Page 142 of Tempting Promises
Mrs. Cooke rolls her eyes. “You can’t stop it even before then, you ninny.”
“You know what I meant, you old hag,” she tosses back at her.
These two are like bickering siblings most days. “Well,” I jump in. “I hope one day Aurora can just be happy for me, but if not, then that’s her choice.”
I used to feel like the two years of her being away couldn’t hurtmore than anything else. I see how wrong I was. This hurts so much more.
“She’ll come around, honey.” Mrs. Symonds pats my hand. “Sometimes, we just need to give people time to see their decisions are wrong.”
“She would know,” Mrs. Cooke says while jabbing her with her elbow. “Lord knows she makes a lot of them.”
I laugh softly, and then I feel a hand wrap around my arm. “Here you are.” I turn to see Brynlee.
“Hey.”
“Sorry, ladies, I need to grab Charlotte and bring her back to Rowan. He is too afraid to come over here and be cornered by you.”
You’d think that would upset them, but instead, they seem proud. “Smart boy,” Mrs. Cooke says.
We walk away to where Faye is literally bouncing up and down. “Oh my God. Oh my God. I can’t.”
“Can’t what?”
I’m starting to worry. Is she excited? Nervous? Upset? I just can’t tell and she’s not using her words.
Brynn takes Faye’s hands in hers. “Easy, Faye.”
She shakes her head. “Right. Okay. So.” She inhales deeply, and then on her exhale, she rambles whatever has her so keyed up. “I used that balm thing you gave me with the cute little sprig on it. I got this stupid pimple on my chin, and well, I can’t have a pimple when I need to do a sponsored ad for that big makeup deal I just got. So, I was like, hey, Charlotte gave me that weird nature shit and said it worked. I opened it, put it on, and went to bed. When I woke up, it was, like, gone. The zit was flat and gone. I swear, it was insane.”
I nod slowly. “Okay . . .”
“I posted this.” She shoves her phone into my hand with Instagram already open, and there is a video of her basically saying everything she just said to me. She talks about its magical properties and then she shows a bruise on her leg before she rubs the salve over it, promising to report back. On and on Faye talksabout how great it smells and how they need this product for breakouts.
I blink when I see the number of views. “Faye?” My voice is shaking as badly as my hands are.
“Where is this you’re sending them to?”
She grins. “As your bestie, before I posted this, I made you an Instagram account, and a website for your new business, it was meant to be a surprise.”
“You have?” I ask, feeling stunned. “Why would you do this?”
“You told me you love this, Charlotte. You love making these, don’t you?”
I do. I talked to her about it a few days ago, actually. I told her how I’ve been making them more and was going to do a few craft shows next week. Rowan made space for me in the barn the other day to stack my boxes. He bought me a special double boiler too so I can do things a little faster.
It’s fun. I’m enjoying the simplicity of it, and I think each batch is a little better as I keep tweaking.
“Yes, but . . .”
“Well, you mentioned a name, I thought the least we could do was get a cute logo after you joked about it.”
“A name? I was tossing weird ones out because you told me to!”
She grins. “Yes, well, I liked one.”
I look back at the screen, reading the name aloud. “Rosemary and Vine Apothecary.”
Brynn nudges me. “Okay, that is a really cute name.”
