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She looked away, and he wanted to reach out, pull her to himself when moisture whisked her eyes. But they were back from never-never land, and who knew if he’d run into a fan.
Oh, who was he kidding? If he was a footballer, maybe, although Paris had added an American-style football team to last year’s lineup. The Musketeers.
“You know where Abe lived?” he said as they lined up by the doors.
“Yannick sent me the address.”
The doors opened, and he got off. She followed him, and they merged into the crowd, taking an escalator up to the street level. Pushing through the revolving doors, they exited through a tunnel and up another set of stairs to the street.
An overcast sky hovered over Trocadero Park, and the smells of croissants and coffee drifted from a nearby café. Around him, despite the dour day, people rode bicycles, mopeds, and scooters, many on foot, all bundled up in warm jackets, scarves. He turned the collar up on his own jacket, picked up at the airport when they’d landed in Paris. A puffy black thing that’d cost about twice what it was worth.
He didn’t want to look at his bank account. All the reserve he’d saved for the past two years of living in a rent-free apartment, his only costs being food and wine, he’d done a great job of depleting over the past five days, living like he might be a superstar or something.
He did have his investments, thanks to the lawsuit, but still, he couldn’t afford to be dropped by the Vikings.
So really, no more hand-holding, no more flirting with the petite blonde official who now pulled out her cell phone and pulled up the GPS for Abe Bartmann’s flat, somewhere near the Eiffel Tower.
Which he spotted through the trees, towering and magnificent on the opposite shore of the Seine.
“I think it’s this way,” Iris said, holding her phone and orienting herself toward a side street. The ornate buildings rose seven stories high, capped with black mansard roofs, most of the windows hosting scrolled wrought-iron Juliet balconies.
She grabbed his elbow, jerking him away from the tree-lined edge of the sidewalk. A bicyclist zipped by and shouted at him.
“Saved your life just then.”
“Thanks.”
“I’m not sure we’re even, but you’re welcome.”
“Even?”
“Saving my life? How are your shoulders?”
“I’m fine, Iris.” He didn’t meant for it to emerge curt—he’d blame it on his lack of sleep, maybe—but the last thing he wanted was to return to that moment in the cave when he’d realized he’d gotten them in over their heads. Literally.
“It’s just up here a block.”
He didn’t know why his stomach had knotted, why he fought the sudden urge to grab her hand, yank her back to the subway.
Get on a plane.
Weird.
They found the building and, in the lobby, she pushed the button to Abe’s flat. A voice answered, female, Southern, with a twang.
“It’s Iris Marshall.”
“C’mon up, honey.”
Hud gave her a look as he opened the buzzing door.
She walked in and hit the button for the tiny lift. “Abe is divorced. His ex-wife is some high-powered attorney in Atlanta. She let Abe take their daughter, Genesis, to Paris to attend school here. She lives with his ex in the summer.”
The apartment lobby bore the look of ancient days, with ornate columns and a travertine staircase that wound up around the lift in the center. It smelled of age and history, and he imagined freedom fighters from the French Revolution barricading themselves inside the thick walls.
The lift shuddered down to the floor, and the doors lurched open. “You sure this thing is safe?” Hud said as he got on, ducking, squishing himself into the tiny box. The lift opened on the seventh floor, and they got out. A spray of flowers was affixed to a wooden apartment door, and Iris headed that direction.
It opened even before she reached it, and a middle-aged woman wearing a black dress and heels, her dark braided weave pulled back into a ponytail, came out. “Iris.”
