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  As the story unraveled, Gabe’s mind reeled with the implication of what she said. Two deputy marshals had been killed, but that wasn’t the worst of it. A marshal had been involved in the attempt on Emma’s life. Some very angry, very clever, very connected people wanted her dead.

  Getting rid of the witness would keep Bookman from making a deal with the feds. Emma was the first domino in a chain that could bring down some heavy duty crime figures. Everybody would be coming after her. The marshals and the bad guys.

  No matter how cleverly she thought she’d covered her tracks, she was an amateur. They’d be coming. The only question was how long before they got here, and if he’d be ready for them.

  Thank God he’d routed that damned fax through New York. That would buy him some time if the feds got suspicious about the letter, a week at least. Patrick should be in contact long before then. Maybe between the two of them they could sort through this mess. In the meantime he’d have to make plans to get Emma out.

  Unfortunately she was in no condition emotionally to go anywhere. She needed some time to deal with everything that had happened, and he wasn’t sure he could give her time.

  He heard not only the terror in her voice, but also the guilt at leaving an officer she barely knew to die. Underlining it all was a courage she would never recognize. But the truth was only pure guts had gotten her this far.

  “I couldn’t stay,” she told him, apologizing to him again for failing—almost as if she’d failed him personally. “I couldn’t stay. I tried. I did. I’m so sorry. I picked up the gun, but I couldn’t do it, and there was so much blood, and—”

  “And it’s all right,” Gabe told her softly as she struggled with the guilt. He could see it in her eyes.

  Emma fought so hard for control, but the price was just as high as letting go of the emotions. He understood where all the tears in the bar had come from last night. She’d been saving them up, afraid to shed them until she was safe.

  “You don’t need to justify anything. You did the best you could, darlin’. The best anyone could have.”

  “No!” A tear fought past her defenses and slid into the corner of her mouth. Her tongue wiped it off instantly, erasing it as if she had no right to cry. Her knuckles were white and her hands clenched so hard, the pressure dug them into his chest. “No, what I did was leave the man who saved my life alone to die.”

  “Emma.” He shook her gently by the shoulders. “He knew the risk when he took the job.”

  “Did he know that I’d take his keys, and get in his car, and drive away while he lay on the floor and quietly bled to death on cheap beige carpeting? In the dark, with no one to hold his hand or close his eyes?” She looked up at him, regret written all over her face and unshed tears glittering in her eyes, but she was angry too. Her hands had curled into fists clutching his T-shirt. “Do you think he knew that when he signed on?”

  “I think he knows he did a damn good job. You’re still alive, and as far as I’m concerned, that’s all that matters.”

  “Is it?” she asked softly, full of doubt, tears streaking down her cheeks one after the other. Slowly she let go of his shirt and smoothed the wrinkles from the fabric.

  The uncertainty of the question and the pain in her eyes ripped Gabe’s own control away. He cupped her face, using his thumbs to brush off the dampness on her cheekbones. “You tell me.”

  His mouth captured hers, absorbing the salty moistness left from her tears. Without waiting for an invitation this time, he slid his tongue inside, deepening the caress, seducing a response. This was a hot, hard kiss that spoke of sex and life. He told himself it was only an expedient way to remind her how it felt to be alive, to shock her into realizing why life was so important, something precious and never questioned.

  But half a heartbeat after her tongue touched his, the kiss became more than a lesson in life. He’d never been very good at expressing his feelings with words. His whole life had been show not tell. So he used his mouth and his hands to show Emma that she was safe, cared for, and alive. In the process, he lost himself in the feel of her body against his as her hands crept around his neck and her breasts pressed softly against him.

  Emily couldn’t think anymore. Not with his mouth hard against hers and his hands tracing the curve of her spine to the small of her back. The world stumbled, regrouped, and went on without her, leaving her in an unfamiliar place filled with sensations that almost scared her in their intensity.

  He ran his hands past the curve of her hips and pulled her up to meet his arousal. Her muscles tightened and naturally arched her pelvis into his. She wanted the contact, the feel of his body against hers. She needed it. Suddenly nothing else mattered except the pulse between her legs that grew stronger each time he teased her by thrusting his tongue into her mouth in long, hard strokes.

  When he slowly brought his palms back up, his fingers dragged up the edge of the shirttail, giving him access to her bare skin. At first he only smoothed his hands along her sides. Then he toyed with the loose waistband of the jogging pants by sliding his fingers inside the edge and rubbing circles at the small of her back.

  Gabe knew there would be no panties to hinder him if he let his hand dip lower. He’d feel the sweet softness of her cheek in his palm. All he had to do was fill his hand. He groaned when she caught and sucked shyly on his tongue, doing to him what he’d been doing to her—previewing an intimacy that went far beyond kissing.

  His hands shifted to bracket her midriff as he broke the kiss and trailed his lips down the column of her neck. Her skin was hot beneath his mouth and hands as he pushed her breasts up, accepting their weight and cupping them. Her fingers dug into his shoulders as his mouth found one nipple through the textured cotton shirt and sucked. Emma’s reaction was an audible gasp and ragged sigh. And a soft word that might have been “please” made his arousal throb in answer.

  That was the moment Gabe began to think of stripping her and lifting her up to the pool table. The bed was only four strides away, but that was too damn far. He was hard and the only thing on his mind was burying himself inside Emma.

  And that was the moment Marsha Jean Petit banged on the door at the bottom of the stairs. “Gabe! You home?” she hollered. “The bar’s a wreck! I told you I should have stayed. What happened to the window?”

  Gabe would have ignored Marsha Jean if he hadn’t given her a complete set of keys to the bar, including the one for the apartment door. With a frustrated groan he dropped his hands and found Emma’s mouth for one more quick kiss before she pulled away completely. God, she was made to be kissed. Right now her eyes still glittered from interrupted passion. Her lips were swollen, especially the bottom one, and the stubble of his beard had reddened the edge of her mouth.

  Rubbing his chin, he decided he was going to have to shave today. He also decided that if she didn’t close that mouth, he was going to have to close it for her with another kiss. Unfortunately he had only three seconds left before Marsha Jean unlocked the door and started up the stairs. So Gabe put a finger across Emma’s lips and finished the conversation they’d been having before he kissed her.

  “Darlin’, that’s what being alive feels like. The next time you’re not sure whether being alive is all that matters, you think again. Because it’s the only thing between you and an eternity of nothing.”

  She didn’t argue. Right now she couldn’t form a complete sentence, much less debate philosophy.

  “Gabe!” Marsha Jean’s southern accent boomed up the stairwell. “I let myself in. You decent?”

  If Marsha Jean hadn’t been the sole support of two innocent children, Gabe would have cursed her. Instead, without taking his gaze off of Emma, he hollered back, “As decent as I’m going to get. Come on up.”

  You will anyway, he added silently.

  Emily saw her chance and retreated across the room, ostensibly to check on her clothes in the dryer. In reality she simply wanted to put as much distance between her hormones and Christi
an Gabriel as possible. The man was deadly all right, and she had no intention of presenting an easy target. To him that kiss was simply a way of proving his point—a way to win.

  He probably didn’t have the faintest idea what he did to her on the inside, and she wanted to keep it that way. She wanted no regrets when she walked out his front door with a brand-new identity. And she didn’t want emotions getting in the way of the secret she kept. She didn’t need any more guilt.

  “I was worried about you,” Marsha Jean said as she crossed the threshold carrying a casserole dish in one hand and a wooden baseball bat in the other. She had on a serviceable but worn down-filled coat with a cinched waist and big pockets. “I saw you holding your ribcage last night. How are you?”

  “I’ve been better.”

  “I can see that,” she agreed, casting an eye over him and the clothes that had obviously been slept in. “Is your razor broke, or are you planning on growing that beard out?”

  “As a matter of fact, I was just thinking about shaving.”

  “Thinking. That’d be a novel idea for you.” She held out the baseball bat. “I told little Jeffie that you got into another fight, and he said to give you this to use until spring training.”

  Gabe grinned as he visualized her son Jeffie, who was an eight-year-old towhead but older than Job emotionally. He’d been the man of the family for too many years already. Gabe accepted the bat and gave it a mock swing. “Nice one.”

  “He’s gotta have it back by March the twenty-first.” Marsha Jean giggled. “God, love him. He’s convinced that major league scouts come to Little League games, and they won’t take him seriously if he uses his old aluminum bat.”

  “I can see his point,” Gabe said with a grin as he laid the bat on the pool table behind him. “Thank him for me. I’ll take really good care of it.”

  “You better or there’ll be hell to pay. I gotta tell you—hell hath no fury like Jeffie in a snit,” she warned him ominously, and then changed the subject by holding up the covered dish. “Couldn’t sleep last night, so I made casseroles for everyone. Here’s yours. The kids call it Egg-o-rama. It’s really sort of a quiche thing instead of a casserole. And before you start getting all macho on me, let me just tell you that real men do eat quiche because they aren’t afraid of anything except a good woman. And judging from your love life lately, you’ve got to be a real man. A good woman scares the hell out of you.”

  Without waiting for an invitation, Marsha Jean made a beeline for the kitchen. Or attempted to until she caught sight of Emily standing quietly by the dryer. If the waitress had been a car, she’d have left skid marks on the floor. As she stopped, the ceramic dish lid clattered and threatened to fly off before she grabbed it.

  “Sister!”

  “Hello,” Emily said, wishing she had the glasses she’d left by the bed. Fortunately, even without them Marsha Jean had made the connection between her face and last night’s nun instead of the connection to Emily Quinn.

  Marsha Jean’s eyes widened at the implication of finding a nun out of uniform in the apartment of a single heterosexual male. In rapid succession she noted the rumpled bed, Emily’s unbound hair, and her general appearance of having just been kissed hard. A second later Marsha Jean’s mouth hung open as she stared at the front of Emily’s shirt.

  Hesitantly Emily dropped her gaze and then shut her eyes in embarrassment. There was a noticeable circle of moisture where Gabe had sucked her nipple through the shirt. It was too odd a place for her to have spilled anything, and the circle was just about the perfect size to match her aureole.

  SIX

  “Excuse me,” Marsha Jean said abruptly, and dumped the casserole on the coffee table. “Gabe, a word please.”

  Emily shot a stricken glance at him, not sure whether Marsha Jean was jealous or offended. Or both. Either way, she had to be pacified, and Gabe had to do the pacifying.

  He didn’t appear the least bit uncomfortable or anxious as Marsha Jean advanced on him purposely. He certainly didn’t act like he’d been caught red-handed with another woman, and that fact inexplicably pleased Emily. Despite her intention to stay clear of Gabe emotionally, she was much happier with the idea that the blond waitress was a platonic friend rather than Gabe’s lover.

  This is a classic Patrick Talbot moment, Gabe thought as he waited for what he assumed would be a very large piece of his waitress’s mind. She was obviously outraged at the thought of her sainted boss deflowering a nun. Marsha Jean was slender but tall, so Gabe didn’t have to lean over very far when she grabbed his arm and hauled him close enough to whisper.

  “Have you completely lost your mind?” Marsha Jean hissed, her face only inches from his. “I know I told you that you needed to get back in the saddle, but she’s a nun, for God’s sake. Haven’t you got a shred of decency in that thick head of yours? You’ve … you’ve …”

  Words seemed to fail her, and she looked back over her shoulder at Emma for inspiration. Obviously finding it in Emma’s anxious expression, she whipped back around to continue her tirade. Her grip on his arm tightened with every word. “Don’t you know what you’ve done? You’ve seduced—”

  This time words didn’t fail her; they were ripped away by the startling revelation Gabe could see written all over her stunned face. Marsha Jean dropped his arm and turned around very slowly, as if uncertain of what she might see. She stared for a long time before she croaked, “Oh, my God. You’re Emily Quinn.”

  “Well, I guess we can skip the introductions,” Gabe noted.

  Over the top of Marsha Jean’s head, Emma and Gabe stared at each other, wordlessly trying to agree on who would handle the situation. Gabe finally nodded his head as an indication that he’d do the honors if and when Marsha Jean shut up.

  “Emily Quinn,” the waitress repeated. “I can’t believe this. Annabelle is just going to die! You are my little girl’s idol. She was heartbroken when you weren’t in the Olympics, until she figured out that America would need a new princess. So I got her these cute little skates when her birthday rolled around. I got a pair too. Now every Saturday morning I have to take her over to the rink in Marysville or out to Sutter’s Pond. The weather’s been so cold this past month that it’s frozen solid. The pond’s not very big, but then, neither is she. She’s only—”

  Marsha Jean stopped and groped behind her with her hand until she made contact with Gabe’s chest. “Stop me, please. I’m rambling.”

  “I’m not stepping in front of that train,” he said dryly, and disengaged his T-shirt from her grasp. “But since you’ve put the brakes on yourself, take off your coat, Marsha Jean. Now that you’ve barged in, I think we could use your help.”

  “W-wait,” Emily stammered hurriedly, and glared at Gabe, doing her best to insinuate that he’d taken leave of his senses. Whatever his plan was, she didn’t like it. She didn’t want to be responsible for anyone else getting hurt. Besides that, Marsha Jean didn’t look like the kind of woman who could keep a secret. “I don’t know if that’s such a good idea. We shouldn’t involve her. It’s not—”

  “Oh, but I want to be involved. Besides, it’s too late to close the barn door! The horses have already made a run for it,” Marsha Jean told her, and crossed her arms. Plastic explosives weren’t going to budge her until she got the whole story. Addressing Gabe, the waitress said, “So, tell me. What zany plot have you two cooked up to keep your affair out of the press? We are talking about an affair, aren’t we? It’ll just break my heart if we aren’t!”

  Gabe grinned and lied with an ease that amazed Emily. “As a matter of fact, we were discussing the possibility of an affair when you walked in.”

  “What?” Emily asked, regretting her decision to let him handle this. Her fingers itched to choke him. “As I recall, it wasn’t a discussion! You were doing most of the talking.”

  “No.” Gabe appeared to ponder for a minute. “As I recall, you opened your mouth as much as I did.”

  Emily gasped at his less
-than-subtle innuendo. Marsha Jean laughed so hard, she had to clamp a hand over her mouth.

  “Oh, now, don’t be shy,” Marsha Jean chided when she recovered. With a wave of her hand she marched into the kitchen and started looking through the cabinets for plates. “And don’t be stingy,” she said, still chuckling a little. “This is as close as I’ll get to an affair until my kids are grown. At least let me live vicariously through the two of you.”

  “We can trust her,” Gabe told Emma as he came to stand beside her. The beginning of a plan was taking shape. “And we need her. Besides, she can cook.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Emily whispered irritably. “If she’s such a good cook, then have the affair with her!”

  “Jealous, darlin’?” Gabe quipped, and suffered an elbow to his bruised ribs.

  Marsha Jean overheard. “Oh, honey, don’t worry about me. I’d have to kill that man before dessert. He has way too much testosterone for me, and I chatter way too much for him.” She stopped setting out plates on the coffee table and looked at Emily with speculation. “You now, you’re quiet. You listen more than you talk. And that’s what Gabe needs.”

  “What Gabe needs is a good—”

  Interrupting her, Marsha Jean ordered, “Now, now! Come have some breakfast. I bet you two were so busy throwing caution to the four winds and discussing all that important stuff that you forgot to eat.” She giggled. “Emily, you can kick Gabe’s butt after breakfast. I’ll help.”

  In spite of herself, Emily had to laugh. It was impossible to stay irritated with Marsha Jean. She was a force of nature, a whirlwind that whipped everyone in her path into shape. And it was so nice to be normal again, at least for a little while.