Once Upon a Rose

by Laura Florand

  Layla watched his square hand around the pen, his big body bent over the hood of her car as he wrote. His bare back curved and she stalwartly fought the need to reach out and see if it was as smooth as it looked. As warm. To see if his voice would grow more or less gruff when he was being petted.

  He knew a particular cat might be sleeping in the middle of the road on her route. And he stopped and picked it up. He made sure she stopped and picked it up.

  From this angle, his face was in shade and the sunburn didn’t look as bad, his skin less ruddy under the matte tones. Her head tilted.

  It wasn’t sunburn, was it? Sunburn didn’t subside like that.

  This big, growling man had been blushing.

  “You’re way better than a smartphone,” she said wonderingly. Actually he was more like a…guitar. Someone she wanted to run her fingers over to see what sounds she could pull out.

  He made a sound of acknowledgement that was pretty darn close to a grunt.

  She grinned. Definitely a bass guitar. “And you have a much better voice. Do you think I could record you giving the directions instead?” Except, of course, she didn’t have a phone to record with. If she wanted to hear that rough bass talking to her again while he blushed, she’d just have to figure out a way to keep getting him to do it.

  A musician had to, you know, coax her instruments into making the sounds she wanted sometimes.

  She bit back a grin.

  He stopped writing and turned his head just enough to look at her. The color started to mount back into his cheeks again.

  Her smile started to escape her efforts to restrain it. “Do you need help with your sunscreen?”

  That stern upper lip relaxed its pressure on the full lower one. He stared at her, frozen.

  Her smile deepened. Whether it was the pure fun of flirting in French—a language that had, after all, been refined for centuries to that purpose—or the vulnerable blush on someone that big and rough and growling, this whole moment was developing a delicious zing. “You’re pretty cute, you know that?” she tested softly.

  The streak over those strong cheekbones turned ruddy bronze. He looked back at her journal, and the pencil lead broke. He stared at it, apparently not having a clue what to do with himself.

  Which was so empowering. It gave her all kinds of ideas about what to do to him.

  She curled her fingers into her palm and dug the nails in, reminding herself this was the real world and not some fairy tale just because it was in France in a valley of roses. She had an album to write. The last thing she needed to do was get distracted.

  In fact, was she so willing to be distracted because it was easier than facing the dark void of that album again?

  “His name is Hendrix,” Matt said roughly, to the broken end of the pencil.

  Her eyebrows went up.

  “The cat. Madame Grenier, his owner, was a fan. Of Jimi Hendrix. She went to see him at Isle of Wight when she was in her twenties.”

  “Isle of Wight?”

  “It’s a music festival in England,” Matt explained.

  Yeah, no kidding. “She was at Isle of Wight when Jimi Hendrix played? Wow.” Pure fan awe filled her. “And The Doors and everything? Oh, man.” Just for a second, longing ran through her to be a fan in the crowd again, never to have tried to make it as a musician herself. To be a fan back then, at Isle of Wight, or at Woodstock. Just a fan. Nobody looking at her or judging her or demanding things of her, simply a girl on the grass, hanging out with friends and wrapped up in music.

  Madame Grenier must be about seventy, she realized. And this man knew her stories of forty-four years before? When he picked the cat up off the road and carried it to her, and she wanted to talk to someone about her life, did he stop and listen to her?

  I wonder what it would be like to touch one of those muscled arms? Just curl my hand over his biceps. She scrubbed her itching fingers hard against her jeans.

  You are such an idiot, she thought to herself. Aren’t you ever going to learn to quit throwing your heart at the latest bad boy like some stupid…musician?

  “She used to have a gray tabby named Jimi, but he died,” Matt told her journal.

  You’re rambling.

  It was insane how badly she wanted to stroke all his confidence back into him.

  Or maybe, even better, make the last of his confidence break down into something flustered and hungry. He was such a big guy. His voice could boom so loud. The whole thought of him helpless to her was delicious.

  “So, uh, and then you go left,” Matt said, scraping words onto paper with what was left of the broken pencil lead.

  The low, rough texture of his voice made all the hairs on her arms prickle. She wasn’t processing a word he said. Still, his voice was so deep and gorgeous, maybe it was imprinting on her brain and she could replay the words once she was in the car and didn’t have the proximity of that naked torso and that blush distracting her. She had really good retention for great voices. If she could get him to add a little melody to it, she might be able to remember every word out of his mouth.

  He extended her journal, but when she tried to accept it, his fingers tightened. “I, ah...I was really drunk that first night. I know that’s not—I’m sorry.”

  That rough voice cracked her. “Hey.” Her hand slid far enough over the journal to graze the inside of his wrist. Just a hint of his texture, soft and hot and vulnerable there at the inside of that strong wrist. His skin felt like his voice. “Look, there’s no point agonizing over it. I get that you didn’t mean it. I didn’t make anything of it.”

  He frowned in visible confusion. “Make anything of it?”

  “I know you didn’t really fall in love with me at first sight or anything. Don’t be silly.”

  All that color flooded back up under his bronze skin. “Of course I didn’t…I…that is…I—fuck,” he said between his teeth, turning his head away.

  She pulled back a step, tugging hard on her journal to get him to release it. “I’m not going to start asking you to marry me and have my babies,” she said dryly.

  His jaw dropped. He stared at her in pure horror.

  Man, he was easy to mess with. Full of herself, she stole an opportunity and patted his biceps. “You’re okay,” she told him. “Don’t worry about me.”

  Wow, that was a nice tingle to carry away in her palm.

  Chapter 7

  “Did you like how we sent her your way for the directions?” Tristan asked cheerfully. “That was beautiful, wasn’t it?”

  Matt grunted from under the conveyor belt, trying to ignore his cousin. Damn belt. What a time to break down, the first day of the harvest. Could anything else go wrong with his awesome thirty-first year?

  Yes, probably. It could start to rain.

  “Just think of what you could have done with that,” Tristan said, putting a thrilling ring into his voice. It echoed in the high-roofed space of their extraction plant, that building on the edge of the fields to which all the fresh roses were carried. “Sent her to Timbuktu, even. Where did you send her, by the way? I haven’t seen her car come back.”

  Yeah, Matt was getting pretty worried about that. She’d left before lunch, and it was four in the afternoon. Sure, she’d probably stopped for lunch or something herself, but still…between the state of that damn car and her visible confusion about what was north and what was south, anything could have happened. He’d called Madame Grenier earlier—after making sure none of his cousins were in earshot, of course—but Mme Grenier couldn’t even remember how long it had been since Bouclettes had come by. Apparently Bouclettes was a “young woman who knew her music”, though, “not like some kids her age”. Also, Madame Grenier approved of her manners, particularly toward cats that lay in the middle of the road.

  “I sent her to the damn store,” Matt snapped at Tristan.

  A huff of breath as Tristan threw one of the sacks of roses up to Raoul on the upper platform. They had to get those roses processed tonig
ht, and Cédric, their extraction plant manager, had had to leave for some play his daughter was doing. Until Matt could get this damned conveyor belt fixed, they were going to be transferring that last truckload of roses up to the vats above the hard way. It would have been a pure, slogging pain to have to transfer the last load bag by bag alone, but his cousins had, of course, joined in and turned it into a game.

  Nice to have people who were happy to hit you in the face but always had your back. Even if they were a damn pain in the ass.

  “I knew I should have been the one to give her directions.” Tristan sighed. “Poor girl.”

  Matt banged his wrench unnecessarily against the nearest solid metal. Better than Tristan’s ankle. “My directions were perfect.”

  “Now, see, Matt, what’s wrong with you? Why were your directions perfect? Aren’t you supposed to be getting that land back somehow? Pépé said so.”

  Matt pressed his teeth together hard to contain a frustrated growl. He didn’t like to let his cousins visibly get to him, but damn it, how the hell was he supposed to get that land back? How was he supposed to fight a woman that small? She spent too long getting back from the grocery store, and he was about to beat something in worry over what might have happened to her. If anything did, it would be his fault.

  Anything that went wrong in this valley was his fault.

  “I mean, I thought sending the enemy invader over the Alps or something would have been the perfect way to discourage her,” Tristan said. “Look what it did to Hannibal.”

  Yeah, right. Matt rolled his eyes and banged some more things. As if any of his cousins would have actually done that.

  Still, maybe it explained why his cousins had pretended they couldn’t give directions earlier. At first it had been so weird, like they were…matchmaking or something. Crushing their own competitive instincts to let him look good.

  Instead maybe they’d been dumping the responsibility of helping her or hindering her onto his shoulders. Nobody wanted to play the bad guy.

  Matt always got to have that role.

  “Fine.” Tristan gave a much put-upon sigh. “We’ll just have to figure out some other way.”

  Oh, bordel.

  “I know!” Tristan said, in dramatic delight. “We’ll sabotage her house! Cut wires, break a pipe…make her miserable, you know.”

  “I just spent five months getting that house into shape!” Matt roared, shoving himself out from under the conveyor belt. “Tristan, if you touch one damn thing—”

  He stopped. Tristan was grinning. Damien was doing that controlled, elegant smirk thing of his. Raoul, up on the platform above, was laughing so hard that Damien took advantage of the moment of weakness to throw a sack of roses up there extra hard, aiming for Raoul’s head.

  Raoul managed to save himself at the last second, caught the sack as he ducked away, and then turned and poured its roses into the vat behind him.

  “Although it sounds as if you already started on the sabotage,” Tristan said. “Didn’t she say her electricity went out? What were you up to last night, Matt?”

  “Sleeping,” Matt snapped. Well, tossing and turning and beating his head against his pillow. Getting up to pace his terrace and stare out at his valley or at the house where Bouclettes slept. “It was probably a damn fuse. The wiring in most of that house is decades old. I’m going to fix it as soon as I get this damn conveyor belt working again.”

  Tristan grinned. “That will help scare her off, all right. You fixing her house up for her. You’ve got to think of the market value, Matt. It’s already going to cost us a fortune to buy it back from her, even in the state it’s in.”

  Well, what was he supposed to do? Leave the place in a mess? Leaking sink, poor wiring…damn it, his aunt could have warned him that he was fixing the house up for someone else and that he had a deadline to get everything done. Also, it wouldn’t have hurt to mention that the someone else was really cute.

  Just give a man a little forewarning so he didn’t make a complete idiot of himself in front of her, for example.

  And if Tristan looked any more amused, Matt might throw this wrench at him. “Fuck off, Tristan.” He went back under the conveyor belt.

  “Or I know!” Tristan exclaimed. “I’ve got a much better plan. Instead of scaring her off, one of us could seduce her into our clutches. Convince her to sell the land back to us through pure sex appeal. I’ll have to take care of that one, Matt, sorry. No woman is going to be seduced by one of you guys.”

  Matt shoved himself back out from under the conveyor belt, sitting up so fast he nearly bonked his head. He glared at his youngest cousin dangerously.

  “What?” Tristan asked innocently. “Flirting is my forte.”

  Yeah, and it really was. If Tristan started flirting with Bouclettes, she…he…damn it. Matt tightened his hold on his wrench against the wave of images. “Stay the hell away from her, Tristan.”

  Tristan looked exaggeratedly crestfallen. “But she’s just my type.”

  Every woman was Tristan’s type. And he was every woman’s type, too. Matt thrust to his feet and took a step toward him, menacingly.

  Tristan couldn’t contain himself anymore and started laughing.

  Damn it. Matt’s cousins were so annoying.

  “You forget,” Damien drawled. “She thinks Matt is the hot one.”

  Matt’s face flamed.

  “Allegra swears she wasn’t making that up,” Raoul said from above. “As hard as it is to believe.”

  Tristan shook his head in wonder. “You’d better grab this one, Matt. It’s not every woman who finds it hot to be hauled around by a drunk caveman and then yelled at when she’s lost and asking for help. It must be your way with a T-shirt.”

  If Matt’s face burned much more, it would catch fire. “I’ll tell you what,” he growled. “Either you guys can let me fix this conveyor belt in peace, or I can hit you with something. Which is it going to be?”

  A flood of roses engulfed his head, drowning him temporarily in pink petals and scent. He shook himself out of it, looking up.

  Raoul grinned and dropped the empty burlap sack so that it floated down over Matt’s face. “Oops,” Raoul said. “I must have confused the vat with the vast empty space that passes for your brain.”

  “Seriously?” Tristan said. “Rose fight? Damn, but I’ve missed those.” And he grabbed a sack of roses off the truck and swung it at Matt.

  Matt dropped his wrench and dove for him to try to protect his head—sacks of roses were cushy but a lot heavier than pillows—and the two men toppled to the ground on top of the roses Raoul had spilled. “Damn it!” Matt roared, loud enough to fill the building, which was the minimum volume to have any impact on his cousins when they started this kind of shit. “You’re wasting the harvest! That’s four hundred euros, Raoul.”

  A sack of roses swung through the air and hit Tristan on the butt. Laughing, Damien used the rebound off Tristan to help swing the bag toward Matt and catch him in his butt. Even in rose fighting, Damien killed two birds with one stone. Matt grabbed Tristan’s sack from him and went for Damien with it, and then Raoul was on the concrete floor joining in, and then…it all got a little bit out of hand. Roses flew everywhere.

  It was some time later before Matt finally sat up, shaking petals out of his hair and clothes, having been tackled, in the final act, by all three of his cousins at once so they could bring him down. Just like the old days, actually, when there were five of them and the only way to keep one of them down was if all the others piled on him in a heap. Even Tristan, five years younger than Raoul and Lucien and two years younger than Matt and Damien, had been a wriggly little brat, impossible to contain.

  They hadn’t wrestled like that in a long time. After Raoul and Lucien left, all their games and wrestling matches had lost their savor.

  Matt did his best to act grumpy and not just relaxed and happy as he gazed out over the disaster of roses spilled across the concrete floor. The place looked l
ike the old ateliers used to, back before they had their own processing facility, when they used to spread the roses to protect them from rot and wilt, tossing them every once in a while before they bagged them up again to haul them off to Grasse.

  “Now we’re going to have to clean this mess up and get these roses into that vat.” He made his voice extra growly to make sure his cousins didn’t start thinking he was getting soft or anything. “We are not wasting this much of the harvest.”

  His cousins, roses still falling out of their hair, grinned, already reaching for rakes on the wall of the plant. “Go fix the conveyor belt, you big grump,” Tristan said. And winked. “I’ll take care of handling your curly-haired female problems.”

  So Matt had to dive for him all over again.

  Well, what? It was very relaxing.

  ***

  Damn country. Layla puffed as she hauled the too-heavy groceries through the door, tired and pissed off. She needed a new phone. Did they make ones anymore that didn’t allow producers to text or email?

  Getting to the grocery store had worked just fine, Matt’s directions clear and easy to follow—and she’d had a nice little chat with Madame Grenier, too, after she’d handed the older woman her cat. It turned out Madame Grenier had one of the old pink and yellow Isle of Wight posters signed by half the performers—Jimi Hendrix, Pete Townshend, Roger Daltrey, Joan Baez. She’d let Layla touch it. Layla’s fingertips still tingled.

  Between touching Matt the Grumpy Bear and touching that poster, her fingertips were having quite a day. They’d actually danced on the steering wheel on the drive to the store, testing out chord progressions that were lively and rhythmic, not ones so whiny and tired she had to rip the notes in half and throw them in the trash.