I Promise You This (Love in Provence Book 3) (7 page)

Katherine assured her Nick had been a great diversion. The rest would be her secret.

The third message was a shocker.

“Katherine. It’s James. I would like to talk to you. I heard about Molly and that you were in town. Please return my call at least. Thanks.”

Sitting slowly and heavily on the nearest chair, she was stunned. The surprise took her breath away. The sound of James’s voice made her feel nauseated. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t thought about talking to him. She’d considered it from time to time but had always procrastinated effectively.

All of the communication—from the day he left her until their divorce was final—had been through their lawyers. She had not said one word during that time to the man she had allowed to monopolize her life.

“Classic James,” she muttered as she considered his message. He might have at least said he was sorry about Molly’s accident.

She would call him back. But not now. She wanted to think about it.

Taking her time packing a few more boxes, Katherine felt uncharacteristically on edge. An expanding to-do list incessantly ran through her mind. She would put in a call to the Goodwill pickup office in the morning. It was obvious that it would take more than a few weeks to get the house in shape to sell or rent. She needed to think about that too.

With a growing urgency, she lost herself in yoga for an hour, thankful for the relief of focusing only on that.

As she settled into bed, her mother’s electric blanket kept her warm. Kat crossed her arms over her chest and looked up at the ceiling, her eyes wide open. Only last year, she had spent countless nights there wondering if anything else lay in store for her. Now surprises seemed to keep coming into her life.

Today had certainly held its fair share.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Waiting for Philippe’s call was not an option today. After the events of the previous day, all Katherine wanted was to hear his voice, feel his love, and express hers for him. She phoned him as soon as she woke up.

“
Tu me manques, mon
Chou. I miss you more than ever today! I know you are still at the market but I couldn’t wait to talk to you.”

“
Moi aussi, mon coeur
. I miss you too,” Philippe began and then continued to describe his feelings in French, his voice almost a whisper.

She loved to hear him say those words in that way. Her lips parted unconsciously and her breath caught. “You’re making my heart sing. Can we talk now or are you busy?”

“We’re still serving customers but when I saw the call was from you, of course I took it,” he said, his tone changing. “How are you coping? Nick e-mailed me late last night to confirm that the plane will be in Nice in two days to bring me to you. He said you had quite an adventure yesterday, but he would let you tell me about it.”

“An adventure for sure! I’ll tell you about it when you get here. Go back to work and we’ll talk this afternoon. I’m having lunch with Lucy. I think today will be pivotal for Molly. Talk to you later.
Je t’embrasse!
”

“
Moi aussi!
And I also have an adventure to tell you about. Simone sends her love and I will reveal all in person. A bottle of wine will be a necessity for the conversation.”

“Oh my. How is Simone? Is everything okay? Did you meet her?”

“You must wait to hear the story. She is very well and said to tell you she and Victor Hugo miss you.” His voice caught with emotion. “As I do, Minou.
Tu es ma joie de vivre
.”

The call was just the tonic Katherine needed after the emotional ride the previous evening. She couldn’t wait to embrace Philippe and to hear about his visit with Simone. But she also knew she had to express her growing concerns to him . . . once she had them sorted out herself.

At the hospital, Katherine was disappointed to see that Molly still looked like she was in a coma. The encouraging news was that many of the tubes were gone and she appeared to be breathing on her own.

The attending physician explained that Molly might still need the ventilator at night for a day or two. “She is managing quite well on her own for several hours at a time. We’re very pleased. She may be fully awake by the end of the day.”

Katherine noticed the fresh red rose in the delicate vase next to Molly’s bed. She was beginning to develop a strong suspicion about it, since there was only one other person whose presence was guaranteed every day.

She banished that thought for the moment as the heady perfume brought back memories of fragrant bouquets of roses James had given her each year on their wedding anniversary. She was working on replacing that connection.

Being back in Toronto was causing a plethora of nostalgic memories to resurface. As long as she was preoccupied with other people, Kat could banish the difficult recollections from her thoughts, but on her own, not so much.

She knew she had returned home a stronger, more confident woman than when she had left. She would confront the painful memories now, once and for all, and work through them to a place of acceptance, if not understanding. The positive history of her life far outweighed the bad, and that was what counted. She often felt she had already left her life here behind and walked into a completely new reality in France.

That’s why she was so stunned now to feel uncertain about her choices. She had expected this time back home to be her opportunity to put her past behind her—in a good way. Somehow that wasn’t how it was playing out.

She replayed the voicemail from James in her head. Maybe that was something she needed to deal with to help resolve these new feelings of uncertainty. But not yet.

Out at the nurses’ station, she asked Roslyn, “What’s the news today?”

“You can go in and out quietly a few times for short intervals, if you like. We’re watching to make certain nothing interferes with the calm around Molly as she regains consciousness. These patients often wake with memories of terrible dreams or hallucinations and we hope to avoid that. Patience, my dear.”

Katherine returned to be with Molly for her allotted time. She told Molly all about her helicopter adventure and about Nick’s confession of love. She knew it would go no further.

She was sitting holding Molly’s hand, willing her to wake up and be well, when Father DeCarlo appeared and suggested, “Let’s go to the cafeteria and have a coffee.”

He explained how he started his rounds at the hospital much earlier in the winter and left as soon as possible to get back to his street ministry. He said he had been spending more time at the hospital since Molly was admitted, and Katherine thanked him profusely before he changed the subject.

“With all this cold weather, we’re extra busy at the homeless shelter. A few of us take some vans and cruise around the streets picking up anyone who looks like they need help. Things have been very bad this year.”

“Molly has told me quite a bit about your street ministry and how much she admires it.”

He smiled warmly. “She’s come along and helped us many times, often after her last session at the Blue Note. She’s a good person, our Molly.”

Katherine had never heard Molly mention being involved like that. She tucked that information away for now, along with the tone of the priest’s voice when he spoke of Molly. Her intuition was getting stronger, the more time she spent with this handsome priest, even though she found herself anxious at what the reality might be.

The priest left to continue his rounds, and Katherine sat in the reception area in intervals, with her computer. Nick texted he was going to be tied up with meetings into the afternoon. He would check in then to see if there was anything new to report at the hospital.

She spent a while going through her photos from the day before, editing and storing, and was more than pleased with some of the images over Niagara. She felt eager to present them to André at his gallery back in Antibes and then began to fret about that decision.
I’ll be sixty in a few years, and I’m walking away from an established profession. Really? Is that smart? What am I thinking?

After stopping by the nurses’ station to confirm Molly was stable, Katherine strolled the short distance to the Chinatown district. The sun was shining brightly, taking the bite out of the chilly air.

This had always been one of Kat’s best-loved parts of the city. Close to the university where she had studied for so many years, the area was a student haunt. There had been many hours spent going over notes while eating spicy Szechuan meals accompanied by green tea or Chinese beer.

It had been great fun for her to point out her favorite restaurants and funky shops to Nick when they had driven through on their “city tour.” He’d laughed when she told him she still had the best food steamer ever that she bought there thirty years earlier. “It’s on my list to bring to Antibes when I ship my stuff.”

Now Katherine walked into the Peking Palace and grinned as she saw Lucy leap up from a table. “Katherine! It’s been too long! I’m so happy to see you!”

Petite and demure, Lucy was usually the picture of calm, dispensing pearls of wisdom from her Chinese ancestry and her lifelong study of astrology. A coworker in Dr. Henderson’s medical research office, she had convinced Katherine to take up yoga after James had walked out.

When Katherine went to Antibes, she invited Lucy to house-sit, knowing the cramped conditions at her family’s place. Lucy lived with several generations under one roof, and ever more relatives emigrated from China, so she was thrilled for the opportunity to be on her own. She insisted on paying the utilities in return for Kat’s generosity. Little did either of them suspect it might turn into such a long-term arrangement.

Now, Katherine knew she needed to rent out the house in order to pay taxes and do repairs that inevitably would be required. In fact, she had scheduled a home inspection company for the following week. She felt badly having to give Lucy the news but it had to be done, and she was waiting for the right moment to raise the issue.

Before she could say anything, Lucy thanked her. “You’ve done me a big favor, Kat.”

“It works both ways,” Kat replied. “Thanks for taking such good care of the house.”

“I’m the one to thank you. My brother thanks you too, since he got the extra bedroom with me out of the house. But first things first: how is Molly? I’m tracking her charts, and it’s been troubling.”

Katherine filled her in and then they ordered lunch. Lucy wanted all the details about Kat’s new life and plied her with questions.

At one point, a strange look crossed Lucy’s face and she blurted, “Omigod! I just remembered, I bumped into James last week at the courthouse. We didn’t talk long because he was rushing to an appointment, but I told him about Molly. It was right after her accident. I said I thought you would be coming to Toronto. I hope that was okay.”

“Of course. He already called the house and left a message. That explains it.”

Lucy looked thoughtful. “You’re going to see him. That’s probably a good thing.”

Katherine shrugged her shoulders and smiled. Lucy always had a touch of clairvoyance. “You would know.”

Lunch arrived and Katherine finally had a chance to ask about Lucy and her family. To her surprise, her concerns about the house were banished.

“I have a proposition for you,” Lucy told her, looking a bit hesitant. “My cousin, Li Mai, now has an excellent job, and we wondered if you would consider renting your house to us. We’ve been talking about moving in together and were looking around at places and we suddenly realized your house would be perfect. If you aren’t moving back, that is.”

She set aside her chopsticks, pausing for a moment and then asked shyly, “You are moving to France to be with Philippe, right?”

Kat’s expression betrayed her bewilderment. “That was the plan. I thought it was what I wanted. I do think it’s what I want . . . but I’m starting to feel that I’m making too hasty a decision. I’m worried I’m behaving like a schoolgirl in love instead of being rational and mature.”

Lucy listened intently. “We don’t always have to be rational and mature, you know. And maybe what you’re thinking isn’t rational and mature really is just that, with a slightly different set of parameters. You broke free of old constraints, Kat. You embraced new challenges.”

Katherine rolled her eyes. “I’m in the beating-myself-up process right now, though.”

“You’re my hero, Katherine! Honestly! You’ve opened my eyes to the fact that there’s a lot more of life to be lived at every age. I was feeling kind of stuck and resigned to my life. Now I’m looking at things differently. I’ve even been considering a dating site.”

“Lucy, you’ve always been so serene, so calm. I’ll forever be grateful to you for introducing me to yoga. I’m surprised to hear you say this about yourself.”

Lucy sighed. “Don’t get me wrong. I do feel positive most of the time, and I trust the stars and my charts. But it doesn’t hurt to learn from someone else’s experiences. That’s what you’ve done for me. So thanks, my friend.”

Katherine smiled. “That’s what friendship is all about. I’ve learned that lesson this past year too.”

Lucy’s demeanor became serious. “I will say this, though. If you do decide to come back to Toronto—though I hope for your sake you don’t—the new director I work for has told me he would always be open to talking to you. You left with your research reputation well intact.”

“Thanks for sharing that. It’s nice to know. I loved my job and am kind of surprised that I’m walking away from it. Every once in a while I have a moment of panic at all the changes I’m making in that direction too. You know, making photography my new career. But on the other hand, I’m really excited about it! See what I mean? I’m a mess!”

“Do you think you might change your mind? Maybe we shouldn’t be talking about your house like this.”

Kat shook her head. “Lucy, I’ve committed myself so far into this new world of mine, I can’t pull the plug now. I’m just realizing that it may not be forever. There’s still a lot to be determined. Maybe I am just taking a sabbatical . . . maybe . . .”

Lucy’s eyes widened in surprise. “Go for it, Kat. You’re moving from one life into another. We have a saying: ‘Be not afraid of growing slowly, be afraid only of standing still.’”

“I think you’re right—I’ve got nothing to lose. It’s still scary, though. I feel like Philippe is my security blanket. When I’m with him, everything is right. Being here without him is causing a lot of concerns to arise within me. I need to know I can do this on my own.”

They returned to talking about the house. Katherine was reluctant to discuss rent, but Lucy assured her it was not a problem with the combined salaries. “Li Mai’s fiancé is doing his residency in China and won’t be here for two more years, so we’ll be good tenants! What do you think?”

“Lucy, you have an innate ability to solve problems,” Katherine said with a chuckle. “I was worried about having to ask you to move out so I could rent the house. Just give me a little time to figure out what I’m doing.”