Blame It on Paris (14 page)

The baby across the way quit crying. The child's mother, the gooey-eyed couple, the businessmen, all looked at her when Char stood up and hustled for the door, a flash of emotional tears glistening in her eyes. The strangers stared at Kelly as if she must have done something hurtful and awful, as if she were an ogre who should be shot.

Well, Kelly thought desperately, I seem to be batting a thousand.

Everyone was furious with her.

T
HE GLOOMY SKIES WERE
just starting to clear when Kelly walked out of church on Sunday. Maybe some sunshine would lift her mood, she thought, but parking in front of her new apartment, she had to shake her head.

This was so
not
how she'd planned to live at her age.

Unfortunately, beggars couldn't be choosers, and right now, she was sure as Sam Hill in the near-beggar class.

She tiptoed in the door, wary of waking her new roommate. Skip was a Notre Dame graduate student, an absolutely wonderful nerd who'd offered to float her the first month's rent until she got her life back together. Hopefully she wouldn't have to stay much longer than a couple months, but she'd left Jason's with little more than her clothes and a few personal things. Her life was requiring a total start-over.

In the meantime, she discovered that the new apartment hadn't changed since before she left. Even though the clock claimed noon, Skip was still asleep. The place was decorated like typical college digs—early-computer. Crates. Formica slabs for desks. Three computers, blinking lights at all times. Cords, thousands of them, writhing like dusty snakes.

The place was unappealing, but Kelly figured it didn't matter; she'd go into work this afternoon. No one would be there on a weekend, so she could get ahead, catch up on some projects. Her office might only be a cubicle, but at least it was hers, with her colors and some light and some privacy.

And she'd leave her cell phone here, so no one could track her down for a few hours. God knew, her phone had been hot since she'd split up with Jason. Via the grapevine, she'd learned that Jason had disappeared to somewhere unknown. That was her fault, too, like everything else.

Jason's mother, and his whole extended family—which was considerable since he was mixed Irish and Polish—had called to lament her behavior, the change in plans, to pray she would “see reason.” Even Father Donovan had gotten into the scolding act this morning before church, hustling over to offer her advice, thanks to her mother's tattling.

Three weeks ago, Kelly thought morosely, she'd taken her “darling” status for granted. Now she was under
S
for “shit list” in everyone's book. Her popularity was on par with a python's.

At least her new roommate was pretty tolerant of the incessant calls. In fact, the little squirt had a protective streak. Skip was about five-three, with wiry hair, no whiskers and little glasses that kept sliding down because he didn't have much of a nose. He ambled out of his bedroom in his boxer shorts, which made Kelly want to sigh. Skip just didn't have a strong sense of boundaries.

“G'morning,” he said groggily.

“Morning. I just made fresh coffee. I'm headed into the office for a few hours.”

“Kkk,” he mumbled, which was likely his version of language for “okay.” Skip didn't usually try to speak until he'd had three cups of caffeine.

She changed clothes, filled her travel mug and headed back out. The watery morning was fast disappearing, and suddenly there was a winsome, sassy-fresh smell in the air that reminded her of…well, it reminded her of Paris, but then everything reminded her of Will and Paris, and that made her heart feel like one huge aching bruise. She shut herself up in the car, put on some dark alternative music, and zoomed downtown.

For once, she had her choice of parking spots. She was relieved that there was no one to see her scrabby jeans and old tee. She'd scooped her hair back in a clip and rubbed on lip gloss only because her lips were dry; certainly there was no reason to fret her appearance.

The offices for Find Anyone, Inc. were on the fourth floor of one of South Bend's old buildings, which meant the elevator creaked and the air-conditioning worked sporadically. When Kelly searched her bag for her office key, she thought the creaks and gloomy corners would suit her mood, but inside, instead of silence, she heard the sound of laughter. The front desks were all empty, and there was no reason why Brenna or Myrna or Sam would be anywhere around.

The voice turned out to be Samantha, talking into the phone, and moments later, her boss showed up in the doorway of Kelly's cubicle. Sam, as always, looked ready for a party in Vegas. Her jeans had rhinestones down the sides, her hair was bleached within an inch of its life and her mascara was troweled on in more layers than an archaeological dig.

Kelly had never met a more brilliant human being, so she figured Samantha's look was about some kind of unresolved rebellion. The staff were hard-core number-lovers—alias the geeks of the universe—a tag that had never bothered Kelly. But Samantha's blatantly flashy style seemed to shout that no one should assume she was a dull-accountant type.

Samantha tapped a high-heeled boot from the doorway. “I just want to say one thing,” she began.

“Yeah?”

“Please, please, don't solve this life mess you're in. If I can do anything to make it worse for you, let me know.”

“Thanks so much,” Kelly said wryly.

“This has been like a dream. My best employee, putting in spare hours on Saturday, Sunday, after-work hours, never complaining, just happy to be here, pouring on the coals.” Samantha sighed lustily. “I'm so happy you're miserable, I can't tell you.” She added, “If I could call your mother, roil things up even more for you—”

“That's okay. Thanks for the offer, but no.”

“Shoot,” Samantha said with feigned disappointment in her voice, and then disappeared before Kelly could even laugh.

Well, there was plenty of work, primarily because she'd taken on a double workload since coming home from Paris. It was the only thing keeping her sane. Her office was smaller than a closet, but the window looked out over the river. She'd put a bright print on the wall, an artistic splash of purples and blues. A dish of shiny purple stones sat next to her computer, and she had a foot-warming alpaca rug under the desk, because she always kicked off her shoes and worked in bare feet. Across from the desk was a monster-size picture of a cat, a ragamuffin, peeking over the side of a table.

That was her, Kelly had always figured. The kind of person who peeked out before she risked showing herself. Curious, nosy, but ever worried about unknown dangers out there. The field of forensic accounting was such a natural for her, because she loved diving into other people's business—both the people whose identities were stolen, and the people who'd choose to steal someone else's name and identity.

In the past two weeks, the issue was naturally especially ironic for her, because her own identity might as well have been stolen.

She sure as hell didn't have one of her own, anyway.

She scrabbled through the files on her desk, booted up the computer, got a good, messy, confusing monitor full of open screens going…and then the office phone rang.

“Find Anyone,” she answered impatiently, and immediately recognized her mother's voice.

“Good grief, I've been trying to track you down all over the place. I need you to come over,” her mother said. “Right now. As quickly as you can get here.”

They hadn't had a civil conversation since Kelly had come from Paris, and her mother had refused to say anything about Kelly's father, yet she barreled straight into the
mess
Kelly was making with her life every time she called. From Kelly's viewpoint, her mom had temporarily turned into an incessant pain in the keester.

All of that would matter again, but not now, not if her mom actually needed her. Kelly's pulse went into immediate take-charge protective mode. “What's wrong? Are you ill? An accident? What happened?”

She was already shoving her feet back into shoes, scrounging around for her bag and keys.

“I'm not ill. No accident. But you
need
to get here as soon as you possibly can.”

“I'll be there. Eleven minutes.” It wasn't as if she didn't know how long it took to get to her mom's place from the office. Football weekends in the fall were different; then the drive could take hours. Of course, football weekends, she wouldn't have been at the office—she'd have part of the throngs at Notre Dame.

Now she passed the familiar golden dome of ND, and thought of nothing but Paris. Passed the familiar billboard for Maguire Industries, and thought of nothing but Will.

That, of course, wouldn't do. She put her foot to the pedal, and headed for the treelined street where her mom lived. She braked in front of the house, and then paused for a few seconds. Long enough to reapply her lipstick, whip off the clip in her hair and run a brush through it.

Vanity wasn't the issue. But her mother could tell at ten paces, blindfolded, if Kelly was tired or stressed. And if her mom was upset, Kelly wasn't about to add to it.

She grabbed her bag, charged out of the car and up the front-porch steps. The brick bungalow was snugged between two larger brick homes, but her mom had snazzed up the place with artsy landscaping and cool window treatments and carriage lights. Kelly was just reaching for the door when her mother answered it.

On a weekend, Kelly was rarely out of jeans. Her mother, by contrast, looked ready to host a dinner party, wearing so-called casual black slacks and a black-and-white this-old-thing cute sweater.

Expecting trouble, Kelly startled at the shrewd look in her mom's eyes.

“There's a crisis?” Kelly asked.

“Oh, yeah, there's a crisis.
Finally
I get it, Kelly Nicole.”

Kelly heard the use of her double name, and smelled major trouble. “Get what?”

“What it's all about. What everything's all about. This whole mess you've got yourself into. There's a visitor in the kitchen.”

“What is this? Are you speaking in code for some reason? Who's here? What are you talking about—”

“Just go into the kitchen,” her mother said, in her marching voice.

Still frowning at her mother, Kelly tossed her bag and then moved.

She'd had a stepdad for about six years—George Matthews—and still saw him now and then. He'd been a good guy, the kind of stepfather a teenage girl dreamed of—willing to forget curfews, okay teenage sleepovers and endless noise, always up for a talk without ever preaching or fretting rules. When George split, Char had redone the entire house in peach and cream, as if to announce loudly, in her most feminine voice, that she was done with marriage.

Kelly loved the house. It was like walking into a peach parfait. Past the peach tufty couches and peach velvet draperies, the cream bookcases and alabaster tables, was the turn into the kitchen. And nothing could look more incongruous than the leather-jacketed blond, with the linebacker shoulders and whiskered chin, hunched on one of her mother's fluffy peach cushioned kitchen chairs, staring outside at her mother's peonies.

She whispered, “Will?”

Apparently her voice didn't initially register, because he didn't look around. And then suddenly, as if sensing her presence, he turned his head.

There it was. Just like that. Paris. The whole fantasy that couldn't be real…that sharp, strong glint in his eyes. That you're-mine glint. The kind of glint no independent woman could possibly find acceptable, yet Kelly melted like ice cream in the tropics. No man had ever looked at her the way Will did. No man had ever invoked the heat between her thighs, the yearning in her pulse, the way he did. No man ever made her feel as if they were two people alone on their own planet, didn't need anyone else but each other. No man had made her feel…

Magic.

“I'm dreaming you, right?” she murmured.

“If so, we're having the same dream.” His slow grin notched up the sizzle another ten degrees.

“But how can you possibly be here?”

“I didn't know how else to find you, Kel. The cell-phone number you gave me was for the phone you lost in Paris. I tracked down your address. You didn't seem to be there anymore. I knocked next door, but the neighbor didn't know where you were living, and probably wouldn't have told me if he did know. So the only other lead I could follow was your mom, because you'd mentioned—”

“
Will.
I didn't mean how you found me literally. I meant…I thought you were never going to leave Paris. And now you're here.”

She moved toward him at the same instant he moved toward her. Lightning couldn't have stopped their surge toward each other. Nothing could have stopped her from flying into his arms.

Except for her mother.

Char stepped between them as effectively as a slap. “Well now,” she said briskly, “how about if I brew a fresh pot of coffee and we all sit down and have a little chat together?”

 

T
ALK ABOUT WALKING
into a hornet's nest. Will couldn't remember a trickier, touchier situation—and in his family, there'd been a hundred.

It had only been an hour ago that he'd knocked on Kelly's mother's door. When the woman opened it, he'd had a strong, positive first impression. It was easy to see where Kelly got her natural good looks. Her mother didn't look old enough to have a fully adult daughter.