Man In A Million. Muriel Jensen

words, the right questions.

      “You are who you are,” her mother had insisted, “and it doesn’t matter a damn who your father was. Besides,” she’d added, almost as an afterthought, “he’s dead. He was killed in a car accident right after you were born.”

      Paris had insisted on a name.

      “Jeffrey St. John,” her mother had finally revealed. “He’s dead, Paris. It doesn’t matter. Jasper O’Hara was your father.”

      Paris had gone back to school but found herself unable to focus on her studies. She felt as though the very foundation of her life was cracked and unable to support the future she’d planned.

      She’d come home, needing a dose of the stability of her old life before she could decide what to do about her future. She knew that didn’t make sense because her old life was based on her mother’s fabrication. But even though Jasper O’Hara hadn’t been her biological father, he’d been her biggest fan, and there was comfort in being where he’d been.

      It saddened her to think that the steadiness that she’d always thought had come from him hadn’t. So where had it come from? A bit actor? Somehow, that seemed unlikely.

      She reached instinctively for the chocolate stash in her wallet, forgetting that it was at the fire station. Great. Broke and without chocolate. Life was a cruel master.

      With no pickups pending, Paris pulled into a parking spot across from the Common to wait for Prue.

      The sight of the Maple Hill Square, or Common, had a grounding effect on her. Life here went on very much as it had two hundred years ago, though the Maple Hill Mirror had up-to-the-minute equipment instead of the old labor-intensive printing method that required inking by hand and rolling one sheet at a time. The early residents of the town had never heard of the mochaccinos produced at the Perk Avenue Tea Room down the way, and would have been horrified by the lengths of the skirts in the dress shop window.

      Otherwise, the restored colonial buildings that framed the square looked the same, a colonial flag flew, and Caleb and Elizabeth Drake, who’d once fought the redcoats, still stood on the green, their images bronzed to remind Maple Hill of its heritage.

      This was part of what she’d come home for, Paris thought. The eternity of life here, roots in the deep past, finger on the pulse of the future. To someone who felt lost, it provided a handhold on permanence.

      Prue probably never felt lost. She had the temperament of an artist, but seemed always so sure of herself.

      Now she was part of a committee headed by Mariah Trent to raise funds for an addition to the library and more books.

      Prue met Mariah while volunteering at the Maple Hill Manor School outside of town. Mariah had once been a dorm mother there, but now had a husband and two adopted children, and was the backbone of community fund-raising.

      When Prue had been living in New York with her senator husband, she’d apprenticed with Shirza Bell, a famous couturier. Prue’s life long dream had been to design clothes, and though she now helped to make a living for the three of them as Paris and their mother did, she still sketched at night and designed in her dreams.

      Paris was jealous of her passion—and her face, and her body, and her wonderful ease with people.

      She could see her coming from across the street. Late afternoon traffic was light, but Prue Hale stood out like a flame in the cool sunlight of late September. She was several inches shorter than Paris and attractively round without looking plump. Her hair was long and golden and always flying around her in appealing disarray. She had a penchant for long skirts and sweaters, and always looked like a social butterfly on her way home from afternoon tea.

      Today, her skirt was a slim gray houndstooth, and she wore a dusty-rose sweater and a brightly colored shawl with a black-and-bright-pink pattern, which hung loosely on her shoulders. She had on black leather shoes with a small heel, a matching pouch purse, and a smile Paris could read from yards away. Paris wondered if Randy Sanford would change his mind about wanting to date her if he could see Prue.

      Something good had happened to her sister. Paris would have to listen to every detail as she drove her home. God, she wished she had her chocolate.

      Prue pulled the front passenger door open and fell into the cab, filling the small space with the fragrance of White Diamonds.

      “Hi!” Her breathy voice burst into Paris’s silence. “You’ll never guess what happened!”

      Paris pushed away every other thought to talk to her sister. A conversation with Prue always took up all the space in her head. Randy Sanford resisted being pushed, but she pushed harder.

      “What?” she asked.

      “Mariah wants to have a fashion show for the fund-raiser, and guess what else?”

      “What else?”

      “Featuring my designs!”

      “That’s wonderful, Prue!” Paris was sincere. Prue’s face was glowing, and Paris could only imagine how much it meant to her to finally have a place to show off her clothing line. Granted, it was just a small community function, but word had a way of getting around. And after finding her husband in flagrante delicto with an intern in his office, Prue’s ego needed the boost. Then Paris began to worry about the practical aspects of the opportunity. “But won’t it be hard to transfer the designs to the real thing? How much time do you have?”

      “A little over four weeks,” Prue replied, her excitement dimming just slightly. “I thought about that. But I think I can do it. If you help me.”

      Pulling away from the curb, Paris was filled with trepidation. “Prue, I can’t sew a stitch.”

      “I know, I know. I can handle that part. But I need you to model.” She said those last words quickly, probably anticipating Paris’s reaction.

      “What?” Paris demanded, stopping right in the middle of the narrow, tree-lined road. Someone behind her honked. She drove on to the red light at the corner. “Are you crazy? I don’t know a thing—”

      “You don’t have to know anything,” Prue argued eagerly, “you just have to have the body, and you do. You’re perfect. Tall, slender, long legs, great hair. You’ll be perfect.”

      Paris stared at the passing traffic and determined that God had to be paying her back for all the tricks she’d played on Prue in their youth. Her little sister had been trusting and gullible, and it had been easy to convince her that candy was poisonous and should always be tested by a big sister, that curly hair reflected dishonesty that could only be overcome if the curls were cut off, that she’d been left as a baby at the secondhand store where their mother and father had bought her for a bargain.

      Curious, Paris thought now, that she might have been the one abandoned to someone else’s mercy, considering her doubtful beginning.

      “Prue, I’ll only embarrass you,” she pleaded.

      “You will not,” Prue insisted. “And I’ve been thinking about it. I knew you’d need incentive, so I thought we’d make a deal.”

      A deal? Oh, this couldn’t be good.

      “I’ll design and sew during the day,” she bargained, “then drive for you from four to midnight, if you’ll do this for me. You can make more money if Berkshire Cab is available from nine to twelve. There are all those people going home from late meetings who hate to drive after dark, or in the wind and rain.”

      “But you’ll be driving after dark. And the wind and rain will be here before you know it. I don’t like it.” It would be nice to be able to expand her hours, but 6:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. was the best she could do alone. “And what about your job at the dress shop?”

      Prue sighed. “Patsy’s closing up. I’ve got my walking papers. Will’s been transferred to New Jersey and they’ll be gone in a couple of weeks. I need employment, anyway.” She hesitated a moment, then added,