfolk. And to a man, they like
being educated. So, I repeat, button it.”

I had never seen Tyanne so forceful. The transformation was electric. Divorce counseling
had been good for her.

“You…You…” Prudence laid her hand upon her own chest. “Me. I was going to be the destination-wedding
planner in town. Not you.”

“Aha,” Tyanne said. “The truth will out.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“You didn’t come in here to attack Charlotte about her grandmother’s plans.” Tyanne
planted her hands on her hips. “You knew I was here. It’s me you wanted to confront.
I purchased the ranch.”

“It was supposed to be mine.” Prudence stamped her foot.

“Except you couldn’t buy it.” Edy butted through Tyanne and me, hand slicing the air.
“Because”—her voice grew shrill—“you’re under water with the loans on your boutique.”

The group fell silent. Prudence’s eyes simmered with unbridled anger, no longer directed
at me but at Edy. If looks could kill.

“Is it true, Pru?” Iris laid a hand on her friend’s arm. “Are you suffering financial
woes?”

Prudence’s face flushed. Strawberry-shaped blotches emerged on her cheeks.

“Don’t be embarrassed,” Iris went on. “Everyone in town is afflicted. Me, the hardware
store, everyone.”

“Not everyone,” Tyanne said, her voice a little too cheery.

Prudence flinched. We all did. Talk about rubbing salt into the wound.

Prudence reared back her head, her mouth opened, and her nostrils flared. She looked
like a bull ready to attack anyone who entered its arena. “I am not, nor will I ever,
suffer financial woes. Do you hear me?”

I surveyed the shop to make sure no one nearby was wearing anything close to a red
cape. I nearly choked when a woman in scarlet sashayed through the front door.

Sylvie, the twins’ mother and my cousin’s ex-wife, marched into Sew Inspired Quilt
Shoppe outfitted in a fire-engine red flapper dress and ridiculously high red espadrilles.
In addition, she had accented her ice-white hair with red stripes.

Prudence snarled.

“Where is she?” Sylvie shouted, never one for decorum. “Where is that floozy who stole
my husband?” She continued in her British accent, her words clipped with precision.
“And now she wants to steal my girlie-girls.”

“Mercy,” Tyanne said.

I moved in front of the knot of women formed by Prudence, Tyanne, Iris, and Edy. “Hold
on, Sylvie,” I said, my tone firm. “Meredith did not steal anyone. You left.” A few
years ago, Sylvie walked out on Matthew and the twins and returned to merry old England
to live off Mumsie and Dad. When that didn’t work quite as she expected, she returned
to Providence, determined to prove that she could be a
good mother. And I had to admit, she was devoted to her girls. But her transformation
hadn’t won back Matthew’s heart.

“What’s going on?” Meredith emerged through the curtain at the rear of the shop. She
had changed into a honey-colored sheath and had swept her hair into a ponytail. “Oh,
it’s you.”

“How dare you act all high-and-mighty,” Sylvie said.

Meredith inhaled deeply. I could tell she was tamping down her anger. “Sylvie Bessette,
get over here, now.” After the divorce, Sylvie hadn’t reverted to her maiden name.
To spite my cousin, no doubt. Meredith indicated a spot next to her, ordering her
rival as she would one of her fourth-grade students.

“You know perfectly well that I have dresses in my boutique,” Sylvie said. “You could
have purchased the girls’ wedding attire from me. They did not need handmade dresses.”
She sniffed. “People will think we’re paupers. Amy, Clair, come out here.”

The girls, who hadn’t changed clothes yet, obeyed.

Sylvie gasped. “You look so…froufrou.”

“Sylvie.” I edged to her side. “They look beautiful, and you know it. Go apologize.”

“But—”

“Do it,” I whispered in her ear. “Be the bigger person.”

With a hiss of defeat, Sylvie traipsed to the girls, the bangles and beads on the
hem of her dress spanking her legs as she moved.

As everyone watched her swoon over her girls’ garments, I spotted the love of my life,
Jordan Pace. He was peering through the display window, hand shielding his eyes from
the glare. As always, my heart did a little skip at the sight of him. What wasn’t
to love about a guy who looked like a cowboy movie star—the good guy, not the villain—not
to mention, he could whip up a mean lasagna and knew how to make a scrumptious double-cream
cheese.
Heart be still.
I waved, and a grin spread across his face, creating a dimple that streaked his cheeks.
Oh, yeah, I was toast.

He strode into the shop with a bit of a swagger and stopped beside an iron blanket
rack draped with quilts. I hurried to meet him.

“Hey, gorgeous.” Jordan raised his hand and gestured to the gold engagement band on
his finger.

Discreetly, I flashed mine as well. We had gone for simple tokens of our love, with
an inscription on the insides of both:
To hold, forever,
sealed with our initials. He ran a finger along my jawline that sent a tingle to
my toes. I kissed him primly on the lips, though we both lingered longer than primness
might allow. As we did, our fingertips touched and electricity shot through me.

“Do you have time for dinner tonight?” Jordan continued. “My place.”

His
place
was a sprawling farm north of town, set amid rolling hills, with hundreds of cattle,
and the most exquisite man-made caves to cure his cheeses. We would eat on the porch
of his ranch house, looking out at the tall grass glistening in the moonlight. Heaven.

A shiver of lust ran down my spine. I was just about to say, “Yes, yes, and triple
yes,” when his sister, Jacky, tall, dark, and leggy like Jordan, entered pushing a
stroller carrying her baby girl, who was a raven-haired beauty like her mother.

“Hi, Charlotte,” Jacky said, adding a nod.

Baby Cecily said, “Cha-cha,” which had become a new word in her vocabulary about a
week ago. I nearly melted every time I heard her utter my name.

“May I hold her?” I loved babies, but years ago, after my engagement to an ex-fiancé
I snarkily referred to as Creep Chef fizzled and the idea of finding another man that
I could love for the rest of my life seemed hopeless—until now—I had put aside the
dream of becoming a mother. I cared for the twins as if they were my own, and I convinced
myself that would be enough. But as I kissed Cecily’s silky cheek and smelled the
soft scent of her skin, a tremor of desire swept through me. I didn’t dare glance
at Jordan lest I reveal my innermost thoughts and scare him away. Though I was pretty
sure he wanted children, I had never asked.

“How is she liking the Mommy and Me class you’re in, Jacky?” I asked, keeping the
conversation light.

“She loves it.”

“You look radiant.”

“It’s the weather. I love it here. It suits me…us.” She caressed Cecily’s cheek with
her knuckles. “I only wish…” Her voice trailed off; her gaze turned guarded.

“Wish what?” I said.

“I—” She glanced beyond me.

I turned to look. A few feet away, Prudence had cornered Edy by a stand of silk fabrics.
They stood nose to nose. She was jabbing her finger into Edy’s chest.

“Don’t mind them,” I said. “Prudence is mad that Edy left La Chic Boutique to work
here. But back to you. What do you hope?”

“Let’s go outside to talk.”

“Is something wrong?”

Jacky reached for Cecily, who squirmed and groped for the iron rack of quilts behind
me. She caught hold. The rack tumbled to the floor. I stooped, with Cecily tucked
firmly in my arms, to right the display. Jacky squatted to help. So did Jordan.

“Jacky’s been having dreams,” Jordan whispered.

“Nightmares,” Jacky said, her voice as low as her brother’s.

“About?” I asked.

“Him,” Jordan said.

“Giacomo?” Jacky had moved to Providence and changed her identity to flee an abusive
husband.

“He won’t stop looking for me,” Jacky said. They had
not formally divorced. “He’ll find me. Find Cecily.” She stacked quilts in her arms.

“No, he won’t,” I said. After the last beating, Jordan had whisked his sister out
of her house and brought her to Providence. He bought her a home, set her up in business,
and promised her she would never have to fight off her sumo-wrestler-sized husband
again. She was free of her previous life. Free. “Jordan, reassure her. Your sister
is off his radar.”

Jordan opened his mouth, but Jacky cut him off. “You know I’m right. Giacomo’s a Capriotti.
He can find anybody if he searches—”

Edy gagged.

Still crouched, we all turned our heads.

Prudence had hold of Edy’s collar. With no effort at decorum, Prudence yelled, “You
listen to me.”

Edy batted Prudence’s hand away. “You’re mad.”

“Darned straight I’m mad,” Prudence said.

Jacky offered a swap—quilts for the baby. I handed over Cecily, took the quilts, and
rose to a stand. As I looped the quilts over the rack’s rails, I whispered, “Jordan
is right. You shouldn’t worry.”

“But what about the dreams, Jordan?” Jacky said, her skin pale with fear. “You know
Mom was psychic.”

Jordan screwed up his mouth.

Baby Cecily started to cry. “Shh, there.” Jacky drew the baby’s head into her chest.
“What if I’m psychic, too? The dreams are so vivid. Oh, if only William were here.”