vegetarian?' she asked.
'God forbid. Are you?'
Her wide green eyes stared into his, and a distressed little furrow creased her brow. Then she did something weird-although he guessed he shouldn't be surprised by anything she did. She breathed really deep through her nose as if she smelled something. Joe couldn't smell anything beyond the floral scent clinging to her skin. Then she shook her head slightly as if to clear her mind and continued into the house as if nothing had happened. Joe followed and resisted a sudden urge to sniff his armpits.
'I have tried veganism,' she informed him as they moved through a small back room with a washer and dryer and into a kitchen painted bright yellow. 'It's a lot healthier lifestyle. But unfortunately I'm lapsed.'
'You're a lapsed vegetarian?' He'd never heard of such a thing, but he wasn't real surprised.
'Yes, I've tried to resist my carnivorous urges, but I'm weak. I have control issues.'
Control usually wasn't an issue for him- until now.
'I love most things that are bad for my arteries. Sometimes I'm halfway to McDonald's before I realize it.'
A stained glass window above the breakfast nook threw patches of color about the room and on the rows of little glass bottles lined up on the small wooden table. The room smelled like Anomaly, like rose oil and patchouli, but nothing else, and he grew suspicious of her claim to be a wonderful cook. No Crock-Pot filled with bubbling stroganoff sat on the counter. No scent of baked bread. His suspicions were confirmed when she opened the refrigerator and pulled out a container of sauce, a package of fresh pasta, and a loaf of French bread.
'I thought you were a wonderful cook.'
'I am.' She shut the refrigerator and set everything next to the stove. 'Would you do me a favor and open the cabinet by your left leg and pull out two saucepans?'
When he leaned down and opened the door, a colander fell out on his foot. Her cabinets were messier than his.
'Oh, good. We'll need that too.'
He grabbed the pots and colander and straightened. Gabrielle stood with her back pressed against the refrigerator door, a hunk of French bread in one hand. He watched her gaze slide up the front of his jeans to his chest. She slowly chewed, then swallowed. The tip of her tongue licked a crumb from the corner of her mouth, and she finally looked up at him. 'Want some?'
His gaze searched her face for a hint that she wasn't asking about bread, but he saw nothing provocative in her clear green eyes. If she'd been any other woman besides his CI, he would have loved to show her exactly what he wanted-starting with her mouth and slowly working his way to the little mole on her inner thigh. He'd downright love to fill his hands with her big, creamy breasts straining against that bikini top. But she wasn't any other woman, and he had to behave like a Boy Scout. 'No, thanks.'
'Okay. I'm going to change my clothes. While I'm gone, put the stroganoff sauce in the small pan, then fill the larger pan with water. When the water starts to boil, add the pasta. Cook it for five minutes.' She pushed away from the refrigerator, and as she walked past him, she paused for a second and breathed deeply through her nose. Just like before, a crease furrowed her brow, and she shook her head. 'Anyway, I should be back by then.'
Joe watched her breeze from the room, tearing off a bite of bread, and he wondered exactly how it had happened that he'd been invited to dinner by a woman in a bikini who claimed to be a wonderful cook but left him to cook the meal while she changed. And what was up with that smelling thing? She'd done it twice now, and he was starting to get a little paranoid.
Gabrielle popped her head back into the kitchen. 'You aren't going to search for that Monet while I'm out of the room, are you?'
'No, I'll wait until you get back.'
'Great,' she said through a smile, then was gone again.
Joe moved to the sink and filled the larger pot with water. A fat black cat rubbed against his legs and wound its tail around his calf. Joe didn't really like cats, figuring they were pretty useless. Not like dogs that could be trained to sniff out dope or birds that could be trained to talk and hang upside down by one foot. He nudged the cat away with the toe of his work-boot and turned to the stove.
His gaze strayed to the doorway, and he wondered how long before she returned. It wasn't that he had any scruples about searching through drawers while she was out of the room, he just had two very good reasons why he chose not to. First, he didn't believe he'd find anything. If Gabrielle was involved in the theft of Mr. Hillard's painting, he doubted she would have invited him into her house. She was much too high-strung to shoot the breeze over stroganoff if she had a Monet rolled up in her closet. And second, he needed her trust, and that would never happen if she caught him ransacking her house. He needed to show her he wasn't such a bad guy, which he didn't think would be too terribly difficult. He wasn't the type of man who bragged about conquests over a few beers, but women generally liked him. He knew he was a good lover. He always made sure the women in his bed had as much fun as he did, and despite what Meg Ryan said, he'd be able to tell if a woman was faking. He didn't roll off and start snoring afterward, and he didn't collapse and crush a woman beneath his weight.
He dumped the stroganoff into the saucepan on the stove and turned the burners on medium. Although he wasn't one of those sensitive, pansy-assed weenies who cried in front of women, he was pretty sure women thought he was nice.
Something sat on his foot, and he looked down at the cat perched on his boot. 'Get lost, furball,' he said and nudged the cat just enough to send it sliding across the linoleum.
Gabrielle hooked the lace bra between her breasts, then pulled a short blue T-shirt over her head. Even though Joe said he wouldn't search her kitchen, she didn't really believe him. She didn't trust him out of her sight. Heck, she didn't trust him with her eyes glued right on him. But he was right, she had to find a calm way to deal with him in her shop and in her life. She had a business to run, and she couldn't do it if she had to watch his every move or leave early.
She stepped into a pair of faded jeans and buttoned them just below her navel. Besides her business concerns, she knew her health was at risk. She didn't know how much longer she could walk around with stress headaches and unattractive facial tics before she developed serious health-related issues, like a hormonal imbalance and an overactive pituitary gland.
Gabrielle grabbed a brush off her dresser and pulled it through her damp hair. She sat on the lace spread covering her four-poster bed and tried to remind herself that everyone entered her life for a reason. If she opened her mind, she would find the higher purpose for Joe's existence. A picture of his behind as he'd bent over to retrieve pots from her cabinet entered her head, and she scowled at her reflection in a cheval mirror across the room. The way he filled out his jeans had absolutely nothing to do with spiritual meaning.
Tossing the brush beside her, she wove her hair into a loose braid, then tied a blue ribbon around the bottom. Joe was a dark, brooding cop who'd wreaked havoc on her nerves, turned her life upside down, and caused disharmony. An imbalance of body and spirit. A war for supremacy. Anarchy. She certainly didn't see a higher purpose in all of that.
But he did smell nice.
When she entered the kitchen several minutes later, Joe stood in front of the sink pouring noodles into a colander. A cloud of steam enveloped his head while her mother's cat traversed a figure eight between his feet, wrapping her tail around his calves and meowing loudly.
'Beezer!' She scooped up the cat and held her against her breasts. 'You better leave the detective alone or he'll slam you to the ground and arrest you. I know from experience.'
'I never slammed you to the ground,' Joe said as the steam cleared. 'If anyone was slammed, it was me.'
'Oh, yeah.' She smiled at the memory of him lying on the ground with his lashes stuck together. 'I got the jump on you.'
He looked across his shoulder at her and shook the colander. A slight smile curved a corner of his mouth, and the humidity curled the hair about his temple. 'But who ended up on top, Miss Bad Ass?' His gaze slipped over her from the braid in her hair to her bare feet, then back up again. 'Pasta's done.'
'Go ahead and dump it in with the stroganoff.'
'What are you going to do?'
'Feed Beezer or she'll never leave you alone. She knows you're making dinner, and she's food obsessed.' Gabrielle walked to a cabinet by the back door and retrieved a package of Tender Vittles. 'After I feed her, I'll make
