'What did you eat for lunch?' he asked.
'Lunch didn't make me sick.' She stared into his brown eyes and answered truthfully, 'It started this morning.' The funny little flutter in the pit of her stomach had started with a kiss. A kiss from an emotionally barren cop who disliked her as much as she disliked him. He patted her cheek with his warm palm as if to tell her to toughen up.
'It? Ah, cramps,' Kevin deduced as if her behavior suddenly made perfect sense to him. 'I thought you concocted an herbal remedy for those mood swings.'
The corners of Joe's lips curved into an amused smile, and he lowered his hand and hooked his thumbs in his tool belt.
It was true. She'd created an essential oil that seemed to help her friend Francis with her PMS. But Gabrielle didn't need it. She didn't have PMS and she was always extremely nice to everyone-damnit. 'I don't have mood swings.' She crossed her arms under her breasts and tried not to glare. 'I'm perfectly pleasant all the time. Ask anyone!'
The two men looked at her as if they were afraid to say another word. Kevin had clearly turned traitor on her. He'd defected to the enemy camp-his enemy.
'Maybe you should take the rest of the day off,' Kevin suggested, but she couldn't. She had to stay and save him from Joe and from himself. 'I used to have a girlfriend who laid around with a heating pad and ate chocolate. She said it was the only thing that seemed to help with those cramps and mood swings.'
'I'm not having cramps or mood swings!' Weren't men supposed to hate talking about this sort of thing? Wasn't it supposed to freak them out? But neither man looked embarrassed; in fact, Joe looked as if he was trying not to laugh.
'Maybe you should take some Midol,' Joe added through his smile, even though he knew perfectly well that what ailed her couldn't be cured with Midol.
Kevin nodded. Gabrielle's headache moved to her temples, and she no longer cared to save Kevin from Joe Shanahan or from prison. If he ended up as some iron-pumping convict's special buddy, her conscience was clear. Gabrielle raised her hands to the sides of her head as if to keep it from splitting.
'I've never seen her look this mad,' Kevin said as if she weren't standing right in front of him.
Joe tilted his head to one side and pretended to study her. 'I had a girlfriend who reminded me of a praying mantis once a month. If you said the wrong thing, she'd bite your head off. The rest of the time she was real sweet, though.'
Gabrielle curled her nonviolent hands into fists and dropped them to her sides. She wanted to punch someone. Someone solid with dark hair and eyes. He was forcing her to have evil thoughts. Forcing her to create bad karma. 'Which girlfriend was that? The one who dumped you after a whole two months?'
'She didn't dump me. I broke up with her.' Joe reached for Gabrielle and wrapped his arm around her waist. He hauled her up against his side and caressed her skin through the thin nylon of her shirt. 'God, I love it when you're jealous,' he whispered in a low, sensual voice just above her ear. 'You get all squinty-eyed and sexy.'
His breath warmed her scalp, and if she turned her head just a little, his lips would brush her cheek. The wonderful smell of his skin enveloped her head, and she wondered how such an evil man could smell so heavenly. 'You look normal,' she said, 'but you are really a demon from hell.' She stuck her elbow in his ribs. Hard. The air whooshed from his lungs and she stepped out of his embrace.
'Guess this means I won't be getting any tonight,' Joe groaned as he grabbed his side.
Kevin the defector laughed, as if the detective was a comedian.
'I'm going home,' she said and walked from the room without looking back. She'd tried. If Kevin incriminated himself in her absence, her conscience was clear.
Kevin heard the back door slam shut, then he turned his gaze to Gabrielle's boyfriend. 'She's really mad at you.'
'She'll get over it. She just hates it when I mention old girlfriends.' Joe shifted his weight to one foot and crossed his arms over his chest. 'She told me that you and she dated once or twice.'
Kevin looked for signs of jealousy but didn't see any. He'd seen the possessive way Joe touched Gabrielle, and he'd witnessed them kissing that morning. For as long as he'd known her, she'd gone for tall, skinny men. This guy was different. This guy was all bulky muscles and brute strength. She must be in love. 'We went out a few times, but we make better friends,' he assured Joe. Actually, he'd been a lot more interested in her than she'd been in him. 'You don't have anything to worry about.'
'I'm not worried. I just wondered.'
Kevin had always admired confidence, and Joe had it in spades. If the man had had a good income besides his good looks, Kevin probably would have hated him on sight. But he was such a loser that Kevin didn't feel at all inadequate. 'I think you are probably going to be good for Gabrielle,' he said.
'How's that?'
Because he wanted her distracted for the next few days, and Joe seemed to occupy her completely. 'Because neither of you expect too much,' he answered and turned toward his office. He shook his head as he entered the room and sat at his desk. Gabrielle's boyfriend was a low-expectation loser who was perfectly happy to scrape by.
Not Kevin. He hadn't been born rich like Gabrielle, or good-looking like Joe. Instead, he'd been born number six in a Mormon family of eleven children. With so many kids packed into one small farmhouse, it had been easy to get overooked. Except for slight variation in hair color and obvious differences in gender, the Carter kids all looked alike.
Except for once a year on birthdays, there'd been no special attention given to each individual child. They'd been dealt with as a whole. A clan. Most of his brothers and sisters had loved growing up in such a large family. They'd felt a bond, a special closeness with the other siblings. Not Kevin. He'd just felt invisible. He'd hated that.
All of his life, he'd worked hard. Before school, after school, and all summer long. Nothing had been given to him except hand-me-down clothes and a new pair of shoes every fall. He still worked hard, but now he enjoyed himself a hell of a lot more. And if there were things he wanted but couldn't obtain the money for through legal enterprise, there were other ways. There were always other ways.
Money was power. Absolutely. Without it a man was worse than nothing. He was invisible.
Chapter Six
Floating on a clear blow-up raft in the middle of her backyard kiddie pool, Gabrielle finally found the inner peace she'd sought all day. Shortly after she'd returned from her shop that afternoon, she'd filled the pool and pulled on her silver bikini. The pool was ten feet across and three feet deep and had orange and blue jungle animals circling the outside. Wildflowers, rose petals, and lemon slices drifted on the surface of the water, soothing away her nervous tension with the scent of flowers and citrus. Clearing her head completely of Joe was impossible, of course, but she did succeed in absorbing enough positive energy from the universe to push him to the back of her mind.
Today was the first opportunity she'd had to test her sunscreen, and she'd rubbed her exposed skin with the blended oils of sesame, wheat germ, and lavender. The lavender had been a last-minute inspiration, a sort of hedge bet. Lavender didn't have screening properties, but it did have healing characteristics, in case she did burn. And also, the perfumed scent covered the smell of seeds so she wouldn't attract the unwanted attention of hungry birds in search of a feeder.
Periodically, she lifted an edge of her bathing suit and checked her tan. Throughout the afternoon, her skin bronzed nicely without a hint of pink.
At five-thirty, her friend Francis Hall-Valento-Mazzoni, now just Hall once again, stopped by to present Gabrielle with a red lace thong and matching bra. Francis owned Naughty or Nice, the lingerie shop half a block from Anomaly, and she often dropped by with her latest inventory of crotchless underwear or sheer nightgowns. Gabrielle didn't have the heart to tell her friend that she wasn't into racy undies. Consequently, most of the gifts ended up in a box in Gabrielle's closet. Francis was blond and blue-eyed, thirty-one, and twice divorced. She'd been in more
