"How we deal with each other. I know you think I'm your enemy, but I'm not." Although he didn't trust his informant out of his sight, he needed her to trust him. He was responsible for her safety, and part of his job was to protect her-physically.
He couldn't protect her if she ran to Kevin if things got ugly. He didn't really think Kevin would hurt Gabrielle, but if there was one thing he'd come to anticipate, it was the unexpected. That way he was never caught with his pants down around his ankles. "You need to let me do my job. The sooner I get what I need, the sooner I'll be out of your life. We need to come to some sort of an agreement."
She patted her face and neck with the towel and plucked the purple flowers from her bikini. "You mean a compromise?"
Not hardly. He'd meant she needed to stop acting so neurotic and start behaving like she was hot for him. No more calling him a demon from hell. "Sure."
She studied him and tossed the sprig of flowers back into the pool. "How?"
"Well first, you need to calm down and stop acting like the swat team is about to bust through the front window of your store."
"And second?"
"Neither of us may like it, but you're supposed to be my girlfriend. Quit acting like I'm a serial killer."
As she patted the tops of her breasts with the towel, he purposely kept his eyes pinned to her face. No way was he going to lower his gaze and get sucked into fantasy land again.
"And if I do?" she asked. "What are you going to do for me?"
"Make sure you aren't implicated-"
"Uh-uh." She shook her head and wrapped the towel around her waist. "That threat doesn't scare me anymore, since I don't believe Kevin is guilty."
Joe shifted his weight to one foot and crossed his arms over his chest. He knew the drill. This was the part where informants tried to shake him down for money, or wanted all their unpaid parking tickets to disappear quicker than a dime bag in rehab, or maybe get a badge of their very own. "What do you want?"
"I want you to keep an open mind. Don't just assume Kevin's guilty."
The unpaid parking tickets would have been easier. There wasn't a doubt in Joe's mind that Kevin Carter was as guilty as sin, but part of being an undercover cop was having a God-given talent to pass off boldfaced lies without a flicker of remorse. "Sure. I'll keep an open mind."
"Really?"
He relaxed the corners of his mouth and slanted her his I'm-your-buddy smile. "Absolutely."
She stared into his eyes as if she were trying to read the back of his brain. "Your nose is growing. Officer Shanahan."
His smile turned genuine. She was crazy, not stupid. He'd had enough experience to know the difference, and given a choice, he'd prefer crazy over stupid any day. He raised his hands, palms up. "I can try," he said and lowered his arms to his sides. "How's that?"
She sighed and tied a knot in the towel over her left hip. "I guess if that's the best you can do, it will have to be good enough." She turned toward the house, then looked back at him over her shoulder. "Have you eaten dinner yet?"
"No." He'd figured he'd stop at the grocery store on the way home and pick up some chicken for him and some carrots for Sam.
"I'm going to make dinner. You can stay if you want." Her tone was less than enthusiastic.
"Are you inviting me to have dinner with you? Like a real girlfriend?"
"I'm hungry and you haven't eaten." She shrugged and headed toward the back door. "Let's just leave it at that."
His gaze followed the waves in her wet hair and the droplets of water dripping from the ends and sliding down her spine. "Can you cook?"
"I'm a wonderful cook."
As he walked behind her, his eyes lowered to the sway of her hips, her rounded bottom he'd come to appreciate in the past week, and the brush of the towel across the backs of her knees. Dinner prepared by a wonderful cook sounded great. And of course, it gave him the opportunity both to ask her a few questions about her relationship with Kevin and to get her to relax around him. "What's for dinner?"
"Stroganoff, French bread, and salad." She climbed several steps to the screen door and opened it.
Joe followed close behind and reached over her head, grabbing the top of the wood frame and holding the door open.
She paused, and if he hadn't been paying attention, he would have knocked her flat. His chest lightly grazed her bare back. She turned, and her shoulder brushed his chest through the thin cotton of his T-shirt. "Are you a vegetarian?" she asked.
"God forbid. Are you?"
Her wide green eyes stared into his, and a distressed little furrow creased her brow. Then she did something weird-although he guessed he shouldn't be surprised by anything she did. She breathed really deep through her nose as if she smelled something. Joe couldn't smell anything beyond the floral scent clinging to her skin. Then she shook her head slightly as if to clear her mind and continued into the house as if nothing had happened. Joe followed and resisted a sudden urge to sniff his armpits.
"I have tried veganism," she informed him as they moved through a small back room with a washer and dryer and into a kitchen painted bright yellow. "It's a lot healthier lifestyle. But unfortunately I'm lapsed."
"You're a lapsed vegetarian?" He'd never heard of such a thing, but he wasn't real surprised.
"Yes, I've tried to resist my carnivorous urges, but I'm weak. I have control issues."
Control usually wasn't an issue for him- until now.
"I love most things that are bad for my arteries. Sometimes I'm halfway to McDonald's before I realize it."
A stained glass window above the breakfast nook threw patches of color about the room and on the rows of little glass bottles lined up on the small wooden table. The room smelled like Anomaly, like rose oil and patchouli, but nothing else, and he grew suspicious of her claim to be a wonderful cook. No Crock-Pot filled with bubbling stroganoff sat on the counter. No scent of baked bread. His suspicions were confirmed when she opened the refrigerator and pulled out a container of sauce, a package of fresh pasta, and a loaf of French bread.
"I thought you were a wonderful cook."
"I am." She shut the refrigerator and set everything next to the stove. "Would you do me a favor and open the cabinet by your left leg and pull out two saucepans?"
When he leaned down and opened the door, a colander fell out on his foot. Her cabinets were messier than his.
"Oh, good. We'll need that too."
He grabbed the pots and colander and straightened. Gabrielle stood with her back pressed against the refrigerator door, a hunk of French bread in one hand. He watched her gaze slide up the front of his jeans to his chest. She slowly chewed, then swallowed. The tip of her tongue licked a crumb from the corner of her mouth, and she finally looked up at him. "Want some?"
His gaze searched her face for a hint that she wasn't asking about bread, but he saw nothing provocative in her clear green eyes. If she'd been any other woman besides his CI, he would have loved to show her exactly what he wanted-starting with her mouth and slowly working his way to the little mole on her inner thigh. He'd downright love to fill his hands with her big, creamy breasts straining against that bikini top. But she wasn't any other woman, and he had to behave like a Boy Scout. "No, thanks."
"Okay. I'm going to change my clothes. While I'm gone, put the stroganoff sauce in the small pan, then fill the larger pan with water. When the water starts to boil, add the pasta. Cook it for five minutes." She pushed away from the refrigerator, and as she walked past him, she paused for a second and breathed deeply through her nose. Just like before, a crease furrowed her brow, and she shook her head. "Anyway, I should be back by then."
Joe watched her breeze from the room, tearing off a bite of bread, and he wondered exactly how it had happened that he'd been invited to dinner by a woman in a bikini who claimed to be a wonderful cook but left him to cook the meal while she changed. And what was up with that smelling thing? She'd done it twice now, and he was starting to get a little paranoid.