Page 29 of The Magic of Provence

‘No.’ He shrugged. ‘The owner of the donkeys is Alain, who is the brother of Didier. He pays for things like themédicamentsbut we do the work to help. In our… what’s the word for it? Time that is not at work? Time to do things that you enjoy?’

‘Leisure time? Spare time?’ Fi slid a sideways look at Christophe. He worked full time in a busy veterinary clinic but he loved his work so much he chose to do it for free in his spare time? It didn’t matter whether it was more for the benefit of Didier’s brother or the donkeys, it was still something only a very nice person would do.

But she’d known he was special, hadn’t she? From the first moment she’d seen him. If there was ever a competition for a perfect human, then Christophe Brabant would have no trouble making the shortlist. He was clearly as beautiful inside as he was outside. He was intelligent, passionate and kind enough to have simply wrapped his arms around a frightened, sad donkey and not only hold him long enough to make him feel safer, but he’d stopped doing his own work to provide reassurance during the long process to start treating those badly neglected feet. That was probably why he needed to devote more of his own free time to finish what needed to be done for the rest of the herd. It was definitely why a noticeable part of Fi’s heart melted every time she remembered him hugging the little donkey.

Sometimes, but only when it was completely safe, like when she was alone in her own bed in the middle of the night, she would let herself think about how that donkey must have felt. What it would be like to be held in Christophe’s arms like that. It was increasingly easy to imagine the feel of his fingers brushing her skin too. To get those goosebumps again and to feel parts of her body melting that were quite some distance from her heart.

‘Leisure is good,’ Christophe decided. ‘Comme les loisirs, in French. Forles passe-temps.’

‘Things to pass the time.’ Fi nodded. ‘Exactement.’ She was happy to throw in the new word she’d picked up in the couple of days since she’d seen him. ‘Do you know, I think I could enjoy learning French.’

‘C’est une très bonne idée.’ Christophe’s tone was casual but approving. ‘A very good idea.’

‘I also think the donkeys need names. At least the special ones. I’m going to call the one with the bad feet… erm…’ She searched for a name. ‘Joseph. Because, you know, they’re Jerusalem donkeys with that cross on their backs.’

Christophe laughed. ‘So should we call the pregnant one… Mary?’

They shared a flick of a glance as they both laughed and, for the first time, Fi felt that melting sensation deep in her belly when she was in Christophe’s company and not safely alone, but it was gone too fast to worry about. And, besides, there couldn’t be anything remotely threatening about something that was cushioned by laughter.

‘C’est une très bonne idée.’ Fi used the same tone he’d used only seconds earlier and, for some reason, that was also amusing to them both.

She couldn’t quite make herself catch his gaze again, so she looked out of the window as they took the winding road from Tourrettes-sur-Loup towards Vence. There were houses on either side but they were so well screened by trees it felt like this road was part of the forest they were catching glimpses of to their right – a sea of green that seemed to be stretching all the way to the bright blue streak of the Mediterranean glimmering in the distance.

Her breath left her lungs in an audible sigh. Aye… this wasexactementwhat she needed today. Did Christophe – given that he was Julien’s closest friend – know anything about the drama that was currently unfolding in the lives of the Gilchrist women? If he did, he clearly wasn’t about to broach the subject. Fi liked that he was respecting her privacy, but how good would it be to tell somebody whose reactions wouldn’t be based on their own emotional involvement or the need to protect somebody they loved?

‘Have you seen Julien recently?’ she ventured.

‘Non.’ Christophe indicated to make a turn that would take them in the direction of the coast rather than into the centre of Vence. ‘We were to have an evening of wine tasting yesterday evening with Noah,comme d’hab, but…’ He was choosing his words carefully. ‘It was not… convenient.’

‘He would have been at the hospital, with my mother,’ Fi said. ‘And… and my father.’

How strange was it to hear those words pass her lips? She still wasn’t at all sure how she felt about this bombshell of a development in her life. The glance from Christophe told her that he did know what was going on. That he understood how difficult it was but he wasn’t going to pry. And that, curiously, made her want to tell him everything.

‘My father disappeared when I was seven,’ she told him. ‘I’m thirty-four now. It’s more than a quarter of a century ago. So long I don’t really remember him.’

Another look from Christophe came with an empathetic tilt to his lips. ‘My papa died when I was eight,’ he said. ‘I don’t remember much, either, except in here…’ He took one hand off the steering wheel to pat his chest, over his heart. ‘I still remember him. I still miss him, every day.’

‘We weren’t supposed to miss our daddy,’ Fi said quietly. ‘Everybody said it was the best thing he could have done to run away like he did. That he wasn’t a good man. That he drank too much and couldn’t do his job any longer and that he’d made us all unhappy and… and he’d hurt someone. Very badly.’

‘What was his job,amore?’

Just a few words, but the tone and the choice to ignore every negative thing she had revealed about her father made it clear that Christophe was not interested in gossip. What had to be an endearment on the end of his query made it even clearer that it washeropinion that mattered.

Thatshemattered…

‘He was an engineer,’ she told him. ‘He was born in France but his father was Glaswegian, so they moved back to Scotland when he was very young. He worked building boats in Glasgow but then he met my mother and they got married and moved to Oban and he worked on fishing boats after that. He used to call mechériebut I never knew I had a French grandmother. Or an uncle, until my sisters and I inherited the house here.’

‘He called youchérie,’ Christophe echoed. ‘He loved you.’

Again, he’d only taken a tiny piece of information. The detail that had made her heart squeeze hard enough to break off a piece as she’d remembered it when the sisters had gathered for Jeannie to tell them what had happened. It had been enough to make her want to go and see the man she’d once adored. Right then. Ellie had watched her get to her feet and Fi knew she was feeling that childhood connection just as strongly. When she saw Ellie’s gaze shift to the painting over the fireplace she realised that her younger sister’s connection might be at an even deeper level. It was obvious to them all that it had been Ellie who’d inherited their father’s artistic talent.

Laura had watched them both, her lips so tightly pressed together they were invisible. She had no desire whatsoever to go and see Gordon Gilchrist. He was too sick to see anyone at the moment, anyway. He needed time to get over the shock.

‘He’s in hospital,’ she told Christophe. ‘Julien took Mam to the village that turns out to be where my father was born. It was where Julien and Ellie had found the painting.’

Christophe nodded. ‘It’s an astonishing story.Incroyable.’

‘We wouldn’t know any of it if it hadn’t been for Julien. When they took him into the hospital in Nice they were able to find his medical history. It must have been only days after he ran away from us all those years ago that he was found on a street in Calais – almost dead because of the tumour in his brain.’

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