Page 10 of Love is a Harmony
The same woman calling him now. Again.
Melanie had given him everything he had, and he’d be forever grateful, but the music, the job couldn’t have been further from his mind as he stood on a street in Ault, France looking up at a small rustic building, so different from the grandeur of London. A sign hung in the window.Avocat.
So, he was in the right place. He should have called, should have let someone know he was coming. But it took him days just to get the nerve to book a plane ticket once Jerald told him where he could find Carson’s solicitor.
He needed to know why the man was looking for him before telling the rest of his family about the tragedy that would shake them to their core. At least, he hoped it would. If it didn’t, what did that say about them? He wasn’t really sure how his parents would react.
Sucking in a breath, he waved to the cab driver, telling him this was the right place. The driver pulled away, leaving Noah on the narrow street with his rolling luggage trailing behind him.
He’d never been to Ault, but driving through, he could already imagine how it had suited his brother. It was quiet with rolling fields where cattle roamed. At one end, woods marked the town barrier. At the other, pebbled beaches sat beneath white-faced chalk cliffs. Much of Northern France was overrun with tourists. Heck, his own family vacationed not far from here. But Ault held none of the bustle, none of the constant noise.
“Can I help you, sir?”
Noah’s French was rusty—he hadn’t used it since boarding school—but he managed to parse what the tall dark-skinned Frenchman in the doorway was saying.
“Oui.” Noah stepped forward and looked down at the paper in his hands. “Erm.” He tried to think of the French words he needed and decided to go with a name. “Mathieu Martin?”
A smile wound from one side of the man’s mouth to the other. “English or American?” He spoke English this time, and his eyes lit up as he spoke.
Noah chuckled, a byproduct of the nerves. He didn’t want to be there. “English.”
“Ah, well, let’s not butcher our beautiful French language with your English teachings, oui? We will speak English. Come in. Come in. I am Mathieu Martin.”
Noah followed him into the small reception area. A young woman looked up from her desk with a phone pressed to her ear as she spoke in rapid French. She offered a smile before turning her attention back to the call.
“You’re not moving into my office, are you?” Mathieu eyed the luggage.
Noah ran a hand through his hair. “No, I came here straight from the airport.”
“Well, you’ve come to the right place. I’m the best avocat in Ault.” He cracked another smile and rubbed a hand over his bald head. “A joke. A joke. I’m the only one who isn’t on maternity leave. Come into my office, and I’ll see if I can help you with whatever troubles you. I don’t have another appointment for another half an hour.”
“Thank you.” Noah entered his office, eyeing the small desk with two chairs in front of him. Suddenly, the exhaustion from the last few days hit him, and he collapsed into a chair. He was here. He’d come.
Alone.
He hadn’t slept more than a few hours since hearing those life altering words.Your brother is dead.They crushed something in him in that moment, and he knew what it was. Hope.
All his antics he’d hoped to use to catch his missing brother’s attention, to pull on a sense of duty an older brother had to take care of the younger, none of it mattered anymore.
Because they wouldn’t get the reunion.
Mathieu steepled his fingers and stared at Noah. “You look familiar.”
Noah sighed. Seemed even people in small town France knew who he was. “What would you like me to sign?” They always had something.
Confusion flashed across his face. “No. I have a picture of you.”
All his fans did. For just a moment, he didn’t want to be the famous rock star. Mathieu pulled out a folder and opened it, removing a photo and sliding it across the desk.
Noah couldn’t breathe. It was him and Carson, arms around each other’s shoulders as they grinned into the camera. It was taken probably right before Carson left.
“That’s you.” Mathieu’s eyes widened. “You’re Noah Clarke.”
Noah couldn’t respond.
“I’ve been searching for you for more than two weeks.”
“Two weeks?” Carson had been gone that long? While Noah was living his life, creating scandals with the one girl Carson had loved and never told, he no longer walked this earth. “My PI only called me a few days ago.”
