Invitation to Provence (34 page)

Hours later, the surgeon came out to speak to him. “We’re lucky, Monsieur Bronson,” he said, managing a tired smile. “They were not burned. When the explosion happened they were thrown from the balcony. The child is deeply concussed,
and we must watch her for signs of neurological damage, though from the scans it’s doubtful. She has a broken leg and many cuts and bruises, but she’ll be fine.”

Jake felt a little lurch of his heart and knew that at least it still beat for Little Blue.

“Mademoiselle Marten took most of the impact of the explosion and she is still unconscious. She has a fracture of the fourth vertebra, which means, sir, that she has a broken neck. Plus she lost a great deal of blood from a severed artery. We’ve done what we can. The next twenty-four hours will tell their own story.”

The surgeon smiled that tired smile again and held out his hand, but Jake didn’t even notice.

“She’s alive?” he said, as though he hadn’t been able to take in what had just been said.
“She’s alive,”
he repeated with such a note of relief that the others smiled. Then he buried his head in his dead dog’s rough fur and he wept.

L
YING ON THE BED
in his cheap hotel room in Cannes, Alain watched the TV news report. He was not happy. The villa had been destroyed but not the planned Marten victims.

He’d been right, though. There was no way to trace the gas leak to the unlit burners on the stove because everything had been blown to pieces. The villa had not been used for a
long time, and it was assumed to be a gas leak, just one of those unfortunate incidents.

He lay for a long time, thinking about what to do next. Finally, he got off the bed, took a long shower to clear his head, then went to get his car. He drove to Le Suquet, the old port area of Cannes, and sat in a bar overlooking the marina with its hundred-foot-long yachts and parade of glossy cruise ships, drinking Ricard and feeling sorry for himself. He’d lost the money he’d won at the casino and was broke. He didn’t even have access to Felix’s money because Little Blue had inherited his entire estate. He wondered why the fuck Felix had done that. He’d never even acknowledged the kid when he was alive. Of course the real reason was that Felix had never wanted to find out the truth about who was the father because he was afraid it would turn out to be Alain.

Through the years Alain had kept tabs on Felix. He knew where he was at any given moment. Not only that, he’d used his name fraudulently several times, though Felix had never prosecuted. Too proud of the old family name, Alain thought with a grim smile.

He’d gotten even with Felix years ago, though. He’d found the bar where Felix’s woman worked. She’d needed to work because Felix had refused to make a commitment to her and she had no money. But Alain made it his business to get to know everything about Felix’s woman. He’d kept watch on her. He knew even before Felix did that she was pregnant because he’d made friends with one of her girlfriends who had told him. He’d laughed then. He thought it was amusing, the old story repeating itself—the pregnant girl, him and Felix—who was the father?

He’d called Felix and demanded a meeting. He’d never
forget the grotesque look on Felix’s face when, bluffing, he told him his woman was pregnant and the child was not his, that he, Alain, was the father. At first not believing, then maybe half believing … then,
no it can’t be.

“She’s not pregnant,” Felix said in a quiet, deadened voice. How could it be true? He was always so careful when they had sex.

“Ask her,” Alain said confidently, “ask her yourself if she’s pregnant. Then ask yourself how else would I know, Felix, if I were not the father.”

Felix never saw the woman again. He’d paid Alain off, and when the woman died, he sent a small amount of money each month to salve his conscience, and the child had lived in poverty with her ailing grandmother. And that was that.

That is, until Jake Bronson had come along with Rafaella’s invitation to the great Marten family reunion, just as Alain was forced to ask Felix for financial help again. When he was refused, in a spate of anger, he’d killed Felix.

He’d gotten lucky that night, but luck hadn’t been on his side this time. A big blast like that should have killed anyone in range, yet it had not.

Alain ordered another Ricard, and his thoughts turned to his mother. If only Rafaella had given him what he wanted, just given him the vineyard and the château that were rightfully his, he’d have had enough money to live the lifestyle he enjoyed and none of this would have happened. Rafaella was at the heart of all his problems.

He downed the drink and ordered another. He bought a
Nice-Matin
and as he read the report of the conflagration at the Villa Marten, the rage burned harder in his chest. He sat
for a long time at the bar, drinking Ricard and thinking about his life and what to do, until he could bear it no longer. The decision was made. He was going home again. And this time Rafaella would not throw him out.

F
RANNY WAS LYING
perfectly still, but she had a sensation of flying at great speed down a long tunnel. She was weightless, the air against her cheek was soft and there was the scent of lilies. Her eyelids fluttered and she looked around her. The light was white, sharp, glaring. She tried to sit up but couldn’t move. Sudden panic made her tremble, and she wondered if she was a prisoner. But she couldn’t be because she was in a garden, she could smell the lilies.

She opened her eyes wider, saw a leg encased in plaster suspended in the air.
Her
leg. She moved her eyes to the right, saw an open window, heard the breeze rattle the shades … the same breeze she’d felt on her cheek as she raced through that dream tunnel. She slid her eyes to the left. A great vase of lilies stood on a table. Casablanca lilies. She thought she had dreamed them too, but they were real. She reached out a hand to touch them and pain, sharp as lightning, shot down her back. She let her hand fall onto the sheet, caught the glint of something. She lifted her hand slowly, staring at the pretty diamond on the third finger. And then she began to laugh.

It was the first thing Jake heard as he walked down the hospital corridor. Franny was laughing.
She was back. His girl was here with him again.

Their eyes met across the stark hospital room. “You might have asked me first,” she said in a whisper, hoarse because there had been tubes down her throat and she hadn’t spoken in a quite a while.

He grinned. “I did ask, but you didn’t answer. But wherever you were, I wanted you to know you belonged to me and I’m never letting you out of my sight again.”

“Okay,” she said. “Then why don’t you come over here and kiss me.”

And he did just that. Gently, tenderly, and with love.

A
S SOON AS THEY
had heard about the “accident,” Clare had driven immediately to Cannes. All those long days and nights when Franny was in a coma she’d sat stoically at her bedside, and now she was really mad to miss “the awakening.” But when she saw Franny, alert and smiling again, she finally cracked.

“Oh my god, I almost lost you,” she wailed, sobbing into a Kleenex. “And dammit Franny, I’d only just found you.”

“Don’t worry. I’m not going anywhere,” Fanny said. She was still wearing the big plastic collar meant to prevent her from moving her neck that Jake said made her look like the
German shepherd. “I have a surprise,” she said and she showed Clare her ring.

Clare said, “You and Jake were made for each other. That invitation was destiny, it brought you together. And by the way,” she added nonchalantly, “I’m engaged too, though I don’t have a ring yet to prove it.”

“Scott!” Franny’s eyes narrowed in a smile of satisfaction. “He’s perfect for you.”

“Hmm, actually no, it’s not Scott,” Clare said, looking as demure as was possible for her.

“Don’t tell me you’re going back to Marcus!” Franny looked shocked.

“Of course
I’m not going back to Marcus. I’m divorcing that bastard as fast as I can so I can get married again. To Jarré,” she added, grinning at Franny’s look of astonishment.

“And all the time I thought you were just taking cooking lessons!” Franny said laughing.

“I was… . I am. I’m going to help Jarré with the café. I’ll be the
commis,
the sous chef, the waiter, the dishwasher—whatever my man needs, I’ll be it. Including his lover.” Clare looked hesitantly at her. “Truth is, Franny, we haven’t actually made love yet.” Eyes lowered, Clare inspected her unmanicured hands, adorned with several nicks from the restaurant knives. “I … well, I wanted to save that for after we’re married. I really want to be the ‘virgin bride’ for him. I was never that before and … well, you have to understand how good a man he is, how gentle, how caring, how …”

“Salt-of-the-earth.”
Franny said it for her and they looked at each other and burst out laughing.

J
AKE HAD NOT FORGOTTEN
what he saw that night. And he had not forgotten about Criminal. He knew in his gut this was no accident. Alain had tried to kill them. He had an autopsy performed on the dog, and traces of rat poison were found in its stomach. It had been dead before the explosion. Obviously Alain had gotten rid of the dog first so he wouldn’t bark and sound the alarm.

Jake had his beloved friend cremated. Later he would take the ashes back to the cabin. He would stand on the mountainside and return Criminal to the elements, hoping that the wind in the tossing treetops might catch him and that he would find the ultimate freedom in the place he loved.

Meanwhile, Alain was alive. He was evil. He was dangerous. He would try again. With Alain still alive, nobody was safe.
Especially Rafaella.

The thought came so clearly into Jake’s head, it stopped him in his tracks, as though Alain himself had transmitted it. Alain blamed Rafaella for everything that had gone wrong in his life. Rafaella would be Alain’s next target.

Jake knew Alain could not have gone far, and his intelligence contacts along the southern coast—from Marseille to Menton and into Provence—were on the alert, as were the police. Like Felix, Alain was very tall, six-four, thin and rangy.
Even if he changed his hair, wore glasses, grew a beard, there would still be something distinctive about him. It was in the sheer cockiness of his walk, the arrogance of his demeanor. Alain was a man who felt he was better than all others and Jake knew it would be Alain’s ego that would prove his downfall.

I
T WASN’T LONG BEFORE
he got the news that Alain had been spotted near Avignon. He was driving a white Renault Laguna and was holed up at a motel off the motorway on the outskirts of the city. Two hours later Jake was in Avignon, but the bird had already flown. Then the white Renault was spotted winding along a canyon road that led, by a roundabout route, to Saint-Sylvestre and then Marten-de-Provence.

Jake had a helicopter in the air within minutes, piloting it himself. He hovered over the canyon, so close to the rock face that the shrubs and grasses flattened beneath him, scattering terrified rabbits and wild creatures. At last he spotted the Renault, taking the curves like a race car. The window was open and he saw Alain looking up at the helicopter. Obviously realizing he was being observed, he took off, hurtling around curves with a two-hundred-foot drop on one side and a sheer rock wall on the other, winding his way down to the end of the canyon where the proper road began.

A
LAIN WAS EXHILARATED
by the chase. Adrenaline flowed like heat through his body. He was on flat terrain now, on straight roads lined with poplars. On one side was a railway embankment,
on the other a peaceful canal dotted with vacationers’ barges. A police helicopter had joined the chase and it clattered low overhead, making giant whirlpools on the canal’s still water, sending delighted children running out to wave at them.

Alain swerved onto a minor forest road, then abandoned the Renault in the trees. He climbed the embankment to the railway tracks. A tunnel loomed in front of him.

He ran into it, flattening himself against the curve of the wall. He heard the helicopters immediately overhead, then they zoomed on. He smiled as he started down the dark tunnel. He’d outwitted them again. He knew his way. He’d still get to the château, still get his mother.

Jake radioed the police helicopter. “He can’t have gotten far, he’s probably hiding out in the woods,” then he zoomed in low over the treetops again. The approaching train blew its whistle furiously at him as it entered the tunnel, and suddenly Jake knew where Alain was. And he knew he’d played his last card in the game of life.

L
ITTLE BLUE HAD ALREADY
been back at the château for a few weeks by the time Franny was finally allowed to leave the hospital and fly “home” with Jake.

“I don’t think I could ever get used to this,” she said to him, awed by the Gulfstream’s luxury.

“That’s good,” he said, “because I won’t have it much longer.” She eyed him, mystified. “I’m selling the business, thinking about finally buying that ranch. How’d you fancy being a country vet?”

“Hmm.” She looked away haughtily, enjoying the game of keeping him in suspense. “What, no more fancy SoHo apartment? No more private jet? No more Tiffany rings and world travel?”

“No more,” he said. “Well, maybe a ring or two.”

“Ohhh … well.” She pretended to think about it. “Maybe I could handle that. After all, I might enjoy being that country vet.”

“Oh, thank god,” he murmured, grabbing her very carefully and making her laugh.

Haigh was waiting for them with the comfortable old Bentley, greeting Franny with tears in his eyes and a big hug and triple kisses. As they drove through the village, she leaned out the window and, recognizing her, passing villagers waved. Then the car turned up the familiar drive and she peered eagerly ahead, anxious for that first glimpse of the Château des Roses Sauvages.

And there it was, glowing golden in the evening sunlight, tugging at her heartstrings like a familiar melody from long ago. Rafaella was waiting on the steps with Mimi and Louis. Juliette was there with her Pomeranians, and Little Blue came hurtling toward them, followed by a couple of shaggy, boisterous pups.