by Macy Beckett
Mercifully, the dream ended and she awoke with a gasp. She bolted upright in bed, still clutching the spot above her breast where an imaginary ache threatened to tear her in half.
The movement startled Beau awake. “What’s wrong?” He blinked against the early-morning rays and scanned the room for signs of trouble.
“Bad dream,” she said, panting.
He released a sleepy chuckle. “Lord, honey. You almost gave me a heart attack.”
It was hard to feel sorry for him with this unholy pressure tightening around her ribs. She couldn’t shake off the ghost of sadness that had followed her into reality.
“Come here.” Beau wrapped her in his strong embrace. She was still irrationally mad at him for abandoning their family that didn’t even exist, but she rested her head on his shoulder and let him rub her back until the fear subsided. “Want to tell me about it?” he asked.
“No,” she said firmly. If she discussed the nightmare, it might cement into a memory. The only thing she could do was hope the images would fade, like many of her other dreams.
“Then we should probably get up,” Beau said, leaning aside to check the clock. “I want to apply for our marriage license before I head back to the Belle. How does that sound?”
“Sounds perfect,” Devyn said. She took a deep breath and blew it out. Maybe holding the license in her hands would make their engagement seem more real. “I’ll get the coffee started.”
“Wait,” he said, catching her by the wrist. “Just let me bring this up one more time, and then I promise I’ll drop it.”
“Beau.” She wasn’t in the mood for another fight. “I’m not going back to school.”
“I know,” he said. “But you’ll be a Dumont soon. I thought you might want a permanent job in the education center. If you don’t, that’s fine. I’ll support you in whatever—”
“Yes!” The offer sent Devyn bouncing in place, and she didn’t need another instant to think about it. This was just the boost she needed after her horrible dream. She couldn’t imagine anything better than doing what she loved alongside her favorite people. “I’ll call Warren and tell him the deal’s off.”
She was halfway to the door when Beau called out and stopped her again.
“I love you,” he said with a grin that lit her up inside.
Devyn returned his smile. “Love you, too.”
As she padded down the stairs, she inwardly scolded herself. See? I told you everything would be fine.
• • •
She reminded herself of that two days later when the simple act of picking out a wedding cake made her hyperventilate. The bakery walls spun around her like a carnival fun house. Only it wasn’t fun at all. She sat down and put her head between her knees, willing herself not to vomit inside her sister’s shop.
“Here.” Allie shoved an empty piping bag over Devyn’s nose and mouth. It smelled like butter cream frosting. “Now relax and breathe, nice and slow.”
Devyn did as she was told, and in a few minutes, her lips stopped tingling. She handed back the bag. “Thanks. I don’t know what came over me.”
Allie watched her for a few moments, then closed the photo album of cake designs and squatted down to meet Devyn’s eyes. “I’m going to ask you a question, and I want you to be honest with me.” To show how serious she was, she extended a pinkie.
Devyn hooked their little fingers in a silent oath. “Promise.”
“Is this what you really want?” Allie asked, nodding at a catalog of cake toppers. “You haven’t been yourself the last couple days, and you don’t seem very happy for a woman who’s about to marry the love of her life.”
“I do want to marry Beau,” Devyn said. “I swear. I love him so much it hurts.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
“I think it’s the dreams.” Devyn pressed two fingers against her temples to drive out the negativity that had invaded her sleep since the night of Beau’s proposal. “I keep having nightmares that he’s going to skip out on me. I know it’s not real, but it’s messing with my head.”
“Dreams can be a manifestation of your fears,” Allie said. “Deep down, maybe you don’t trust him.”
“I should have known you’d go all psychoanalyst on me,” Devyn said as she narrowed her eyes at her sister. Secretly, she wondered if Allie had a point though. “Beau’s given me every reason to believe he can break the hex. He’s got way more faith than Marc did.”
“This has nothing to do with hexes,” Allie said. “You haven’t let go of the past.”
“Of course I have,” Devyn said. Satisfied that she wouldn’t faint, she stood up from her chair and grabbed her purse. “Prewedding jitters are normal. I just need to power through it.” She reached for her sister’s hand and said, “Come on. Let’s go look at wedding dresses.” If that didn’t warm her cold feet, nothing would.
Allie glanced down at the pastry bag. “Are you sure you’re up to it?”
“Up to it?” Devyn asked, scoffing. “I’ve been waiting for this my whole life.”
“All right, but I’m bringing the bag.” Allie stuffed it in her pocket. “Just in case.”
Twenty minutes later, they strode through the front door of New Orleans’s swankiest bridal shop, not that Devyn could afford anything in there. But she knew she’d feel better after trying on a few designer gowns—all she needed was Gucci, her drug of choice.
As they waded through a sea of fluffy white tulle and delicate lace, a tiny spark of excitement flared to life inside Devyn’s tummy. But right on the heels of excitement came a flashback from her first nightmare. Then she wasn’t in the bridal shop anymore. She was inside her vacant bedroom, surrounded by white linens, white furniture, bare white walls. A sudden crush of emptiness gripped her in its icy fingers, and she struggled to catch her breath.
“No,” Devyn whispered, blindly reaching out for something stable. “Not again.”
Allie guided her to a cushioned loveseat. “It’s okay. Breathe,” she said, pushing the icing bag to Devyn’s mouth. “Nice and slow, just like before.”
A middle-aged sales clerk appeared and offered a bottle of water, but Devyn waved her off. “Thanks, but I’ll be fi—”
“Oh, my God!” Allie screeched. “Your hands!”
Devyn glanced down at her hands and gasped in horror. A scattering of pink welts had risen on her skin, and her fingers had begun to swell. She dropped the icing bag like it was on fire and cried, “What’s happening to me?”
“Is your ring platinum?” the sales clerk asked. When Devyn nodded, the woman urged, “Take it off. Hurry!”
At first, Devyn didn’t understand. But then she remembered that it was nearly impossible to cut through platinum. If her hands swelled any bigger, she might lose her ring finger. She tugged at the band, but it wouldn’t budge.
“Here,” Allie said, producing a tube of lip balm from her purse. She squeezed a dollop of petroleum jelly onto Devyn’s finger, and together, they worked the lubricated band back and forth until it finally slipped free and plunked to the floor.
“Thank God,” Devyn said as she released a shaky breath, pressing a hand to her chest. “That was close.”
Allie wrapped the greasy engagement ring in a tissue and tucked it inside Devyn’s purse. Then she took Devyn’s swollen hands and turned them over, inspecting them. “You still don’t have any allergies, right?”
“Not a single one.”
Allie looked up, her gaze serious. “This is psychosomatic, Dev.”
“Psycho what?”
“The swelling, the hives, the dizziness and nightmares,” Allie said. “You’re doing this to yourself. The wedding is stressing you out to the point that it’s making you sick.”
More than anything, Devyn wanted to argue that it wasn’t true. But the lump rising in her throat warned that her sister was dead-on. Then, like a sign from beyond, the blotches disappeared from her skin and the swelling receded. She’d removed Beau’s ring, and her bo
dy had quit rebelling against her.
No matter how hard Devyn tried to pretend otherwise, this engagement wasn’t right. She loved Beau, and she wanted to be with him, but she couldn’t marry him—at least not now. Tears burned behind her eyes, and she pressed her lips together to contain a sob. She didn’t want to fall apart in public.
Allie tugged her to standing and led her to the car, then drove to the last place on earth Devyn wanted to show her face—the Belle.
“You have to tell him,” Allie said when she put the car in park and turned off the engine.
Devyn hung her head. She understood what had to happen, but she didn’t know if she had the strength to go through with it. This was going to break Beau’s heart.
And hers, too.
Chapter 17
Beau knew something was wrong the instant Allie walked into the purser’s office and locked her mismatched eyes on him. Her skin had paled a shade or two, and she gnawed on her bottom lip like it was a strip of beef jerky.
“What’s the matter?” he asked. “It’s not the gaming board, is it? Because I faxed over those pages from the ledger.”
Her gaze dropped to the floor. “You need to talk to Devyn. She’s in the parking lot.”
Stomach dipping, he pushed away from the desk. “Is she okay?”
Allie nodded, but she wouldn’t look at him. “She’s not hurt or anything.”
Interesting choice of words.
Beau had a bad feeling about this, but he swallowed his dread and jogged outside to the main deck. He spotted Devyn sitting on the hood of an old sedan, but much like her sister, she wouldn’t meet his gaze. He made his way down the bow ramp, and when he strode near enough to see her folded hands, he noticed she wasn’t wearing her engagement ring.
His already leaden stomach sank another inch.
The remaining few steps between them seemed to last a thousand years, because deep in his gut, Beau knew what she’d come here to say. But he refused to think the words because he was afraid that would make them true. Maybe there was a logical explanation for the slump of her shoulders and the way she stared at the ground. Perhaps she’d lost the ring and was afraid to tell him. He held on to that hope and joined her at the car, choosing to remain standing because his instincts warned him to maintain some distance.
“What’s going on?” he asked. “Allie said you wanted to talk.”
Devyn nodded and lifted her face. That’s when any last shreds of hope drifted away on the breeze. Her pale blue eyes were bloodshot from crying, her lids puffy and smudged with mascara. But even more daunting was the expression behind those eyes: shame mingled with sorrow. She looked like she wanted to crawl into a hidey-hole and stay there forever.
Beau’s extremities went numb. She was breaking up with him.
The realization must have shown on his features, because Devyn wrapped both arms around herself and tipped her head to the side while fresh tears welled beneath her lashes. He wanted to plead with her, but the mere act of pulling air into his lungs was all he could manage.
“I’m so sorry; I can’t do it,” she told him in a strangled whisper. She reached into her pocket and pulled out his ring—wrapped in a Kleenex, as if it were something filthy that she couldn’t bear to touch. Her hand trembled as she held it forward. “But I do love you.”
Beau made no move to take the ring. He didn’t want it. “Then what’s the problem?”
Sniffling, she unwrapped the bundle and used the tissue to dab at her nose. When she finally spoke, it was to the diamond instead of him. “Love’s not enough.”
He didn’t understand. Of course it was enough. “What more do you need?”
Devyn covered her face with both hands, muffling her voice when she shook her head and said, “I don’t even know.”
Beau hesitated twice to touch her, afraid that if he did, whatever remained of their relationship would pop like a soap bubble. He steeled himself and pulled her palms away from her eyes. “Dev, none of this makes sense. You have to tell me what’s wrong—that’s the only way I can fix it.”
“But that’s the thing,” she said, splaying one hand in helplessness. “You can’t fix this. Nobody can.”
“Is it the curse? Is that what’s got you so wound up?”
“It used to be.” She rested both elbows on her knees and stared out at the water, a shadow passing over her countenance. “But then I realized we’re not safe, even if we break Memère’s hex. Breaking her spell would let us get married, but it doesn’t guarantee anything beyond that. There’s no promise of forever. We can still grow apart.” Another tear slipped down her cheek, and she scrubbed it away with her fist. “You can still leave me.”
“But I won’t.”
She whipped her head toward him. “You don’t know that.”
“Damn it, Devyn,” he said. “Yes I do!”
“How?” she demanded. “You can’t see the future. Maybe this is what you want now, but people change. What guarantee do I have that you won’t get the itch to run again?”
Beau couldn’t believe they were having this conversation. “Have I given you any reason to believe I’m not in this for the long haul?”
Biting her lip, she shook her head.
“Have I so much as looked at another woman since I came back to town?”
“No, but—”
“But nothing,” he interrupted, a flicker of anger rising inside him. “I’ve done everything I can to prove that I’m serious. For God’s sake, Devyn, I asked you to be my wife! It doesn’t get any more serious than that. At some point you’re going to have to trust me.”
She took a sudden interest in the pavement.
“Can you do that?” he asked.
A full minute of charged silence hung between them, providing her answer.
Beau pinched the bridge of his nose and expelled a long breath. He wanted to shake Devyn’s shoulders until she felt the certainty of his commitment, but he couldn’t force her to believe in him any more than he could stop the earth from turning. Faith had to come from within, and he didn’t have enough for the both of them.
“If you can’t trust me,” he said, “then we don’t have a future. I don’t know what else to say.”
Apparently, neither did Devyn.
She pushed off the car hood and stood before him, then pressed the ring into his palm. Her fingers were cool and stiff, with no hint of the affection that had once filled her touch. She closed his hand around the metal and left him with one last apology before she strode across the parking lot.
And then she was gone.
Beau didn’t know how long he stood there—maybe five minutes, maybe ten—blinking back the heat that expanded behind his eyes. He’d awoken that morning halfway to being married to the woman of his dreams. Now he was alone. He couldn’t believe how quickly he’d lost it all. His rib cage felt like a jack-o’-lantern, scooped out of everything that had once made him complete. Worst of all was the knowledge that he couldn’t do a damned thing about it.
At some point, he put one foot in front of the other and blankly made his way back onto the boat, seeing nothing, hearing nothing.
Feeling nothing.
• • •
Devyn’s cell phone rang from beside her at the kitchen table. The screen read Belle of the Bayou, so she continued sipping her coffee and let the call go to voice mail.
It wasn’t Beau on the other end of the line, she was confident of that. In the week that had passed since the breakup, he’d made no effort to contact her. Not that she blamed him. But she didn’t want to talk to anyone on the Belle. The association hit too close to home, too near her bruised heart for comfort. Even cashing her paycheck had brought tears to her eyes, because giving up that simple piece of paper had severed her last ties to the boat . . . and to Beau.
No, she corrected. Not to him. As long as her sister was a Dumont, Devyn would be tethered to Beau in that way. Surely their paths would cross on occasion; there was no preventing it. And she cou
ldn’t expect him to stay single forever. Someday she’d have to watch him move on with another woman.
A sudden coldness overtook Devyn, and she tugged the lapels of her robe together. She eyed her steaming mug, but she knew that all the coffee in the world wouldn’t thaw the chill inside her.
She’d lost her sun.
The phone rang again, but this time it showed Warren Larabee calling. Figuring her day couldn’t get any worse, Devyn swiped the screen and answered.
“Miss Mauvais,” he said, sounding surprised. “I’m glad I caught you.”
The way he spoke to her, you’d think she had a life. Little did he know she hadn’t left the house—or her bathrobe, for that matter—in days. “You barely did,” she lied. “I was on my way out the door. What can I do for you?”
“I’ll make this quick, since we’re both on the run.” In the background, his car shifted gears. “I know you said you’re not interested in graveyard tours, but I couldn’t leave town without trying to change your mind one last time.”
She opened her mouth to speak, but he beat her to it.
“If you’ll reconsider,” he said, “I’d be willing to offer you a partnership.”
Devyn almost dropped the phone in her coffee. “Come again?”
“Just for the Cedar Bayou location, mind you,” he clarified. “But this would mean more creative control. And certainly more money.”
“But I can’t invest anything. All my funds are tied up in my sister’s bakery.”
“You don’t have to spend a cent,” he told her. “Your last name is what you’d bring to the table. What do you say?”
For a few beats, she couldn’t say anything. Then she stammered, “Uh . . . I’m sorry. You caught me off guard. It sounds like a generous offer, but I’m in shock.”
He laughed as if he liked the sound of that. “Listen, I’m on my way to the airport. But I left a signed contract with my New Orleans attorney. If you’re interested, all you have to do is swing by his office and countersign it. There’s a clause that voids the agreement if it’s not executed within three days, so you have until then to think it over.”
Devyn thanked him and took down the name of his attorney, then said good-bye. She sat there and stared at the phone in her hand, still unable to believe he’d offered her a full partnership—with no investment. A smile pushed up the corners of her mouth.
