Waking the Wolf (Coup de Foudre)

by Amanda Sandton

  “Salut, Lisa!” The young man dropped his placard to the floor and, seizing Lisa by the arms, he instructed, “Non, comme ça - les bises à la française,” and he kissed her generously on the cheek three times: left, right, left.

  “Wow! What a welcome,” said Lisa, pulling away and looking up at him from under her eyelashes.

  Sylvie moved forward. “Stop flirting for a moment, Lisa. I’m Sylvie,” she told the young man.

  “And I’m Robert,” he said, embracing Sylvie in the same fashion.

  “I can see we are going to enjoy the next few weeks,” he added.

  “We?” asked Sylvie.

  “My colleague and I. You’ll be meeting him later this evening. He’s the boss. Come, let’s collect your luggage and I’ll see you safely to your hotel where you can settle in and have a siesta.”

  “A siesta sounds very tempting,” said Lisa. “And I’d commit murder for a shower. We seem to have been traveling for a week.”

  The hotel to which Robert took them was in the Rue des Mouettes, a small one-way street down near the harbor, away from the expensive five-star hotels of the main drag.

  Sylvie alighted from the taxi onto the cobbled road, stepped across to the graveled pavement and waited for Robert and the taxi driver to unload their luggage.

  The Hotel des Mimosas was old, charming and very French. Its lime-washed walls shone white even in the dull December light. It was a narrow building, rising for three stories, each of which had a row of balconied windows edged with bright blue shutters. Clay pots filled with ivy hung from the railings and dainty white lace drapes peeped through the French doors.

  Sylvie followed the shutters up to the roof line where perched on the mossy terra cotta tiles a cluster of noisy seagulls were fighting over some fish scraps. She took in a deep breath of the ozone-laden air and let it out again slowly with a sigh of contentment. At last, she was in France.

  Lisa had already hurried in through the trellised front door but Sylvie waited while Robert paid off the taxi driver. She wanted to make sure she remembered the enchantment of her first sight of the real France.

  Robert picked up the two bags and called out to her, “Are you coming in, Sylvie? Or are you lost in a dream?”

  Sylvie shouldered her small bag and followed Robert into the reception area. Lisa was signing a much worn leather-bound register. Watching her was the manageress and owner of the hotel. She was a little old lady with tight bright orange curls, wearing a yellow provençal print apron over pink tracksuit bottoms and a black sweater.

  Robert put down the luggage. “Bonjour Madame Bonjean. These are the American friends I told you about.”

  “Bonjour,” said the little old lady to Sylvie.

  Sylvie smiled back, “Bonjour Madame.”

  “Sylvie, we have to hand in our passports,” said Lisa. She turned to Robert, “Is that usual, Robert?”

  He nodded. “It’s not strictly a legal requirement but most small hotels insist on it. Makes them feel more sure of being paid,” he added with a laugh.

  Once Sylvie had signed and handed over her passport, Madame Bonjean took two large old iron keys from a board behind the counter and handed them over. “Voilà, vos clés.”

  Robert thanked her and then gestured to Lisa and Sylvie to precede him up a flight of stairs. “Your room is on the first floor. I’m glad I don’t have to carry your bags any higher.”

  Sylvie was pleased to find they had a room at the front of the hotel overlooking the street. She flung open the shutters and stepped out onto the balcony where there was a small wrought iron table and chair.

  “What a pity we’re here in the winter,” she said. “I would love to be here in the summer!”

  “Yes,” agreed Robert. “This is an area which is very popular with painters and writers and, of course, with young people. In the summer, it’s full of life. All the bars and cafés have tables out on the pavement and there is live music every Friday and Saturday night.”

  Sylvie came back into the room and closed the French doors behind her. “But we’ll still be here in the spring, won’t we? And we have an interesting job to do in the mountains before then.”

  “So, when do we meet the boss?” asked Lisa.

  “Tonight at seven o’clock, at the restaurant I am taking you to now for lunch, Le Chien Ivrogne,” answered Robert. “I’ll wait for you downstairs while you put your things away. Hurry up because they will stop serving lunch soon. Say, ten minutes. Can you manage that?”

  “Of course,” said the two girls together as Robert left them to unpack.

  Lisa looked across at Sylvie. “What’s that mean, the name of the restaurant? My French isn’t that good.”

  “It’s not really translatable. Literally it means ‘the dog who is a drunkard’ so I suppose you could say, ‘the Drunken Dog’.”

  “Let’s hope that doesn’t apply to the people who go there!”

  Robert had arranged to meet his friend and boss, Jean-Luc du Lamond, in Le Chien Ivrogne at six thirty to give them time to talk things over before the young women were due to arrive at seven. Jean-Luc was already at the bar with a glass of pastis in front of him when Robert walked in.

  “Salut!” said Jean-Luc. “Well, tell, what are they like, these women who are going to dog our days all through the winter and drive us mad?”

  “Salut!” Robert answered, clapping his friend on the back. “Still the happy misogynist, I see. Why don’t you give them a chance?”

  “Robert, I didn’t ask for assistance and I certainly don’t want a couple of spoiled American brats hanging around and getting in the way.”

  “I grant you, they’re American but they didn’t seem to be spoiled brats when I met them today. Yes, they’re young but not spoiled, I think.”

  “So how come they managed to wangle themselves a six-month trip over here under the pretense of being useful? And at the last minute, moreover; we only had two weeks’ notice.”

  Robert looked at Jean-Luc over the top of his glass. “I don’t understand you, mon pote. One minute you’re complaining that we are overworked and desperately in need of some qualified help, and then the next you’re moaning because you’ve been given the help you need.”

  “I thought you would understand if anyone would. I don’t have the time or energy to train new staff, and especially not a couple of giggly American students.”

  “Jean-Luc, they are not students; they both have degrees in relevant subjects and they are not giggly and silly. Lisa, the blond one - I’ve got my eye on her, by the way, so hands off - is going to be collecting material for the thesis for her doctorate in anthropology and so she’s obviously intelligent. She paid her own way through university by working in a bar and so we know she’s industrious. And she’s good looking. What more could you ask for?”

  Jean-Luc frowned and drank before replying. “And the other one? The so-called Doctor of Veterinary Science? What’s she like? Bossy and overbearing and just too, too clever, I bet.”

  “Jean-Luc, you’re really like something from the Stone Age. She’s just an ordinary young woman who happens to have chosen to become a vet, and who has had the intelligence and diligence to get through the long training. She is just what we need to help us with this problem we have with the poisonings.”

  Jean-Luc pulled a face and took another drink. “Help? How’s she going to help? She’s just going to get in the way.”

  Robert put his empty glass on the counter and signaled the barman for a fill-up. “You know how long we have to wait for the local vet to do a post-mortem for us. You know that as he does it for free, we have to wait for him to have the time to fit it in. By the time we get the results, they are not much use to us beyond filling in the official return on the number of wolves killed. She will be able to do the p.m.’s for us immediately. And her name is Sylvie, by the way.”

  “Sylvie?” asked Jean-Luc with the raise of a supercilious eyebrow.

  “Sylvie Latour. She’s of Fren
ch Canadian extraction … from Mississippi.”

  “So she speaks French then?”

  Robert nodded. “Strange accent but, yes. If you had bothered to read the file I put on your desk, you would know that. You would also know that she spent several of her vacations up at Yellowstone helping with the re-introduction of the wolves there.”

  “I didn’t have the time to waste reading all that stuff. I was planning our winter campaign against the wolf-killers and working out a schedule for our volunteers for the wolf census.”

  “In my opinion Lisa and Sylvie will be a great addition to our team.”

  “Because you’re hoping to snare Lisa, you mean. What about the other one … Sylvie? I suppose she’s a bit of a dog. Not that I’m the slightest bit interested. As you know, I am in no hurry to get involved with another manipulative and two-timing female but it does help the working atmosphere if one’s colleagues are gentle on the eyes.”

  “Jean-Luc, you’re impossible. Not every woman is out to catch you and betray you. You just had an unfortunate experience. If you carry on in this vein you will end up a lonely old man, embittered and nasty.”

  “Your fiancée didn’t throw your ring back at you, saying that she had been offered a well-paid job in England and didn’t want to spend the rest of her life being married to a man who spent all his time with wolves.”

  “Let it go, Jean-Luc. That was all of three years ago. Anyway, from what I’ve seen of both Lisa and Sylvie, they are here in a professional capacity and not to hunt down and trap Monsieur Jean-Luc du Lamond.”

  “You didn’t answer my question. What’s she like, this Sylvie?”

  “You don’t have to worry. She will fit your eye-candy requirement but it would be a pity if you are unable to see beyond that.”

  “Point taken, mon pote,” said Jean-Luc, banging his glass on the bar. “Let’s get some service here.”

  Robert pulled his cigarette papers and tobacco packet out of his pocket. “Oh, merde! I have to pop out and get tobacco. I won’t be long. I’ll ask Henri to keep a table for the girls in case they arrive while I’m gone.”

  As Henri, the barman, put a fresh pastis down in front of Jean-Luc, Robert asked him to keep the table over in the far corner for Sylvie and Lisa and to tell them to wait for him if they arrived while he was gone.

  At a quarter to seven, Lisa was ready for their appointment with their new boss but Sylvie was still hesitating about what to wear. They had both decided that as they had brought few clothes with them and it was a semi-business meeting, it would be all right to wear jeans. Sylvie was undecided about which top to wear.

  “You wouldn’t find it so difficult to choose if you weren’t quite so untidy, Sylvie,” said Lisa. “We’ve only been here a few hours and already the room looks as if it was hit by a hurricane. How do you manage to fling so few clothes around and yet look as if you’ve lived here for months?”

  “Lisa, I really don’t know what to put on. I want to look professional but I don’t want to look stuffy. What do you think I should wear?”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake, Sylvie. This guy’s probably some middle-aged married man who just wants to get the meeting over and go home to his wife and children. He’s probably so thankful to have our unexpected help with his project that we could be wearing old sacks and he’ll think we’re wonderful.”

  “You forget, Lisa, we’re in France. French women are chic. Even if they have little money, they have a sense of style that transcends a lack of funds. I don’t want him to think we are country hicks.”

  “Robert thought we were wonderful. Why should his boss be any different?” Lisa picked up a simple black T-shirt. “Here, wear this with your silver earrings,” she said holding it out to Sylvie. “You will look smart but understated. Just the right professional note.”

  Sylvie took the shirt from Lisa and dragged it on over her head. She ran a brush through her tawny hair, quickly braided two long strands, which she looped round to form a hair band, and hooked her gypsy earrings into her ears. A quick spray of Coco de Chanel and she was ready.

  “How do I look?,” she asked pirouetting.

  “Great,” said Lisa. “But hadn’t you better put on your boots?”

  “Yes, sir,” said Sylvie as she pulled them on over her warm winter stockings. Then she shrugged herself into her coat, picked up her purse and pushed Lisa out of the door in front of her. “Move, Lisa, we’re going to be late.”

  It only took them ten minutes to walk round the corner and down the next street to Le Chien Ivrogne.

  It was more a bistro than a restaurant but as they drew near Sylvie saw through the window that the management had made an attempt to smarten the place up since lunchtime. There were now red and white checked cloths and candles on the tables and it was packed with a young and vociferous clientele.

  4 : Le Projet Loup, the Wolf Project

  Robert had only been gone a couple of minutes when the door opened to another rush of cold air. Jean-Luc turned round on his stool in time to see two young women enter the bar. The first was a blond, her long hair swinging round her face as she turned back to her companion.

  Her friend was struggling out of her winter coat even as the door shut behind her. “Whew!” she said in English. “It’s so hot in here after the cold outside.”

  She had to be Sylvie and Jean-Luc agreed with Robert: she was no dog. She was taller than her friend Lisa, slim and lithe in her black jeans and top, a top that molded to her high breasts. As she turned to check that the door was closed, Jean-Luc’s gaze traveled down from her honey colored hair to her long legs, and he noted with appreciation that she had firm full buttocks and a small waist. Just his kind of figure. He shook himself. Down boy! What was he thinking? This is probably your future work colleague.

  She turned back to the room and Jean-Luc saw her face for the first time. He couldn’t see her eyes because she was looking down at her purse, but he was struck by the delicacy of her features. Her lightly tanned skin covered a perfect oval bone structure with high cheekbones. Her lips were full and her mouth generous. Dark eyebrows arched above her eyes, which she raised at that moment to stare straight at him. They were a deep hazel with pupils that widened as she became conscious of his scrutiny. He looked away as her cheeks flushed, whether from embarrassment or awareness he didn’t know, and resumed his position on his seat, turning his back towards the doorway and the two girls. He was all too conscious of the girls’ approach to the bar and their ensuing consultation with Henri, the unacknowledged tension remaining taut between him and Sylvie.

  He risked a glance and saw that they were making their way over to the table in the corner of the room. Lisa sat with her back to the mirror-lined wall while Sylvie took the chair facing her, with her back to the room. So, that was Dr Sylvie Latour, veterinary surgeon. He was willing to bet that she could charm any savage beast … but not him. Oh no! He wasn’t going there. Not a chance. It was all going to be strictly business.

  He took a couple of mouthfuls of his pastis, and kept his eye on the two girls in the mirror above the bar. He felt like James Bond, a little shaken but definitely not stirred, and he was going to keep it like that. He watched their body language as Henri took some drinks over to their table. Lisa smiled and thanked him. Of course, he remembered she was used to working in a bar and would treat bar workers with respect. He couldn’t see Sylvie’s face; once more, she had her back to him, but he saw Henri put on his ‘I’m a sexy Frenchman’ act, and guessed that Henri had fallen under her spell. She was quite a package: beautiful, intelligent, his intellectual and professional equal. Just what was she going to be like to work with? That’s what counted, after all, not her rating on the Richter scale.

  He jumped as Robert slapped him on the back. “So, you’ve met the tasty twins, have you?”

  Jean-Luc swiveled to answer. “Not yet. I’ve seen them, yes, but I haven’t met them. I know who they are but they don’t know me yet.”

  “What are
we waiting for then? Pick up your glass. Let’s go meet them.”

  Lisa kicked Sylvie’s foot. “Don’t turn round but Robert has just come in and he’s talking to the most gorgeous man –”

  “Does he have shiny black hair which swings down and brushes his jaw line, a five o’clock shadow, fine features and full lips?”

  “How did you know? Have you got eyes in the back of your head?” Lisa asked in wonderment.

  “No, silly. I can see him in the mirror. He had his back to us before, but I noticed him as soon as we came into the bar. And you’re right. He is stunning.”

  Lisa grabbed hold of her friend’s hand. “Wow! They’re coming over to our table. I wouldn’t mind getting to know him if he’s a friend of Robert’s.”

  Sylvie turned her head in welcome as the two men reached the table. “Salut, Robert,” she said, giving a brief smile to his companion. “We were a little early. Do you think Monsieur du Lamond is going to be much longer because Lisa and I are starving?”

  Robert laughed. “I don’t think so. Do you?” he asked, turning to his friend.

  Jean-Luc bowed to Sylvie. “Let me introduce myself as Robert is taking so long about it. I am Jean-Luc du Lamond, Mam’zelle, or should I say, Madame le Docteur?”

  Sylvie stood up to greet him. Her hand was pulled towards his as if by a magnet, the touch of his skin on hers sending a jolt of electric current through her before earthing beneath her feet. She snatched her hand away from his as if she had put her finger in a socket.

  She had to pull herself up short; she was on the point of swooning like a silly co-ed with a crush on a pop singer. He was the boss and it was just an ordinary everyday handshake, nothing special, but she did wonder how she was going to be able to act professionally around such an attractive man. She just hoped that they wouldn’t be alone together too much. She was supposed to be getting over David but she didn’t want to jump out of the frying pan into the fire and this guy sizzled.