Take My Breath Away…

He eased the pressure on her mouth enough to whisper, “Nicola?”

She knew what he was asking. He wanted her to let go and to tumble with him again wherever the moment would lead. She wanted to and knew she couldn’t. There would be people knocking at the door of the church any minute. But there was a part of her that just didn’t care. For a moment longer, she hesitated, letting practicality and common sense teeter on the brink with passion and the promise of delight.

Then the pounding came, muffled but insistent.

She drew away. “I can’t. We can’t.” But she had to fist her hands at her sides to keep from reaching out and pulling him back. She made herself meet his eyes. “We can’t make love.”

Not right now. Gabe didn’t say the words out loud. But they formed a drum beat in his head. He felt as if he’d taken a fast ride down a roller coaster without being strapped into a cart. He’d known she’d be different for him. Now he was beginning to suspect that she might be everything. Something sprinted up his spine. Fear?

She turned and led the way out of the room and down the aisle to let their rescuers in. He’d been right about the complications. Not only did he have a very clever thief with a special vendetta against him, now he had to figure out what to do about Nicola Guthrie.

7

AT SEVEN-THIRTY the next morning, Gabe faced Nick Guthrie across the wide expanse of a gleaming mahogany desk. The only thing that lay on top of it was the morning’s paper with a headline that read: G. W. Securities and FBI Join Forces to Foil Attempted Robbery of Famed Statue of St. Francis.

“How’s your head?” Guthrie asked, his gaze straying to the Band-Aid that now adorned Gabe’s forehead.“Good. I had one of my men escort Nicola home, and I stopped by a hospital where an old friend of mine works. She checked everything out, and aspirin should take care of any lingering effects.”

Unfortunately, there was no such easy remedy for what he was feeling about Nicola. Sending her home with one of his men had turned out to be the most difficult decision of the evening. He simply hadn’t wanted to let her go. Oh, he’d justified it rationally by telling himself that it was the smart thing to do. Because if he’d gone home with her, he wouldn’t have let her go into her apartment alone.

And he’d needed to think, to sort through all the implications of what had happened at the church.

He’d done the right thing. But not all the rationalizing he’d done had make it possible for him to stop thinking about her. And he hadn’t once been able to rid himself of the desire to just throw caution to the wind and go to her. Even now, he was wondering when she’d arrive at the office, when he would see her again. He felt a bit like a teenager with raging hormones.

At the end of a long, sleepless night, he’d come to one conclusion. He wanted her to work with him on this case. Even though his motives weren’t entirely related to catching a thief.

“You were lucky,” Guthrie said.

Gabe met his eyes. “I might not have been so lucky if it hadn’t been for your daughter’s arrival.”

“Nicola should not have been there. Neither should you.” Nick Guthrie tapped a finger on the newspaper that lay between them. “Tell me that you did not have anything to do with leaking this story.”

Gabe smiled. “That’s a rhetorical question, right?”

Guthrie ran a hand through his hair and sighed. “Shit. Just tell me why. And while you’re at it, tell me why you decided to use the statue of St. Francis as bait when we’ve put all our resources in place to catch this thief at the Valentine’s Day Charity Ball tomorrow night?”

Gabe studied Guthrie for a moment. He was a tall, lean man in his late fifties who had the preppy kind of good looks that aged well. He knew that Guthrie’s stellar record at the bureau had a lot to do with his being a meticulous planner. He always took the time to dot his I’s and cross his T’s.

The fact that Gabe hadn’t filled him in on the prototype of his new alarm system and hadn’t given him a heads-up on his hope that the thief might make a try for the statue was not sitting well with him. Gabe hadn’t expected it to. Nick Guthrie didn’t like to be thrown curve balls. Who did?

“You haven’t talked to Nicola then?”

Guthrie frowned at him. “She’s due in at eight. I’ll see her after she types up her report.”

A real I-dotter, Gabe thought. But he was beginning to get a clearer picture of Nick Guthrie’s working relationship with his daughter.

“You still haven’t answered my question,” Guthrie said. “Why did you set up the statue of St. Francis as bait?”

“I wanted to rattle a cage or two. These thieves began by hitting us hard—a sort of one, two, three punch. Thanksgiving, Christmas and then New Year’s. They’d stolen three pieces of art and broken through three of my alarm systems before I had an opportunity to analyze the problem fully. Then we had to wait a month and a half to see if they would strike on Valentine’s Day. I figured the St. Francis might complicate their plans a bit.”

“Why did you think they’d take the bait?”

Gabe shrugged. “The statue has a very high profile. There are plenty of people in the Denver area and beyond who believe in its prayer-answering power—and that makes it saleable to some collector. Plus, G. W. Securities installed the alarm system. I wanted to see if that would add to the temptation. I think it did.”

“But in spite of the risks you and my daughter took, we still don’t have anyone in custody. What if they’re so rattled they skip the Valentine’s Day Charity Ball? Where are we then?”

“Then we’ll wait until St. Patrick’s Day. Or Easter. But I don’t think they’ll skip the ball. They haven’t missed a major holiday since this whole thing began. They even went for the St. Francis on a minor holiday. And failed. That’s part of the reason why I leaked the story. After a well publicized failure, stealing the Cézanne that will be auctioned at the ball will be a matter of pride.”

Guthrie rose and paced to the window. “I hope you’re right.”

“So do I. I miscalculated. I thought they’d wait until Valentine’s Day to try for the St. Francis.”

Guthrie turned and met his eyes. “You thought they’d go for both at once?”

“That’s what I was hoping.”

“And you would have been lying in wait at the church while everyone else was at the ball.”

“Something like that. The security at the ball tomorrow night is tight. It’s not going to be as easy as the other three robberies. Whoever is behind this is smart. They’re going to protect themselves. We could end up preventing the theft but not catching anyone. I thought there might be a better chance of actually apprehending one of them at the church. But I didn’t take into consideration that yesterday was Lincoln’s Birthday.”

“Hmmph.” As Guthrie continued to stare out the window, the silence stretched between them.

And Gabe suddenly knew that Nicola had arrived for work. Every nerve, every cell in his body snapped to attention. He didn’t bother to turn around. With the privacy shades drawn, he wouldn’t be able to see her. But an image formed in his mind of that first time he’d spotted her stepping out of the elevator and striding purposefully to her office. She’d be wearing a neat business-like suit. And her hair would fall so straight into that slight curve. Neat. Way too neat. He couldn’t help but wonder how many times he would have to run his fingers through it to tease back those curls? He hadn’t yet had time to do that, and he badly wanted to.

“Earth to Gabe.”

Gabe opened his eyes, shocked to find that he’d closed them.

“What are you thinking?”

Gabe quickly reined in his thoughts.

“Because I can tell you what I’m thinking. You and Nicola should never have gone into that situation at the church without backup.”

“I sent Father Mike here to show you the note. When you weren’t here, Nicola provided the backup I needed. She shot the perp.”

“She shot the thief?” Guthrie strode back to his desk. “You didn’t mention that when you talked to me last night.”

“We didn’t discover the blood until after I called you, and we’d already scheduled to meet this morning so that I could fill you in on all the details.”

Guthrie sat down. “What the hell else haven’t you told me?”

Gabe began the updates, starting with the fact that two men from G. W. that he trusted were on the scene at the church, getting a blood sample for DNA testing. One of them had even traced the abandoned car that Nicola had spotted in the ditch. It had been stolen and was free of prints. “Any news yet on my car?”

Guthrie shook his head. “I’ve asked the police to keep me updated. There were a lot of accidents last night, and attention has been focused on rescuing and treating victims. If your car was in one of them, I’ll get a phone call. Eventually. Between the weather and the gunshot wound, our thief may not have made it back here.”

“I’ve got a couple of my men running down gunshot wounds at the hospitals.”