The Charmers (6 page)

There! I was breathing after all. And smiling at this outrageous man who had just put claims on my villa. Aunt Jolly's villa, that was. And before that, Jerusha's.

My shoulder hurt, bruised in the crash, and I put up a hand as though to protect it from his gaze, but he was not even looking at me. He was looking at the villa, assessing its value I'd bet.

“So who are you anyway?” I put enough frost in my voice to kill any nice summer day.

He did not so much as glance around, so intent was he in taking in what he claimed was his property. “Name's Chad Prescott.” He did not offer his hand, though, silly me, I did. Good manners can be the ruination of you; someone once told me that. It had to have been a man.

“Though you have not asked, my name is Mirabella Matthews.” I waited for a response, the oh really, of course I know your books. It did not come.

Verity came and stood tall beside me. “And I am Verity.” She did not mention her second name, obviously still confused as to which one it was, the single or the married. Not that it mattered.

Aunt Jolly had an old sausage dog that still lived here, along with a Siamese cat and a bright yellow canary that sang. The dog walked cautiously toward the doctor, stretching its long neck to sniff his sandaled feet. He ignored it.

“I did not invite you onto my property,” I said, choking back my anger. “And you should at least acknowledge the dog. He lives here, this is his home.”

“No, it's not,” he said. And with that he walked past me and through the already open door.

Mouth agape, I caught the faint tang of briarwood cologne as he passed, a warm male aroma. What was wrong with me? This guy was talking about Aunt Jolly's house,
my
house, as though it was his, walking into it like he owned it and I was caught up in his scent.

“You have no right to walk into my house.”

I hurried after him, the dog slinking at my heels. The Siamese was absent and the canary had disappeared from its open cage. I didn't blame them. The vibes were not good.

He turned and for the first time really looked at me, as though he saw me and not as though I were some insignificant servant, here to do his bidding.

“You must understand,” he said. His voice was low and even and rather attractive if truth be known. “You must understand that whatever you have been told, whatever you believe or think, you did not inherit this house. It was deeded to me prior to her death by Madame Jolly Matthews.”

He'd called her Jolly. Only her friends and family, small though it was, namely me, ever did that. My aunt's proper name was Juliet, though she claimed no one but her mother had ever used it.

“Well, then,” I said, considering my words carefully before I voiced them, because this was a situation I recognized was fraught with sudden danger. “Well, then, Mr.…?” I paused, waiting for him to remind me his name was Chad Prescott though I remembered it perfectly well. But he did not remind me, he simply stood there, arms folded now across his chest, all manly-man in a white polo shirt and pale pink bathing shorts, though had you asked me earlier how a guy in pink shorts could look masculine I would have laughed in your face.

“I'll have my attorney send you the appropriate documents,” he said, turning and speaking over his shoulder, dropping his card on the hall table as he left. “I shall expect you to be gone by next week. Please leave everything as you found it.”

“The dog and the cat and the bird as well?” I was steaming with the heat of sudden anger. And, I admit it, fear. Because what if he was right and the villa did belong to him? I would regret having sold my little flat in London and all dreams of sunny South of France would be just dreams again.

“Take the animals,” he called back. “I do not want them around.”

I yelled back, “This is my house, mister, and there's nothing you can do about it.”

“Yes, there is,” he said and he sounded so calm, so collected, while I had fallen to pieces. I feared he was right.

*   *   *

“Of course the villa is yours,” my attorney, James Arnold Long, said in his usual calm, controlled, nothing-will-ever-get-to-him voice that I'm sure he uses on all his usually upset and irate clients. After all, he's the one who has to sort out their problems; they can't have him getting upset and irate as well.

“He claims he has papers to prove Aunt Jolly—he calls her that—gave him the villa.”

“And when did she supposedly do this?”

I could just imagine old-lawyer-Long, with his half-specs sliding down his nose, flipping through the papers on his desk, probably doing at least two things at once as I knew he usually did, instead of concentrating on my problem, which was now a major problem.

“I mean, he's a doctor, a surgeon, he has documents,” I said, sounding feeble and feminine and a bit lost. Actually, a lot lost. I was in love with a villa. It was mine.

“Did he give the documents to you, or at least copies?”

“Well, no.… But he seemed very sure of himself and his position as owner.”

“Give me his phone number and his e-mail address,” Long said. “I'll take care of him.” The lawyer's voice was firm, determined; he knew his rights, that was his job, after all. “Now you just go about your business, your life, as normal, let us take care of Dr. Prescott.”

I clicked off the phone and went and sat on the terrace, for once not seeing the beautiful view in front of me. I was too in my own head, even when the Siamese jumped onto my lap and settled down as though she now owned me. The dog sat panting at my feet, big brown eyes fixed anxiously on my face, no doubt taking in my worried expression.

Verity was staring at me too, all indignant. “What was that about? What does he mean, it's his villa?”

She looked so skinny and bedraggled, ready to stamp her foot in the good old-fashioned classic manner of outrage. I shrugged, assuming a nonchalance I did not feel.

“The lawyer tells me it's all nonsense. Of course the villa is mine. He'll sort out this Dr. Chad Prescott.” I grinned at her. “What d'ya think, in his pink shorts?”

Verity sighed. “Cute,” she said. “Like all the bad boys.”

I had to admit she was right.

 

9

The Colonel

Rufus Barrada, or the Colonel, as he was always referred to because of his ten years of service in the French army prior to joining the gendarmes, had seen too many road accidents to be sympathetic. He'd been a happily married man for seven years when his wife was killed. She was walking from their home, an old farmhouse that had been in his family for two centuries, to the Saturday village market, striding along the side of the road when she was struck by a tourist RV and knocked into a rocky ditch.

Agnes, her name was, but the Colonel always only called her
mon amour
, and she called him
mon choux,
though never in public, of course. Theirs was a passionate relationship, nurtured over the years, and he was bereft without her. Time, as it usually does, eventually papered over the cracks of despair until it resembled some form of acceptance, though never forgotten.

Their children, the twin girls named Marie-Laure and Marie-Helene for their grandmothers, were now six years old, Laure with long pigtails, blond like her mother, Helene exactly like her father with his thick dark hair that sprouted every which way, falling into her eyes mostly so she seemed to peer at you shyly, which in fact she was not at all.

Laure was the shy one, usually walking behind her sister, head down, clutching her bookbag over one shoulder, small gold-rimmed glasses half hiding her blue eyes. Helene always looked out for her sister though.

The Colonel was to pick them up from school and because of the interviews with the Matthews woman he was late. He spotted them sitting on a low wall outside the schoolhouse, each with an elbow on her knee, chin clasped in hand, eyes blank with the lethargy of the long wait.

He pulled up next to them, apologizing, got out, opened the door, and watched while they climbed in. He fastened their seat belts, double-checked everything, and said, “Okay, girls, we're off to get ice cream.”

The Colonel drove off with them chattering away about the school day. He was a family man at heart despite his formal demeanor, his position, his uniform, and his reputation for toughness, which came from a hatred of criminals and anyone against the law. He was a “true” man, in his heart.

He was not happy with the supposed “accident” in the canyon. The body of the man driving the green car had been identified as that of Josephus Raus, a Russian, in the country without a visa, yet who purportedly worked for a well-known property developer by the name of Bruce Bergen—whose passport was Italian but whose birthplace was Belarus, and who was commonly known as “the Boss.”

All in all, it looked messy to the Colonel, and now those two women had almost lost their lives. It puzzled him as to why they should be so targeted. What could they have done to inspire such revenge? If in fact it was revenge. It might be unrequited love—after all, they were two fine-looking women. Or some other reason he had yet to find out. It looked like a big job to him. Less time with his girls, and more time finding out what the two women were up to at the Villa Romantica. You never knew.

 

10

Mirabella

My new home lies on the narrow coastal strip near Antibes, a town with two personalities, the old and the new.

New Antibes has a smart seafront promenade where artists sit in front of easels painting portraits of tourists and local landscapes, or rather, “waterscapes,” since the Mediterranean is ever-present. Bars and cafés compete for those same tourists' attention, their terraces shaded from the sun by colorful awnings and where lounging around is the order of the day.

The cafés and bars are always crowded of an evening, when a cool glass of wine or a chilled beer is necessary while watching the passing parade of suntanned beauties in short dresses. Not to mention the rich and sometimes good-looking owners of the grand boats moored in the harbor, boats that cost a fortune and that can also be rented for a small fortune. Tanned, shirtless young men work constantly keeping those boats immaculate, swabbing decks, shining teak, and polishing brass. Chefs from the boats browse the local market in the early morning, seeking out the freshest goods: mushrooms picked at dawn in a field inland; melons grown near Aix-en-Provence; the tiniest and sweetest wild strawberries, the
fraises des bois
of the region. And of course, the sea bass and grouper and red mullet fished before daylight to be grilled to perfection and scattered with herbs and a little garlic and the good olive oil.

Farther out to sea is a specially constructed jetty, where giant white cruise liners moor, being too large for the harbor itself. And in back of the port, narrow cobbled streets are strung with washing from tall house to tall house and tiny shop fronts display minuscule bikinis and T-shirts with the town's name, so when you return home you'll remember you were there, and perhaps remember how it felt, and how it smelled. You'll remember the fruits too, displayed in wooden crates outside those small stores, and the lavender sold in tight bunches, picked from the lower reaches of the Alpes-Maritimes, on the peaks of which, sometimes even in summer, a snowcap might be glimpsed.

Hot new boutiques with good prices are next to jewelry stores, the cheaper ones with local handmade earrings and bracelets, the expensive ones offering diamond necklaces. The ice cream shop with popular pale-green pistachio is next to the upmarket shoe store whose custom-made flat sandals everyone seems to wear to traverse the bumpy cobblestones, while expensive chiffon evening gowns compete for attention with the skimpy white shorts and South of France T-shirts.

Flowers are everywhere, bunches of jasmine and red roses tied with ribbons. Hair bands and bathing suits hang on hooks on the sidewalks outside the shops. There are straw hats on shelves with a little mirror to check out your look and sexy lingerie shops with lacy thongs and demi-bras guaranteed to lift and shape and look adorable in every color from red to black, lavender and coral and rosy pink.

And then there's the Grimaldi Palace where Monaco's royalty still live, and the Old Town, the place the “real” people live, and where they shop at the small grocery stores with salamis hanging overhead and tall glass jars of fresh made-that-morning pasta standing by the door. You can also buy the homemade sauce for that pasta, and fresh garlic to add flavor, and the juicy tomatoes to serve with cheeses made with milk from local goats that eat only grass. You can buy chickens from the outdoor grill where they rotate until crisp and golden and whose smell makes the mouth water, and whose fat and juices cook the small potatoes underneath. There are field-fresh lettuces, green and pink and red-edged, to be served crisp and cold with a vinaigrette made from local oil and vinegar the farmer's wife has been selling at the market for years.

All of it is there, all to hand, all ready to be eaten, or to be worn, or to slip your feet into, or to decorate your tanned arms and neck, or perfume your body. The South of France is a sensual experience and one never to be forgotten.

When I first came here, it was as though I suddenly came to life. My London body, kept wrapped in coats and scarves and with a sweater more often than not even in summer months, changed in days to a body clad in sweet little T-shirts in pretty colors, my newly brown legs displayed in those white shorts, my fiery red hair held back by a jeweled band, my lips painted pink. I had come home. I had come to life.

*   *   *

One day out of hospital, I was definitely a new woman. First, I needed transportation. Aunt Jolly's small SEAT was uninspiring; I wanted air and life and speed. What else but a Harley? Turquoise blue, of course. I had read somewhere about a woman with a turquoise-blue Harley and had admired her guts. Now that woman was me.