He cocked his head to one side, studying her a moment before saying, “You look familiar. Have I arrested you before?”
Chapter 3
Anamaria couldn’t stop the laughter that bubbled free. “Not yet. But there’s still time.” Mimicking Robbie, she waved one hand lazily at the empty chair. “Please join us, Detective.”
This time he did so, swinging the chair around to straddle it. “You can call me Tommy.”
He was about Robbie’s age, an inch or two shorter and probably twenty pounds heavier, all muscle. Black hair, dark eyes, olive-skinned, with a stubble of beard on his jaw that gave him a slightly disreputable look. He didn’t need the badge or the pistol on his belt for his air of authority; he came by it naturally.
The sorrow hovering around him, though, wasn’t natural. A new hurt having to do with Ellie Chase, an old one connected to his mother. Anamaria couldn’t tell if Mrs. Maricci was dead; she wasn’t sure Tommy knew himself. But wherever she was, in this life or the next, she wasn’t here and hadn’t been for a very long time.
“So you’re in the psychic business,” Tommy said.
“And let me guess—you’re in the skeptic business.”
“Nah. He’s skeptical enough for both of us.” He jerked his head toward Robbie. “Besides, my great-grandma Rosa was from the old country, and she was a big believer in the evil eye and spirits and all that. Are you setting up business here in town?”
“My visit here is nothing more than that. A visit. A break from Savannah.”
“And yet the first thing you do is call Lydia.”
Who’d told her husband, who’d told his lawyer, who’d told the local cop. “If you don’t believe me, Detective, feel free to keep an eye on me.”
He glanced at Robbie. “It might get kind of crowded.”
So Robbie had already made clear his intention of doing just that. She didn’t mind. She’d been viewed with suspicion and distrust before, and would be again. She shifted her gaze to Robbie. “And here I thought it was just coincidence running into you outside River’s Edge this morning,” she said sweetly.
“No, you didn’t,” Robbie replied bluntly. “You knew when I left your house yesterday that you’d be seeing me again.”
That she would see him, and have no regrets about him when she left. Whether that meant sleeping with him—or not—she didn’t yet know.
Whether it meant trusting him—or not—was still a question, as well.
She picked up her purse and reached for the ticket the waitress had brought with their food. Robbie slid it out from under her fingers and switched it to his other hand. She smiled faintly. She could insist on paying for her share of the meal, but there would be other, more important things to argue about than a salad and half a sandwich.
“Thank you.” She stood, and her denim skirt fell into place, the cotton of her shirt shifted, and two appreciative male gazes watched. She offered her hand. “It’s a pleasure meeting you, Detective.”
His hand was warm, his grip strong but restrained. “Let’s do it again without him.”
She thought of Ellie Chase, doing one of the thousand daily jobs vital to the running of the restaurant, and the way he’d looked at her when she’d walked away from him. He would be a safe choice for a spring affair—handsome, sexy, totally in love with another woman. Her heart might break for him, because she suspected if she got to know him, she would like him very much, but it wouldn’t be broken by him.
Still holding his hand, she bent close, her mouth almost brushing his ear. “As if you aren’t already taken,” she murmured. “But if you need a friendly ear or a soothing tonic, you know where to find me.”
When she straightened, Robbie’s gaze was narrowed, not quite forming a scowl but definitely hinting of something territorial, something…primal. As safe as Tommy was, Robbie was twice that dangerous.
He followed her to the cash register near the front door, paid the tab, then they walked outside. He held the envelope under one arm while putting on a pair of dark glasses. She had sunglasses in her purse, big ones that Mama Odette called her movie-star glasses, but she didn’t bother with them. Perhaps it was the Cuban in her, or the Haitian or the African, but she loved the sun, bright and hot. Loved the air heavy with moisture and the lazy, languid way it made her feel.
“Do the contents of that envelope concern me?” she asked when they’d walked half a block in silence.
“Why would you think that?”
“Oh, gee, I don’t know. Your client asks you on Tuesday to look into my background, and on Wednesday your detective friend shows up with an unmarked envelope of ‘papers’ you talked about. Call it…”
“A premonition?” he supplied drily.
“Intuition.”
He didn’t respond but followed when she turned in midblock and jaywalked to the square. The paths there were shaded by giant oaks and were sweetly scented by the plantings along the edges. She was wondering what he would do if she simply slipped the envelope away from him. Would he take it back or let her look inside? Could there be anything inside worth seeing? Her financial history? Her arrest report? The legendary permanent record that had followed her from kindergarten to twelfth grade?
She knew all those details of her life. Seeing them in official report format didn’t interest her.
“Tommy’s not available,” Robbie said abruptly.
“I saw that.”
“You mean—”
“Even a blind man could see the emotion coming off the two of them. What’s the problem?”
He shrugged, obviously unwilling to share. “What did you say to him?”
She shrugged, too, equally unwilling to share.
In only a moment, they were approaching her car. She would have walked longer with him. If he offered a tour of downtown, or even the whole town, she would accept. It was a beautiful day, the air fresh with promise, and there was something about walking with him—being with him—that filled her with promise.
But he wasn’t making any offers.
She unlocked her car, then opened the door to disperse the heat collected inside. “Thank you for lunch.”
“You’re welcome.” He held out his hand, and for a time she simply stared at it.
His voice was taut when he spoke. “You shook hands with Ellie and Tommy. You can damn well shake hands with me.”
She continued to stare. His fingers were long and lean, hinting at power. The nails were short, the skin tanned, with a few old scars and a callus here and there. They were hands that could arouse and soothe and protect, that could hurt but wouldn’t. Hands that could shake her world so thoroughly
