She stood in the claw-foot bath and let the hot water run over her, wincing as it hit the scratch on the back of her thigh, then shampooed her hair thoroughly and scrubbed her fingernails. She let the aroma of lavender and patchouli soap calm her nerves.
Lincoln was here, in Provence, and sitting on the other side of the wall.
What was he doing here? Had he told her? She couldn’t remember now with all the kerfuffle. She stepped out of the bath, took the fluffy white robe from behind the door and put it on, knotting the tie at her waist, and finger-combed her hair to let it fall around her face. She checked herself in the mirror—so much for being dressed to impress.
She straightened her shoulders and stepped out into the bedroom.
Lincoln was sitting in a wingback chair by the window, sunshine falling onto one side of his face. He jumped to his feet when he saw her. ‘Feel better?’
‘Yes, thanks. More Lily-of-the-Valley and less Swamp-of-Provence. Always good.’
Two long strides and he was close enough to touch her. ‘Can I have a look at the scratch? Put something on it for you?’
She bit her lip. The scrape was stinging. And she didn’t want it to get infected. But the thought of lifting her robe for Lincoln to see the back of her thigh was . . . well, it was hugely erotic.
‘I promise I won’t bite,’ he said, a small smile struggling to emerge.
‘That’s a shame,’ she said, smirking.
‘Is it?’ He raised an eyebrow.
‘There’s some antiseptic ointment in the first-aid kit in my suitcase.’ She moved to her purple case on the luggage rack and ferreted around inside, careful not to let any underwear items escape and flutter to the ground, excruciatingly aware that he was watching her every move.
Stop it. Keep your head, Livingstone.
At last she found the small box and pulled out the tube of ointment, then slammed the case shut again. ‘So, where would you like me to be? To see my leg.’
Lincoln squared his shoulders and set his face to a professional, detached expression. ‘Why don’t you just stand here by the window, in the light, and hold your robe just above the wound so I can see it properly.’
‘Okay.’ She stood stoically at the window, her head turned to look out at the trees, pretending that Lincoln wasn’t positioned directly behind her on one knee, peering at her leg.
He whistled through his teeth. ‘A bit of a war wound, but nothing you won’t recover from.’
‘Ow!’
‘Sorry.’ He applied the ointment gently, with the tip of a warm finger, smoothing it evenly down the scratch. The ointment stung; the burning grew more intense until she was gritting her teeth, and then began to subside. But his finger continued its rhythm and gradually pleasurable sensations took over from the stinging. Her mind strayed to all sorts of places it shouldn’t go. To thoughts of the beautiful room they were in and the warm, gentle breeze shifting the white curtains around them. The long day ahead of her with nothing planned. The new dashing Lincoln, kneeling behind her, his careful fingers tending to her skin as though it were a precious object.
‘That should do it,’ he said, his voice nearly a whisper. He took his hand away but didn’t rise from where he knelt.
She dropped the bottom of her robe and turned around slowly, looking down into his upturned face and serious, captivating blue eyes. As though of its own accord, her hand reached out and touched his hair, running her fingers through it. ‘So short,’ she murmured.
‘Yes.’ He extended a hand towards her and laid it on the side of her thigh.
‘Yes,’ she said softly, remembering with glee that she had decided back in Paris to throw away the rules. She could do whatever her heart desired.
His free hand wrapped around her other thigh, carefully avoiding the dog scratch. Her fingers kept running through his hair, moving down now to the back of his neck. He leaned his head into her hand and she ran a finger down his beautiful throat. His hands moved in circles on her legs, slowly ascending under the robe, pulling her gently towards him.
There was a final flicker of mental resistance but it was extinguished just as fast as it flared. Who was she kidding? This was exactly what she wanted.
This was exactly why she’d thrown away the rules.
She took one, two, three baby steps and then her knees buckled and she dropped to the floor with him. They both froze for a moment, eyes locked, chests rising and falling. And then their lips met and they tumbled to the carpet and before she knew it the waist tie of her robe had come undone and his strong hands were on her bare back, their legs entwined, and her hands were pulling at his shirt and fumbling with his buttons and he was tearing at them, saying, I don’t care, just rip it off. So she did. And buttons flew across the room, pinging off furniture, and they both giggled and kissed some more and she nipped his shoulder and he let out a growl of desire that was totally manly and not the slightest bit like a wood elf.
Lincoln’s fingers traced delicious patterns on Christmas’s shoulder and slid lazily down her ribs towards her hip.
‘You’ll have to stop that or I won’t be able to get up off this floor,’ she said. ‘I’ll melt into a puddle.’
‘Mmm.’ He kissed her neck and a wickedly fast shudder ran down her body.
‘You still haven’t told me why you’re here,’ she breathed, reaching for his lower back to pull herself further into his embrace. ‘Not that I’m complaining. You’re like Mary Poppins turning up to make everything better.’
His fingers stilled. ‘I’m not sure that analogy works.’
‘No. You’re right. Not Mary Poppins. You’re Johnny Depp.’
‘Which version: Edward Scissorhands, 21 Jump Street, or Captain Jack Sparrow?’
‘Jack Sparrow, obviously.’
‘Savvy.’ He sounded pleased with that.
‘Although I don’t know if any of that makes sense. I think my brain is just offering up rambling thoughts because it’s lost all ability to think straight.’
‘That works for me. Shall we just keep searching for lost treasure?’
‘Yes please.’
‘Savvy.’
•
They were ravenous, then, and gorged on bread and cheese in bed, still tangled in the sheets.
God help him, she was gorgeous.
She’d put on a pair of knickers and a singlet. Sexy and natural, her body relaxed and moving freely as though she hadn’t a care in the world. It was all he could do to leave her alone for half an hour while she refuelled.
‘What?’ she said through a mouthful of bread, following it with a black coffee chaser.
‘Nothing. You just look so different.’
She paused in her chewing and considered him. ‘France has been good for me. I do feel different here. I think back in Evandale maybe I’d got a bit stuck.’
‘I always feel different when I’m overseas,’ he agreed. ‘There’s something very liberating about it. Like all the old definitions of yourself don’t apply anymore because there’s no one around to insist on their own version of who you are.’
‘Exactly.’ She licked her fingers clean. ‘Now tell me what you’re doing here.’ She reclined against the huge white pillows, her hair fantastically messy.
He was reluctant to allow in any thoughts of the world outside this room. But he couldn’t keep ravaging her without some sort of explanation.
‘And where’s Caesar?’ she said suddenly.
‘He’s with Nan. I got permission from the home for him to stay with her in her bungalow until I get back.’
‘They were okay with that?’
‘Not really, but the young nurse, Sarah, she seems to be a good advocate for the residents and she got her way in the end, guaranteeing that if there were problems she’d take Caesar home with her. I hope it’s okay. I think Nan could use the company, though she’d never admit it.’
‘You said you and your nan had a “chat”. What was that about?’
He lay back on
the bed and exhaled. ‘She gave me a bit of a lecture about growing up.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘She thinks I need to settle down—job, wife, kids. The lot.’
‘So you ran away to France?’
‘Good plan, hey? No, not really. It was Rubble who made me think the most.’
‘Your friend the artist?’
‘He’s back from the desert and he’s getting married next month to a woman he met in a pub up there. He says he fell in love with her instantly and he doesn’t want to waste another second of his life. Life’s too short and all that. I tried to tell him he could be making a big mistake but he just shook his head and patted me on the arm like I was a child and said that a wise man knows there are no such things as mistakes in the universal trip of life.’
‘Had he been smoking something at the time, by any chance?’
Lincoln laughed. ‘Quite possibly.’
‘It’s rather brave, really,’ she said.
He reached out a hand to run his fingers through her hair and she leaned into his palm. ‘That’s what I thought too.’
He wanted to say more but he was still blown away that she’d been so pleased to see him and hadn’t pushed him away again like she’d done at the shop. When had everything changed? The last time he’d seen her she was shoving him out the door and leaving the country. But somewhere between his grandmother’s lecture and Rubble’s news, and the thought of making Emily soup . . .
Bugger.
He’d forgotten about Emily. He should have said goodbye and closed that chapter properly. That was poor form. And now, here with Christmas, he very much regretted leading Emily on.
Emily was nice. He’d convinced himself that it was okay to ask her out because it wasn’t anything to do with Christmas but instead about him and his freedom to see whomever he wanted, when, really, it had been all about Christmas.
‘What’s the matter?’ she said.
‘Oh, I just remembered something I forgot to do before I left.’ He put a smile on his face. ‘But it doesn’t matter. I’m here with you now.’
‘I’m still a bit confused about that, actually. Why are you here? In France? In my bed?’
‘Ah.’ He entwined his fingers with hers. ‘Well. I guess there are a few practical explanations, like that I don’t have any work commitments right now and I had a heap of frequent flyer points I could cash in and I was feeling a bit claustrophobic in Evandale. And then I guess there are the crazier reasons.’
‘Like?’ She stroked his fingers, which was intensely distracting and arousing.
‘Believe it or not, I didn’t come here planning to rescue you from a love-crazed canine, and I didn’t plan to spend the day in your bed. My only thought was that the time we spent together . . . well, you made me feel a way I’ve never felt before.’
‘Oh.’
‘Yes. But then you turned me away, and then I was petty when you said you wanted to see me again, and I felt bad about that, and I didn’t want to die not knowing why you pushed me away, because it seemed like a really good kiss to me, so I was wondering if there was any chance at all for us to see where it could go. I’m not saying we should follow Rubble’s lead. Or Nan’s advice, for that matter. But I think they might have had a point about seizing the day and all.’
‘I see.’
‘I knew where you were because you left me your itinerary, and I knew your course finished yesterday. So I jumped on the first plane I could get and came here intending to ask you why you sent me away and then maybe see if I could change your mind. And just maybe I thought you’d like to spend some time with me in Provence. Or not. I don’t know. I have no plans. I have no return ticket date yet. I just wanted to know. You know?’
•
Why had she pushed him away? Christmas twisted the sheet between her fingers.
Because the kiss was terrifyingly good? Because her rules of happiness said she couldn’t have a relationship right now? Because she wanted to protect the happiness she’d built up and not put it at risk, because she knew what true heartache felt like and she never wanted to go there again? Because, sometimes, the risks did actually outweigh the potential benefits. And at some points in life you had to choose what you were willing to risk. Movies and fairytales would have you believe that love was always worth the chance, but reality could prove otherwise. Real life was unpredictable and could be cruel and crushing.
But these reasons all sounded quite nutty now she thought about it.
‘Well, I was leaving the next day and I didn’t want to cause any confusion.’
Sure, that was simple.
Instead, that confused him more. ‘But you were only going for three weeks. It’s not like you weren’t coming back.’
‘That’s true.’ She paused, stuck for words, the silence edging towards awkward while she racked her brain for something to say.
‘Look, I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘This is all very sudden. I just show up here unannounced, and then . . . well, I think you know what happened next. This is a bit of a shock, really, for both of us. We don’t have to talk about this now.’ He looked hurt. She felt mean.
Oh, what the hell. She might as well tell him about the ten rules of happiness. So she did. And he listened, increasingly amused, as she had known he would be.
‘And the kiss was out of this world, by the way,’ she added. ‘So it seemed like I was destined to break rule number ten.’
‘You turned me down because we might actually be happy?’ he said. ‘I’m not following.’
‘Great happiness can lead to great devastation, so I reasoned I should cut my losses before it was too late.’
And then, mustering courage, she told him about Sydney, about Simon and the baby, the darkness that had followed, and returning to Tasmania. She explained how she had carefully crafted a life to bring hope to herself and others, because she knew what it felt like to be in a dark place. And she told him that love was the greatest risk of all.
He listened, stroking her arm. ‘I’m sorry that happened,’ he said when she’d finished.
‘Thanks.’
‘I can see why you’d create the rules. A broken heart can take a long time to mend.’
‘You speak from experience?’
‘I was married once,’ he said.
‘Really?’
‘You don’t have to sound so surprised,’ he said, with mock offence.
‘No, of course. Sorry. You’re a total catch. Why wouldn’t you have been married?’
‘A catch, hey? That’s nice.’ He filled her in on his brief marriage to Benita. ‘It was difficult when it ended. Even though it made total sense, like there’d always been something missing, it was still a shock and I felt like a bit of a failure for a while. So I can understand why you’d want to avoid that.’
It had seemed perfectly reasonable. But now, after Paris, in Provence, with Lincoln here in her bed, those fears didn’t seem to matter so much anymore. She’d been wrong. She was a different person now from the one she had been back in Sydney. Heck, she felt like a different person than she’d been two weeks ago.
She reached for him. ‘I’m clearly very glad you came.’
‘It has seemed like you’ve enjoyed yourself.’
‘Perhaps we could continue this?’ she said, swallowing a final gust of nerves. ‘You could come and explore Provence with me, if you have no other plans.’
He smiled a delectable, handsome, totally kissable smile. ‘If you’re sure.’
‘Yes. I shouldn’t have pushed you away. Please come with me.’
‘I’m all yours.’
23
On Saturday, their first full day together, Christmas and Lincoln bounced out of bed, keen to get out and explore Provence. Lisbet, still mortified by her dog’s behaviour, had offered them her spare car by way of an apology. After briefly demurring, Christmas and Lincoln looked at each other and agreed in spontaneous unison that yes, actually, that would be great.
&n
bsp; They decided to combine some random pottering about with a few rigorously executed plans. Lisbet recommended Les Halles d’Avignon as a sensational food market in the famous city. ‘The traffic is terrible,’ she said, grimacing. ‘Parking, a nightmare. But still you must go.’
Driving on the right-hand side of the road was terrifying for both of them, but they managed, albeit slowly and attracting several abusive gestures from local drivers. But it was worth it. They ate food straight from the stalls, eating slices of melon, pains au chocolat, tomatoes exploding in the mouth with sweetness, and sampled plenty of local wines.
Between mouthfuls, Christmas told him about the legend of the Cacao Queen, as shared by Master Le Coutre.
Lincoln nodded knowingly, throwing back a small glass of wine and licking his lips. ‘I’ve heard that story. I work for the biggest chocolate company in the world; they turn over billions of dollars annually. Wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest.’
‘But you’ve never asked about it? Never tried to find out where this tree is?’
‘Not really. From a scientific perspective, it’s not possible that one tree could predict a whole year’s crop around the world, particularly one that’s as old as the legend says it is.’
‘So where did the story come from? I tend to think that legends are often based on something factual.’
Lincoln sidestepped a large family of children and waved away apologies from the parents trying to shepherd their brood through the throng. ‘Where there’s smoke there’s fire?’ He raised an eyebrow. ‘Not exactly scientific.’
‘But fascinating!’ she said, linking her arm through his. The market was hot and crowded but it was a great excuse to bump into each other pleasurably and hold hands so they didn’t get separated.
‘I agree that it’s an enticing notion,’ he said.
‘Would you ask around for me? Just casually. I don’t want to get you knocked off by the chocolate mafia or anything if you’re getting too close to their secrets!’ She was only half joking.
‘Sure. Anything for you.’ He kissed her under the intense sun and she hummed with deep satisfaction.
Lincoln pulled out his phone and asked a man passing by if he would take a photo of them together, each eating a pain au chocolat.
The Chocolate Promise Page 26
