by Norah Wilson
~*~
He led her to a late model Ford sedan.
“There’s some stuff on the front seat. Better let me clear it away,” he said.
Unlocking the passenger door, he leaned into the interior. She heard him rummaging around. When he pulled back a moment later, she expected his hands to be full of discarded coffee cups and fast-food wrappers, the usual detritus of people who spent a lot of time in their cars. Instead he held newspapers. Lots of them. She recognized the local paper, as well as the Toronto Globe and Mail and several more she couldn’t identify.
“A news hound, I see.”
“Nah, that’s just for show. You know, so folks’ll think I’m semi-literate.”
Her gaze flew to his face. When had she said anything to imply he was less than literate? And what exactly was his problem, anyway? She’d agreed to this escort, hadn’t she?
“Gosh, and here I was expecting empty coffee cups and the dried-up remnants of jelly donuts.”
“Sorry to disappoint. I mucked the sty out just this morning.”
He stepped back to allow her to get in. Once she was settled, he closed her door and rounded the vehicle to slide behind the wheel. He started the car, and waited for her to adjust her seatbelt before he put it in gear. She said nothing as he pulled out onto Woodstock Road and headed east. In the confines of the car, the subtle scent of his aftershave reached out to her. His profile in the dim light cast by the dashboard lights looked somehow softer.
She switched her attention outward, concentrating on their route. He’d continued down Woodstock Road, right through the intersection to Brunswick. Tensing, she realized he hadn’t asked where she lived. All the way down Brunswick, under the underpass and onto Waterloo. Her heart thumped a little harder as he drove the length of Waterloo, then swung onto the Lincoln Road.
“You’re not even going to ask me for directions, are you?”
He glanced quickly at her, then back to the road. “Would you like me to?”
Of course he knew. He’d been watching her, following her, looking for dirt. “That’s an interesting way you have of convincing me you’re not the whack-job I should be worried about.”
This time when he turned toward her, she caught a definite grin in the shifting light of a street light as they passed under it.
“Nice place you got, but security needs work. Window locks are good, but you could use better on that front door. And you need an alarm system. You also have to change the lighting on the north side, by the garden gate. What you want is something on the ground that shines up at the house. Last thing the cops need when they’re responding to a call is to have to walk straight into a blinding light.”
“I can’t believe this. You cased my house.”
He glanced at her. “I prefer checked out. Cased has such negative connotations.”
She made an inelegant snort, not knowing whether to tear into him for invading her privacy or to admire his honesty. He could easily have pretended ignorance, asking directions, and she’d have been none the wiser.
Lord, was she actually looking for redeeming qualities in a man who’d been shadowing her for the last week? And all because his blunt, masculine physicality called out to some perverse part of her.
Oh, Suz, that’s pitiful. It had obviously been way too long. The minute she got to her office on Monday, she was going to find Gabe Courtney’s number on her Rolodex and call him. He’d made no secret of his interest when she’d attended the opening of his exhibit last week. She’d actually enjoyed flirting with him. All 6' 5" of him. At least until John Quigley had turned up like a bad penny.
“Home again, home again,” he said, and she realized he was pulling into her driveway.
She fumbled in the darkness for her evening bag, which she’d made the mistake of putting down in the unfamiliar interior. Unexpectedly, the dome light came on, and she jerked her startled gaze up to meet his.
Mistake. In the warm, man-smelling confines of the car, a current of awareness arced between them. Quickly, she retrieved the tiny bag.
“Well, Detective, thank you for the lift.” Pulse thudding, she turned away and grappled for the door handle.
“Give me a sec and I’ll be right behind you.”
That pronouncement, delivered in a sexy, gravel-voiced tones brought her head whipping around again. “Hold it right there, Detective. Obviously, you haven’t been watching me very closely or very long, or you’d know I’m not in the habit of inviting men into my home even when I like them well enough to accept a first date. Ergo, hell would freeze over before I invite a pushy cop—a pushy cop who just coerced me into accepting a drive, I might add—into my house.”
A wide grin split his face, deepening the grooves on either side of his mouth and making a dimple flash on his left cheek. “Not to belittle your considerable charms, Ms. Phelps, but I was thinking more along the lines of a security check. You know, peer into closets, pull back shower curtains, check the windows.”
Her face burned. Damn him. “Thanks, but I can handle it.” With that, she shouldered her door open and climbed out of the car.
