A Wedding in Paris

by Barbara Bretton

  The curly strawberry-blond hair. The way she ducked her head when she took a bite of food. The blue topaz pendant dangling from a slender chain around her neck.

  He burst into the bistro like a madman. The hostess, a woman of great style and indeterminate age, stepped in front of him. Immovable object, meet the irresistible force.

  She said something to him in French that he didn’t understand.

  He said something to her in French that neither one of them understood.

  She glanced about and he had the distinct feeling she was about to call for security.

  “La femme,” he said, pointing toward the empty table next to the window. “Cheveux rouges…” He twirled his index finger in the air. What the hell was the French word for curly? “Bouclés!” You would think he had split the atom. “La femme avec les cheveux rouges bouclés.”

  Contact! The woman’s face relaxed into a wide smile and she led him to the table where he’d seen the woman he now wasn’t so sure was Kate after all. A half-eaten bowl of onion soup sat atop the scarred wooden tabletop. A wineglass with a smudge of peach lipstick along the rim. Kate didn’t drink red wine. Or did she?

  The hostess motioned for him to sit down. He hesitated. What the hell had he gotten himself into? A strange woman was going to walk back to the table and see some nutty American guy sitting there and probably call for a gendarme.

  But the hostess was beaming a smile at him and people were looking, so he sat down on the bentwood chair and smiled his thanks when a busboy handed him a small, handwritten menu.

  The thing to do was get up and leave before the woman came back to reclaim her seat. There was an exit near the bathroom. All he had to do was stand up, head for the bathroom, then detour out the door before he was arrested for stalking.

  He pushed back his chair and stood up. Nobody noticed. He casually walked in the direction of the bathroom. Nobody paid any attention. He was less than six feet from the exit when the bathroom door swung open and he found himself face-to-face with the woman he had married thirty years ago.

  His almost ex-wife Kate.

  CHAPTER THREE

  SHE DID THE FIRST THING she could think of: leaped back into the bathroom and slammed the door behind her. The fact that that was also the first thing a fourteen-year-old girl would do wasn’t lost on her.

  “Kate.” His voice was low and urgent. “What the hell are you doing in there?”

  “Go away,” she said. “I’m trying to pretend this didn’t happen.”

  Why did he have to have such a sexy laugh? It was only making things more difficult than they already were. “Come out or I’m coming in.”

  “You can’t. It’s a ladies’ room.”

  “Think again. This is Paris.” Land of croissants, café au lait and the unisex toilet.

  She glanced behind her and saw the unmistakable porcelain evidence of its unisex capabilities. She considered climbing up onto the sink and hurling herself through the open transom window, but she was wearing a skirt.

  Besides, with her luck her hips would get stuck and they’d have to call an emergency team to pry her loose and she would end up on the Parisian evening news and totally humiliate her daughters. Mother of bride caught climbing out bathroom window of bistro. Oh, yeah, that would make her children proud.

  “Okay,” she said. “You win. I’m coming out.”

  “This isn’t a contest.”

  Who was he kidding? She had jumped back into the bathroom as if it were her second home. That was not what a winner would do.

  “Fine,” she said. “I’m coming out anyway.”

  She took a quick peek at the mirror, ran her fingers through her mop of curls, then pushed open the door.

  The urge to jump back into the bathroom a second time was almost overwhelming, but she didn’t have another token to open the door. He looked even better than he had at the engagement party four months ago and that was saying something. He had looked good enough that night for her to throw reason and self-preservation to the four winds and leap into the backseat with him. A good man in bad-boy clothing. Did it get any better than that?

  Except for the divorce part it was perfect.

  She reminded herself that she was forty-seven and not seventeen. She was a sophisticated, worldly woman and this was the acknowledged capital of sophisticated, worldly romantic arrangements. So what if they had a little…interlude a few months ago? This was Paris. Everyone had a little interlude now and then.

  “What are you doing here?” she tossed over her shoulder as she strolled back to her table by the window.

  “I was going to ask you the same thing,” he said, pulling out her chair for her.

  She hesitated. For all she knew he might pull the chair out from under her.

  “Sit down,” he said, reading her mind. “I’m too old for practical jokes.”

  “Better safe than sorry,” she said. “I figured it might be payback.” So much for sophistication. She had promised herself she would pretend the engagement party had never happened, so what did she do but be the first to bring it up.

  He claimed the chair opposite her. “I’m more the water-balloon type.”

  He reached for his menu and she caught the glint of gold on his hand.

  He’s still wearing his ring….

  She ran a nervous hand through her tangle of curls, aware of her own naked ring finger. “Never mention water balloons around a woman with frizzy hair.”

  “Your hair looks great.”

  “I haven’t combed it since somewhere over the Atlantic.”

  “Don’t do this, Kate.”

  “Do what?”

  “You know what.”

  “If I knew what, I wouldn’t ask what.”

  “You’re doing it again.”

  “I know. I can’t help it.”

  “You never could take a compliment.”

  “Not much practice.”

  He winced. So did she. This wasn’t going well at all.

  “Let’s start over,” she said as Ryan gestured for the server. “How about we limit conversation to the weather, the food and the wedding.”

  Again that twinkle in his eye, the one that always got them into trouble. “That should see us through lunch,” Ryan said.

  “You’re ordering lunch?”

  He nodded. “Your soup looks great.”

  “It is great,” she admitted, “but what I really want is a plateful of pastries and a huge café au lait.”

  “So order it.”

  “This soup must be a thousand calories in cheese alone.”

  He shrugged his shoulders. “You’re in Paris.”

  “And I brought my American thighs with me.”

  “Your thighs are the same as they were in high school.”

  “That’s a nasty thing to say.”

  “You really do need to work on this compliment thing, Kate.”

  She started to repeat her not enough practice remark from earlier on, but something stopped her. The truth, maybe? He had never held back on compliments. She had simply stopped hearing them.

  The server, a petite blonde named Chloe, appeared at their table. Kate laughed as he searched around for the French words for “onion soup” then settled for pointing at her bowl and her glass of wine.

  “Of course,” Chloe said in perfect English. “I’ll be right back.”

  They locked eyes and started to laugh.

  “Give it up,” Kate said. “Everyone here speaks better English than we do.”

  “I didn’t come to Paris to practice my English,” he said in mock annoyance.

  Chloe returned with his soup and wine. Kate ordered a café au lait and an assortment of buttery glazed goodies.

  “Make that for two,” Ryan said.

  “Café au lait?” Kate raised a brow. “Since when?”

  “Since they opened a fancy coffee shop around the corner from the radio station.” He spooned up some soup. “Since when do you drink red wine?”


  “Since about thirty minutes ago.” She wrinkled her nose. “Turns out I still don’t like it.”

  “Big surprise. It didn’t come with a paper umbrella and pineapple spear.”

  She laughed again. “So I’m not an oenophile. Sue me.”

  “Remember the year we went to that wine tasting in Pennsylvania?”

  “Oh God!” She pretended to hide her face behind her hands. “I’ve spent fifteen years trying to forget that weekend.”

  Her parents had volunteered to take care of the girls so they could spend four days in Lancaster County to celebrate their anniversary. The waitress in the pancake place told them about a tiny local winery that hosted tastings on the weekend. Kate, who never drank anything that didn’t come with paper parasols, pineapple spears and bright red maraschino cherries, found herself enamored of something called Holiday Wine that tasted like a blend of toothpaste, cloves and red hots.

  The hangover lasted a full day.

  “Remember the room we had?”

  Of course she remembered. That tiny room was all bed. A big fluffy inviting bed made for lovers. The kind of bed a woman never forgot.

  She shifted position in her chair. “Your soup’s getting cold.”

  “My soup’s fine.”

  “The melted cheese gets all rubbery. You really should—”

  “The kids are grown, Kate, and I’m almost forty-eight. You can relax. We can all feed ourselves.”

  “Fine,” she said, polishing off the last drops of red wine in her glass. “Whatever.”

  “I didn’t mean it that way.”

  “I know that.”

  She wasn’t sure she did and, from the look in his eyes, he wasn’t all that sure, either.

  “You worry too much, that’s all.”

  “You mean, I’m too controlling,” she said.

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “No, but that’s what you meant.”

  “No,” he corrected her, “I said exactly what I meant. You worry too much. You always have. Don’t read more into it.”

  “I have an idea,” she said, after Chloe replaced her soup and wine with butter, starch and caffeine. “We have a long week ahead of us. Why don’t we put a lid on the past and keep things light?”

  His expression was anything but. “Meaning what?”

  Did he really want her to spell it out? “I don’t want to walk down memory lane with you, Ryan. There’s no point to it. We’ve had good times and not-so-good ones over the years, but that’s over. I don’t want to think about any of it.”

  “You’re talking about what happened at the engagement party.”

  “I’m talking about everything. Two weeks from now we’ll be officially divorced. I think we’ve said everything that needs to be said, don’t you?”

  He took a long sip of wine. “There’s nothing wrong with sharing memories.”

  “We’ll be sharing plenty of them with the family once we both arrive at Milles Fleurs.”

  He leaned back in his chair. “You’re right,” he said. “We’ll keep the chat to onion soup and the fact that there’s a rottweiler sitting at the next table eating foie gras from a spoon.”

  She spun around so fast she almost fell off her chair. He wasn’t kidding. A giant dog was happily lapping goose liver from a spoon while his owner—or lunch date—sipped wine and read a book.

  “I guess we’re not in Kansas anymore,” she muttered as she swiveled back to face Ryan.

  “Or New York,” he said.

  She met his eyes. “Or Boston, for that matter.”

  “Don’t be so sure about Boston,” he said, a slight smile playing at the corners of his mouth. “I saw a Jack Russell order a Guinness a few weeks ago.”

  She wanted to laugh, but an emotion she didn’t dare name threatened to overwhelm her. “I stand corrected.”

  “We did it, Katie,” he said.

  She wasn’t going to pretend she didn’t understand.

  “I guess we did,” she admitted, “although this isn’t quite the way we thought it would be.”

  Too much information. Aren’t you the one who wanted to keep it light?

  He lifted his half-empty glass of red wine. “To Paris.”

  She lifted her café au lait. “To Paris.”

  Now all she had to do was get through lunch without a meltdown and she would be home-free.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  MAYBE IT WAS THE COFFEE.

  Maybe it was the gigantic butter-and-sugar rush from the sinfully delectable platter of pastries they demolished between them.

  Whatever the reason, both Kate and Ryan were feeling exceptionally mellow as they left the bistro.

  “It’s like a street fair out here,” Ryan said as they dodged a platoon of roller skaters whizzing by. A violinist played a mournful tune on the corner while a young girl countered with every tourist’s favorite French music cliché La Vie en Rose on an accordion on the opposite corner. Couples strolled by hand in hand. Businessmen and-women talked swiftly into cell phones as they hurried to their next appointments. An elderly couple cuddled together on a bench alongside the river, letting the day flow all around them.

  Life was happening everywhere they looked.

  Kate rummaged in her purse for her sunglasses. “Lunch was great,” she said, slipping the sunglasses on. “Thanks.”

  He inclined his head. “Thanks for letting me join you.”

  “I never did like eating alone.”

  Oops. Not exactly what she meant to say. She hoped the red wine he’d polished off at lunch had taken the edge off his powers of perception.

  “So where are you headed?” He sounded surprisingly unsure of himself. She wished she didn’t find that so endearing. The man she had spent most of her life with had seemed so sure of everything.

  “The Eiffel Tower,” she said with a slightly embarrassed laugh. “Where else would an American tourist on her first trip to Paris go?”

  He laughed with her and she hesitated. Should she ask if he wanted to walk along with her or was he looking for a graceful way to say goodbye?

  “Well,” she said, starting to inch slowly away, “I guess I’ll see you at the inn.”

  “The Eiffel Tower is number one on my American-tourist-in-Paris list, too,” he said. “Mind if I walk with you?”

  Talk about a loaded question. If she told the truth, she would look like she was carrying a torch for him. If she told a lie, her first day in Paris would lose most of its luster.

  “Fair warning,” she said in what she hoped was a breezy, I-don’t-care tone of voice. “I have a camera and I’m not afraid to use it.”

  He reached into the back pocket of his jeans. “And I have my guidebook.”

  Why fight fate? The sun was shining. The breeze was sweet with spring. And this was Paris.

  They crossed the street and walked along the Seine in the general direction of the Eiffel Tower. The city surged with creative energy. In many ways it reminded her of New York. She was about to say that to Ryan when he stopped short.

  “Hey! Isn’t that Alexis coming out of the salon across the street?”

  She looked, squinted, raised her sunglasses then let out a muffled shriek. “I’m not here,” she said, then took off as fast as two café au laits and three cream-filled pastries would let her.

  WHAT THE HELL—?

  He blinked as she disappeared down the narrow alley between the boulangerie and magasin de fleur. The last time she had taken off like that was the night of the engagement party. He had let her go that time and lived to regret it. This time she wasn’t going to get away so easily.

  His daughter was busy laughing with a group of young women in front of the salon across the street. She hadn’t a clue her estranged parents were performing a little bit of street theater one hundred yards away. He darted down the alleyway before she had the chance to find out.

  “What the hell are you doing?” he demanded when he caught up to a gasping Kate halfway between the street an
d the river. “You’re not running off on me again without an explanation.”

  Kate was bent over at the waist, gasping for air. “I need oxygen,” she managed. “I’m too old for all this drama.”

  “You’re not smoking again, are you?”

  “I’m not running, either. I’m out of shape.”

  “You probably weigh the same as you did in high school.”

  “Yes, but it’s all in different places.”

  “I like the different places.” That wasn’t what he had meant to say. He had meant to ask why the hell she had turned into The Fugitive when he pointed out their daughter across the street.

  She looked up at him, blue eyes wide. “Ryan, I—”

  He touched the tip of his finger to the corner of her mouth. “Sugar,” he said.

  Her tongue darted out to capture the sweetness. An involuntary act, but the effect it had on him was powerful.

  He ducked his head and caught the familiar smell of her hair. She leaned closer, all softness and warmth.

  “We’re in Paris,” he whispered against her lips and she whispered back, “We’re in Paris.”

  And then he kissed her.

  THE KISS WAS MORE PROMISE than fact. A quick brush of his mouth to hers. Not tentative but testing. As if he expected her to turn and run away again.

  Which was exactly what she should do. This was worse than playing with fire. Was the magic of Paris enough to make up for the fact that this could be the fast track to disaster just days before their daughter’s wedding?

  A smarter woman would have taken a step back, but then maybe she wasn’t as bright as she thought.

  All she cared about was the strange and familiar feel of his mouth on hers, the smell of his skin, the muscled hardness of his chest as they melted together in an embrace.

  “Now I know I’m really in Paris,” she said, ending the kiss before it went too far. “Making out in an alleyway with a good-looking guy.”

  Her attempt at humor didn’t knock him off track the way she hoped it would.

  “Why did you run?”

  “I run all the time,” she said lightly. “To the store. To the studio. To the corner bakery. You’ll have to be more specific.”