"Oh… it looks like a Welsh corgi."
It looked nothing like a Welsh corgi, but Gabrielle didn't argue. First of all, she never explained her art, and second, she could overlook a few tactless comments and blame them on shock. She imagined it might be a bit disturbing to open a door and find a nude portrait of yourself staring back at you.
"Who's that?" he asked, pointing to the painting of his head and David's body.
"Don't you know?"
"That is not me."
"I used Michelangelo's sculpture of David as my model. I didn't know you had chest hair."
"Is that supposed to be funny?" he asked, incredulous, as he shook his head. "I never stand like that. He looks queer."
She hoped he meant queer as in strange, but she doubted it. "He's preparing for his battle with Goliath."
"Damn," he swore and pointed to David's groin. "Look at that. I haven't packed anything that small since I was two."
"You're fixated on your genitals."
"Not me, lady." He turned and directed his finger at her. "You're the one sneaking around painting pictures of my bare ass."
"I'm an artist."
"Yeah, and I'm an astronaut."
She'd been willing to forgive his rude criticism, but only up to a point, and he'd just stepped over the line. "You need to leave now."
He crossed his arms over his chest and shifted his weight to one foot. "Are you kicking me out?"
"Yes."
Undiluted machismo curved the corners of his mouth. "Do you think you're big enough?"
"Yes."
He laughed. "Without your hair spray, little miss bad ass?"
Okay, now she was mad. She shoved his chest and knocked him a step backward. The next time she pushed, he was ready for her and didn't budge. "You can't come in my house and bully me. I don't have to take this from you." She pushed again, and he grabbed her wrist. "You're an undercover cop. You're not my real boyfriend. I would never ever have a boyfriend like you."
His smile flatlined as if she'd insulted him somehow. Which was impossible. He'd have to have human emotions to feel insulted. "Why the hell not?"
"You're surrounded by negative energy," she said as she struggled to pull free of his grasp but couldn't. "And I don't like you."
He let her go, and she took a step back. "You liked me enough last night."
She folded her arms, and her gaze narrowed. "Last night there was a full moon."
"What about those naked pictures you painted of me?"
"What about them?"
"You don't paint a guy's dick you don't like."
"My only interest in your… ah," she couldn't say it. She just couldn't say the D word.
"You can go ahead and call it Mr. Happy," he supplied. "Or penis is good."
"Male anatomy," she said, "is that of an artist."
"There you go again." He placed his hands on her face and cupped her cheeks in his palms. "Creating bad karma for yourself." He lightly brushed one thumb across her chin.
"I'm not lying," she lied. Her breath got stuck in her throat and she thought he would kiss her. But he just laughed, dropped his hands, and turned toward the door. She was caught somewhere between relief and regret.
"I'm a professional artist," she assured Joe as she followed him into the living room.
"If you say so."
"I am!"
"I'll tell you what then," he said as he grabbed his keys from the coffee table, "the next time you feel the urge to paint, give a holler. You dress up in some of your naughty undies, and. I'll show you my anatomy. Up close and real personal."
Chapter Fourteen
Around midnight, Gabrielle shoved the lingerie Joe had dumped on her duvet to the floor and crawled into bed. She closed her eyes and tried not to think of him standing in her room, his broad shoulders filling out his hacked-up shirt, a pair of crotchless panties dangling from his finger. He was a throwback. A girl's anachronistic nightmare. He made her more angry than any man she'd ever known. She should hate him. She really should. He made fun of her beliefs and now her art, and – yet no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't dislike him. There was something about him, some thing drawing her to him like the faithful to Mecca. She didn't want to go, but her heart didn't seem to be listening.
If there was one person on this planet Gabrielle knew inside and out, it was herself. She knew what worked for her and what didn't. Sometimes she was wrong, like when she'd thought she'd wanted to become a masseuse, only to discover she needed a more creative outlet. Or when she'd taken classes on Feng Shui and learned that planning the design of a room to achieve perfect peace and balance gave her a stress headache.
As a result of the different paths she'd taken in her life, she knew bits and pieces about a lot of different things. Some people might interpret that as flighty or irresponsible, but she saw it differently-more like a willingness to take risks. She was unafraid to change direction midstream. She was open-minded about almost everything. Except the notion that she should allow her heart to become involved with Joe. A relationship between them could never work out. They were too different. Night and day. Positive and negative. Yin and yang.
He would be gone soon, out of her life. The thought of never seeing him again should have made her happy. Instead, it made her feel empty and kept her up most of the night.
The next morning she jogged her usual two miles before she returned home and got ready for work. After her shower, she pulled on a pair of white panties with little red hearts and the matching bra. The set was made of islet and was one of the few items from Francis's store that Gabrielle actually wore. She brushed her hair out, and while it dried, she applied her makeup and hooked a pair of long beaded earrings in her ears.
Mondays were Kevin's day off, and she'd be alone with Joe until noon, when Mara would arrive. The drought of spending time alone with him scared her even as excited little butterflies fluttered in her stomach. She wondered if he'd spend his time searching Kevin's files again behind the closed office door like he had last week. Or if they'd think of something for him to build or fix. And she wondered if he'd wear his tool belt hung low on his hips.
Gabrielle's doorbell rang, followed by a heavy knock she recognized. She shoved her arms through her white terry cloth robe and tied the belt as she walked to the door. She pulled her hair from beneath the robe and released the deadbolt. Instead of his usual jeans and T-shirt, he wore a navy suit, crisp white shirt, and a burgundy-and-blue tie. Mirrored sunglasses concealed his eyes, and he held a sack from the same deli on Eighth where he'd bought her sandwich Friday. The other hand he'd shoved in the front pocket of his pants. "I brought you breakfast," he said.
"Why, are you feeling bad about making fun of me last night?"
"I've never made fun of you," he said with a completely straight face. "Are you going to invite me in?"
"You've never asked before." She moved aside so he could pass, then shut the door behind him. "You always just barge your way through."
"Your door was locked." He set the paper sack on the table in front of the couch and pulled out two muffins and two cups of coffee. "I hope you like cream cheese muffins," he said as he reached for his sunglasses and shoved them into the inside pocket of his jacket. Then he glanced up at her through tired eyes and tore the plastic, lids from the top of the Styrofoam cups. "Here."
Gabrielle didn't like coffee, but she took it anyway. He handed her a muffin, and she took that, too. For the first time since she'd opened the door, she noticed the tension bracketing the corners of his mouth. "What's wrong?" "You should eat first. We'll talk in a minute." "First? How can I possibly eat now?" He slid his gaze across her cheeks and mouth, then back up to her eyes. "Late last night an art dealer from Portland made contact with Kevin. His name is William Stewart Shalcroft."
"I know of William. Kevin worked for him." "Still does. At three o'clock this afternoon, William Stewart Shalcroft will arrive on Delta flight two-twenty nonstop from Portland. He and Kevin m
ade plans to meet at a lounge in the airport, exchange the Hillard painting for cash, then Mr. Shalcroft plans to rent a car and drive back to Portland. He'll never make it to the Hertz counter. We'll arrest both of them as soon as they make the exchange."
Gabrielle blinked. "You're kidding me, right?"
"I wish I were, but I'm not. Since the night of the theft, Kevin has had the painting in his possession."
She heard him. His words were quite clear, yet they didn't make sense. She couldn't have known Kevin for so many years and been so wrong about him. "There has to be a mistake."
"No mistake."
He looked so sure, sounded so adamant, that the first inkling of uncertainty settled in her brain. "Are you absolutely sure?"
"We put a wire on his home phone, and we have him on tape setting up the meeting with Shalcroft."
She looked at Joe, at the exhaustion and strain heavy in his brown eyes. "So, it's all true?"
"I'm afraid so."
And for the first time since he'd cuffed her and hauled her to jail, she allowed herself to believe him. "Kevin stole Mr. Hillard's Monet?"
"He contracted someone else for the actual theft."
"Who?"
"We don't know yet."
She grasped at the answer. "Then isn't it possible that the 'actual' thief is the only thief?"
"No. The theft of a major piece of art like a Monet takes time to plan and a whole underground web of contacts to execute. It starts with a rich collector and works its way on down. We think they've been planning this theft for at least six months, and we don't believe this is the first and only time Kevin and Shalcroft have been involved together. We believe they've been conducting this sort of operation since Kevin worked for Shalcroft in Portland."
Everything Joe said was possible, but incredible to reconcile with the Kevin she knew. "How could he be involved in such a horrible mess?"
"Money. A lot of money."
Gabrielle glanced at the muffin and coffee in her hands. For one confusing moment, she'd forgotten how they'd got there. "Here," she said, setting them on the table. "I'm not hungry." Joe reached for her, but she moved away and slowly sank to the edge of the couch. She sat with her hands in her lap and stared across the room.
Everything in her house looked the same as it had a moment ago. The clock on the mantel silently ticked off the minutes while her refrigerator hummed in the kitchen. An old pickup truck drove past her house, and a dog barked down the street. Normal everyday sounds, yet everything was different now. Her life was different now.
"I let you work in Anomaly because I didn't believe you," she said. "I thought you were wrong, and I built up this whole fantasy in my head where you'd have to come and tell me how sorry you are th-that," her voice cracked, and she cleared her throat. She didn't want to cry or fall apart or make a scene, but she didn't seem to have any control over the tears filling her eyes. Her vision blurred, the printing on the coffee cups smeared and ran together. "That you'd have to apologize for arresting me that day in the park, and for making me betray Kevin. But you weren't wrong about Kevin."
"I am sorry." Joe sat beside her, his feet wide apart, and he closed his big, warm hand over one of hers. "I'm sorry something like this had to happen to you. You don't deserve to be caught up in any of this."
"I'm not perfect, but I've never done anything to earn this kind of bad karma." She shook her head, and a tear spilled dowrr her cheek to a corner of her mouth. "How could I have been so blind? Weren't there signs? How could I be so stupid? How could I not know my business partner is a thief?"
He squeezed her hand. "Because you're like eighty percent of the population. You don't suspect everyone you meet of criminal behavior. You don't walk around suspicious of every-one."
"You do."
"That's because it's my job, and I have to deal with the twenty percent running around like idiots." He brushed his thumb across her knuckles. "I know you probably can't see anything good coming from this right now, but you'll be okay. You've got a real smart lawyer who made sure you'd get to keep your store."
"I don't believe my business can survive this." A second tear slipped from her eyes, then a third. "The theft of that painting is still making news. When Kevin's arrest is reported… I'll never be able to recover from something like that." With her free hand, she wiped the moisture from her face. "Anomaly is ruined."
"Maybe not," he said, his deep voice sounding so confident that she almost believed him.
But they both knew her business would never be the same. She would always be tied to the theft of the Hillard painting. Kevin had done that. He'd done that to her, and it was nearly impossible to reconcile Kevin the art fence and the man who'd always brought her rose tea when she hadn't felt good. How could that dichotomy exist in one person, and how could she have thought she knew Kevin so well, yet not really have known him at all? "Do the police think he also has those stolen antiques I was shown the day I was arrested?"
"Yes."
A horrible thought struck Gabrielle, and she quickly looked at Joe across her shoulder. "Do you still think I'm involved?"
"No." He raised a hand and brushed her moist cheek with the backs of his fingers. "I know you aren't involved."
"How?"
"I know you."
Yes, just as she knew him. Her gaze moved over his face, the slight hollow of his cleanly shaved cheeks and smooth jaw. "How could I be so dumb, Joe?"
"He fooled a lot of people."
"Yeah, but I worked with him almost every day. He was my friend, but I guess I never really knew him. Why didn't I feel his negative energy?"
He wrapped his arm around her shoulders and forced her to sit back with him against the couch cushions. "Well, don't feel bad, a person's aura can be real tricky."
"Are you making fun of me?"
"I'm being nice."
A sob caught in her throat, and she looked at him. First Kevin and now Joe. Wasn't anyone who and what she thought? "Why am I always so gullible? Francis tells me all the time that I'm too trusting. It gets me in trouble." She shook her head and tried to blink back the moisture in her eyes. Joe's face was so close she could see his whiskers beneath his tan skin and smell his aftershave. "Some people believe you draw positive or negative events toward you, that you attract the people you deserve."
"Sounds like bullshit to me. If that were the case, you'd only attract aura-seeing, karma-fearing, lapsed vegetarians to you."
"Are you trying to be nice again?"
He smiled. "If you don't know, then maybe I need work."
She looked into his handsome face she knew so well, into his intense eyes with their brows that were usually lowered when he looked at her. At his straight nose and the deep furrow that bowed his top lip. At his smooth skin that would begin a gradual shadow around noon. "My last boyfriend was an aura-seeing, karma-fearing vegetarian. Only he wasn't lapsed."
"Sounds like a ball of fire."
"He was boring."
"See, that's because you're a woman who lapses." His thumb swept another tear from her cheek as his gaze moved over her face. "You need a man who appreciates wild, unruly women. I went to parochial school and have a deep appreciation for lapsed girls. In fourth grade, Karla Solazabal used to roll up the waist of her plaid skirt and show me her knees. God, I loved her for that."
And she loved him for trying to cheer her up. "What's going to happen now?" she asked.
His gaze sobered. "Once Kevin is arrested, he'll be booked into-"
"No," she interrupted him. "Am I still your confidential informant until after the trial?"
"No, you're released from the agreement. Since you didn't know anything, I'm sure you won't even need to testify at trial."
His answer settled next to her heart like a hot briquette. She would not ask if he ever intended to see her again, or if he would call now that she wasn't his pretend girlfriend; She wouldn't ask, since she wasn't sure of the answer. "When do you have to go?"
"Not for a w
hile yet."
She slid her hand up his arm, across his shoulder, to the side of his head. She wouldn't talk about what might happen later, or tomorrow, or next week. She didn't want to think about it. Her fingers brushed his wool collar and combed through his short, spiky hair. A flash of hunger lit his eyes, and he lowered his gaze to her mouth.
"Whatever happened to Karla?" she asked.
He brought a palm up to the sides of her throat and slid his fingers beneath her terry cloth robe. "She's a state legislator." His thumb tipped her chin upward as his lips lowered to brush hers once, twice, three times. He eased her into a soft kiss that seemed to pour through her like sunshine in August, warming her from the top of her head, down her spine, to the pit of her stomach. Hot tingles spread between her legs and thighs, the backs of her knees and the soles of her feet. The inside of his slick mouth tasted of mint and coffee, and he kissed her like she tasted sweet and very, very good to him.
She tilted her head to one side to give him better access, and he drove her against the back of the couch and made love to her mouth with his lips and tongue and hot juices. His warm palm slipped beneath her robe, and he slid his fingertips along the smooth edge of her bra, his touch grazing the swells of her breasts. Her skin grew tight, and she reached for the knot of his tie. He didn't stop her, and she pulled at it until the striped ends hung down his chest. She suckled his tongue as she unfastened the tiny button at his collar. Her fingers worked downward until the dress shirt lay open, then she pulled the ends from his pants. Between their bodies, her hands found his hard abdomen. He sucked in his breath. The fine hair tickled her fingers as she combed them up his stomach and flattened her palms over each male nipple. His muscles hardened beneath her touch, his flesh puckered, and he groaned deep in his chest.
He'd behaved this way the night she'd given him a massage. He'd acted like he wanted her, then he'd asked her about Elvis and he'd left. He'd made leaving look easy. "Do you remember the other night when I gave you the massage?" she asked.
He shrugged out of his jacket and tossed it on the floor. "I'm not likely to forget that massage."
It Must Be Love Page 20
