“Why didn’t he take his own?” she growled, knowing it wasn’t the PRO’s fault and the best thing for her to do was to quit grumbling and take the jeep so that Warren wouldn’t find out he’d irked her, which was most likely his aim.

“I need to log where you’re going,” the PRO replied, unperturbed.

“Verzy today, then London tomorrow. After that I never want to see another khaki-colored jeep again,” she said petulantly.

Her mood hardly improved on seeing Victorine because the little girl would not accept the news that Dan was marrying a lovely lady, and that she would soon have a mommy.

“But you’re my maman,” Victorine said sternly.

“Oh, darling, I’m not,” Jess protested, willing her goddamn eyes to stop leaking.

“Yes, you are,” Victorine said. “I will not have another maman.”

Rather than discuss it, Jess drove them both to Lieu de Rêves for another picnic. They spent a sleepy and almost happy day, where they both behaved as if nothing had changed and oh, it was heaven. Jess almost began to believe it; that nothing had changed. Until just before they were about to leave and Victorine was inspecting the dwarf beech trees by the canal. Jess held her camera up, thinking to take a photograph, but the wind blew and one of the tree’s gnarled and twisted branches reached toward the little girl, like a sorceress about to cast a spell.

“No!” Jess cried and Victorine looked at her, puzzled.

“The tree is lonely,” Victorine pronounced, in that way she had of seeming far too adult for her age. “I was going to tell it we would be back soon.”

Back soon. Dan and Jess and Victorine sitting beneath the lonely tree, picnicking as they had just last month. Jess blinked. Don’t cry. She forced a smile and the tree settled into benignity. It was time to go, before she found that she could not.

She held Victorine’s hand as they walked back to the car, the tiny fingers clasping Jess’s with such confidence and such trust. It was almost impossible to let go, to allow the child to climb into the jeep, to drive toward Paris, not knowing when or if she’d ever see Victorine again.

They hadn’t gone far when the jeep began to rattle, the wheels to slip. A flat tire. Far from being a nuisance, Jess was grateful for the extra pocket of time she could spend with Victorine while she fixed the car. Except the spare wasn’t there. She cursed Warren under her breath. Perhaps they could keep driving to the next town. Jess checked the tire but saw that it had a long nail in it, a slow leak that had done its work while they picnicked; they weren’t going anywhere for now.

How long would it take for another vehicle to drive along this out-of-the-way road? Perhaps one of the workers from the nearby vineyards might come past. And it seemed her prayers were answered after not more than ten minutes by the noise of a car.