Beautiful Secret Page 8

  “The shops in Dinant are very particular,” she’d told Tate.

  Whatever that meant. Maybe the same as premium?

  Tate regarded Colette as her cousin gathered the modest leather backpack she carried as a purse.

  “Shopping, Mami?” Colette asked Zia.

  “Oui, je veux trouver une petite cadeau pour l’anniversaire de Chanson,” Zia Luisa told her daughter.

  Zia wanted to buy a birthday gift for her daughter-in-law, Chanson.

  “It’s Chanson’s birthday?” Tate asked Colette.

  “Yes, and tomorrow evening we have a festa for her, Tatiana.” Colette pushed her heavy wrought iron chair under the outdoor table where they had enjoyed their two-hour meal, then helped her mother to her feet.

  Tate strolled by the quaint shops, wearing a summery orange sundress and strappy sandals, feeling almost chic against the backdrop of the most fashionably confident women she’d ever encountered. With a box of Belgian chocolates for her brother in her lap and a colorful scarf she’d picked up for Suri, she sipped a latte in the brick courtyard of the provincial town square. Inhaling the quiet bustle of Dinant, Tate felt more relaxed than she had in a long time.

  After choosing a hand-painted glass pitcher for Chanson’s birthday and then stopping for yet another coffee and cigarette break, as per Colette’s unbendable routine, it was time to head back home. The thirty-minute car ride topped off an already perfect day. Tate questioned Zia Luisa tirelessly, encouraging her to reminisce on her past with Nana Maria, and she wasn’t disappointed. Zia blessed Tate with her own account of the goings-on at the convent so many years ago, even delving into her courtship with Zio Nino in the small mountain town of Valanidi.

  “Your curiosity brings me joy, cherie,” Zia told her.

  Tate wanted to wrap herself up in a blanket and sit before her aunt for the rest of the day, to beg hungrily for more words, more history. But when Colette drove toward the bridge that would take them home, Zia let out a great yawn—a signal to Tate that enough was enough for one day.

  Encircled by thick forest and bisected by the Meuse River, Revin greeted them with cobblestone sidewalks and wrought iron streetlamps. Few people graced the streets this afternoon, but one old woman caught Tate’s eye. She was holding a baguette under one arm and walking a scruffy-looking dog. The woman must have felt someone’s eyes on her because she looked up at Colette’s car and waved. Tate waved back and thought that people here were much friendlier than she’d expected.

  They pulled onto Rue Gavotte and into the narrow drive. Moments later, Tate heard each bedroom door click closed for a nap.

  They’d never made it to the scenic overlook to take pictures.

  While the French napped, the lone American slipped into her sneakers and went for a run. Although it was late afternoon, and the three o’clock sun bit at her skin, Tate found herself distracted from the heat by the winding streets of stone houses and flower-filled window baskets. Starting down Rue Gavotte and toward the center of town, she focused on the sound of her shoes slapping the pavement and found that it brought a rhythmic noise to otherwise quiet surroundings. Tate found it remarkable that all of the shops were closed. Apparently, the French took their midday rest quite seriously.

  Tate’s feet carried her over a stone bridge, then into a valley that rested just below the town. Forging ahead through the sweltering humidity, she came to the end of Revin’s city limits. On one side of her was a petrol station, its fumes invading the pure air she sucked into her lungs. On the other side stood a tall, and narrow brick-red church, its timber frame as picturesque as the peat bogs and lush forest that surrounded it. The sign outside the building read Saint Légères, and Tate took it to be a Catholic church.

  The salty tears that stung her chapped lips were not the reason she ventured into Saint Légères. She hadn’t swung open its heavy wooden doors in search of comfort. No, the tears had only begun pouring from her eyes after she was already inside the church. The burn of spicy incense in her nose, the heavy air that stayed cool inside the dark vestibule, the flickering candles that had probably been lit that morning by a townswoman hoping for a miracle—these were all reminders for Tate. Markers of her very childhood.

  How many holy days had she spent on her knees in Epiphany Church in downtown Pittsburgh? With Nana feeding her sugar-free mints to keep her quiet, she’d sit and daydream about all of the hiding places she could imagine herself in on the altar. Here and now, such a memory wasn’t fair play.

  She was sure it was the incense that had sent her over the emotional embankment, stumbling around in memories she wasn’t prepared to face. She pushed them away, but they pushed back even harder.

  She’d married Nathan at Epiphany Church. For so long, she’d played the amnesiac, blocking out all scenes of her wedding from her mind. But now, she was alive in the moment. Tate found herself walking down the aisle, beaming at the people who had gathered in honor of the love they felt for her and Nathan. She saw his face, pale and beautiful, colored by the widest smile imaginable. He’d never taken his eyes off her from the moment she began her march toward becoming his wife. She’d felt like his treasure.

  “Mademoiselle.” Tate heard a man’s voice coming from beside her and jumped.

  “Oh!” she gasped, stepping out of the sanctuary and away from the stranger. She wiped wet cheeks with her sweaty arm. “I’m so sorry,” she apologized, for nothing really, and tripped backward through the heavy doors, catching herself quickly enough to sprint away from the church and back over the bridge.

  “Tatiana,” a familiar voice called out from the main thoroughfare ahead of her. She looked up through tear-filled eyes to see Michel waving to her.

  Shit. This was exactly what she didn’t need right now. She hadn’t really seen much of Michel since two nights before when she’d met him and made a complete ass out of herself. Sure, she’d thought about him, had anticipated his arrival at family dinner last night, even. She’d told herself she wasn’t disappointed upon discovering he had an appointment he could not miss and would be absent from their table.

  How sad that she had to lie to herself. How pathetic, really. How could she even take herself seriously? One minute, she was bawling her eyes out over the estranged husband whose heart used to trip over itself at the sight of her. The next minute, she was stuck on feelings she had for her second cousin, who just happened to be tall, blond, and solidly built, with blue eyes that were sharp enough to carve the secrets from her soul—eyes that were also, strangely, soft enough to make her feel not so naked with those secrets exposed.

  As he neared her, Tate stopped to catch her breath and contain her emotions.

  “What do you run from, cousine?” Michel teased, meeting her at the end of the bridge. He wore khaki pants and a thin white cotton shirt, unbuttoned far enough to reveal caramel wisps of hair on his chest. Tate wasn’t sure if this was sexy or Neanderthal. Could Neanderthal be sexy?

  She stopped in front of him and let him kiss her cheeks in greeting, all the while imagining him wielding a caveman’s club and dragging her by the hair through the streets of Revin.

  What the hell was wrong with her?

  “I’m running from all of the fat and calories that are trying to catch up to my hips and ass, Michel.” She smiled at him, trying to ignore the speed and weight of her heartbeats. “Your grandmother is an amazing cook. I don’t usually eat so much.”

  “Ah, I see,” he said, his eyes sparkling in an azure grin. “You American women worry very much about your bodies. Fats and sugars very bad, right?”

  “I don’t worry, really,” she told him, not wanting to be tossed into the category of you American women for whatever reason. “Where are you walking to?” she asked him, changing the subject.

  “I was going to my grandmother’s house to see you.”

  Tate stopped breathing for a second. “Oh,” she said, and he laughed out loud.

  “It’s not every day I get to visit with my fat Ameri
can cousine, right?”

  “Nice one.” She punched him lightly in the arm.

  “Ow!” he joked. “Are you going to the house now, or are there still more calories to… What is it you do to the calories?”

  “Burn them,” she told him, smirking and kicking a stray piece of gravel at her feet. “And yes, I’m going home.” And when she said the word home, she almost didn’t catch the sigh of relief that floated from her lips.

  The two fell into an easy pace and a comfortable silence that seemed to suit them both. Together in their aloneness, they walked to Zia’s house, his steps just a half beat behind hers on the cracked pavement.

  Chapter 9

  Tate

  Tate was eagerly anticipating another day filled with stories of old. She spread a piece of brioche with butter and jelly, then popped it into her mouth, relishing both the burst of flavor from Zio’s homemade tomato jam and the memory of Zia’s French-accented Italian spilling tales of youth into Tate’s hungry imagination.

  Tonight was Chanson’s birthday party. The gathering was to be held at a lodge just outside of town, and Colette had described it as a rustic sort of restaurant and party center. Tate wasn’t sure she had packed a suitable dress.

  “What should I wear?” she’d asked Colette the night before, when she and Michel had arrived back at Zia’s house.

  “It is not a problem, Tatiana,” Colette had told her, waving a hand in the air. “Whatever you wear will be fine.” She’d turned to Michel then. “Our American cousine will look pretty in anything, Michel, non?”

  A sticky silence descended and clung to the two of them for a moment until Michel spoke up, looking in Tate’s direction but not meeting her eyes.

  “Yes, yes, of course you will,” he’d said tightly, busying himself at the brick oven. Tate had taken a large gulp of bottled water, then excused herself to go upstairs and change out of her running clothes.

  Since that loaded exchange, she still hadn’t taken the time to figure out something to wear tonight. Rinsing a glop of jelly from her dish, she set it into the aluminum sink and decided now was as good a time as any to find an outfit. Nobody else was awake to talk to around here, Zia tending to enjoy her sleep until nine or ten, and Zio… It was anybody’s guess where that man disappeared to in the mornings.

  Rounding the corner to climb the back steps to the guest room, Tate heard Colette’s heavy loafers clopping along the hardwood floors above.

  “Hey, Colette.” She greeted her cousin in the second floor hallway, just outside the bathroom.

  “Ah, Tatiana, come,” Colette said, drawing out Tate’s name like a song and gesturing for her to follow up the stairs to the attic bedroom. “I prescribe a special activity for you today.”

  So, now, Colette was writing prescriptions. Tate dug her teeth into the inside of her lower lip to still the snicker she was tempted to release.

  Trailing her cousin’s steps into the expansive fourth-floor loft, Tate noticed the utter disarray of the room. Clothes, shoes, and other unlikely items were strewn from one side of the high-ceilinged room to the other. Jackets were flung over chairs. A soccer ball lay in the middle of the floor next to a pile of heavy books.

  Quite possibly the strangest item in the room was the life-size terra-cotta statue of a thick-tusked wild boar. The animal stood directly in front of the unmade bed and was staring at Tate.

  Don’t look at me like that, piggy, she thought. I haven’t done anything wrong yet.

  Yet? Where had that thought come from?

  Tate glared at the accusing animal, then swerved her attention back to Colette.

  “…so while we do the preparations for the party, you can enjoy some scenery, yes?”

  Colette drew out the elastic waistband from her tan linen pants and dumped a few shakes of powder down them. Now Tate felt like a voyeur, and she tried to peer straight at Colette’s splotchy red cheeks, which looked like they’d been freshly scrubbed. Her cousin smelled of lavender and talc.

  “Scenery sounds great,” Tate said, wondering what part of the conversation she’d missed.

  Colette beamed, then slapped her heartily on the shoulder. “Good, cousine. Then Michel will arrive in thirty minutes with the mountain bikes.” She ran a hand through her damp flop of hair, then disappeared through the narrow hallway that led to a private upstairs toilet, leaving Tate alone and a little baffled.

  Wait a minute. Mountain bikes?

  Michel?

  The prickles started their journey at Tate’s calves, crawled up her back, and rested on her neck, leaving goose bumps on every stretch of skin they touched. She felt like someone was watching her.

  Turning, she once again glared at the wild boar.

  “Don’t even think it,” she said out loud to the stone creature, too worked up to give a shit about her crackpot behavior.

  “Did you say something?” Colette asked, resurfacing in the messy room.

  “No,” Tate said, giving the pig one last dirty look before turning to her cousin. “I should probably go change.”

  “Okay then.” Colette, still smiling, nodded at Tate. “I see you after your adventure.”

  “Okay then,” Tate replied, capsizing into the realization that today was going to be nothing like she’d planned.

  * * *

  “Is it too much for you, Tatiana?” Michel asked.

  “No, I’m fine,” Tate lied, her calf muscles screaming at her as the words left her lips. What had given Colette the idea that Tate was a mountain biker? She would have scoffed at the term mountain bike if there was any spare air left in her lungs to do so. At the moment, though, she was chuffing and woozy from lack of oxygen and stupid exertion. Since sarcasm wasn’t a dire necessity, she couldn’t waste any breath on laughing at the banana-seat, nineteen-eighty-something bicycle that Colette had referred to as a mountain bike.

  Honestly. Where the hell was the top of this hill?

  All she could see in front of her were the tippy tops of needly pines and bright blue sky. That and Michel’s thick-muscled calves, which were pedaling uphill with complete ease.

  “We descend in just a moment, okay?” He swung his head to the side to catch sight of her out of the corner of his eye, checking to see if she was still alive, maybe.

  Just barely, buddy, she thought, pushing away the strange sensation that lit her belly. She wasn’t used to anyone worrying about her well-being. That luxury had died several deaths.

  First with her father’s painful descent into the hell of heart failure. Months and months of his fluid-filled lungs being drained out. Tate’s tears, all cried out. Until finally the fight slipped out of him. He was tired. Then he was gone.

  Tate’s father’s death at the age of fifty-four had crippled her emotionally, leaving her only half of the vibrant woman she had once been. Then, three months later, when her fifty-six-year-old mother took her last breath through cancer-ridden lungs, Tate’s other half nearly died too. If it hadn’t been for her grandmother literally dragging her out of a stupor of grief, she was sure she would have remained in a catatonic state for good. Nana Maria had saved her life.

  And then she’d left Tate, too.

  Tate pedaled harder against the rage of memories, squinted her eyes, and pushed to the crest of the hill.

  “You made it,” Michel said, smiling and stopping his bike to wait for her. A lock of wavy-messy bang hung over his left eye, casting a shadow over sweaty pink cheeks. He blew the toffee-blond curl aside and dismounted. “It is a difficult hill,” he said to Tate as she too got down from her bicycle, then doubled over to catch her breath.

  She hated letting Michel see her so winded, but she couldn’t help it. Allowing a moment for the black fuzziness to seep from her head, she reached for the water bottle Michel offered. Forcing her body vertical, she let her head sink back, allowing the lukewarm water to slide down her throat.

  Closing her eyes, she gasped, still breathless from the trek.

  A hand was suddenly on he
r arm, soft but strong, then curled over her shoulder. She opened her eyes and couldn’t help but fixate on the rivers of cracked skin that ran along his fingers. A working man’s hand, she thought. Callused fingers dipping into the sweat of her bare shoulder. How long had it been since any man’s hand had touched her skin?

  “Tatiana, are you sure you’re all right? We can stop here to rest before riding back down. It is no problem for me.” His words floated through the cloud of warm daze that engulfed her.

  She turned to face him, oxygen still not fully saturating her brain cells. Tate and Michel stood just inches apart, her eyes speaking a hazy, heated confusion, his an unsolicited concern that threatened to burn through the dry parchment in which she wrapped her secrets.

  He can’t do that, she thought, desperately trying to regain her air and composure. He could not look at her with those concerned eyes, telling her without words that her very breath mattered to him. He couldn’t make her remember what that felt like. She swallowed a pool of saliva that mixed with the sweat seeping in from her parted lips, steeling herself to face his question.

  “I’m all right, Michel,” she told him, then chuckle-coughed. “I think Colette overestimated my athleticism.”

  Michel grinned and ran a hand through his mop of damp, chin-length hair. “She said you were sportif,” he teased.

  Tate raised her eyebrows. Sportif meant “athletic.”

  “I’m a runner,” she told him. “I’m not into anything more rugged than that.”

  “Oh, no?” Michel smirked, a deep dimple on his left cheek seeming to wink at her. “The ride down is a trail through the forest.” He gestured to a sign about thirty yards ahead of them. It looked like a trailhead marker. “Is it okay—”