“But we did do something about it,” he pointed out. “We made love.”
“We had sex,” she insisted. “And it was great. Fabulous, in fact.”
“Glad to hear we were on the same page about that, at least,” he retorted.
She refused to be intimidated by his sarcasm. “You asked me why I thought it wouldn’t work. I’m trying to tell you.”
Rafe held up his hands. “By all means, though I’m not so sure we ought to be having a discussion about sex with half the town listening in.”
“Half the town?” Gina echoed, then turned in her chair to find that the restaurant had begun to fill up. Several fascinated gazes were turned in their direction. She was going to kill Rafe for not warning her sooner. Or maybe Peggy, who was just passing by with a smirk on her face. Gina snagged her hand. “Why didn’t you tell me we had customers?”
“You were sitting right here. I figured you weren’t either blind or deaf,” Peggy responded with an unrepentant grin. “I guess something else had captured your attention.”
“Have you taken their orders?” she asked, barely resisting the desire to grind her teeth in frustration.
“I’m doing that right now,” Peggy said cheerfully. “Everybody’s been pretty happy just to watch the floor show.”
Gina caught the amusement in Rafe’s eyes just then. “Don’t say another word,” she told him. “And don’t go anywhere. This conversation is not over.”
He gave her a mock salute. “Take your time. I’ll be right here.” He winked at Peggy. “Bring me a glass of Chianti when you have a minute, okay?”
“You’ve got it,” Peggy said. “It’s on the house. I haven’t had this much fun around here in ages. By comparison, Tony and Francesca are totally boring.”
“You can’t give away wine,” Gina snapped, losing patience with the pair of them and their amusement at her expense.
“I’ll pay for it out of my tips,” Peggy said. “Something tells me they’re going to be real good today.”
Gina bit back the desire to respond and headed for the kitchen. It was too bad she’d done all the chopping and dicing earlier. Right now the prospect of slamming a really sharp knife down into something and cutting it to shreds held a whole lot of appeal.
It was more than two hours before she got back to Rafe. In addition to all the customers who’d seemingly been drawn in by reports of the lively discussion she and Rafe had been engaged in earlier, Karen had appeared, looking downcast and confused. She had been joined by Lauren and Emma. All three of them had regarded Gina with curiosity when she had emerged from the kitchen.
“Maybe you’d better sit down here and tell us what’s going on,” Emma advised. “Why are you working here?”
“Tony needed to take Francesca to Italy. I’m filling in.”
“For how long?” Karen asked.
“I’m not sure.”
“Are you thinking of staying here permanently?” Emma asked. “If so, we need to talk. It would change certain things.”
Lauren, who was back in town again, immediately picked up on Emma’s circumspect choice of words. “What things?” she asked. “I can totally understand if Gina wants to stay here.”
All three of them stared at the glamorous superstar, whose visits were more and more frequent. They had assumed it was because of Karen. Now Gina wasn’t so sure.
“You can?” Gina said.
“Well, of course I can,” Lauren responded. “Wherever we go, this is still home. Why wouldn’t we want to come back? It’s like a safe haven.”
Gina stared at her. “Why would you need a safe haven? Has something happened we don’t know about?”
“No, of course not,” Lauren said impatiently. “I was just saying that if we needed one, this is the place we’d be most likely to come.”
That said, she leaned toward Gina and asked in a conspiratorial tone, “So, is it true?”
Gina’s composure slipped. “Is what true?” she asked, even though she was pretty sure she knew precisely what was coming.
Lauren glanced pointedly across the room. “Were you and Rafe having a very public discussion about the fabulous sex you’ve been having?”
“Not intentionally,” Gina said, though she could feel the embarrassed heat climbing into her cheeks.
“But you were talking about it?” Lauren persisted. “There has been sex and it has been fabulous?”
“Yes,” Gina admitted. “And a few people might have overheard. I thought we were alone.”
The other three exchanged glances.
“Interesting,” Karen said, grinning.
“Isn’t it, though,” Lauren added.
“I thought I told you to stay away from him,” Emma said. But despite the disapproval in her tone, her eyes were glinting with amusement.
Karen and Lauren turned to Emma. “Why would you tell her that?” Lauren asked.
“Because it’s inadvisable for the two of them to get mixed up at this particular moment in time,” Emma said, again being very circumspect.
“Why?” Lauren repeated. “Is he in the middle of a messy divorce or something?”
“Of course not,” Gina said. “Rafe has never been married.”
“Then I don’t get it,” Lauren said. “He’s gorgeous. He’s interested.” Suddenly her enthusiastic expression faded. “But when he came here, he was after something. A deposition, wasn’t it? That’s why Emma objects to you seeing him.”
“I am not going to talk about this,” Gina said. “The deposition is no longer an issue. We’re partners,” she reminded Emma.
“I don’t have that paper,” Emma said.
Gina waved that off as a technicality. “It’s a moot point anyway. Rafe and I are not an issue. That’s what we were discussing when half the town decided to eavesdrop, then spread the word.”
“I’m confused,” Karen said. “The two of you are having fabulous sex, over Emma’s objections, but you’re not going to keep on seeing each other. Have I got that right?”
“Pretty much,” Gina said.
“Is Emma the reason you’re splitting up, then?” Karen asked.
“No,” Gina said. “There is nothing to split up. There is no relationship.”
“Just that fabulous sex,” Lauren said, a gleam in her eyes. “I’m beginning to get it.”
Karen stared at her. “You are? Explain it to me.”
Lauren nodded. “Happily. Our friend Gina is running scared. For the first time in her life, she is attracted to a man who might mean more to her than preparing succulent feasts for strangers. Her priorities are all topsy-turvy, after years and years of knowing exactly what she wanted. What better way to fix things than to get rid of the distraction?”
Gina listened to the explanation first with indignation, then with dawning shock. Was Lauren right? Was that what she’d been doing—running scared because Rafe had been a threat to her goals? Obviously it was true that he’d been a threat when he’d first come to town. But that issue was all but dead, and he still posed a very real threat. She was beginning to want him a little too much, to want what they had together. Hell, she had all but thrown herself at him, she wanted him so badly.
“Well?” Lauren demanded, poking her in the ribs with an elbow. “How did I do? Am I good or what?”
“You’re good,” Gina admitted slowly. “Just one question. Now that you’ve psychoanalyzed me and nailed it, what the heck am I supposed to do about it?”
Chapter Fourteen
Rafe watched Gina and her friends across the room with a sinking sensation in the pit of his stomach. From the surreptitious glances being cast his way, he suspected he was the prime topic on the agenda. He wasn’t sure how he felt about his fate being decided by women he barely knew. Would they encourage Gina to let this relationship play out or would they warn her away? As skittish as she clearly was, it wouldn’t take much to ruin things for the two of them.
When he could stand it no longer, he stood up and crossed th
e restaurant. “You ladies look as if you’re enjoying yourselves,” he said, then tucked a hand under Gina’s elbow. “Mind if I steal her away from you, though? We were in the middle of a conversation earlier. We need to finish it.”
“Not now,” Gina said, refusing to budge. “We can finish it later.”
Rafe shook his head. “Something tells me now would be better. Excuse us, ladies.”
Rafe tried to pull her up, but Gina held back. “I am visiting with my friends,” she said, regarding him with mounting fury flashing in her eyes.
“I’m sure they won’t object,” he repeated confidently, giving each of them his most charming smile, the one that lulled witnesses into believing he was on their side.
“Will you?” he asked, all but daring any of them to protest.
When Emma started to reply, Lauren gave her a sharp nudge. “We don’t mind at all,” Lauren assured him. “I’m sure what you have to say is really, really important.”
Gina scowled at her. “It’s not that important,” she grumbled. “It could wait.”
Lauren beamed at her. “No, it can’t. Just remember what I said.”
Exhaling a deep sigh, Gina stopped fighting him then and stood up. She shrugged off his hand, but she did follow him back to his table.
“Would you care for a glass of wine?” Rafe asked when she was seated.
“No, thank you,” she said a little too politely, her hands folded primly in front of her on the table, her gaze averted.
He refused to let her attitude get to him. “So, what did Lauren tell you?”
“Nothing that matters.”
“She seemed to think otherwise. Come on, Gina,” he coaxed. “What did she say? It had to do with us, didn’t it?”
She leveled a withering look at him. “It did, but she was wrong, flat-out, positively wrong. If I didn’t believe that before, I do now.”
“Oh?”
Sparks lit her eyes. “I don’t like being manhandled, Rafe.”
For a minute he was about to laugh, but her expression suggested she was dead serious. “Is that how you see it? You think I manhandled you just now?”
“You dragged me away from my friends over my objections. What would you call it?”
He thought back over everything that had happened in the last ten minutes. He was pretty sure she had come along willingly if not enthusiastically, but then again, he was a mere male. What did he know about finesse?
“Manhandling implies more physical force than I used,” he protested.
“Okay, you bullied me into coming with you. Is that better?”
Rafe winced. “Not really. And if that’s the way you see it, then I apologize. I was just trying to get back to a conversation that I thought was really important to both of us.”
She didn’t seem appeased by the apology. Either she didn’t take it seriously or there was something else entirely going on. He suspected it was the latter. “Is that really what has you upset with me, the fact that I interrupted your time with your friends?”
She looked vaguely disconcerted by the question, as if she hadn’t expected him to guess that she was trying to sidestep the real problem. He watched her and waited.
“No,” she said finally. “It’s not that.”
“What then?”
“You came over just when I was trying to get the answer to a question.”
Rafe regarded her with confusion. “And?”
“I really wanted to know the answer,” she said. “Isn’t that obvious?”
“Ask me. Maybe I can answer it.”
She chuckled, her expression wry. “I don’t think so.”
“Why not?”
“Because you’re the problem. Well, not you,” she corrected. “Me, and how I feel about you. The two of us. Together. Or not.” She frowned at him. “See, it’s very confusing.”
Rafe was beginning to feel considerably better, but he was wise enough not to show it. “Okay. What is it you find most disturbing about us?”
“The fact that I care about you,” she said, looking miserable. “Lauren accused me of running scared and, as much as I hate to admit it, she was right. I know I was the one who came on to you and all but dragged you into bed, but I didn’t expect the sex to be so…”
“Fabulous?” he suggested, allowing himself a faint smile.
“Okay, yes,” she admitted grudgingly. “I didn’t expect it to be great and I didn’t expect it to matter. I didn’t expect you to matter.”
The explanation filled in the rest of the picture. “And you were hoping your friends would clarify things, help you figure out what to do about that,” he guessed.
“Exactly.”
“It’s just as well I dragged you away when I did then,” he said.
She seemed thoroughly taken aback by his claim. “How can you say that?”
“Because they can’t answer that,” he told her, then held up his hand when she seemed to be about to speak. “I can’t answer it, either. You’re the only one who can figure out what your feelings are and what’s best for you. Sorry, sweetheart, but I think we’re going to have to muddle through this entirely on our own.”
She was already shaking her head by the time he finished. “But I can’t,” she said. “Not with you here, not with everything else that’s going on. I can’t think. My head is spinning.”
“Is there some reason why you have to decide all of this today?” he asked.
“No, not really, but I hate this uncertainty. Everything in my life is up in the air.”
Rafe stood up, tugged his chair around to her side of the table then sat next to her. He cupped her face in his hands, his gaze locked with hers. The turmoil made her eyes darker than ever. His gaze shifted to her lips, but despite the temptation he resisted the desire to kiss her until she forgot all about her confusion.
“Okay, let’s deal with one thing at a time. I’m no expert on relationships,” he said quietly. “We’ve established that, but I think this is one of those things you’re not supposed to think about, Gina. You’re supposed to go with your gut, with what you’re feeling in here.” He tapped her in the center of her chest. “You said as much yourself earlier, remember?”
“But that’s just it,” she said wearily. “I don’t know what’s in my heart. How can I? First Bobby steals from the business and all but ruins me in the process. That filled me with anger. Then you spend weeks hounding me for answers, which I deeply resented. Caleb dies. One of my best friends is devastated, and I am worried sick about her. My mentor is frantic about his wife’s state of mind. You and I wind up in bed together, which makes me feel things I never imagined feeling. Bobby is hiding out in the Cayman Islands and uttering barely veiled threats, which scare me and infuriate me all at the same time.”
She regarded him with a bleak expression. “Bottom line? All I feel right now is pressure. It’s coming at me from every direction. I just want to shut it all out.”
“Including me?”
“Yes.” She took a deep breath and met his gaze with troubled eyes. “I’m sorry, but that’s how I feel.”
Laid out like that, Rafe could understand her dismay and her confusion. “No, I’m the one who’s sorry. You have been through a lot. Maybe because you have always seemed so strong, I didn’t take into account that this would be too much, even for you. What do you want me to do?”
“You asked me once before if I wanted you to go back to New York.” Her eyes glistened with unshed tears. “I do, Rafe. That’s what I want.”
He swallowed hard, fighting the surprising hurt that came with her words. But he had asked, implying that he would do whatever she wanted, and she had given him an honest answer. He had to walk away. There was no other choice.
“Okay,” he said quietly. “I’ll leave tomorrow.”
For an instant she looked taken aback by his ready agreement, maybe even a little disappointed. He had a feeling he was going to cling to the latter in the weeks to come.
“I�
�m sorry,” she whispered, as the tears finally spilled over and ran unchecked down her cheeks.
“It’s okay,” he told her. “I’m going now, but you’re not getting rid of me for good. I’ll be back.”
“When?”
He grinned at that. “See, you miss me already, sweetheart. That should tell you something.”
What it told him was that he wasn’t going to give Gina one minute more than necessary before coming back to claim her. She would have her space, her time to sort through the emotional turmoil and the tragedies of the past couple of months.
But he wasn’t going to give her time to forget about him, to convince herself that what they had wasn’t real. In fact, now that he knew without a doubt what he wanted, he was going to do everything in his power to make sure she understood that it was going to last a lifetime.
Gina started to miss Rafe almost the instant she watched his flight to New York take off. But even as tears stung her eyes, her friends closed ranks around her.
“He’ll be back,” Lauren predicted.
“When?” she asked wistfully, just as she had asked him the day before.
“When the time is right,” Lauren assured her. “Something tells me Rafe O’Donnell is the kind of man who has a finely honed sense of timing. Besides that, the man is crazy in love with you.”
Gina was startled by the assessment. “He is?”
“Well, of course he is,” Emma said with a touch of exasperation. “Even I can see that.”
Lauren chuckled. “Listen to Emma. She may be oblivious to the way Ford feels about her, but she can still recognize love when she spots it in anyone else.”
“Oh, go suck an egg,” Emma snapped.
“Is that what you say in a courtroom when you don’t like what a judge has to say?” Lauren chided. “You must be held in contempt quite a lot.”
“Sometimes I am, but it’s worth it,” Emma said loftily. “Now, let’s go to the Heartbreak and have a beer. Tony’s is closed tonight, so Gina doesn’t have to work. I’m not due in court tomorrow. We can live it up. Maybe there will be some handsome men around who’ll dance with us and make us forget everything else.”
To Catch a Thief Page 17
