Until You

n 'est-ce pas, but who knows?" He took Miranda's hand and brought it to his lips. If her face was familiar, he didn't let on; he simply made some gallant Gallic, remark about her beauty before he led them down a narrow, twisting staircase which opened onto a handsome room with old brick walls and a scarred wooden floor. Small round tables, dressed in heavy white linen napery, bore centerpieces of flowers and candles. In a tucked-away corner, a man sat on a high stool, softly strumming a guitar.

"Everything's delicious," Conor said, as he and Miranda sat down at a table set for two. "The pot au feu, the coq au vin, the saucisson..." He smiled. "But if you want to win Maurice's heart, let him order for us."

"Really, I'm not terribly hungry."

"Tell that to Maurice."

Miranda looked at the little man standing beside the table, his face wreathed in lines of smiling anticipation, and she sighed.

"I'm in his hands," she said.

Conor grinned. "There's no safer place to be."

* * *

Maurice served their meal himself. Onion soup came first, covered with a thick cheese crust.

Miranda apologized again, as she picked up her spoon.

"I never eat much after seven in the evening," she said, "it's become habit, since I started modeling. It's bad for my weight."

"A couple of pounds more would do you good."

"The camera doesn't agree, but I'll try to eat a little of everything—to please Maurice."

Four courses later, as the busboy whisked away yet another empty plate, she sat back and groaned.

"I'll never forgive you for this, O'Neil. I have two showings tomorrow and I won't be able to fit into anything."

Conor's grin was smugly male. "Great stuff, huh?"

"Stuffed's what I am, right to the gills. I cannot believe I ate all that!"

"Maurice and I are proud of you."

"Tell that to the dressers tomorrow, when they're trying to shoehorn me into those size twos."

"Exercise, that's what you need."

"Too late. Not even walking all the way home will help me now."

"A few turns around the dance floor might."

Miranda laughed. "What dance floor?"

"Well, there's a couple of feet of empty space right over there. See?"

Some of the tables had emptied and they'd been pushed against the wall, their chairs stacked on top of them. A handful of couples were swaying to the plaintive sigh of the guitar in the center of something only a philatelist would have called a dance floor.

Miranda looked at the dancers, at how close they were in each other's arms.

"No." She heard the sudden breathlessness in her voice, swallowed hard and forced herself to smile. "I mean, it's really getting terribly late. I have an early call in the morning and I can't afford to look tired."

"No excuses, Beckman," Conor said sternly. He took her hand and tugged her gently to her feet. "Have I mentioned the strain you're putting on the seams of that gown?"

She laughed. "That's not fair," she said as she went into his arms—and in that heart-stopping moment, everything changed.

The postage-stamp bit of space that Conor had called a dance floor, the music, the soft clink of cutlery and glasses faded away. She felt as she had years before, when she'd been walking a craggy beach in Maine and a storm had swept in from the sea.