Page 13 of Falling for Provence

‘I can do it.’ Ellie felt suddenly protective of the floor covering. ‘I think they’d look amazing when they’re all cleaned up.’

‘It’s your house, love.’ Mike shook his head and drained his mug. ‘I’d better get my tool bag and get on with sorting out this water heating.’

Ellie watched him walk back out to his van. Yes. Thiswasher house – for now, anyway. And she was going to make it as beautiful as she possibly could. She fetched a dustpan andbrush and stooped to sweep up the plaster fragments Mike had loosened.

Had it been his criticism that had done it? The suggestion that La Maisonette was old-fashioned and in need of so much work?

She’d certainly felt the need to defend this poor, neglected little house despite her own misgivings. Maybe she was also defending herself for having taken up the challenge.

Whatever it was, it had given her exactly what had been missing when she’d come back to this house alone.

A feeling of connection.

Cleaning the bathroom after Mike had left a few hours later took a very long time. Long enough for the water in the reconnected tank to have heated and provide the most enjoyable bath Ellie had ever experienced. Having the prospect of fresh clothing to put on afterwards seemed like another luxury, and, wrapped in one of her new supermarket towels with another providing a turban to cover her wet hair, she started unpacking the suitcase.

Finding that some of the available space had been used to pack a selection of her old art supplies, like sketchbooks, pencils and paint, was a less than pleasant surprise. Who’d thought that was a good idea? After one attempt, months ago, nobody had tried again to suggest that reconnecting with an old passion might be therapeutic, and this seemed like an even less subtle push. They simply didn’t understand, did they? How could anyone have any inclination to be creative when their heart had been ripped out and their soul left to bleed to death? Ellie left the art supplies in the suitcase, zipping it shut firmly after pulling out the clothing.

There were, fortunately, also some nice surprises in what Laura had chosen to pack for her, probably because the last time Ellie had needed summer clothing she hadn’t been able to fit into anything she owned, thanks to her post-pregnancy shape. Maybe that was why she selected a pretty summer dress that she had forgotten she even owned, because it had been relegated to the back of her wardrobe for so long. The blue, daisy-spangled fabric of the calf-length skirt swirled around her bare legs as Ellie stepped out into the evening sunshine to comb the tangles from her damp hair, and it made her remember dressing up as a child in one of her mother’s old dresses – the way she had suddenly felt grown up and feminine.

The follow-on thought, that it was a shame she hadn’t been wearing this dress last night, made her pause for a moment, her comb only halfway down the length of her hair. She pulled a little harder through the next tangle, but the sharp tug didn’t quite erase the disturbing image of that angry Frenchman from her mind. Those dark eyes. The tousled hair.

Those gentle hands as he checked out his small son…

It was only then that Ellie remembered the glass she had stepped on and broken last night when her furious neighbour had been storming towards her.

She needed to pick up those pieces. Finding a container for the shards, she went through the lemon orchard towards the fence.

Had the donkeys been expecting her? They weren’t standing under the olive tree this time. They were standing right beside that droopy wire fence, their huge heads hanging over the top.

Ellie’s heart rate picked up, but her steps slowed and then stopped.

She stared at the donkeys. Tufts of grey hair stuck out at odd angles, making them look totally unkempt, especially where it hung over their eyes. She could see stripes of dark brown ontheir shoulders that matched the short manes and straggly tails, but it was their ears that really caught her attention. The dark rims made them look even bigger and they were filled with pale fluff that looked invitingly soft. Their muzzles were pale as well, as if they’d dipped those massive heads too far into a bucket of cream.

They didn’t seem to mind the attention they were receiving. They stood there silently, at peace with the world, and, oddly, Ellie could feel that sense of peace enclosing herself as well. Becoming part of the whole scene, with the solid stone retaining walls dividing the slope of the garden behind her, the scent of lemons and the soft evening light.

Tentatively, she reached out her hand.

‘Do you bite?’

A flick of one of those extraordinary ears was the only response.

She touched the closest donkey on its neck, just below its ear. The hair felt coarse as she stroked it, but she could feel the warmth of the skin beneath and it reminded her of the warmth of that little boy’s limbs in her arms last night. Warmth from another living creature.

The donkey’s eyes drifted shut as she stroked it, giving Ellie the impression that biting her wasn’t being considered as an option. The other donkey was still watching, but it was a patient look, as if it was waiting for its turn to get patted.

‘In a minute,’ Ellie promised. ‘I need to find that glass first. Someone might step on it.’

Like a small boy with bare feet, perhaps?

It wasn’t easy to find the broken glass in the long grass, and then she had to be sure she had collected all the pieces. As she carefully shifted the stems of grass and wildflowers, she kept glancing back at the donkeys.

‘You haven’t got much grass on your side of the fence, have you? And where’s your water? I’m sure you must need water.’

She could hear the echo of her neighbour’s parting words, telling her that now she could finally start caring for these creatures herself. But how was she supposed to do that? Apart from a tabby cat that had turned up on the doorstep and decided to stay, pets hadn’t been a part of the Gilchrist family’s lifestyle because there hadn’t been enough space. Or money. She’d toyed with the idea of having a dog, once, but a student lifestyle had made that impossible and then she was totally absorbed by starting her career and that morphed into falling in love with Liam which, of course, meant that she hadn’t needed anything else to make her life perfect.

Yeah… right…

Ellie’s breath came out in a huff. How naïve had she been to believe that fairy tales like that happened in real life? Especially against the background of her own family history.

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