I talk until the rain stops. I talk until I realize that we've been sitting here for hours, empty wine glasses between us, and neither of us has moved to leave.
"I should sleep," Iris says finally, reluctantly. "Tomorrow—"
"Tomorrow can wait." I hear myself say it and don't quite believe it. "The lavender will still be there."
"Will it?"
"It's been there for a hundred years. I think it can handle another night."
She smiles, smaller than the laughs earlier but somehow more intimate. "Thank you. For cooking. For—" She hesitates. "For not making me feel less like an intruder."
"You're not an intruder. You're her granddaughter."
"So are you."
"Not by blood."
"By love." She says it simply, like it's obvious. "That's what she wanted us to understand, isn't it? That's why we're both here."
I don't have words for what that does to me. I just nod and watch her go, the soft pad of her footsteps on the stone floor, the glimpse of her disappearing down the hall.
When she's gone, I stay at the table for a long time, listening to the last of the rain drip from the eaves and trying to convince myself that what I'm feeling is just the wine.
It's not the wine.
I know what this feeling is. I've felt it before, rarely, dangerously—this pull toward someone, this flutter of possibility.
I'm crushing on Iris Beaumont-Clark.
And I have absolutely no idea what to do about it.
9
IRIS
Two weeks since I arrived in Provence. Two weeks since I met Cat. Two weeks since my entire life pivoted on an axis I didn't know existed.
I'm starting to lose track of Chicago. The meetings, the spreadsheets, the carefully calibrated performance of my professional self—it feels like something that happened to someone else. Here, there are no meetings. Here, the spreadsheets I make are for lavender pruning schedules and grocery lists and the various tasks Jacques has assigned us.
Here, I wake each morning and know exactly where I am. For someone who has spent her life never quite fitting anywhere, it's a strange and uncomfortable feeling.
"You're thinking too loudly," Cat says from across the breakfast table.
"That's not a thing."
"It is in this house. I can hear you processing from here."
I look up from my coffee—French press now, because Cat taught me how to use Grand-mère's ancient contraption—and find her watching me with that half-amused expression she seems to reserve for moments when I'm being particularly myself.
She's wearing a tank top and cutoff shorts, her hair piled in that perpetually messy bun that somehow looks effortless. There's a smudge of flour on her cheekbone from the croissants she made this morning—from scratch, because Cat does everything from scratch, including driving me slowly insane.
"I was thinking about the herb garden," I say, which is only partially a lie. "Jacques mentioned it needs work."
"It does. Want to tackle it today?"
"Sure."
She smiles, and I look away before I can notice how it changes her face.
