“Those came in when?”
His expression changes slightly.
“This morning,” he says.
“Early?”
“Very early.”
I look at the eyes, the gills, the shine of the skin.
“Good.”
He nods, less irritated now.
“Very good.”
“I’m not cooking today,” I say.
“A tragedy,” he says.
“For whom?”
“For the fish,” he says.
I laugh softly and continue. By the time I reach the outdoor herb stall, the light has shifted from grey to gold. Not full sun yet. Something lower. A soft blade of it cutting across the pavement, turning the mist over the herbs into something almost luminous. The stall is crowded in the way good herb stalls are crowded. Not chaotic. Abundant. Basil with leaves wide and glossy. Dill feathering over the edge of a crate. Chervil bundled in delicate green clouds. Mint, parsley, sorrel, thyme, rosemary, bay. Tarragon lying in narrow, elegant bunches, the leaves dark and sharp. That is what I came for. Not only tarragon, but tarragon first.
I have a dinner later in the week that may become a piece, and there is a sauce from a place near Bastille I’ve been thinking about since I booked the trip. Tarragon can ruin a plate faster than almost any herb if handled carelessly. It can bully cream, flatten chicken, turn vinegar smug, make fish taste like someone tried too hard. But when it is right, when the kitchen knows where to stop, it gives a dish a clean, green edge that makes richness behave.
I lean closer. The bunches are good. Better than good. The stems are firm. The leaves are narrow and glossy, no black at the edges, no wet rot hiding beneath the top layer. I lift one bunch and bring it toward my face.
Anise. Pepper. Green heat.
Yes.
I reach for the best bunch at the same moment another hand enters from the left; long fingers. Broad palm. Clean nails. A small scar near the base of the thumb. Not a tourist hand. Not soft. Not careless. A hand that knows exactly what it is doing around food and has no interest in asking permission from anyone in its way. His fingers close around the same bunch of tarragon mine are touching.
For one second, neither of us lets go. The market keeps moving around us. A vendor laughs behind me. A crate scrapes over pavement. Somewhere to my right, a woman argues over peaches with the kind of moral conviction usually reserved for betrayal. The mist from the herb stall drifts over my wrist, cool and faintly green, but the hand touching mine is warm. Too warm for this hour.
I look up. The first thing I register is height. Not because height impresses me on its own. Men are often tall and still manage to take up no useful space at all. This man is tall in a way that changes the air immediately around him. He stands over six feet, broad through the shoulders in a dark linen shirt with the sleeves rolled to his forearms, the fabric loose enough for summer but fitted well enough to make carelessness impossible. His trousers are dark, tailored, and practical. No jacket. No tourist costume. Nothing loud. Nothing arranged for attention. He does not need help getting attention.
The second thing I register is his face; strong jaw. Straight nose, slightly imperfect in a way that saves him from being too polished. Mouth set in a line that looks severe until I catchthe faint curve at one corner. Salt-and-pepper hair, dark mostly at the back and silvered at the temples, thick enough that the early market light catches in it when he turns his head. There is nothing boyish about him. Nothing softened for charm. He looks grown—maybe late forties, controlled, expensive in a way that has nothing to do with labels, and entirely too aware of where his hands are.
Then his eyes meet mine. Deep blue. Not pretty blue. Not the kind people compare to water when they are being lazy. These are deeper than that, sharper, the color of a sky after rain when the last light is leaving and the city has started turning its windows on. His gaze moves over my face with an attention that is not flirtation, at least not at first. It is assessment. Direct, quiet, exact.
My fingers are still on the tarragon. So are his. His gaze drops to the herbs between us, then returns to me.
“You have good instincts,” he says.
His accent is British at the edges, softened by years somewhere else. France, maybe. The words come low and even, not offered to please me, which makes them far more interesting than they should be.
I lift my brows. “Because I reached for tarragon?”
“Because you reached forthattarragon,” he says.
I look down at the bunch caught between our hands.
“That sounds like a distinction.”
