loating on a clear blow-up raft in the middle of her backyard kiddie pool, Gabrielle finally found the inner peace she'd sought all day. Shortly after she'd returned from her shop that afternoon, she'd filled the pool and pulled on her silver bikini. The pool was ten feet across and three feet deep and had orange and blue jungle animals circling the outside. Wildflowers, rose petals, and lemon slices drifted on the surface of the water, soothing away her nervous tension with the scent of flowers and citrus. Clearing her head completely of Joe was impossible, of course, but she did succeed in absorbing enough positive energy from the universe to push him to the back of her mind.

Today was the first opportunity she'd had to test her sunscreen, and she'd rubbed her exposed skin with the blended oils of sesame, wheat germ, and lavender. The lavender had been a last-minute inspiration, a sort of hedge bet. Lavender didn't have screening properties, but it did have healing characteristics, in case she did burn. And also, the perfumed scent covered the smell of seeds so she wouldn't attract the unwanted attention of hungry birds in search of a feeder.

Periodically, she lifted an edge of her bathing suit and checked her tan. Throughout the afternoon, her skin bronzed nicely without a hint of pink.

At five-thirty, her friend Francis Hall-Valento-Mazzoni, now just Hall once again, stopped by to present Gabrielle with a red lace thong and matching bra. Francis owned Naughty or Nice, the lingerie shop half a block from Anomaly, and she often dropped by with her latest inventory of crotchless underwear or sheer nightgowns. Gabrielle didn't have the heart to tell her friend that she wasn't into racy undies. Consequently, most of the gifts ended up in a box in Gabrielle's closet. Francis was blond and blue-eyed, thirty-one, and twice divorced. She'd been in more relationships than she cared to remember, and believed most problems between men and women could be solved with a pair of licorice panties.

"How's that skin toner I made for you working out?" Gabrielle directed the question toward her friend, who sat in a wicker chair beneath the porch awning.

"Better than the oatmeal mask or PMS oil."

Gabrielle skimmed her fingers across the top of the water, disturbing the rose petals and wildflowers. She wondered if her treatments or Francis's impatience were at fault. Francis was always looking for the quick fix. The easiest answer, never bothering to search her own soul and find inner peace and happiness within. As a result, her life was always in crisis. She was a magnet for loser men and had more issues than a magazine rack. Francis also had qualities Gabrielle admired. She was funny and bright, went after what she wanted, and had a pure heart.

"I haven't talked to you for awhile. Not since last week when you thought some big guy with dark hair was following you."

For the first time in over an hour; Gabrielle thought of Detective Joe Shanahan. She thought of his intrusion in her life and the bad karma she'd accumulated thanks to him. He was domineering and rude and filled with so much testosterone that a five o'clock shadow darkened his cheeks at four-fifteen. And when he kissed, his aura turned the deepest red of any man she'd ever known.

She thought of telling Francis about the morning she'd pulled a derringer on an undercover cop and ended up as his confidential informant. But this was too huge a secret to tell.

Gabrielle shaded her eyes with her hand and looked over at her friend. She'd never been any good at keeping secrets. "If I tell you something, you have to promise not to tell," she began, then proceeded to squeal like a jailhouse rat. She hit the high points, but purposely left out the disturbing details, like the fact that he had the hard, rippling muscles of an underwear model and kissed like a man who could seduce even the most frigid woman out of her support hose. "Joe Shanahan is overbearing and rude, and I'm stuck with him until Kevin's cleared of this whole ridiculous nonsense," she finished, feeling purged. For once, Gabrielle's problems were bigger than her friend's.

Francis was silent for a moment, then murmured, "Hmm." She pushed a pair of rose-colored sunglasses up the bridge of her nose. "So, what does this guy look like?"

Gabrielle turned her face to the sun. She closed her eyes and saw Joe's face, his intense eyes and spiky lashes, the sensual lines of his mouth, and the perfect symmetry of his wide forehead, straight nose, and strong chin. His thick brown hair tended to curl about his ears and the back of his neck, softening his powerful, masculine features. He smelled wonderful. "Nothing special."

"That's too bad. If I were forced to work with a cop, I'd want one of those beefcake-calendar boys."

Which, Gabrielle supposed, pretty much described Joe.

"I'd make him carry heavy boxes and get all sweaty," Francis continued with the fantasy.

"And I'd watch his buns of steel when he bent over."

Gabrielle frowned. "Well, I look at a man's soul. His appearance is unimportant."

"You know what? I've heard you say that before, and if it's true, then why didn't you sleep with your old boyfriend Harold Maddox?"

Francis had a point, but no way was Gabrielle going to admit looks were as important as the essence of a man's soul. They weren't. A mentally developed enlightened man was so much sexier than a cave dweller. Problem was, that physical attraction thing sometimes got in the way. "I had my reasons."

"Yeah, like he was boring and had a scraggly ponytail and everyone mistook him for your dad."

"He wasn't that old."

"Whatever you say."

Gabrielle could make a few comments about Francis's choice of men and husbands but chose not to.

"I'm not all that surprised Kevin is a suspect," Francis said. "He can be a weasel."

Gabrielle looked across at her friend and frowned. Francis and Kevin had dated for a short time, and now the two of them had a sort of love-hate relationship. Gabrielle had never asked why or what had happened; she didn't want to know. "You're only saying that because you don't like him."

"Maybe, but promise me you'll keep your eyes open anyway. You put too much blind trust in your friends." Francis stood and straightened her sundress.

Gabrielle didn't think she gave blind trust, but she believed the trust she gave was the trust she received. If she didn't give it freely, she wouldn't get it back. "Are you leaving?"

"Yeah, I got a date with a plumber. Should prove interesting. He's got a great body, but he doesn't say much. If he isn't too boring, I'll let him take me home and show me his monkey wrench."

Gabrielle purposely didn't comment on that last remark. "Could you hit play on my tape recorder?" she asked and pointed to the old cassette player sitting on a wicker table.

"I don't know how you can listen to this crap."

"You should try it. You might find the meaning of life."

"Yeah well, I'd rather listen to Aerosmith. Steven Tyler gives my life meaning."

"Dream On."

"Ha ha," Francis said, and the slamming of the back screen door signaled her departure. Gabrielle checked her tan line for signs of burning, then closed her eyes and contemplated her connection in the universe. She sought answers. Answers to the questions she didn't understand. Like why fate had determined Joe should enter her life with the force of a cosmic tornado.

Joe tossed his cigarette into a rhododendron bush, then raised his hand to the heavy wooden door. Just as he knocked, it opened, and a woman with short blond hair and glossy pink lips stared at him from behind a pair of rose-colored sunglasses. Even though he'd watched this address for weeks, he stepped back and looked at the bright red street numbers tacked to the side of the house. "I'm looking for Gabrielle Breedlove," he said.

"You must be Joe."

Surprised, his gaze returned to the woman before him.

Behind the lenses of her sunglasses, her blue eyes slid down his chest. "She told me you're her boyfriend, but she obviously left out a lot." She raised her gaze to his face and smiled. "I wonder why she left out the good stuff?"

Joe wondered exactly what his informant had said about him. He had a few other questions he wanted to ask her as well, but that wasn't the only reason he needed to see her. He'd never worked with anyone as uptight and hostile as Gabrielle, and he feared she might flip on him completely and blow his cover. He needed her calm and cooperative. No more scenes. No more placing herself between him and his new buddy, Kevin. "Where is Gabrielle?"

"In the pool in the backyard." She stepped outside and shut the door behind her. "Come on. I'll show you." She escorted him to the side of the house and pointed toward a tall fence covered in climbing roses. An arch with an open gate divided the fence in two sections.

"Through there." The woman pointed, then turned to leave.

Joe walked under the arch and took two full steps before stopping in his tracks. The backyard was filled with a profusion of color and fragrant flowers. And Gabrielle Breedlove floating in a kiddie wading pool. His gaze took her in all at once, but his attention was drawn to the belly ring he'd felt while frisking her a few days before. He'd never been partial to women with body piercings, but… damn. That little ring of silver made his mouth dry.

Her hand brushed the top of the water, and she rubbed her wet fingers over her abdomen. Several droplets drifted across her stomach and her sides. One clear drop caught a ray of sunlight as it slid slowly down her belly and disappeared into her navel. His insides got all itchy and hot, and desire pulled in his groin. He stood with his feet rooted to the lawn, growing hard and heavy, powerless to control the unwelcome thoughts that assaulted him. Thoughts of walking into that pool, wrapping his arms around her waist and sucking that droplet of water from her navel, then dipping his tongue inside and licking her warm flesh. He tried to remind himself that she was crazy, nutty, cuckoo, but after nine hours, he still remembered the soft texture of her lips pressed against his.

That kiss had been part of his job, to shut her up before she blew his cover. His body had responded, of course, and he hadn't been surprised by his reaction to the taste of her warm mouth and the closeness of her breasts, but he'd made a big mistake with her. He'd slipped his tongue in her mouth, and now he knew she tasted a little like peppermint and a lot like passion. He knew the soft tangle of her hair around his fingers and knew she smelled like exotic flowers. She hadn't pushed him away or resisted, and her response had reached down and grabbed him by the curlies. He'd gone from semi to hard in about two seconds. He'd barely managed to stay in control. Barely managed to keep his hands from sliding down and filling his palms with her breasts. He was a cop, but he was also a man.

Standing in her backyard with his gaze slipping to the little triangle of silver material covering her crotch and his thoughts sliding to what lay beneath had nothing to do with being a cop and everything to do with being a man. His gaze moved to the little mole on the inside of her right thigh, down her long legs to her purple toenails, then back up past that silver belly ring to her bikini top. A wide seam ran across her nipples, and the tight top pushed up two mounds of perfect, tan breasts. The ground beneath his feet shifted, seeming to change and fall out from underneath him, sucking him down. She was his informant. She was nuts. She was also extremely fine, and he wanted nothing more than to peel away that bikini like a tinfoil snack pack and dive face first into her cleavage.

His gaze moved to the hollow of her throat, past her chin, to her full mouth. He watched her lips move and, for the first time since he'd set foot in the backyard, he became aware of a tranquil male voice saying something about a cave. "This is your cave," the man droned as if he'd popped Seconal. "This is your place. A place where you can truly find yourself, where you come to find your center. Take a deep breath… bring your awareness into your abdomen…

"Let it go and repeat after me…I am at peace… Ohm-Nah-Mah-Shee-Vah-Yahh… Hmm."

The ground beneath his feet shifted back, becoming solid once more. Suddenly, everything was all right again in Joe Shanahan's world. Stable. He was okay. She was still crazy, and nothing had changed. He felt an overwhelming urge to laugh, like he'd just cheated death. "I should have known you'd listen to Yanni," he said loud enough to be heard over the tape.

Gabrielle's eyes flew open, and she sat up. The clear raft tipped, and Joe watched her legs and arms flail as she tumbled into the water. When she came back up, pink and red rose petals were stuck to her hair. She sat on the bottom of the pool while lemon slices and wildflowers floated about her.

"What are you doing here?" she sputtered.

"We need to talk," he answered through a smile he tried, and failed, to suppress.

"I don't have anything to say to you."

"Then you can listen." He moved toward the tape player by the back door. "First we need to get rid of Yanni."

"I don't listen to Yanni. That's meditation with raja yoga."

"Uh-huh." He hit the off button and turned to face her.

Water slid down her body as she stood, and a sprig of purple flowers stuck out of the top of her bikini. "This is so typical." She pulled her hair over one shoulder and squeezed the water out of it. "I just find my peaceful center and then you barge into my yard and ruin my balance."

Joe didn't figure she'd ever had more than a passing acquaintance with anything resembling balance. He picked up a white bath towel hanging across a wicker chair and walked to the edge of the pool. But it didn't matter if she had a mental imbalance. He was stuck posing as her boyfriend, but for the past two days, she'd behaved as if he were as welcome as a plague. Kevin might not be suspicious now, but Joe couldn't keep passing off her hostile behavior as nothing more than jealousy and menstrual cramps. "Maybe we can work on it," he said and handed her the towel.

Her hands stilled, and she stared at him, distrust narrowing her green eyes. "Work on what?" She took the towel and stepped out of the pool.

"How we deal with each other. I know you think I'm your enemy, but I'm not." Although he didn't trust his informant out of his sight, he needed her to trust him. He was responsible for her safety, and part of his job was to protect her—physically.

He couldn't protect her if she ran to Kevin if things got ugly. He didn't really think Kevin would hurt Gabrielle, but if there was one thing he'd come to anticipate, it was the unexpected. That way he was never caught with his pants down around his ankles. "You need to let me do my job. The sooner I get what I need, the sooner I'll be out of your life. We need to come to some sort of an agreement."

She patted her face and neck with the towel and plucked the purple flowers from her bikini. "You mean a compromise?"

Not hardly. He'd meant she needed to stop acting so neurotic and start behaving like she was hot for him. No more calling him a demon from hell. "Sure."

She studied him and tossed the sprig of flowers back into the pool. "How?"

"Well first, you need to calm down and stop acting like the swat team is about to bust through the front window of your store."

"And second?"

"Neither of us may like it, but you're supposed to be my girlfriend. Quit acting like I'm a serial killer."

As she patted the tops of her breasts with the towel, he purposely kept his eyes pinned to her face. No way was he going to lower his gaze and get sucked into fantasy land again.

"And if I do?" she asked. "What are you going to do for me?"

"Make sure you aren't implicated—"

"Uh-uh." She shook her head and wrapped the towel around her waist. "That threat doesn't scare me anymore, since I don't believe Kevin is guilty."

Joe shifted his weight to one foot and crossed his arms over his chest. He knew the drill. This was the part where informants tried to shake him down for money, or wanted all their unpaid parking tickets to disappear quicker than a dime bag in rehab, or maybe get a badge of their very own. "What do you want?"

"I want you to keep an open mind. Don't just assume Kevin's guilty."

The unpaid parking tickets would have been easier. There wasn't a doubt in Joe's mind that Kevin Carter was as guilty as sin, but part of being an undercover cop was having a God-given talent to pass off boldfaced lies without a flicker of remorse. "Sure. I'll keep an open mind."

"Really?"

He relaxed the corners of his mouth and slanted her his I'm-your-buddy smile. "Absolutely."

She stared into his eyes as if she were trying to read the back of his brain. "Your nose is growing. Officer Shanahan."

His smile turned genuine. She was crazy, not stupid. He'd had enough experience to know the difference, and given a choice, he'd prefer crazy over stupid any day. He raised his hands, palms up. "I can try," he said and lowered his arms to his sides. "How's that?"

She sighed and tied a knot in the towel over her left hip. "I guess if that's the best you can do, it will have to be good enough." She turned toward the house, then looked back at him over her shoulder. "Have you eaten dinner yet?"

"No." He'd figured he'd stop at the grocery store on the way home and pick up some chicken for him and some carrots for Sam.

"I'm going to make dinner. You can stay if you want." Her tone was less than enthusiastic.

"Are you inviting me to have dinner with you? Like a real girlfriend?"

"I'm hungry and you haven't eaten." She shrugged and headed toward the back door. "Let's just leave it at that."

His gaze followed the waves in her wet hair and the droplets of water dripping from the ends and sliding down her spine. "Can you cook?"

"I'm a wonderful cook."

As he walked behind her, his eyes lowered to the sway of her hips, her rounded bottom he'd come to appreciate in the past week, and the brush of the towel across the backs of her knees. Dinner prepared by a wonderful cook sounded great. And of course, it gave him the opportunity both to ask her a few questions about her relationship with Kevin and to get her to relax around him. "What's for dinner?"

"Stroganoff, French bread, and salad." She climbed several steps to the screen door and opened it.

Joe followed close behind and reached over her head, grabbing the top of the wood frame and holding the door open.

She paused, and if he hadn't been paying attention, he would have knocked her flat. His chest lightly grazed her bare back. She turned, and her shoulder brushed his chest through the thin cotton of his T-shirt. "Are you a vegetarian?" she asked.

"God forbid. Are you?"

Her wide green eyes stared into his, and a distressed little furrow creased her brow. Then she did something weird—although he guessed he shouldn't be surprised by anything she did. She breathed really deep through her nose as if she smelled something. Joe couldn't smell anything beyond the floral scent clinging to her skin. Then she shook her head slightly as if to clear her mind and continued into the house as if nothing had happened. Joe followed and resisted a sudden urge to sniff his armpits.

"I have tried veganism," she informed him as they moved through a small back room with a washer and dryer and into a kitchen painted bright yellow. "It's a lot healthier lifestyle. But unfortunately I'm lapsed."

"You're a lapsed vegetarian?" He'd never heard of such a thing, but he wasn't real surprised.

"Yes, I've tried to resist my carnivorous urges, but I'm weak. I have control issues."

Control usually wasn't an issue for him— until now.

"I love most things that are bad for my arteries. Sometimes I'm halfway to McDonald's before I realize it."

A stained glass window above the breakfast nook threw patches of color about the room and on the rows of little glass bottles lined up on the small wooden table. The room smelled like Anomaly, like rose oil and patchouli, but nothing else, and he grew suspicious of her claim to be a wonderful cook. No Crock-Pot filled with bubbling stroganoff sat on the counter. No scent of baked bread. His suspicions were confirmed when she opened the refrigerator and pulled out a container of sauce, a package of fresh pasta, and a loaf of French bread.

"I thought you were a wonderful cook."

"I am." She shut the refrigerator and set everything next to the stove. "Would you do me a favor and open the cabinet by your left leg and pull out two saucepans?"

When he leaned down and opened the door, a colander fell out on his foot. Her cabinets were messier than his.

"Oh, good. We'll need that too."

He grabbed the pots and colander and straightened. Gabrielle stood with her back pressed against the refrigerator door, a hunk of French bread in one hand. He watched her gaze slide up the front of his jeans to his chest. She slowly chewed, then swallowed. The tip of her tongue licked a crumb from the corner of her mouth, and she finally looked up at him. "Want some?"

His gaze searched her face for a hint that she wasn't asking about bread, but he saw nothing provocative in her clear green eyes. If she'd been any other woman besides his CI, he would have loved to show her exactly what he wanted—starting with her mouth and slowly working his way to the little mole on her inner thigh. He'd downright love to fill his hands with her big, creamy breasts straining against that bikini top. But she wasn't any other woman, and he had to behave like a Boy Scout. "No, thanks."

"Okay. I'm going to change my clothes. While I'm gone, put the stroganoff sauce in the small pan, then fill the larger pan with water. When the water starts to boil, add the pasta. Cook it for five minutes." She pushed away from the refrigerator, and as she walked past him, she paused for a second and breathed deeply through her nose. Just like before, a crease furrowed her brow, and she shook her head. "Anyway, I should be back by then."

Joe watched her breeze from the room, tearing off a bite of bread, and he wondered exactly how it had happened that he'd been invited to dinner by a woman in a bikini who claimed to be a wonderful cook but left him to cook the meal while she changed. And what was up with that smelling thing? She'd done it twice now, and he was starting to get a little paranoid.

Gabrielle popped her head back into the kitchen. "You aren't going to search for that Monet while I'm out of the room, are you?"

"No, I'll wait until you get back."

"Great," she said through a smile, then was gone again.

Joe moved to the sink and filled the larger pot with water. A fat black cat rubbed against his legs and wound its tail around his calf. Joe didn't really like cats, figuring they were pretty useless. Not like dogs that could be trained to sniff out dope or birds that could be trained to talk and hang upside down by one foot. He nudged the cat away with the toe of his work-boot and turned to the stove.

His gaze strayed to the doorway, and he wondered how long before she returned. It wasn't that he had any scruples about searching through drawers while she was out of the room, he just had two very good reasons why he chose not to. First, he didn't believe he'd find anything. If Gabrielle was involved in the theft of Mr. Hillard's painting, he doubted she would have invited him into her house. She was much too high-strung to shoot the breeze over stroganoff if she had a Monet rolled up in her closet. And second, he needed her trust, and that would never happen if she caught him ransacking her house. He needed to show her he wasn't such a bad guy, which he didn't think would be too terribly difficult. He wasn't the type of man who bragged about conquests over a few beers, but women generally liked him. He knew he was a good lover. He always made sure the women in his bed had as much fun as he did, and despite what Meg Ryan said, he'd be able to tell if a woman was faking. He didn't roll off and start snoring afterward, and he didn't collapse and crush a woman beneath his weight.

He dumped the stroganoff into the saucepan on the stove and turned the burners on medium. Although he wasn't one of those sensitive, pansy-assed weenies who cried in front of women, he was pretty sure women thought he was nice.

Something sat on his foot, and he looked down at the cat perched on his boot. "Get lost, furball," he said and nudged the cat just enough to send it sliding across the linoleum.

Gabrielle hooked the lace bra between her breasts, then pulled a short blue T-shirt over her head. Even though Joe said he wouldn't search her kitchen, she didn't really believe him. She didn't trust him out of her sight. Heck, she didn't trust him with her eyes glued right on him. But he was right, she had to find a calm way to deal with him in her shop and in her life. She had a business to run, and she couldn't do it if she had to watch his every move or leave early.

She stepped into a pair of faded jeans and buttoned them just below her navel. Besides her business concerns, she knew her health was at risk. She didn't know how much longer she could walk around with stress headaches and unattractive facial tics before she developed serious health-related issues, like a hormonal imbalance and an overactive pituitary gland.

Gabrielle grabbed a brush off her dresser and pulled it through her damp hair. She sat on the lace spread covering her four-poster bed and tried to remind herself that everyone entered her life for a reason. If she opened her mind, she would find the higher purpose for Joe's existence. A picture of his behind as he'd bent over to retrieve pots from her cabinet entered her head, and she scowled at her reflection in a cheval mirror across the room. The way he filled out his jeans had absolutely nothing to do with spiritual meaning.

Tossing the brush beside her, she wove her hair into a loose braid, then tied a blue ribbon around the bottom. Joe was a dark, brooding cop who'd wreaked havoc on her nerves, turned her life upside down, and caused disharmony. An imbalance of body and spirit. A war for supremacy. Anarchy. She certainly didn't see a higher purpose in all of that.

But he did smell nice.

When she entered the kitchen several minutes later, Joe stood in front of the sink pouring noodles into a colander. A cloud of steam enveloped his head while her mother's cat traversed a figure eight between his feet, wrapping her tail around his calves and meowing loudly.

"Beezer!" She scooped up the cat and held her against her breasts. "You better leave the detective alone or he'll slam you to the ground and arrest you. I know from experience."

"I never slammed you to the ground," Joe said as the steam cleared. "If anyone was slammed, it was me."

"Oh, yeah." She smiled at the memory of him lying on the ground with his lashes stuck together. "I got the jump on you."

He looked across his shoulder at her and shook the colander. A slight smile curved a corner of his mouth, and the humidity curled the hair about his temple. "But who ended up on top, Miss Bad Ass?" His gaze slipped over her from the braid in her hair to her bare feet, then back up again. "Pasta's done."

"Go ahead and dump it in with the stroganoff."

"What are you going to do?"

"Feed Beezer or she'll never leave you alone. She knows you're making dinner, and she's food obsessed." Gabrielle walked to a cabinet by the back door and retrieved a package of Tender Vittles. "After I feed her, I'll make the salad," she said as she ripped off the top. She dumped the food in a porcelain saucer, and once Beezer began to eat, she opened the refrigerator and pulled out a bag of chopped-up salad.

"That figures."

Gabrielle looked over at Joe, who stood in front of the stove stirring the pasta into the sauce with a wooden spoon. The shadow of his beard darkened his tan cheeks and emphasized the sensual lines of his mouth. "What?"

"That your lettuce is precut. You know, this is the first time I've ever been invited to dinner, then been asked to cook it myself."

She hadn't really thought of him as a guest, more like unavoidable company. "How odd."

"Yeah. Odd." He pointed the spoon at the breakfast nook in the corner of the room. "What is all that?"

"Essential oils for the Coeur Festival," she explained as she dumped lettuce into two bowls. "I make my own aromatherapies and healing oils. Today is the first free day I've had to test a sunscreen oil I made out of sesame, wheat germ, and lavender. That's what I was doing in the pool."

"Does it work?"

She pulled down the neck of her T-shirt and studied the stark white bikini line against her tan chest. "I didn't burn." She glanced at him, but he wasn't looking at her face or her tan line. He stared at her bare stomach; his gaze so hot and intent heat flushed her skin. "What kind of dressing do you like on your salad?" she managed.

Then he shrugged one shoulder and focused his attention on the pot of stroganoff, making her wonder if she'd imagined the way he'd looked at her. "Ranch."

"Oh…" She turned to the refrigerator to hide her confusion. "Well I only have Italian and fat-free Italian."

"Why did you ask like I had a choice?"

"You do." If he could pretend that nothing had passed between them, so could she, but she had a feeling he was a better actor. "You can have Italian or fat-free Italian."

"Italian."

"Great." She dressed the salad, then carried the bowls into the dining room and set them on the cluttered table. She didn't have dinner company often and had to shove her catalogs and oil recipes into the built-in china hutch. Once the table was clear, she placed a short beeswax candle in the center of the pedestal table and lit it. She brought out her linen place mats and matching napkins, a pair of silver napkin rings, and the antique silver flatware she'd inherited from her grandmother. She grabbed two Ville-roy & Boch plates painted with red poppies and told herself she wasn't trying to impress the detective. She wanted to use her "good stuff" because she hardly ever got the chance. There was no other reason.

With her finest china in her hands she walked back into the kitchen. He stood where she'd left him, his back to her. She paused in the doorway, her eyes taking in his dark hair and the back of his neck, his broad shoulders and back. She let her gaze move to the back pockets of his Levi's and down his long legs. She couldn't remember the last time she'd had a good-looking guy to dinner. Her last two boyfriends didn't count because they hadn't been all that great in the looks department. Harold had been brilliant, and she'd loved listening to him talk about spiritual enlightenment. He hadn't been preachy or too far out, but Francis had been right, Harold had been too old for her.

Before Harold, she'd dated Rick Hattaway, a nice, average-looking man who made Zen alarm clocks for a living. Neither man had made her pulse race or her stomach flutter, or made her skin flush from the heat of his gaze. Her attraction to both Harold and Rick hadn't been sexual, and neither relationship had progressed beyond kissing.

It had been years since she'd judged a man by his looks and not the quality of his soul. It had been before her conservationist conversion, when she'd hated washing dishes so much she'd only used paper plates. The guys she'd dated in those days probably wouldn't have even noticed the difference between Wedgwood and Chinet. At that time in her life she'd considered herself a serious artist, and she'd chosen men for purely aesthetic reasons. None of them had been enlightened, some hadn't been very smart, but really, intellect hadn't been the point. Muscles. Muscles and tight buns and stamina had been the point.

Gabrielle's gaze moved up Joe's spine, and she begrudgingly admitted that she'd missed looking across a dinner table at a handsome, hormone-enriched he-man. Joe certainly didn't seem concerned with his own enlightenment, but he did seem more intelligent than the average muscle neck. Then he raised his arm, bent his head, and sniffed his pit.

Gabrielle looked at the plates in her hands. She should have used paper.