Her appetite vanished. It probably didn’t mean anything. But she knew she would have to add it to the file she kept at home, locked in her desk. The file of information to be included in a report to Brewer. He insisted on hearing every bit she gathered, no matter how seemingly insignificant. She wondered how significant he would consider this.
Deciding it was worth a try, she said nonchalantly, “Your friend seems to be leaving.”
Cruz’s eyes followed hers and saw that Dan was walking out the door. He looked back to her. “He’s just an acquaintance,” he said dismissively. “Are you done?” At her nod he reached for the check.
“I was invited to pay, remember?” she asked lightly, striving to appear normal.
He shook his head, his usual good nature absent. “I was just kidding. I’ll take care of it.”
“No.” She eased it from beneath his hand. “I insist. It’s the least I can do after you fed me last night.” Not waiting for an answer, she left the table and walked toward the front desk.
“Dammit, Madeline, wait,” Cruz said as he joined her. “I’m not going to let you do that.”
“Don’t worry, Martinez. There won’t be any strings attached,” she said teasingly, without thinking.
He looked hard at her. Strings attached? That wouldn’t worry him at all. It just might make him forget all the self-control he’d had to call on around her, though. The thought made him warm, as his imagination provided vivid pictures of what those strings might imply.
They turned away from the cash register finally, after agreeing to split the bill. Madeline hadn’t taken two steps before she heard a voice say, “Madeline Casey! It’s been too long!”
Recognizing the voice, she was loath to turn. But she did so, slowly. “Hello, Mr. Vincent.” Francis Vincent, a good friend of her father’s, rose from his table and grasped her hand. “I thought that was you, but it’s been so long since we’ve seen each other, I wasn’t sure.” His gaze moved to Cruz. “I don’t think we’ve met. I’m Francis Vincent, a longtime friend of Madeline’s father.”
Cruz introduced himself and she could see the man mentally file the name away. She knew that it would be repeated to her father the very next time Vincent saw him, which would be sooner than Madeline would like. She wondered how long the information would take to reach Geoffrey Casey. She could already guess what his reaction would be to hearing she’d been seen having dinner with Cruz.
She excused herself as soon as possible from the man and hurried Cruz to the car. She resigned herself to the certainty that she would soon be in for a disapproving call regarding her lack of judgment where Cruz was concerned. And she knew her father’s meddling would touch a nerve. Because she was beginning to wonder herself just how clouded her judgment might be getting.
Chapter 9
The next morning Madeline was waiting impatiently in her apartment building elevator. It stopped at yet another floor, and a half dozen people got out. As the doors closed, a deep voice sounded from behind her.
“Nice legs.”
She whirled around and groaned feelingly. “What are you doing here?”
Cruz grinned from his position in the corner of the compartment. He was leaning against the wall, arms crossed, and the look with which he was painting her was one of pure male appreciation. She was wearing an oversize sweatshirt, which almost covered her brief running shorts. Between the hem of those shorts and the rolled-down socks and tennis shoes was approximately thirty inches of the smoothest, shapeliest legs he’d ever observed. And, being a self-acknowledged leg man, his observations had been numerous.
“Looking for you, of course,” he answered. “Ariel heard me knocking at your door and advised me that you would be home in about fifteen minutes, so I decided to hang around.”
“You’ve been riding up and down in the elevator while you waited?” she inquired.
“I’m easily amused.”
Her lips wanted to tilt, but she firmed them. “Obviously.” When she’d entered the elevator she hadn’t paid much attention to its occupants. Her mind had already been busy planning the next segment of her day, now that she’d put in her time at the gym. Until she’d heard Cruz’s voice she’d assumed that she was alone after the last bunch of passengers disembarked.
“Actually, I came down to fetch Ariel’s paper.” For the first time she noticed the newspaper tucked under his arm. “She said she needed to see her horoscope before she could start her day.”
Madeline rolled her eyes. “That’s probably true.” For once she was grateful for her friend’s superstitious nature. She would much rather have Cruz running errands for the woman than spending any noticeable amount of time in her company. Ariel was lovable and funny, but she was also sometimes a real blabbermouth. Madeline really didn’t trust her friend not to divulge something sensitive to him while she had the chance.
She narrowed her eyes. Come to think of it, fifteen minutes was plenty of time for Ariel to have told Cruz any number of embarrassing things, including the description Madeline had given her of him. She looked at him suspiciously. There was no telling from his face what, if anything, Ariel had blurted out. Aware of her interest, he raised his eyebrows.
She looked away belatedly. Whatever Ariel might have told him, he would let it out at the earliest inopportune moment. If there was one thing she’d learned about the man, it was that he was an incurable tease. That certainty, accompanied by her discomfort at his seeing her while she was sweaty and half-bare, put her decidedly out of sorts.
“Ariel was right about the time you got home,” he added. “To the minute. How do you suppose she guessed that?”
She wasn’t fooled by his innocent tone. She knew exactly what he was getting at. “If that’s another dig about my ‘regimented’ life, you can take a hike, Martinez. Maybe if you were a little more scheduled yourself, you’d stop and think before you just showed up on a person’s doorstep. There’s this wonderful invention you may have heard of. It’s called a cell phone.”
He smiled. He doubted she liked him seeing her without her professional battle gear of those tailored suits and pulled-back hair. She looked completely different right now in her exercise garb, and he’d give a month’s pay to see her without the bulky sweatshirt.
He looked his fill, enjoying every moment of the opportunity, aware that with each passing second her temper was escalating. “You should learn to be more spontaneous,” he finally suggested. The elevator opened and they walked toward her apartment. “Following a schedule just seems to make you uptight.”
She threw him a fuming glance as she unlocked her door. “I am not having this conversation with you again,” she informed him as he followed her into the apartment.
“Of course not, there’s no need,” he responded, going directly to the sofa and dropping onto it. “Because today we’re going to alter your usual dull schedule. Go ahead and get dressed, I’ll wait.”
She stared at him, her hands going to her hips. He unfolded Ariel’s paper and began reading it. After several moments he seemed to notice that she was still standing there. “What?”
“Martinez, go home.” She had no desire to spend yet another day in his company. Although the week seemed to fly by too quickly when it came to investigating the case, each weekend was a welcome respite from having to spend every working hour with him. She desperately needed the time apart to regain her objectivity, not to mention to write up her reports for Brewer. By the time they had parted last night her headache had returned, in spades. Seeing Vincent at the restaurant, on top of wondering about the mysterious Dan whom Cruz had spoken to, had been the cause. She was confused and on edge. Madeline didn’t like the feelings. And she knew she wasn’t likely to get respite from either as long as she was in Cruz’s company.
“After all the time I spent waiting for you this morning, now you’re kicking me out?”
She wasn’t fooled by his wounded tone. “That’s right.” No matter what excuse he dreamed up for them to spend the day together, it wasn’t going to work. She had made a strategic mistake the night she’d let him cook supper for her. Now he assumed his tactics worked on her, just as they probably did on all women. But no longer,
