CHAPTER 36 #2
It depended heavily on the phrase until he caught up.
Outside the windshield, the village looked offensive in its harmlessness.
Wet stone. Pale morning light. A bakery sign swinging gently in the wind. A man carrying coffee in one hand and a newspaper tucked under his arm like the world still made sense.
Across the street, a woman stood outside a flower shop arranging buckets of pale roses beneath the awning.
She looked toward the car.
Then away.
My stomach tightened.
Maybe she had noticed us park behind the shops. Maybe she looked at every unfamiliar vehicle that entered her quiet little village.
Jameson followed my gaze but said nothing.
That did nothing useful for my nerves.
The green cross of the pharmacy glowed on the corner. Two doors beyond it, the electronics shop sat narrow and forgettable between a watch repair stall and a travel office with faded beach posters curling in the window.
He reached into the back seat and handed me the canvas tote. “You don’t have to go in alone.”
“It’ll be quicker if we divide and conquer.”
His attention stayed on the florist. She had returned to the roses, but every few seconds her head lifted toward the street.
“All right.” He tucked the flat pickup slip into his coat pocket. “You go directly to the pharmacy. I’ll collect the unit and meet you outside.”
“Your mysterious doo-dad.”
His mouth tightened as he opened his door. “It isn’t a doo-dad.”
“Is it mysterious?”
His silence answered.
“Is it a device?”
He checked the side mirror before looking back at me. “It is a tool.”
“So a tactical doo-dad.”
He reached for the door handle, then stopped. “Seven minutes.”
“You gave me eight a few minutes ago.”
“I’ve reconsidered.” He looked at me over the top of his glasses.
“I’m taking eight.”
His fingers went still against the handle. “Brynn.”
“I need shampoo and drugs. I’m not storming a fortress.”
His gaze moved past me toward the street. The florist had stopped arranging the roses again.
Something in his expression closed.
“Eight minutes,” he conceded. “If anything feels wrong, you leave whatever you’re holding and walk out.”
“Look at us. Compromise.”
He pushed open the door. “That wasn’t a compromise.”
“It felt like one emotionally.”
He got out first.
I waited until he gave me the smallest nod through the windshield before opening my door.
Cold air slid beneath the hem of my coat and climbed the back of my neck. It smelled like rain, coffee, exhaust, and bread from the bakery down the block.
Not my bread. Someone else’s bread.
A less threatening bread.
Jameson came around the car but didn’t take my hand. He didn’t touch my back or steer me with his body. He stood one step away, close enough that I could feel where he was without looking and far enough that no one passing would assume we belonged to each other.
The florist glanced at us again.
This time, I caught her.
Her attention dropped immediately to the bucket in front of her.
Did these people just never see tourists?
We crossed the street together, then separated at the corner. Jameson angled toward the electronics shop. I kept going toward the pharmacy without looking back.
The bell above the door gave a soft, friendly chime.
The bright shelves and polished glass should have made the place feel safe. Instead, I found the nearest reflective surface and checked the street behind me.
I grabbed a basket.
Shampoo. Conditioner. Body wash that didn’t smell like pine, smoke, and unresolved trauma. Deodorant. Menstrual discs. Hair ties. A toothbrush.
I stopped pretending to compare brands and took whatever was closest.
Eight minutes.
By the time I reached the counter, the pharmacist was finishing with an older man. I placed the basket down and glanced through the front window again.
“Bonjour,” the pharmacist said.
“Bonjour.” My voice came out steady enough to pass. “English?”
He moved to the register. “A little. How can I help?”
“I need a refill.”
His eyes moved over the basket. “Prescription?”
“I don’t have the paper copy with me.”
His fingers hovered over the keyboard. “Insurance card?”
“No.”
“Identification?” He looked back at me.
I shifted my weight. “Everything was stolen.”
The bell above the door chimed behind me.
I looked toward the glass display rather than turning around.
A woman in a dark wool coat entered carrying an opened box of cough syrup and headed straight for the counter.
Not the florist.
The relief that should have followed didn’t.
She came directly toward the counter and stopped behind me, close enough that I could hear the congestion in every breath.
The pharmacist looked past my shoulder, then back at me. “Previous package? Photo? Patient file?”
“No. I’m sorry.”
The woman coughed hard into her elbow.
My fingers tightened around the basket handle.
Global pandemic or not, personal space had existed long before six-foot floor stickers. Apparently, no one had explained that to her.
“Name of medicine?” the pharmacist asked.
“Zovia.”
He typed, frowned, and tried again.
“It’s American. I’ve been taking it for over a year.”
The woman said something impatient in French and pointed toward the register.
The pharmacist answered her without looking away from the screen.
I glanced at the glass behind the counter.
She was watching me.
Or the register.
Or the pharmacist taking too long.
I didn’t like not knowing which.
The pharmacist tapped one finger against the keyboard. “Spell, please?”
“Z.”
He typed.
“O.”
Another cough erupted behind me.
“V.”
The woman spoke over me, her voice rising.
Ordinarily, I would have turned around and asked her to back up.
Instead, I watched her reflection.
Impatient customer or something else?
I probably needed to tell Jameson.
“I,” I continued.
The pharmacist’s expression cleared. “Ah. Oui.”
I opened my mouth to finish, but he had already turned away.
Thank God.
I wanted the box, the door, and Jameson back in my line of sight.
The pharmacist returned with a small white-and-blue package and placed it beside my toiletries. “You take before?”
“For over a year.”
He nodded toward the woman waiting behind me. “Instructions inside.”
I barely glanced at the box before nodding.
He scanned everything quickly.
Cash. Bag. Receipt I didn’t want. Smile I did.
The woman moved toward the counter before I had fully stepped away.
Too close again.
“Merci.”
I left before caution could become panic.
Jameson stepped out of the electronics shop as I reached the curb, a flat brown package tucked beneath one arm and his eyes already on me. “Done?”
I lifted the pharmacy bag. “Drugs acquired.”
His gaze moved over my face. “Any problems?”
I almost told him about the woman.
Then I looked back through the pharmacy window. She was at the counter now, coughing into her elbow and speaking with both hands, the opened box held between them as if the pharmacist had personally offended her.
Ah. Just mad.
“No.”
His attention stayed on me.
I lifted my eyebrows before he could decide concern counted as a search warrant. “Did you get your mysterious mountain gadget?”
He adjusted the package beneath his arm. “Yes.”
“Does it have a self-destruct button?”
He started toward the market. “No.”
“Disappointing.”
He looked down at the label. “It does have instructions in German.”
“That feels like punishment for both of us.”
He took the heavier bag from my hand and glanced once toward the flower shop before nodding down the street. “Vegetables.”
Finally.
The word alone improved my will to live.
The market was crowded enough to make Jameson’s shoulders go still and ordinary enough to make mine ache.
An older woman squeezed tomatoes near the entrance. Someone laughed by the cheese case. A child in a blue coat tried to smuggle a chocolate bar into a basket while his father pretended not to notice, and like the terrible influence I am, I winked at the kid.
Normal life, everywhere.
I bought apples because they smelled crisp and clean.
Clementines because the peel released sunlight under my thumbnail.
A bundle of greens because I had a point to prove.
A head of lettuce because apparently I had become the kind of woman who got emotional about leaves.
Tomatoes because Jameson looked at the price and I enjoyed watching him suffer silently.
Cucumbers, peppers, grapes.
A loaf of crusty bread still warm enough to make the whole bag smell like mercy, but not enough to trigger a safe-house carbohydrate flashback.
And cheese because dignity, apparently, didn’t come in travel sizes, but morale came in wedges.
“You said vegetables,” he said as I added it to the basket.
“I said essentials.”
“That is cheese,” he said.
“That is just my emotional support cheese.”
He raised a brow.
So I added another wedge.
By the time we reached the register, my canvas tote held enough produce, bread, and dairy-based psychological support to make the last week of safe-house meals feel like something we might survive after all.
He stood close enough to block the camera angle behind me without touching.
I paid cash.
He let me.
For one impossible second, it was just us, a bag of groceries, and a dangerous little almost-life pretending it could fit in the trunk of a car.