Madame Picard, on the other hand, came from much purer blood.
Maintaining two staff — Madame Picard and Monsieur Girard, thewinzer/groundskeeper — might seem a little extravagant, but with forty-plus rooms and 120 acres to manage, they were more like a must. But even with their best efforts— and mine — the once-grand château was fading fast. The roof leaked in nineteen of the twenty bedrooms, and the place counted more rodents than human residents. Shutters hung askew, and the plumbing hadn’t been updated since the early twenties — thenineteen-twenties, that is.
“I suppose you’re expecting company, then?” Madame Fontaine asked.
Madame Martin leaned in. In small towns, everyone knew everyone’s business, and the baker was always the first to find out.
“Not company,” I said. “Clients.”
“Oh! Did you finally find some tourists or a wedding party to rent rooms to?” Madame Martin asked.
That was the long-range plan — to make the huge property pay for itself, because I sure couldn’t. Not on a teacher’s salary, and especially not now that I’d taken time off to try to save the place. Château Nocturne had been in my family for eleven generations, and I refused to be the one who gave it all up.
“Not exactly. Just a small retreat group. But it’s a start,” I said, going for an upbeat note.
“It will take more than a start to save that money pit,” Madame Fontaine muttered, using the French term,gouffre financier. A sinkhole, in other words.
I slipped my backpack from my shoulders, paid, and packed the baguette and bun away. I loved these straight-talking townsfolk, but this was the one hour of the day I declared free from constant fretting.
“Well, thanks. I’m off.” I whirled for the door.
The bell jingled — too late for me to avoid bumping into the next customer. I had a fair bit of momentum, so the bump wasn’t just a bump. It was a full-on, chest-to-chest crash. Which would have been mortifying if that had been Jacques, the portly, fifty-plus farmer who hit on me every chance he could.
But it wasn’t Jacques, and it wasn’t mortifying. Quite the opposite, in fact.
“Oh, sorry,” the man said, grabbing my arms to keep me from wobbling back.
“My fault,” I started, then stared into his warm brown eyes. “Clement?”
He broke into a huge smile. “Mina?”
My cheeks heated. My girls parts too.
“Wow. Good to see you,” was all I managed to sputter.
And, double wow. The boy I’d played with as a kid was now filling in a police uniform very nicely, indeed.
His eyes shone in an unmistakable way, and I felt a little giddy too.
He whipped off his hat. “Good to seeyou.”
“Finally, a young man who shows some manners,” Madame Fontaine murmured.
“Finally, a young man, period,” Madame Martin chuckled.
Like many rural towns in France, Auberre had an age demographic that leaned heavily to the senior side, so young blood was always cause for celebration. But ooh la la. Clement wasn’t just young blood, but stunningly handsome young blood. His neatly trimmed, blondish-brown hair had a slight, natural wave. Caramel-colored eyes were set off by slightly darker brows and absolutely, totally focused on me. The faint brackets around his mouth could lift into a heart-melting smile, as they did now — or fall into a grim, law-and-order line, I supposed. Like Jacques, he was a local farmer’s kid — but unlike Jacques, Clement kept his body sculpted like a god’s.
The French custom of trading three kisses in greeting often felt like a chore. Not this time, though. I used the cheap excuse to grasp his shoulders — nicely muscled shoulders — while his lips gently brushed my cheeks each time.
I inhaled his scent — sage and lavender, like he’d been running through the surrounding fields. All kinds of warm feels went through me, and I barely remembered to step back.
“I didn’t know you were back in town,” I finally managed.
“I just transferred from Marseille.”
“Trading big-city crime for the boredom of a small town?” Monsieur Martin joked.
“Trading crowded streets for space to roam,” he murmured, keeping his eyes locked on mine.
