Invitation to Provence(12)

He asked what she’d like to drink. “Something pink and girly,” she said, surprising him. “And alcoholic.” She grinned. “It’s been a long day.”

He called the waiter and Franny studied the menu, hoping he couldn’t hear the hungry rumblings of her stomach; she’d missed lunch again. “I’m going to have the scallops with ginger to start, and then the lamb chops,” she said, then glanced guiltily up at him. “I’m starving, but anyhow we’re going dutch on this.”

“It’s good to see a woman with an appetite, and dinner’s on me.” He held up a hand when she protested. “I asked you out,” he said, “and besides I still need to prove to you that I’m a gentleman.”

She took a sip of her drink. “And are you?”

“I’ve been called other things in my time, but I’m still hoping.”

“Funny thing, I’ve never thought of myself as ‘a lady’ ” Franny laughed, “I suppose there was never enough time to practice being one. I’ve always just been the ‘career woman,’ ” she said, mocking herself. “You know, making her own way in the world, that sort of thing.”

“It seems to have worked,” he said as the food came and the waiter poured the wine.

“So,” she said, realizing she knew nothing about him except that he had a dog, “what do you do anyway?”

“I’m in the risk management business. Security,” he added helpfully when she looked puzzled.

“You mean like … a bodyguard!”

“My company trains bodyguards for international celebrities and billionaires. We ensure their safety. And I investigate the backgrounds of their employees at the big companies, find out their problems.”

“You’re a P.I.?”

“Sort of …”

She sat back, flabbergasted. “I thought that was all Hollywood baloney. I never knew people like you really existed.”

“Well, here I am.”

“In the flesh and all,” she said, awed. “I bet you get to travel a lot.”

“I do.”

“I’d like to travel,” she said wistfully and Jake smiled, thinking of the invitation. “Still, all those plane flights, all the delays, the long lines for security checks, you must find it tiring.”

“I have my own plane.”

Franny sat up straight. She pushed back her slippery hair and narrowed her long eyes at him. “You have your own plane?”

“It’s not huge, you know. It’s for my company and it’s a few years old now.”

“Oh my god. I never met anyone who owned their own plane. You must be very rich.”

He laughed. “It’s just necessary for my job. I can’t always rely on commercial airlines.”

“So,” she said, forthright as always, “why haven’t you been snapped up by some lucky woman already? Unless you are married of course?” She hadn’t thought of that until now, hadn’t remembered that married men had been known to ask women out on dates, too.

“There’s been no one recently I’ve wanted to marry,” he said, cool now.

Franny bit her lip, knowing she’d gone too far. She said, “I’m sorry.”

He changed the subject. “What’s it like being a vet? Do you get many customers like Ron and Marmalade, or do you normally just treat the animal?” And so Franny entertained him through the meal with stories of her patients. Then she told him about the poor German shepherd. “Oh, that reminds me,” she said, looking at her watch, “I have to go back to the clinic after dinner to check on him.”

“You’re a dedicated doctor, then,” he said, and she nodded in agreement. “I couldn’t be any other way,” she said simply, and she could tell from his eyes that he understood.

“So, tell me about you now, not your animals,” he said, pouring more wine. He looked up at her and their eyes linked. “I want to know more about the real you.”

“Well, I’m an Oregon girl. My father owned a little vineyard where he grew pinot noir grapes. He lost what money he had when phylloxera hit. Mom left when I was just a kid. I never knew her, so I didn’t miss her when she died, though I’m still overwhelmed by guilt about not feeling anything.” She glanced anxiously at him. Was she revealing too much? She didn’t think so. Somehow she knew he understood. “Do you think that’s terrible?”

He shrugged. “I never knew my mother, either. Like with you, she left when I was a child.”

“Tell me about it,” she said eagerly, leaning an elbow on the table and cupping her chin in her hand.

So Jake told her about his early life in Argentina and his relationship with his father. He described the sweeping acres of grassy pampas and the gauchos who were his only friends. He told her how much he loved the speedy little horses who would later become polo ponies and be sold to eager connoisseurs all over the world.

“Were you as lonely a kid as I was?” she asked suddenly.

He wasn’t surprised by her question. He felt they came from the same lonely place.

He nodded, serious. “It’s the kind of loneliness only those who have been there can know,” he said quietly.

Instinctively she reached across the table for his hand, holding it unself-consciously in both hers. “But it worked out for you. You dealt with it, you became who you are.”