Chapter 3
Three
Marielle led the others down the path toward the village, noting that Omar’s headache had obviously not abated since he was still letting her take the lead.
She took a deep breath of the salty, lavender-scented air, warm on her shoulders, and smiled.
It brought back so many memories, the scent and the feeling.
A hint of lemon, citrusy and sharp, rose up from the trees that lined the path.
The village was both as she remembered it and different.
The same narrow cobblestone streets lined with the same brightly colored, tightly packed buildings, although the colors were muted, faded from the sun.
And the trees and bushes, some flowering and some fruiting, were more riotous and larger than they had been the last time she was here.
Some of the storefronts had new signs. The little park in the center of the village had a new gazebo.
But for the most part, it was as she remembered it.
Before they reached the town proper, she veered off the path and toward the shore.
“Why are we going down to the beach?” Hanna asked, her eyes darting from the village laid out below to the sand and the open water beyond it.
“It’s better if we approach from behind the town,” Marielle said. “Just in case.”
Just in case your boyfriend’s armed guards are staking out this random village south of Marseille. Unlikely, yes. But the inconvenience was small and the benefit large.
“Besides,” Omar added, picking his way over the loose stones that led down to the sandy shore.“We do look like we just spent a day on the water.”
He gestured at his swim trunks and rash guard and then toward the women’s bathing suits.
He had a point. They’d worn their bathing suits on the jet skis to avoid being slowed down by wet clothing. But the dry bags were small, and they needed the limited space for much more important items than clothes.
“True,” Hanna conceded even as she furrowed her brow. Her worry that that they’d be exposed, easy for Idris’s men to spot from the sea, was palpable.
“We’ll only be down there for a few minutes,” Marielle assured her breezily. “Then we’ll pop right up to the inn.”
Evidently, her tone was a bit too breezy because Omar narrowed his eyes.
“Are you sure this innkeeper will remember you? This whole plan hinges on us being able to hunker down until we can arrange transportation to Marseille.”
She ignored his question because she’d never actually met the innkeeper. Instead, she was counting on a gossamer-thin family connection. But there was no reason to tell Omar that now. They’d find out soon enough if her gamble would pay off.
Instead, she seized on his comment about Marseille. “I told you, we can’t go to the safe house.”
“And I told you, we need to,” he hissed in a whisper.
Hanna straightened her back and titled her head, listening.
Marielle shot him a look. “Not now.”
He shook his head but clamped his lips closed.
As they descended the hill to the shore, she studied his clenched jaw. Was the tension from his headache or her vague answers? And, more importantly, how did he already have a tan? His taut cheekbones were bronzed.
She glanced over at Hanna, whose shoulders and back were a golden brown.
“So unfair,” she mumbled.
“What is?” Hanna asked.
“You two. I wish I had olive skin. I’m turning as red as an apple and you’re both becoming bronzed like Roman deities.”
Hanna snorted a laugh. Omar even managed a grin.
“You are kind of … pink,” Hanna told her.
She didn’t need a mirror to know that it was true.
The heat spreading across her burning shoulders and chest was confirmation enough.
Like any self-respecting woman with French lineage, she slathered herself with sunscreen, day in and day out, year round.
But her daily skincare routine was no match for hours spent on the sea and climbing the cliffs under the Mediterranean sun.
They reached the shore, and Marielle jogged directly toward the wooden stairs that led to the cobblestone streets and colorful homes of the fishing village above. Omar and Hanna kept pace with her as they took the steps two at a time and came out onto a narrow footpath.
She paused at the top, remembering the last time she’d walked up these stairs. Her grandmother had been at her side wearing her wide-brimmed sunhat. They’d had a picnic lunch on the beach catered by the innkeeper, Monsieur Blanc. And afterward, Mémé Céline brought Marielle to the inn to meet him.
“Elle?” Omar said quietly. “You good?”
She swallowed around the lump lodged in her throat and lied, “Sure. Just remembering which direction to go. It’s this way.”
She averted her eyes from his. They followed a wooden walkway to the cobblestone street, where L’Auberge Arbousier sat on the nearest corner.
The Inn’s name was apt. Les arbouses were the distinctive berries that grew on the strawberry trees that thrived on the rocky cliff between the inn and the shore.
Right now, the trees, les arbousiers, were covered with white blossoms. In the late summer, they would be heavy with their fruits—bumpy, round red berries that bore, at best, a glancing resemblance to true strawberries.
The inn that Marielle remembered had looked exactly like a strawberry.
As a young teen, she’d been delighted by its vibrant reddish pink exterior.
The paint was weathered now to a dusty rose.
The wood window shutters thrown open to frame the front windows, originally a verdant green, had been faded by time and salt air to a pale celadon.
Still lovely, if slightly shabby, its muted colors were brightened by the flower boxes under each window were filled with pink and red geraniums.
She knocked her shoes against the lowest step to shake off some of the sand, then mounted the stairs to the porch, followed by Hanna and Omar. She paused to fill her lungs and still her pulse before lifting the tarnished brass ring knocker mounted to the door and dropping it against the wood.
“Entrez-vous, s’il vous pla?t,” a bass voice called out through the open windows.
She pushed the door open and strode inside with as grace as she could muster given her state of disarray.
A gangly man emerged from the back of the home.
He was roughly her age. He had a shock of shaggy black hair and a heavy five o’clock shadow and wore a mournful expression, which turned quizzical as he took in the sight of three bathing-suit clad visitors in his entryway.
He was far more befuddled than threatening, but Omar stepped up to stand beside her in a ready stance.
“Bonjour.” He studied them as he greeted them.
“Bonjour, monsieur,” she responded. “Parlez-vous anglais?”
He blinked, cocked his head, and said, “Bien s?r. Of course.”
“Wonderful.” That solved the problem of Omar. She and Hanna could converse in French as easily as English, but translating for Omar would be tedious.
“Are you seeking accommodations?” He drew his brows together as though this might be a problem.
Omar noticed the expression as well. “We certainly hope to. Do you have any rooms available?”
There was a moment of hesitation. Marielle watched the man’s face. His thoughts were displayed as if in closed captioning. He had rooms available, but he didn’t have any particular desire to rent them.
Before he could lie or gently guide them elsewhere, she interjected, “My name is Marielle Moreau.”
There it was. A flicker of recognition sparked in his denim blue eyes.
“Ah,” he said.
Then they both sighed. His was a sign of resignation; hers, one of relief.
“Olivier Blanc was a dear friend of my grandmother.”
“Oui. I’m Luc Blanc, his grandson. Grand-père told me if Madame Moreau’s granddaughter ever turned up asking for help, I was to provide it.”
“I need help.”