The Baby Chase Read online

  “Thank you for sharing that with me. I’m dying of pain and injuries, and all you can do is yell?”

  “I’d yell a lot louder if I thought it’d do any good. For God’s sakes, you’re soaked and covered with mud and it looks like you’re growing branches in your hair. If that isn’t witless, I don’t know what is. Quit fighting me, dammit. I’m just trying to see if you’re hurt.”

  “I already know I’m hurt.” But her pride was now smarting a dozen times more than any of her other scrapes and bruises. Gabe had stalked over and hunched down. Keeping her eyes closed and practicing denial had worked pretty well—until she felt his big strong hands feeling her up. Her eyes shot wide open then.

  There were times and places when Rebecca wouldn’t mind a guy feeling her up—at a fantasy level, she might even have entertained Gabe in that role—but not when she was being handled like a sexless sack of sugar. Merciless fingers probed and poked her ankles, trailed up her calf, bent her knee, lifted her arms, rotated her wrists…. She said “ouch” several times. Either he wasn’t paying attention or he didn’t believe her.

  Possibly she’d have felt less resentful if he didn’t look so good. Heaven knew how Gabe had gotten in the house, but she already knew he was resourceful. Spit. He was the best. That was why she’d convinced her family to have him look into her mother’s disappearance. And although he hadn’t come up with much in that case, he’d been more successful with some other family cases over the past few years. But now she had to look like something a dog would bury, and there wasn’t a rip or a tear or a smudge of dirt on him. His clipped dark hair looked fresh-brushed, his square jaw fresh-shaved. His galloping shoulders stretched the seams of a long-sleeved navy T, but the shirt was tucked nearly into jeans. His boots didn’t even look muddy.

  Rebecca didn’t know him well. She wasn’t sure it was possible for a woman to know a man’s man like Gabriel Devereax well—but they’d crossed paths before. Several family members had already noted that they got along about as well as a snake and mongoose. Not only didn’t Rebecca object to Gabe, she was the one who’d originally researched PI firms and urged her family to hire him. She knew, better than anyone, that Gabe had an unbeatable reputation and credentials. She respected him completely. But when her family had trouble, Rebecca was hardly going to take the back seat and let someone else drive.

  Gabe appreciated advice about as much as poison ivy. What she called help, he called interference. Anyone with the most basic concept of family would understand that love and loyalty required her involvement. Trying to explain that to Gabe was like drilling a hole in granite. He had a handsome head, but there was a lot of stone between those ears.

  Even if there was no love lost between them, Rebecca could hardly fail to notice certain details about that handsome head. He was thirty-eight, and he looked it. The square-boned jaw, the scar on his right temple, the brush strokes of character lines bracketing his eyes and mouth, all spoke of a man who’d lived hard. He was no boy. There was energy in that rugged face, vital, virile energy, and a never-back-down determination stamped in all those lonely lines on his brow.

  Personally, Rebecca thought a woman would have to be an eensy bit bonkers to risk taking on any man as tough and closed up as Gabe Devereax…but the man did have the deepest, darkest, sexiest eyes she’d ever seen. At the moment, it was impossible to ignore those eyes, because they were aggravatingly, relentlessly focused on her face. He cupped her chin with a knuckle, and examined her face for injuries, with as much personal interest as he’d have shown a bug under a microscope.

  “I think you’re going to live,” he announced. “Although it’s pretty hard to tell for sure under all that dirt.” Because he was looking straight in her eyes, she didn’t instantly realize where his right hand was. Smoother than a card cheat’s, his palm had sneaked under her sweatshirt. His hand was warm, volatilely, evocatively warm, and skimming an electric path over her ribs.

  “Hey.” She moved faster than a 747 to push him away, but the ox wouldn’t be pushed.

  “Oh, don’t get your liver in an uproar. If I were going to make a pass, you’d know it. Trust me, sex is only on my mind ninety percent of the time. You got a hell of a scrape here—and no, I’m not looking to see how far it goes up—but I want you to cough.”

  “Cough? I don’t need to cough—”

  “Well, we can just drive you to the emergency room and get those ribs x-rayed, but somehow, I didn’t think you’d cotton to that idea. If it didn’t hurt when you coughed, I might—might—be more reassured that rib isn’t cracked, but hey, if you want to go get an X ray—”

  She coughed. Exuberantly.

  “You sure that didn’t hurt?”

  “Positive. And you can quit trying to threaten me, Gabe. It’d take you and the marines to get me anywhere near any stupid emergency room. I’m perfectly fine. I just had the wind knocked out of me.”

  “Yeah?” Gabe removed his hand, but he stayed hunched over her. “You’ve got a goose egg on your forehead, bloody scrapes all over the place, and you’re so damned wet you’re probably gonna catch pneumonia. The water’s turned on upstairs, so we can at least clean up the cuts, but there’s no telling if we’ll find anything for you to dry off and warm up in. How bad’s that forehead hurting? You dizzy? Seeing anything double?”

  If the blasted man had any manners, he’d give her the chance to answer, but no. Obviously, Gabe wasn’t going to take her word on anything, because he reached over and cupped her jaw so he could examine that goose-egg bump again. Fingertips feathered her hair back so that he could get a better look. Once he was finished playing doctor, his eyes met hers.

  Rebecca wasn’t sure what happened then. He couldn’t have held her gaze for more than a few seconds, but the scowl disappeared from his brow. There was something in his expression. Something she’d never have expected. Something more than exasperation, something beyond Gabe Devereax’s hopeless compulsion to take charge of anything in his path. She was so wet and bedraggled that road kill would have to look more appealing. Yet there was something in those deep, dark eyes that punched the accelerator in her pulse.

  If Gabe had even noticed she was a woman, he hadn’t let on before. Suddenly she was having trouble breathing. Gabe was a vital, virile, potent masculine package—easy enough to enjoy sparring with, when there’d been absolutely no threat or thought of his noticing her in any personal way. She wasn’t…easy around Gabe. Not as a woman. On the other hand, likely the fall had addled her brain. There couldn’t have been a sillier time to feel a power surge of hormones, and common sense told her she was imagining that look in his eyes.

  Still, her pulse engine was revving harder than a jalopy with no muffler when Gabe’s expression abruptly changed. The scowl that popped back between his brows was even darker and more critical than the one before. He rocked back on his heels and then sprang to his feet. “Maybe you don’t need a doctor. But let’s see how you do when you try to stand up.”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake. I’m perfectly fine.” She ignored his hand and promptly scrambled to a standing position. A bad mistake. The lump on her forehead instantly throbbed; her breasts and wrist smarted like fire, and now she knew for sure her fanny was broken. If threatened at knifepoint, though, she wouldn’t have admitted feeling wobbly to Gabe. “How did you get in the house, anyway?”

  “The way most people do. Legally.” His tone was dry. “Eventually the estate’s going on the market, but it’s been closed up until all the probate tangles are over with. I called Monica Malone’s lawyer. Gave him my credentials, told him I believed there had to be more evidence in the house connected to the lady’s murder, and asked if he’d mind if I looked around personally. He gave me the key.”

  “That’s it? That’s all you had to do to get a key?” It seemed so unfair.

  “Now, Rebecca, everyone can’t be gifted with a writer’s imagination and fondness for high drama. Some of us even tend to do things the simple, normal, boring way�
�you know, by using basic common sense and logic?”

  “Amazing. I could swear we had this exact same conversation before.”

  “Yeah, we did. It didn’t get through to you then, either.” He shifted past her to close the gaping basement window. “We’ll get you cleaned up, and then you’re going home.”

  “Only in your dreams, cutie. I didn’t just risk life and limb to disappear on your orders.” She was pretty sure no one had ever dared to call Gabe Devereax “cutie” before. The epithet seemed to startle, then amuse, him. For all that he was a hopelessly overbearing macho type—and probably untrainable, from a woman’s standpoint—he’d always had a redeeming sense of humor.

  “Speaking of orders—as I’m sure you know—I’m here on your family’s. As outlandish and outrageous as it sounds, they actually trust me to follow through with this investigation all by myself. Can you imagine? Just because it’s my job and I’ve got over ten years of experience and professional qualifications behind me?”

  Rebecca reached down for her backpack of tools. God, he was sassy. She might have been tempted to laugh—if the subject wasn’t so serious. “I trust you, too, Sherlock,” she said honestly. “You’re wonderful at what you do. But it isn’t your brother who’s been charged with murder. It’s mine. And I love him. And until his name is cleared, I can’t just sit home and knit booties. Did you find anything in the house so far?”

  “I haven’t had the chance to look around. I’d just turned the key when I heard all hell breaking loose down here. Now, of course, I don’t know why I didn’t immediately guess it was you.” His face was in shadow when he scrubbed a tired hand over it. “Rebecca, listen to me.”

  “I’m listening.” But she admitted it warily.

  “This isn’t the first time I’ve been here. I assume you know I’ve been on the job from the day your brother was charged. I was here during the cops’ investigation, and after, when the yellow tape went down, I combed this place from stem to stern. This is my third run-through. So far, every shred of evidence points to Jake being guilty.”

  “I know.” The knowledge was like a needle in her chest.

  “Love and objectivity don’t mix. I know you want to help your brother. But I’m not putting you down when I say you’d be better off at home, knitting those booties. You could get hurt, messing around with this.”

  Her gaze scanning the shadows, Rebecca vaguely noted a behemoth of a furnace, pipes, dampness seeping into the foundation walls—and the bottom edge of some wooden stairs, leading up. She heard Gabe, but what she heard in his voice only magnified her resolve. He would do his job. She’d never doubted that. But he didn’t believe in Jake’s innocence, any more than the police did.

  She paused a second before aiming for the stairs, and pushed a fistful of tangled curls off her face. “You’re right about my not being objective. I have no interest whatsoever in being objective. If you’ll remember, Gabe, I’m the one who first tracked down your PI agency for the family, when my mother was in that plane crash.”

  “I remember.”

  She nodded. “No one believed that Kate was alive. No one believed she could be. And I wanted you hired, because you’re the best, and I always respected that you could do certain things that I can’t. But when you took on that job, you didn’t believe me about my mother being alive. You were no different than everyone else. Who was right that time, Devereax?”

  “You were. But that was completely different—”

  She shook her head, swiftly and violently, making the lump on her forehead ache like a bear—but she didn’t care. “It’s exactly the same thing. You trust your head, the same way I trust my heart. It’s because I love my brother that I know positively he never murdered anyone…and I don’t care how rotten Monica Malone was, or what she did to him.”

  Gabe sighed. One of those exasperating masculine sighs that expressed centuries of archaic attitudes about women—and particularly her. “There are a few minor flaws in that logic, but we’ll forget those and move along. If you believe your brother’s innocent—and that all the physical evidence against him is just an inconvenient fantasy—that would mean that the real murderer is running around loose. A damn good reason to stay out of this. You could be in danger if you start poking your nose in fires you’re not qualified or prepared to put out.”

  “For cripes’ sake, Gabe. That’s why I’m here. To find those fires.”

  “God, it’s like talking to a marshmallow. Nothing gets through.” For the second time, he washed his face with an exhausted hand. “Somehow I have the feeling I’m not going to be able to talk you into going home.”

  “Now, now.” She patted his shoulder consolingly—as she hiked past him toward the basement stairs. “I’m going to help you. Trust me.”

  Two

  Rebecca was as much help as a tornado. Given an option between the two evils, Gabe would have chosen the less chaotic.

  That wasn’t the redhead.

  For the second time, he dipped the washcloth under the faucet, wrung it out and aimed the cool cloth at the lump on her forehead. Rain was still battering the windows like bullets. March was early for a thunderstorm in Minnesota. No point in complaining; at least it was rain, instead of snow. Still, thunder shuddered through the house, and the lights winked and blinked at every flash of lightning. They’d be lucky if they didn’t lose the electricity altogether.

  Losing the electricity wouldn’t bother him. Gabe was a resourceful man. He’d spent years in the Special Forces proving his ability to cope in even the most impossible of situations. Danger had never stopped him. Neither had adversity. He’d never counted on luck or God to solve a problem—in the past.

  Conceivably, though, a few concentrated hours with Rebecca Fortune could turn even a hard-core heathen into a praying man.

  “Yee-ouch. What, did you take lessons under Torquemada? Leave me alone, you bully.”

  He didn’t stop working, didn’t look up. Right now, Rebecca was propped up on the kitchen counter, her face tilted toward the sink light.

  He had a clear view of the gash on her forehead, but the chances of keeping her pinned and still for long wouldn’t make bookie odds. “It’s your own damn fault it hurts. There’s little specks of something in the cut. Maybe paint from that window frame. They have to come out. If you’d quit squirming, I’d get done a lot faster. I think you need a couple of stitches—”

  Her response was swift. “No.”

  “And since God knows what you connected with to get all those scrapes, you probably need a tetanus shot—”

  Her response was even swifter. “I had one a couple of weeks ago.”

  “Sure you did. And cats swim. You’ve got a real talent for fiction—which is a good thing, since I don’t think you’re gonna make it as a career criminal. Breaking and entering doesn’t seem to be your thing at all.”

  “Don’t you start again with me, Devereax. I did this for my brother, and it wouldn’t matter to me if I’d ended up with all four limbs in casts and traction—I’d do it again.”

  Gabe believed her. That was what scared him.

  Most people could be appealed to through reason. Most women had a concept of safety, personal limitations, how to protect themselves. Bring that stuff up with Rebecca and she went blank. Nobody home in those pretty green eyes. No synapse connections indicating any brain function at all.

  He dropped the washcloth and angled her face toward the sink light to study the welt again. Finally, it looked clean, but the ugly gash marring that soft, cream white skin made him furious. At her.

  The punch-in-the-gut response to touching that soft, cream white skin made him even more furious. At himself.

  When a man was standing between a woman’s thighs, an arousal was a natural, unavoidable biological reaction. Gabe understood perfectly well why he was harder than a hammer. And one day out of 365, a guy was entitled to feel unreasonable for a couple of minutes.

  But he was mad at her for that, too.

/>   When he stepped back, Rebecca mistakenly seemed to assume she was free and promptly leaned forward. “If you get off that counter, you die,” he informed her. “You need a bandage on that.”

  “Sheesh. It’s just a little lump. It can’t be worth all this trouble.”

  “If it isn’t taped right, you’ll get a scar.”

  “My brother’s in jail on a murder one charge. Who the patooties could care about a stupid little scar? We’ve wasted enough time on this thing.”

  “One more minute and this’ll be done.” He stepped between her thighs again. He had to. He didn’t trust Rebecca not to fly off the counter and start playing sleuth. He’d found the makings of a butterfly bandage in the antiquated first aid box. Leaning this close to her, Geronimo naturally stood at attention again, as stiff as a warrior’s lance.

  Like his namesake, Geronimo should have figured out by now that a guy couldn’t win every time. Gabe ignored that problem. He wished he could ignore her.

  She was relatively cleaned up now. Technically, no one was supposed to remove anything from the estate until all the legal tangles surrounding Monica Malone’s death were settled. Those legal complications meant that the cupboards and drawers and closets in the house were still jammed with stuff. Gabe had had no trouble finding a towel, washcloth, the first aid supplies and some clothes. He’d also caught sight of some thirty-year-old Scotch in the top kitchen cupboard.

  He was considering leveling it.

  “You done?” she said hopefully.

  “Yeah, I’m done.”

  “Gabe…thanks. I really couldn’t see the cut myself, not at the angle it was. I didn’t mean to be a pistol. I appreciate the help.”

  “No sweat.” A total lie, Gabe thought. Everything about her was a sweat.

  Rebecca wasn’t vain or spoiled, he gave her that—and she sure as hell could have been both, given the enormous wealth and affluence of the Fortune family. It wasn’t her fault that she’d never been outside a protected environment. Her background just made her inescapable trouble. She was a hopeless idealist, plenty bright, but no street smarts, no practical life experience. She’d never run across the seamier, more realistic side of life. She’d never been near it. She was a believer in love, in white knights and honor, and as far as Gabe could tell, she didn’t have a clue that there were predators out there who could hurt her.