Man In A Million

“Well, that’s lucky,” he said as Chilly drew the light blanket over her. “Because we can fix that without surgery.”

He sat in the back with her while Chilly drove.

MAYBE IT WASN’T THE WORST day of her life, Paris thought, her head throbbing and her ears ringing as she held her breath, but it was running a close second.

Randy, leaning over her, frowned worriedly. “Relax, Paris,” he advised, watching monitors. “Breathe. You’re okay. Just breathe.”

She expelled a breath because she just couldn’t hold it anymore, and as she suspected, a loud sob erupted from her. She burst into tears.

She’d always scorned weakness in people. She’d loved her mother and her sister, but considered them a little frivolous according to the standards she’d set for herself. She was going to do big things. Go to law school. Defend the friendless.

Then one piece of bad news had thrown her for a loop. She’d been unable to go back to school, unable to pursue her dream. She’d started Berkshire Cab in an attempt to keep going, to help support the household. But now she’d run a stop sign, hit the car of a poor little old lady and probably damaged her driving record. Not to mention the cab.

She felt a gentle hand on her cheek.

“Hey,” Randy said quietly. “It’s going to be all right. I don’t think you’re hurt, and the woman you hit isn’t hurt. That’s about the best outcome you can hope for. There’s no reason to cry.”

For reasons she couldn’t explain, she began to cry harder.

“My car!” she wailed.

“You had a good dent in the passenger side,” he said, that gentle hand stroking her hair. “But it looked like just body work to me. It’s expensive, but I presume you’re insured.”

“I am.” She sniffled and coughed. “But they’ll probably drop me now. And I’ll have to find something to drive until my car’s fixed.”

“Doesn’t your sister have a car?”

She shook her head. “She had a Porsche she sold when she came back home. Mom’s car is at the airport.”

“Well, I’m sure there’s a solution. You have to look at the bright side. None of the terrible things that could have happened did. You got off easy. And a couple of days’ rest will do you good, I’m sure. When you’re overworked, it’s easy to be distracted.”

She wanted to take offense, but her attention was diverted by the soothing hand in her hair, the thumb sweeping tears from her cheek.

“I wasn’t distracted, I was…upset.” She sounded petulant. She hated that. She drew a deep breath and tried to pull herself together.

“Is it something you need to talk about?”

She looked into his concerned eyes and considered sharing the strange stuff about her mother and how she kept lying about Paris’s father. But he had his own problems. Also, she’d been trying to get rid of the distracting annoyances in her life. And he was one of them.

Though it didn’t seem like that at the moment.

She closed her eyes. “No, thank you,” she said. “It was all my fault because I was going for chocolate and I’m supposed to have sworn off it.”

She opened her eyes again to see that he was smiling.

“Right,” he said. “The fashion show.”

She looked surprised. She tried to sit up but he pushed her gently back. “Stay quiet,” he urged. “Prue told me when she picked up your wallet.”

Of course. Trust Prue to tell a handsome man her whole life’s story—and Paris’s as well.

“Chocolate’s better when you’re upset than a cigarette,” he said, putting a hand on her waist to steady her as the ambulance made a turn. “Here we are. The nurse can call your sister for you.”

“No,” she said as he tightened the belt that held her to the gurney. “I don’t want to bother her.”

He grinned. “You can’t take a cab home when you’re released now, can you? You’re the only service in town.”

That was a problem she hadn’t considered. “I’ll get home,” she said. Then the ambulance doors opened, and in a sudden hubbub of activity, she was hauled out of the ambulance and into the emergency room.

It took several hours to determine that she was fine. No bones broken, no muscles pulled, no impact injury to her head or stomach.

The only other good thing to come out of that morning was that the officer told her she wouldn’t be charged with reckless driving. Her insurance agent had appeared, assessed the damage to the cab and the other woman’s car, and assured her that she was covered. She thanked heaven for life in a small town.

She was released shortly after two in the afternoon. She was trying to decide who she could call to take her home when she noticed Randy walking into the ER in civilian clothes—a pair of snug jeans and a Maple Hill Marathon T-shirt stretched over muscular shoulders and tucked in at the flat waist of his jeans.

She felt a powerful jolt of physical awareness.

He strode toward her, intercepting her as she headed for the public telephone.

“You’re looking good,” he said with a smile and a somewhat clinical scan of her body from head to toe. “How do you feel?”

She nodded, embarrassed at the memory that she’d cried all over him. “Fine. I’m fine. I’m…going home. Are you still working?”

“No. I asked Julie to let me know when you were released.”

“Julie?” she asked.

He pointed to the nurse who’d assisted the doctor.

Julie looked up from a computer screen as he said her name and winked at him.

He took Paris’s arm and led her toward the door. “I’ll take you home.”

“I thought your shift didn’t end until four.”

“That’s right. But I got somebody to cover my last two hours so I could take you home and show you what you’re missing by not going out with me.”

She rolled her eyes at him, knowing she should refuse but feeling very halfhearted about it.

He put an arm around her shoulders and continued toward the door. “I know what you’re thinking,” he said in a cavalier voice. “You’re vulnerable, I’m charming, and I’m going to choose this moment to demonstrate my sexual prowess and make you incapable of resisting me. Am I right?”

She had to smile. “Not even close. I would never be incapable of resisting you.”

He pushed the doors open and they stepped out into the warm and breezy mid-September afternoon. He challenged her with a look. “Well, that sounded pretty confident. Is that why you’re afraid to date me? You don’t want to be wrong about that?”

“I’m not afraid to date you,” she corrected him, following as he pointed to a dark green LeBaron and led the way. She stopped in her tracks when she saw the Berkshire Cab sign on the driver’s door. “What…?” she gasped.

He caught her arm and drew her toward the car.

“I had your car towed to the body shop but salvaged the magnetic sign. You said you needed something else to drive while yours was laid up.”

“But whose…?”

“It’s mine.” He opened the passenger-side door and urged her inside. It had beige leather upholstery and had apparently just been vacuumed out. She could smell carpet freshener. “I have an old pickup I can use until you get the cab back.”

He walked around the car, slid behind the wheel, then grinned at her as he started the motor. It purred with a strong, healthy sound. While she continued to stare at him, openmouthed, he reached a long arm into the back seat and handed her a white oblong box tied with a gold ribbon. Gold lettering on the lid of the box said it was a pound of Fanny Farmer chocolates.

She didn’t even have a gasp left.

“Come on, now,” he said with a smile into her eyes. “Tell me you’re not just a little bit in love with me.”

She knew the admission would upset everything, particularly her determination to keep her distance. But there were too many lies in her life to add another one.

“Maybe just a little,” she conceded, returning the smile.

CHAPTER FOUR

“BUT IT MAY BE ONLY temporary,” Paris qualified quickly, slipping the ribbon off, then removing the lid. “Chocolate’s only a temporary gratification, you know.” Then she sighed and he felt her turn to look at him as he left the hospital parking lot and headed for the road that would take them to the lake. A sudden quiet filled the car.

“Although, the thoughtfulness of lending me your car,” she said in a slightly husky voice, “inspires a very permanent gratitude. I can’t believe you’d do that for me.”

He glanced at her, discovered that she looked worried about it, and didn’t want that. “It’s not a hardship,” he said. “I assure you.”

“But it’s very sweet, all the same.”

That wasn’t entirely true, but he wasn’t about to admit to that. He’d keep his ulterior motives to himself.

“Thank you,” he accepted modestly. “So, you aren’t as immune to my charms as you thought you were.”

“Apparently not,” she whispered.

“What was that?” he teased, holding a hand to his ear.

“Apparently not!” she repeated in a louder tone. “Do you want a piece of chocolate?”

“Please.”

“Nut or soft center?”

“Surprise me.”

He held his right hand out and she placed a peanut cluster in it.

“Enjoy that,” she said, “because I’m not sharing any more.” She selected a chocolate, bit it in half and made a soft sound of pleasure. “Oohh.” There was a moment’s silence while she finished the morsel, then she seemed to suffer eater’s remorse.

She hit his arm with the box lid, then covered the chocolates. “This is going to set me back five or six pounds, at least!” she complained. “I’ll never fit into the red dress, and Prue’s going to be filled with recriminations! I mean, we’re just starting to get along, and this is one thing I can do for her, though I’d rather be shaved bald than walk down a runway in front of hundreds of people! And she’s going to be furious with me because I’m going to look lumpy in her clothes! It’s going to be like high school all over again!”

“What about high school?”

“We hated each other,” she said, reaching over the seat to put the chocolates in the back. The action brought them into fairly close contact as she braced her hand on his shoulder to reach the back seat. He felt the softness of her breast against his arm and caught a whiff of jasmine.

Her eyes met his, just inches away, and he forgot completely about the road ahead.

She sat back quickly.

He was grateful that the road was straight, and that there was nothing in front of him.

“She was beautiful and I was…more cerebral. I hated her because every boy who came to our home noticed her and not me, and she hated me because I got the grades and she was always having to explain to our parents why hers were so low.”

“That’s just the usual kid stuff, isn’t it?”

“It would be,” she said, sounding distracted, “if the father we both adored growing up hadn’t turned out to be her father, but not mine.”

“That’s what you were thinking about this morning,” he guessed, “when you didn’t see the oncoming car.”

She nodded regretfully, then folded her arms, clearly upset with herself that she’d shared that. “I can’t believe I didn’t see that car. Well, I must have seen it, but somehow it just didn’t register.”

“I’m sure discovering that your parent isn’t really your parent is pretty heavy stuff. You just found out?”

She told him how she accidentally learned in a college class that her father could not be hers biologically. About coming back to Maple Hill to confront her mother, who seemed to have explained away the situation with a series of lies.

“My mother left for a photo shoot in Africa a few days ago,” Paris said. “And I determined that while she was gone, I was going to find out for myself who my father was.”

“But…you said she told you he was dead.”

“Yes, but she lied. Well, at least the man whose name she gave me is very much alive. And he denies being my father.”

“He could be lying, too.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Then…I guess you have to somehow convince your mother that you can take the truth.”

“Take the truth.” She leaned back against the headrest. “Why would she think I can’t take it? Certainly she wouldn’t be the first unwed mother, if that’s the case. Anyway, I’d just talked to Jeffrey St. John this morning—that’s the man she told me was my father—and I was a little upset and on my way to the market to buy a giant candy bar.”

“There was half of one in your wallet,” he said, turning onto Lake Road.

She made a face at him. “Prue ate it when she drove last night.”

He laughed. “You mean, she denies you but eats it herself?”

“She can,” she said. “She’s very petite. It’s that yellow house.”

She pointed to a big bungalow with a private dock and a considerable amount of lakefront. He pulled into a short driveway with yellow chrysanthemums on both sides.

Prue, wearing overalls and a broad-brimmed sun hat, was weeding the beds. She looked up in surprise, then stood as he pulled up to the rear steps.

“Isn’t she like a cover of Better Homes and Gardens magazine?” Paris asked. “Dressed in grubbies and somehow still a picture.”

He had to agree. “She’s a very attractive woman. But so are you. And while confidence is sexy, there’s something about vulnerability that’s very appealing.”

She looked at him in surprise.

“What happened?” Prue asked, putting the basket and scissors down at the sight of Paris’s pale face. Then she noticed the Berkshire Cab sign on the strange car. “Where’s the wagon?”

Paris explained briefly about the accident. “The wagon’s going to be in the shop for a couple of days, so Randy’s lending us his car.”

“That’s very kind of you.” She gave Randy a knowing look, as though suspecting his interest in her sister motivated his kindness. Then she returned her attention to Paris. “But are you okay? Have you seen a doctor?”

Paris started for the house, telling her sister about the trip to the emergency room. Then she seemed to remember him.

He was wondering if he was going to have to walk home when she studied him consideringly, then drew a deep breath. “I’m going to make him a sandwich, then you can take him home when you start your shift.”

She glanced at her watch. “I’d better start early. We have a Wednesday afternoon regular, don’t we? Two-thirty?”

Paris put a hand to her forehead and groaned. “I forgot! The Lightfoot sisters and their weekly tea party with Mariah at Perk Avenue.” The Lightfoot sisters ran the Maple Hill Manor School where Mariah once worked. “And I was congratulating myself on having picked a slow afternoon to have an accident. No calls backed up on the cell phone.”

“Not a problem.” Prue snatched the phone and whipped the sun hat off her head. “I’ll take over now, then you can call me when Randy’s ready to go home. I like it when you owe me.” Then she used her hat to point at the box in Paris’s hands. “Is that chocolate?”

Paris clutched it to her and her expression grew firm. “They were a gift from Randy when he picked me up at the hospital. You can trust me with them. We made a deal.”

Prue nodded, looking unconvinced. “All I ask is that you remember the red dress.”

“I will, I will,” Paris promised.

With a doubtful look back at her sister, and a scolding look for Randy, Prue hurried off to the house.

Paris beckoned him to follow her.

The house looked like a place occupied by three women, though it had none of the colonial or sometimes Victorian air with which many of the locals decorated their homes. It was all bright colors and floral patterns in the upholstery and the curtains, lending it a sort of patio flavor. He wondered if the women’s mother had tried to bring Southern California with her when she followed her husband here.

They walked into a living room that was painted bright red with white farm-style furniture upholstered in a slate-blue fabric covered with red-and-cream flowers. A coordinating plaid covered a fainting couch and another chair.

He heard Prue run up the stairs while Paris led the way into a huge cream-colored kitchen that looked very up-to-date. The cupboards had wire-mesh fronts, and several bottom ones were fitted with basket bins for produce. An old-fashioned iron stove attracted his attention, but upon closer inspection, he noticed that what appeared to be a wood box was really just an extension of a very large oven, and it wasn’t iron at all, just designed to appear to be. The refrigerator and the dishwasher matched with the same convex black panels and gold filigree trim.

A long work island in the middle of the room boasted a small sink on one end and stools on the far side.

This made his Spartan apartment look even more basic, and muddled his impression of Paris and her mother and sister as three women struggling to get by.

“Wow,” he said simply.

She had opened the refrigerator door and turned to peer at him in question.

He spread his arms to indicate the room. “I have a corridor kitchen that’s about eight feet long with barely room to turn around. This is very elegant.”

She nodded. “My dad was very handy,” she said, then with a quick frown, corrected herself. “You know. Jasper. Prue’s dad. My…stepdad, I guess.” Then she seemed to tire of deciding what to call him and just went on. “He loved to putter in his spare time and Mom always had an idea of how to make things more useful and more beautiful. She has a real gift for decorating.”

“I’ll say.”

“Turkey and Swiss, or ham and cheddar?” She held up deli packs of lunch meat.

He went toward her. “Is ham and Swiss out of the question?”

“Unorthodox,” she replied, selecting those from her collection, “but not out of the question. Whole wheat or sourdough?”

“Whole wheat.”

“Grilled or cold?”

“Cold. Can I do anything to help?”

She pointed to the work island. “Just pull up a stool and relax. We can eat out on the deck. It’s my favorite place.”

He obeyed. She seemed to be relaxing and he didn’t want to do anything to interrupt the process.

She made the sandwiches quickly and efficiently while standing opposite him at the work island. She added a bread-and-butter pickle to each plate, then pulled a face at him. “Ordinarily, I’d add potato chips to this, but in view of the red dress, we’d better make it carrot sticks.”

“I’m not wearing the red dress,” he teased.

She raised an eyebrow at him. “You mean, you’d make me watch you eat chips while I have to eat carrot sticks?”

“Depends.” He was suddenly aware of an angle he could work. “Do I have some sort of stake in this dress?”

She looked confused. “I don’t understand.”

“Well, it occurs to me that I could support your effort to get in shape for this notorious red dress,” he bargained, “if you’ll go somewhere with me while you’re wearing it. Bearing in mind that I don’t think training’s really necessary. I think you look pretty terrific already.”

She tried to withhold a smile at the compliment but didn’t quite succeed. She pretended to concentrate on cutting the sandwiches at an angle. “It’s for the fashion show,” she said.

He nodded. “I understand that. But we could go somewhere after the show.”

She put the knife down and frowned at him. “Why are you doing this,” she asked, “when you were so determined to avoid me while Addy was trying to get us together?”

“Simple,” he answered. “I hadn’t met you then.”

She handed him two cans of diet soda, then, carrying the plate, led the way onto the deck.

It had a magnificent view of Maple Hill Lake. It was absolutely quiet at the moment, nothing moving on it but a family of mallards several yards away. The afternoon sun shone brightly on it, bees hummed, and water lapped against the dock with a sound he’d always found quieting. The breeze was a little cool as fall took hold.

They settled onto a canopied glider fitted with cup holders. He put a soda can in each hole, and she placed the plate between them on the blue-and-yellow upholstered seat.

“But everyone who knows you,” she went on, continuing their conversation from the kitchen, “says you’re not interested in a relationship.”

She took half a sandwich and gestured him to do the same. He did. “People always think they know what other people are thinking.”

She leaned into a corner of the glider and met his gaze. He could tell she was going to ask him something difficult.

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