“There’s no way to completely guarantee her safety, you know that,” Gabriel said. Jimmy sighed and looked from Sabrina to Gabriel, then back again. She held her breath.
“This is insane,” he insisted quietly, but she could tell he’d capitulated. She smiled and phoned Joy to let her know she’d be coming in today as planned. Gabriel called his partner and explained what they were doing and then called the local police to see if they would do a drive-by while they were in the studio.
At four o’clock, the three of them walked into Joy’s Portraits Photography downtown. Before going in, Gabriel made Sabrina wait in the car with Jimmy while he walked around the outside of the building. The small studio was set in the midst of a mini-mall between a bakery and a video store. It was about three blocks down from the bistro where the original shooting had occurred, and busy like usual on a Wednesday afternoon, though the church across the street was quiet. The trees planted along the road fluttered their leaves in the wind and Sabrina contemplated how lovely it felt to finally be out after weeks of what amounted to house arrest.
The studio’s small entry room contained a desk and some chairs where customers could wait for their appointments. Today, all four seats were occupied by the Fourth of July queen, Angelina, and her court. The king and the other three guys stood near the bay front window, joking and talking about basketball as they fiddled with their suit jackets.
Sabrina grimaced as she followed Jimmy inside. She wasn’t looking forward to interacting with them. Happily, she didn’t even have to greet them before Joy came rushing out of the studio’s back room.
“Sabrina! How are you doing? I missed you!” Joy’s arms opened to give Sabrina a hug. The girl returned her embrace, enjoying the scent of the older woman’s orange blossom perfume when her short hair swung around to brush against her cheek. Joy pulled back, and Sabrina smiled at her.
“I’m fine, Joy. Glad to be done with college.” Joy smiled and Sabrina watched as her friend straightened her cream-colored sweater so that it lay smoothly on top of her brown slacks.
“My friends wanted to come with me, watch the shoot, if that’s okay with you?” She waved her hands to indicate Jimmy and Gabriel.
Jimmy lounged against the studio door, looking all sorts of sexy, while Gabriel stood closer to the center. Both men wore a T-shirt and jeans, though Gabriel wore a black leather jacket over his to hide his holster and weapon. They smiled lazily, and she was struck again by their handsomeness. When she saw the younger guys on the other end of the room eyeing them warily, she also realized how dangerous Jimmy and Gabriel looked. She was used to joking around with them, but both men had been in combat situations, and it showed in the way they moved, the strong, lethal grace of their bodies. Gabriel had a way of walking that told the people he encountered that violence lurked just beneath the surface. Add that hint of danger to a glimpse of his holster and you end up with a very lethal-looking man, Sabrina thought.
She glanced at Jimmy, who was no longer leaning against the door but carefully prowling the room. He looked outside the window before walking back and eyeing the studio, committing to memory all available exits. He’d told her and Gabriel the other night that he got used to checking out his surroundings while in Afghanistan. He moved like a predator. As Sabrina watched him shift his weight and peer out the window between the blinds, she caught a hint of black peeking out of his back pocket and realized he’d packed his knife. Yup, dangerous. Sabrina smiled to herself.
She exchanged pleasantries with Joy for another few minutes, trying not to stare too obviously at Jimmy and Gabriel. She didn’t want to be unprofessional. However, when the older woman shuffled everyone into the back room, wanting to get started, she caught Angelina looking speculatively at Jimmy and then Gabriel. Then the other girls dissolved into giggles. Sabrina rolled her eyes, though she had to admit, she couldn’t blame them for their interest.
“Let’s get busy, shall we?” Joy said as they paused inside the back half of the studio, chuckling as she caught sight of Sabrina’s disgust. Sabrina loved Joy for her perception and enthusiasm and how generously she shared those qualities. Even at sixty years old, she managed to make every photo session both fun and useful, in between needling her about getting a boyfriend. After Joy rounded up Angelina and the others, she winked and slung her arm around Sabrina’s waist.
“I told you to get one boyfriend, Sabrina, not two!” Joy laughed quietly into Sabrina’s ear before releasing her. Sabrina laughed and began setting up the lights.
“How do you know they’re my boyfriends?” she asked, adjusting a diffuser near the camera.
“Please, don’t insult my intelligence,” Joy replied, bumping her on the arm with an elbow. “I could see the way they both looked at you, my dear.”
Sabrina raised her eyebrows. She thought they’d tried to keep the attraction under wraps while they were in public, but she was delighted to find out that neither man was bothering to hide much. Or couldn’t hide much. Maybe the moratorium on dating would soon be over, yay! she thought as she gathered up the other lights and began arranging them around the stools.
The girls and boys in the photo shoot were already exploring the backdrop and the rest of the studio. Jimmy walked the room’s perimeter, peeking into the bathroom and then checking the back door that opened onto the parking lot and garbage bins at the rear of the building. Gabriel had already finished his check, stopping behind Sabrina when she finished with the lights. She looked at Joy speculatively, wondering if the two men had really been looking at her, and Joy nodded sagely as Gabriel laughed, making her jump.
“Oh yeah, Sabrina,” he rasped close to her ear. Sabrina shivered. “We’ve been looking at you.” She twisted to find his eyes brimming with the naughty things he was thinking, but thankfully, he didn’t say any of them aloud. Sabrina flushed in embarrassment as Joy smiled.
“Oh my dear girl, you mustn’t let them get away. And I noticed both you and this fine young man checking Jimmy out over there as well.” Joy sounded positively gleeful.
Joy pointed at Jimmy, and Gabriel smirked openly at the two women. Sabrina flushed at the look on Gabriel’s face, half teasing, half desire. It was really quite extraordinary how easily he’d fit into her life with Jimmy.
“Caught,” Gabriel replied, placing his hand over his heart. “How can I help it? They’re both so delectable.” His voice dropped very low as he looked at Joy, who smiled gleefully. Joy pulled Sabrina along while she struggled to recover from what his voice had done to her. When she caught Jimmy looking at her quizzically, she realized that only a minute or so had passed during the exchange. And why, suddenly, was Gabriel flirting so openly? After days of hiding everything?
Two hours later Sabrina was ready to throw the light diffuser at Angelina and her friends. Or maybe the lights—they were harder and would do more damage. The four girls giggled and simpered at Jimmy and Gabriel, who ignored them. Unfortunately, the girls’ behavior did not go unnoticed by the four guys who were their dates in the Fourth of July court.