"I'm not worried. I just wondered."
Kevin had always admired confidence, and Joe had it in spades. If the man had had a good income besides his good looks, Kevin probably would have hated him on sight. But he was such a loser that Kevin didn't feel at all inadequate. "I think you are probably going to be good for Gabrielle," he said.
"How's that?"
Because he wanted her distracted for the next few days, and Joe seemed to occupy her completely. "Because neither of you expect too much," he answered and turned toward his office. He shook his head as he entered the room and sat at his desk. Gabrielle's boyfriend was a low-expectation loser who was perfectly happy to scrape by.
Not Kevin. He hadn't been born rich like Gabrielle, or good-looking like Joe. Instead, he'd been born number six in a Mormon family of eleven children. With so many kids packed into one small farmhouse, it had been easy to get overooked. Except for slight variation in hair color and obvious differences in gender, the Carter kids all looked alike.
Except for once a year on birthdays, there'd been no special attention given to each individual child. They'd been dealt with as a whole. A clan. Most of his brothers and sisters had loved growing up in such a large family. They'd felt a bond, a special closeness with the other siblings. Not Kevin. He'd just felt invisible. He'd hated that.
All of his life, he'd worked hard. Before school, after school, and all summer long. Nothing had been given to him except hand-me-down clothes and a new pair of shoes every fall. He still worked hard, but now he enjoyed himself a hell of a lot more. And if there were things he wanted but couldn't obtain the money for through legal enterprise, there were other ways. There were always other ways.
Money was power. Absolutely. Without it a man was worse than nothing. He was invisible.
Chapter Six
Floating on a clear blow-up raft in the middle of her backyard kiddie pool, Gabrielle finally found the inner peace she'd sought all day. Shortly after she'd returned from her shop that afternoon, she'd filled the pool and pulled on her silver bikini. The pool was ten feet across and three feet deep and had orange and blue jungle animals circling the outside. Wildflowers, rose petals, and lemon slices drifted on the surface of the water, soothing away her nervous tension with the scent of flowers and citrus. Clearing her head completely of Joe was impossible, of course, but she did succeed in absorbing enough positive energy from the universe to push him to the back of her mind.
Today was the first opportunity she'd had to test her sunscreen, and she'd rubbed her exposed skin with the blended oils of sesame, wheat germ, and lavender. The lavender had been a last-minute inspiration, a sort of hedge bet. Lavender didn't have screening properties, but it did have healing characteristics, in case she did burn. And also, the perfumed scent covered the smell of seeds so she wouldn't attract the unwanted attention of hungry birds in search of a feeder.
Periodically, she lifted an edge of her bathing suit and checked her tan. Throughout the afternoon, her skin bronzed nicely without a hint of pink.
At five-thirty, her friend Francis Hall-Valento-Mazzoni, now just Hall once again, stopped by to present Gabrielle with a red lace thong and matching bra. Francis owned Naughty or Nice, the lingerie shop half a block from Anomaly, and she often dropped by with her latest inventory of crotchless underwear or sheer nightgowns. Gabrielle didn't have the heart to tell her friend that she wasn't into racy undies. Consequently, most of the gifts ended up in a box in Gabrielle's closet. Francis was blond and blue-eyed, thirty-one, and twice divorced. She'd been in more relationships than she cared to remember, and believed most problems between men and women could be solved with a pair of licorice panties.
"How's that skin toner I made for you working out?" Gabrielle directed the question toward her friend, who sat in a wicker chair beneath the porch awning.
"Better than the oatmeal mask or PMS oil."
Gabrielle skimmed her fingers across the top of the water, disturbing the rose petals and wildflowers. She wondered if her treatments or Francis's impatience were at fault. Francis was always looking for the quick fix. The easiest answer, never bothering to search her own soul and find inner peace and happiness within. As a result, her life was always in crisis. She was a magnet for loser men and had more issues than a magazine rack. Francis also had qualities Gabrielle admired. She was funny and bright, went after what she wanted, and had a pure heart.
"I haven't talked to you for awhile. Not since last week when you thought some big guy with dark hair was following you."
For the first time in over an hour; Gabrielle thought of Detective Joe Shanahan. She thought of his intrusion in her life and the bad karma she'd accumulated thanks to him. He was domineering and rude and filled with so much testosterone that a five o'clock shadow darkened his cheeks at four-fifteen. And when he kissed, his aura turned the deepest red of any man she'd ever known.
She thought of telling Francis about the morning she'd pulled a derringer on an undercover cop and ended up as his confidential informant. But this was too huge a secret to tell.
Gabrielle shaded her eyes with her hand and looked over at her friend. She'd never been any good at keeping secrets. "If I tell you something, you have to promise not to tell," she began, then proceeded to squeal like a jailhouse rat. She hit the high points, but purposely left out the disturbing details, like the fact that he had the hard, rippling muscles of an underwear model and kissed like a man who could seduce even the most frigid woman out of her support hose. "Joe Shanahan is overbearing and rude, and I'm stuck with him until Kevin's cleared of this whole ridiculous nonsense," she finished, feeling purged. For once, Gabrielle's problems were bigger than her friend's.
Francis was silent for a moment, then murmured, "Hmm." She pushed a pair of rose-colored sunglasses up the bridge of her nose. "So, what does this guy look like?"
Gabrielle turned her face to the sun. She closed her eyes and saw Joe's face, his intense eyes and spiky lashes, the sensual lines of his mouth, and the perfect symmetry of his wide forehead, straight nose, and strong chin. His thick brown hair tended to curl about his ears and the back of his neck, softening his powerful, masculine features. He smelled wonderful. "Nothing special."
"That's too bad. If I were forced to work with a cop, I'd want one of those beefcake-calendar boys."
Which, Gabrielle supposed, pretty much described Joe.
"I'd make him carry heavy boxes and get all sweaty," Francis continued with the fantasy.
"And I'd watch his buns of steel when he bent over."
Gabrielle frowned. "Well, I look at a man's soul. His appearance is unimportant."
"You know what? I've heard you say that before, and if it's true, then why didn't you sleep with your old boyfriend Harold Maddox?"
Francis had a point, but no way was Gabrielle going to admit looks were as important as the essence of a man's soul. They weren't. A mentally developed enlightened man was so much sexier than a cave dweller. Problem was, that physical attraction thing sometimes got in the way. "I had my reasons."
"Yeah, like he was boring and had a scraggly ponytail and everyone mistook him for your dad."
"He wasn't that old."
"Whatever you say."
Gabrielle could make a few comments about Francis's choice of men and husbands but chose not to.
"I'm not all that surprised Kevin is a suspect," Francis said. "He can be a weasel."
Gabrielle looked across at her friend and frowned. Francis and Kevin had dated for a short time, and now the two of them had a sort of love-hate relationship. Gabrielle had never asked why or what had happened; she didn't want to know. "You're only saying that because you don't like him."