Diana Palmer - Fire Brand

“Of course.” But he smiled in a way she’d never seen him smile. Her heart jumped. “I imagine just having you around will be more than enough of a deterrent,” he said easily. He lifted his fork. “Eat that before it gets cold.”

She glowered at him. The taco salad was delicious, warm and spicy in its nest of shredded lettuce and cheese with the cool tomato garnish, and just enough. By the time she reached the layer of refried beans at the bottom, it was all she could do to eat half of them.

“No appetite?” he remarked dryly, polishing off the last of his steak and most of the bread.

“I’m not half your size,” she replied. “If I ate what you did, I’d have to be carried out of here on a fork lift.”

“I’m not that heavy,” he said.

“I didn’t say you were heavy. You’re big.” Her eyes slid shyly over his broad shoulders and chest. “I’ll bet most of your men don’t argue with you.”

“One or two try occasionally,” he mused.

“And become little greasy spots on the pavement,” she concluded.

He laughed deeply, his black eyes losing some of their cold glitter. “Construction people are pretty tough, as a rule,” he reminded her. “They’ll only work for a man they respect. Pretty words don’t put up buildings.”

“You’ve put up your share. I remember when I was still in my teens that you used to go out on the construction gangs with the men when you got behind on a contract.”

“I’d die sitting behind a desk all the time,” he agreed. “I like the outdoors.”

It showed. He was brawny and rock-hard, and his tan didn’t stop at his neck. Gaby had seen him without a shirt more than once, and knew that that dark tan went right to his belt, and probably below it. She flushed, remembering the rough texture of his skin, the feathering of hair down his broad chest and flat stomach. What a time to have total recall, she thought frantically.

He saw that hunted expression on her face and wondered idly what had caused it. She was something of a curiosity in his life. He didn’t know exactly how he felt about her, but she was definitely a disturbing influence.

“Well?” he asked curtly.

She jumped, gasping.

“For God’s sake,” he said harshly. “What’s the matter with you?”

She flinched at his tone. She couldn’t bear a loud voice, and of course, he was used to construction gangs and slinging out orders right and left. “It’s the shooting,” she lied. “I’m still shaky.”

That calmed him down magically. “Proof that you need some time off,” he said, because it reinforced his demand.

“Okay,” she said quickly. “I’ll try to keep the lovebirds in line.”

“Good. How about dessert?”

The beast, she thought, observing him. He’d gotten his own way, as usual, and he was feeling smug. She hated that arrogance in his face, but she’d never seen anyone relieve him of it.

“I don’t like sweets,” she said.

“Pity. I do.” And to prove it, he ordered the biggest strawberry shortcake she’d ever seen and proceeded to demolish it to the last crumb.

He drove her back to her apartment. It wasn’t until he’d walked her to her door that she remembered Mary’s engagement party.

“I forgot about Mary’s party!” she blurted out.

“Who’s Mary?” He frowned.

“A girl I’m friendly with at work. She’s just gotten engaged. There’s a party, and I’m supposed to be there.”

“Do you want to go?”

She sighed. “Not really, but I should. I’ll...”

“Come on, then. It’s early. You can still go.”

She hesitated. “With you?” she asked, her voice softer than she realized.

He stopped and looked down at her, aware of a faint shift in their turbulent relationship. “Yes,” he said quietly. “With me.”

Her breath had stopped somewhere south of her windpipe. She felt the ground going out from under her. She didn’t understand what was happening, and it was a little scary.

Bowie seemed to know that, because he smiled, relieving some of the tension.

“Will she mind if you bring an escort?” he asked.

“Oh, no, of course not. She’s wanted to meet you.” She hesitated. “If you don’t have anything else to do?” she probed delicately.

He shook his head. “I came to see you.”

She felt ridiculously pleased. She smiled shyly, unaware of the effect that smile had on her companion. “All right, then. She lives six blocks away, near the interstate ramp.”

“Then let’s go.”

He took her arm slowly, watching to see how she reacted. When she didn’t try to pull away, he let his hand slide down until it touched hers, and then his fingers caught hers and linked into them.

She felt her breath catch. It was new and exciting to hold hands with him, although she tried not to read anything into it. Bowie was just being kind, she told herself.

He drew her along with him. He liked that soft, slender hand in his. It made him feel twice as tall as he already was to hold it, but he didn’t really understand why. He and Gaby had never been friends. They were more like remote acquaintances, with Aggie their only common ground. But the more he saw of Gaby, the more she intrigued him.

“You’re sure you don’t mind?” she asked, as he put her in the car again.

He glanced at her quietly. After a minute he cranked the engine. “No. I don’t mind.”

But he didn’t say another word all the way to Mary’s house, and Gaby herself fell uncharacteristically silent. Just being near Bowie was suddenly dangerously exciting. She didn’t know why, and that was as disturbing as the new emotions that were curling around her like sensuous, seeking hands.

CHAPTER THREE

MARY LIVED WITH her fiancé, Ted, in a very nice suburb of Phoenix. The lights were blazing in the windows and music was drifting down to the street, where Bowie magically found a parking space, without even looking. Considering the number of cars, it looked as if Ted and Mary had invited every single person they knew in the world.

“They live together already?” Bowie asked, frowning as he looked down at her when he helped her out of the passenger side.

“Just because you and I were raised with eighty-year-old attitudes doesn’t mean the rest of the world was,” she said with a rueful smile. “They’re engaged, and although it’s been a bit rocky, they’ve been together for a whole year. It’s a new world, Bowie.”

He looked down at her. “When I care enough to live with a woman, I’ll care enough to give her my name first.”

She stared into his black eyes, trying to imagine Bowie in love with a woman. He seemed completely self-contained on the surface—a man’s man with everything going for him, to whom a woman would be only an amusement. But Aggie said that he read love poems sometimes in the silence of his own room, and that he liked Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Concerto—a romantic piece if ever there was one. He was fascinating in his complexity—a modern man with a very old-fashioned outlook on life. Aggie had raised him that way, just as Gaby’s father had raised her in the church, even though he’d dragged her from pillar to post until that tragic night they’d parted.

“What are you thinking?” he asked curiously.

“That you’re not like any man I’ve ever known,” she blurted out.

“Should I be flattered?”

“Yes, I think so,” she said honestly, her voice soft and quiet in the stillness, broken only by faint strains of music.

He found himself smiling at the admission. In all the years he’d known Gaby, she’d always backed away from anything personal. This had to be something of a milestone. Perhaps she was lonely, and the loneliness was breaking through that shell of reserve she wore. He knew the very color of loneliness. It drove him sometimes. He’d been by himself for a long time, but there had always been the need for another voice in the darkness—a hand to reach out to when the world came too close. Gaby stirred that need in him, but he hesitated to let her get close. There was something vaguely mysterious about her. It attracted him, even as it made him wary.