Rebecca vaguely noted a behemoth of a furnace, pipes, dampness seeping into the foundation walls—and the bottom edge of some wooden stairs, leading up. She heard Gabe, but what she heard in his voice only magnified her resolve. He would do his job. She’d never doubted that. But he didn’t believe in Jake’s innocence, any more than the police did.
She paused a second before aiming for the stairs, and pushed a fistful of tangled curls off her face. “You’re right about my not being objective. I have no interest whatsoever in being objective. If you’ll remember, Gabe, I’m the one who first tracked down your PI agency for the family, when my mother was in that plane crash.”
“I remember.”
She nodded. “No one believed that Kate was alive. No one believed she could be. And I wanted you hired, because you’re the best, and I always respected that you could do certain things that I can’t. But when you took on that job, you didn’t believe me about my mother being alive. You were no different than everyone else. Who was right that time, Devereax?”
“You were. But that was completely different—”
She shook her head, swiftly and violently, making the lump on her forehead ache like a bear—but she didn’t care. “It’s exactly the same thing. You trust your head, the same way I trust my heart. It’s because I love my brother that I know positively he never murdered anyone…and I don’t care how rotten Monica Malone was, or what she did to him.”
Gabe sighed. One of those exasperating masculine sighs that expressed centuries of archaic attitudes about women—and particularly her. “There are a few minor flaws in that logic, but we’ll forget those and move along. If you believe your brother’s innocent—and that all the physical evidence against him is just an inconvenient fantasy—that would mean that the real murderer is running around loose. A damn good reason to stay out of this. You could be in danger if you start poking your nose in fires you’re not qualified or prepared to put out.”
“For cripes’ sake, Gabe. That’s why I’m here. To find those fires.”
“God, it’s like talking to a marshmallow. Nothing gets through.” For the second time, he washed his face with an exhausted hand. “Somehow I have the feeling I’m not going to be able to talk you into going home.”
“Now, now.” She patted his shoulder consolingly—as she hiked past him toward the basement stairs. “I’m going to help you. Trust me.”
Two
Rebecca was as much help as a tornado. Given an option between the two evils, Gabe would have chosen the less chaotic.
That wasn’t the redhead.
For the second time, he dipped the washcloth under the faucet, wrung it out and aimed the cool cloth at the lump on her forehead. Rain was still battering the windows like bullets. March was early for a thunderstorm in Minnesota. No point in complaining; at least it was rain, instead of snow. Still, thunder shuddered through the house, and the lights winked and blinked at every flash of lightning. They’d be lucky if they didn’t lose the electricity altogether.
Losing the electricity wouldn’t bother him. Gabe was a resourceful man. He’d spent years in the Special Forces proving his ability to cope in even the most impossible of situations. Danger had never stopped him. Neither had adversity. He’d never counted on luck or God to solve a problem—in the past.
Conceivably, though, a few concentrated hours with Rebecca Fortune could turn even a hard-core heathen into a praying man.
“Yee-ouch. What, did you take lessons under Torquemada? Leave me alone, you bully.”
He didn’t stop working, didn’t look up. Right now, Rebecca was propped up on the kitchen counter, her face tilted toward the sink light.
He had a clear view of the gash on her forehead, but the chances of keeping her pinned and still for long wouldn’t make bookie odds. “It’s your own damn fault it hurts. There’s little specks of something in the cut. Maybe paint from that window frame. They have to come out. If you’d quit squirming, I’d get done a lot faster. I think you need a couple of stitches—”
Her response was swift. “No.”
“And since God knows what you connected with to get all those scrapes, you probably need a tetanus shot—”
Her response was even swifter. “I had one a couple of weeks ago.”
“Sure you did. And cats swim. You’ve got a real talent for fiction—which is a good thing, since I don’t think you’re gonna make it as a career criminal. Breaking and entering doesn’t seem to be your thing at all.”
“Don’t you start again with me, Devereax. I did this for my brother, and it wouldn’t matter to me if I’d ended up with all four limbs in casts and traction—I’d do it again.”
Gabe believed her. That was what scared him.
Most people could be appealed to through reason. Most women had a concept of safety, personal limitations, how to protect themselves. Bring that stuff up with Rebecca and she went blank. Nobody home in those pretty green eyes. No synapse connections indicating any brain function at all.
He dropped the washcloth and angled her face toward the sink light to study the welt again. Finally, it looked clean, but the ugly gash marring that soft, cream white skin made him furious. At her.
The punch-in-the-gut response to touching that soft, cream white skin made him even more furious. At himself.
When a man was standing between a woman’s thighs, an arousal was a natural, unavoidable biological reaction. Gabe understood perfectly well why he was harder than a hammer. And one day out of 365, a guy was entitled to feel unreasonable for a couple of minutes.
But he was mad at her for that, too.
When he stepped back, Rebecca mistakenly seemed to assume she was free and promptly leaned forward. “If you get off that counter, you die,” he informed her. “You need a bandage on that.”
“Sheesh. It’s just a little lump. It can’t be worth all this trouble.”
“If it isn’t taped right, you’ll get a scar.”
“My brother’s in jail on a murder one charge. Who the patooties could care about a stupid little scar? We’ve wasted enough time on this thing.”
“One more minute and this’ll be done.” He stepped between her thighs again. He had to. He didn’t trust Rebecca not to fly off the counter and start playing sleuth. He’d found the makings of a butterfly bandage in the antiquated first aid box. Leaning this close to her, Geronimo naturally stood at attention again, as stiff as a warrior’s lance.
Like his namesake, Geronimo should have figured out by now that a guy couldn’t win every time. Gabe ignored that problem. He wished he could ignore her.
She was relatively cleaned up now. Technically, no one was supposed to remove anything from the estate until all the legal tangles surrounding Monica Malone’s death were settled. Those legal complications meant that the cupboards and drawers and closets in the house were still jammed with stuff. Gabe had had no trouble finding a towel, washcloth, the first aid supplies and some clothes. He’d also caught sight
