shoulders and kissed her forehead. “Would it make you feel better if I called the farm manager and talked with him first?”
“Yes.” She smiled in relief. She had no desire to do firsthand research on what the local French police did to trespassers. Not exactly good blog material.
“Good.” He reached into the backseat and pulled out a water bottle. “Here, have a drink while I call Jean-Claude. I’m going to walk down toward the main house where the signal is better.”
Lily nodded and unscrewed the bottle. Jack flipped open his phone and gave her a reassuring smile as he walked down the driveway.
She turned to look up at the guesthouse—the “little house.” It would be wonderful to stay there, a luxurious hideaway of all the best of Provence.
Undoubtedly there was a beautiful garden in the back and killer views. But the best part would be spending time with Jack, to explore its four bedrooms with him. Five, if they considered the den, but Lily didn’t expect a sleeper couch mattress would be all that comfortable.
She sighed. Maybe she was getting in over her head. Anybody would be. A chance meeting two days ago with a sexy Frenchman, a trip to Provence, unexpected passion last night and the prospect of even more in idyllic settings would turn any red-blooded American woman’s head.
Lily would have to be careful to keep a good head on her shoulders. She was a writer in search of interesting stories, not a sappy tourist who, disillusioned with American men, had come to Europe in search of “true love.”
And was it possible to be disillusioned if you had few illusions in the first place?
10
JACK WAITED UNTIL he was out of Lily’s hearing and called Jean-Claude, his estate manager. Jean-Claude was not merely an employee, but more like an uncle. He had taken Jack under his wing after Jack’s father died. Jack’s mother was a sweet lady—too sweet-natured to deal with the precocious, obnoxious boy he’d been. Fortunately for Jack, Jean-Claude and Madame Finch were not sweet-natured in the least.
“Allô?”
Jack couldn’t help but smile at the familiar sound of his old friend’s heavy Provençal accent. “Jean-Claude, c’est moi—Jacques.”
“Jacques? Where the hell are you?”
“Shhh. Meet me in down by the old oak tree near the fence line.”
“You’re here?” he bellowed.
“Calme-toi, mon ami. I will tell you everything as soon as you get here.”
Jean-Claude grunted and hung up. Ten minutes later the sturdy man was standing on his toes so he could shake his finger in Jack’s face. “And you are back in Provence after nearly dying in whatever jungle hellhole you ran off to, and you expect me to come running? We happen to be in the middle of the lavender harvest, in case you’ve forgotten. Lavender that I am harvesting for you, M’sieu le Comte.” He pursed his lips and then grabbed Jack for an emotional embrace. Jack got kissed on both cheeks and then once more for good measure.
Jack patted Jean-Claude’s back, accepting the traditional French greeting. His estate manager had probably received a hysterical phone call from Jack’s mother describing his admittedly nasty case of dysentery as a cross between the bubonic plague and Ebola hemorrhagic fever. “Eh, mon vieux, as you can see, I am here and healthy.”
“Bien oui, you are too skinny.” Jean-Claude released him, the corners of his sun-creased brown eyes crinkling as he gave him a hard stare.
Jack shrugged. “A few kilos, that’s all.”
“More like ten.” Jean-Claude sniffed. “And now that you are here, you will stay with us and Marthe-Louise will cook for you all your favorites.” Marthe-Louise was the family cook and also Jean-Claude’s wife.
“Actually I’m not staying at the big house.” He braced himself for the explosion, which erupted right on schedule.
“You come here sick and skinny and then you tell me you will go?” Jean-Claude gestured voluminously. “Go where? Go fall down in the lavender field and die? Eh, we could use goat shit for fertilizer—you do not need to volunteer!”
“Jean-Claude, s’il te plaît,” Jack soothed. “I called you because I can trust you.” He lowered his voice and looked around the empty courtyard like a bad dinner-theatre actor. “It involves a woman. A special woman.”
“Ah!” His old friend burst into laughter. All was forgiven if women and sex were involved. “Why didn’t you say so?” He dug his elbow in Jack’s side with less force than usual. “And this woman, where is she?”
“Waiting at the little house.”
“La petite maison? Why?”
Jack knew this next part would be the trickiest.