Race to World's End (Rowan and Ella Book 3) (33 page)

Ella picked up
the delicate necklace with trembling fingers and saw the insignia of the
intersecting hearts superimposed over a large V.

“Thank you,
Mama,” she said, her voice strong but full of emotion. “I will treasure it
always.”

The End

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Note:
If you discovered
Race to World’s End,
which is Book 3 in the series, and liked it well
enough to find out what happened to Rowan and Ella before this point, I hope
you’ll check out Book,
A Trespass in Time
, and Book 2,
Journey
to the Lost Tomb
.

Race to World’s End

Copyright 2014

San Marco Press

While you’re waiting for
Book 4 in the Rowan & Ella series, here’s a taste of another wild romp you
might want to discover,
Murder in Nice
:

Lanie sipped her glass of red
wine. The majestic Hotel Negresco filled the view from her small balcony at the
Soho Hotel that faced the busy
Promenade
des Anglais
.

She noticed the familiar
silhouette of the Negresco even before taking in the curve of the brilliantly
blue Mediterranean as it outlined the dramatic stretch of umbrella-dotted
beach. To be sure, she thought, the view must be every bit as remarkable from
the Negresco—that grand dame of luxury and British superiority. But, as
she’d asked Bob last spring when they’d booked the tour:
would you rather stay in a landmark or gaze upon it?
 

In the end she’d gotten her
way, but not because the idiot cared one way or the other. She shook her head.
How the man had risen to become the preeminent travel guru of the Western world
she would never understand.

The truth was, the man
wouldn’t know a
pourboire
from a po’boy.
Lanie retreated from the balcony.

If
one more person comes simpering up to me to say how nice Nice is
,
I
shall vomit on their Louis Vuittons.
She dropped her robe on the carpeted
floor before walking to the bathroom
,
where she gave her appearance in the bathroom mirror a quick, satisfied look
before turning off the water cascading into the bathtub. She poured herself
another glass of wine, set the bottle on the floor next to the tub, and slipped
into the soothing, fragrant hot water.

After the tour’s recent drive
through Provence, Lanie was officially sick of the smell of lavender, but if
she wanted bubbles in her tub tonight she would have to endure it.

God,
the French think they invented the stuff…and everything else decent
. She made a face as she leaned back into
the tub and tried to get comfortable.

As the tension left her
shoulders she had to admit it hadn’t been a terrible trip so far. Bob had
promised her the bulk of the presentations and he’d been true to his
word—even without having to sleep with him. The thought was disgusting.
Bob Randall was heavyset and continually flushed. She couldn’t imagine how they
managed to color correct his face in post-production.

She noticed, however, none of
it stopped that whore Dee-Dee from coming on to him.

The fact was, this trip to
the south of France was critical to all of them—three travel guides vying
for one slot as co-anchor on Randall’s crazy-successful video travelogue series,
Americans Love Europe
. The ten-day
trip along the Côte d’Azur was the audition that would launch one of them—her,
Dee-Dee or that skank Frog, Desiree—into the most coveted, career-making
position in travel reporting.

She took a sip of her wine
and let out a sigh. Maybe she
would
sleep with Randall. With everything at stake, now was probably not the best
time to get all moral and pure. If she was careful, Olivier need never know…

She heard a sound from the
bedroom.

She held her breath and looked
at the closed bathroom door, wine glass still in hand. What was it she heard? A
muted creak from a floorboard giving way to a stealthy footstep? The sound of
one of the pigeons venturing from the balcony into the room in search of
crumbs? Did these old hotels creak and groan for no reason? She strained to
listen, but the sound didn’t repeat. What was it Bob had said? There had been a
recent upswing in attacks against tourists in Nice. Just enough to make her a
little edgy…and ruin a perfectly nice bath. After a moment, she let out the
breath she was holding. She likely hadn’t heard anything at all, she reasoned.

When she heard the sound again,
it registered in her brain as a definite creak…coming from the bedroom. She sat
up straight in the tub. As she listened to the accelerated drubbing of her
heart pounding in her ears, Lanie suddenly remembered she had given Bob a key.
But was this the sort of thing he would do? Just enter her room without calling
first?

She stared at the closed
bathroom door. There had been no reason to lock it. Frankly, she was surprised
she had even bothered to shut it. Could she have imagined the sound a second
time? Perhaps it was the noise from the street?
 

She saw the doorknob of the
bathroom door begin to slowly turn.

“Hello?” she called, hearing
the panic in her voice. “Who’s there?”

When the door opened a dark
figure filled the space, backlit against the balcony door.

“Oh, it’s you,” Lanie said
with a sigh. “Did you get lost?”

The dark shape lunged at her.
Lanie scrambled to stand up in the slick, soapy water and collided with her
attacker, falling backward with a splash.

She gasped and tried to gain
purchase in the slippery interior, slick with soap. She clutched at the
figure’s jacket. Her legs slipped out from under her and strong arms pushed
Lanie backward. She tried again to get to her knees, but an explosion of pain
slammed into her head. Bright vibrating stars obliterated her vision. They
faded slowly to black, taking all sound with them. All, that is, but the soft
popping of the lavender bubbles.

One

“He needs a hat, Laurent.”
Maggie stood on the threshold of the French doors, her arms crossed, and
watched her husband read the newspaper on the patio while jiggling the baby
absentmindedly on his knee.

“He’s fine,” Laurent said
without looking up.

“It’s too hot out here for
him.” Maggie frowned and took a step onto the patio from the coolness of the
house. As she often told her friends back home in Atlanta, summer in Provence
alternated between blazing hot and so-hot-you-could-die.

“
Bon
,” Laurent said, depositing the baby on the slate flooring under
the table. “He is in the shade now.”

“Laurent, no!” Maggie yelped
as she ran to the baby and scooped him up off the ground. “There’s God knows
what under there. Scorpions, rat droppings…”

Laurent had yet to look away
from his newspaper. “As you wish.”
 

Maggie brushed the baby’s
chubby knees in case any hint of sand or dirt had attached. She snuggled him
close and kissed his neck, which prompted the nine-month-old to giggle.

“Besides, you know he
wouldn’t stay put,” she said, speaking more to little Jean-Michael, or
Jem
as Laurent had begun calling him. “
Would
you? He would be in the
potager
in a flash ripping up all your
precious radishes and potatoes.”

“I do not grow potatoes in
the
potager
,” Laurent said, turning
the page of his newspaper.

“Well, whatever you grow in
there.”

“Besides, Monsieur Jem is
more than welcome to help his papa in the
potager
.
Even ripping up radishes would be more attention than his
maman
has paid it.”

Laurent's
potager
—parsley and English
thyme interspersed with radicchio, beets, spinach and radishes—was
planted at the door leading into the house, ready to be plucked as quickly as
it took the grill to get hot.

 
“Gardening is not my thing,” Maggie said,
kissing Jem’s head and bouncing him on her hip.

Laurent finally looked up at
her and grinned. “I love to see the two of you
c’est ça
.” He dropped the paper and held out his arms and Maggie
moved to perch on his knee, baby still in her arms.

She loved the smell of the
two of them—her two men, she thought with a happy sigh. Laurent was
citrus and tobacco—although she rarely saw him smoke—and little Jem
had that indefinable baby-smell that made it impossible not to kiss his sweet head
whenever he was in her arms.

“Happy,
chérie
?” Laurent murmured into her neck.

She felt a spasm of warmth
race up her spine as his hands stroked her back through her thin blouse. “You
know I am,” she whispered.

It
was true. She loved it here. But she hadn’t always. There had been many
adjustments to living in a three-hundred-year-old house, not the least of which
were the antiquated bathrooms.

She
smiled remembering how hard she’d lobbied for central air when she first
arrived before accepting that closing the shutters during the hottest part of
the day in summer typically cooled the house sufficiently.

It
had been a long and difficult adjustment, with all profits from the vineyard
going back into the vineyard.

“Hi, you two. I hope I’m not
interrupting anything.”

Maggie and Laurent looked up
to see their friend and houseguest, Grace Van Sant, standing in the open French
doors. Every time Maggie saw Grace she was amazed at her friend’s cool beauty.
Grace once joked that her mother named her after Grace Kelly, but to see her
now, impeccably dressed, languid in her blonde elegance and poise, it was no
joke.

Fact was, Grace’s mother had
nailed it.

Laurent stood up, slowly
sliding Maggie to her feet. He was six foot four, a big man with a gentle touch
and a silent tread. More than once, Maggie had marveled at how his grace and
stealth belied his size.

“If Grace is back,” Laurent
said, gathering up his newspaper, “it must be time for lunch.”

Grace walked onto the patio.
“Glad I can serve as such a reliable timepiece for you, Laurent,” she said,
smiling. “Is Zouzou still napping?”

Laurent went into the house
as Maggie pulled the portable baby monitor out of the pocket of her slacks and
flipped it on. The sounds of the toddler’s snores competed with the static of
the device.

“Kind of defeats the purpose
if you keep it turned off,” Grace remarked wryly.

“Totally defeats the purpose
of having a little peace and quiet,” Maggie said, handing the monitor to Grace,
“if you have to listen to every breath and gurgle as they sleep. No offense,
Grace. I assure you Zouzou’s snorts are more adorable than most.”

Grace laughed and snapped the
monitor off. “I take your point, darling.” She gently tweaked Jem’s plump
cheek. “How’s this little one? Did he sleep at all?”

Maggie sat down at the
outdoor table Laurent had just left. “No, and it’s driving me crazy. Why won’t
he sleep?”

Grace sat down. “Well, I’ve
heard the smart ones don’t.”
 

“Are you serious?”

“Just what I’ve read.”

Maggie looked into Jem’s
bright blue eyes. When he saw he had her attention, his toothless grin widened
and drool crept down the corner of his mouth.

“Plenty of time to be an
overachiever,” she said to him. “Take the opportunity of a nap when it’s
offered.”

“Good luck with that,” Grace
said, leaning back into the cane chair, a tired smile on her lips.

Maggie knew Grace was working
hard to keep her spirits up and her mood bright. The divorce from Windsor was
finalized the week before, and although Grace was the one who had pushed for
it, it had been a long, hard spring while she coped with what the breakup truly
meant for her and her little family of four. When Maggie and Laurent offered refuge
for her and Zouzou at their home in Provence, Grace had gratefully accepted.

“How’s the business coming?”
Maggie asked. Grace was attempting to create an online children’s clothing
boutique using Provençal and Parisian wares.

“Oh, it’s a long way from
coming. I guess I thought I’d just spend my days shopping for adorable clothes
for Zouzou and Jemmy, clue in the rest of the world through Facebook or
something, take my middle-man cut, and go back to having a life.”

“And it’s not like that?”

“I don’t know what it’s like,
dearest,” Grace said wearily. “I’ve never had to work before and I don’t think
I like it.”

“A startup is the most work
of all,” Maggie said.

“Thanks, precious. You always
know just what to say.”

“Oh, here comes Laurent with
the wine.”

“Case in point,” Grace said
with a smile.

Laurent set down a tray of
filled wine glasses and a bowl of olives.

“One of yours, Laurent?”
Grace asked as she took the wine glass he handed her.

“
Non
,” he said. “Better.”

“No way,” Maggie said,
sipping from her glass. “Mmm-mm, but whoever made it, it’s good.”

“Lunch in ten minutes,”
Laurent said before leaving them again.

“He is a man of few words,
your papa,” Grace said to the baby.

“That’s for sure.” Maggie let
the dry fruitiness of the rosé fill her nostrils before taking the next sip.
Laurent was trying to fine-tune her palate when it came to wine. She began
coughing, the light tickle of the aroma overwhelming her.

“You okay, sweetie? Choke on
an olive pit?”

“Very funny,” Maggie said,
her eyes watering as she gained control of the coughing.

“Well, how about
your
business?” Grace asked. “Selling
any books?”

Maggie shrugged and reached
for one of the olives from the stoneware dish filled with olive oil. This one
had a tiny ceramic cicada perched on the rim of it. “I think I sold one. No,
make that two. I sold two last week.”

“That many?”

“Well, I won’t find out for
sure until quarterly royalties come in, but my agent has told me not to get my
hopes up.”

“Is that because you haven’t
earned out your advance yet?”

“What advance? No, it’s
because I haven’t sold any books yet.”

“Well, that’s disappointing.”

“Tell me about it.”

“Are you not promoting it
enough?”

“I don’t know, Grace, I was
thinking of changing my name to rhyme with Rowling, but Laurent thinks it
sounds desperate.”

Grace laughed.
 
“What does your publicist say?”

“Oh, dear, dear Grace,”
Maggie said, shaking her head. “She says the same thing Santa and the tooth
fairy say:
if only I existed I could
really do things
.”

“You don’t have a publicist?”

“It may surprise you to know
that Stephen King and I are not one and the same.”

“For that you may be
thankful,” Grace said.

“Nobody has a publicist
unless they’re a well-known author, or unless they hire one themselves.”

“Well, why not hire one?”

Maggie scooted her chair
closer to the table and looked over Grace’s shoulder at the door to the house.
“Can I ask you to do something for me, Grace?”

“Why do I get the idea this
something
has to do with not letting
Laurent know?”

“Because I don’t want Laurent
to know.”

Grace sighed. “Keeping
secrets from Laurent never ends well. When will you learn that?”

“I need you to find out
something for me.”

“Darling, when it comes to
winkling information out of your husband, I would imagine
you
were in the best position to do that.”

“You’d think so, but he can
always tell when I’m up to something. He won’t suspect you.”

“Thank you for giving me the
opportunity to damage my relationship with the one man besides my father who is
still speaking to me.”

“I really need your help with
this, Grace.”

“If you’re worried about
another woman, Maggie, let me stop you right there, because if you don’t know
that darling hunk of a man by now and how crazy he is about you—”

“That’s not it.”

“I should think not.”

“I
need you to find out…” Maggie dropped her voice and glanced again toward the
house. Grace leaned in closer to catch her words.

“…if we are having money
troubles.”

Grace frowned and leaned back
in her chair. “That’s it?”

“You don’t know the French if
you think that is not a very big deal. And a very private deal.”

“Even from you?”

Maggie
looked beyond the terrace in the direction of their vineyard. A platoon of
olive and fig trees lined a pebbled path from the terrace leading to the
fields. From there, the truffle oaks, thyme bushes and cypresses created a
virtual park, framing the forty hectares of grape fields and emphatically
demarcating the property.

The
vineyard was cut into four quadrants by two narrow dirt roads. The larger of
the two—often used for tractors—sliced down the center of the
vineyard past an ancient shed with an abandoned well at its threshold.
 
It was a beautiful walk, Maggie mused,
especially at sunset, and she and Laurent often enjoyed taking it with the dogs
before dinner, when the final rays of sunlight draped the vineyard in a soft
glow.

“Laurent never talks about
money,” Maggie said, turning back to Grace. “I have no idea where our money
comes from or how.”

“Seriously?”

“And because of how he made
his money before we met…” Maggie raised her eyebrows to indicate that Grace
should feel free to fill in the blanks.

“You know he doesn’t do that
sort of thing any more,” Grace said. She was bouncing the baby, who was
becoming more and more agitated, on her knee.

“I know it’s in him to cut
corners, grease a palm here and there, take advantage of a situation. Did I
ever tell you he once told me he couldn’t promise not to lie to me because he
might have to sometime?”

“That’s actually kind of
honest.”

“Laurent has his pride. I
haven’t brought a single solitary euro into the family coffers since we moved
to France. It’s been all him.”

“And now you think there’s a
problem with money?”

“That’s just it. I don’t
know.”

“And he won’t tell you?”

“He brushes aside my
questions, or worse, gets annoyed with me for even asking.”

“I see.”

“I really wish he’d confide
in me, you know? We’re in this together but he’s such a…sexist he doesn’t see
that. Just find out for me, Grace. If there’s a problem I can always go to my
dad for money.”