“A bit. Probably not as much as you.”
She opened her bag on the bench between them and handed him an odd-looking old camera. “It’s an Exakta from the 1930s. And it had film in it.”
Finn melted a little in that moment. The thing he found most sexy about any woman was passion—not just in the usual sense. That went without saying. But passion that lit her from within, when something fired her up. For Camille Adams, it was her excitement over old cameras and film. It transformed her, made her eyes sparkle and her whole being light up. She was already attractive. But when talking about her craft, she was . . . something more.
“. . . eight pictures,” she concluded.
He realized he’d been staring, and forced himself to listen.
“My father says they’re pictures of Bellerive, the town where he was born, and a farm called Sauveterre, where he grew up. He says the beach is in an area called the Calanques, but he doesn’t recognize this couple.” The coastline was starkly beautiful, flanked by towering cliffs, with soft-looking pale sand in the middle. There was a wicker basket and what appeared to be a makeshift stretcher that had been dragged to the surf. A man and woman were in the water facing each other, holding hands and smiling. “My guess is, one of them couldn’t walk and was brought into the water on the stretcher,” she said. “What I find striking is the quality of these pictures. This is a really good camera, but the shots are very professional. We thought they might have been taken by someone named Cyprian Toselli.” She indicated the initials pressed into the camera case. “There were some books with his name in them. But when I saw the final picture, it made me think someone else took these shots.”
She opened another image on her tablet. It was a beautifully composed shot of a very young, pregnant woman in an old-fashioned mirror. An oval window echoed the shape of the cheval glass, the curve of her belly, and the curve of her cheekbone. The play of light and shadow added drama and mystery to the scene. “This is the final one on the roll—and the most fascinating one to me. It’s a self-portrait of my father’s mother. I was so surprised and moved to see it. I think it means the pictures were taken by the grandmother I never knew. It makes me feel . . . a deeper connection, I suppose.”
“She’s . . . Wow. She looks like you. A blond version of you.”
“Well, that’s flattering, since she’s twenty years old in this picture. And very beautiful.”
“Like I said. She looks like you. Or you look like her.”
“Her name was Lisette Galli Palomar,” Camille said. “I think she looks sad in the picture. Haunted.”
She had the same delicate cheekbones, full lips, and fine skin as Camille. The eyes . . . yes, he thought. He could see a sadness there. “Do you know why?”
“The war had recently ended. She was a widow by then. And she died in childbirth shortly after taking this picture. Other than that, I know nothing about her. And neither does my father. But I know from experience that being widowed . . . yes, it haunts you.”
He looked up from the picture into Camille’s face. Studying the self-portrait of her grandmother, she seemed haunted, too.
She tapped the screen to enlarge the other images. “I’d like to understand what I’m seeing in these shots. I thought, with your knowledge of France during the war, you could help me figure out the context.”
“I’m glad you got in touch.” This, in fact, was his passion—uncovering the mysteries of the past. He studied the set again. “See this stone hut? It’s called a capitelle or a borie, common in the area, usually in far-lying fields. They’re used for shelter, like a shepherd’s hut, or to store tools. This next one—the hut’s been destroyed.” He studied the poignant image—scattered rocks and debris around a ruined foundation with a pit in the middle. “That might have been caused by a bomb strike.”
“I wonder why she took that picture. It’s a nice composition, with the scrubby trees and some kind of stream in the background.”
“Yes. And . . .” A detail of another picture caught his attention. “Hello.”
“What?”
He zoomed in on a pile of rubble. “See this bridge?”
“It’s been ruined, too. In the war?”
“Probably. I’m going to have to check my facts, but I’m pretty sure there was an Allied operation here in 1944.”
“It was in Lisette’s village? In Bellerive?”
“Like I said, I’d have to check.” He summoned a map image on his phone. “The town was close to the DZ—the drop zone—of an Allied invasion called Operation Dragoon, when the area was liberated from the Germans. It was a major airborne operation, but most people have never heard of it, because it was overshadowed by D-Day, which took place a couple of months before. These pictures are quite a find.”
A gentle smile played across her lips. “Some days I love my job.”
The waiter came by with the dessert menu, but Camille declined, settling for another glass of sweet tea instead. She showed him a prayer card and a cloth badge. “These were in the trunk along with the camera. Any clue?”
“This is the Sallman Head of Christ,” he said, recognizing the image on the card. “The USO printed millions of them to distribute to soldiers during the war.”
“I wonder how it ended up with my French grandmother’s things.”
“This badge might explain it,” he told her. “The torch with wings—it could have been sewn on a pathfinder’s jump jacket—the jacket of an American paratrooper.”
“You mean a guy who jumped out of an airplane? That would be incredible. An American?”
“Yep.” Something occurred to him. He touched the screen and scrolled to the self-portrait of the young woman. “Look at this pin on the shoulder of her dress.”
“I thought it was a brooch or something.”
“Look closer.” He zoomed in on the object.
“It’s the pathfinder badge.” She leaned back in her chair, her gaze moving from the badge to the picture of her grandmother.
“I think I’m in the middle of a family mystery.”
“You are. It’s cool, Camille.”
“I wish you didn’t have to go.” She pressed her fingers to her mouth. “I mean—”
“Me neither.” A pure, ungovernable impulse took over. He leaned over and gently cupped her cheek in his hand. Soft. Her skin was so silky, and her hair smelled like flowers. She didn’t move or pull away, merely regarded him calmly. Then her gaze shifted from his eyes to his mouth, and he kissed her gently, his lips lightly touching hers, tasting. Her mouth was warm and soft. Delicious with the flavor of sweet tea. Still she didn’t move, but her slight inhalation signaled surprise, and maybe, if he was reading her right, a small pleasure.
“After that,” he whispered against her lips, “I don’t need dessert.”
“Listen,” she whispered back, “it would be a bad idea to start something.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because you’re leaving. And I’m . . .”
“Delicious,” he said. “That’s what you are.”
“Knock it off.” She shifted on the bench, moving away from him. “I’ve told you I’m not interested in dating.”
The kiss had been light and fleeting, but at the same time, dangerously intimate. This was a bad idea, Finn told himself. He had no business getting tangled up with this woman. On went the armor around his heart, and he reverted to his default self. “Then we could just make out. I’ll change my ticket and stick around for a while.”
She gazed at him softly. Touched the tip of her tongue to her upper lip—just briefly. Just enough to mesmerize him. “You know,” she said in a low, sexy voice, “I’ve been wondering about you, too, the way you did about me. I was wondering why you’re single.”
Aha. He was going to have her eating out of the palm of his hand any moment. “Yeah?”
She smiled. Moist lips, bedroom eyes. “I figured it out, though.”