Another message was from his paralegal, Joan Lansing, and one was from his investigator reporting that there was a trail suggesting Bobby Rinaldi might be in the Cayman Islands.
“Let me know what you want me to do,” the man concluded. “I could use a free trip down there. I have some scuba gear I’ve been dying to try out.”
Rafe glanced up at the end of the message and saw Gina staring at him, her expression frozen.
“Bobby’s in the Cayman Islands?” she asked, looking oddly shaken.
“Could be.”
“Are you sending that man after him?”
Rafe couldn’t read her tone at all. “What do you want me to do?”
She blinked in surprise. “You’re asking me?”
“That’s what it sounded like,” he said lightly. “What do you want, Gina? Do you want him caught? Do you want all of this resolved once and for all?”
“Of course I want him caught,” she snapped, then sighed. “Then again, a part of me keeps trying to pretend he’s down there on some impromptu vacation and that he’ll come back on his own.”
“You know him better than I do,” Rafe said. “Is there a chance of that?”
For a long time he thought she might not answer. There was no mistaking the misery in her eyes, the uncertainty.
“I don’t know,” she whispered at last. “I honestly don’t think I ever knew him at all.”
Thinking of what Tony had said earlier, Rafe told her, “I know I accused you of lousy judgment in going into a partnership with him, but what happened isn’t your fault. You saw what he wanted you to see, a charming man who was good at getting people to trust him, good at finding backers for the restaurant. You’re not the only person he took in, sweetheart. My mother is older and should be wiser, but she trusted him. So did many others, many of them supposedly savvy businessmen.”
His words didn’t seem to console her. She stared at him bleakly. “What do I do, Rafe?”
“Do you want Café Tuscany?”
“Yes,” she said at once.
“Enough to go back right now and fight for it?”
Her expression faltered at that. “I can’t. Karen, Tony, they’re depending on me.”
“They would understand,” he said, knowing it was true of Tony and just as certain that Karen, whom he barely knew, would feel the same way because she loved Gina, as did all her other friends.
“I suppose. But this trip is so important to Francesca. I can’t go back on my word.”
He studied her intently. “And there’s a part of you that’s happy here, isn’t there?” he asked with sudden insight. “There’s a part of you that is glad to have the chance to cook for friends and family, rather than anonymous strangers.”
“I hadn’t really thought about it, but yes,” she said slowly. “I’m looking forward to being back in Tony’s kitchen, to having time, even on a busy night, to sit for a minute with my friends while they try some recipe I’ve been experimenting with.”
“Do you think that feeling is just temporary?” he asked with an astonishing sense of dread.
“I honestly don’t know. I only know that right now this is where I want to be, where I have to be.”
“And Rinaldi?”
“Tell your man to find him. No matter what I decide for myself, the investors and our vendors need to be paid. We owe them that.”
Rafe nodded. “I’ll call the investigator right now.”
He woke the man from a sound sleep, told him to book that trip to the Cayman Islands, but to leave his scuba gear at home. “You won’t have time for it. Find Rinaldi. See if he still has any of the money. Then we’ll see where we go next.”
“If Bobby is there, can you force him to come back?” Gina asked after he’d hung up. “Isn’t that one of the places with no extradition agreement with the United States?”
“Yes, but I’m sure he can be enticed back, one way or another. First things first. Let’s make sure that’s where he is.”
“Will you stay here while you wait or will you go back to New York?”
He ought to go straight back to New York. There was no real reason to keep Gina under surveillance, certainly no reason he had to do it himself. But for a whole lot of very confusing and conflicting reasons, he wanted to stay right here.
“What do you want me to do?” he asked, unhappy about this unexpected reluctance to leave. He’d come here a driven workaholic. He’d changed and he wasn’t at all certain it was for the better.
Again Gina seemed startled that he was asking her preference. Then a smile spread slowly across her face. “Right now, I want you to forget about going anywhere and to come over here.”
His heartbeat kicked up at the invitation in her eyes. “Oh? What did you have in mind?”
“If you don’t know, then you’re not half as brilliant as people think you are.”
Rafe didn’t hesitate. He took a few steps in her direction, but she met him halfway. When it came to being brilliant and clever, it turned out that Gina was no slouch herself. Her plans for the rest of the evening were far more innovative and satisfying than discussing the pros and cons of a return to New York. It also gave him a whole lot more to consider the next time the prospect of leaving Wyoming came up.
Gina was still half-asleep in Rafe’s arms when the phone in her room rang. She leaped and ran to answer it. The sound of Bobby’s voice snapped her awake.
“Bobby, where the hell are you?”
“If you think I’m going to tell you that, now that I know you’ve aligned yourself with the enemy, you’re crazy.”
“Why do you say that?”
“You’re at the same hotel. Your parents told me where to find you.
