“You’ll stay with my grandmother, Joey. You’ll be comfortable there.” He deliberately avoided her eyes.
“But why? Why do we have to stay—in separate places?” Joey realized with a start what she was revealing with her words, but they came of their own volition. Before Luke could answer, she felt her hand being clasped once again in Bertrande’s warm, crepey palm, the old woman flashed her uneven grin.
“Crains rien, petite. I will take care of you.” Joey bit her lip and willed Luke to be helpful. He turned to meet her anxious gaze at last and almost smiled.
“She likes you, Joey. If my grandmother likes you, you have nothing to worry about.”
Joey could have cursed his deliberate obtuseness. She felt a tug on her hand and found herself being led away while Luke trailed after. “That still doesn’t explain,” she called back softly between her teeth, “why we’re being split up.”
In several long strides Luke came alongside her. “It’s the way things are done here,” he said at last. There was still something strange and remote in his bearing, and he still looked everywhere but into her eyes. “The people here are very old-fashioned. Un—uh, unmarried couples don’t—live in the same house.”
The awkwardness of his explanation was so uncharacteristic that Joey almost stopped; Bertrande tugged her back into motion with the breath of a laugh.
“Oh.” Joey tried to imagine this tough old woman standing guard over her with a pitchfork or something, guarding her virtue. The image was so hilarious that Joey lost her bad temper all at once. She smiled at Luke with honest amusement. “I see.”
Abruptly the old woman let go her hand and came to a stop so quickly that Joey collided with her. She was surprisingly solid. She turned her penetrating, amused stare to Luke and back, lightning quick, to Joey. “I was right, wasn’t I, boy? After all this time C’est bien elle…”
Luke froze into utter rigidity where he stood, every muscle taut and poised for violent action. The words he spoke then were so rapid and harsh that Joey lost the thread of them almost immediately, the mere tone of his voice and the ferocious light in his eyes would have shaken most people to the core, but Bertrande merely regarded her grandson with cool dispassion until the last of his angry tirade had run its course.
Then, as if nothing at all had happened, she grabbed Joey’s hand again, grinned broadly, and nodded. While Joey looked helplessly back over her shoulder at Luke, who was shaking with barely controlled rage, his grandmother towed her firmly across the village clearing. Joey felt as if she were being swept away by some primal force of nature she had no hope of stopping. The expression on Luke’s face as he stood staring after them told her that he was, in that moment, just as lost as she was.
Luke had been right about one thing, his grandmother made every effort to make Joey feel welcome. The small wood-frame house Bertrande brought her to was not unduly primitive, though it was heated by an old-fashioned cooking stove and lighted by candles. There were only two rooms, one of which contained both kitchen and living area, the attached sleeping room had two small beds, the frames beautifully carved and painted with forest animals.
It was only after Joey had had ample time to rest, to bathe with water heated on the stove and relax with a steaming mug of broth, that Luke came for her. Bertrande had already insisted, with gestures and a few words in French and accented English, that Joey should remove her soiled clothing; she was given a pair of over-large but warm wool pants, long johns, and a bulky knitted sweater to replace them. The warm clothing wasn’t fashionable, but it made Joey feel almost like one of the villagers, and that seemed important.
Luke arrived at the door, and it was only then that it came to Joey with a shock how strange it had been to be away from him. She hadn’t noticed the lack until it was filled by his presence, as his big, lithe frame filled the doorway. Now for a long moment their eyes met and held, Joey felt her pulse rising to a crescendo that surely he would hear.