Blame It On Paris

CHAPTER TEN

WILL FIGURED this dinner with Kelly and his parents was going to be as much fun as, say, cuddling up to a hornet's nest. Suffering a flat tire in Alaska in the dead of winter. Having your wisdom teeth pulled.

He pulled into Kelly's driveway, then positioned the rearview mirror so he could fix his tie.

He hadn't worn a tie in years. He hadn't done stress in years. He'd been doing just fine in Paris, leading a devil-may-care life, strolling through each day, getting his Ph.D. in irresponsibility. Nothing had been wrong with his life. Nothing!

He scowled in the rearview mirror, found a cowlick in the back of his head, scowled at that, and was just slamming out of the car when Kelly showed up at the front door.

He stopped in midstride.

She looked damned adorable. Not remotely like her, but damned adorable. She was the textbook model for a Woman Meeting the Parents. Shed tamed the curls, pulled them all back somehow. The white top was sleeveless, natural for the balmy night, but the high neck was suitable for a nun. A navy skirt danced around her knees, not too short, nothing wild. The sandaled heels showed off bare legs, but weren't too high. Her toes and nails both had a soft pink polish that matched her lip gloss.

She was using the blue-and-white scarf he'd given her in Paris as a shawl.

Her face, apart from looking breathtakingly beautiful, had a scared expression on it.

As she headed for him and the car, she took in his own scared expression and laughed. "We're one heck of a pair."

"You have nothing to worry about. They'll love you."

"Yeah, right." She moved close and shook her head as she reached for his tie. She fumbled with it for several minutes, while he stood there, liking her hands on him, liking her near, recognizing her perfume as the scent he'd had made for her. He noticed that he was harder than a rock…and before dinner with his parents.

Finally she laughed and looped the tie from around his neck. "This is dumb. Why do you need a tie? It isn't you." She threw the tie into the backseat, tilted up long enough to brush his lips with a completely unsatisfactory kiss, then darted around the car to climb in the passenger side. "What'd you do to your hair?"

She reached over, pushed down the cowlick, and when that didn't work, licked her hands and used the spit.

"I can't believe you did that," he said.

"I can't believe I did, either. Would you quit looking so nervous? This is going to go just fine."

Oh. yeah. Just fine, like her living in that dive because of him. Just fine, like her tearing up her whole life because he'd promised himself that sleeping with her wouldn't hurt anybody. And yeah, she had needed to shake the turkey, aka Jason, but that wasn't the point.

"You don't have to do this," he said for the dozenth time.

"A free meal? At Joseph's?" She named the ritzy restaurant that his mother had chosen. He smelled her scent again. It hovered around her neck, like a peek of cleavage or a flirting smile. She wasn't giving him flirting smiles or cleavage. It was just the perfume. "If you think I'd turn down a great dinner like this, you've got another think coming. But you have to relax, Will. You look like you're ready to climb the walls."

"I'm perfectly calm," he snapped. Guys weren't nervous. Guys were calm in a crisis. Guys took charge. Guys were tough.

When they walked into the restaurant, the tuxedoed maitre d' hustled forward to take care of them. Will tensed all over again. He and Kel were early, but he should have guessed his father would arrive even earlier. Aaron, being a classic control freak, liked to study the stage, maneuver where everyone would sit, get all the details set up the way he wanted them.

His father stood when he saw them approaching. Kelly's face lit up as if she recognized her new best friends. "I couldn't wait to meet you two," she said warmly.

She reached out and hugged Aaron, as if she'd been hugging him all his life, then bent down to hug his mom, who was dressed-how did women do that?-in navy and white just like Kel.

She turned back to Will and said. "I'm in love. You told me I'd like them, so I should have guessed I would on sight."

He'd never heard such bullshit. He'd never said anything of the kind. But Aaron was beaming-of course. His father had always been putty in the hands of a female.

Whatever seating Aaron had planned, Kelly chose the chair between Will and his father. Drink orders were taken. Kelly said she was having whatever his mom was having but, on discovering that was a martini, blushed like a bride and said maybe she'd better stick with wine.

"So how did you two meet?" Barbara asked.

Will braced. The grilling had begun. But Kelly seemed primed for it.

"Will saved me. I'd just gotten into Paris, hadn't even recovered from jet lag, when this mugger grabbed me. He took my purse, every valuable thing I had, scared the wits out of me. Will could have walked on by, but thank heavens he stepped in. I had no passport, no money, no way to even call home, and I was scared…"

Aaron shot him the first look of approval that Will had seen in, well, somewhere in the vicinity of twenty-five years.

"Where do you work, dear? Do you live with your family?"

Kelly named her firm. "I'm a forensic accountant. I love it. Some days I think somebody created the job just for me. And no, I don't live with my mom. although we're really close-and I never knew my dad. For a while, I had a stepdad, a really super guy, but most of the time when I was growing up, there was just my mom and me. I moved out on my own after school. It seemed time for my mom to have her own life, without feeling she had to take care of someone else all the time."

Will caught his father and mother sharing a half dozen glances. They approved. In fact, by the time their meals were served, Will wondered if he could just put his chin in a palm and nap. He'd known Kelly was sneaky before this, of course, but he'd never dreamed her skill level was this high. Somehow everything she said made his parents believe she was God's gift to their son's life.

Actually, she was God's gift to his life. He'd just never seen that sneaky streak of hers show up in his favor before.

Somewhere between the after-dinner brandy and the French pastry choice of desserts, his mom laughed softly, and charmingly went straight for the throat. "So…are you and Will serious?"

"Now, honey, you've been hounding the girl with questions all through dinner. Let her be," Aaron said, shooting Kelly an I'll-help-you-out-here-darling expression.

"It's all right. I don't mind answering anything," Kelly said disarmingly. "The truth is, Will and I have only known each other for a short time. Neither of us wants to rush into anything impulsively. He flew home especially for your birthday, Mrs. Maguire, not for me. But yes, we've been seeing each other. And even though that's going great, there's nothing to guess at yet."

"I love how you handle yourself, dear." Barbara said warmly.

"I'm a big believer in honesty." Kelly said as she slid her bare toe up his pant leg under the table. It was an acrobatically challenging thing to do when she was sitting next to him. Normally he wouldn't have thought her toes could bend at that angle. "Really, though. I'd much rather hear more about your family. And your business, Mr. Maguire. Everyone knows about Maguire's in South Bend, but I have no idea how your family got into it, how it all happened, if you are from here generations back and all…"

That was it. His dad was happily occupied for dessert, coffee and two brandies, while Kelly sat, looking rapt and enthralled.

His mom didn't want to leave. His dad didn't want to leave. Kelly didn't seem to want to leave.

"Well," Will said heartily, "I'm afraid it's past ten, and an early workday tomorrow for Kelly-"

"Oh, that's all right, Will. I'm having a great time." But Kelly suddenly shot a charmingly stricken look at his parents. "Although I know how long we've been sitting here. If I'm monopolizing your evening-"

"You have to be kidding, honey." Aaron said warmly.

Past eleven, the three of them were still merrily chatting and laughing and sharing stories in the parking lot. Will had had his keys out for ten minutes, Aaron for about the same time. Starlight sparkled in Kelly's hair, on her animated smile when she hugged his mom, his dad.

Everybody had a hugfest.

Aaron hugged him, as well, and vice versa. Will knew damn well the other night's harsh words had not been forgotten, but he'd been raised a certain way. No personal problems showed up in public. The Maguires were a united family.

By the time he climbed into the car and turned the key, he was more wiped out than if he'd climbed Everest and K2. Five straight hours of racquetball couldn't be this tiring.

Kelly nestled in, and although she pulled on her seat belt, she managed to curl in the seat with her legs drawn up like a tired puppy's. The brilliantly happy smile she'd had all evening suddenly disappeared in a long, lazy sigh.

"Okay," she said, "I've got a better picture of the whole situation now."

"Huh?" She went from the dazzling, sweet, shy, guileless charmer of a new girlfriend to businesslike in two seconds flat. Except for the curled-up legs. That was pure Kel. "They loved you. Not that that's a surprise."

"They didn't love me. They'd have adored any woman you brought home. They'd have groveled at my feet, even if I showed up in a rhinestone cowboy hat and hooker heels and had kin in jail."

"Say what?" He couldn't imagine where she was getting this.

"Will. If you fall in love with someone from here, they think you'll be motivated to stay in South Bend. They'd do cartwheels and handsprings, anything, everything, to get you to stay."

Okay. He got that. "They still loved you."

"I liked them, too."

"You didn't see my dad's manipulative side, though. Don't be thinking all the arguing is my fault." When she didn't immediately respond, he glanced at her. "What?"

"I was just thinking…"

"Why does your 'just thinking' strike terror in my heart?"

She grinned, but the humor faded quickly. "Do you know why it's tough for you to communicate with your dad?" She answered her own question before he could have a chance. "You're so much alike."

"Not in this universe."

"You're both ambitious, driven. Both very bright. Both the kind of man who has to work for himself, because neither of you could take orders from anyone else. You both take terrific care of those around you but don't let others take care of you. You've both got a charming, public side. You both treat women and men differently. You're Galahads with women, but with men in business, I'm guessing you're both cutthroat."

"This is all fascinating. You got all that from one filet mignon and two brandies?" He added. "I'm not remotely driven. I could sit around and do nothing forever and be perfectly happy. Quit it," he said sharply.

But she didn't. She started laughing and wouldn't stop. Worse, it was damn clear that she was laughing at him. "Will," she gasped, "you're a born business tiger. I'm sorry you don't realize it, but c'mon. Get a grip. Anything you do, you put out five hundred percent."

"I do not!" Where did she get this crap?

"It's really no wonder your dad wants to turn over the business to you. And yes, of course, I can see why that's a problem for you. Hard to imagine how you could work for your dad. It'd be like putting two tigers in the same cage. A major uh-uh. But the thing is…he knows how good you are. He knows that you could run a business, any business, and be fabulous at it. So it's totally natural that he wants you to follow in his footsteps. You're a natural-"

"The one thing in the entire universe I don't want to do-the only thing-is run his business. Much less be manipulated or tricked into doing it. I won't," he said.

She didn't hear a word he said. In fact, she was still laughing when they got to her place. And yeah, of course he walked her to the door and stood there until she was safely inside, but for the first time since knowing her, he didn't kiss her. Or even want to.

When she closed the door, he sighed and told himself it was a relief-to be so damned mad he didn't want to jump her.

She'd gotten everything wrong, misunderstood everything. For some stupid reason-even though he'd never wanted or allowed sympathy from anyone in his life-he'd just wanted a little taste of it from her. Some compassion. Some empathy. He'd really believed she'd listened to what he tried to tell her.

Instead she'd waltzed right in, schmoozed his parents, and now seemed to think she had answers to everything. One dinner. Hell. He not only didn't want to jump her, he didn't even like her at that moment.

Her front door flew open again before he'd even reached the car. She charged toward him in bare feet though the sidewalk was midnight-cold.

"I forgot to thank you for the great dinner," she said.

He wanted to roll his eyes-you'd think they were still kids in high school who had to dot those i's. He wasn't about to let loose that she'd hurt him. Or made him madder than a kicked porcupine. She lifted up on her bare toes and smooshed her lips against his.

It was less than a kiss. It was more a two-second lip-smash. The contact was barely enough to feel her breasts crush against his chest, her blue-and-white scarf flutter around his neck in the midnight breeze. Barely enough to feel the brush of her fingertips on his neck, see the tea-brown shine in her eyes, feel the satin of her mouth.

And then she severed the connection and went back down on her heels. "Don't be mad," she whispered.

"I am not mad."

"They're good family, Will. You don't throw good family away. I mean, it's not as if they're drug addicts or abusers or alcoholics or terrible people-"

"Kelly. Maybe we could talk about this five years from now on a Tuesday when we're on different continents. But right now-"

"I know. You're mad as hell at me." She patted his cheek, had the bloody nerve to smile at him, and then turned on her heel. "I'm freezing! I have to go in!"

"So go in!" And don't come back out this time, he thought darkly. Yet he stood there, long after she'd gone in the second time, long after he heard the door lock.

He didn't want to go home. He just wanted to stand outside her damned door in that damned decrepit neighborhood and pine for her.

He was turning into a lovesick goose. A complete fool. A mindless idiot who was so stupid he wanted to be around a woman who made him crazy and didn't even stand by him. She'd taken the enemy's side instead of his. She'd backed them up instead of him.

He was not only going to stop loving her.

He was going to leave a good long space before he saw her again.

SINCE WILL COULDN'T sleep, he quit trying around three in the morning, made some black-as-mud instant coffee and installed himself at his sister's prissy provincial desk with a phone. Maybe the U.S. was asleep, but it was working hours in France. He called Yves, who expressed surprise at hearing from him.

"I thought you were on holiday," Yves said. "Busy with family."

"I am, I am. But I had a few minutes with nothing to do." And Yves was helpless at certain things. Will knew. Like marketing. Costing out a new project and tax implications. International freight procedures and laws.

Nothing complicated, but Will knew details like that gave Yves anxiety attacks, and that was the point. He could talk Yves through those issues, sipping coffee with his feet up, playing Spider Solitaire on his laptop at the same time.

"How will I do all this if you don't come back?" Yves fretted.

"I told you I was coming back."

"I know what you said. But I always knew you wouldn't stay with me forever."

That was so French thinking. Yves was always the pessimist, not exactly a handwringer but always braced for bad news. After that hour-long phone call, Will finally managed to close his eyes and crash… but it seemed like only minutes later that he heard noisy pounding on the door.

The pounding stopped, but only because Martha barreled inside as if she owned the place. Which, come to think of it, she did. And being the disgusting, exasperating sister she was, she seemed to feel she had every right to pull the covers off him and tickle his feet.

"I wouldn't have to go to these lengths, you cretin, if you'd just answer your phone."

"I didn't hear the phone."

"That's the point. You were sleeping like the dead. I made a big breakfast, but it's not going to be hot if you don't come over this minute. Besides which, I can't leave Ralphie. So get your butt up!"

She slammed the door closed before he could answer. In fact, before he could take the pillow off his head and face the daylight. The apartment over the garage looked the same as it had yesterday, displaying Martha's latest decorating scheme-which happened to be purple and yellow and French provincial furniture. Every time he looked at the mustard yellow, he thought he had to get out of there. Soon.

But then he'd woken up grumbly, partly because he'd only had a few minutes' sleep. Mostly because he'd argued with Kelly in every damn dream.

He took his pitchy mood across the flagstone walk to his sister's kitchen. Martha, typically, looked ready to run the universe. Her hair, fresh out of the shower, had the artful messy look that probably cost her three hundred a month at a hairdresser. Her makeup was perfect, her white shirt had a collar turned up just so and her kitchen was blindingly clean-from the Sub-Zero freezer to the range big enough to feed forty-seven for lunch.

Martha's counters had never seen dirt. Will wasn't sure how she did it, but nothing ever stuck to her pans. Nothing ever spilled in her oven. Even his youngest nephew, Ralph, sitting in his booster chair with his cheeks stuffed with breakfast, had tidily tied shoes and an unstained junior-sized Ralph Lauren polo.

Martha's scene boggled Will's mind. More to the point, it scared him. She was a very scary sister, even when she charged over and gave him a loving peck before pointing the royal finger at where he was supposed to sit.

"All right, I admit I'm sorry I woke you up, but I just couldn't wait another minute. How'd the dinner go? Who's the girl? How serious is it? Were you decent to Dad? Did Mom like her? What'd she wear? What does she do? What did you all talk about?"

"Man, the price of breakfast is sure high these days."

"Shut up and talk," Martha said as she served him coffee, and then a plateful of…well, hell, he didn't know what it was.

Avocados? Papaya? Some kind of gourmet muffin that looked like a mix of tofu and grass? A few weeds? He looked at the weeds with some interest, but they definitely weren't that kind of weed. Not with his sister. "Ralphie gets Cheerios. How come I can't have some of those?"

"Because you're my brother and I'm the boss of you."

"Does that mean you're not the boss of your own son?"

Martha plopped next to her toddler and folded her arms. "You start talking or I'll make you sorry you were ever born. You just remember-I beat you up when we were kids, and I could still take you on."

"The only reason you ever beat me was because of the rules that I couldn't hit a girl."

"I won. That's the point. Not what the rules were. Now talk."

He'd have done anything for the coffee. To find out the real reason she'd yanked him over here, though, he realized he had to make a dent in the petrifying meal and come through with some gossip. The latter wasn't hard. He'd been handling his oldest sister from the day he came out of the womb. "Went to Mom's favorite restaurant. Had the filets. Just as good as always. Dad and Mom were great to her. Her name is Kelly. Dad was fine. No, we didn't fight. No, no one fought. They loved her. And no, sorry, nothing embarrassing happened."

Martha recovered from this utterly boring account and moved on. thankfully, to her real agenda. Ralphie let out a squawk when he'd stuffed in enough Cheerios. She wiped his face, let him loose, then sighed when he hit the floor running. "He'll be filthy in five minutes flat. And he's got a playdate at nine."

"A playdate? Does that mean he's authorized to play doctor with someone of the opposite sex already?"

But she couldn't be diverted from the next sneaky line item on her agenda. "You know I've got the Sabre in Lake Michigan. A really nice slip in St. Joe. on Harbor Isle. It's not that far a drive, if you'd like to take her out for a sail while you're here."

His eyes narrowed. "Why are you being nice to me?"

"Because you're my favorite brother."

"I'm your only brother."

"I love you."

Will swiped a hand over his face. "Okay, I can't take much more of this sweet talk. Just spill it out. What do you want?"

"Nothing." She poured him a fresh mug of coffee-French vanilla, one of his favorites, which was the kind of thing Martha specialized in knowing. "But…Will…I was thinking…"

"Uh-huh." The way only an idiot walked into a dark alley at night. Will knew anything his sister said from here on out was dangerous. Afraid to take his eyes off her, when he felt the tug on his leg. he automatically pulled Ralphie onto his lap.

"If you happened to take the boat out, I was thinking you might not mind looking at a little cottage for me. It's right on the lake. There's a dock there, so you could pull up and see it. The cottage isn't fancy or anything, but while Ralph and Daphne are still young. I was thinking how great it'd be to have a place on the lake. Where the kids could swim and learn to sail in the summer, and the family could all come for picnics."

Both his other sisters could do it. Add two and two and end up with fifteen. More interesting, they never thought anyone would notice. Hypocrite that he was. Will kept sipping her coffee because, damn, it was good coffee. But he was wondering what Kelly would think of his sister, what she'd say, how she'd handle the whole conversation.

Will could have known where this was going in his sleep.

Martha's husband made a decent living as a mid-level manager. Nothing wrong with Bob-he was a good guy all the way-but he didn't make enough to pay for the castle on the ravine, the garage with the apartment overhead, the beauty of a Sabre sailboat, the vacation overseas every year. Martha had never worked. She was a good mom, devoted to a bunch of seriously good causes, as well.

If she wanted a cottage, it wasn't going to come out of her husband's salary. It was going to come out of their dad.

"So," he said, "you want me to see this cottage and then talk Dad into buying it for you."

"Of course not. I can talk to Dad on my own. I'd never ask you to do that. You two are oil and water, besides. But it'd help if you thought it was a good idea. Because even when you and Dad are fighting, he listens to you."

That was so ridiculous that Will almost burst out laughing. Only he suddenly couldn't seem to hear his sister. Suddenly couldn't seem to feel Ralphie yanking on his ear with sticky fingers. Suddenly couldn't focus on anything in Martha's pristine kitchen.

Nothing had gone well since he'd come back, and making lemonade out of all these lemons was going to be nonstop challenging if not downright impossible. His father wasn't going to bend. His sisters were already playing him, his mom applying emotional thumbscrews, the whole shebang thorny and unfixable. just like always.

Yet it suddenly filled his head that he didn't want to return to Paris. Because even if he had no faith that anything at home could get better. Paris hadn't been the same once Kelly left. Paris was no good alone anymore.

He wanted Kelly in Paris.

Kelly in his Paris.

"Earth to Will, earth to Will," Martha scolded.

"I heard you." He took his empty mug to the sink. "Okay."

"Okay what?"

"Okay, I'll take the sailboat out."

"And you'll look at the property?"

"Martha, Martha. Martha…" Swinging Ralphie high in his arms, he rose from the chair and gave his sister a smooch. "You know I'm putty in your hands. I'd do anything you asked me to do."

Martha gave him a suspicious look. They had, after all. been related all their lives. He'd been the one to squish shaving cream in her training bra and freeze it. His sister knew that he wasn't altogether trustable.

But that was about sisters.

Not about Kelly. Kelly could trust him with anything, including her life. His mind was already spinning possibilities. All of them about Paris and Kelly, and choices that had never occurred to him before.