Page 77 of The Bitter Heir and the Beauty

I snap my fingers. “Yeah, that’s it.”

“I thought you’re from Nevada. That’s a Cajun folklore thing. Like when you get the spirits in you—thegris-gris.”

“The gray gray?”

She sounds it out. “Gree gree. Kind of like dark magic. Makes people mean and is also a kind of local wine.”

I shudder. My ex definitely had thegree gree.

Honey sticks out her tongue. “I take it you weren’t the one drinking the Fifolet.”

“Definitely not. But I don’t want to think about that while we’re celebrating.”

The day is a delight with gifts exchanged—the baby loves her chirping chicken stuffed animal and Honey already wears the personalized name necklace withLeoniein fancy script that I had custom-made in Carson. We snuggle by the fire even though it’s barely below sixty degrees. This old house is drafty, which is a problem I plan to fix in the new year.

Which comes all too soon. Honey insists we leave the decorations up for twelve more days and wants to make another special recipe from the cookbook involving black-eyed peas and cornbread.

“Have you thought more about the new menu for the Grille?” I ask.

“My goal is to get it finalized and printed before December thirty-first. That gives me plenty of time.”

I chuckle. “So by the end of this upcoming new year.”

She nods. “My other New Year resolution is to read my mail. All of it.”

“That also gives you three hundred and sixty-four days.”

She sighs. “I already got through everything except the bills and my mother’s letters. I figure it’s best to give myself a long runway for that.”

I want to assure her that I’ll help however I can but figure that’s a conversation for later. After all, we have fifty-two weeks to figure things out, including whether I’m going to leave periodically to teach trainings out west. But we’ll get to that.

Honey’s expression dims, and she says, “Maddock, there’s something else ... Something I want you to know about me. Um, remember how I mentioned that my mother is in jail?”

I nod slowly, surprised that she wanted to head into this territory since it seems like a sensitive topic.

“I was born behind bars and it’s like I’ve kept them around me even though her crimes weren’t my crimes.” She winces. “Though for a time, I was complicit.”

Gripping Honey’s shoulders, I want nothing more than to soothe this sudden sadness out of her, but before I can say anything, she continues, “My mother has been sending me letters, warning me about my cousin.”

“Leonie’s birth mother?”

She nods.

I tip her chin up. “Don’t worry. I’m here. Nothing is going to happen. Let’s make a New Year’s resolution together. The ghosts of the past get left there. You and me, we’re starting a new chapter, telling a new story, together.”

Her smile rises to her eyes and then falls. “Ghost.”

I brush my thumb by her lower lip. “And a future together yet to come.”

She says, “No. I mean yes. Absolutely. But it just came to me. Finding Eloise’s cookbook connected me to a time in this house before all of my mother’s schemes. When the tree was aglow?—”

I point to ours.

She nods. “And the stockings were hung?—”

I tip my head toward the hearth.

“Exactly. But there was something about the notes in the margins of the cookbook. The ones about the apple tart and liver but not heart.”

---