Stolen Time

by Chloé Duval

  I’d fallen in love with the place before I even stepped into Le Haras, as Romaric’s bed-and-breakfast was called, but what I saw inside finished the job.

  Wainscoting layered the lower half of the walls, and the upper half was painted a clear, crisp white. One wall in the entrance was covered with dozens of photographs of Romaric and his sister riding various horses. On the left, a staircase led up to the second floor, while a vast living room connecting through an open arch to the kitchen lay on the right. Light streamed through a couple of huge bay windows into both rooms. Outside were a terrace and a swimming pool. I was impressed by the size of the place; it was much larger than it seemed from the outside. It was also warm and welcoming, and I had told Romaric so. It was very cozy, and I had felt instantly at home.

  “Romaric and your niece—her name is Gwenn, right?” Erwan nodded. “They really went all out to make it feel like home; I already know I’m going to enjoy my stay very much. And by the way, thank you so much for booking it for me. That was really sweet of you.”

  “Don’t mention it. I told Romaric that you were coming and there was a vacancy. No problem at all.”

  I tried to dig a little deeper.

  “You’re close with your nephew and niece, aren’t you?”

  “They’re like my children. Their parents were killed in a car crash some twenty years ago, and I became their legal guardian.”

  “Oh my God! That must have been so difficult for them.”

  “It was. Romaric was only a teenager, with his own set of problems. Gwenn was barely ten. It was a difficult adjustment period for them.”

  “For you as well, I imagine. Are they your brother’s children?”

  “My younger brother, yes.”

  “They were lucky to have you. At least they didn’t end up in foster care.”

  “That was the one thing I wanted to avoid at all costs. I fought for them to be allowed to stay with me. I wasn’t married, so it was a difficult case, but I won in the end.”

  “You never married later on?”

  “No.”

  Silence fell for a few moments, and for the thousandth time in less than a month, I wondered if the feelings he’d had—and maybe still did—for Amélie were the reason he’d stayed single.

  “Did you never meet the right person?”

  “Oh, but I did. And I was a fool to let her get away.”

  I hesitated for a few seconds, then went ahead. “Can I ask you something? And please feel free to tell me if this makes you uncomfortable, or you’d rather not speak of it,” I added immediately. “You can tell me to get lost, okay?”

  “All right. What is it?”

  “It’s not actually a question, more of a request. I . . . I was wondering whether you’d tell me your story. What happened with Amélie.”

  “You know, it’s not that exciting a story. We met, we loved each other for one brief, amazing summer, then life took us on different paths. Not exactly novel-worthy.”

  “Well . . .”

  “Well what?”

  “I think it is.”

  “How so?”

  “Sometimes when I’m not teaching, I write. Fiction, a couple of novels. And I was wondering—well, hoping actually—that you’d let me write your story. About how you met Amélie.”

  “You do realize it doesn’t have a happy ending?”

  For now, I thought.

  “I do,” I said. “But I thought I’d change the ending so you—well, the hero, really—finds her again. If you agree, of course.”

  “And you’d publish it?”

  “Yes, but I would make sure to change all the names, so that your privacy would be protected. No one would know that you were my inspiration.”

  “I see.”

  “So . . . are you willing?” I asked shyly.

  “Well . . . I don’t see why not.

  “You know,” he said a few moments later, handing me a steaming cup of tea, “I’ve never told anybody about Amélie. You’ll be the first.”

  “Not even your nephew and niece?”

  “No.” He sipped his cup of coffee. “There never really was an opportunity. It was old news by the time they were born, and I never thought about sharing it with them.”

  “Will you, one day?”

  “If they want to know, of course I will. It’s not as though it’s a secret. It’s just a tale of young love.”

  I smiled and kept silent. I was sure that it was much, much more.

  He leaned back in his chair, setting his cup on the table in front of him, and began.

  “The first time I saw her was at the Bastille Day dance in 1971. Almost forty-five years ago to the day. She was wearing a deep red dress, and she was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen . . .”

  Over the next hour, Erwan told me everything. How they’d met at the party, how they’d spent their evenings on the beach. How he loved her, and how much it had hurt when he’d had to leave.

  How, missing her fiercely, he’d written that letter to her, on the advice of the inn’s owner, whom he had befriended while working on the port. How he’d called a few weeks later, driven mad with longing. Waiting, again, never hearing from her. Then, finally giving up, deciding to pursue his own life and go on his Tour de France, the journey across France that every aspiring Compagnon has to go through at the end of his training. And how he’d returned a few years later—stumbling upon her marrying another man, breaking his heart for the second time without even knowing it.

  I listened wordlessly, letting the words sink in, feeling as though I was experiencing the younger Erwan’s every emotion. I couldn’t hold back the tears that welled up when he told me about his conversation with Amélie’s mother. One of them slid down my cheek when I pictured the scene at the church.

  It was such a shame. They’d been so close to happily-ever-after. It had been just one letter away . . .

  “I should have insisted more.” There was regret in Erwan’s voice. “When I received no answer, I should have tried harder to find her, interrupted my journey as long as was necessary in order to find her and convince her.”

  “Why didn’t you?” I tried to control the tremor in my voice.

  I had never been so moved by a story. I may have cried on occasion—okay, often—when writing particularly sad or moving scenes, but I had never been so sad.

  Why had life kept them apart?

  “Pride, I suppose. Misplaced and utterly unjustified pride. I was hurt she hadn’t told her parents about me. I was disappointed she hadn’t tried to find me, that she hadn’t kept her promise that she’d wait for me as long as necessary. I started to think that maybe I’d only been a passing fancy for her. That her promises were only spur-of-the-moment. That she didn’t want to see me anymore and that keeping silent was her way of telling me so . . .

  “I never thought that maybe she had not received my letter. And now I wonder whether her mother remembered to tell her I’d called. I don’t know. I don’t know what happened to her, what she thought or felt. All I know is that maybe if I had proved to her that I loved her, if I had insisted a little more, she wouldn’t have married that man. So in the end, it is my own fault. I didn’t deserve her.”

  “Don’t say that. Of course you deserved her. You still do!”

  “It’s too late.”

  I stayed silent for a few moments. “You still love her, don’t you?”

  It was more of a statement than a question.

  “I never stopped loving her. Even when I was hurt and angry, when I thought she hadn’t kept her promise to wait for me, she never stopped being the one and only woman for me. I still think about her every day.”

  I could feel my heart shattering into a thousand pieces. Forty-five years later, and he still loved her as much as he had on the day they’d met. Despite years spent apart, he still loved her with all his heart.

  I had to do something. I couldn’t stand the idea that he was so unhappy when maybe . . . Maybe Amélie was still in lo
ve with him too.

  I had to find her. I couldn’t leave things as they were. If I had even the slightest chance of reuniting Erwan and Amélie, I had to seize it.

  A plan was starting to come together in my mind.

  I knew what I was going to do.

  “It’s never too late,” I offered cautiously. “A love like yours is both precious and rare. It’s never too late to fight for it. Like my father used to say, everything can be changed. Only death is forever. And even that is negotiable. Just look at Orpheus.”

  Erwan’s smile was infinitely sad. “You are young, Flavie. One day you may learn that love is not always enough to overcome all the obstacles in your way.”

  “I do know, Erwan.” I sighed. “It wasn’t enough for my mother.”

  “Your mother?”

  Now it was my turn to unearth an old story no one knew, not even the knitting circle, though they were my closest friends. It was my own hidden wound.

  And it probably was one of the reasons, if not the main reason, that I wished so hard for Amélie and Erwan to find each other again.

  “My mother left when I was five. She left me and my father. I remember she was crying as she said that she loved us very much but that staying in Lannion was suffocating her, that she wanted more out of life, that she deserved more. It broke my father’s heart. He never remarried, because he never forgot her. We never heard from her again. She never called for my birthday or even sent a card. She wasn’t there when I graduated. She just walked out of our lives.”

  “That must have been extremely difficult to live through.”

  “For years I hated her. I resented what she’d done to us. And I couldn’t understand why. How could she have just left without looking back? How can you pretend you love your family and just walk away with no regrets? That’s when I understood that love isn’t always enough.”

  “I’m so sorry you had to experience such pain.”

  “It’s in the past now. I made my peace with it, and I don’t hate her anymore. I just don’t think about her. But I know my father still suffers over it, even twenty-five years later. And I can’t do a thing to help him. But I can help you, Erwan. It’s not too late!”

  “Anybody home?” A woman’s voice interrupted from around the corner of the house.

  “We’re over here!” Erwan called back, keeping his gaze trained on mine. “Listen, I’ll think about it,” he added in a lower tone. “I promise you that much.”

  “Thank you,” I whispered back.

  “What are you promising, Erwan?” the young woman asked as she rounded the corner.

  She was around my age with bright, curly auburn hair. She smiled, and even if I hadn’t seen the photos in the B & B, I would immediately have known who she was. Like with her brother, the resemblance to Erwan was too obvious to be missed.

  “Gwenn, this is Flavie.” Erwan gestured at me as he rose to kiss her cheek.

  “Hello, Flavie! Sorry I missed you earlier; I was in the middle of something in the stables. I was cleaning the stalls and I thought you’d rather wait until I showered to introduce myself.”

  “That was thoughtful of you, thank you.” I laughed.

  “Romaric’s just behind me, he was on the phone. Oh, here he comes.”

  There he was indeed. Almost instinctively, our gazes met. He smiled, and once again, I could have sworn I felt the earth quake beneath my feet.

  Wow.

  “Hi,” he said.

  “Hi,” I parroted back, blinking stupidly.

  Well, we certainly weren’t in the running for wittiest conversation of the year.

  “So what were you promising, Erwan?” Gwenn insisted.

  “Curiosity killed the cat, haven’t you heard?” Erwan teased her.

  “Funnily enough, I have, and sometimes as much as five times a day. But apparently satisfaction brought it back. So?”

  “I owe Flavie a dance at the Bastille Day party.”

  I raised an eyebrow at Erwan, and he winked at me.

  Apparently I had a date.

  * * *

  I clicked immediately with Gwenn, as much as I had with Erwan and Romaric a few hours earlier, and the rest of the evening passed in a flash. The four of us talked a lot, about everything and nothing at the same time, about local legends, and being a teacher, about Port-l’Abbé and Karouac, about horses and animals in general, and other things. We joked too, and laughed. And as a companionable, easy silence fell, I realized that in that moment, I felt more at ease with these people I barely knew than I had with colleagues that I had worked with and known for years.

  It was strange.

  It was unusual.

  I kind of loved it.

  The sun had finally set, and the day had given way to a moonless night so dark that even with the solar lamps that Erwan had set up all around the terrace, I could barely see the faces of my companions. In the pitch-black sky, millions of stars were scintillating like diamonds. In the distance, I could hear the waves crashing onto the cliffs.

  It felt peaceful, serene, relaxing. Beautiful.

  Suddenly, I wanted time to stop, and I wanted to never leave this place.

  “It’s really nice here,” I said softly, when nobody spoke. “The house and the village, I mean.”

  “It is,” two male voices answered simultaneously.

  Erwan and Romaric let out a laugh, and Gwenn and I chuckled with them.

  “Karouac is a nice place too,” Erwan added.

  “Yes, it is, indeed,” I agreed with a smile. “Have you been living here for long?”

  “Forever,” Erwan answered. “I bought the house not long after I finished my Tour de France. It’s been home ever since.”

  Romaric joined in. “For us too. Even more than the bed-and-breakfast, this house has been and always will be our home. We have so many happy memories here . . .”

  At that moment, the wind coming from the sea started blowing stronger, and I shivered with cold.

  Immediately, Romaric took off his jacket.

  “Here, take this,” he said, as he set it lightly on my shoulders, his hands lingering a bit longer, the light touch of his fingers brushing my skin, making me tremble even more.

  A strange feeling suddenly rushed through me, all over me, inside and out. A feeling of warmth, of... of home, in some strange way—with a pinch of sensuality suddenly gathering into the core of my body.

  Of its own accord, my heart started beating faster, harder against my ribs, and goose bumps appeared all over my skin.

  “Thank you,” I said softly, flustered, hoping he wouldn’t notice. Maybe it was a good thing that it was so dark. At least he couldn’t see me blush. And neither could Erwan and Gwenn, which suited me just fine.

  I slipped my hands into the sleeves, bringing the front of the jacket closer to me. I wasn’t that cold, but some part of me couldn’t resist. It felt warm, felt like . . . him. It was like being in his arms, without actually being in his arms. For a few seconds, eyes closed, breathing deep, I indulged myself in the lingering scent of him, the feeling of him, as images of his arms around me, his body against mine, suddenly rushed into my mind. My cheeks went from warm to scorching hot, and it was all I could do not to put my cold hands on my warm face, tipping them off about what I had been thinking.

  Stop that, I said to myself, as my mind started to offer vivid images of his hands burrowing in my hair, and his lips kissing the soft skin of my neck. Stop that right now! You’ve only just met him! What’s come over you all of a sudden?

  I cleared my throat, trying to act as though his gesture didn’t affect me at all.

  “Thank you,” I repeated more firmly, “that’s very kind of you. Very gentlemanly,” I added, teasing.

  “You are very welcome. I was raised well,” he answered, and in the darkness, his eyes seemed to gleam.

  My heart skipped a beat, and butterflies gathered in my stomach.

  “Anyway, I should be going,” I said, standing up and burying my h
ands into the pockets of his jacket in order to avoid jumping into his arms. “It’s getting late and I need my beauty sleep.”

  “Do you want us to drive you back to the B and B?” Romaric offered.

  Yes! I wanted to scream. I’d love you to!

  “Well, I wouldn’t say no, if it’s no bother to you,” I said circumspectly. “I don’t want you to leave on my account.”

  “Absolutely not. I need to get up early, so I should be going too.”

  “Then I’ll gladly accept your offer.”

  “Gwenn, are you ready to go too?” Romaric asked, turning to his sister.

  “I am,” she said, drinking the last drop in her glass. “I have things to do in the morning too.”

  “Well, if everyone is leaving,” Erwan said, standing up, “I’ll be heading to bed too. My old bones aren’t used to staying up late.”

  “You keep saying that you’re old, but you’re not, Erwan,” I said.

  “And that’s not true, but thank you for saying so.” He smiled, opening his arms so I could hug him goodbye.

  And this time, hugging him felt natural.

  As if he was family.

  “Thank you for having me,” I said. “The food was delicious.”

  “It’s you I should thank, for keeping me company tonight. And for bringing me back that letter.”

  “You are very welcome, Erwan. It was my pleasure.”

  “You’ll have to show it to us one day, Erwan!” Gwenn teased, hugging her uncle goodbye too. “After all, if Flavie got to read it, we should too!”

  “Maybe, if you behave.”

  “I never behave. You should know that by now.”

  “I do know.”

  “But you’ll show it to me anyway,” Gwenn added, a smile on her lips, “because you cannot refuse me anything.”

  “The worst part of it all is that you are right, I cannot refuse you anything.”

  “I know!”

  I smiled. I loved the way they interacted, teasing each other with love and kindness. I wish I could have had brothers and sisters like them. I had the girls, though, and they were like family to me. Thinking of the knitting circle reminded me that I needed to write my friends, as soon as possible, to let them know what I learned tonight. They were probably dying of curiosity by now.