Page 66 of Falling for Provence

Next Tuesday evening.

Hurriedly, Ellie found something else to think about. She still needed to find a way to ship her red bicycle home. And, if spaceon a truck was going to be booked, she might as well take some other things she loved so that she could give her new home, well… a touch of France.

The rag rug was first on the list but there were other things, too. Like the half-glazed pots and the beautiful antique lace bedcovers. That huge mirror from her bedroom with its ornate brass frame, and even the rusty, old Moroccan candle holders from the terrace. She loved the bed itself, but that might be an unwise choice. How could she ever sleep in it without being reminded of every time she and Julien had made love?

Oh,help…

She might have been very close to happy tears only minutes ago, but the heartache was there, wasn’t it? Hovering, like the menacing storm clouds had been on that fateful day of the accident that had torn everything apart with far more harshness than she was ready to deal with. Keeping so busy was saving Ellie from the storm breaking, but a few spots from the approaching clouds broke through occasionally.

… go home, Ellie… We don’t need you…

23

Thegargouillein Saint-Martin-Vésubie looked exactly as it had when Theo had first played in it two weeks or so ago.

Miraculously, Theo also looked almost exactly as he had then. Before the accident. Before the surgery and his thankfully swift recovery.

Before the shocking revelation that Julien was not his father.

The days since then had tumbled past, with even the shifts from day to night sometimes blurred beyond recognition. Julien had barely had time to visit his home in Tourrettes-sur-Loup between commitments to his practice in Vence, his rosters and on-call work in the hospital in Nice, and the travel each day to and from Roquebillière so that he could spend every possible moment with Theo.

With his son.

The realisation had come gradually from the mists of the shock and grief and… fear, even. But it had come.

Thanks to the words that Ellie had said that dreadful night. That he was the only father Theo had ever known. That, as far as Julien was concerned, he’d been his son since the moment he’d held him in his arms, and that bond would never be broken. Oneday he’d have to tell Theo the truth about the accident that had killed his mother. It might be possible to discover whether the man she’d been leaving with was Theo’s biological father, but perhaps his son would feel the same way as Julien did – that biology was irrelevant compared to their bond.

That Ellie had spoken the truth when she said that love was the only thing that really matters.

He could hear an echo of her voice.

‘Of course he’s your son…’

He could remember the way that a soft emotion had made the golden shade in her hazel eyes more obvious, as if empathy – or possibly love – was doing the impossible and melting something internal.

But maybe anatomical melting wasn’t impossible after all, because Julien could feel it happening inside himself as he remembered how much Ellie understood.

How much she cared.

He’d barely seen her since that night. He’d gone to tell her that Theo was well enough to be discharged, and he’d been about to go again recently but there had been a car parked in the road with the signage of a well-known estate agency based in St Paul de Vence and he knew that Ellie would be too busy to talk to him. It was also a reminder that the house was about to go on the market and that Ellie would return to Scotland and he would probably never see her again.

They’d both known that thisaffairewas temporary. Maybe it had ended with a jarring finality rather than a fond farewell, and Ellie certainly deserved so much better than that, but the truth was that it had always been going to end.

He hadn’t needed that unforgettable moment of fear when he’d lost control of his car and thought his son was about to die to remind him that Theo was everything to him. That this precious child was the sun that his world revolved around. Thatit was his responsibility to protect him from harm, both physical and emotional, and that he’d let his guard down by letting Theo spend time with Ellie. Who wouldn’t fall in love with Eleanor Gilchrist when they did that?

He could, at least, take comfort from the knowledge that Theo hadn’t become so close to her that, when she left, he might feel as if he were losing his mother for a second time. But it had been a close call.

When they’d arrived in the village, Theo had looked around as soon as he’d climbed out of his car seat – without any noticeable discomfort for the first time since his surgery.

‘Où est Ellie?Est-elle déjà là?’

No, Julien had told him. Ellie wasn’t already here. She wasn’t going to be here, either, because she was very busy getting ready to sell her house, and soon she would go back to live in Scotland, which was another country a long way away.

Theo simply accepted the information. Julien watched him crouch to dip his finger in the running water. He didn’t seem upset that he wasn’t going to see Ellie again.

But Julien was going to miss her.

Too much.

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