Barefoot in Lace (Barefoot Bay Brides Book 2)

  “’Kay.” He heard her stomach growl, and she tried to cover that by crossing her arms, making her skinny shoulders stick out of the sleeveless T-shirt that hung over cotton sleep pants covered with pictures of kittens.

  “You sound hungry.” He opened the fridge, which their hosts had stocked with LaVie, naturally, and a few other essentials, including eggs, but he had a better idea. “We’re going to the best bakery on earth. Go get dressed.”

  But she stood frozen, staring at him, her expression unreadable.

  “Look, Alex. I have an idea. Let’s add something to the freecation.”

  She still simply looked at him, waiting. Swallowing hard, he forged on. “Let’s both be free of the awkwardness and discomfort that seems to invade every conversation we have. Let’s just get to know each other, and you meet me halfway without me feeling like I have somehow broken a cardinal rule of guardianship.”

  He watched her consider the suggestion, waiting for the fight or rationale why that was a bad idea and they should continue to walk on eggshells.

  “You think they’ll have croissants with chocolate chips?” she asked.

  Thank God. “Like you have never tasted in your entire life.”

  She hinted at a smile and disappeared down the hall to her bedroom, which was across from the room that Gussie had taken. A small, but tangible, victory.

  A few minutes later, he found Alex waiting for him in the living room, wearing shorts and a T-shirt and sneakers, looking adorably American and quite young. She gestured at his linen pants and understated collared shirt. “Why are you all dressed up?”

  It wasn’t quite as formal as Paris, but he suspected she’d figure out soon enough that the white sneakers and cutoffs branded her as an outsider in Nice. “Just dressed.”

  “Should I wake Gussie so she can come with us?” she asked, hope in her voice.

  He peeked through the French doors to see she hadn’t moved. “Let her sleep. We’ll bring her a basket of baked goods and some fruit and coffee.”

  Alex looked a little horrified that she had to be alone with him, but he chose to ignore that.

  “She’ll be fine,” he assured her, grabbing the house key they’d left on the counter. “Better if she catches up on sleep.”

  “But I like her.”

  “Then let her sleep. It’s the most thoughtful thing you can do for someone you like.”

  “Or you can cover them up with a blanket and kiss them.” It was the closest thing to a tease she’d ever given him.

  “Busted.” He headed to the door, letting her out first, his heart lighter than it had been since Ruthie died.

  Crossing the street, he got his bearings of the southeast section of Nice, the neighborhood tucked into a beautiful section walking distance from the beach and Old Town. “If I recall, the bakery is that way.” He gestured them past a few restaurants and boutiques, a salon and spa, and a small but packed café.

  “Can’t we eat at one of these?”

  “We could, but it isn’t quite what I had in mind.” A few pedestrians brushed by, their gazes distant or down, like all Frenchmen who refused direct eye contact. At the intersection, a truck rumbled by at high speed, and instinctively, Tom grabbed Alex’s hand and tugged her back a few feet to safety.

  “Whoa, there. You okay, kid?”

  Eyes wide, she nodded, still holding his hand. “Not a lot of drivers like that in Florida.” Staying close, they walked past an iron gate around a lush garden, then by a stone cathedral, and Alex practically stumbled on the cobblestones trying to drink everything in.

  As they walked, he told her tidbits about Nice, and she soaked everything up, asking a few questions and even making comments all the way to the red-and-white striped awning of Le Pain.

  Inside the little shop, she crooned over the chocolate, cinnamon, and butter-rich aroma of a truly great French bakery.

  “Holy wow, that smells fantastic.” Alex twirled a bit, pulled to the glass cases full of petit fours and croissants, cream puffs and macaroons. Behind the cases were stacks upon stacks of baguettes and breads, glistening with golden crusts, every one uniformly made despite the fact that each was created by hand a few hours ago.

  After some discussion in broken French with the baker, they settled on croissants, with coffee for Tom and milk for Alex, and then took their purchases outside to find a corner table to eat and people watch.

  “Why does everyone dress so fancy?” she asked.

  “Well, there are a lot of rich tourists, and this is France, where fashion reigns.”

  She lifted her sneakered feet and grinned around a big piece of chocolaty crust. “Whoops.”

  “No worries. Gussie can help you do a little shopping if you want to get some clothes that don’t scream Mimosa Key, Florida.”

  She narrowed her eyes at him as she swallowed. “You know there’s nothing wrong with Mimosa Key. We have tourists there, and some of them are even billionaires. Nobody cares if they wear sneakers and shorts. In fact, we encourage it.”

  “Touché. But you’re in France.”

  She looked around again, clearly in awe of this new world. She loved traveling, he thought suddenly. She’d probably take to it like a pro. And maybe…

  He sipped his coffee, considering exactly how to broach the subject. “You know, Alex, I travel a lot.”

  She nodded, brushing crumbs from her mouth. “I know.”

  “Traveling’s the best education you’d ever get.”

  She shot him a look, setting down the remainder of croissant to drink milk. “I need to go to school,” she said after she swallowed.

  “Of course, but, you know, you can learn on the road.”

  She looked up at him, worry darkening her eyes, the tasty food forgotten. “Is that what you think we’re going to do? Travel all over the world while you take pictures and I get taught by people I don’t know?”

  “Does that really sound so bad to you?” He wasn’t trying to argue, but he wanted to understand if his lifestyle could ever appeal to her.

  “Yes, it sounds bad to me. It sounds weird. Like, who would be my friends?”

  “I never see you with any friends.”

  “But I have them! I have school and a house I love, and it’s home.”

  “Home is where you make it,” he said. “And there’s a great big world out there that—”

  “No!” Her color rose as high as the note in her voice. “I don’t want to leave Mimosa Key.”

  “Then what are we going to do?” he asked, actually hoping she’d have a solution, even though he knew better.

  She pushed her seat back with a loud scrape against cobblestone, nearly toppling her chair. “That’s not my problem!”

  “Alex—”

  “I’m not going to live like some homeless freak because you can’t figure it out. You’re not going to drag me around like an extra piece of luggage. I’m a person. I’m someone’s daughter.”

  “Alex!”

  But she was off like a bullet, using those white sneakers to fly down the Rue de la Something and disappear around a corner.

  * * *

  In the distance, Gussie heard a pounding, a persistent tap tap smack that hammered her out of her sleep. It was Ari, of course. She always came down way too early to have coffee.

  “Gussie! Let me in!”

  Gussie rolled over and fell right off the bed onto the floor with a painful thud. “Ouch! Holy sh…” She blinked into sunshine, shocked into consciousness. “What the hell?”

  Oh, yeah. France. Nice. The Riviera. Crazy hot orgasms at sunrise. She swiped her hand through her hair, her braid long ago lost.

  “That wasn’t a dream,” she murmured with a sleepy smile.

  “Gussie! Please!”

  And that wasn’t Ari. She shot up, grabbing the railing for stability, stealing a look at the stunning view over rooftops and through trees, then hurried to the closed French doors. Why had they left her out here?

  And why was Alex p
ounding on the front door of the apartment? And where was Tom? She reached the door just as Alex stopped knocking, the muffled sound of a woman’s voice on the other side.

  “Alex?” Gussie fumbled with the lock and latch, finally getting it to open. There, she came face-to-face with a teary Alex and a woman standing in the doorway of the next apartment, holding a large platter, her face smudged with two different colors of blue paint, big brown eyes wide under a halo of blond curls.

  “Is everything all right?” the woman asked, her clipped tone decidedly English.

  “Are you okay?” Gussie asked Alex, seeing a whirlwind of emotion on the young girl’s face, but not at all able to read it. “Where were you? Where’s Tom?”

  “We went to some bakery down the street for breakfast.”

  “Oh, I hope it was Le Pain,” the woman said, stepping farther into the hall. “I eat at least a baguette a day from that amazing baker.” She gave them a huge smile and held out her hand, a long, thin-tipped paint brush balanced between fingers. “Oh.” She seemed to realize she had it, then set it on the platter—no, palette—full of bright splotches of paint. Wiping her hand on a similarly splotched smock, she offered it again.

  “I’m Anne Stone, and I presume I’m your neighbor.”

  Alex looked at her, so Gussie stepped forward to shake the woman’s hand. “Hello. I’m Gussie McBain, and this is Alex. We arrived last night.”

  “For the rest of the season or are you a weekly?”

  “We’re here for a few weeks,” Gussie said.

  “Oh, lovely! I can’t stand when there’s a parade of newcomers every few days. And you with a youngster!” She turned her blinding smile on Alex. “You must be about the same age as my Lizzie or Eddie. Thirteen?”

  “Almost,” she said.

  “Closer to Eddie, then. He’s already thirteen. And Lizzie is eleven going on thirty-five.” She gave a quick laugh at her joke. “On holiday, I suppose?” she asked.

  “Um…sort of a working holiday,” Gussie said. “Are you a painter?”

  She hooted again, as though the question tickled her to death. “Let’s say I put color on a canvas and try to make a picture. Georgia O’Keeffe I am not.” She hoisted the paint palette as though she had a tray full of pastries. “However, I put my heart and soul into it, and that’s all that matters.”

  “And you live here?” Gussie asked.

  “Only for the summer. We go back to London in September.” She let out the softest sigh. “So I’m trying to make the most of every—”

  “Mum! Where are you?” a young boy’s voice with the same lilting British accent called from inside the other apartment.

  “In the hall, luv. Come and meet our new neighbors.”

  In a second, a boy stuck his head out, his hair as blond as his mother’s, but not curly, his angular face twisted as he looked questioningly into the hall.

  “And they have a child your age!” Anne said as if this was a great gift.

  Gray-blue eyes shifted from Gussie to Alex, landing on her with a second of interest, then a flash of disappointment. “A girl.”

  Alex choked softly, spearing him with a look.

  “Edward Stone!” Anne chided. “Get out here and be a proper gentleman.”

  With a puff of teen disgust, he stepped out and nodded. “Greetings, neighbors,” he said stiffly, his freckled face stiff as a board as he carefully avoided eye contact with either of them. Then, to his mother, “Are the biscuits ready?”

  “Where is everyone?” This time, a girl came into the hall, a smaller, younger but similar version of the boy. “Oh, goodness.” She put her hand to her chest self-consciously. “Hello.”

  “And this is Elizabeth, but we call her Lizzie,” Anne continued. “Meet our new neighbors, Gussie and Alex, who is right in between you and Eddie on the age scale. Isn’t that convenient to have another mate your age around?”

  “Oh, yes,” Lizzie said, walking right up to Alex with wide eyes. “And you’re American!”

  Alex nodded. “Yeah.”

  “Have you met Justin Bieber?”

  “Lizzie, are you daft?” Eddie scowled at his sister. “That’s like her asking if you’ve met One Direction.”

  “Have you?” Alex asked.

  Both girls burst out laughing, making Anne beam with joy. “And we have instant friends,” she announced. “Are you alone or is your husb—”

  “Alex!” Tom’s sharp bark silenced all of them, echoing through the long stone hallway as he made his way up the stairs. “You shouldn’t have run away like that.”

  Appearing at the corner, he marched toward them.

  “Oh, dear,” Anne whispered. “Someone’s in a pickle with Dad.”

  “He’s not my dad!” Alex shot back under her breath.

  Anne lifted her brows and looked at Gussie, but Tom reached them before she could reply.

  “Not cool,” he ground out, his frustration and anger palpable. “You don’t run away in a foreign city!”

  “We best be going then,” Anne said brightly. “Let’s have a cuppa sometime, Gussie? And you young ones can play.” She shooed her kids back into the apartment with a quick but silent hello to Tom, obviously recognizing that this was not the time for a neighborly introduction.

  “What happened?” Gussie asked.

  “Inside,” Tom said, nudging both of them back into their apartment. His eyes blazed like blue flames, locked on Alex. She hustled into the apartment ahead of both of them, marching down the hall to her room, giving the door a dramatic slam. Gussie turned and put her hand on Tom’s chest to stop him from following her.

  “What is going on?” she demanded.

  “She bolted in the middle of breakfast, and I wasn’t even sure she knew how to get back here.”

  “Why?”

  He huffed in resignation. “I brought up the subject of the future and the possibility of her traveling with me.”

  “And she hated that?”

  “Hate would be a slight understatement.” He raked his hands through his hair, frustration etched on every handsome feature. “It’s like everything I do with her is wrong. How do you do it? How do you manage to get through to her so easily?”

  “I mostly listen.”

  “You do more than that. But before we argued, it was great. We were checking out the scenery, talking about Nice, and having a fine time. Then I screwed it up and talked about the big, fat elephant in the room.”

  Which would be: what he was going to do with her.

  Gussie’s heart folded in half, feeling both their pain and aching to do something to fix it. “I’ll go talk to her for you.”

  “Talk to her for her,” he corrected, putting his lips on Gussie’s forehead. “I need to leave anyway.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “I got a text from the head of marketing at LaVie asking if I could come in for an emergency creative session before we finalize the location and shoot schedule. I said I would go. I’d love for you to come with me.”

  And she’d love to go, but… “I’ll stay with Alex.”

  “They offered to send a sitter.”

  Gussie shook her head, listening to her head over her heart. “Bad idea right now.”

  He closed his eyes, pulling her closer. “I swear I didn’t bring you to be her nanny.”

  “I know, but it would be wrong to leave her when she’s feeling so tender.”

  “You know you’re too good for me.”

  “I know,” she teased.

  “I’m serious.” He gave her shoulders a squeeze. “And you can’t solve my problems for me.”

  “Not long term. But I can help out while we’re here. It’s the least I can do for the vacation of my dreams.”

  He still looked torn, then he leaned closer and kissed her forehead again. “We’re getting tangled up,” he murmured, a note of something that hovered between fear and excitement in his deep voice.

  “We’ll get untangled.” Eventually. There was
no other way.

  Chapter Fifteen

  There was a metric buttload of money in water. That much was obvious to Tom as the driver steered the car up to one of the highest points in the rolling hills an hour north of Nice.

  L’Eau LaVie S.A. was a village unto itself, with at least two dozen red-tile-topped buildings situated up and down the hillside with a grand castle-like headquarters at the peak.

  The internationally recognized lime-green and Tiffany-blue LaVie logo was everywhere, including on the flag that fluttered atop a rounded tower where, Tom’s driver informed him, the CEO had his offices.

  But the marketing department was no less impressive, taking up a whole wing of the stone building, with a commanding view of the countryside even from the stone driveway where they finally stopped.

  In an instant, a dark-haired woman in her fifties, sharply dressed in a black and white suit and sky-high heels, snapped her way across the stone, barely waiting for the driver to open Tom’s door before she extended a hand demanding to be shaken.

  “Monsieur DeMille! You have arrived!”

  He greeted Suzette Voudreaux with a standard two-cheek air kiss, then followed her on a brief tour that included the history of LaVie bottled water. They finished in a massive conference room that had a glass wall that showed a breathtaking view of southern France as far as the eye could see.

  But Tom was more interested in the opposite wall, which held a series of poster-size sketches that would be his working storyboard for the next few weeks of shooting. The room was nearly filled with a dozen or more advertising types, a mix of loose creative experts and uptight marketing machines.

  For the next hour or so, he listened to all of them, appreciating how they made every effort to speak English for him, getting their ideas across until someone inevitably argued and a heated discussion broke out. After they finalized the shots and locations, a number of executives left, and a few more from casting came in with the head shots of models. Suzette led this session, showing him the selected faces, many of whom were familiar to him.

  “So you’re definitely using high-fashion editorial models,” he mused, turning one of the eight-by-tens around and recognizing the woman as one he’d shot in Italy for Marie Claire last year, someone cold and self-absorbed who went by one name.