C A T C H T H E W I N D
She was at the top of my People I Hope to Never See Again list.
Now she’s my new employee.
The last time I came face to face with Marie-Ève Thibodeau, she was the right-hand minion of my high school bully. After graduation, she left our small town for a shiny new life in the city and never returned.
Until now. She’s back, broke, and desperate for a job at the only place currently hiring: the bed and breakfast I run with my two best friends.
Unfortunately, we’re so desperate for a receptionist that I can’t turn her down.
Balsam Inn is my safe place. It’s my proof that I’ve left the shadows of high school behind and built a life I’m proud of, but working with Marie-Ève makes me feel the farthest thing from safe.
Especially since she’s even prettier than I remembered.
Every shift together reveals a new layer of the woman I thought I knew. When our eyes start lingering and our hands start wandering, I can’t resist falling into stolen moments and stupid decisions.
She still has a life waiting for her in the city, and I’m still the girl who never left this town.
If I’m not careful, Marie-Ève might just end up on my list of People Who’ve Broken My Heart.
E X C E R P T
My body recognizes her before my brain does.
I haven’t seen her since I was a teenager, and somehow, my mind digs up enough old adolescent chemicals to pump my bloodstream with the same mix of shame, rage, fear, pain, and longing I’d feel whenever I had to walk past her in the hall.
My twenty-four year-old self wasn’t built to handle that level of angst, and I end up gripping the back of the nearest chair for support, like I might just topple over from the force of the reaction.
Then logic has a chance to catch up, and I realize why I’m regressing into a sixteen year-old at the sight of a total stranger.
It’s because she’s not a stranger—at least, not a total stranger.
She’s Marie-Ève Thibodeau, or as Nat and Jass started calling her during my ranting sessions when I was stuck in high school while they were off living their best lives at Cégep, Merdie-Ève.
At the very least, I could count on my big cousin and her cool friend to come up with a pun involving my high school nemesis’s name and the French word for shit.
Nemesis isn’t even accurate; she was the accomplice of my nemesis. Marie-Ève was one of the chortling, mindless minions who served Stasia Duplessis, the girl who seemed to exist solely to make my time at school a living hell.
It’s just that Marie-Ève was both extremely pretty and also sometimes sort of secretly nice to me, which made it hurt way more than anyone else when she wasn’t nice.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
Jacinthe lets out a huff of surprise at my question, but Natalie doesn’t react at all. She stays frozen in her chair, and one look at her face tells me she knows exactly who she’s sitting beside.
Marie-Ève has gone motionless too. She’s looking at us from over her shoulder. I can’t see much more than her head and neck from behind the couch, but it’s enough.
I spent so many hours staring at the back of her head in class that I’d probably recognize it from across a football stadium, which some might say is pathetic, but I choose to see it as the wisdom of knowing your enemy.
Her face has gone pale, her eyes wide. Her lips are slightly parted, but they don’t move to form an answer to my question.
She just stares. I don’t even think she blinks.
I don’t think I do either.
