Chapter Twelve
Beau had just stepped out onto the sidewalk from his office building when he saw Grace get out of a red pickup truck parked half a block down. He debated whether to get in his car and leave or speak to her.
Speaking to her won. He walked down the sidewalk and reached the front of her truck as she was lowering the tailgate. “Need a hand?”
She looked up, saw him, and smiled. “Two would be better.”
“Then it’s your lucky day.” He hurried to lift the bigger of the two boxes from the bed of the truck and waited for her to get the second box.
Just then a voice came from the direction of the sidewalk. “Well, my my, looky what we have here.”
Beau looked toward the front of the truck. “Mrs. Dodd, how are you?”
“Just fine, Mr. Legacy. And I see you’re not letting any grass grow under your feet, Miss. Grace. Two Legacy men in one day. It must be a record.”
“Yeah, that’s me, Mrs. Irene, a real record setter.”
“Well, if I were you, Mr. Legacy, I’d think—“
“But you’re not.” Beau interrupted in a voice that had lost all its friendliness. “So, why don’t you mosey on along?”
Irene Dodd literally huffed and stomped away.
“Seems like she’s determined to make me into the town ho,” Grace said.
“Ignore her. She’s just a mean-spirited old biddy with too much time on her hands. What’re you doing with all this?” He referred to what looked like a bunch of clumps of plants with flowers that seemed a bit dry and crispy but were rather aromatic.
Grace’s smile told him she appreciated him changing the subject and redirecting her attention. “I thought I’d refamiliarize myself with my dad’s distiller and try to make a batch of oil.”
“What kind?”
“What does your nose tell you?”
“It smells good, but I don’t know much about plants and flowers so I couldn’t tell you what it is.”
“Lavender.” She set down her box to fish her keys from her shoulder bag and unlock the shop.
“The stuff old women wear?”
Grace laughed. “On behalf of older women everywhere, shame on you. First, real lavender smells delicious and second, that’s lilac water, and I personally don’t know any women who wear that.”
“I stand corrected.” He paused after following her inside. “You want me to close the door?”
“Yes, please.”
Grace continued through the shop to the back room. Beau had been in Mr. Summerfield’s private area once when he was a teenager and found it just as fascinating today as he did back then.
“Just put that box over there on that counter.” Grace indicated a long counter that ran almost the length of a wall and had cabinets beneath it.
She set her box down on a countertop that held a deep double sink and some equipment he could not identify, and then turned to face him. “Like Mrs. Irene said, two Legacys in one day. What are the odds?”
“Pardon?”
“Your brother stopped by my mom’s earlier.”
“Which brother?”
Grace chuckled. “John Luke.”
“Really? What did he want?”
“He wanted me to check my dad’s records for a tincture he might have made for John Luke when he was a kid to help with allergies.”
Beau felt his posture stiffen at her words. He wished John Luke had not gone to her for that, even though he understood. Ily was trying her best to come up with an antidote for the poison that was making the Were population sick. She’d made progress and at one point thought she’d succeeded.
But the formula didn’t cure. It helped with symptoms, but that was all. Despite her and others’ best efforts, they were running into a wall. One thing that had been discovered was that the base needed for the cure was the mystery ingredient in his mother’s so-called allergy tincture.
The plant, a native to Ily’s world, had apparently been brought here and was prolific in swampy areas, such as the region where Beau’s maternal grandmother lived.
They’d secured samples and even plants, but no matter what they tried, they could not replicate the same chemical composition. Everyone was about at their wit's end. Ily had come up with the idea of trying to secure the original formula of the tincture the Legacy children were given to see if something in the original process made a difference.
Beau supported their efforts, but would have preferred not to bring Grace into it. If anyone could point Ily in the right direction, it was Ida. Not Grace.
Then there was the matter of the cloaking spell. Beau still couldn’t quite get on board with that. He might be able to take on the shape of an animal, but casting a spell that would cloak an entire town from being noticed by the Umbra? That was a bit far-fetched for him.
“Well, I’m sure you have other things to do and where would you even start to look? Unless maybe your mother might know.”
“She might. I’ll have to ask her. And I told John Luke I would look through Dad’s journals and books and see if I can find anything. I don’t mind.”
“That’s nice of you, Grace.”
She passed it off with a wave of her hand. “No biggie. But hey, John Luke grew up to be quite the hunk, huh?”
Beau gritted his teeth, trying not to feel a stab of jealousy. “Well, he’s not much my type, but…”
Grace chuckled and motioned him over to where she stood. “You have to go, or you wanna help?”
“I’m free, and I don’t have a clue how to do any of this stuff.”
“Well, you’re a smart guy.” She smiled up at him. “I’ll teach you.”
“Okay, sure.”
She pointed to an odd contraption on the counter. “This is a distiller. It’s how we get the oils from the plants.”
“Looks like some kind of Steampunk slash sci-fi, mad scientist thing.”
“Nothing so glamorous. Okay, let’s see…” She opened a cabinet door beneath the counter. “Ah ha!”
She took the sealed gallon of water from the cabinet, opened it, and set it on the counter. “Would you get that box for me?”
“The ones with the flowers?”
“Yep.”
Beau fetched the box.
“Thanks.” Grace gave him a smile, then added, “Okay, before we start, remember this is a huge secret so if you tell I’ll have to kill you.”
“Oh, that top secret?”
“Most definitely. We don’t want people knowing how complicated this is.”
She opened the top of the big round metal container. “This is the still. Now, first let’s put in some water.” She put half of the gallon of water into the still. “Now the flowers. Hand me one of the bundles. But handle it gently.”
She looked in a drawer and found a pair of scissors. Beau handed her a wad of flowers held together by a string around their stems. Grace cut the string and put the bundle into the still.
“Stems and all?” Beau asked.
“Yes. Most essential oils are held in the oil glands, veins, and hair of the plant and those are quite fragile, so if you break them, you’ll get less oil from the plants. Here, switch with me.”
They exchanged places, and she snipped twine and handed him the flower bunches, which he placed into the still. “I think it’s full.” He held onto the last bunch she’d just placed in his hand.
“You’re right.” She worked on the placement of the flowers a bit, added more water, and then closed the still.
“Now what?” he asked.
“Now we start the heat and wait.”
“That’s it? That’s the big secret.”
Grace laughed. “Yep, the secret is that it’s easy. What’s hard is knowing what the different plants are good for and how to use them.”
“Like making tinctures? Like the one my mother had made? Which is what exactly?”
“It’s just a liquid extract that’s made from herbs or plants you take orally.”
“And you make them like what we’re doing now?”
“Not usually. From what I remember, those are made by extracting in alcohol or sometimes apple-cider vinegar.
“Did your dad teach you to do that?”
“Yes.”
Beau studied her for a moment. “It’s all coming back to you, isn’t it? The things he and your mother taught you? I remember, you know. I mean, we’ve pretty much known one another our whole lives and I remember you being here after school almost every day since we were in kindergarten. Every time I’d come into town with one of my parents, you’d be sitting outside on that bench in front of the shop, doing your homework, reading, or just watching people go by.”
He could tell from her expression she was surprised. “Have you forgotten? Or did you not want to remember?”
This time her expression was different. She looked away and then actually turned away, checking the pressure dial on the diffuser. “I remember.” Her voice was so soft he could just make out the words.
“Grace.”
She responded by turning to look at him. “I remember, Beau. All of it. I remember walking into Mrs. Brewer’s kindergarten class and seeing you standing there. I remember how you stood up for me the next year when that big girl in the second grade, Cherise Mapleton, decided she wanted to beat me up every day. I remember realizing I loved you in the third grade and I remember making up my mind in fifth grade that if I couldn’t be your girlfriend, I’d be your best friend.
“I didn’t forget any of it, but I also didn’t talk about it, and I tried very hard not to think about it because after all those years and all that love, you broke my heart into so many pieces that I didn’t remember how to love until Sherri was born.”
Beau was shocked by her words. He wanted to be angry, but the truth was, he knew it was more his fault than hers that they broke up. “I—Grace, I don’t even know how to start to apologize. I could tell you I was young and stupid and that’d be the truth.
“I could tell you it was curiosity as much as attraction because until then I’d never been with any girl but you and again, that would be true.
“And I could tell you that it felt good to have someone as pretty and popular as Tamara want me. She stroked my ego so much I’m surprised there was room left for me in my dorm room. That’s also true.
“There are a lot of reasons it happened, and none of them make me look good. If I could go back and undo it, I would but I can’t. Just like you can’t go back and undo getting involved with Tad and marrying him so quickly. People make mistakes. I did, and I’m sorry because losing your love was the worst thing that will ever happen to me no matter how long I live.”
Grace had thought about a moment like this for fourteen years, tried to imagine it and what he would say. In none of her dreams did she imagine the honesty she heard in his voice or the pain she saw in his eyes.
All those years of blaming him for her unhappiness came crashing in on her. It was like a blind person suddenly being given sight. At that moment, she saw how unfair she’d been. She had chosen not to remember the way he had pleaded with her to forgive him and to take him back.
She’d chosen to disregard him showing up the night before she married Tad and begging her to run away with him. She’d deliberately shoved it from memory how they’d made love, and then she’d gotten up, ordered him out, and walked down the aisle to marry Tad. Grace had decided somewhere along the way to ignore her complicity in what happened and make him the villain of the play.
“I screwed up so bad. Beau, I screwed up everything.”
The embarrassment and regret welled up and spilled out in tears of shame. Grace put her hands over her face and ran from the back room. She bumped into the front counter and sank to the floor.
When she felt Beau beside her, and he pulled her into his arms, she sobbed. “I wish—“Shock had her sobs cutting off abruptly, and she pushed back enough to look at him. “I want to say I wish I could go back and do it differently, but I can’t. If I did, I wouldn’t have Sherri and Theo, and I can’t wish them away. They’re my babies. They taught me how to love again and how to do it right. I do wish I’d never hurt you and I hate that I spent all those years letting Tad make me miserable, but I’ll never regret having my children. I hope you can understand that.”
“I can and do. Like I said, people make mistakes, and we made our share, but look at us, Grace. Here we are. A little battle scarred and a little scared of giving our hearts again, but here we are, together. I think maybe life’s giving us another chance.”
“Do you really believe that? I mean, we can’t just pick back up like nothing’s happened. I must get a divorce, and I have kids who are going to be caught in the middle of that and who wouldn’t understand if suddenly there was someone in my life besides their father. It’s just not that easy.”
Beau smiled and cupped her face in his hands. “No one said it would be easy. The question is, would it be worth it?”
“You know it would to me. I’ve loved you my whole life. But my love just doesn’t seem to be enough, and I don’t say that to hurt you, just as a statement of fact. You cheated on me and I turned to Tad. Maybe I didn’t love him like I do—did you, but I cared for him and tried to be a good wife, and he cheated on me too. Maybe the best thing for me would be to just admit that happily-ever-after just isn’t in my cards.”
“Bullshit.”
She couldn’t believe he said that. “What?”
“You heard me. Bullshit. Yeah, I cheated, and he cheated, and life shit on you, but you can’t sit there and tell me that because you were hurt, you should just give up. That’s a load of crap, and you know it. Look, if you want me to hit the bricks just say so and I promise I won’t darken your doorstep again, but please do me the service of not trying to feed me a plate of shit stew.”
“I—“ She was left speechless, so she just sat there on the floor and stared at him. He stared right back, and she was suddenly transported back in time.
“Oh, my God, Mr. Bainbridge’s eighth grade biology. Do you remember—“
“The frog incident?”
“We had to be in detention for two weeks.”
“Because you threw the damn thing across the class and it landed smack on Maryann Talbert’s back, and she had on that sundress thing, and the frog slid inside her dress and got stuck.”
Grace couldn’t think about that event without laughing. “Oh, my God. We sat there in Principal Newman’s office just staring a hole through each other. I wanted to strangle you.”
“And I wanted to wring your neck. Hey, why did you throw that thing in the first place?”
“You don’t remember? I hate frogs. I was bent over getting my notebook, and when I straightened up, you shoved that thing right in my face.”
Beau started to laugh. “Oh damn, yes. You looked like you were going to shit your shorts and then your face got all red, and your eyes squinted, and you called me a rat bastard and snatched that frog out of my hand and slung it like a baseball.”
They both laughed at the memory and then quieted. “I do think it’s worth it.” Grace reached for his hand. “But I’m scared.”
“Of?”
“Of letting myself love you again and getting broken into a million pieces.”
“I won’t break you, Grace.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I’ve spent the last fourteen years trying to figure out what I didn’t do that I should have to keep from losing you and because I made a promise a long time ago that if I ever got a second chance, I wouldn’t blow it.”
“Are you sure?” Grace got to her feet and as he stood, took a step back, needing some space between them. “I mean, I just got back. We’ve seen each other twice, and now we’re talking about trying to—to what? To build a future?”
“Don’t you want to?”
“I just don’t know how.”
“One day at a time.”
Grace wanted to grab the line he tossed so badly she could taste the need. “I want to. I do. But I—this is too fast, too fast.”
“Then we slow it down.”
“Yes, yes. Thank you. Oh!” She sensed rather than heard the distiller and ran into the back room.
“Looks like we’re getting some oil.”
Beau followed and looked over her shoulder. “What will you do with it?”
“I don’t know. Put it in a bottle and take it home. Maybe use it in a diffuser. Mama loves the smell of lavender.”
“I should go.”
Grace turned to face him. “I’m sorry. I—you know I have these feelings. I always have and always will, but I have to be sure.”
“I know Gracie. Don’t worry. I’ll wait as long as it takes.”
“Why, Beau? Why would you do that?”
“Because you always have been my one true love, Grace. Whether you choose to be with me or walk away, that won’t change. I’m just hoping I can prove that choosing me is the right thing to do.”
Grace smiled up at him. “You’ve become one hell of a man, Beau Legacy.”
“You keep reminding yourself of that, honey.” He gave her a soft kiss and backed away. “I’ll be seeing you, Gracie Summerfield.”
“Be seeing you, Beauregard Lyon Legacy.”
He smiled, turned, and walked away. Grace watched him leave and stared long after he’d gone. Had life just handed her what she’d always wished for, or was it just setting her up for the biggest heartbreak of all?