Someone To Watch Over Me (Harlequin Super Romance)

by Fox, Roz Denny

  Benito, Luisa, Joe and Angel all broke off eating long enough to greet Isabella.

  As Gabe pressed the pottery mug into her cold hands, he took note of the dark circles ringing her perpetually haunted eyes. “Maybe I should ask if you even went to bed last night. Caffeine probably isn’t what you need most, but maybe it’ll jump-start your system. Has this appointment with Hayden got you rattled?”

  She took a sip of the hot coffee, grateful for the chance to calm her nerves. “I shouldn’t be nervous. It’s the waiting that’s been hell. That’s winding down.”

  “I can hardly imagine what any of this ordeal’s been like for you.”

  “That’s a jury’s job, isn’t it? Twelve people who’ve never experienced what I’ve had to go through will try to put themselves in my shoes.”

  The pessimism overriding her statement told Gabe she wanted reassurances from him that nobody could give. “I believe juries do their best, Isabella. But they’re only human, after all.”

  “What if their best isn’t good enough?”

  Luisa called out from the table. “Come have breakfast while it’s warm. I made tortilla de cebolla y anchoas, Bella.”

  Isabella’s tense body relaxed. “Mama, I can always count on you for comfort food. It’s lucky home is always there to catch you when you fall,” she said to Gabe.

  “I wouldn’t know about that,” he murmured. “I like tortillas. Shall I increase my life insurance policy before I sample the dish she’s fixed?”

  “Scrambled eggs, wild mushrooms, garlic and anchovies.”

  Gabe clapped a hand over his heart. “Things were looking up until you mentioned anchovies.”

  “Hmm, this family loves them. Don’t we?” she asked at large as she slipped past Gabe and led the way to the table.

  Benito gestured with his fork. “Wanna keep those rams at a distance? Load up on Luisa’s garlic and anchovy paste. The boys and I pile it on our morning toast.”

  “Maybe I’ll pass,” Gabe said, not sure whether or not these practical jokers were having him on again. “I’ll just do sprints every morning to insure my ability to outrun the rams and billy goats.”

  “Where’s Trini?” Isabella asked after the laughter died down.

  Luisa rolled her eyes. “She claimed to be studying late last night with friends. When I knocked on her door to wake her, she yelled, ‘Go away and don’t bother me until ten.’”

  “I thought if I rode into town with her, Gabe could go on out and work with Papa. But Hayden moved our meeting up to seven-fifteen.”

  Benito stopped spooning a second helping of the egg mixture onto his plate. “We’ve already decided Gabe should sit in on your meeting.”

  “Who decided?” Isabella crushed her crisp napkin under a restless hand.

  “I did.” Benito spoke with finality.

  Gabe squeezed her knee. “Would you have your father and brothers let their businesses slide so one of them could go in my place? They will, you know. In a heartbeat. If you fire me from the job as your escort.”

  Isabella didn’t need Gabe’s hand on her knee this morning. Not when his good-night kiss had been to blame for her bleary eyes. She hadn’t wanted to ride into town with him at all today. But neither did she want to cause hardship for anyone in her family.

  She deliberately got up so that Gabe’s hand fell. Leaning down, she dropped a kiss on her father’s leathery cheek. “Don’t worry, Papa. I ought to consider myself fortunate to have Gabe tag along, given his background in law.”

  Scooting his chair back, Gabe climbed awkwardly to his feet. He wondered what would happen when they got out to his SUV. Isabella barely managed to keep her smoldering anger in check. He couldn’t believe the others at the table all nodded, happily accepting her at her word.

  Today, the silence vibrating around her inside the vehicle was even harder to accept than her stillness had been last night.

  “Yell and throw things before we get to the highway,” he said, once he’d backed from the lane onto the gravel county road.

  She presented him with her back and persisted in staring out the window.

  “You know next to nothing about me.” She finally turned. “If I felt like making a point, that would be it. We’ve known each other a matter of weeks. We’re practically strangers. Why are you trying to make it seem as if we’re more?”

  “Phew!” Lifting a hand from the steering wheel, Gabe scrubbed his face. “I see you can fight with the gloves off when it suits you.”

  “Some honesty from you in return would be refreshing.”

  His eyes flashed. “I’m always honest. I…just maybe…didn’t go far enough in a previous explanation. I told the truth about changing careers because SOS is losing its funding. I neglected to say it was something I decided after I set eyes on you at Coltrane and Summer’s reception—before I explored any other options.”

  Isabella’s jaw flopped like a landed fish. “But…but why? Why me? Why not someone like Megan Ward, Dawn Cunningham or Maggie Fitzgerald? Or even Trini. She’s interested in you. So is Megan. A lot, I hear.”

  “I’m not interested in them.”

  “You’re not?” Isabella said in a small voice.

  Gabe shook his head. “Don’t look at me like that. You asked for honesty.”

  Isabella knew she was clinging to her purse, holding it like a shield. “I can’t deal with what you’re implying, Gabe. It frightens me.”

  “You’re not alone,” he said, his blue eyes deepening. “My friends think I’ve taken leave of my senses.”

  “So, you’re saying you don’t make a habit of…” Isabella took one hand off her purse and waved it airily.

  “Nope. I always err on the side of caution, in business and in my private life.”

  “Then…?”

  “Why did I buy a sheep ranch when I don’t know squat about sheep? You tell me.”

  Isabella scowled. “How would I know? I’ve said we’re practically strangers.”

  He dragged his eyes from the road and stared at her for a long moment. “Tell you what, Isabella. When you figure it out, we’ll have this conversation again. Until that point, let’s try and be friends. Before you say anything else, I’m going on record with a promise. Believe me when I tell you I’d sell out and walk away before I’d cause you or your family any harm.”

  She sawed her top lip between her teeth, clearly thinking hard about what Gabe had said. Her response didn’t come until they’d arrived at the parking lot across the street from the county courthouse, where James Hayden had his office.

  Gabe took a ticket from the attendant, parked and had come around to help her out. Before he could, she stayed him with a glance. “I value my friends, Gabe. I can’t afford to turn one away. As long as you understand there’s no point in hoping for more, I’ll accept your offer of friendship.”

  Gabe did want more. He wasn’t sure how much more, but he knew he spent a lot of time at night thinking about having her in his bed. However, today she looked more fragile than she had yesterday and the day before. Plus, her eyes, which never failed to cause turbulence in his stomach, appeared more hollow, sunken and bruised in the struggling morning sunlight.

  “Friends it is, Isabella.” Taking her hand, Gabe helped her out and then tucked her ice-cold fingers under his arm. “Stop worrying. Concentrate on what’s taking place in a few minutes. Take your time answering each of Hayden’s questions. His goal today is to test your memory to see what kind of witness you’ll make in the event he needs to put you on the stand at some point.”

  “You think he will? Have me testify? Julian’s parents told Papa a wife can’t testify against her husband.”

  “You were divorced, Isabella. You won’t need to adhere to that statute.”

  “Good. I’d like a chance to talk to jurors.”

  “You may think that now. Actually, being a witness is hard. Defense attorneys can be brutal. They’ll twist your words and try to undermine your credibility.”

>   “They’ve tried to do that already. Through the media.”

  Gabe opened the courthouse door. “Reporters are a whole other side of a high-profile trial. I don’t know how Hayden’s advised you, but I’d suggest hustling past them without saying a word.”

  As they reached the crowd waiting for the elevators, Isabella yanked Gabe’s sleeve. “If I say nothing, won’t they print whatever lies Julian’s lawyers feed them?”

  “The day’s transcripts are open to the public. What reporters will try and wrest from you is private stuff. If defense lawyers are bad, newshounds are worse. The more intelligent they are, the more gifted with words, the more clever the slant they put on a story.” Gabe spoke from experience. Even though it seemed a lifetime ago, he remembered how reporters in his hometown had assassinated his mother’s character. She had her faults, but it wasn’t until years later that he understood most of them were addictive habits succored by poverty, scant education and an absent husband whose family treated her like trash.

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” Isabella muttered before falling silent during the brief elevator ride. She was nervous, she realized, as they faced the door listed on her message slip.

  Gabe seemed instinctively to know how she felt. He slid a bolstering arm around her shoulders. “You’ll do fine,” he promised, smiling down on her upturned face.

  His staunch belief in her gave her the burst of courage she needed. Isabella walked out from under his arm, squared her shoulders and stepped up to the harried secretary’s desk. “We’re here to see Mr. Hayden. I’m Isabella Navarro.”

  The secretary wasn’t fast enough to hide the pitying expression that flashed across her face. Obviously, having dealt with many such cases, she soon recovered and donned a more professional mask. “Will you have a seat, please? Mr. Hayden is finishing some dictation. Ah…you said, we? My schedule lists only Ms. Navarro.”

  Isabella telegraphed Gabe a silent, frustrated plea.

  He approached the secretary with a smile. “I’m a family friend. Gabriel Poston. Ms. Navarro’s father had a situation at the ranch, and I’m filling in for him.” He neglected to mention that he had a degree in law, as he preferred to sit and observe Hayden at work. Gabe deftly extracted a business card from a gold case he removed from an inside pocket. “This shows I’m a CPA and gives an address on the beltway in D.C. Tell Mr. Hayden not to worry about his taxes though—the agency I represent isn’t part of the IRS.”

  The woman behind the desk laughed and tucked Gabe’s card under a clip on the file. Isabella hadn’t tumbled to the fact before now, but Gabe again wore a dark suit that demanded respect. Had she been so nervous earlier that she’d missed his upscale suit, his white shirt and the geometric print tie with splashes of color that matched his eyes? Obviously she had.

  As they sat in the waiting area, she brought up his appearance. “I must say, you look at home in a suit.”

  “I don’t mind them. Reggie and Coltrane hate to dress up. It’s why they gravitated toward Special Forces,” he said with a grin. “They preferred battle gear.”

  “I don’t know much about the military. Special Forces. Are those equivalent to the Green Berets?”

  “Yes. Except we were Marines.”

  “Did you all retire?”

  “We mustered out. They would’ve stayed in, but I met a couple of guys who’d pay big bucks in the private sector for doing pretty much what we did in the Corps. Only without the ritual and regimentation. Outside, we were our own bosses.”

  “Summer told me what happened to Coltrane. Were you involved in that mess?”

  Gabe shifted in the chair and plucked at the crease in his suit pants. “Sometimes things go wrong. It doesn’t matter how careful you are.”

  “How well I know.” Cynicism threaded Isabella’s words.

  “Hey, you aren’t blaming yourself for what Julian did, are you?”

  She paid an inordinate amount of attention to her carefully tented fingers.

  The secretary rose and called for Isabella before Gabe could arrange his thoughts. He reminded himself to return to this conversation after Hayden’s meeting. If Isabella had somehow taken part of Julian’s guilt upon herself, no wonder she couldn’t get on with her life.

  Colt had tried to crawl into booze once he was rescued from the rebel prison. It was months before Gabe and company worked through Colt’s problems and got down deep enough to learn he blamed himself for screwing up the operation, which had resulted in a loss of life. Gabe supposed that was similar in a way to the fact that Isabella had been the one to find Julian and her kids. Gabe understood her feelings a little better now, understood her sense of guilt.

  James Hayden had a so-so handshake. Gabe didn’t have a lot of experience with state prosecutors, except to know that many of them aspired to eventually end up in politics. He hoped this guy was tougher than he looked, hoped he could argue and argue well. Too early to say. He’d reserve judgment for the moment.

  They were seated at a round table. Hayden—as he quickly discovered—knew more about him than Gabe had told the secretary, which indicated the prosecutor had done at least a brief background check. Hayden went up a notch in Gabe’s estimation.

  “Okay, Isabella. Let’s get down to brass tacks. I apologize for not getting to this sooner. I’ve been up to my eyeballs in a case we just wrapped up.” Hayden opened her file and turned the page on a legal tablet. He removed three pens from his shirt pocket and lined them up in front of him. “There’s one area we haven’t covered. I wanted to wait until we were closer to jury selection. Give me a rundown on Julian’s weaknesses. All of them.”

  Isabella had been digging through her purse. She’d pulled out the notes she’d taken at Larkin Crosley’s law library. Glancing up with a start, she fumbled and dropped the whole packet. Papers slid every which way.

  Gabe knelt to retrieve the pages. He heard her groping for words to respond.

  “Take your time,” Hayden instructed.

  “Is this necessary?” she asked, grinding her teeth. “I’ve worked hard to put that man out of my mind.”

  “I know. But if I know specific flaws in his character, I can salt carefully worded questions in with a general list we ask potential jurors. The more people we can seat who are biased against his flaws, the better jurors they’ll make for us.”

  “Well, that shouldn’t be difficult. His flaws are too numerous to count.”

  Hayden rolled his eyes, appealing to Gabe for help.

  Gabe set the stack of notes aside and took Isabella’s hand. She gripped his tightly. He noticed her palm was wet and that her fingers trembled. He hoped Hayden wouldn’t have to put her on the stand; she was already a mass of nerves and the trial hadn’t begun.

  “James needs you to be less vague, Isabella. Start with easy stuff. For instance, did Julian have a temper?”

  “That depends on who you ask.”

  “I’m asking you.” Hayden gnashed his teeth.

  “Friends, coworkers and acquaintances saw a different face than the one Julian showed me.”

  James snapped forward in his chair. “So, this guy’s a chameleon?”

  “That’s putting it nicely, but…yes. He had a vicious temper. Only at home, and only after the kids were in bed asleep.”

  Hayden scribbled on his pad. “No guy can be that controlled all the time. I’ll put a team out in the community. We’ll trace all the way to his preschool years if we have to. What other endearing habits should we investigate?”

  “Gabe helped me extract precedent-setting cases out of old transcripts. Unless Oregon law has changed, some of these winning arguments may be useful to you.” She handed him the notes.

  He read them over, clipped them to her folder, then returned to his former line of questioning. All in all, Hayden grilled Isabella for an hour. Toward the end, her responses were only a few words, and those he had to pry out of her. She nearly wrung Gabe’s hand from his wrist. At times her body shook so hard he worried she�
�d break.

  James flipped to a clean sheet on his tablet and picked up the last of his pens. Gabe removed his glasses, stood and tugged her to her feet. “Enough, James. I know you have a job to do. But if you don’t let up, she’s not going to make it to the trial.”

  The attorney had been intent on his work. He blinked red-rimmed eyes and let his shoulders sag as if seeing the result of his probing for the first time. “I’m trying to get a profile on this guy.”

  “What have you been doing for ten months?” Gabe snapped. And there went his plan not to interfere, to quietly observe.

  “Juggling two hundred open cases with two assistants, five investigators and me to accomplish what law firms like the one Arana hired assign to twenty associates. So don’t waltz into my office and give me flak.”

  Gabe shook his head. “Sorry. But you can see that Isabella needs a break.”

  She’d been staring wide-eyed at the two men. “Gabe, thanks, but I’m okay. I’ve pledged to help convict Julian. I’m just worried about how the answers I gave will play to a jury. In effect, I said Julian has a split personality.” She clutched Gabe’s hand. “God, I can’t let jurors think he’s crazy. He’s not.”

  Hayden and Gabe exchanged a glance. Gabe knew then that they both thought Julian Arana was as crazy as a loon. But for Isabella’s sake, Gabe hoped James could get a Murder One conviction.

  James assumed his prosecutorial smile. “Right off the bat, I’ll attempt to seat more women than men.” Faced with Isabella’s puzzled expression, James explained, “I’m reviewing the sequence this trial will take. In phase one, the jury we seat will determine if Julian’s mentally competent to stand for capital charges. This may take a while. Both teams will unload their big guns. If the jury finds Julian able, we’ll proceed to determining his guilt or innocence. Almost all the evidence will already be out. Often that part goes fast.”

  “If he’s not found competent,” Gabe said, “a judge will determine how many years he spends in a mental institution.”