Page 26 of Falling for Provence

‘That sounds like enough time for what I need to do here. And having a deadline is always a good thing.’ Ellie straightened her back, her gaze drifting towards the house as if she was already making plans. ‘I like it.’ The way she nodded her head and spoke more quietly made it seem as if she was talking to herself. Making a promise?

‘I’ll stay until the last summer market,’ she said.

8

The plaster dust turned out to be a blessing in disguise, having forced Ellie’s hand in giving Pascal a bath. He was actually a much whiter dog than she’d realised, and, when she’d sent a photo home, the general consensus was that his genetic heritage had to include at least some West Highland terrier, which made him at least partly Scottish. Her mother even suggested that she could bring Pascal back with her when she came home.

‘A wee dog is good company,’ was all she’d said.

And Ellie had said nothing, partly because she hadn’t wanted to say the first thing that had crossed her mind – that a dog was not a substitute child – but also because a part of her quite liked that idea. She had to admit she liked the weight of the small body against her legs as she slept and the way she woke to find Pascal gazing at her, as if the world would only start turning once she was ready to begin her day. Julien’s grandmother could always find another dog to rescue if she needed company, couldn’t she?

The trust Pascal had already bestowed on Ellie was tested somewhat the first time she’d put him into the basket on the front of the red bicycle and wobbled up the slope of the road, but, only a day or two later, he was sitting up straight with his nosetilted to catch the breeze as they came down again. There was no room to put any purchases into the basket, but Ellie had solved that problem by purchasing a small backpack. It was becoming routine to buy fresh carrots along with any other supplies and then to find the donkeys waiting by the fence in the mornings, at the end of the track she took through the lemon grove. Pascal kept a respectful distance, a pale shape against the trunk of the nearest tree, as he waited for the next part of their day.

There was so much fruit on the trees that some branches were in danger of breaking, and Ellie had snapped a few ends off yesterday morning and taken them inside. She’d discovered a collection of old, white jugs when she’d cleaned out the crockery cupboard, and she’d filled the largest one with the branches of bright green foliage and their ripe fruit. Today, she’d taken the time to gather the daisies and a few poppies that were still flowering amidst the long grass around the house, and those had gone into a smaller jug.

The results of both floral efforts were so pleasing that Ellie stood there for some time, simply admiring them. The confidence that she could capture the simplicity and beauty of the arrangements with her paints or pencils was no more than a passing thought, but the fact that it sparked interest was… well, it was quite exciting, to be honest. As if another part of her was trying to come back to life, like the part that had woken up when she’d realised the effect that Julien’s touch on her skin had created. That it was possible to be attracted to a man again – something she hadn’t considered remotely likely ever since Liam had walked out over a year and a half ago.

It was too hot to feel like moving too soon after a now-favourite lunch of ham and cheese baguette, and the terrace was pleasantly shaded by the trees. Pascal was sound asleep amongst the weeds at her feet, but Ellie noticed his ear twitching repeatedly, irritated by the leaves of what looked like a type ofdandelion. She grasped the weed and pulled, finding it came out easily from the mix of sand and soil between the flagstones. Pascal, showered by the debris that came off the roots of the plant, got up with a sigh and moved further away. Ellie kept pulling at the weeds. She’d waxed lyrical to Julien the other night about how gorgeous this terrace would be when she’d cleaned it up properly, so maybe she’d better make a start, in case he came back again another evening.

Within a few minutes, Ellie found herself sitting on the flagstones, the weed-pulling an automatic task as her thoughts drifted back to that evening and the… intimacy of them both sharing such personal revelations. Her first impressions of Julien had been so wrong, hadn’t they? No wonder he’d reacted the way he had when she’d spoken to him in English. The tortured look on his face, when she’d sympathised with how much Theo must be missing his mother, made it more than clear that the person who really missed Sarah was the husband who’d adored her enough to want to spend the rest of his life with her and create a family.

And Sarah had been English!

What a shock it must have been for Julien to hear Ellie speaking her language. It would have dragged him back to the time the unthinkable had happened and he’d lost his wife, and their son had lost his mother. To make it even more of an emotional bombshell, he’d found her withtheirson inherarms.

But, in a way, there was something rather poignant about that now that they both knew how much they had in common. They both knew what it was like to suffer a huge, personal loss in their lives.

It was impossible for it not to have brought them closer.

Ellie let herself sink into the warmth that that thought gave her as the pile of weeds grew taller. It felt inevitable that an internal warmth like that was going to morph into somethingrather more intense, but the flicker of attraction was not unpleasant. Her cells might be waking up from a hibernation deep enough to have felt like death, and that was okay. Rather nice, in fact.

And perfectly safe. Even if Julien had moved on enough to have female companions, it seemed most unlikely that he would be looking for a replacement for his wife. Ellie, of all people, knew that grief had its own timetable and couldn’t be rushed. But, on the other hand, the way he’d been looking at her the other evening, the way that attraction had increased so suddenly, had made her think that she was seeing a reflection of what she was experiencing herself. That he was, at some level, attracted to her. What if…?

Ooh…

Did she dare follow that thought?

Okay… what if theywereboth attracted to each other? Was she anywhere near ready to follow that through? Would it be such a big deal if she was? It wasn’t as if she was going to be here very long. It would be nothing more than the kind of holiday romance a lot of people had when they went to, say, Spain for a couple of weeks, or on a cruise.

What if a total absence of any kind of intimate physical connection with another human might be having far more of an effect on her wellbeing than she’d realised? Ellie hadn’t been kissed since the moment she’d discovered she was pregnant and Liam couldn’t get away fast enough. She hadn’t felt the touch of a man’s hand for over a year and a half. Had the dark space of mourning the loss of her baby been made worse because that had been missing from her life?

Dipping her toes into a romantic pool might be the perfect way to take a really significant step forwards in living her best life again, and how happy would that make her family? Ifnothing else, it was definitely not unpleasant to toy with the idea.

Dusting off a bit of sand from her bare arm, after she’d thrown another handful of weeds onto the pile, made Ellie’s thoughts a lot less coherent because all she could think of now was the touch of Julien’s hand on her arm when he’d checked her grazed elbow, and the curl of blatant desire in her belly was sharp enough to make her catch her breath.

He’d said that his mother took Theo to visit his grandmother once a week and that they always stayed the night, which meant that there would be another occasion before very long when Julien was on his own in his house on the other side of the olive grove. If she saw him again, she could suggest another glass of wine on the terrace, perhaps. Dinner, even? He’d gone too soon to even taste that wonderful cheese last time.

If he did come back, Ellie wanted this terrace to look fabulous. Despite the heat, she pulled at the weeds even faster. She’d brush all the cobwebs off the candle holders later and put candles on tomorrow’s shopping list. She might need to go into Vence to find an item like that, but… Ellie straightened after throwing her next handful of weeds, stopping to count days on her fingers. Tomorrow’s Tuesday, she realised market day in the main square in Vence. Didn’t Julien say that his rooms were nearby and that he often bought something for his lunch at the market?

A local speciality that he recommended she should try because it was good. What was it, again?

Oh, aye… Socca.

The sign was hand-painted, standing on a counter in front of a white-domed pizza oven on a trailer:

Socca

2.50 € la part

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