Take My Breath Away…

“Spilled milk?”

“That’s what you said at the church. Ignore it and it will go away. It’s not going away. We were in a hospital room with a woman who’s in an induced coma. Someone who tried to steal the statue of St. Francis. And I lost track of everything when you touched me. Everything.” Just as she had in the church. Just as she had that first day in the office.

“It’s a mutual experience, Curls.”

She kept her eyes on the road but gripped the armrest when he took a quick right turn. “We have to find out who that woman is and how she’s connected to what’s going on. And there’s a clock ticking on this.”

“Agreed.”

“We don’t have time for…what’s happening between us. We can’t afford to…”

“Make love again?” This time he turned left and then swerved to pass the car directly in front of them. “We’re going to. Because we both want to.”

She should argue with him. Tell him they wouldn’t, they couldn’t. But she’d be speaking lies—not only to him but to herself. Instead, she said, “We shouldn’t.”

“Probably not.” He took another sharp left turn and earned a long honk from an oncoming car.

Nicola glanced in the sideview mirror and noticed a blue sedan make the same turn. “Is that car following us?”

“I’m finding out.” For a few seconds, he zigged and zagged through traffic.

Nicola noted that the blue sedan was still in her sideview mirror.

“You know, we’re not exactly cut out of the same cloth, you and I,” Gabe said. “And you’re the daughter of a man who’s been good to me. Who’s trusted me. I’ve spent nearly three months avoiding you because that was what I felt I should do.”

Nicola looked at him then. His eyes were on the road, but his knuckles had turned white on the wheel. “Do you always do what you should do?”

There was just a hint of recklessness in the smile he sent her. “Not always. But I try when it counts. My mother made me promise on her deathbed that I would live my life within the law, that I would never follow in my father’s footsteps. So I’ve kept that promise. I’m not saying I did it on my own. Dad made Uncle Ben my guardian, and I had Father Mike, the St. Francis Center and good friends. Your father kept an eye on me, too. When I was first starting out, he called me in to consult on cases. That helped G. W. Securities build its reputation. I should have been able to keep my hands off of you. But you’re different for me, Curls.”

Her throat was dry when she tried to swallow. She hadn’t been able to keep her hands off of him either. And she wanted them on him again. “You’re different for me, too.”

And what an understatement that was. But it occurred to her for the first time that maybe they weren’t so different from each other. Whatever rebellions she’d had in her life—playing basketball, joining the FBI—she’d accepted the transfer to Denver partly because she’d felt it was what she should do. Sure her main goal was to prove to her father by her actions that she’d make a good field agent. That way he’d worry less about her job choice. But she’d also known it would please both of her parents if she returned to Denver.

Gabe made another left, and she noted that the blue sedan followed them.

She turned her attention back to him. “You know, when it comes to doing what you should do, I could be the poster girl.” But there was a time when you had to make a choice between what you should do and what you wanted to do. She’d made a choice when she was ten because she’d wanted desperately to play basketball with Gabe Wilder.

Want seemed far too tame a word for what she felt each time Gabe Wilder touched her. But she’d already made her choice. “We’ll make love again.”

“We will.”

“But our priority has to be to catch the thieves. What’s happening between us can’t interfere. This case is too important.”

“We couldn’t be more in sync. We’ll just have to juggle our priorities. Hold on to your seat.”

She did and the right turn he took was so sharp it made the tires squeal.

She glanced in the sideview mirror again. “They’re still with us.”

“See? Neither one of us missed that. We seem to be juggling okay.”

She glanced up at the tall building and recognized the parking ramp they turned onto. “You led them right to your office.”

He pulled into a space. “I did.”

She looked at him then. “I didn’t notice them on the way to the hospital. Were they following us then?”

“No.”

“Three people besides my dad heard you say we were going to St. Vincent’s. Mary Thomas, Mark Adams and Father Mike.”

“I wanted them to. The attempted theft has made the papers. The woman in the hospital hasn’t checked in with her colleagues, so they’ll check out St. Vincent’s. I’ve got Pete, one of my best men, outside the door. The policeman is his backup. If anyone makes a move to contact her, we’ll have more than we have now. And we need more than we’ve got.”

“And one of the people in my dad’s office may have sicced the tail on us,” Nicola said.

“Our minds are running in tune. And that’s more than we knew before, too. The important thing will be to make sure they don’t follow us when we leave here later.”

The grin he sent her reminded her so much of the boy who’d taught her to play basketball that her heart took a little tumble. She pressed a hand against her chest as he climbed out of the car and circled to open her door.

Making love with him was one thing. They were both adults, perfectly capable of deciding to indulge in a sexual fling. She was going to have to remember that anything more than that was not on her agenda.

10

WHEN THEY STEPPED INTO the elevator that opened off the parking garage, Gabe put a key in a slot and then punched in a code. “We’ll go to the G. W. offices first. I need to check in with Debra.”

State of the art was Nicola’s first thought as she stepped into a hall that bisected a maze of glass-walled rooms. The place reminded her of the set of a Spielberg futuristic movie, and it seemed to fit the man walking at her side to a T. Smaller rooms housed individual desks with computer screens. About half of them were occupied.Gabe led the way to the opposite end of the floor where a larger room offered a view of the city. Five people were seated around a glass-and-chrome conference table but Nicola’s eye was drawn to the tall woman standing in front of a wall-size TV screen.

“That’s Debra?” she asked.

“Yes.”

The moment the woman spotted Gabe, she signaled to one of the men at the table to take her place and picked up a newspaper as she left the room.

Debra Bancroft was very attractive, but not in a flashy way. Nicola guessed her to be in her mid-forties, but she moved with the grace of a younger woman. She wore her blond hair pulled back into a bun. Her black jacket and slacks, which managed to look stylish and business appropriate at the same time, revealed a slender, athletic body. It occurred to Nicola that Debra Bancroft fit the description Gabe had given of his opponent at the church last night just as well as Mary Thomas had.

And neither one of them was the woman she’d shot. That young woman was currently in critical condition and tied up to tubes in an intensive care unit.

“Gabe.” When Debra’s glance shifted to Nicola, Gabe made the introductions. Then Debra held out the newspaper. “Have you seen this yet?”

Gabe gestured to the Band-Aid on the side of his forehead. “I was there.” He gave Debra a brief rundown on what had occurred starting with Father Mike’s phone call and ending with their visit to St. Vincent’s and the condition of the young woman.

“You’re all right?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“We’ve thought from the beginning that there has to be more than one person involved. If this young woman pulls through, she may be able to identify the others. Do you want me to assign someone to stand guard?”

Gabe shook his head. “I’ve already arranged that, and the FBI has notified the police. There was a uniform on the door when we left the intensive care unit.”

Debra’s eyes narrowed as she absorbed what Gabe had told her. “So one of the thieves is already in custody.”

“In a manner of speaking.”

“I’m assuming we go forward with our security plans for tomorrow night even if they may be one man down.”

“Yes. In the meantime, Agent Guthrie is assigned to me twenty-four-seven.”

At Debra’s raised brow, he continued, “The FBI wants to cover all their bases. We did install the security on the statue of St. Francis and the other art pieces.”

“They suspect that we may be involved?”

“In their shoes, I would, too.”

Debra glanced at Nicola, then shifted her gaze back to Gabe. “Could I speak with you privately for a moment?”

“Until this is over, the FBI and I have no secrets.”

Something flickered in Debra’s eyes, and Nicola thought it was impatience or annoyance.

“When I did the walk-through to check the security on the Cézanne, I noticed that you’ve installed a new alarm system, one that I’m not familiar with.”