Then the pain kicked back in and I winced, both of us looking down to see blood running freely from a cut on my ankle. He swore in French and looked at me again, seemingly unsure what to do. His eyes were a light bluish gray, a striking contrast to his dark hair.
I was shivering, but more due to the shock than the cold.
“I c-c-can’t,” I stammered, staring at him helplessly. I couldn’t believe I was at the mercy of a complete stranger. Nobody knew where I was, and where did that wolf go?
I looked over my shoulder in fear and when I met his eyes again, an expression of gritty determination had settled over his features. The next thing I knew, he was swinging me up into his arms. I gasped and linked my fingers behind his neck, clutchingon to him. I could feel his muscles tremoring as he carried me across the stones toward his house, treading carefully. He was stronger than he looked.
“Wait here,” he said, slightly out of breath as he laid me on the grass. “My mother is sleeping.”
My ankle had already swollen up—I didn’t think I’d be able to put much weight on it so it was going to be a struggle to walk home.
He came back outside with a towel and draped it around my shoulders. He also had a bottle of water, which he poured directly over my cut.
“Désolé,”he murmured with empathy as I flinched.Sorry.
“It’s okay,” I choked out, tears springing into my eyes. The cut was stinging, but the throb of my ankle was worse.
He went back inside and I heard a tap running and then he reemerged with a first-aid kit and a bowl of water that smelled of antiseptic. Delicately lifting my foot, he placed it in the bowl—the water was warm, but it wasn’t deep enough to cover the cut—and then he sat down and gently cleaned around the cut with a cotton wool pad.
“I’m so sorry about this,” I mumbled, mortified at the fuss I was causing.
He shook his head to dismiss my apology and then he lifted my foot out of the bowl and placed it on another towel, carefully patting it dry. He seemed to know what he was doing.
“What’s your name?” I asked.
“Étienne,” he replied.
“Je m’appelleGrace.”
My French was pretty terrible. I had lessons at school and I’d been coming to the Ardèche for years, but I just seemed to suck at languages.
He met my eyes again, his lips twitching. “Why?” he asked, nodding toward the river as he got a bandage out of the first-aid kit.
“I just wanted to go for a walk.”
“Holiday?” he asked, lifting his chin at me.
I nodded. “I’m staying with my grandmother.”
“She is French?”
I shook my head as he applied the bandage. “English.”
His rifle was lying in the grass a few feet away. He noticed me looking. Suddenly he seemed to be struggling to keep a straight face.
“What’s funny?” I asked.
His mouth split into a wide grin and he lifted his hands over his head and waved them about, saying, “Argh! I’m English! I’m going!” in a terrible impression of me.
“I thought you were going to shoot me!” I exclaimed, laughing. “Don’t move!” I batted back, firing an imaginary shotgun at him, complete with sound effects.
He cracked up and warmth flooded my insides, temporarily drowning out the pain.
“I watch a lot of American cop shows,” he said when he’d recovered.
“Were you trying to kill it?” I asked with a frown as he shoved his hair, damp from the river, back from his forehead.
“Non!”He looked horrified. “The wolf…In France…” He struggled to find the word.
