Page 44 of Falling for Provence

Pride, that’s what it was.

Even if they didn’t get any further than the end of this road, he was proud of Ellie for taking up the challenge. What he really wanted, however, was for Ellie to feel proud of herself.

‘First things first,’ he told her, when she was sitting in the driver’s seat, clutching the steering wheel, her seat belt fastened. Pascal was sitting on the back seat, watching proceedings with interest. ‘Have you driven a car that is not automatic before? I forget the word for it.’

Ellie nodded. ‘My first car was an old Mini, and that was manual.’

‘Manual… pfft…’ Julien shook his head at his own error. ‘How could I have forgotten that? It’s exactly the same in French.Manuel. Of the hand.Mainis hand.’

Ellie clearly wasn’t interested in a language lesson.

‘Where’s the gear stick?’

‘It comes out of the dashboard. Here, see? Put your foot on the clutch and just try the different positions. Pull it out, go left and up for reverse.’

‘Is the clutch in a different place on this side of the car?’

‘No. It is always the same. Clutch on the left, brake in the middle and the accelerator on the right.’

It took Ellie two tries to move the stick into the reverse position, and, on the second attempt, Julien was watching her face rather than what she was doing with her hands. She had deep frown lines as she concentrated hard, and she had the tip of her tongue between her top teeth and her bottom lip.

Adorable… that’s what it was. Like everything he was discovering about her.

Julien had to clear his throat. ‘Bien… Push down to the left and then pull towards you for first gear. Push in for neutral and then push again for second gear. Pull straight back towards you for third.’

It was getting easier for Ellie now.

‘The top gear is fourth, and you twist to the right and push in – the opposite to reverse.’ But Julien smiled at Ellie. ‘You probably won’t need the top gear today. We’ll just go quietly. To Grasse, maybe?’

He saw Ellie’s chest rise as she took a deep breath. ‘Okay.’ She glanced sideways. ‘What’s “okay” in French?’

‘D’accord.’

‘D’accord,’ Ellie was still looking very serious. ‘Do I just turn the key to start?’

‘You might need a little bit of the starter.’

‘The what?’ Ellie tilted her head to see the knob he was pulling out of the dashboard. ‘Oh… yes… I had a choke on my Mini. I had to be careful not to pull it out too far or it flooded the engine, and then I was stuck.’

The engine chugged into life. Julien reminded Ellie to release the hand brake and use the indicator, and then they made their way, rather appropriately at the pace of a snail, down to the village, past the tiny chapel of Saint Jean.

‘Turn right at the end of this road, beside theCafé du Midi. Have you eaten there yet?’

‘No.’

It sounded as if Ellie was speaking through gritted teeth. Julien hid his smile. ‘We will go there soon. Theo thinks they have the bestfritesin the world, especially when he has an egg to dip them into. It’s a lovely place to sit and watch what’s happening in the square.’

But Ellie was only interested in watching what was happening on the road, so Julien stayed quiet apart fromcomplimenting her use of the gears and brakes as she completed the tight turn that put them on the main road to Grasse and even picked up speed a little as they left the village behind them. He didn’t hide his smile as he saw Ellie hunch her shoulders as they drove through a patch of road carved from rock and even under an overhang as the winding road continued.

‘There is a place you can stop, coming up,’ he told her. ‘Just before a road to the right. There is a bus stop.’

‘You want me to stop?’

‘Oui.’

Ellie was silent as she pulled onto the side of the road, but then her gaze slid sideways. ‘You want to get out?’ she asked. ‘To catch abus? Is my driving that bad?’

Julien laughed. ‘Pas du tout– not at all. I thought you might like to take a breath, that’s all. And this is the best view of Tourrettes-sur-Loup. You might like to take a photo.’

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