Their dinner cheered her even though she hadn’t much appetite. She still hadn’t dared to get on a scale since Thomas’s murder. Her weight had plummeted.
The restaurant’s ambiance exceeded the quality of the food, but she enjoyed seeing the sun set over the heads of the dozen people still fishing off the end of the pier. Demanding gulls sat on weathered wooden pilings begging for baitfish, and flocks of hungry brown pelicans glided over the pulsing Pacific.
Afterward, they walked slowly back along the pier toward the town, watching the few remaining beachgoers along the wide swath of clean sand bathed by the colorful sunset. Everything seemed so peaceful here. But Holly knew it was an illusion.
Someone had tried to hurt Tommy and her today. Even if it had only been intended as a warning, whoever tampered with her tires would have had no way of knowing when they’d go flat—and if it would injure them. Maybe kill them. That had happened notwithstanding the constant police protection. What was she going to do? Waiting for the cops’ solution wasn’t enough. But she knew nothing about conducting an investigation.
Gabe drove them home and pulled into her driveway. When he got out of the sedan, she asked, “Don’t you have to change cars or anything? I mean, I tore you away from your office—”
“Let me worry about that,” he said.
He leaned over and kissed her very softly on the lips. He tasted of hamburger and ketchup and Gabe. She was beginning to know his taste. It was headier than the atmosphere at the restaurant at the end of the pier. She would miss that very special flavor when she no longer was able to sample it.
He retrieved Tommy from the back seat and they all went into the house.
“Are you doing all right?” Gabe whispered to her as Tommy headed for the television.
“I think so.”
“Good. Things can’t go on as they are. We need to find some answers. And I’ve come up with an idea for getting solutions to at least one question.”
“What’s that?”
“Trust me.” His slow wink told Holly she should do anything but. That teasing, alluring, blatantly masculine flash of his eye was clearly meant to disarm her.
“We’ll see.” She didn’t sound as grumpy as she’d intended.
She stood at the living room door while Gabe sat beside Tommy on the sofa.
“Hey, sport,” he said. “How would you like to play a game of ball where the winner gets a prize?”
Tommy’s expression perked up. He was such an adorable, angelic child…most of the time. But he was also a child. What did Gabe have in mind?
“Here’s what we’ll do. If you win the game, I’m going to take you and your mom out for ice cream tonight—rainbow, okay?”
Tommy slid off the sofa and nodded exuberantly.
“And if I win, you’ll talk to me about the monster.”
Her son’s face fell. Very slowly, he shook his head.
Gabe seemed to ponder this for a minute, but Holly could tell he’d already anticipated this response.
Should she intervene? No. Tommy was her son, but like it or not he had only spoken to her during an emergency. He needed to talk for his own sake. And they needed some answers. She had told Gabe that Tommy spoke earlier, when he’d been frightened. And there was no one gentler about encouraging him than Gabe.
“Okay, then,” Gabe said. “We’ll make it a little easier. You tell me why you can’t talk about the monster. How’s that?”
Very smooth, Holly thought. And very clever. For after a moment of consideration, Tommy nodded.
Of course the outcome of the ball game was preordained. Although Tommy was in the lead early on, he lost.
He looked sad as Gabe led him in. “Tell you what, Tommy,” he said. “You give me my prize, and then I’ll give you yours anyway. How’s that?”
That cheered him.
“Okay, then.” Gabe led him into the living room and effortlessly lifted her child onto his lap on the sofa. Holly took a seat on an upholstered chair facing them. “Tell me about the monster, Tommy,” he said, “and why you can’t talk about him.”
“He came to Mr. Sperling’s shop and hurt Daddy,” Tommy said very softly. “He came after me. He said if I talk anymore or tell about him, he’ll get me.”
His little face was ashen. Holly could tell he was about to cry. She held herself still despite wanting to run to him.
“I see,” Gabe said very gravely. “Well, you know what? We’re going to make sure he can’t get you. And no one is going to tell my friend Tommy he can’t talk and get away with it. I’m the chief of police, and I said so.”
Tommy’s stare at him seemed, at first, to be incredulous. And then, her son smiled so brightly that Holly wondered if the power in her house had surged. “Yeah, Gabe,” he said. “You can tell him, `cause the monster’s a policeman.”
GABE KEPT HIS PROMISE and took Tommy and Holly out for ice cream. But his heart wasn’t in it. His mind roiled the entire time.
A policeman.
He kept the chatter with Holly light so as not to frighten the boy into silence once more. Tommy didn’t say much, but when prompted he asked again for rainbow ice cream, even said “thank you.”
But Gabe shared more than one look with Holly. Judging by the distress in her winsome brown eyes, she was upset, too.
When they returned to her house, he helped to get Tommy to bed and read the boy a story. Hugged him good-night. Waited for Holly to kiss her son and tuck him in.
And then he followed her downstairs.
“What do you think?” Gabe asked Holly when they reached the living room.
He knew what he thought. He had a damn department full of suspects. The monster was a cop.
Holly smiled at him. It was a sad smile. But it was a smile nevertheless. “We’ve made progress,” she said. She took his hand. For a disappointed moment, he thought she was merely going to shake it. Instead, she used it to lever herself up on tiptoes and plant a small kiss on his mouth. A grateful kiss, that was all. But it made critical parts of him stand up and take notice.
He nearly groaned as she turned and walked across the room. “Thank you, Gabe,” she said from a distance as close as the other end of the sofa and as far from where he wanted her as if she’d jogged to the beach.
“It didn’t solve things,” he said with a shrug.
“No. I know. It only triggered more questions. But at least Tommy is talking.” She sat on the sofa and regarded him somberly. “Maybe he’ll tell us more.” She sighed. “I can’t believe that the person who killed Thomas was probably one of his friends.”
“We don’t know that for certain.”
“No, but Tommy said that the monster was wearing a uniform. Or at least I think that’s what he meant.”
Gabe nodded. He took a seat on the couch. “That’s what I understood, too. But Tommy didn’t see Sheldon hit or Thomas stabbed.”
“Thank heavens,” Holly said fervently.
“And even if someone in uniform put on the monster mask, there are still a heck of a lot of suspects.”
“I know.” Holly took a deep breath. “We need answers,” she finally said. “If only I knew how to get them—”
“I’ll get them, damn it,” Gabe interjected, suddenly angry as his fear for her boiled over like a cauldron of water untended on the stove. “Don’t you start trying to play cop. It’s dangerous.”
“I know,” she replied quietly. She was silent for a long moment, then looked toward him with horror contorting the lovely features of her face. “Gabe, the ‘monster’ is probably the person who’s been making those phone calls. And today, he tried to hurt us, and we don’t even know why.”
He suddenly wanted to dispel her horror at all costs. To erase every one of her fears.
And the only way he knew how to do that was to hold her in his arms. Make her forget everything, if only for a short while.
Make love with her.
He moved toward her, knowing that she might reject him. After a
ll, he had rejected her sweet advances the night before.
He held his breath as he took his place beside her, enveloped her in his embrace. She lay her head on his chest, her hands at his back hugging him close. He inhaled her fragrance of apricot and hamburger and woman.
And then, he used one finger beneath her chin to tilt her head back.
Her luminous eyes were languid and he saw desire there. “Gabe?” she whispered. It was a question and a challenge and a plea. And he could no longer hold back.
His mouth lowered to hers. Her lips opened for him. She tasted like the most luscious of delicacies, warm and inviting. Before he could slip his tongue in to sample the heated cavern of her welcoming mouth, hers darted out teasingly. He played her game, but only for a moment.
His hand slipped between them, beneath the clinging fabric of her striped knit top, to touch the silken flesh of her stomach, then upward to the small, ripe curves of her breasts. He heard her soft intake of breath as he cupped her, ran a thumb over one nipple until it peaked, then explored the other one.
“Gabe?” she said once more.
Did she want him to stop? He would. He still could. But lord almighty, he didn’t want to. Not now.
“What, sweetheart?” he whispered, holding himself still as he throbbed below.
“Let’s go upstairs,” she breathed.
Chapter Twelve
Holly preceded Gabe into her bedroom, but when he reached for her she slipped away. She could have laughed at the heated question, the overt frustration, in his shining, sexy green eyes.
Instead, she maneuvered around him and locked the door. “Tommy,” she explained with a shaky smile. “He’s probably asleep by now, but—”
“Yeah,” Gabe said. The question disappeared, replaced by an all-masculine grin. He stepped toward her, and then she was enveloped in a burning embrace that she couldn’t have escaped if she’d wanted to. Which she didn’t.
She drew in her breath as, once more, his hands found her breasts. He cupped them gently, one, then the other, then released them. This time she was the one who gazed at him in question, but he reached down and pulled her top over her head, removed her bra.
Her knees wobbled as her desire was piqued by the appreciative way he stared at her. His eyes met hers, and the primitive passion she saw there made her moan.
The sound gravitated Gabe to move, to propel both of them to her bed, where he laid her down upon the colorful coverlet she had sewn herself. His hands stroked her flesh, then moved downward. She raised her hips, and he used the opportunity to strip off her jeans and panties and kiss his way down her body till she gasped at the erotic feeling of heated lips on yearning flesh.
When he replaced his lips with his hands, caressing her where she was most sensitive, she thought she would expire.
“Gabe!” she gasped, forcing herself to roll away from him. “Let me.” She knelt on the bed, naked, while she helped him struggle from his shirt, his pants, his briefs. “Oh,” she said softly as she viewed his magnificently male body, bared before her. She had already glimpsed the muscularity of his hard biceps, his sculptured chest. But she had only imagined the rest of him—his solid thighs, taut calves, tight buttocks, and the very obvious, very aroused male protrusion that told her he was as turned on as she.
Her hands reached out, grasped him, stroked him until it was he who moaned. His lips met hers again, even as his body covered hers. His hardness and strength and weight made her buck with need. She loved the erotic male scent of him, the incredible sensation of his hard and heated, damp flesh on hers, his hands touching and caressing and massaging.
She thrust her hips up to tell him how very ready she was—and he immediately pulled away.
She wanted to cry out, except that when she managed to open her eyes she saw him grope for his pants and extract a small foil envelope from a pocket.
She smiled in amusement despite her aching need for him. For a man who hadn’t, as recently as last night, wanted to make love with her, he had still managed to be prepared.
“Let me,” she said. She fumbled with the wrapper, but enjoyed every moment of torturing him with her deliberately slow way of sheathing him.
When she was done, he was the one who was smiling. He pushed her onto the bed and moved her legs so she was open to him.
When he thrust into her, she cried out, but the sound was swallowed by his kiss. He established the rhythm with his thrusts, and she joined it with her own.
She rode with him until, in a starburst of color that dazzled her eyes, she felt herself explode into ecstasy.
HOLLY LOST COUNT. The first time Gabe and she made love last night was far from the only time, and each one was as compelling and thrilling as the last.
He was insatiable. And inventive. He’d kissed her everywhere, from her polished toenails to her fingertips. And she loved every minute of it.
When she awakened this time, as dawn poked tendrils of light between the window blinds, she was cuddled up to him spoon-fashion, his deliciously hard body pressed against her back. She rolled over, almost purring. And found him awake, too. Looking at her with eyes that shouted of lust as powerful as anything she’d experienced the night before.
“Again?” she whispered teasingly, although she couldn’t keep her own renewed desire from turning her voice husky.
“Again,” he confirmed in a deep and very proudly male tone. He rolled on top of her and set his weight seductively upon her breasts and stomach as he reached for the bedside table. His erection was already renewed and pressing at her, and she grinned a feline grin.
“Good thing you came well supplied,” she said as she heard yet again the crispness of foil wrapping being disturbed.
“I sure—”
He was interrupted by the ringing of a phone. Holly’s insides plummeted. It was too early for anyone she knew to call. Might it be the creep who’d threatened her? Who’d sabotaged her car and tried, just yesterday, to harm Tommy and her.
“I don’t want to answer,” she said shakily.
Gabe was already out of bed. “You don’t have to. It’s mine.”
She admired the way taut muscles rippled as he stooped and reached inside the pocket of the pants he had shed on the floor last night. He stood facing her, gloriously, unabashedly male, as he flipped the cell phone open and said, “Hello.” Lord, but his body could stimulate the hormones of the world’s entire female population. Maybe the universe’s.
“Yeah, Jimmy,” he said. “You have? Can you tell me…? All right. I’ll be there right away.”
A chill washed over Holly that had nothing to do with no longer having Gabe’s body heat to warm her. She noted the faraway look in his eye as he closed the cell phone’s flap. Just like that, his mind was already far from here. On duty.
What had she expected? He was a cop.
And she had been an idiot, sleeping with him. She’d told herself she merely wanted comfort from all that had happened to Tommy and her. To celebrate Tommy’s talking. To enjoy fulfillment of a few lustful fantasies.
But looking at him, as he silently drew on his clothes, she realized the miserable truth.
She was falling in love with yet another damn police officer.
“Sorry, Holly,” Gabe said.
She stared at him. Could he read her mind?
He had finally focused on her once more. She caught his regretful expression as she pulled the coverlet up to her chin. She wanted to draw it over her head and weep at her own folly. But she didn’t.
“I have to get to the station,” he said. “I don’t want to leave you alone after yesterday, so—”
“Don’t worry about us,” she said very civilly. Maybe too civilly, for his eyes narrowed.
“I’m sorry,” he repeated. “I need to go. I’ll assign someone to hang out with you till I can get back. Except…”
“Except what?” Holly asked.
“Look, I need to know the officers on the force who were Thomas’s closest friends.
”
“Why?” she asked.
Finished dressing, he stood in the middle of the room in the casual clothes he’d worn last night while playing catch. Was he going to the station that way? “I want to know which ones I can count on. The ones I can trust most to look out for Tommy and you.”
“Oh.” She realized what he was driving at. Those cops she named as Thomas’s friends would be the ones Gabe would least trust. Tommy had said the monster was a policeman. That could mean anyone close to Thomas could have killed him.
“Holly?” Gabe prompted. “Who?” He folded his muscular arms.
She slowly drew in a breath, preparing to reply. “Well… Al Sharp, of course. He was Thomas’s partner. And Thomas really respected Mal Kensington.” She permitted herself the tiniest of wry grins. “That’s not to say he didn’t respect you.”
“Yeah. He really looked up to me.” Gabe’s sarcasm was showing. “Anyone else?”
“Bruce and Dolph. Al and he hung out with them the most.”
“Is that everyone?”
“They were the closest,” Holly said with a sigh. “Look, Gabe. They’re friends. I’d still trust them to take care of Tommy and me.”
“Right. Look, Holly, how fast can you get yourself and Tommy dressed?”
“If you’re going to command us to come with you, forget it. We’re staying here.” She held up her hands against his stubborn expression. “I know. Tommy said the monster was a policeman. A policeman. If you feel you have to, send a bunch of your guys over here to watch us. But we’re not going anywhere.”
“Then I’ll stay—”
“No!” She practically shouted as she shifted on the bed, her coverlet pulled up to her chin. She felt foolish, arguing with a fully dressed man while she remained nude. “No,” she repeated more quietly. “You have work to do. Go do it.”
“You’ll let whoever I send in the house later?”
“We don’t need anyone here. Especially a cop under suspicion. We’ll be fine.”
“Like you were fine yesterday?”
She shuddered. “Okay, Gabe,” she said quietly. “Thanks.” For everything. For the sex. For acting concerned. For…
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