The results of both floral efforts were so pleasing that Ellie stood there for some time, simply admiring them. The confidence that she could capture the simplicity and beauty of the arrangements with her paints or pencils was no more than a passing thought, but the fact that it sparked interest was… well, it was quite exciting, to be honest. As if another part of her was trying to come back to life, like the part that had woken up when she’d realised the effect that Julien’s touch on her skin had created. That it was possible to be attracted to a man again – something she hadn’t considered remotely likely ever since Liam had walked out over a year and a half ago.

  It was too hot to feel like moving too soon after a now-favourite lunch of ham and cheese baguette, and the terrace was pleasantly shaded by the trees. Pascal was sound asleep amongst the weeds at her feet, but Ellie noticed his ear twitching repeatedly, irritated by the leaves of what looked like a type of dandelion. She grasped the weed and pulled, finding it came out easily from the mix of sand and soil between the flagstones. Pascal, showered by the debris that came off the roots of the plant, got up with a sigh and moved further away. Ellie kept pulling at the weeds. She’d waxed lyrical to Julien the other night about how gorgeous this terrace would be when she’d cleaned it up properly, so maybe she’d better make a start, in case he came back again another evening.

  Within a few minutes, Ellie found herself sitting on the flagstones, the weed-pulling an automatic task as her thoughts drifted back to that evening and the… intimacy of them both sharing such personal revelations. Her first impressions of Julien had been so wrong, hadn’t they? No wonder he’d reacted the way he had when she’d spoken to him in English. The tortured look on his face, when she’d sympathised with how much Theo must be missing his mother, made it more than clear that the person who really missed Sarah was the husband who’d adored her enough to want to spend the rest of his life with her and create a family.

  And Sarah had been English!

  What a shock it must have been for Julien to hear Ellie speaking her language. It would have dragged him back to the time the unthinkable had happened and he’d lost his wife, and their son had lost his mother. To make it even more of an emotional bombshell, he’d found her with their son in her arms.

  But, in a way, there was something rather poignant about that now that they both knew how much they had in common. They both knew what it was like to suffer a huge, personal loss in their lives.

  It was impossible for it not to have brought them closer.

  Ellie let herself sink into the warmth that that thought gave her as the pile of weeds grew taller. It felt inevitable that an internal warmth like that was going to morph into something rather more intense, but the flicker of attraction was not unpleasant. Her cells might be waking up from a hibernation deep enough to have felt like death, and that was okay. Rather nice, in fact.

  And perfectly safe. Even if Julien had moved on enough to have female companions, it seemed most unlikely that he would be looking for a replacement for his wife. Ellie, of all people, knew that grief had its own timetable and couldn’t be rushed. But, on the other hand, the way he’d been looking at her the other evening, the way that attraction had increased so suddenly, had made her think that she was seeing a reflection of what she was experiencing herself. That he was, at some level, attracted to her. What if…?

  Ooh…

  Did she dare follow that thought?

  Okay… what if they were both attracted to each other? Was she anywhere near ready to follow that through? Would it be such a big deal if she was? It wasn’t as if she was going to be here very long. It would be nothing more than the kind of holiday romance a lot of people had when they went to, say, Spain for a couple of weeks, or on a cruise.

  What if a total absence of any kind of intimate physical connection with another human might be having far more of an effect on her wellbeing than she’d realised? Ellie hadn’t been kissed since the moment she’d discovered she was pregnant and Liam couldn’t get away fast enough. She hadn’t felt the touch of a man’s hand for over a year and a half. Had the dark space of mourning the loss of her baby been made worse because that had been missing from her life?

  Dipping her toes into a romantic pool might be the perfect way to take a really significant step forwards in living her best life again, and how happy would that make her family? If nothing else, it was definitely not unpleasant to toy with the idea.

  Dusting off a bit of sand from her bare arm, after she’d thrown another handful of weeds onto the pile, made Ellie’s thoughts a lot less coherent because all she could think of now was the touch of Julien’s hand on her arm when he’d checked her grazed elbow, and the curl of blatant desire in her belly was sharp enough to make her catch her breath.

  He’d said that his mother took Theo to visit his grandmother once a week and that they always stayed the night, which meant that there would be another occasion before very long when Julien was on his own in his house on the other side of the olive grove. If she saw him again, she could suggest another glass of wine on the terrace, perhaps. Dinner, even? He’d gone too soon to even taste that wonderful cheese last time.

  If he did come back, Ellie wanted this terrace to look fabulous. Despite the heat, she pulled at the weeds even faster. She’d brush all the cobwebs off the candle holders later and put candles on tomorrow’s shopping list. She might need to go into Vence to find an item like that, but… Ellie straightened after throwing her next handful of weeds, stopping to count days on her fingers. Tomorrow’s Tuesday, she realised market day in the main square in Vence. Didn’t Julien say that his rooms were nearby and that he often bought something for his lunch at the market?

  A local speciality that he recommended she should try because it was good. What was it, again?

  Oh, aye… Socca.

  The sign was hand-painted, standing on a counter in front of a white-domed pizza oven on a trailer:

  Socca

  2.50 € la part

  Le plateau de 5 parts, 12.00 €

  Visible flames and the glow from the wood fire within suggested that, while this might be a great way to make a living in the depths of winter, it was hot work for the middle of a summer’s day. It was also obvious that this local speciality was popular. A little before midday, having left her bike in a stand on the edge of the square, Ellie joined the queue in front of the socca stall. Pascal, on his lead, was sitting almost on top of her feet, which made it a little awkward to edge closer to the front of the queue.

  She could see more of what was happening as they got closer. The owner of the stall was working hard, with two wide, shallow cast-iron skillets taking turns in the oven. When one came out, it was left to steam on the counter for a minute while he prepared the next, scraping out anything stuck, brushing the base with oil and then ladling three scoops of a thin-looking batter into the pan before pushing it into the open mouth of the oven and turning his attention back to the already-cooked platter with its browned top and slightly blackened edges.

  He set out five paper plates and then used a square piece of plastic to divide up what looked like a huge, slightly overcooked pancake. A large triangle went onto each plate, and then a second one to make a generous portion. Ellie watched the interactions with customers, noting that most chose to have salt and pepper sprinkled on the top and that some had their plates wrapped in foil but others took them with no foil and began eating them straight away.

  ‘Une part?’

  ‘Oui. S’il vous plaît.’ Ellie smiled and nodded, handing over her money and hoping that she’d chosen the right response to a rapid-fire question she hadn’t understood. She was picking up a few words and phrases of the language now, but the speed with which French people spoke and any background noise or distractions made it so much harder.

  ‘Le sel et le poivre?’

  Ridiculously pleased with herself for picking up the word for pepper, Ellie nodded and smiled again. ‘Merci.’

  ‘Et vous mangez tout de suite?’

  This was another moment to nod and smile, and Ellie figured out the meaning as she received her plate with no foil. She followed the example of people she had been watching and moved to a bench seat to eat her lunch straight away, and, by the time she sat down, she could feel the weight and heat of the socca coming through the plate despite the layer of paper serviettes she’d been given. She tied Pascal’s lead to the end of the bench, and he sat directly in front of her feet this time, his expression much easier to understand than the French she’d been listening to around her.

  ‘Might be a bit hot for you,’ she told him. ‘I’ll test it, shall I?’

  She tore a piece off the edge of one of the triangles and put it in her mouth. It was very hot. It was also unexpectedly delicious. Crispy on the outside, soft in the middle and delightfully savoury – salty, peppery and smoky. It was burning her fingers as she tore tiny pieces off, but it was too good to wait and let it cool.

  Ellie actually forgot the little dog waiting hopefully at her feet as her senses were hijacked. It wasn’t just the taste and smell of the socca. She was listening to the bustle of the busy market in front of her and taking in everything she could see. They were mostly food stalls in this part. A dreadlocked woman presided over a large vegetable selection. There was a long table with baskets of differently flavoured olives, a smaller one that sold eggs and one in between that had huge wheels of cheese. Further away, near the socca oven, Ellie could see a stall that had great slabs of nougat, and beyond that was a bright splash of colour from rows of flowers and plants. Everything was shaded by the red and yellow canvas awnings, and it was crowded. Men, women, children and dogs. Tourists and locals. There was music, as well, with a man playing jazz on a saxophone near the flower stall, and the sound was a soothing background to the kaleidoscope of things to look at: people shopping, tasting samples of food, meeting and greeting friends and often stopping to talk, creating an obstacle that others negotiated with the ease of practice. The queue at the socca stall had doubled in size, and Ellie felt lucky she’d joined it when she did.

  Lucky to be here at all, in fact. This was another one of those moments like she’d had in St Paul de Vence when she’d been captured by the mosaic flowers in the cobbled streets. The new culinary experience of the socca would always be an integral piece of this place and this moment in time, and it was sealing itself into Ellie’s memory banks as something she knew she would treasure for years to come.

  It wasn’t just Pascal’s desire to share her food that Ellie had forgotten. When she saw the tall figure emerge from the crowd to walk towards where she was sitting, she remembered that Julien worked nearby. The surprise of seeing him was enough to make her heart skip a beat and then increase its speed – the same way it had when she’d recognised him coming towards her through the orchard that evening. Ellie could feel the beat of it in her throat.

  ‘Is it good?’ Julien’s eyebrows were raised as he sat beside her on the bench. ‘You like socca?’

  ‘So good… I love it.’ Ellie’s smile felt too wide. ‘It’s my new favourite thing. I may have to come here every market day.’

  ‘I came to get some myself, but that queue… pfft!’ The sound of dismissal was so French it made Ellie’s smile get even wider.

  ‘Please, have some of mine while you wait.’ She held out the plate. ‘The pieces are much bigger than I expected.’

  Julien hesitated, and, oddly, Ellie found herself holding her breath. Maybe because he hadn’t eaten any of that hastily prepared platter the other evening, if this offer was also rejected, she might need to take it as a sign that an offer of something more significant than food would not be welcome. And, because she had that thought in her head, when he did reach out and tear off part of the remaining triangle, it felt almost like a silent conversation. The way he held her gaze as he folded the socca and put it in his mouth felt like an acknowledgement that any attraction here was, indeed, mutual.

  It was only a heartbeat of time, but Ellie knew it had the potential to change her world dramatically. Until the next beat of time when the moment was completely shattered. As was the whole ambience of the market with the shrill sound of a woman’s scream, so close that Ellie shot to her feet, the paper plate slipping, unheeded, to the ground. She stared in the direction of the sound, trying to make sense of the movement of people. Some were frozen to the spot, also staring. Heads were turning and some people were running towards the disturbance, which appeared to be beside the olive stall. And then, as people moved, Ellie saw the hunched figure of a young woman with long, dark hair. She was picking something up from the fine gravel of the town square. A small child in a summer dress, whose head fell back as she was lifted, her limbs also unnaturally floppy.

  In the split second it took to process what was happening, Julien was already moving towards the woman and child with long strides that closed the distance so fast Ellie barely had time to drag in a breath. He seemed perfectly calm, she thought, as he reached out for the child. The woman was too distraught to speak, but other people seemed to be trying to tell Julien what they’d seen. More than one was pointing at baskets of olives in the shade under the trestle table – within easy reach of a passing child.

  She saw the way he was checking to find out whether the child was breathing, and then he was covering her mouth with his own to try and deliver a life-saving breath. Once, twice… Ellie’s gaze was fixed on the little girl, unconsciously stepping closer as she desperately watched, willing that small chest to rise.

  But, even from this distance, she could see that it wasn’t moving.

  The child was as still as a stone.

  Exactly the way Jack had been that dreadful morning.

  Ellie was holding her own breath now, and her cry was silent.

  ‘Please…’

  9

  ‘Appelez le SAMU!’

  Julien knew that, as soon the nearest stall holder got through on the phone and told the Service d’Aide Médicale Urgente they were coming to a child who was choking, they would send one of their advanced life support units, staffed by a doctor and nurse or highly trained paramedic. In the meantime, he knew he had only a short window of time to save this child.

  He scooped the little girl into his arms and turned her face down with her head lower than her chest, flattening his hand so that he could apply back blows that might be effective enough to dislodge whatever was blocking her airway. But when he tried another rescue breath, it was clear that the air was not reaching her lungs.

  He could still feel a pulse in her neck, but that window of time had just become smaller; unless he could clear her airway, her heart would stop beating. Julien got to his feet with the child still in his arms. He could get to his consulting room in less than sixty seconds, and he had all the equipment he might need there, like a defibrillator to manage a cardiac arrest, special forceps to try and remove the obstruction, and even the surgical items that would enable him to create an airway in the child’s throat if necessary.

  The concerned crowd of onlookers parted as he told people to tell the ambulance crew where to find him, and, as he started moving, Julien noticed two things. One was that the mother of this child was standing very still, frozen with shock. The other was that Ellie was also watching – a reflection of that shock on her own face.

  ‘Come,’ he told Ellie, as he strode past. ‘Follow me and bring the mother. She needs to be with her daughter.’

  As did Ellie, he realised. Both these women needed to see that everything possible was being done to save a young life.

  Assistance was also valuable, with his clinic being empty of staff for the lunch break. He laid the girl onto the white sheet covering the couch in his consultation room and called Ellie closer.

  ‘I need you to do chest thrusts,’ he told her. ‘Like this.’ He took her hand and placed it on the child’s chest. ‘Push with the heel of your hand. As fast and as deep as this.’ He held her hand under his as he demonstrated. ‘It will help to keep her heart going and might dislodge the obstruction.’

  It also made it possible to step away and find and prepare the equipment he needed. He chose a curved blade to snap onto the handle of a laryngoscope and clicked on the light to make sure it was working. Then he reached into a cupboard that had emergency kits and found a small-sized pair of Magill’s forceps. Like an elongated and angled pair of scissors with blunt, circular ends, these forceps were specifically designed to be used in airways to guide the placement of tubes or to remove foreign objects.

  He slid a rolled-up towel beneath the girl’s shoulders to tilt her head into the best position.

  ‘Stop for a moment,’ he instructed Ellie.

  The bright, focused light from the laryngoscope, with its blade holding the tongue out of the way, was his best chance of seeing and removing a foreign object. And he could see something… As he picked up the forceps and felt his entire body tensing as he focused, Julien could feel a similar tension radiating from Ellie. She was holding her breath. The mother was just as still. The crew from the ambulance were stepping through the door, and they, too, stopped so as not to disrupt his task. It felt like the entire world was holding its breath.

  He slid the forceps into place and closed them carefully, but as he tried to pull the small, slippery object clear, it escaped the grip of the metal. He could hear his own breath escape in a hiss of frustration at the same time, and he glanced up, knowing that the SAMU doctor would be ready to step in and perform the surgery needed if this didn’t work. The instant nod he received told him that his silent message had been received.

  One more try…

  As his gaze brushed Ellie’s on the way back, it was his turn to receive unspoken communication.

  You can do this… Please…

  It took only a split second, and then Julien was aware of nothing but the need to guide the forceps into place, take the time needed to get the best grip possible and then to pull very slowly and very carefully until… yes…