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But that was all it took for him to feel a potent kick in the gut.
He didn’t get it. A pale purple sweater cupped her small boobs. Dark pants fit snug enough to clarify that she had skinny legs and no ass. Since he’d always tended to like more breasts and less bone, there was nothing below her neck that should have rattled his hormones. Yet his pulse was kabooming like a freight train.
Heightwise, she came up to his chin. And that was where she stopped being ordinary. The eyes were mesmerizing, almond shaped, tea-brown, looking right at him. The details included a small, thin nose; pink mouth; and a sweep of almost-shoulder-length brown hair. Only brown wasn’t an accurate description of the color. The sixty-five-degree morning was drenched in sunshine, and that’s how her hair looked—lustrous, full of light, shiny in the sun.
Okay, so she was adorable. But that alone didn’t explain the kaboom thing. There were fabulous-looking women all over Paris.
There was something else about her, something he couldn’t define. A zest. A glow. A female thing. Will didn’t need to identify it to know it was a serious problem.
Ever since he’d devoted himself to a life of decadence and vice—that’d be the last four years—he’d fine-tuned his sonar to beware of women who meant trouble.
She meant trouble.
On the other hand, all she’d asked him to do was translate for her for a couple of minutes. How could that possibly be any kind of risk?
“Sure,” he said. And immediately discovered that helping her wasn’t going to be quite that simple.
The gendarme shot him a look as if a savior of the universe had just shown up. The bystanders kneed in closer, all hot to participate. Everybody claimed to have seen the thief close-up. One said he was tall and burly. One said he was lean as a stick. One said he had a beard, like a homeless person, and another said he’d just been a guy walking down the street who suddenly sprang into this deviant behavior, far too fast for anyone to stop him or come to the girl’s aid.
Still, for all the confusion, it didn’t take forever to get the basic questions asked and answered. Her name was Kelly Rochard. She was twenty-seven. From South Bend, Indiana. Here for ten days. Vacation.
Something flickered in her eyes when she said “vacation,” but Will just dutifully translated—it wasn’t any of his business whether she was telling the truth or not.
“So the thief took off with your purse,” he said. “Can you give the cop a list of the critical stuff in the bag?”
Hell, she said, her whole world was in the damned bag. Passport, money, credit cards. Oh yeah, and then she got around to mentioning that the thief had also taken off with her engagement ring.
“What?” she said, when Will and the gendarme exchanged a quick look.
Will didn’t answer. It was obvious that the cop had immediately thought the same thing he did. What sense did it make for a beautiful woman to be traveling to Paris alone in the spring? Her so-called fiancé was either a jerk or an idiot. Probably both.
“…and there were some private papers in the bag, too. That’s the worst. That those records are probably gone forever. I have no way to replace them, no way to…”
“Hey,” Will said gruffly. Tears suddenly magnified her eyes, making them look extra huge and exotic. “Take it easy there. It’ll all get straightened out.”
Well, it wouldn’t, of course. Losing a passport in a foreign country was a guaranteed nightmare. Times fifty.
The cop heard about the “private papers,” but he was tuned to the same practical channel that Will was. It didn’t really matter what Kelly had lost, because the mugger was long gone. She’d still need a police report, which was a pain for the gendarme to fill out when there was about zero chance in a zillion they’d ever find the guy. But he’d get her one so she could pursue a replacement passport.
That wasn’t going to happen overnight.
“Je sais,” Will said drily. He knew. American bureaucracies and French bureaucracies—even if the French didn’t like to think so—were kin. Ghastly. Time-consuming, inefficient, frustrating, etc., etc.
The cop had some questions for him to translate… Did Kelly have enough funds to survive, someone who could wire her money, a way to live until the paperwork got sorted out, what was the address where she was staying. All that yadda yadda.
“You’re from South Bend, too?” She motioned to his sweatshirt.
“Yeah.” Like it mattered? He suffered a gulp when he heard the address for her hotel. She was damned lucky she hadn’t been ripped off there, too.
“Oh my God. The key to my room was in my purse, too. I can’t even get into my room.” She’d been doing okay, or reasonably okay. But now the more she realized how much she’d lost, the more panicked she got. “I don’t have anything. I don’t even have money to buy lunch. Or dinner. Or enough to buy another hairbrush. Or lipstick. Or even to wire home. I don’t even have my coat—”
The more panicked she got, the faster the gendarme talked. “What does she think we can do? We can’t even get a clear description of the perpetrator. You know these Americans, now she’ll be saying nothing’s safe in France. I’ll file a report, of course, but God—” he crossed himself “—couldn’t get her a replacement passport this instant. Where was her common sense, to have all her money in one place? And a bag she was carrying on her besides?”
Kelly was on a completely different track. “I carried those letters on me all the time,” she said mournfully. “They’re all I ever had of my dad. I don’t care about the rest….”
Will fished in his pocket for a tissue. Came through. But after she blew her nose, she looked at him expectantly.
As if there was some insane kind of magic between them, he found himself looking back. At those eyes. That mouth. That glow of hers.
He told himself firmly to look away.
He told himself that the gendarme would transport her to the embassy or consulate or wherever she needed to go, and the rest of her mess wasn’t his problem. She’d be okay. That’s what embassies and consulates and cops were for, taking care of people. It wasn’t his problem. She couldn’t possibly, remotely, be his problem.
He told himself that his sisters had irrevocably taught him to steer clear of damsels in distress. At the same time he was analyzing her looks again. Her hair was this glossy mass of loose dark waves, not a style exactly. It just looked all soft and silky. Naturally sexy.
“Monsieur?” The gendarme growled at him impatiently, as if he’d asked him a question a few moments ago and Will had failed to pay attention.
Which was possible.
Possibly she’d been talking, and he hadn’t been listening to her, either.
And then he made his third mistake of the day—this one far worse than stopping to help, far worse than failing to pay attention.
“She can’t very well just stand here in the street,” he told the gendarme. “I’ll take her.”
The instant those three words came out of his mouth, Will realized that he’d completely lost his mind. “I mean for a little while. I’ll go feed her. Lunch. But you have to promise to get the police report done pronto, so she can go to the consulate for her passport.”
“Bien, bien,” the gendarme said. He probably would have promised anything now that he was off the hook.
He disappeared faster than lightning. Ditto for the bystanders.
And Will was left alone with her.
CHAPTER TWO
“I’M ENGAGED. I told you that, didn’t I?” Kelly asked him.
“Yup. About three times in the last half hour.”
Now, that couldn’t have been true, because Kelly knew she hadn’t been nervous a half hour ago. It was only now, as they turned down his street and were aiming directly for his place, that her nerves started suffering major hiccups.
Earlier, it seemed like a superb idea to leave the scene of the crime with a nice, tall, big, tall, strong, tall, protective guy. Especially when the guy was a fellow American. Her judgment had nothing to do with his being cute. Or sexy. It was only about her feeling terrified out of her mind from her mugger experience.
Only now, approaching his front door, her judgment didn’t seem to be quite the same. It was a cool front door. Old, old oak. Shaped with an arch. The handle was a weathered brass lion. Like Will. Not the weathered and brass part, but the tawny lion part. “I have to admit, it feels a little weird, being here,” she said with a laugh. “For one thing, it’s just crazy for you to feel stuck with me, someone you don’t know from Adam.”
“Kelly. You’re not worried this is a pickup, are you? The only reason I suggested coming here was because it was nearby. It was the fastest we could get you to a place where you could put your feet up, have a cup of coffee in one hand and a phone in the other. It’s not like there isn’t another way to handle this, but you’ve got a bunch of calls to make, no easy way to do it on the street.”
“And you’re from South Bend besides.”
“And I’m from South Bend besides.”
“Which practically makes you like family.”
He stuck a key in the lock and pushed open the door so she could enter first. She did, grazing his arm as she walked past him, thinking that Will would feel like “family” when it rained cats.
She knew perfectly well she’d been blathering on like a goose. Another time she’d feel embarrassed or guilty, but the truth was, she’d started shaking about fifteen minutes ago and hadn’t stopped yet. It wasn’t every day a woman got mugged. She kept remembering the creep’s stinky breath and body odor, the feel of his arm choking her neck, and that started the shakes all over again.
They were just little shakes. Not big ones. It wasn’t that she was a wimp or anything. At least she never had been before this, and Kelly kept telling herself she was mighty grateful that Will had offered to help her. Being suddenly penniless and without ID in a foreign country would have been pretty darn daunting if she’d been alone.
Yet she only caught a single glance at the inside of his apartment before some silly instinct made her whirl around and back out again—or try to back out. Will was still standing in the doorway, blocking her escape. Her nose was suddenly an inch from his chin. She was only a breath’s distance from those killer blue eyes. And those shoulders. And those disreputable blond whiskers.
“I’m engaged. Did I mention that?”
“Yeah, you did. What’s wrong now?”
“Nothing. Nothing. You’ve really got an interesting place.” But interesting wasn’t the word for it. One look, and she labeled it bachelor lair. The whole place shouted single guy on the prowl.
His flat took up the second floor of an old building. She could only see so much from the narrow hallway, but there seemed to be a bunch of rooms, all small. The main living area, off to the right, had long, thin windows; old, rich woodwork; carved tin ceilings. He’d left the French doors open a crack, leading to a step-out balcony. The sunlight and erotic, exotic breeze drifted through the open door.
Well, possibly it was just a plain old spring breeze, and possibly her mind had totally invented the erotic, exotic thing, but Kelly didn’t think so. Reality was that sex appeal poured off Will in sheets.
She tried to concentrate on being nosy, which should have been natural for her. The living room was tiny, with a soot-stained corner fireplace and an elegant tiled hearth. The couch was old leather, all wrinkled and soft. The Persian rug looked seriously ancient, thick and fringed, in reds and dark blues. One wall had built-in shelves, with books heaped to the ceiling.
The dust wasn’t more than half an inch thick, and Will swooped a shirt off a chair. “Look around, make yourself at home, okay? The bathroom’s off to the left. I need to call work, and I’ll start some coffee. Then we’ll concentrate on what you need to do from here.”
He squeezed her shoulder as he ambled past—an erotic, exotic squeeze, totally inappropriate for an engaged woman.
Or more likely it was her response to him that was inappropriate. Splashing her face with cold water right then seemed a great idea, so she took off for the bathroom.
Naturally, she nosed around. The toilet had an antique pull chain from the ceiling—interesting, once she was sure she could make it work. The white pedestal sink and tub were the old-fashioned kind with feet. He used a straight razor, she noted. Didn’t have much in the medicine cabinet but deodorant and first-aid stuff and one medicine. She thought it was for colds, nonprescription and more than two years old; he should have thrown it out. It was outdated.
Her conscience chided her for being so shameful, but really, nosing around was better than musing that the tub was big enough for orgies. Not that she’d ever participated in an orgy. Or spent a lot of time thinking about them. Or planned to take up thinking about them.
Impatiently she splashed her face with cool water, then grabbed a navy-blue towel to dry off. The towel was almost the size of a bedsheet. A thick blue rug covered most of the marble floor. No question that Will liked the color blue and his creature comforts.
She opened the door, which gave her away with a telltale creak.
Will immediately called out, “Across the hall and one door down. I’m in the kitchen.”
So…it wasn’t her fault she got to see more of the apartment en route. To the left, an archway led to an alcove. Impossible to guess what the odd-sized space was for, but Will had squished in a small desk, lamp, chair, laptop, so it worked as a miniden. Still, it wasn’t ordinary. The walls had some kind of linen-like finish; the carved ceiling looked hand done. Everywhere, the creaky floors were covered with old Oriental rugs. Nothing seemed new. Everything about the architecture seemed older than a few centuries, practically older than America. Will’s love for blues and comfortable textures followed through everywhere. And he might not be into dusting, but he was basically a put-away tidy kind of guy.
“What? Did you get lost?” He stepped out of the kitchen.
“No. I’m just dawdling around. No amount of guilt ever seems to stop me from being nosy. And I love your place—it’s really interesting.” Looking around had also given her a chance to catch her breath. Maybe she didn’t have a full-bore grip yet, but the adrenaline had finally quit pumping. “Will…thank you for helping me. Really, thank you.”
“Yeah, well, I stumbled around plenty when I first moved to Paris. Might have gotten into real trouble if a few people hadn’t offered a hand. Anyway…” He turned away, started pouring steaming water into pottery mugs. “Did he hurt you?”
She blinked. His tone was so casual that she almost missed it, but then Will wasn’t an in-your-face kind of caretaker. Instead he was subtle, found a way to slip in a disturbing question and get it out of the way. Most strangers wouldn’t have cared, much less made the effort to steer into a potentially awkward problem.
She thought that just maybe her attraction to him was more than ordinary old sex appeal. Damned if he wasn’t coming through like a seriously good guy.
And then she tried to answer the question. “I’m bound to have a few bruises show up tomorrow, maybe even a nasty one on my neck. But I don’t need a doctor. Nothing serious.” Yet suddenly she needed to snug her arms tight under her chest. “I have to admit, though, that I keep feeling…weird. I was never mugged before, never had anyone touch me with the intent to hurt me. I can’t seem to shake it off. There’s just a high…ick…factor.”
“Sit. I was going to make coffee, then figured that was stupid. You need caffeine like a hole in the head. So it’s tea. French-style. With a bunch of sugar. Sugar for shock, right?”
“Actually, I never need an excuse to use sugar, but that’ll do.”
The kitchen was mostly copper and blue, with white trim. There was no dishwasher, and no place for one, she noticed with shock. The sink was messy, but cleaned fairly recently, and the counter just looked typical of a guy, dishes reproducing since the night before. Her scrutiny kept picking up details. A small fridge, a couple bottles of unopened wine, the luxuriously sexy smell of fresh bread, a heap of fresh fruit in a bowl. The eating table only had room for two chairs, was hardly big enough to put plates on, but it overlooked the boulevard below, the whole view of thick, old trees, the steady snake of cars and street traffic. Sunlight ribboned through fresh green leaves.
“Ever since I got here,” she murmured, “I keep seeing the same things I could see at home. Cars. People. Buildings. Spring flowers and smells. But somehow it’s incredibly different.”
“It’s Paris,” he said, as if that explained everything.
And maybe it did. Heaven knows her response to Will was unlike her response to any other stranger. She couldn’t seem to pin down a reason. Maybe being mugged had just thrown her normal reactions off-kilter. Maybe shock and fear just made her senses more acute, inflamed her emotions.
And maybe burning her tongue on the hot tea would distract her from these idiotic thoughts about him.
“Better,” she pronounced, after she gulped down three long sips of the strong brew.
He leaned against the counter. “Okay, I figure we’d better organize a plan of attack here. Obviously the first priority is getting you a new passport. Somewhere, do you have your original passport number, and other ID like a birth certificate or driver’s license?”
“Well, I did have. But that stuff was all in my purse.”
“Okay. But did you leave that kind of information with someone back home? Like a copy of your passport?”
She nodded. “I left some obvious information in an envelope with my mom—the address where I’d be staying, copies of credit cards, a copy of my birth certificate. I’ve never traveled outside the country before. It didn’t occur to me that I’d need to do more than that.”
“Normally, you wouldn’t. So the first thing you want to do is call your mom, get her to fax that information here. By then we should have the police report. That’s the stuff we need to take to the consulate, get the process going to get you an immediate temporary passport.”
She frowned. “Temporary?”
“Well, if you want a regular passport, it’ll take a while. The bureaucracy here is no faster than it is in the United States. But you can fly home right away with a temporary, no waiting or hassle.”
“And that would be great,” she said slowly, “but I don’t want to go home immediately. Will, it wasn’t my fault this happened. And I didn’t come here on a whim. I’ve waited a long time for a chance to make this trip.”
“Okay…well…” For a long moment, he studied her, as if suddenly realizing she hadn’t come here to Paris just to do the tourist thing. “The way you’d attack a new permanent passport takes basically the same steps. Get the ID records, then the police report, then go to the consulate. If I remember right, a regular replacement passport’ll cost you around eighty-five, ninety bucks. But I’d be amazed if the paperwork went through for that in less than two weeks, and it could take longer.”
“But as long as I could get money wired here, replacement credit cards and all that, there’s no reason I couldn’t stay?”
“I’m no expert, Kelly, but my understanding is that, yes, you’d be fine as long as you stayed in France. It’d probably be pretty dicey to leave the country without an active passport in your hand.”
“That’s okay. This is the only place I wanted to come to.” When she swallowed the last sip of tea, she realized that the adrenaline had quit pumping; the shakes had disappeared. Talking to Will, being with Will, she’d forgotten the mugger. Yet, when she met his eyes, her heart rate still seemed determined to heat to an edgy simmer. “You know a lot about this,” she said.
“Not a lot. But I lost a passport once. And I’ve been living in Paris for the last four years, so naturally I’ve learned a few survival tricks.” He shot her to Will a wry grin. “You can take it to the bank—from replacing credit cards to getting money wired to getting the cop report and the application, you’re going to learn a whole bunch of French swearwords over the next couple days.”
She chuckled, but she thought it was about time to stop gazing into those sexy blue eyes and move her butt. For Pete’s sake, right now she didn’t have a brush or deodorant or even the means to buy herself lunch.
Will had been a hero, but he certainly owed her nothing. He’d already gone the long mile to help her out. “Okay,” she said brightly. “If you’d just let me use your phone…”
