Page 60 of Dagger’s Shield

I found the perfect thing at a shop on the edge of the old town. The storefront was narrow, and inside, a workbench sat behind a counter that looked as old as France.

I’d known what I wanted to get for Maëlle since the afternoon when Chantal told me about a thirteen-year-old girl who’d carried a pruning knife into the vines. It was a knife made for a man’s hands, she’d said.

Inside, the maker showed me what he had. I held up my own hand and measured hers against it from memory, and he asked if the piece was for my wife.

“My fiancée,” I responded. The word came out so easily it stunned me. When had it stopped feeling like a lie?

He promised it for tomorrow morning.

Maëlle was waiting at the fountain, with a wrapped bottle. She didn’t say what it was, and I didn’t ask. When she looked at my empty hands, I shrugged. If she could have secrets, so could I.

The others arrived later that afternoon.

“We’ll go in pairs,” Chantal announced. “One hour.” She held up a piece of paper. “I have distributed lists with who each team should buy gifts for.”

Before we split up, Bertrand bought chestnuts in paper cones for everyone and made a show of handing them out.

“Maëlle never once waited for them to cool. One day, Rourke, you will hand these to my grandchildren, and they will not wait either.”

Bertrand walked off to charm a group of women shoppers, leaving me thunderstruck.

When he’d said the word “grandchildren,” a picture formed in my head. I envisioned Maëlle at this market, with our child asleep against her shoulder and her belly round with the next one.

I’d never wanted children. I’d never let myself want anything or anyone I couldn’t walk away from. Now, I wanted all of it, and I wanted it with her.

The engagement was a cover. What I’d imagined wasn’t.

A few minutes later, Maëlle went off through the stalls with Marthe, and Chantal wrapped her arm through mine.

While we wandered, I scanned the market for mon feu. More than anything, I wanted to be sure she was having fun. “You’re not looking at the merchandise, Monsieur Rourke. You’re looking for my daughter.”

“Guilty.”

“Bien. Then, I’ve chosen the right partner.”

After we finished purchasing presents for those on our list, we met up for vin chaud that we drank out of souvenir holiday mugs.

Rémy appeared at my shoulder, carrying bags that held his gift purchases.

“Two pieces of advice for tomorrow,” he said. “Praise the escargots before anyone asks, and never refuse a course. Marthe remembers a refusal longer than the church remembers a sin.”

“Noted. Anything else?”

“Oui.” He glanced over at Maëlle and her mother, who were head-to-head, laughing. When he spoke again, the teasing was gone from his voice. “It’s good to see her like this. Her sense of humor had waned in the last years before she left. You’re good for her, Rourke. It matters to me that someone finally is.”

“She’s good for me too,” I said, meaning it.

He tapped his mug against mine. “Joyeux Noël.”

No Christmas had felt like this one since before my parents died. Most years, I was on a mission, pretending to be someone I wasn’t, with no one to buy gifts for. Technically, I was pretending to be someone else now too.

However, watching Maëlle with her mother and Marthe, telling stories I couldn’t understand but knew enough about just by the happy looks on their faces, all I could think was how I never wanted this particular mission to end.

It was nearly dark when Chantal took my arm again on the way to the cars.

“Thank you for today,” she said.

“It was Maëlle’s doing.”