The Last Time I Saw Paris by Elizabeth Adler Page B

eye of a gray-haired man at the other end of the bar. He raised his glass to her and she looked hastily away. She drained the tequila and ordered another. The bartender put the glass in front of her and pushed the bowl of peanuts closer. Lara sipped her drink this time, staring vacantly into the mirror over the bar, wondering what to do with her new freedom. Because she had no doubt now that Bill was gone for good.

    Walking down the street, Dan noticed the dog first, tied to the tree outside the bar. “Dexter?” he said inquiringly.
    Dex gave a delighted woof and Dan bent to pat him and then he saw Lara Lewis sitting alone at the bar. She looked pale but pretty in a blue sweater with her dark hair curling softly around her face. His first instinct was to go in and say hello, but there was something in the droop of her shoulders, her unseeing gaze into the mirror that made him hold back. She looked like a woman who wanted to be left alone. Giving Dex a final pat, he went on his way.
    Back home later, with music soaring to the rafters, Dan prowled the deck wondering about Ms. Lewis. She wasn’t the kind of woman he’d expected to see drinking alone in a bar, but, then, she was a mass of contradictions. Shy enough to blush, yet opinionated too. She had told him almost nothing about herself. It was as though she had something to hide, yet she was transparently honest. He thought she was a very interesting woman. And he couldn’t get the image of her in that red bathing suit out of his head.
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    â€œYou look different,” Dan said to her the next afternoon.
    Lara knew it. She had looked in the mirror earlier, seen the truth: the shadows under her eyes, the puffiness, the little lines. She wore no makeup, her face was naked, and her feelings were there in her eyes for him to see. She had nothing to hide from this stranger.
    â€œI didn’t sleep,” she said curtly.
    He nodded. “Seems to me you don’t ever get muchsleep. Perhaps you should see someone about that.”
    Lara gave a short, sharp bark of laughter. “A doctor, you mean. Thanks, but I have my own diagnosis. And I don’t need any help.”
    Turning away, he went quietly about his work. Lara sighed. She hadn’t meant to be rude, but rejection made a woman bitchy. She lay back in the chaise, not even pretending to read, watching him.
    An hour passed in silence. He never even looked at her. When she could bear it no longer, she called softly, “I’m sorry I was rude.”
    He was sawing through a plank of wood. He finished what he was doing then glanced up at her. “That’s okay, Ms. Lewis.”
    Her sigh was big and genuine. “When are you going to call me Lara? After all, I call you Dan.”
    â€œOkay. Lara.”
    He went back to his work and she sighed again. Another hour passed and the sun began its slow descent. She offered him a glass of wine but he said he would prefer a beer and not to get up, he would get it from the kitchen himself.
    He came back with the opened beer and walked across the deck to where she was sitting.
    Lara thought how unhurried and easy he was. There was none of the urgency about him that Bill had. None of the tension, the pacing, the furrowed brow, the ringing phone that Bill always jumped to answer. It was as though this man had all the time in the world for her.
    He sat back in his chair, one leg hitched comfortably over the other, completely at home, completely relaxed. A smile lurked behind his eyes.
    She folded her arms across her chest, uncomfortable under his gaze. “What are you looking at?”
    He lifted a shoulder. “You.”
    â€œNot much to look at, really.” She flipped back her long hair like a self-conscious teenager.
    â€œReally?”
    Now he was laughing at her. She got up, put on a Bob Dylan CD, a voice from her youth.
    â€œMy favorite,” he said, turning up the volume.
    Dylan’s gravelly voice sighed out into