Page 68 of Falling for Provence

‘I’ve signed the initial paperwork digitally on behalf of all sellers, like we agreed I could,’ Laura continued, ‘and now there’s a legal check and drawing up aCompromis de Vente, which is the contract, but Noah says he doesn’t think there’ll be any hold-ups at all. It might take a couple of months to sort the final notarised deed and pay the notary costs and agency commission fees and hand over the keys to the new owner, butI can’t believe how easy it was. They’ve even said we can keep whatever we want from the house. It’s done, Ellie… It’s over…’

Her final words slowed down and it felt like every one of them was a physical blow.

Ellie tried to sound as pleased as Laura was about the outcome but, as soon as her sister ended the call so that she could share the exciting news with the rest of the family, she burst into tears.

It reallywasover.

24

Sometimes you could feel that a house was empty well before a knock on the door went unanswered.

Before you lifted your hand to knock, even.

Ellie knew that Julien wasn’t at home in the same way she had come to sense his presence when he was anywhere near her, before she could see or hear him. It felt like instinct. Something ethereal but at the same time very real. As if there had been something missing but you didn’t realise until, suddenly, it wasn’t missing any longer.

The hope that she could speak to Julien, instead of leaving an impersonal note asking him to keep an eye on the donkeys for the next few weeks, evaporated. Noah had said he’d come past every day or two and make sure the donkeys were okay, so she didn’t need to ask Julien to do anything when he already had more than enough stress in his life.

It would only be polite to let him know that the house had sold, however. The ‘For Sale/À Vendre’ sign had already been taken down that morning, so it was quite likely that Julien would never guess the property had already changed hands. It stilldidn’t feel right to be simply vanishing from his life leaving no more than a note, but it seemed that Ellie had no choice.

Not that it was any real surprise that he wasn’t at his home. Julien hadn’t stayed a night there since the accident in the canyon. He’d never come home for lunch the way he used to, either, so why on earth had Ellie thought he might have today? Why had she put on her pretty blue dress and brushed her hair long enough to make it shine and then left it loose?

The echo of her second, louder knock faded, and she knew there was no point standing there any longer but, for a long moment, her feet refused to obey her command to move.

This was the first time she’d been close enough to touch Julien’s house, let alone get inside it. Because he’d never invited her to share his life, had he? Instead, he’d made himself available to share hers. Temporarily.

Until tonight – the night of the last summer market.

He had let her meet his son, but that had been an emergency, when his grandmother had been injured, hadn’t it. If Ellie hadn’t told him about her father and shown him those photographs, he wouldn’t even have thought of taking her to the village with thegargouille. He and Theo wouldn’t have been held up getting back home after the visit to the wolf park and they wouldn’t have been caught in that storm.

Julien had told her that none of it had been her fault, but the truth was that the accident wouldn’t have happened if she hadn’t been there.

Everyone had said that she couldn’t blame herself for Jack’s death, either, but that might not have happened if shehadbeen there. If she’d seen the moment that he stopped breathing.

As if recoiling from the thought, Ellie took a step backwards. She turned and walked back to the gate but then turned again to take one last look at Julien’s house.

It was a much bigger house than La Maisonette. Solid and square with lots of windows divided into small panes. Was there a terrace on the other side with a view to the mountains and sea? Which rooms had windows that looked out onto the olive grove and lemon orchard on her side of the fence? Theo’s bedroom – because he loved seeing the donkeys?

Julien’s bedroom…?

Oh… the longing that was already morphing into the pain of loss and shaping itself into heartbreak was unbearable.

But Ellie knew there was something she had to do before getting on with the rest of her list of last-minute tasks for the day, which included a trip to Nice. Mike had messaged her to say that the paperwork they’d requested for the car had arrived but there wasn’t enough time for it to be posted.

She retraced her steps, braided her hair with quick flicks of her fingers to get it out of the way and found her pad of art paper and her pencil case. She needed to leave something for Julien that was more than a request for a favour, but it took a while to decided how to begin, so she doodled around the edges of the paper. Small pictures of poppies and daisies. Of lemons and lavender and a small dog with a floppy ear.

Cher Julien,

She began the letter, finally, in French, because he had encouraged her to learn. And because, more than ever, Ellie considered it to be the most beautiful language in the world. It was the language of a country that had stolen her heart.

It was, most definitely, the language of love.

One day maybe she would be able to write a whole letter in French, but that wasn’t possible yet.

The house has been sold unexpectedly quickly.

I’m leaving tomorrow to go home to Scotland. I’m sorry I won’t get the chance to say goodbye.

She decided against asking him to take any responsibility for Coquelicot and Marguerite. One side of her mouth curved upwards as she remembered how their very first conversation had ended with Julien’s exasperated hand gesture after telling her that she was the owner of these two donkeys.

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