Blame It On Paris

perte ou de vol-proof she'd been through a theft-she had to get two separate sets of receipts. One was for the passport papers, and one for any other type of stolen valuables. Everywhere there were lines.

Because Will knew the system, he figured he'd stay cool, but by noon he was coming apart at the seams, like Kelly was. The solution was obvious. Get the hell out of Dodge. By midday Saturday, there was no real chance of getting business done anyway, so there was no reason not to aim for some fun.

He picked Ile de la Cite first. The island, located in the middle of the Seine, was sardine packed with history and monuments, a guaranteed attraction for tourists. Hell, even the locals loved it. So did he.

It seemed the ideal place to get her out in the fresh air, removed from everything to do with the trauma of the mugger-and whatever else was haunting those wet-velvet brown eyes.

That was the theory.

The reality turned into something else. Getting her out in the fresh air pepped her up just fine. Only then she opened her mouth and never shut it again.

'I'm sick of thinking about me, talking about me. God knows, it's your turn. What's your job, Will? Why'd you end up in Paris? You're not planning on living here forever, are you?'

That nasty line of conversation started when they were in sight of the Notre Dame Cathedral. He'd figured it was the one place guaranteed to brighten up her mood…and it did. Only after thirty seconds of awed, respectful silence, she turned her attention right back to him, waiting for a barrage of answers to her endless questions.

He could only duck so far. 'Fromage,' he said finally.

'Fromage?' From the depths of her schoolgirl French, she suddenly remembered the word. 'Cheese? Your job here is about cheese? Are you kidding?'

He sighed. 'It's hard to explain.'

'Why? What's hard to explain about cheese?'

The drizzling rain had stopped. A watery sun poked through the tufty clouds. Tourists, as always, were out in droves. It was spring, after all. Paris.

And Ile de la Cite had more old stone and romantic history than anyplace in the universe. She should have been entranced. They should not have been talking about cheese.

'I came here originally to…well, to loll around. Play. Live my life. The idea was to take any job I could find that would support me, but otherwise, I wasn't looking for career work. There's no way I'll ever be driven the way my father is. I'm not about to be chained to an office or living just for money.'

She stopped dead, as if a lightbulb suddenly dawned in those far-too-smart brown eyes. 'Oh my God, oh my God. Will…I know you said your last name was Maguire, but you're not…' She gulped. 'You're not one of those Maguires, are you?'

'Don't go there,' he warned her.

'Holy mackerel. You're Aaron Maguire's son? Good grief. Good heavens. Your family's practically a dynasty in South Bend. Everybody knows they're wallowing in money. Practically drowning in it.' She hustled in front of him on the sidewalk, walking backward to look into his face. 'I'll be darned. I've seen his picture a zillion times in the paper. You look just like him, except that he's tall and distinguished, of course. Where you're more on the plain old adorable side.'

He rolled his eyes, than yanked her next to his side. Walking backward, she was creating an obvious hazard for the other pedestrians, not to mention herself. French drivers knew no mercy. Especially for Americans.

'Could you focus on the important stuff here? We just passed the Palais de Justice. Couple blocks down, we'll be at Saint-Michel, and after that we'll be standing in line to get into Notre Dame like every other idiot tourist in the city. Notre Dame. The real thing. You're supposed to be thrilled.'

'I will be. In just a sec. I'm still having a heart attack over your family. I think you should tell a girl before you sleep with her when you're part of a dynasty like that.'

This time he narrowed his eyes. Give the girl a little sleep, and she was all sass and sparkle. He hooked an arm around her neck, and it wasn't an affectionate gesture. 'You know, you're not the only one who gets to be nosy. It's about time you answered a few questions yourself. Like how you hinted that you weren't in Paris just for a vacation.'

'I wasn't hinting. There's no secret.' She didn't seem to mind the stranglehold he had on her neck. At least she wasn't trying to break free from it. 'Actually, I guess there is a little secret, because I didn't tell anyone back home what I was doing. But that was because it was no one's business. I came here on kind of a private quest. I wanted to find some information about my father.'

Now there was a word guaranteed to stop him dead. 'Oh. Fathers.'

'Yeah, it wasn't hard to guess we both had father issues…but in my case, it's because I never knew my dad. He was French. From Paris. And he died when my mom was pregnant with me. So I never knew him or had a chance to know anything about him. That's just the way it was.' Tears suddenly glistened in her eyes. 'That was partly why the mugger upset me so much. I had some old letters in that purse, letters he'd written my mom way back when…'

Hell. He loosened the grip on her neck. She was still talking. He'd figured out that when she started, it was like trying to plug a dike. Better not count on the flow stopping anytime soon.

'Years ago, my mom threw out the letters when she married someone else. A man named George. That marriage only lasted a few years-but anyway. I was just a kid, saw her throwing out the letters and I saved them from the trash. There were only a few, but they were all I had of my dad's. And on the envelopes, they had a return address, from where he grew up in Paris.'

The little glisten in her eyes was one thing, but now a big. fat tear trickled down her cheek. Alarm started drumming through him. They were in the middle of a crowded street. There was no place to run.

'So…that was my plan when I came here. I just wanted to see the house, the neighborhood where he grew up. I can't imagine anyone would remember him after all this time…but I still wanted to do it. Just walk that street. See it, feel it, smell it. I don't have any other way to know him. And the whole idea popped into my mind when I got engaged. I mean…suddenly my whole life was going to change. And I just wanted to know more about who I came from.'

He tried to steer her to something practical and solvable, so the tears would dry up. 'So now you've lost the address? We could find a way to track that down. Kel-'

She blinked. 'Oh…no, no need for that. I've had the address memorized for years. What upset me was losing the letters. His handwriting. The words. It was the only thing I ever had of his. I never cared about losing my passport or money or anything like that. But darn it…'

'Don't cry again.' This time Will made it a stern order.

'I'm not.'

'You are. Quit it.' He fumbled for another diversion. 'Okay, so what's your father's old address?'

She reeled it off. The street was in the 7th arron-dissement, which was the name of the absolute last suburban area he expected her to say. 'Are you sure?'

'Absolutely.' She cocked her head. 'What's wrong? Is there something odd about the address? Or the neighborhood?'

'Not exactly,' he muttered, and sucked in an uneasy breath. This was getting mighty complicated.

She was mighty complicated.

Will didn't do complicated. Didn't, wouldn't, couldn't. Yeah, he felt this wild, insane pull toward her-didn't know why, didn't care why, was just more or less enjoying it. He sure had enjoyed making love with her the night before.

But now, he wanted to extricate himself before he got any more embroiled. Particularly when he sensed she might have a world of hurt coming-nothing to do with him, nothing he could do about it. But there was no point in two of them lying down on a train track if one of them could get out of the way.

'Something's wrong.' she insisted. 'Just say it. Whatever's on your mind.'

'Nothing.'

'Yes, there is. You looked tense all of a sudden.'

'Well, yeah. The weather's gone south on us fast.'

Now there was an understatement. The morning drool hadn't been bad. but the sun just couldn't seem to stay out for long. Temporarily it was just misting hard, but from the look of the dirty clouds, they were minutes away from the day turning into a soaking deluge. A crack of thunder echoed his forecast.