Romantic - Enemies to Lovers - Forbidden Love
•✦───✧✦✧───✦•
In the peacetime following World War II, Jean Ward loses everything and is sent to live with her best friend, Clyde Mayberry, and his brood of brothers on his family's cattle ranch.
For a...
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•✦─Summer, 1956─✦• Jean, age 18
Mrs. Favreau was a short woman with a mask of makeup on her face and a mountain of dyed, black hair atop her head. She was pushing seventy but tried her very best to ignore that fact by dressing as a girl of Jean's age, with her fit-and-flared dresses and hip hairdos.
She was the woman behind Mrs. Favreau's Tailor Shop and had hired Jean as one of her seamstresses.
Jean loved the old woman. She was as quick as a whip, kind as a dove, and knew fashion like it was a part of her, always willing to share her knowledge with anyone who asked it of her.
She often prattled on about this and that as Jean worked on garments, Jean soaking up the information like a sponge.
She loved working at the shop. It was exciting getting to earn money of her own and learn more about fashion.
The only downside to her new job was that she had to drive Mr. Mayberry's pickup to and from the shop. It was the only vehicle they could spare for her, and Jean hated it.
It was a terribly rumbly thing and smelled like cigar smoke and manure from where Mr. Mayberry would use it on the weekends.
And it was as old as the mountains.
Jean figured out just how old when it failed to roar to life one day after work.
"No, no, no, no," she breathed out, waiting for the old clunker to rattle and wheeze like normal as she turned her key. "Come on, you nasty, old thing. Work!"
It did nothing.
Jean frowned, admitting defeat as she stepped out of the car and headed towards the nearest pay phone, digging around in her clutch for a nickel.
"Jean?"
Jean looked up from her purse, spotting a man standing in the open bay of the mechanic shop across the street.
"Vince?"
Vincent Renner smiled at her, putting out the lit cigarette he held on the sole of his work boot before flicking it aside and sauntering toward her.
"Hey, Jean," he greeted, eyes roaming as he approached. "You look good."
Jean's eyes did the same, taking him in. His clothes were grease-stained, but he was still as handsome as ever.
As her gaze slowly climbed up to his face, she realized that she wasn't quite sure how to act around him. She hadn't seen him since they had broken up, and that meeting hadn't been exactly cordial.
