Collecting Thoughts

by Irene Davidson

  Chapter twenty-two

  “I won’t sleep with you, well, not yet anyway, just so you know where I stand.”

  “I believe you are standing in my kitchen at present and, trust me when I say this, if you were with me, in the sense you are implying, we would not be sleeping. It’s such a pointless euphemism for sex.” They were back at the apartment where Gabriel was making Croques Monsieur and chips for dinner –the price you paid, laughed Darcy, for allowing children to choose the evening menu. Sober in the kitchen this time, drinking sparking mineral water from a sapphire-blue Baccarat tumbler, she had been permitted to act as sous-chef and was slicing potatoes for the chips.

  Darcy had half expected the apartment to be staffed with a housekeeper or cook at the very least, but Gabriel had explained that he preferred his personal space to be just that and not shared with wait-staff. Besides, he pointed out, there were great restaurants within easy walking distance with whom he was on excellent terms. A cleaner came in weekly, but for the rest, he managed on his own.

  “And we don’t say ‘dormir’,” he continued, “we say ‘coucher avec moi’ –one implies sleep the other implies a bed …quite different. Not that a bed is necessary for sex but at least we French assume you are awake and participating.” His laugh was low and filled with innuendo. The look he was directing at her was testament to the thoughts going through his mind.

  “Hah. You’re quibbling over semantics –that’s all,” she retorted, wishing that she’d kept her mouth closed and not started the conversation running in its present direction.

  “Which is an important area of study, I believe, and,” –he emphasised the word by waving a spatula in her direction, echoing her own thoughts - “I would remind you that you instigated this conversation, not me.”

  “Yes, I did,” she felt her face growing flushed with embarrassment but was determined not to let her discomfort stop her from saying her piece, “I just wanted it to be quite clear and out in the open,” she had turned back to the chopping board, feeling increasingly uncomfortable with the direction the conversation had taken and continued to dice the fries. She jumped when his hand came over hers’ and removed the knife from suddenly nerveless fingers.

  He had moved so quietly she had that black-clad ninja back in mind. Now he was standing so near she could feel his chest touching her back as he breathed in and out, and when he gently turned her to face him, with the bench at her back, there was nowhere left for her to escape. He stood with his hands spread either side of her body on the dark granite benchtop, trapping her against the kitchen units.

  “Is this ‘out in the open’ enough for you?” he asked, his voice dangerously low and quiet as he lowered his face to nuzzle a spot just below her ear. The conversation topic was instantaneously forgotten as Darcy responded by turning her head fractionally so she could gain access to his mouth. They kissed and somewhere from the depths of his ardour she heard him groan, whether in pain or pleasure she was unsure. As the kiss deepened, she didn’t care which it was.

  Next moment his hands were under her buttocks and hoisting her onto the smooth benchtop. He pulled her forwards across the polished surface, wanting her body closer to his own as he continued to plunder her mouth. Darcy had just reached up to run her fingers through his hair in the way she’d been fantasising since the day she’d first laid eyes on him at the vets when a familiar voice came from through the open kitchen door.

  “Can I have another glass of Coke, Mo-,” Connor, walking through the door from the salon, broke off as he saw the pair. Darcy would have sprung backwards if she’d had anywhere to go, but trapped against the bench and Gabriel’s unflinchingly solid torso all she could manage was to sit up straighter. “Why’re you kissing my mom?” Connor asked Gabriel in a querulous tone that suggested it was something he’d prefer not to see.

  Gabriel placed his hands atop Darcy’s shoulders, turning his head to speak to her son. As she attempted to pull away he tightened them ever so slightly, holding her in place. “Because I wanted to –and for once, she wasn’t objecting, so it seemed like a good idea. You okay with that?” he asked curiously, wondering what the boy might reply. And what he might do about it if that reply was less than positive.

  Connor’s answer was neither positive nor negative in regard to the adult’s actions. Typical of his age and stage, he only saw the situation in relation to himself. “Ick, that’s what heaps of the girls at my school keep hassling me to do,” he answered, in a tone that suggested they’d asked him to perform an act that was quite disgusting. “One of them even asked me if I was in love with her last week and then got all stroppy ‘cos I said I wasn’t.” He made a face, “I don’t even know her,” he complained, making Darcy think it might be time for a mother-son chat on the art of letting a girl down gently, without hurting their feelings. “French girls are gross,” was his final parting pronouncement as he closed the fridge door after pouring another glass of cola. Glass full, he didn’t bother to give the pair a second glance as he wandered back to salon with his drink in one hand and his game console in the other.

  “Well, that’s us firmly put in our place,” Gabriel laughed ruefully as he rubbed a hand over his chin. He noticed Darcy’s face was flushed from where his stubble had abraded her tender skin and wished he’d had the foresight to have shaved earlier.

  “Yeah. Kinda killed the moment,” Darcy added dryly.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” he turned her cheek gently with his hand, running a thumb softly over the abused flesh, “I’m sure we could get ‘the moment’ back fairly easily if we tried,” there was a challenging glint in his eyes.

  “And have Rosie walk in on us next?” He recoiled momentarily as if gut-punched, “Hmm, that’s what I thought too. Now, can you back up so I can get down from here?” she had pushed at his chest with no success; he was as immoveable as the granite bench. Instead, he dropped his hands to her waist and lifted her off the counter, sliding her body down his own in delicious torment before briefly touching her lips with his as he set her to the floor.

  “Later,” it wasn’t so much a statement, more of a promise.

  She didn’t reply. It seemed better to concentrate upon getting normal feeling to return to her legs. She spun back to the chopping board and continued slicing the last of the potatoes.

  “And I’m sure there’ll come a day when Connor no longer finds French girls to be ‘gross’-by which I’m assuming he currently finds them simply unattractive and not immensely overweight?” Gabriel said, reluctantly returning to his cooking.

  Darcy nodded. “Yup –it’s all Gross, Feral, Bogan or Gay if he doesn’t like something at the moment. I’m having trouble keeping up with the latest lingo.” She opened cupboard doors at random, “do you run to a deep fryer or do I have to cook these chips in a frying pan?”

  Gabriel pointed to her left, to under-bench cupboards. “There’s a regular deep fryer and a new airfryer down there. We take our frites seriously in this house –comes from being half French-half American, but I’m trying the airfryer out to see if it comes up to scratch. You can be the first to use it if you like.”

  Darcy pulled the airfryer out and set it on the bench, “I had one of these in London. It seemed kinder to my arteries so I bought one last year,” and left it behind, she thought, like so many other things, her former life included, -or so she’d hoped. The nasty words of Patrick’s email ran through her head.

  Gabriel, perceptive as always, correctly interpreted the grim look he saw pass over her face. “It will be alright Darcy. The police have been alerted and there’s a restraining order out on him.” After the police had read the venomous garbage Patrick had written and saw the photos Darcy had kept as a record of the times he had hit her, the judge had no problem with pushing the order through in a hurry.

  “Yeah –but how did the Dixie Chicks put it? “Something about him being able to walk right through a restraining order and putting me in intensive care?” she shuddered, “I don’t put
a lot of faith in court orders either and I’m not sure that it was the best thing to do. It might just provoke him.”

  “I have a suggestion then,” this was something Gabriel had given some thought to while out patrolling with Frodo in the wee small hours, before he’d lured her to Paris on the pretext of visiting Disneyland. “If you were to stay here in Paris in the apartment he wouldn’t be able to find you even if your mother were to divulge your address at the chateau.” Darcy had seen for herself that the apartment building had both an excellent concierge and additional security. What she didn’t know was that the security detail had been hired only the week before with her safety in mind. “You could work here as easily as you could at the chateau,” …and in doing so, he hoped, set his mind at rest.

  “Yeah –but Connor and Rosie have just started new schools and I don’t want to uproot them again when we’ve barely gotten settled,” she countered. “Besides, I’ve given Patrick too many years of my life to want to let him take up even a moment more. Life is too short. I left London because of what he’d done and I don’t want to move again.” The set of her jaw was stubborn as she spoke.

  “Well, at least move into the chateau with me so you aren’t so vulnerable.” With the primary school, the church and the garage as her closest ‘neighbours’ the stable cottage was too distant from other houses for the village to afford any useful surveillance although Bertrand had been quietly circulating photographs of the ex around the village in hopes someone would see him before he had the opportunity to do harm.

  “No,” she was adamant. “I’m not budging. He may not even turn up and we’d have all that upheaval for nothing. I’m sure it was all talk. He won’t bother with us and I’ll be fine.” She was convinced it was all a ploy on Patrick’s part to unbalance her and that he was off on a beach in Brazil somewhere with whatsername improving his tan and not even thinking about them.

  From her tone, stiff unyielding posture and tightly crossed arms, Gabriel could tell that he was fighting a battle he was not going to win.

  “Very well,” he conceded, “but I’m hiring a security detail for the chateau. You’ll have to accept that compromise, for both yours and the children’s safety,” -he was not above using the children as collateral if it meant she would tolerate the extra security- “At the very least.” And then, perhaps, he would be able to get some sleep again. Coming back to the topic of ‘sleep’ he switched the subject back to their earlier conversation.

  Seeking some clarity he asked, “So what was that whole provocative ‘I won’t sleep with you’ statement really about? It’s not as if I’ve tried to drag you into my bed here or at the chateau or since you’re arrival. The last time I checked there were five bedrooms in this apartment and only one of them is mine. Which you have yet to so much as set foot in,” he pointed out softly.

  “Um, I,” Darcy occupied herself with searching for a bowl to rinse the potatoes.

  “Have I, at any time in the past two days, tried to seduce or coerce you into my bed?” He silently reached above her head and handed her down a deep white Rosenthal bowl, awaiting an answer.

  Darcy kept her hands busy with sluicing the chips under water before leaving them in the bowl to soak. “Well. No,” now she just felt silly. At a loss, she continued fiddling with the chips until he pulled her hands from the bowl and handed her a dry towel. When she just stood there with the towel in limp fingers he took it from her and dried her hands himself, -reminding her of the day in the carpark at Bosmelet.

  Though it’s not through lack of thinking about it,” he kept one eye on the door to the salon and spoke sotto voce in case a child should appear, “just so you know.” There, she was blushing once more.

  “May I ask one more thing before we put this topic ‘to bed’?” he couldn’t resist the choice of words and was more than a little pleased to see her squirm.

  She nodded a rosy-cheeked assent.

  “Was that little speech made out of concern for social propriety or more to do with your past?” He noted her slight flinch –he’d hit a nerve. “It’s just that I recall that the order of things in your life, when you gave me that very brief cider-enhanced synopsis of your major life-events last Monday evening was a little less traditional than one might have expected from a, …How did you put it? Good ol’ southern gal? I did wonder afterwards if you would have married Patrick le Pew if you hadn’t been already pregnant.”

  “Ah, you caught that,” she was chewing her lip again, “that was the drink talking and I kinda wished I hadn’t mentioned it afterwards.”

  “As did I after I’d TMI’d you with my teenage antics that day at Ikea,” he laughed self-depreciatingly, “and I can’t even blame alcohol for that overshare.”

  “Well, maybe we could call it ‘even’ on the overshares and, um, just move on,”

  “Suits me,” he smiled. “But just so you know. I’m not that pimply fifteen year old boy fooling around in the woods and desperately wanting to get into some girl’s panties anymore.”

  Darcy had trouble imagining his perfect complexion troubled by something as mundane as zits, but it gave her a more amusing image to ponder than him getting into some other girl’s knickers.

  It was good to see a hint of a smile, he thought, unaware of the image she was holding in her mind of his spotty fifteen year old self. “I don’t rush my fences now. Life is, as you said, too short not to enjoy every stage of a romance and if I was to seduce you into sex at this stage it would considerably diminish the fun and excitement of La chasse.”

  The smile promptly disappeared. The gangly youth had been replaced with an image of a small furry creature scurrying in panic from the grown man’s lethal bow and arrow.

  “Don’t look so concerned, ma petite rousse.” He ran a hand down over her red locks, twining one of the errant strands of hair around his index finger. “La chasse is a time-honoured tradition that has been ignored for too long by couples in a hurry just to scratch an itch. Time we reinstated it, I think.” He cupped a hand behind her neck to pull her forwards into a kiss that was as brief as it was intense, mindful of a certain small girl who might come in search of food or drink if the embrace lasted longer.

  “Hmmm,” Darcy spoke, echoing his own thoughts, “perhaps before we reinstate la chasse, we had better finish off Le Dîner or there may be major protests from the living room and more interruptions.

  “Yes, let’s,” he turned to open the fridge door. “So, do you have a preference for Emmental or Gruyère cheese on your croque, Madame?”