WILL MAGUIRE, at age thirty-one, had done all the bailing out and damsel saving and white-knight crap he ever intended to do in this lifetime.

But hell. He had noticed the commotion from all the way down the block, and when he heard the sudden, sharp, panicked yell-obviously a woman's voice-he instinctively hustled toward the sound. The instinct wasn't heroic. It was lunatic.

He'd lived in Paris long enough to know getting involved in a tourist brouhaha was complete lunacy. Yet still he came closer.

It took only seconds for him to interpret the scene. She'd been ripped off. Moments before, a gendarme had shown up, and typical of Paris, so had every busybody bystander. Most of them figured an American tourist, being an American tourist, had done something stupid. A few wanted to whine about the danger of Paris streets these days. The gendarme was trying to question her about exactly what happened.

In those same few seconds, he snared a quick look at her.

Very quick.

But that was all it took for him to feel a potent kick in the gut.

He didn't get it. A pale purple sweater cupped her small boobs. Dark pants fit snug enough to clarify that she had skinny legs and no ass. Since he'd always tended to like more breasts and less bone, there was nothing below her neck that should have rattled his hormones. Yet his pulse was kabooming like a freight train.

Heightwise, she came up to his chin. And that was where she stopped being ordinary. The eyes were mesmerizing, almond shaped, tea-brown, looking right at him. The details included a small, thin nose; pink mouth; and a sweep of almost-shoulder-length brown hair. Only brown wasn't an accurate description of the color. The sixty-five-degree morning was drenched in sunshine, and that's how her hair looked-lustrous, full of light, shiny in the sun.

Okay, so she was adorable. But that alone didn't explain the kaboom thing. There were fabulous-looking women all over Paris.

There was something else about her, something he couldn't define. A zest. A glow. A female thing. Will didn't need to identify it to know it was a serious problem.

Ever since he'd devoted himself to a life of decadence and vice-that'd be the last four years-he'd fine-tuned his sonar to beware of women who meant trouble.

She meant trouble.

On the other hand, all she'd asked him to do was translate for her for a couple of minutes. How could that possibly be any kind of risk?

"Sure," he said. And immediately discovered that helping her wasn't going to be quite that simple.

The gendarme shot him a look as if a savior of the universe had just shown up. The bystanders kneed in closer, all hot to participate. Everybody claimed to have seen the thief close-up. One said he was tall and burly. One said he was lean as a stick. One said he had a beard, like a homeless person, and another said he'd just been a guy walking down the street who suddenly sprang into this deviant behavior, far too fast for anyone to stop him or come to the girl's aid.

Still, for all the confusion, it didn't take forever to get the basic questions asked and answered. Her name was Kelly Rochard. She was twenty-seven. From South Bend, Indiana. Here for ten days. Vacation.

Something flickered in her eyes when she said "vacation," but Will just dutifully translated-it wasn't any of his business whether she was telling the truth or not.

"So the thief took off with your purse," he said. "Can you give the cop a list of the critical stuff in the bag?"

Hell, she said, her whole world was in the damned bag. Passport, money, credit cards. Oh yeah, and then she got around to mentioning that the thief had also taken off with her engagement ring.

"What?" she said, when Will and the gendarme exchanged a quick look.

Will didn't answer. It was obvious that the cop had immediately thought the same thing he did. What sense did it make for a beautiful woman to be traveling to Paris alone in the spring? Her so-called fiancé was either a jerk or an idiot. Probably both.

"…and there were some private papers in the bag. too. That's the worst. That those records are probably gone forever. I have no way to replace them, no way to…"

"Hey," Will said gruffly. Tears suddenly magnified her eyes, making them look extra huge and exotic. "Take it easy there. It'll all get straightened out."

Well, it wouldn't, of course. Losing a passport in a foreign country was a guaranteed nightmare. Times fifty.

The cop heard about the "private papers," but he was tuned to the same practical channel that Will was. It didn't really matter what Kelly had lost, because the mugger was long gone. She'd still need a police report, which was a pain for the gendarme to fill out when there was about zero chance in a zillion they'd ever find the guy. But he'd get her one so she could pursue a replacement passport.

That wasn't going to happen overnight.

"Je sais," Will said drily. He knew. American bureaucracies and French bureaucracies-even if the French didn't like to think so-were kin. Ghastly. Time-consuming, inefficient, frustrating, etc., etc.

The cop had some questions for him to translate… Did Kelly have enough funds to survive, someone who could wire her money, a way to live until the paperwork got sorted out, what was the address where she was staying. All that yadda yadda.

"You're from South Bend, too?" She motioned to his sweatshirt.

"Yeah." Like it mattered? He suffered a gulp when he heard the address for her hotel. She was damned lucky she hadn't been ripped off there, too.

"Oh my God. The key to my room was in my purse, too. I can't even get into my room." She'd been doing okay, or reasonably okay. But now the more she realized how much she'd lost, the more panicked she got. "I don't have anything. I don't even have money to buy lunch. Or dinner. Or enough to buy another hairbrush. Or lipstick. Or even to wire home. I don't even have my coat-"

The more panicked she got, the faster the gendarme talked. "What does she think we can do? We can't even get a clear description of the perpetrator. You know these Americans, now she'll be saying nothing's safe in France. I'll file a report, of course, but God-" he crossed himself"-couldn't get her a replacement passport this instant. Where was her common sense, to have all her money in one place? And a bag she was carrying on her besides?"

Kelly was on a completely different track. "I carried those letters on me all the time," she said mournfully. "They're all I ever had of my dad. I don't care about the rest…"

Will fished in his pocket for a tissue. Came through. But after she blew her nose, she looked at him expectantly.

As if there was some insane kind of magic between them, he found himself looking back. At those eyes. That mouth. That glow of hers.

He told himself firmly to look away.

He told himself that the gendarme would transport her to the embassy or consulate or wherever she needed to go, and the rest of her mess wasn't his problem. She'd be okay. That's what embassies and consulates and cops were for, taking care of people. It wasn't his problem. She couldn't possibly, remotely, be his problem.

He told himself that his sisters had irrevocably taught him to steer clear of damsels in distress. At the same time he was analyzing her looks again. Her hair was this glossy mass of loose dark waves, not a style exactly. It just looked all soft and silky. Naturally sexy.

"Monsieur?" The gendarme growled at him impatiently, as if he'd asked him a question a few moments ago and Will had failed to pay attention.

Which was possible.

Possibly she'd been talking, and he hadn't been listening to her, either.

And then he made his third mistake of the day-this one far worse than stopping to help, far worse than failing to pay attention.

"She can't very well just stand here in the street," he told the gendarme. "I'll take her."

The instant those three words came out of his mouth. Will realized that he'd completely lost his mind. "I mean for a little while. I'll go feed her. Lunch. But you have to promise to get the police report done pronto, so she can go to the consulate for her passport."

"Bien, bien," the gendarme said. He probably would have promised anything now that he was off the hook.

He disappeared faster than lightning. Ditto for the bystanders.

And Will was left alone with her.

CHAPTER TWO

"I'M ENGAGED. I told you that, didn't I?" Kelly asked him.

"Yup. About three times in the last half hour."

Now, that couldn't have been true, because Kelly knew she hadn't been nervous a half hour ago. It was only now, as they turned down his street and were aiming directly for his place, that her nerves started suffering major hiccups.

Earlier, it seemed like a superb idea to leave the scene of the crime with a nice, tall, big. tall, strong, tall, protective guy. Especially when the guy was a fellow American. Her judgment had nothing to do with his being cute. Or sexy. It was only about her feeling terrified out of her mind from her mugger experience.

Only now, approaching his front door, her judgment didn't seem to be quite the same. It was a cool front door. Old. old oak. Shaped with an arch. The handle was a weathered brass lion. Like Will. Not the weathered and brass part, but the tawny lion part. "I have to admit, it feels a little weird, being here," she said with a laugh. "For one thing, it's just crazy for you to feel stuck with me, someone you don't know from Adam."

"Kelly. You're not worried this is a pickup, are you? The only reason I suggested coming here was because it was nearby. It was the fastest we could get you to a place where you could put your feet up, have a cup of coffee in one hand and a phone in the other. It's not like there isn't another way to handle this, but you've got a bunch of calls to make, no easy way to do it on the street."