Page 59 of Falling for Provence

‘The hermit?’

‘Oui. The ’ermit.’

Sometimes Julien’s accent was just too gorgeous. So cute it made him as adorable as his son. Ellie heard herself sigh, which was a sound of pure happiness.

‘That’s a good story,’ she said quickly, in case Julien guessed the real reason she sounded so happy. ‘Maybe he was living on the streets because he felt lost, and now he’s found where he needs to be and he’s doing what he loves.’ Ellie took one last glance behind her at the painting. Had that been, unknowingly, why she’d felt such a connection to this artwork? Because she had been lost herself but lucky enough to have come to what might be the only part of the world that could have made it possible to find herself again?

The storm was much closer as they followed the mountain road towards the canyon that had been carved out by the Vésubie river. Gigantic fluffy clouds were filling the sky, intermittently blocking out the sun, giving them a shockingly bright halo around an inky blackness in their centres that made them look like bottomless holes.

The first flash of lightning came as they went through one of the tunnels in the gorge. When Theo cried out in fright, Ellie put her hand though the gap between the front seats of the car so that he could hold onto it when the crash of thunder followed only seconds later, but he was clutching the tree branch which he had insisted he had to take home with him, so she just rubbed his arm instead.

The storm was right on top of them. Fat raindrops hit the windscreen a minute later with such ferocity that Julien had to put the wipers on a frantic speed. When the rain changed to hail after another blinding flash of light and a crack of thunder that she could feel in her bones, Ellie was as frightened as Theo.

‘We need to find somewhere to pull over.’ Julien’s voice was calm but grim. ‘I don’t like this.’

With the river down a steep bank on their left and a sheer rock wall on their right, there was nowheretopull over, but Julien was driving very carefully as he went into the next bend. It didn’t matter how careful he was being, however, when he found himself facing a large vehicle that was passing a small peloton of cyclists huddled together as they battled the elements.

They were only moments away from a head-on collision with the truck. In the space of a heartbeat, Ellie could feel the impossible choice Julien was having to make. Should he swerve towards the cliff and collide with the cyclists? Take the chance that the truck was also going so slowly a collision might be the safest option? Or should he pull the wheel the other way and hope that the low concrete wall would be enough to prevent them going over the bank?

Ellie also felt the moment that the concrete wall gave way as the screech of the car’s hubcaps on the hard surface competed with another rumble of thunder. The car tipped so far she was sure they were about to roll, but then it hit the bank and somehow stayed upright but gathered speed on the steep slope.

The scream of pure terror from Theo as they hurtled towards the river was a sound she was never ever going to forget. But worse was to come. The crunch of hitting the huge boulders in the river was so jarring, Ellie was convinced this was the last thing she would ever be aware of.

Except it wasn’t.

That shrill scream of a small child had been cut off as if a switch had been flicked.

Despite the roar of rushing water around them, another crack of thunder, and the horrific gunshot sounds of airbags deploying, the silence from the back seat of Julien’s car was deafening.

20

‘Are you hurt?’ Julien’s voice snapped the silence like the crack of a whip.

‘I… don’t think so…’

How could she know? Ellie couldn’t identify any immediate pain but she could barely catch a coherent thought. And Julien wasn’t listening now, anyway. He had unclipped his safety belt and was twisting in his seat to see into the back of the car.

‘Theo?Theo…?Oh, mon Dieu…’

The note of horror in Julien’s voice made Ellie’s blood run cold. She twisted herself to try and see what he was seeing, but was it her movement that made the car shift and scrape as it moved against the boulders? No… Julien was trying to wrench open the driver’s door, but it was clearly jammed.

‘Ne bouge pas, Theo, Ne bouge pas…’

There were people outside the car now. Some were the Lycra-clad cyclists. A burly man – the truck driver, perhaps? – was shouting into a phone. Julien was shouting as well. Ellie couldn’t understand a word, but someone was picking up a small rock. Julien turned and held out his arms to shield her as the rock was used to smash the window of the driver’s seat and then clear theshattered glass until he could put his arms through the frame for people to pull him from the vehicle.

Ellie unclipped her own safety belt as she felt the first lap of icy water around her feet, and a new terror dug its claws into her. She had to get to Theo. Maybe she could fit through the gap between the front seats and release him from his safety belts to pass him out through the empty window frame in the front?

She turned.

And then she froze.

Theo wasn’t unconscious, as she’d thought he would be when that scream had been so abruptly terminated. He was staring back at her, his little face as white as a sheet and his eyes wide and terrified. He was as frozen as she was, and she could see what had made Julien’s voice so frighteningly raw.

Theo was still holding that branch he’d wanted to bring home with him. The glossy, green leaves looked exactly as they had when he’d picked it up to dip into thegargouille. The other end – the jagged, sharp end where the branch had broken from the tree – was nowhere to be seen.

Because it was inside Theo. The shocking jolt against rocks that had stopped the car’s momentum so suddenly must have turned the branch into the spear that was now lodged in his stomach.

‘It’s okay, darling. We’ll get you out. We’re going to look after you and make it all better.’

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