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“Of course it is! The hair dye belonged to my roommate.”
“So you steal from others besides me.”
“Betsy must have forgotten about it. And I didn’t steal anything!”
He stilled so completely he could have been cast in bronze like the figurines around them. Shaken but refusing to give in to the alarm that charged every molecule of her body, Cassy forced herself to meet whatever retribution he demanded with her head high.
His stillness was so profound it was painful. Abruptly, he turned away.
“What are you going to do?” she demanded as another ripple of fear skated down her spine.
“Probably continue calling you Cassiopia. Cassy doesn’t suit you at all.”
He flicked off the light, plunging them into darkness.
“Hey!” Before panic could overwhelm her, light winked on at the end of the hall. There was nothing to do except follow, unless she wanted to stay in his basement all night.
The third step from the bottom made no sound for him, yet it squawked like a spitting cat the moment she set her foot on it. Was he even human?
Cassy shuddered. That horrible scar said he was all too human. He must have been an attractive man once. Actually, despite the scar, he wouldn’t be bad-looking now if he’d stop scowling all the time. If nothing else, his aura of self-assured power commanded attention.
Cassy wanted to be glad he’d suffered for what he’d done, but Beacher had half convinced her otherwise. What if he were innocent? Could a man who could create such incredible beauty also destroy with such utter ruthlessness?
She’d been so enraged that day at the hospital she’d barely noticed Gabriel as a person. She’d needed a focus for her grief and rage and she’d taken it out on him, ignoring the fact that he’d been swaddled in bandages and attached to wires, tubes and monitors. Wrapped in her own emotions, she’d snuck inside his hospital room without a thought for anything except confronting the man responsible for her father’s horrible death.
The memory of being pulled away while she ranted still shamed her. Even then his gaze had been dark and troubling. She’d had plenty of time to think about things since then. Letting go of her anger had been hard, but Beacher had pressed her to listen to him until he finally persuaded her to see that they might have been victims, too.
Gabriel hadn’t hurt her just now, and he hadn’t called the police. Of course he might be planning to call when they got upstairs, but either he and Beacher were guilty of murder and treason, or they’d been framed, as she was sure her father had been framed.
Had Beacher been playing both of them? Was he even now on his way out of the country with the deadly toxin?
Gabriel flipped on the kitchen light and shrugged out of his black cloth jacket, draping it neatly over the back of one of the two chairs at the tiny kitchen table. The black turtleneck hugged his shoulders and well-defined torso. He was lean and fit and scary in every way.
She’d made it a point to learn as much as she could about both men after Beacher began pestering her. Gabriel seldom left the small house he’d purchased after leaving the military on disability. He never socialized. Beacher was his only real friend as far as she could determine. The two had worked together at the army base, though their friendship dated back several years to when they were neighbors growing up. Gabriel had gone to a military academy. Beacher had gone to college and then joined a private security company. They both ended up working at the same military base and immediately resumed their friendship.
“Sit,” Gabriel ordered without turning around. He crossed to the sink and began washing his hands.
“Am I supposed to bark now and wag my tail?”
He slanted her a startled glance. Unexpected humor lightened his dark-eyed stare.
“Skip the bark.” And he turned back to the sink.
Outraged, Cassy wished she dared to toss something at him, but the room was immaculately clean. Even if she’d really wanted to, there wasn’t a single loose object on the white countertop or the tiny kitchen table. Pale yellow walls and white cabinets did what they could to lighten the space, but it was so small there was barely room to turn around. Cassy would have guessed the kitchen was never used until he dried his hands and began opening cupboards.
Like the rest of the house, the cupboards were neat and orderly and filled with the sort of stuff she saw in her married friends’ kitchens. The man even had a rack of spices. She thought of her own empty cupboards and shook her head. She never cooked if she could avoid it.
Gabriel set an electric kettle to boil. With fluid, economical motions that would have suited a laboratory, he removed two large brown mugs and a pair of small, matching plates. An odd-looking teapot in the shape of a dragon joined the rest on the pristine counter.
“What are you doing?”
He didn’t spare her a glance. “Brewing tea.”
“Tea?”
She’d broken into his house and he was making her tea? What was going on here? Was he stalling for some reason?
“You don’t like tea?”
“Mostly I drink it iced.”
He made a face and pulled a small cheesecake from a well-stocked refrigerator. Slicing two perfect wedges, he transferred them to the plates without a wasted motion.
“Sit down, Cassiopia.”
She gritted her teeth. “I’d rather stand.”
His granite face bore no expression as he turned. Hooded eyes focused on her with an unblinking stare that was totally unnerving. Set against the harsh planes of his face, she decided they weren’t the tawny eyes of a lion but dark ebony wells of silent turbulence. Gabriel had seen too much of the unpleasant side of life. The impression of barely leashed power lent him a quiet menace that made her tremble. No one looked less like a sculptor.
Cassy knew sculpting had been part of his physical therapy after he was injured, but did he realize what a talent he had? She was pretty sure most people studied for years before they could create the sort of breathtaking beauty he’d captured in the pieces downstairs.
“Do you want to talk or not?” he asked in that deceptively soft voice.
Not. When he gazed at her like that she wanted to run far and fast. Too bad that wasn’t an option.
“Yes.”
He looked from her to the table without another word.
Cassy conceded defeat. She pulled out the chair that didn’t hold his jacket and sat down, glad for the warmth of her own lightweight jacket even though the house itself wasn’t cold.
Immediately, he turned back to the counter and measured tea leaves as if scientific precision was called for. Steam drifted from the spout of the dragon, shaped to be its mouth.
Great. Even his teapot breathed smoke. She might be better off if he simply called the police.
Opening a drawer, he withdrew two plain blue place mats and set them on the table. He added forks, spoons and cloth napkins without a word.
His black turtleneck and dark jeans were spotted by stains of what appeared to be mud. However, his hands, including his fingernails, were scrupulously clean. Cassy noticed that his fingers and palms weren’t burnt like the backs of his hands.
“LEMON?”
Cassiopia jumped. “What?”
“Would you like lemon with your tea?”
Gabe pronounced each word with deliberate care. She raised her chin.
“No, thank you. Just sugar.”
He withdrew a glass sugar bowl from another cupboard and set it on the table.
“Have you had time to come up with a plausible explanation yet?”
She inhaled sharply. Obviously, she hadn’t.
“You weren’t supposed to be home.”
“Oh?”
“You usually go to your gym at this hour.”
“Should I feel flattered that you’ve been spying on me?”
Gabe set a slice of cheesecake and a cup in front of her and settled in the opposite chair. Instantly, the small room seemed to shrink even further. This had been a bad idea. He did not want to find her attractive.
“Your bad luck,” he continued. “I took a walk tonight, instead.”
“Isn’t it just?”
Her blush told him she hadn’t meant to say that out loud.
“What did you expect to find in my basement?”
“Not those incredible sculptures.”
She was stalling.
“I didn’t realize you were so gifted.” The color in her cheeks deepened. She ducked her head and picked up her fork without looking at him.
“Gifted?”
That jerked her face up. “You’re extremely talented and you know it.”
He inclined his head in acceptance.
CASSY WATCHED HIM fork up a bite of cheesecake. He slid the morsel from his fork to his mouth and chewed with pleasure. She had never realized how sexy eating could be.
She quickly banished the inappropriate thought. There was nothing sexy about Gabriel Lowe. Okay, there was, but he was more dangerous than he was appealing and she’d do well to keep that in mind. Except, surely she didn’t have to be intimidated by a man who could create such sensitive works of art.
“Your sculptures look like something in a museum,” she told him honestly. “You shouldn’t be hiding them away in your basement.”
Too late, she clamped her lips shut. What was she doing, lecturing the man?
“I’m flattered.” He poured them both a cup of tea without expression.
Gabriel might not be crouching like the lifelike set of lions on his floor downstairs, but the resemblance was still uncanny. Like his metal counterparts, he, too, seemed to be waiting to pounce. Yet she couldn’t dismiss the idea that he was silently laughing at her.
“Why are you here, Cassiopia?”
She swallowed hastily. “I want what Beacher Coyle gave you.”
He stilled. Though the kitchen lights were on, an ominous darkness seemed to fill the room.
“Is that right?”
The mildness of his tone was a clear rattle of warning. She hoped her quaking was all on the inside.
“We’re engaged to be married.”
A mistake. She knew it the moment the blurted words were past her lips. She’d never been any good at lying. Why hadn’t she thought ahead, prepared something to tell him?
His glance went to where her left hand lay clenched at the edge of the table. “He never mentioned a fiancée.”
She wanted to look away but couldn’t. Her gaze riveted on that terrible scar. Gabriel and Beacher were close friends. Of course he knew she was lying, but she had no choice now but to keep going or admit the truth.
“We haven’t made a formal announcement yet.”
If only she’d had a few minutes to come up with something better than a phony engagement.
“He hasn’t bought you a ring yet, either.”
Her mouth went dry. “No.”
“Do you know the password?”
Cold, then heat, flooded her. Was he serious? He looked serious.
“You’re making that up!”
She was certain he’d made it up, but his expression never altered. Gabriel waited. Unnerved, she tried to think of something plausible to say and failed.
“Why would he tell you to sneak in through a window?”
“He didn’t. But I could hardly call you again and ask for an invitation, now could I?”
Dropping her fork to the plate with a clatter, she glared at him, defying him to contradict her. “You would have hung up on me again.”
Was that the faintest trace of a curve to his lips?
“Actually, I wouldn’t have answered your call at all,” he told her, unperturbed.
He reached for his tea cup and took a swallow. “Why didn’t Beacher come himself?”
Danger. This lion was waiting to pounce and tear her to shreds. She took a breath to steady her nerves.
“He couldn’t.”
“Why?”
