Invitation to Provence(69)
Back at the chateau, a shower had never felt so welcome, and the thought of a quiet night spent with her man never more inviting. Franny just wanted to curl up in Jake’s arms. She wanted to feel the heat of his body, to smell his skin and run her purple-stained hands all over him. She wanted to sleep with him, spooned around his body, loving him.
LATER, AFTER a simple dinner, Rafaella and Juliette settled down to play Monopoly with Little Blue and Haigh. Explaining that she had to be up early because she was going to help Jarré prepare the special lunch tomorrow, Clare went off to bed, while Franny and Jake went for a walk.
His arm was around her waist as they strolled back to the lake in the blue half-light. Criminal snuffled in the reeds, yelping when he slid into the water and got his paws wet, scaring a squadron of ducks who took off squawking. They sat on the grass to watch the returning ducks dunking their heads in the water and waving their silly yellow feet in the air as they scoured for whatever it was ducks ate. A swan patrolled the far shore, aware of the dog and on guard for its mate and her young. The same wind that had sprung up the night before suddenly raked through the treetops. Jake said it was the mistral blowing all the way from Siberia, down through northern Europe, then channeling through the mountain ranges to end up in Provence. “Scott had better get his grapes in quickly,” he added, “or he’s in trouble.”
They lay together on the soft grass, kissing occasionally and talking about nothing and everything. Then, tired, they made their way back to the quiet house. At the top of the stairs, Jake took Franny’s hands in his. His eyes asked a question, and she smiled as she nodded and walked with him, through the now silent house, to his room. There, curled up next to him, she fell asleep almost before her head touched the pillow. It had been another of the happiest days of her life. How many more could life offer her? she wondered.
54
CLARE WAS UP with the sun, dressed for work. She jogged down the lane to the village and arrived at the café just as Jarré was opening his shutters.
“Bonjour, Jarré,” she called. He turned to look at her, surprised.
“I’m here to start work,” she said. “Don’t you remember?”
“But I didn’t think you meant it,” he said, astonished.
“Well, here I am, ready for action, sir,” she said, snapping to attention.
Jarré looked doubtfully at her, still not quite believing. He decided he’d put her to the test, see if she was just bored and playing around, maybe showing off for him.
“Et bien, first the vegetables need to be scrubbed,” he said, showing her into the tiny kitchen that was just barely big enough to accommodate both of them at the same time. “Then the salad will need to be prepped, tomatoes, lettuces, cucumbers. The red peppers must be toasted and blackened, cooled, and their skins pulled off, then diced small. And the mussels must be scrubbed clean.”
He showed her her workstation—a wooden chopping block next to a deep porcelain sink, with a stack of metal bowls and an array of lethally honed knives. “Take care with the knives,” he said brusquely, and left her to it.
Clare stared anxiously after him. This wasn’t quite what she’d expected. She’d thought she’d be busy at the stove, sprinkling some delicious fish with fresh herbs, arranging it on a pretty dish. She picked up a knife and inspected it warily. She thought, you could easily kill a person with this knife. Next she looked around for rubber gloves, but there were none. Apparently Jarré didn’t worry too much about his hands. Anyway, after the grape picking her own were already covered in nicks, plus a couple of wasp stings and a few broken nails, and were past worrying about. She picked up a brush and started scrubbing the tiny vegetables. She grinned—she was back to her poor-kid sharecropping roots all right.
When Jarré returned half an hour later, the vegetables were clean and in bowls, the greens were washed and spun dry, and the red peppers were toasting on the grill. Clare glanced up from the chopping board where she was carefully dicing tomatoes. She gave him a smile, missed with the knife, and neatly sliced open her finger. “Oh, hell,” she said as the blood spurted. “Now, I’ve ruined the tomatoes.”
With an alarmed cry, Jarré leaped to her side, examining the finger, stanching the blood. His face was agonized as he ran cold water over the wound. Clare smiled. She thought it wasn’t all that bad, but she was enjoying the attention.
“It’s all my fault,” Jarré groaned, “I should not have let you, an amateur, use those knives. I should have known there would be an accident.”
“It’s okay,” Clare said gently, watching his face as he bent over her finger. “It’s really not that bad and it doesn’t hurt at all.”
“Ah, but you are just being brave,” he said, meeting her eyes. Their faces were so close, just inches away, and Clare couldn’t resist. She moved an inch or two closer and kissed him on the lips.
“There, now I’m all kissed better,” she said, giving him her flirty under-the-lashes look as he blushed. It was amazing, she thought, smiling, a man who actually blushed instead of grabbing a girl when she kissed him. She really was in the land of milk and honey. She wondered if he’d liked that kiss as much as she had. She’d liked the way his bristly mustache tickled her face and she’d liked the firmness of his lips, the musky scent of his aftershave, and the clean smell of his skin.