Wildest Dreams (The Contemporary Collection) (15 page)

She walked on a few steps before she spoke. “You don’t owe me an explanation — or anything else. We had fun in England, but I do have my own agenda—”

“If this is where you tell me you’d rather I got lost, it’s too late,” he said, his blue eyes dark with satisfaction. “I’ve already signed up for the rest of the tour.”

She stared at him for a stunned instant. “You mean the bus and everything?”

“And everything,” he repeated with emphasis.

“Isn’t that going a little far to prove a point?”

The planes of his face creased in a smile that seemed to hold extra warmth as he gazed down at her. “Is that why I’m doing it?”

“Why else?” It was hard to believe it was because of her, no matter what he seemed to be implying.

“I could be persuaded to cancel,” he said with no more than an instant of hesitation. “Just say the word, and I’ll rent a car and map out an ABC tour for us both like none you’ve ever seen.”

“ABC tour?”

“Another Blasted Cathedral. Don’t tell me your group hasn’t discovered that joke.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Cathedrals, museums, restaurants, quaint little inns, you won’t miss a thing. I might even get you to Rome for your return flight.” He tilted his head as he paused. “Then again, I might not.”

“How did you know I would be returning from Rome?” It was easier to concentrate on that issue than to think of missing her flight home because of him.

“Easy. I got the number of your tour off your luggage tags at the same time that I got your name. When I spoke to the tour company, I just told them I wanted the same tour. There I was.”

“Enterprising of you.”

“Wasn’t it,” he said agreeably. “But you haven’t answered. Would you like to rent a car and plan your own itinerary? Keeping in mind that we’ve already established the ground rules.”

“Such as separate rooms?” she queried.

“Exactly,” he agreed, though the light in his eyes also had an audacious glint.

It was tempting, especially since she now had some experience of the regimentation and compromises necessary in a group. It would also be tempting fate.

She gave a regretful shake of her head as she said, “I don’t think I can afford it.”

“I can.” The comment was calm, without pressure.

“Thanks,” she replied in firm tones, “but I prefer to pay my own way.”

“A liberated lady?” he queried.

Her brows drew together as she thought about it. “It isn’t that, exactly.”

“You don’t accept diamond bracelets, either,” he suggested.

She flashed him a bright look. “Now you’ve got it.”

He gazed down at her with an odd half smile curving his mouth. The look in his eyes was considering, but undefeated.

They bought the éclairs, rich with chocolate and cream, then walked idly along until they found a sidewalk café. When the waiter had brought the coffee they ordered, they sat in the last light of evening, eating their sticky treats and drinking from the tiny cups of incredibly bitter brew. The table was not much bigger than the cups and wobbled on the uneven sidewalk. A light wind rustled the leaves of a plane tree nearby. A sparrow hopped here and there on the sidewalk in search of crumbs. The traffic on the wide thoroughfare was beginning to pick up as Parisians headed homeward for the evening; its roar was punctuated regularly by the cranky horns of the boxlike little cars. The waiter who had served them, in his white shirt, black pants, and his apron almost down to his ankles, busied himself wiping tabletops and stacking chairs just inside the cafe’s door.

“I don’t think,” Joletta said judiciously, “that you and I have improved our waiter’s opinion of American manners.”

“You mean by bringing our own eats into his fine establishment? Don’t worry about it; that supercilious look doesn’t mean a thing. The guy’s probably thinking about his fallen arches.”

“You think so?”

He nodded. “In Europe, nobody really cares what you do so long as you don’t involve them or make a big noise about it. The trick to getting by — whether it’s sitting in a Paris café or crossing the street against Rome traffic — is to be perfectly courteous but oblivious. Do what you like, do it with composure, and never make eye contact.”

“You’re joking.”

“I promise you’ll look like a native.”

Rone watched Joletta as she sat so poised and alert beside him. Her attention appeared to fasten for an instant on a blond woman, obviously an American, who was coming toward them along the street. Her body tensed, then relaxed as the woman moved past them without a glance.

He wondered, then, if Joletta had seen Natalie back there at the hotel. She must have; something besides pastries had diverted her down this side street. It would be like her to say nothing to him since he was still a virtual stranger.

There was a great deal, he was discovering, that went on under the surface she presented to the world. She was a private person, self-contained, almost too much so. It wasn’t that she was timid, he thought; timid women didn’t walk down dark streets at night or set out for Europe by themselves. Rather, she used wariness and the repression of her natural impulses as a shield against personal pain. He would give a great deal to be on hand when she came out of her shell.

The evening light filtered through the top layer of her hair and reflected with a pearl sheen in the translucence of her skin, so she seemed to glow. There was a tiny smudge of chocolate icing on the tender curve of her bottom lip that made him want to kiss it away. The urge was so strong that he sat perfectly still, willing his self-control to kick in, as he leaned back in his chair with his fingers cradling his coffee cup.

He wondered at the rightness of his decision to join her tour. He was doing it to make his job easier, or so he told himself, but it was going to be a strain, no doubt about that. The question was whether he could stand it. Principles could be a pain — if principles were a word that could be applied to a situation of this kind.

He wished with sudden fervor that everything about this trip were as simple as he was pretending to Joletta. He would give a great deal to be able to amble with her around Europe without a care or worry, to have no constraint in his relationship with her except that imposed by common, decent behavior. Well, fairly decent.

He could still feel heat in the place on his chest where her hand had rested so briefly. Before he could prevent it his mind flashed an image of what it might be like to have her touch him of her own will, with affection, even with desire.

The scent of her drifted to his nostrils, that gentle blending of Tea Rose and her own unique female fragrance. Most women smelled to some degree of vanilla, a kind of universal feminine smell. Not Joletta. He thought that was a part of the fascination she held for him, a part of his need to come closer to her, so he could decipher that fragrance. It was a little like the jungle orchid that created the vanilla bean, along with a blending of sun-ripened pear. Or maybe it was like a cross between a dark red plum and a night-blooming jasmine.

What it was, was maddening.

He was going to have to think of other things if he ever wanted to lift the napkin from his lap and stand up from behind this table without embarrassing himself.

He was becoming far too involved.

And he was beginning to be afraid of what was going to happen when this trip was over.

They started back toward the hotel as dusk began to gather. There were more people on the sidewalk at this hour, shop assistants and secretaries wearing ponchos and scarves, businessmen in trench coats with newspapers weighting their pockets, and elderly women carrying string shopping bags with baguette loaves of bread sticking out of the tops. The number of cars on the streets had increased also, while their respect for marked traffic lanes had decreased. Horns blared in a near-constant cacophony, and riders on bicycles wove in and out of the traffic with insouciance, apparently never looking at the drivers.

Joletta and Rone walked along, letting the other pedestrians push past them while they talked of the excursion to Versailles the next day. Joletta had signed up for it earlier; it was something she had not wanted to chance missing. She thought Rone could still make it if he cared to try.

As they reached a cross street they heard the rise and fall of the two-note police sirens coming from somewhere to their right. The steady flow of cars slowed, then braked to a stop. As foot traffic was cut off also people began to gather around the two of them on the street corner. The pedestrians grumbled among themselves, stretching their necks to look.

Rone, able to see over most of the Frenchmen and women around them, identified the cause of the commotion first. “Police vans, three of them.”

The vehicles were painted a rich blue seldom seen on the other side of the Atlantic on anything except luxury cars, and were flanked on both sides by outriders of motorcycle police. They fought their way through the stalled cars, detouring now and then by way of the sidewalk to get around them. As the vans neared, the rising and falling tones of their sirens were deafening.

It was, apparently, some routine police movement, though it might also have been a response to a terrorist attack; in Paris anything was possible. Joletta had been wakened by other cavalcades just like it at least twice per night since she had been in the city.

“That sound always reminds me of the gestapo coming to get Anne and her family in the movie of
The Diary of Anne Frank,
” she said.

“Wrong city,” Rone answered, his voice even.

“I knew that,” she said dryly. She glanced at him, but he made no answer as he looked right and left at the people crowding around them.

The last of the vans went tearing past. In the midst of its noise and rush, Joletta was jostled from behind. She stumbled a few steps away from Rone, but did not try to move nearer again. The mood between them had changed somehow, and she was a little chilled by the distance she sensed in him. Besides, the signal light on its side pole was flashing, indicating that it was almost time to cross.

Engines were gunned and tires squealed as the traffic surged forward again. It was like a raceway as drivers tried to beat the incipient change of the light. The flow seemed interminable, as unstoppable as a flooding river.

Then suddenly brakes screeched and engines geared down, rumbling to a standstill once more. Joletta, moving with the traffic-wise Parisians around her, stepped off the curb.

The roar of an accelerating car ripped through the traffic’s hoarse grumble. Women screamed, men yelled. Joletta whipped her head around. She saw the red sports car spinning around the corner straight at her, noted its sleek, expensive shape and its power.

She was hemmed in on all sides. There was a wall of bodies between her and the curb. Terror beat up into her throat.

Abruptly, the crowd scattered. She saw an opening to one side and spun around, leaping toward it.

Her movements felt inconceivably slow. She flung herself forward with every ounce of her strength, struggling to attain height in an atmosphere that seemed made of glue. Her body was airborne, arcing deliberately, hovering in midair with the grace of a hang glider before plunging down toward the surface of the sidewalk. She thrust out her arms to absorb the jar of the landing.

She never felt it. Something struck her hip, a glancing blow that brought a vivid explosion of pain. She spun, tumbling like clothes in a dryer. Her head brushed something upright and hard.

Silence and darkness reached out to catch her.