"You do."

"That's because it's my job, and I have to deal with the twenty percent running around like idiots." He brushed his thumb across her knuckles. "I know you probably can't see anything good coming from this right now, but you'll be okay. You've got a real smart lawyer who made sure you'd get to keep your store."

"I don't believe my business can survive this." A second tear slipped from her eyes, then a third. "The theft of that painting is still making news. When Kevin's arrest is reported… I'll never be able to recover from something like that." With her free hand, she wiped the moisture from her face. "Anomaly is ruined."

"Maybe not," he said, his deep voice sounding so confident that she almost believed him.

But they both knew her business would never be the same. She would always be tied to the theft of the Hillard painting. Kevin had done that. He'd done that to her, and it was nearly impossible to reconcile Kevin the art fence and the man who'd always brought her rose tea when she hadn't felt good. How could that dichotomy exist in one person, and how could she have thought she knew Kevin so well, yet not really have known him at all? "Do the police think he also has those stolen antiques I was shown the day I was arrested?"

"Yes."

A horrible thought struck Gabrielle, and she quickly looked at Joe across her shoulder. "Do you still think I'm involved?"

"No." He raised a hand and brushed her moist cheek with the backs of his fingers. "I know you aren't involved."

"How?"

"I know you."

Yes, just as she knew him. Her gaze moved over his face, the slight hollow of his cleanly shaved cheeks and smooth jaw. "How could I be so dumb, Joe?"

"He fooled a lot of people."

"Yeah, but I worked with him almost every day. He was my friend, but I guess I never really knew him. Why didn't I feel his negative energy?"

He wrapped his arm around her shoulders and forced her to sit back with him against the couch cushions. "Well, don't feel bad, a person's aura can be real tricky."

"Are you making fun of me?"

"I'm being nice."

A sob caught in her throat, and she looked at him. First Kevin and now Joe. Wasn't anyone who and what she thought? "Why am I always so gullible? Francis tells me all the time that I'm too trusting. It gets me in trouble." She shook her head and tried to blink back the moisture in her eyes. Joe's face was so close she could see his whiskers beneath his tan skin and smell his aftershave. "Some people believe you draw positive or negative events toward you, that you attract the people you deserve."

"Sounds like bullshit to me. If that were the case, you'd only attract aura-seeing, karma-fearing, lapsed vegetarians to you."

"Are you trying to be nice again?"

He smiled. "If you don't know, then maybe I need work."

She looked into his handsome face she knew so well, into his intense eyes with their brows that were usually lowered when he looked at her. At his straight nose and the deep furrow that bowed his top lip. At his smooth skin that would begin a gradual shadow around noon. "My last boyfriend was an aura-seeing, karma-fearing vegetarian. Only he wasn't lapsed."

"Sounds like a ball of fire."

"He was boring."

"See, that's because you're a woman who lapses." His thumb swept another tear from her cheek as his gaze moved over her face. "You need a man who appreciates wild, unruly women. I went to parochial school and have a deep appreciation for lapsed girls. In fourth grade, Karla Solazabal used to roll up the waist of her plaid skirt and show me her knees. God, I loved her for that."

And she loved him for trying to cheer her up. "What's going to happen now?" she asked.

His gaze sobered. "Once Kevin is arrested, he'll be booked into-"

"No," she interrupted him. "Am I still your confidential informant until after the trial?"

"No, you're released from the agreement. Since you didn't know anything, I'm sure you won't even need to testify at trial."

His answer settled next to her heart like a hot briquette. She would not ask if he ever intended to see her again, or if he would call now that she wasn't his pretend girlfriend; She wouldn't ask, since she wasn't sure of the answer. "When do you have to go?"

"Not for a while yet."

She slid her hand up his arm, across his shoulder, to the side of his head. She wouldn't talk about what might happen later, or tomorrow, or next week. She didn't want to think about it. Her fingers brushed his wool collar and combed through his short, spiky hair. A flash of hunger lit his eyes, and he lowered his gaze to her mouth.

"Whatever happened to Karla?" she asked.

He brought a palm up to the sides of her throat and slid his fingers beneath her terry cloth robe. "She's a state legislator." His thumb tipped her chin upward as his lips lowered to brush hers once, twice, three times. He eased her into a soft kiss that seemed to pour through her like sunshine in August, warming her from the top of her head, down her spine, to the pit of her stomach. Hot tingles spread between her legs and thighs, the backs of her knees and the soles of her feet. The inside of his slick mouth tasted of mint and coffee, and he kissed her like she tasted sweet and very, very good to him.

She tilted her head to one side to give him better access, and he drove her against the back of the couch and made love to her mouth with his lips and tongue and hot juices. His warm palm slipped beneath her robe, and he slid his fingertips along the smooth edge of her bra, his touch grazing the swells of her breasts. Her skin grew tight, and she reached for the knot of his tie. He didn't stop her, and she pulled at it until the striped ends hung down his chest. She suckled his tongue as she unfastened the tiny button at his collar. Her fingers worked downward until the dress shirt lay open, then she pulled the ends from his pants. Between their bodies, her hands found his hard abdomen. He sucked in his breath. The fine hair tickled her fingers as she combed them up his stomach and flattened her palms over each male nipple. His muscles hardened beneath her touch, his flesh puckered, and he groaned deep in his chest.

He'd behaved this way the night she'd given him a massage. He'd acted like he wanted her, then he'd asked her about Elvis and he'd left. He'd made leaving look easy. "Do you remember the other night when I gave you the massage?" she asked.

He shrugged out of his jacket and tossed it on the floor. "I'm not likely to forget that massage."

"I wanted you and I thought you wanted me, too. But you left."

"I'm not going anywhere." His gaze met hers as he carefully placed his firearm and holster on the floor by his jacket.

"Why now?"

"Because I'm tired of fighting it. I want you so much I ache, and I'm tired of going home with a killer hard-on that no amount of cold showers can cure. I'm tired of lying awake, picturing you naked like I was sixteen again. Imagining my face in your breasts, and you and me having wild sex. It's time I stopped thinking about it so much and got busy." He flexed his wrists and worked at the buttons there. "You were telling me the truth about those birth control pills, weren't you?"

"Yes."

He tore at the shirt and threw it toward his jacket. "Then it's time I make love to you," he said and came at her, wrapping her in his arms as his mouth swooped to take possession. He ran a hand down her back to her behind, then he gently pushed her to the couch positioning her so that she lay on her back. He knelt on one knee between her thighs, his other foot was planted on her floor, and he pulled back to look down at her with hungry eyes. Gabrielle's robe lay open, exposing her right leg and hip and the slope of her left breast. He untied the belt and moved aside the terry cloth material. His hot gaze touched her everywhere. Lingered on the thin triangle of islet and hearts covering her crotch, then slowly up her abdomen to the stiff underwires of her bra, pushing her breasts together.

"Do you remember the night I walked into your backyard and found you floating in the kiddie pool?"

"Mmm-hmm."

"I wanted to do this." He leaned over her and placed his palms beneath her shoulders. He lifted, then nestled his face in her cleavage. He placed soft kisses between her breasts as she ran her hands across his bare shoulders and down his smooth back. She wrapped one leg around his waist and pressed into him. A low groan tumbled deep in his throat as he pressed back, shoving his hard erection against her crotch. Everything in her consciousness focused on him, the pleasure of his touch, and the dull ache between her legs. His soft kisses made her insane for more, and she arched her back, pressing the fullest part of her breast to his lips. He lifted his gaze to hers and smiled, then he opened his mouth and sucked her through her thin bra. He drove her wild with the slow, undulating rhythm of his hips. Through the narrow strip of her panties and the wool of his pants, he turned her liquid inside. Her skin burned, her nipples tightened, and she dug her fingers into his shoulders and ground against him. He slid his hand from beneath her shoulder and grasped her thigh. Stopping her.

"Slow down, honey, or I'll embarrass myself right here, before the really good part begins."

"I thought this was the really good part."

His quiet laughter filled the space between their lips. "It gets better."

"How?"

"I'll show you, but not on the couch." He stood, drew her to her feet, then pulled her from the room. "I like a bed where I can spread out while I work." They made it as far as the dining room, where she paused to kiss the side of his throat. She tasted his cologne and she slid a hand across his flat abdomen, down the front of his pants, and found the long hard length of him. Then before she knew what he was doing, he picked her up and set her on top of the cool table. Her hand knocked the telephone, and it crashed to the floor. Neither cared.