Max touched the dishcloth cautiously. “Nothing to worry about. Gardening accident.”

“Last night you were gardening?”

“I know. Silly of me. Mistake to do it in the dark.”

“Don’t move.” Madame Passepartout plucked her cell phone from the pocket of her trousers, today a luminous jungle green. “I will call Raoul.”

“Raoul?”

“Of course Raoul. He has the ambulance.”

Max began to shake his head and regretted it. “Please. I’ll be fine.” He turned to Christie and changed languages. “I’m going to let the doctor in the village take a look at it.”

Christie insisted on driving him, and they left Madame Passepartout on the doorstep, clucking with concern and muttering about concussion and that redoubtable French panacea, the antibiotic.

Half an hour and a tetanus shot later, the bloodstained dishcloth replaced by a more conventional dressing, Max came out of the doctor’s office clutching a sheaf of prescriptions to find Christie in the waiting room. “Don’t ever get sick in France,” he said. “The paperwork’s enough to put you in bed for a week.”

She looked at him and couldn’t help grinning. “I guess the doctor didn’t have a white bandage. Or did you ask for pink?”

They walked down the street to the café, arriving just as Roussel was leaving after a restorative early-morning beer. As they shook hands, he peered at Max’s head. “Eh alors?But what…”

“Gardening accident,” said Max. He cut short the inevitable questions by introducing Christie to Roussel, who removed his cap with a flourish and bobbed his head. “Enchanted, mademoiselle. So you are staying with Monsieur Max? Then I hope you will be coming with him to dinner tonight. My wife has made a civet of wild boar.” He kissed the tips of his fingers. “With Châteauneuf-du-Pape, and blood pressed from the carcass, in the correct fashion.” Seeing the blank look on Christie’s face, Roussel turned to Max and shrugged.

“Mademoiselle doesn’t speak French,” said Max, “but I know she’d love to come. She likes blood.” With an uncertain smile and a sideways look at Christie, Roussel stumped off, leaving them to their coffee and croissants.

Christie wiped a flake of pastry from her mouth and cradled her cup in both hands, breathing in that wonderful morning smell of coffee and hot milk. “Max, can I ask you a question? What are you saying when they ask what happened to your head? I mean, are you telling them…”

“Gardening accident. I thought it would cut a long story short.”

She leaned over to touch his arm. “Thanks. That’s nice of you.”

It was amazing, Max thought, how a little bloodshed had cleared the air between them. “I hope you don’t mind,” he said, “but Roussel asked us over for dinner tonight, and I accepted. Quite unusual, actually. The French don’t normally invite foreigners into their homes until they’ve known them for at least ten years. It’ll be an experience. Not like dinner in California.”

Christie didn’t answer, her eyes looking past Max at a figure making a beeline for their table. “Better get your gardening story ready. Here comes another one.”

Max looked around to see Nathalie Auzet, sleek in her suit and heels, wearing an amused expression. “I’ve just seen Roussel,” she said. “He told me you’d had a fight with a tree.” She kissed Max lightly on each cheek, and looked at him over the top of her sunglasses. “The pink suits you. Nothing too serious, I hope?”

“I’m fine, but the tree’s in pretty bad shape. Nathalie, I’d like you to meet a friend, Christie Roberts. She’s over from California.”

Nathalie removed the sunglasses to get a better view of Christie before taking her hand. “I might have guessed. Just like the photographs one sees of California girls. They always look so innocent.” Still holding Christie’s hand, she turned to Max. “Très jolie.”

Max nodded. Christie coughed. Nathalie let go of her hand.

“Now Max, I have some news for you.” Nathalie had put on her sunglasses and a businesslike expression. “I have engaged an oenologue-one of the best-to come and take a look at your vines. I’m waiting for him to call and confirm, but he’s hoping to come down from Bordeaux tomorrow. We were lucky to get him; he’s almost never in France.”

Max made suitably grateful noises as Nathalie continued. “I have to go to Marseille tomorrow, but that doesn’t matter. Maybe we could have lunch when I get back, and you can tell me all about it.” She turned to smile at Christie. “If you brought your little friend, I could practice my English on her.” She gave them a playful wave of her fingers. “Bye-bye.” And with that, she swayed up the street, heels clicking on the pavement.

Christie blew out a gust of air and shook her head. “Frenchwomen. They’re always hitting on somebody.”

“Flirting,” said Max. “It’s an old French habit, like dangerous driving.”

“But with me? I had to fight to get my hand back.”

“What do you mean?”

“What do you think?”

“Funny. It never occurred to me.” Max was thoughtful as he watched Nathalie turn off the square and head up toward her office.

That afternoon, Max took Christie on a tour of the land around the house. The explosion of the previous evening had made them more relaxed in one another’s company, the bickering forgotten as they made their way through the vines, planning a route for the oenologue’s visit. A vineyard was familiar territory for Christie-a wine brat, as she called herself-and she looked at the vines with an informed eye, noting the absence of weeds and mildew, comparing the pruning and tying with the way these things were done in California. It was much the same on the whole, although, as she said to Max, there was more of a manicured finish to the Napa vines, often with a rosebush at the end of each row.

“I’ve seen photographs of that in Burgundy and Bordeaux,” said Max, “but down here they don’t seem to go in for decoration. I suppose they feel you can’t drink rosebuds, so why bother?”

“Actually, it’s not for decoration. It’s more like the canary in the coal mine, a kind of danger signal,” said Christie. “If there’s any disease about, the rose will usually get it before the vines. So you have time to treat them before it’s too late. Neat idea, even if the French did think of it first.” She cocked her head and looked at Max. “On the other hand, there wouldn’t be any vines in France if it hadn’t been for America.”

“It was that beetle, wasn’t it?”

Christie nodded. “Phylloxera. Back in the 1860s, it killed almost every vine in France. Then they found that some American vine species were resistant to the bug, so they brought over millions of rootstocks and grafted the European vines onto them. There you go-the basic history of modern wine in thirty seconds.”

“That’s what you tell them back at the winery, is it? But I seem to remember that the beetle came over from America in the first place.”

Christie grinned. “We don’t go into that.”

They climbed over the wall and into a stony field at the edge of the property. Max kicked at the pebbles to see if there was anything underneath that resembled earth. “Not much to look at, is it? I’m amazed anything can grow here.”

But Christie didn’t answer. She had pushed her sunglasses back into her hair, and had squatted down between the rows of vines. Looking up at Max, she held out a tiny, wilted bunch of embryonic grapes, none of them much bigger than the head of a match. “Take a look at this.”

He took the bunch from her and weighed it in the palm of his hand.

“Notice anything?” asked Christie. She didn’t wait for him to answer. “It hasn’t fallen off. It’s been clipped off. See the diagonal cut on the stem? That’s a cut made by secateurs. And look-there are bunches all the way along this row.” She stood up and peered over the vines. “Same there, as well. I’ll bet it’s the same through this whole patch.”