Shadowed Heart (10 page)

Damn it,
where was she?

He stepped out of the back door of the kitchens, restlessly, just to take a moment alone with his peach and breathe, and stopped very still.

His wife was sitting halfway down the cobblestone alley, her back against the ochre wall of a house, jasmine climbing up the wall beside her, shadows and sunlight flickering across her face from the breeze-stirred clothes someone had hung in the narrow gap between balconies above her. She had a laptop on her knees, but it was closed, and she looked as if she was fast asleep.

His heart started to thump very hard. There was something incredibly beautiful about the combination of elements—Summer and the jasmine and the Provençal alley—a picture that should be in a calendar. But even he could tell that something about it was all wrong.

“Summer.” Summer smiled. The warm sunlight and scent of jasmine, and that dark, quiet voice. Luc had found her. He’d come to her island with her. Part of all the smiling, happy people. Now they could
all
celebrate the baby together. “Summer.”

His voice soothed her, as it always had. From the very first moment she met him, even when her heart was thumping with the tension of their battles, some part of her had always been drawn to bury herself in his arms, in that sense of utter security that his dark control brought her.

She smiled at him and opened her eyes, and the island skewed around her like a camera gone out of focus, and when its focus righted, she wasn’t on an island at all, but in a Provençal alley. Luc wasn’t in those cut-offs he’d made out of his Dior jeans when he came to find her on her island, he was squatting beside her in the alley in that stylized shirt he favored, the one made with sturdy cloth like any chef’s jacket but with a collar that made him look, on camera, as if he was just home from the theater or something.

He did have that exact same look on his face that he’d had when they’d first come face to face on her island, though: grave, intent, searching, all that feeling packed up tight in him, held in control. But there. So much feeling, so intense, that he didn’t know how to handle it all if he started letting it all out.

Still half in her dream, half on that island with him, she gave him a smile shaped like the invitation to a kiss.
Come here, Luc. You can let it all out with me.

“Summer,” he said again, voice very gentle, and she started fully awake, scrambling up into a straighter sitting position against the wall as she realized where she was. Her butt lanced pain through her at the shift in position on the cobblestones, and her face flooded with shame.

I’m sorry I’m so pathetic. I’m sorry I’m so clinging and needy when you’re doing so fine without me.

“Peach?” He stretched out a hand to her, the slices flowering in it, juicy and white.

Oh, wow, that looked—that looked
delicious.
Her mouth watered as it hadn’t in days, not since those pickles, as if food could actually be
good
. She snatched a slice from him and sank her teeth into it.

That was so good. She closed her eyes to concentrate on it.

When she swallowed, a thumb touched her lower lip gently, and then another slice of peach nudged her lips. She parted them, her eyes still closed, sucking the peach inside her mouth, savoring it. Sweet and sunshine and a promise of happiness.

He still loved her then. Loved
her
, the woman who didn’t always do what he wanted, who sometimes just needed fruit and a kiss. Opening her eyes, she made a little kissing motion with her lips, and he leaned forward. When his lips touched hers, the scents on him swirled around her and her stomach swirled with them. Uh-oh.

Oh, crap. If she couldn’t even handle the scents on him from the restaurant, that was going to be bad.

He leaned back, and she drew a quick breath of jasmine and stone. Scents she could handle.

“Summer.” Black eyes watched her with that utter intensity of his. “What are you doing here?”

“I just started feeling a little sick,” she said hastily.
I haven’t been sitting here for an hour just so I can almost hear you talk or anything.

His voice was so perfectly suited to the darkness of her closed lids. “Why didn’t you come inside?”

“I tried.” There was no good way to tell him this. “The scents got to be a bit much for me.” She peeked at him.

Shock ran across his face. “You can’t come into the
restaurant
? That’s—” Panic flashed in his eyes, and then he ran a hand through his hair and gave his head a shake, tightening control back over his face. “That’s just a fluke, right? Just today?”

“I don’t know.” She gazed at the peach slices still in his hand. Did she dare eat another one? Those two had been so good. But the scents on him had kicked her stomach up again, and so far, that never seemed to end well for her. “It seems to be getting worse.”

“
How
long does morning sickness last?”

“On the web, it said a little bit past the first trimester. But in the forums, a lot of women said theirs had lasted much longer than that, sometimes even the whole pregnancy.”

“In the forums?”

She took another peach and drew it into her mouth, concentrating on its sweet sunshine rather than the words it stopped her from saying:
I don’t have anyone else to ask, Luc.

Yes, I’m terrible at making friends. You’re the only person on this continent who likes me.
You
have a place, but my only place is through you.

And I’m losing even that. Because I can’t control my damned body.

Because I want to cling.

Maybe she was just weak. Maybe a stronger woman would master morning sickness. If she knew any strong women here, she could ask them.

“The guys really miss you when you don’t come.” Luc’s darkest, quietest voice. The one she always felt she could curl up safe in. The one that always made her feel as if
she
, everything about her, was entirely okay. Loved by him.

She looked up, blinking, almost in tears.

“My staff.” He gestured back to the back door of the restaurant. “Especially the apprentices. They love showing off for you when you come in. You know they love you.”

Her face softened. They did seem to, yes. But if she walked into that restaurant, she would have to eat whatever they offered her to make them happy, just as she had to do with Luc. Her stomach roiled just at the thought.

“They’ve never met anyone as patient and gentle and giving in their whole lives.” Dark eyes watched her intently. “That’s not common, Summer, to take a brain as bright as yours and be willing to sit down and patiently coach people how to read, while you smile, and praise, and make them feel as if
they’re
the ones doing something special for you.”

“They are,” Summer said, surprised. How to explain? “They make me feel—whole.”
Right. A good, happy person. A person who could be a good mother, who could just be a good part of this world.
“I’ll meet them at the playground by the
pétanque
courts.” A flat area at the top of the town, where old men played
boules
and the wind swept the air clean of all scents but pine and stone and a hint of sea. “We can work on their lessons there.”

He nodded and looked down a moment. The slant of sun that made its way into the alley gleamed off his black hair, filling it paradoxically with light. “I miss you, too,” he told the cobblestones. He caught himself immediately. “But don’t worry about that. I can manage for a few weeks. I’m not a—baby.” His eyes flicked to her stomach and then lingered there. He stretched out a hand to caress her flat belly just lightly.

Summer rested her head against the wall and watched him, while all his focus was on her belly.

Aww. Hey. Just for a second there, his controlled face was so wondering and exposed. His long, thick lashes were so black against his gold cheeks, his hand so warm against her belly.
Cup more firmly, Luc. Take possession. Say
,
This baby is mine.
“Are you happy about the baby, Luc?” she asked softly.

His gaze flicked back to hers, as if she had caught him in some kind of criminal act. “Of course,” he said quickly.

Too quickly.

She drew a breath, pulling her knees up higher until his hand was locked between her thighs and her belly.
Now
the pressure of his hand was firm, but only because she had trapped it.
He’s lying!

Oh, God.

She didn’t even have
him
with her for this pregnancy. She was making a baby, and she was
all alone.

All alone. Her worst nightmare.

That loneliness she had risked for him. Because his love was supposed to be enough to keep her safe from it.

“Have you eaten anything else today?” he asked.

She shrugged uncomfortably, still focused on that lie.
He’s not happy? He’s not happy.

“You can’t spend the next six weeks or more eating only peaches!” he snapped, his face hardening.

Peaches sounded like a lot more nourishment than she’d managed so far today. God, she hated it when people tried to tell her what she could or couldn’t eat. Her whole being revolted.

Fuck you for not being happy, Luc. You
begged
me for this. And now it’s happening in
my body.

“If I can even keep this down,” she managed.

That slashing, beautiful frown. He used to frown a lot at her. Look her over with cool dismissive eyes as if she was nothing. “Summer, how can you not keep a peach down? It’s light and fresh and—“

She rolled over onto her knees suddenly, gagging. It wrenched her body, and she
hated
it. God, she hated it. She hated most that it had to happen in front of Luc, and she sagged afterward, with her forehead pressed against the stone, not looking at him. “Like that, I guess,” she muttered, trying again not to cry.

A heavy, warm hand stroked her back. “Summer. This is insane.”

“I asked the doctor.” Scheduled an appointment, sat there in the waiting room, explained her problem while the doctor looked at her as if she was an idiot.
You’re pregnant. That’s what pregnancy is like. You’ll be lucky if it doesn’t last six months, like it did me.
“She said it was normal.”

His eyes crinkled. “You went to see the doctor again?”

Well, yes. At least it was someone to talk to.

“You didn’t even tell me you’d gone.” Luc stared at her.

She shrugged.
When would I?
Either you’re working or I’m throwing up. Yeah, it’s not exactly the cozy picture of family life I imagined.

Well…to be truthful, it was the one she had imagined in her dark moments, when all she could see was herself repeating the cycle her parents had started in her. But it wasn’t the one she imagined when she believed in herself and Luc and had hope.

Luc watched her for a moment, frowning. “Did she say anything that would
help
?”

Summer shrugged again. His hand rode her shoulder muscles with the movement, and her loneliness eased. “She said different women had different little tricks, but there wasn’t any magic cure. She can give me medicine if it gets really impossible, but I’m not sure I know what impossible is. I
think
most women just get through this.” Longing rose in her again for female voices swapping stories, so that she would
know.
Know what it was like, know how they did it, know when she was supposed to see a doctor or just tough it up.

Luc made a face. “Could medicine hurt the baby?”

“I don’t know. That’s why I’m not taking it.”

Heavy petting, up and down her back, easing the nausea more than any other thing could. “Do you think you would like to come sit on the restaurant terrace? We could take you through the front where the smells aren’t so strong. Or do you want me to walk you home?”

She did want to sit on the restaurant terrace. Even if it wouldn’t be anywhere near him really, while he worked, it
seemed
more a part of things. So much better than being in their home by herself, looking at internet forums on pregnancy and trying to get through the day’s nausea. But getting to that terrace seemed so hard. She rolled back over into a sitting position, slumping. “I kind of like it right here,” she whispered.

“Summer.” Luc’s face twisted in frustrated distress.

“I just wish you’d talk more loudly,” she muttered. “When you’re working in there.”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

He stared at her a moment, black eyes trying to see into her soul. She offered him a weak smile, not her best effort, but the bouts of nausea didn’t leave her with much inside her, not even smiles. “Don’t worry about it,” she said. “I’m not the first woman to survive pregnancy, you know. I’ll manage.”

“Right.” He crouched, frowning at her. “Right.”

“I will, Luc. I’ll manage on my own.”
You’re the only person this baby can count on, Summer. You’ve
got
to be strong.

And her baby needed a swing.

***

Or he would manage for her, Luc thought, as he went back to the kitchens. Just to be on the safe side. At least he knew he could always count on himself.

Limes
, he noted on a sheet of paper pinned to the corkboard near his work station.
Peaches.
Raspberries. Mangoes??
On the computer in his office, which was set to favor American sites because Summer was its primary user these days, he searched tips for controlling nausea. Crackers, all right. Ice pops, well, he was doing that. The mother-to-be could try forcing herself to swallow small bites of protein at regular intervals all morning, for which they recommended…peanut butter?

Surely not. He was trying to avoid
foods that made someone feel sick. That was what he got for checking an American site.

Although…Summer
was
American. And she’d wanted those American pickles.

Peanut butter, though. He took a deep breath and stared at the ceiling before he closed his eyes very tightly and then called Sylvain.

“I need Cade.”

A pause on the other end of the phone. Then that amused, chocolate voice: “Well, that’s unfortunate for you, because you can’t have her.”