Muriel Jensen - Man In A Million

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.

“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.