Take My Breath Away…

He rose from the pew and paced a few steps away. “I’ve told your father that whatever is going on here, it’s connected to me personally somehow. It’s not just a coincidence that the thief uses my father’s M.O.”

“I’ve told him the same thing,” Nicola said. “But I also suggested strongly the possibility that you were behind the thefts. He wasn’t open to that.”

“Don’t worry. He’ll arrest me if he can get enough evidence. That’s the kind of man he is.” He studied her for a moment. “Did he ask you to tail me?”

“No—how did you know I was tailing you?”

“Curls, my business is providing security. I spotted you the first day. I figured your father had assigned you just as a precaution.”

“Ever since he had me transferred to his office, all he’s asked me to do is research. I wouldn’t be here now if Father Mike had come to the office a half hour earlier. And when I made it up here and found your car parked outside the church, I was so sure you had to be the thief.”

“Can’t blame you.” Gabe took a seat next to her again. “And now?”

She tilted her head and studied him for a moment. A tall man, broad shouldered, wearing a robe that didn’t fit. Everything inside of her yearned for him.

Not good. “I’m not sure I can be objective anymore.”

He smiled at her, then ran a finger down her cheek. “I’m that good, huh?”

Nicola raised an eyebrow, firmly ignoring the killer smile as well as the ribbon of heat that unwound through her veins until it curled her toes. “Evidently, we’re that good. Your theory is that it was a mutual jumping, remember?”

“Yes, I do remember, Curls. Every detail. Want to talk about it?”

“No.” She didn’t even want to think about it. Though she would. She was sure of it. Later. “You said it was spilled milk. I agree. And I think we have more important things to discuss. Your turn to answer my questions. What are you doing here?”

He nodded in the direction of the statue. “I got a call from Father Mike the instant he received the note. I told him to go report to your father. And just to put it on the record, I’m not behind the thefts.”

“Do you have any idea who is?”

The easy smile faded and his eyes turned cold. “The person or persons behind the thefts are either working for me or getting information from someone inside G. W. Securities. Or they’re working in your office. That’s why I didn’t share any information on the prototype, not even with your dad. And one of the people involved is also intimately familiar with my father’s methods.”

“You think there’s more than one person involved?”

“There has to be. There aren’t a lot of thieves as multi-talented as my father was. He was a regular Houdini when it came to locks or safes, but he might have been even better at creating forgeries.”

“You’ve examined the ones these thieves have left behind?”

He nodded. “They’re excellent. And they match up in quality to the ones my dad did himself. Plus, he always signed his work with R.W. That detail isn’t very well-known.” He glanced toward the altar. “Let’s see if this one is signed.”

Nicola stayed right where she was as Gabe retrieved the statue she’d placed there earlier. There’d been both admiration and love in his tone when he’d spoken of his father. Her mind flashed back to the boy she’d first seen on that basketball court. He’d been orphaned, left alone, at thirteen. Within a very short time he’d lost two people he’d clearly loved. But he’d worked past that. And now fifteen years later, someone was digging up all those memories.

Even worse, it wouldn’t be long before the press got hold of the details that would rake up Raphael Wilder’s career and his connection to Gabe. The same details that had caused her to point the finger at Gabe Wilder as the prime suspect.

Gabe settled himself once more in the pew. “You won’t be able to see it clearly in this light.” He took her hand and rubbed her fingers along the base of the statue.

“Can you feel the swirl in the R and the W?”

What Nicola felt was a tingle, but she traced her fingers across the base again to make sure before she met Gabe’s eyes.

“What is it?”

“I feel the W all right. But the other letter isn’t an R. It feels more like a G.”

Gabe immediately turned the statue over and examined it in the light. First he examined the base, running his fingers across the letters just as she had. Then he ran his hands carefully over every inch of the entire statue.

“Is the thief signing your initials now?”

Gabe met her eyes. “No. I signed this statue myself. Years ago.”

6

“YOU SCULPTED THIS STATUE?”

Gabe shook his head. “No. The summer after my mother died, my father worked on it and some other pieces in her art studio. It was an old gardener’s cottage she’d renovated and used for her own painting. I would sit on a stool and watch him. On this piece, he tried to teach me how to use the tools, and after I’d hacked up the marble, he’d smooth over my mistakes. I didn’t inherit either his artistic talent or my mother’s.”As the memories slipped into his mind, so did the mix of emotions that always accompanied those memories of his father. Gabe set the statue down in front of him and leaned back in the pew. “We finished the statue and I signed it just a few weeks before he was arrested and taken away.”

And why in hell had he brought that up? He didn’t talk about his father’s arrest. It was a part of his life that he preferred to never revisit.

It was only as Nicola covered one of his hands that he realized he’d fisted his. When she said nothing, he spoke again. “He and I didn’t have much time together. My parents met in Paris where she was studying painting, and it was love at first sight. But aside from their shared talent in painting, they couldn’t have been more different. He was from the streets, and she came from wealth. Plus, he was already well on his way to becoming one of the most successful art thieves in Europe. After I was born, she brought me back here to Denver to raise me. She wanted me to have a normal upbringing, a quiet life, and he simply couldn’t settle down. Stealing things, creating the forgeries to leave as replacements, running the cons—it was all a wonderful game to him, one he couldn’t give up. But they never stopped loving each other.”

“One grew up, the other didn’t. They sound like Peter Pan and Wendy,” Nicola murmured.

“That’s not a bad analogy. I think they were very happy with the compromise they’d worked out. She’d inherited an estate and a small fortune from her parents, so she raised me here while he traveled the world. Until I was twelve, my father was someone I only saw on holidays. He never missed one. Then my mother became ill with cancer, and he came home to stay. He brought his friend Bennett Carter with him. When my mom became bedridden, Uncle Ben took over the running of the household and supervised the care my mother needed.” Gabe’s lips curved. “According to my dad, Uncle Ben used to work for one branch of Britain’s Royals, and he was the best treasure Raphael Wilder ever nipped.”

“Your father was especially talented at reproducing paintings, wasn’t he? There was no mention of sculpting in the research I did on him.”

“No.” He was frowning when he met her eyes. “But I remember he had pieces of marble delivered to our home.”

“Do you have any idea why he might have wanted to copy the statue of St. Francis?”

Gabe’s frown deepened. “No. We spent a lot of time together after Mom died. One of the places we used to go together was the St. Francis Center. My dad would talk with Father Mike in the little garden while I played basketball with my friends.”

“Jonah and Nash—the ones who always interrupted our games.”

Meeting her eyes, he lifted a hand to tug at a strand of her hair. “Good memory, Curls.”

“Do you know what Father Mike and your father talked about?”

“I assumed they talked about my mom. Father Mike visited the house often when she was ill.”

Nicola let two beats go by. “Do you think your father was planning to steal the statue?”

“No.” Then Gabe sighed at the vehemence of his tone. “He promised my mother on her deathbed that he would never steal ever again. I’ve always believed that he kept his word.”

Nicola didn’t argue, and when she squeezed his hand again, he linked his fingers with hers and felt some of the turmoil of feelings inside of him settle.

“When we started working on the piece of marble together, he never mentioned that it would be a copy of St. Francis. He said that the marble knew what was inside. It was our job to discover it.”

“Well, one thing I can say. I’m beginning to be happier that I shot the thief.”

“Why?” Her tone surprised him; so did the spark of anger in her eyes. Releasing his hand, she rose from the pew and, grabbing fistfuls of the robe, began to pace.

“You said that these robberies are personal, and you were right. If this guy had succeeded in taking the real statue and substituting that one, you might have been arrested. The press would have had a field day. And even when you were eventually released, the reputation of G. W. Securities would have been damaged. Badly.”