“Mmm. A few more weeks and dark this time of day.” Jenna didn’t know if he meant to or not, but his voice had turned soft and rhythmic, like the waves meeting the shoreline. His jaw rested against her temple, each modulated word he spoke teasing her skin. It was a struggle to keep her eyes open.
“When I first moved here, I loved how you could go to the beach any time you wanted,” she told him. “Not like Boston Harbor, where going to the ocean meant visiting the piers.”
“My parents loved the beach,” Philippe said. “We used to go every summer as a reward for working the harvest.” Jenna remembered the photo he kept on his mantel in France. She knew it was a keepsake from a happier time, but she hadn’t realized it also represented the end of a tradition. Thinking of him holding on to the memory, she felt an ache in her chest.
“God, how I hated the harvest,” she heard him say. He chuckled.
“You did?” Shifting in the sand, she looked to see if he was joking.
“All those hours in the sun? Who would enjoy it?” he replied. “Soon as I was old enough, my father trained me to pick the jasmine. My smaller hands would be gentle like the women we hired,” he explained. “How I would curse him for sticking me with the old women. All day long telling me stories about the house and the village. I thought I would scream.”
“But you love history.”
“Now, yes. Wasn’t until I attended university that I realized how much of those stories I had absorbed and how much I appreciated them.”
“I had no idea.” In her mind’s eye, she imagined a young Philippe, gritting his teeth as the women chattered around him, all the time hanging on every word in spite of himself.
“Ironic, isn’t it? How the things we hated as children become the things we cling to as adults.”
“Like the harvest.”
“Oui, like the harvest,” he replied in a faraway voice. Jenna wondered if he was in fields of his memory. His expression always turned bittersweet when he talked of his childhood. You could feel his loss weighing down the stories.
It left her wanting to brush the weight away with her fingers.
“Is that why you come back for the harvest?” she asked, already knowing the answer. A better question would be why he chose lavender over the fields of his childhood.
“I have to,” he said. “My father, his father, his grandfather... Felix...they all worked that field. They all left part of themselves there. Every August, I feel them calling to me, and I feel too guilty not to go.”
“Guilty?”
“For being the one who survived. I was the one who cared the least.”
“That’s not true.” Jenna scrambled to her knees. With her knees pressing his jacket into the sand, she reached out and captured his face in her hands. “I’ve seen how seriously you take your business. I’ve listened to you on the phone. I watched you in the fields with the farmers. You care about that company. And when your child is born, you’re going to teach her to love it, too, right down to her picking jasmine.”
“Jenna, I...” It was all right if the words fell away. The moisture glistening in his eyes said it for him. Jenna brushed her thumb across his cheek. Turning his head, he nuzzled her palm before offering a smile.
“You really believe the baby will be a girl, don’t you?” he asked.
“The way she demands carbohydrates? I know she is.”
“Our very own Antoinette. I would like that.”
While his right hand continued to hold hers, his left slipped free to splay across her abdomen. Jenna caught her breath. It was such a natural, paternal gesture, and it made her heart sing. “Part of me still can’t believe it’s real.”
“I’ve got four pregnancy tests that says it is,” Jenna teased. She had to make light of the moment; his touch was weaving its way into her skin. Gazing into his eyes, it was all too easy to picture a future where his hand rested on her expanded belly as the baby kicked.
“I know” was his reply. “I never doubted you for a second.”
“The sun is starting to set.”
The two of them turned their attention westward, where the sun was slowly disappearing behind the horizon. Only half could be seen. The remaining light painted streaks across the sky. Reds, oranges and purples blended between clouds. Jenna heard a splash, then two more as the seals headed into the Atlantic.
“Isn’t it beautiful?” she said with a sigh. “Told you it was worth a drive.”
“Yes,” said Philippe. “Although I would have traveled anywhere if it meant holding you like this.”
Jenna’s heart skipped.
Little by little, the sun sank and the colors receded into black. They sat in silence, their breathing the only sounds they made. It was as if they were the only two people in the world.
“Jenna...” He didn’t say anything else. Didn’t have to. Jenna knew what he was asking. She took in his darkening silhouette and remembered how it felt to be in his arms. Once more, she thought. He wanted her, and she ached for him. She leaned in.
And kissed him.
In a flash, they were pressed hip to hip. Philippe’s hands tangled in her curls as he rained kisses along her jaw and down her neck. “I’ve missed you, I’ve missed you,” he murmured against her skin.
She’d missed him, too, with an intensity she hadn’t realized until this moment. The ease with which she slipped under his spell frightened her, and yet it felt as natural as breathing. Which was why, when Philippe rose to his feet and held out his hand, she knew she would go with him to his hotel.
* * *
Philippe had the most vivid dream. In it, Jenna and he stood on the balcony of his apartment. Only instead of his street, the balcony looked out on an enormous field filled with crows. It must have been early morning, right after sunrise. The light was slowly spreading across the field. He stood behind her with his arms wrapped around her waist, his hands pressed to her swollen belly. Every so often the baby would kick, and he would start with amazement.
“She’s a bossy one,” Jenna said to him.
“Like her mother,” he started to reply. But before he could finish the sentence, Jenna changed, her body turning into liquid. She flowed out of his arms and under the balcony railing.
He awoke with a start to a darkened hotel room.
“Everything all right?” Jenna’s sleepy voice came to him from across the king-size bed. “You jumped in your sleep.”
“Only a dream. Did I wake you?”
She made some kind of sleep noise. “My back was cold.”
Immediately he rolled to his side so she could spoon against his chest. “Better?”
“Mmm...”
He lay in bed listening to the sound of her breathing. Sleep wasn’t going to come back easily for him. The dream left him too tense.
Of course, he didn’t need to be a psychoanalyst to parse the dream’s meaning. He’d been battling a gnawing sense of anxiety since he and Jenna argued about her staying on Nantucket in the ice and snow.
If only she would return to France with him, then he wouldn’t have to worry. He would be around to prevent anything happening to the baby. The two of them could experience the pregnancy together. And, if tonight was any indication, they could enjoy the physical side of their arrangement as well. Clearly their attraction hadn’t waned. Unusual, but then Jenna was unusual, as evidenced by the fact he hadn’t found a woman as interesting or attractive to him since her departure.
“Come back to France with me.” The words poured out of him. “I would make sure you had the most wonderful pregnancy. You and the baby could have everything you wanted.”
Feeling her stiffen, he pulled her closer. He’d caught her off guard.
“That must have been some dream,” she said after a moment.
“I want to keep the baby safe,” he told her. This was his child. The co
ntinuation of his family.
When she didn’t respond, he wondered if she’d fallen asleep. “Jenna?”
“Can we talk about this in the morning?” she asked. “When you’re thinking a little more clearly?”
“Of course.” She had a point. The words had spilled out of him without much thought. There would be plenty of time for them to talk in the morning, after he’d put some distance between himself and the dream.
In the meantime, she was in his arms. He burrowed his head into the crook of her neck and willed himself to sleep.
CHAPTER NINE
“I DON’T KNOW. I just don’t know where they put the cat.”
“You made him sit with Lola?” Shirley remarked. Her friend was at the nursing station logging patient care information into the computer. “Are you trying to test his patience?”
As she wheeled the thermometer cart into the corner, Jenna cast a look into the activity area to where Philippe and Lola sat at one of the tables. The older woman was chattering nonsensically while nervously arranging scraps of paper into patterns. Every so often, Philippe would nod in agreement or offer a comment. “I’m sure the cat is fine,” she heard him say in a voice you’d use with a young child.
Jenna’s heart stuck in her throat. Patient, gentle. He was going to be a wonderful father.
“I didn’t put him with anyone,” she said. “He arrived for breakfast early, and Lola latched on to him. I think she might have a little crush.”
“She wouldn’t be the only one,” Shirley replied.
“I simply appreciate the way he is treating her. It bodes well for when the baby arrives.”
“I meant the other patients on the floor. He charmed a few of them the other night when he delivered you to work. How long is he planning to hang around, anyway?”
“I don’t know. He hasn’t said.” She left out how they’d spent her evenings off the past two nights sharing a bed. Those memories were hers alone. Besides, Shirley would read too much into things.
“But where is the cat?” Lola persisted. “It doesn’t make sense. He was watching TV and now he’s gone.”
“I’m sure he’ll show up,” Philippe assured her. “Cats are very resilient. Maybe he went to get himself a mouse for breakfast.”
“A mouse for breakfast!” Lola laughed like he’d told a joke and went back to arranging her squares. “A mouse for breakfast,” she repeated, shaking her head. “That’s funny.”
“Lola,” Jenna called over. “How about we get you cleaned up for your breakfast?”
“A mouse for breakfast,” Lola called back, shaking her head again. Philippe shot them a grin.
“I don’t think you’re going to break them apart any time soon,” Shirley said. “At least not until Lola gets her oatmeal.” She leaned back in her chair. “Are you all right? You look more pale than usual.”
“Apparently the pastry didn’t work this morning. I’m still nauseous.”
“Maybe you should tell Monsieur d’Usay to stop wining and dining you.”
“He’s not wining me. Alcohol is bad for the baby.” Shirley had a point, though. She had been burning the midnight oil a little too much. The baby was telling her she needed to rest. When her shift ended, she’d tell Philippe she needed to take a night off and sleep. He wouldn’t mind. After all, he was all about making sure baby was safe.
“You know...” She double-checked to see if Philippe was still distracted. “He asked me to go to France with him the other night.”
“No way! He’s persistent, I’ll give him that.”
“I don’t think he was serious.”
“Why not?”
“Because he...” Didn’t follow through in the morning. “I think it was more of a passing comment.”
“Some passing comment. What did you say?”
“Nothing. Like I said, he really wasn’t serious.”
“But if he was serious...? You already told him no, right?”
“Of course.” Jenna suddenly needed something to do with her hands. Picking up a pen, she began twisting the plastic cap between her fingers. “I’ve already made that clear, which is why I know he wasn’t serious.”
When was the shift change, anyway? Her stomach was churning.
Shirley give her a sideways glance before picking up a set of folders and tapping them on the desk. “Speaking of bad marriages, what does your mom think of all this?”
“You mean about the baby?”
“And the proposal.”
“The proposal...” Feeling a little more in control of the subject now that Shirley was being pesky about it, Jenna set down the pen. “Is none of her business. As for the baby? She’s over the moon. She keeps talking about how she and my dad are going to spoil their grandbaby rotten.”
“Her and your dad, huh? They’re still hot and heavy, then?”
“Oh yeah, till death do them part,” Jenna replied.
“Hey, maybe the sixth time is the charm,” her friend said. “You never know, right?”
“You sound like Philippe.”
“Philippe knows about your parents? You don’t talk about your parents to anybody.”
“Philippe’s different.” Shirley arched a brow, forcing Jenna to grab the pen again. “I mean, crazy or not, they are the baby’s maternal grandparents. The man should know what he’s getting into.”
“Pardon, ladies. I don’t want to interrupt, but the two of us are going in search of a cat.”
She looked up to find Philippe and Lola had left the activity room to join them at the nurses’ station. The old woman was holding Philippe’s hand.
“I don’t know where she is,” Lola said.
“I think she might be in your room,” Shirley told her. “With your breakfast tray.”
“Then her room shall be the first place we check,” Philippe replied. Leaning over the counter, he used his free hand to tuck a curl behind Jenna’s ear.
“Do not let your parents worry you so much, ma chérie. They are going to do what they want. Foolish or not.”
He’d given her the same advice last night. “I’m trying,” she told him.
“I know, but their affair still bothers you. I can tell from your frown.” His fingers brushed her cheek before dropping away. A whisper of a touch that had her nearly leaning forward for more. “We will talk about it more during breakfast, all right? First I must find a cat.”
“Bonne chance.” As she watched him walk away, Lola shuffling by his side, she thought her heart might split her chest in two.
“Oh my God.”
“What?” Yanking her attention away from Philippe, Jenna saw Shirley staring with her mouth open. “What?” she repeated.
“The look on your face. You’re falling for him.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I was smiling at how sweet he’s being with Lola.”
“Uh-huh. Sure. You keep telling yourself that.”
“I will,” Jenna replied. Same way she would ignore the way her heart was taking up extra space in her chest with its fullness. She was not falling for Philippe. She couldn’t. Because if she was falling, then she would have to take back every criticism she ever mentally hurled in her mother’s direction. After all, how could she criticize someone when she was no better?
From somewhere down the hall, Lola laughed. Jenna’s heart skipped a couple beats.
Oh man, she was in trouble. She wasn’t falling for Philippe.
She’d already fallen.
* * *
“I finally managed to convince her that the cat was outside on holiday. Luckily, she saw a squirrel through the window and decided from the tail that I was correct.”
“Are you sure it wasn’t the arrival of her breakfast tray that convinced her?”
“Possibly, but I prefer to take credit.”
Philippe
shot her a grin before disappearing into her kitchen. A second later she heard the sound of mugs being taken out of a cupboard.
She’d been so exhausted after her shift that she asked Philippe if they could skip their breakfast in the park. With predictable protectiveness, he’d immediately brought her home and tucked her into bed so she could sleep. To her surprise, when she woke up—nearly ten hours later!—he was still there, sitting at her dining room table, typing away on his laptop. The scene looked so incredibly right, her knees nearly buckled.
Things were so much easier when they were together in France without strings or messy emotions. When did her expectations change?
Maybe they didn’t, she realized, thinking of that afternoon in Arles when they first made love. Maybe she simply didn’t want to acknowledge what that connection signified.
It wasn’t the baby that complicated their situation—it was her heart.
“Now what are we going to do?” Like it had all afternoon, her stomach responded with a twinge.
“Let me be the first to say that I do not like the smell of this tea.”
She jumped a little at the sound of Philippe’s voice. He came in from the kitchen carrying a pair of steaming mugs. “It has the base notes of a barn.”
“One of the nurses at work recommended it. Says it has lots of vitamin K.”
“So does romaine lettuce, but I wouldn’t make a tea out of it. I made you a cup of chamomile as well in case you change your mind.”
“After a sales job like that, why would I want to drink anything else?” His thoughtfulness was killing her. It’d be a lot easier to stay emotionally detached if he didn’t insist on treating her like a princess.
She took a sip of tea and immediately put the mug back on the coffee table. “You’re right,” she said as she choked back a gag. “Barnyard.”
“I told you so. Interestingly, we’ve had a request from Collier’s for nettle leaf. They want to use it in a shampoo. I will suggest they buy a top note to go with it. And to avoid drinking it. Are you feeling better?”
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