“That’s exactly the thing about July. The roof was supposed to be done by now. It’s just a little cottage. How long can it take to put a roof on one little cottage? And Bartholomew promised me it’d only take a maximum of two weeks, and he started it way back near the first of June. Only, I’ve never worked with roofers before.”

“And this is relevant, why?”

“Because I had no idea how it was with them. Today he didn’t come because there’s a threat of rain.” She motioned outside to the cloudless sky. “He doesn’t come on Fridays because Friday apparently isn’t a workday. And then there’s fishing. If the fishing’s good, he takes off early. You see what I mean?”

What he saw was that Violet Campbell was a sexy, sensual, unfathomable woman with gorgeous eyes and silky blond hair and boobs that he’d really, really like to get to know. The only problem seemed to be the content under her hair. There was a slim possibility she could fill out an application at a nut house, and no one would be certain whether she wanted employment or an inmate’s room.

“I don’t suppose there’s any chance you’d like to talk about the lavender crop.” But by then, he should have realized that Violet couldn’t be tricked, coaxed or bribed into staying on topic.

“We are. Basically. I mean, the issue is that when-if-you came, I assumed you could stay at the cottage. It’s nice. It’s private. It’s comfortable. But it’s quite a disaster right now because they had to take off the old roof to put on the new one. So there’s dust and nails everywhere. And tar. That tar is really hot and stinky. So the place simply isn’t livable. It will be- In fact, I can’t believe it’ll take him more than another week to finish it-”

“Depending on his fishing schedule, of course.”

“Yes. Exactly.”

“Well, I’m hearing you, chère. But it’d be a wee bit tricky for me to fly all the way back to France, just to wait out Bartholomew’s fishing schedule. And although I understand your strain of lavender runs late, I absolutely have to be here for the first of the harvest.”