by Diana Palmer
He sighed miserably. “First my car gets towed away, despite the press sticker, because I parked in front of a fire hydrant. Then I get tackled and my film is ruined...it’s somebody’s fault!” he added with a pointed glare.
Gaby grinned. “God must be mad at you,” she told him. “He’s getting even with you for the Garrison story you conned me out of last week. You do remember having your crony at City Hall send me out to the parking lot while you got the final word on the new landfill site?”
He shifted uncomfortably. “That was in the line of duty. We’re rivals.”
“Yes, and some of us hit below the belt,” she added with a meaningful stare. “But I didn’t have the policeman tackle you. You should know better than to walk through a hail of bullets. Policemen get nervous about that sort of thing.”
“You should know,” Wilson muttered. “Didn’t you get shot in the last stand-off, after the bank robbery?”
She cleared her throat, aware of Bowie’s thunderous expression. “This time, I was safely behind some police cars—not taking a stroll in front of the sniper.”
“Is that so.” Wilson pursed his lips. “Well,” he said slowly, “I might be persuaded to forgive you—if you can spare a shot of the victim.”
“No chance.”
“Okay, I’m easy. How about the police surrounding the building? Come on, Cane, my job’s on the line,” he coaxed.
“If Johnny finds out, mine will be, too,” she assured him. “Do what the rest of us do. Go and beg from the News-Record. They go to press every Tuesday, so this story will be old news by the time their next edition comes out. They’ll share with you.” She grinned as she said it. The News-Record was a small weekly newspaper, but its reporters were always on the spot when news broke, and they didn’t mind sharing one of their less important photos with the big dailies—as long as their photographer got a credit.
He sighed. “Well, beggars can’t be choosers. Okay, doll, thanks anyway.”
He started to bend down to kiss her cheek, but she stepped back jerkily. “You’ll give me Bulletin germs!” she exclaimed, making a joke out of it.
He shook his head. “Leave it to you. Thanks anyway, Cane.” He chuckled, and walked out the front door whistling.
Bowie hadn’t said anything. He had a cigarette in his hand, and he was watching her like a hawk. “Bullets?” he asked, moving closer.
“A robbery. The perpetrator got twenty dollars. He killed a store manager and took a pregnant woman hostage, and threatened to kill her. They had to drop him.” She lowered her eyes. “He was little more than a boy. The police reporter is out sick, so I had to cover the story. I don’t do the police beat anymore,” she added, trying to ward off trouble.
“Bullets?” he repeated, his voice deeper, rougher this time.
She looked up. “I’m twenty-four years old. This is my job. I don’t need your permission to do it. It was just this one time...”
“Count your blessings,” he said curtly. He glanced toward the receptionist, who smiled at him, and turned away uncomfortably. “Let’s go.”
Gaby winked at Trisa as they passed her, but Bowie kept his eyes straight ahead, pausing only to open the door for Gaby and lead her to his black Scorpio.
She sank into the soft leather seat with a sigh, and let her eyes wander over the dashboard. It was a honey of a car. She wished she could afford one.
He got in beside her, making sure her seat belt was fastened before he clicked his own into place and started the car. “Does your receptionist make a habit of staring at people that way?” he asked irritably as he pulled out into traffic. “I was beginning to feel like a museum exhibit.”
“Look in a mirror sometime,” she murmured only half humorously. “I used to have girlfriends by the dozen in college until they learned that you didn’t live at Casa Río. It rather spoiled their dreams of the perfect weekend vacation.”
He gave her a cold glance. “I hate being chased.”
“Don’t look at me.” She held up her hands in mock horror. “I’m the last woman you’ll ever have to beat off.”
“So I’ve noticed.” He eased the car into another lane. “You still don’t like being touched, I see.”
“Wilson is a womanizer,” she murmured. “I don’t like that kind of man.”
“You don’t like men, period. You’re damned lucky that Aggie doesn’t know what a hermit you are. She’d have you on the guest list of every party that featured even one single man.”
“I know.” She sighed and glanced at his perfect profile. “You won’t give me away, will you?”
“Have I ever?”
She ran a hand over the back of her neck. “We don’t see that much of each other, so how do you know about my social life?”
He lit another cigarette. “You’re soaked. Do you want to go to your apartment and change before we go to the restaurant?”
“Yes, I’d like to, if you don’t mind.” Then she thought about Bowie in her apartment, and something inside her retreated.
He saw that hunted look out of the comer of his eye. “You’re safe with me, Gaby. I hoped you knew that without my having to say it.”
She swallowed. He read her all too well. She stared at her slender, ringless fingers. “I know. I’m just a little shaken by this afternoon. I don’t do police news anymore, and it’s been a long time since I’ve seen anybody shot.”
“What a hell of a line of work you chose,” he said.
“I like it, most of the time.” She clasped her fingers, because reaction was beginning to set in. It always amazed her how calm she was while she was getting a story, but after covering this kind of story she went to pieces after the numbness wore off. Sometimes she had nightmares and there was usually nobody to talk to about them. She couldn’t tell Aggie, because the older woman disapproved of her work anyway and had tried to get her to quit. She had no close friends.
“You said you aren’t still on the police beat?” he asked conversationally.
“No. Because after Aggie had you tell Mr. Smythe to take me off it even though I asked Johnny Blake to put me back on he wouldn’t.” She glanced at him. “I don’t miss it anyway. I love political reporting.”
“That’s reassuring,” he said dryly.
“Aggie did put you up to it, didn’t she?” she asked. “Speaking of Aggie, what’s going on?”
“I’ll tell you over dinner.” He parked the car in front of the apartment building where she lived—a sprawling white complex with a swimming pool and tennis courts and security people.
“I’ve moved since you were in Phoenix last,” she said suspiciously. “How did you know where I live?”
“Come on. You’re soaked.”
She threw up her hands. “Do you ever answer questions?”
“You’ll catch cold if you don’t get out of those wet things,” he replied nonchalantly, still sidestepping her queries—as usual.
He got out of the car, opened her door, and let her go first in the slight drizzle. It was getting dark already, and she was too tired to pursue it.
Her apartment was done in whites and yellows, with oak furniture, Mexican pottery, and a few modem paintings. It was bright and open and sunny, and she had plants growing everywhere.
“It looks like the damned Amazon jungle,” he observed, staring around him.
“Thank you.” She took off her raincoat. “I’ll only be a few minutes. There’s brandy on the table if you want a drink.”
“I’m driving,” he reminded her.
“I’ll, uh, just get changed,” she stammered. He made her feel ridiculously weak. She dodged into her bedroom and closed the door.
It was the first time she’d ever had a man in her apartment. She was all thumbs while she took a quick shower, washed and dried her hair, and put
on a neat gray crepe dress with white collar and cuffs, and shoes to match. She curled her hair into a neat bun atop her head, added a dash of pink lipstick, some powder, and a hint of perfume, and went to join Bowie.
He was standing at her window, looking out, his black eyes narrow and brooding. He turned as she came back, his appraisal electrifying as it slid boldly down her body and back up to her face.
“Is it too dressy?” she asked nervously.
“I’d have said it was twenty years too old for you,” he replied. “You’re an attractive young woman. Why do you dress like a matron?”
She bristled. “This is the latest style...”
“No, it isn’t. It’s a safe style. You’re covered from neck to calf, as usual.”
Her face was going hotter by the minute. “I dress to please myself.”
“Obviously. You sure as hell won’t please a man in that rig.”
“For which you should be grateful,” she said with a venomous smile. “You won’t have to fight me off all evening.”
He considered that carefully, his sensuous lips pursed, a faint twinkle in his black eyes as the cigarette smoked away in his hand. “I’ve never made a pass at you, have you noticed? What is it now—eight years?”
“Nine,” she said, averting her eyes to the window.
“And I know as little about you now as I did that first night,” he continued. “You’re an enigma.”
“I’m also starving,” she said, changing the subject with a forced, pleasant smile. “Where are we going to eat?”
“That depends on you. What appeals to you?”
“Something hot and spicy. Mexican.”
“Fine by me.” He held the apartment door open for her, one of his habits that secretly thrilled her. Aggie had raised him to be a gentleman, and in times when most men left women to open their own doors and lift their own burdens, Bowie was a refreshing anachronism. He was courteous, but not chauvinistic. Two of his executives were women, and she knew for a fact that he had hired a female architect and several female construction workers. He never discriminated, but he did have a few quirks—such as insisting on opening doors and carrying heavy packages.
They went to a festive Mexican restaurant just two blocks from Gaby’s apartment, and were given a table on a small patio near a wealth of potted trees and flowers.
“I love this,” Gaby sighed, fingering some begonias in a tub.
“You and Aggie have this hangup about flowers, I’ve noticed,” he murmured. He laid his cigarette case on the table and glared at it. “I hate damned cigarettes.”
Gaby’s eyebrows lifted. “Then why smoke?”
“I don’t know.”
“Nerves?” she asked daringly.
He leaned back, crossing his long legs under the table. His black eyes pinned hers. “Maybe.”
“About Aggie,” she guessed, because she couldn’t imagine making any man nervous, least of all Bowie.
“About Aggie,” he said flatly. He fingered the case, smoothing over his initials. J.B.M., it read—James Bowie McCayde. He’d never liked his first name, so he’d always been called Bowie.
“What’s she done?”
“It isn’t what she’s done, so much as what she’s about to do.” He leaned forward suddenly. “She’s bringing a man home to Casa Río.”
“Aggie’s bringing a man... I need a drink—something big.”
“That’s what I felt, too. It isn’t like her.”
The waiter came, but Bowie ordered coffee, not drinks, and sat patiently while Gaby read the entire menu twice before settling for a taco salad.
“My God, you didn’t need a menu to order that,” he said curtly when the waiter had gone.
“You didn’t need one to order steak ranchero, either,” she told him with a grin, “but you read the menu.”
“I wanted to make sure they still had steak ranchero.”
She shrugged. “Who is this man?” she asked.
“I don’t know him. She met him on a cruise down to Jamaica. His name is Ned Courtland.”
“I don’t know him.”
“Neither do I. She says he’s a cattleman from somewhere up north.” He glowered at the table. “More than likely, he’s got a couple of calves in a lot out back and he’s looking for a rich widow.”
“Aggie wouldn’t get mixed up with a gold digger,” she began but she was wondering about it herself.
“Aggie’s human, and she misses my father. She’s ripe for a holiday affair.”
She stiffened. “Aggie isn’t the type to have affairs, any more than I am.”
His head lifted and his black eyes scanned her face. He seemed to see right into her brain with that unblinking appraisal. It upset her and she moved her hand too quickly, almost overturning her water glass.
“Careful.” He righted the glass, his big, lean hand momentarily covering hers. Its warm strength sent an electric sensation up her arm. She lifted her eyes to his, curious and questioning, and he stared back at her with a faint scowl, as if the contact bothered him, too.
She didn’t try to pull her hand away. She was nervous of Bowie, but she’d never had any physical distaste for him, as she did with other men. She liked the touch of his skin against hers very much, and every once in a while, she found herself staring at his mouth with frank curiosity. She wondered how it would feel to kiss him, and that shocked her. She’d been kissed, but it had been somehow mechanical. She’d never really wanted it with anyone except Bowie—not that he knew. She’d made very sure that he hadn’t. He was the kind of man who took over people. She couldn’t bear the thought of that, ever.
He drew his hand back slowly, aware of an annoying surge of pleasure at the feel of those slender fingers under his. Gaby was off limits, he had to remember that. Aggie would cut his hands off if he tried anything with her baby.
Aggie had never made any secret of her love for Gaby, nor had his father. They seemed to stop caring about him the day Gaby had moved into Casa Río, and he felt like a spare person in the family. Gaby had robbed him of his rightful place. He tried not to show that resentment, but he frequently felt it. It had been Gaby at his father’s bedside when he died, because his father had called for Gaby before he had asked for his son. By the time he got to Copeland, it had been too late. He’d resented that, too. Aggie hadn’t seemed to notice. She was affectionate, but she reserved her displays of emotion for Gaby. Not once in recent years had she offered to embrace her son.
Gaby was blissfully unaware of his anger, but she had her own secrets, he was sure of it. Her attitude had puzzled him for years. It was odd to find a fifteen-year-old alone in a barn, especially one with no apparent background. His parents had been too fond of her to make inquiries, but Bowie hadn’t. He’d wanted to know all about her, but he had drawn a total blank. All his contacts and all his money hadn’t managed to ferret out one piece of information about her that he didn’t already have. He suspected that she had a past, but he had no idea what it was—or even where. She’d covered her tracks with excellent shrewdness, and that made him more suspicious about her.
“Why did you come to see me?” she asked to break the uneasy silence.
“You’ve got to help me do something about Aggie.”
Her eyebrows went up. “What did you have in mind?”
He paused as the waiter put a plate of steak medallions covered with Monterrey Jack cheese, onions, and peppers before him, and Gaby’s taco salad was placed before her. Two cups of steaming coffee, with a small pot of cream, came next. The waiter smiled and left.
“Well?” she prompted, her eyes anticipating with delight the fresh slices of avocado and the sour cream topping her enormous taco salad in its crispy shell.
“I want you to take a vacation.”
She stared at him blankly. �
�A what?”
“A vacation. It’s May. You didn’t take one at Christmas. You could take it now.”
“I’m sure you’re going to want me to spend it at Casa Río,” she murmured. She sighed. “Aggie and a man—my gosh.” She looked up, and now she was feeling some concern of her own. “He must be some fast worker if he’s gotten her this involved this quickly.”
“I know. That’s why I’m worried. If I didn’t have this project under way in Calgary, I’d camp down there myself. You know Aggie never minds if we come to stay, or how long for.” He glowered at the tablecloth. “Why can’t she stay home and start a business, or something constructive? Why hare off to the Caribbean and drag strange men home with her?”
Gaby almost grinned, but it was pretty serious. Aggie hadn’t dated anybody, except for a friendly dinner now and again with couples from the construction firm, who thoughtfully provided single men for her inspection. That hadn’t worked. Aggie was still a dish at fifty-six, and her short black hair was only flecked with silver. She had a nice figure. Gaby’s eyes narrowed. Aggie had been alone a long time; perhaps being flattered and escorted had played on her loneliness. She thought about some faceless man playing her adopted mother for a fool and got madder by the minute.
“I’ll go see Johnny Blake first thing in the morning,” Gaby murmured. “I’ll ask Aggie if I can stay a couple of weeks.” She looked up. “What if she says no?”
“When has she ever said no?” he asked testily, his black eyes questioning hers. “I don’t know how we can stop her, but we can certainly slow her down if she’s serious. In the meantime, we’ll find out what we can about her beau.”
“He could be on the level...” she murmured thoughtfully, trying to give him the benefit of the doubt for Aggie’s sake. If Aggie was really smitten, this could prove to be a nightmare for everyone concerned. Trying to dissuade a determined woman was difficult at best, and Aggie had a temper that would match even Bowie’s when she was aroused.
“He could be anything or anyone,” Bowie countered. “Con men prey on women her age. It’s nothing against her,” he added when Gaby opened her mouth to protest the insinuation. “You have to admit that this is unusual behavior for her. She’s been loyal to my father’s memory for a long time.”