With Private Eyes Part 6

"He doesn't do it when you can see. Claudia." He shook his head. "Mallory intends to trick you."

"Oh, I know that." She waved it aside. "He doesn't know me very well."

Nicholas's lips twitched once before he smoothed them out. "Are you sure you know what you're doing?"

She smiled brightly, easily, at him and tried to make her eyes crinkle. "Of course. Don't I always?"

Three.

B y the time Ethan left the building, he was feeling quite satisfied with the bargain he'd struck with his tame dragon. Norblusky's personnel file had been all he'd hoped it would be-references, social security number, the works. Derrick Barone had played least-in-sight, but Gina Barone Kingman had been helpful.

And the report Nicholas had given Ethan was extremely interesting.

Whoever had handled the in-house investigation had done a good job of reconstructing events. The report concluded that the gelato had been adulterated when a person or persons unknown had entered the back of the refrigerated truck ferrying the gelato to the tasting while the truck was stuck in traffic.

Nothing amazing about a truck getting caught in traffic, but Ethan's curiosity was snagged by the reason for that particular traffic jam. A produce truck had spilled bushels of habanero peppers all over the street.

Life was full of bizarre coincidences, and that was probably all this was. But he thought he'd check out the driver of the produce truck, anyway.

Ethan glanced at the woman beside him. Claudia had been elated by the news of Norblusky's connection, then irritated when they learned her brother was gone-to a luncheon appointment, according to his secretary. Two hours before noon . Ethan was definitely curious about Derrick Barone.

It didn't take a body-language genius to interpret the way Claudia tensed up every time Derrick's name was mentioned. Ethan figured that Derrick was the Barones' problem child. Most families had one. That by itself wouldn't make him suspicious, but the report Nicholas had given him had confirmed what Ethan had suspected: the gelato tampering had been an inside job.

The people with the most knowledge and best access to the gelato were all Barones. Admittedly, an employee made a more likely saboteur than someone who was getting rich off Baronessa, but the Barone problem child had expensive tastes. Offered a big-enough bribe from one of Baronessa's compet.i.tors, he might have chosen money now over money later.

All of which meant Ethan had to ditch the blonde. Pity, but given half a chance, Ms. Claudia Barone would put herself in charge of his investigation-and she wasn't likely to investigate her brother.

Bossy woman. He smiled, thinking of the way she'd primmed up when he'd referred to her as a tame dragon.

"What's that about?" she asked, all blue-eyed suspicion.

"What?" He opened the pa.s.senger door for her.

"That sneaky smile. Most of us do have different smiles, you know, for different occasions."

"That stung, did it?" He went around to his side, climbed in and tossed the red-bound report in the box in the back seat that held his working files. "I wouldn't worry about it," he told her rea.s.suringly. "I doubt most people notice the difference. Personally, though, I kind of like the crinkles."

"I don't recall expressing an interest in your opinion. My goodness, this car is chilly. Would you turn on the heat, please?"

I shouldn't, he thought as he turned to look at her. She didn 't mean it that way ... but she was so pretty and prissy, and he wouldn't have another chance.

What the h.e.l.l. He grinned. "Anything you say, Ms. Barone." He seized her face in both hands and planted one on that cupid's bow mouth.

He expected a slap, or even a punch in his stomach. Instead, she went stiff with outrage, like a cat dropped in water.

That, too, was somehow irresistible. Beckoning. He painted a teasing line across her lips with his tongue. Soft lips, so much softer than he'd antic.i.p.ated ... her taste intrigued, beguiled. He forgot why he'd started this, intent on coaxing more from her. His fingers loosened their grip to stroke lightly along both sides of her face, up and down, brailling the part of her that was at once public and intimate.

Her breath caught in a confused little hiccup. Then she did a terrible thing. She opened her mouth to him and fisted her hands in his s.h.i.+rt, kissing him like a s.h.i.+pwreck victim scooped up ragged and starving, with him her first meal.

l.u.s.t exploded, wiping his internal landscape clear of thought. The skin was taut and smooth on her cheeks, dangerously soft along her throat. He licked it. Her sweater was a nuisance, but instinct worked fine. He didn't need to think. He sent a hand sliding up under the thick wool, touched skin even softer than on her throat.

She jolted, jerking back. Shocked blue eyes stared at him.

Had he lost his ever-loving mind?

"That was- I didn't mean to-" Ethan exhaled gustily. "A mistake. That was a mistake."

She nodded quickly three times. "Absolutely. Yes. We'll put it out of our minds. It never happened."

"What didn't happen?" His hands had stopped shaking. Good. He reached for the seat belt.

"Ah ... exactly." The lips still damp from his twitched. Maybe that was amus.e.m.e.nt, or maybe she was still short-circuited, too. She fastened her own seat belt as he reversed out of the parking slot. "Where do we go next?"

His body immediately suggested a possible destination and some intriguing side trips. "Gas station," he said hastily.

"Pardon?"

"I need to gas up." And get away from her. Fast.

"Okay, once you've refueled, then what? We have the names of Norblusky's references now. One of them may know where he is."

He nodded. With her natural bent toward taking charge, that was all that was needed. She was off and running, planning his next few days for him. Which left him free to spin in dizzy dismay.

He knew better. Dammit, he ought to. Claudia Barone was from another world, not the one he knew. That put her off limits. Period.

Some people bounced back fast from a divorce, or so it seemed to Ethan. Not him. The raw-gut flavor of failure had clung to him for years.

He'd had his angry period. Ethan wasn't proud of the way he'd behaved right after Bianca dumped him, but it hadn't lasted long. The lessons he'd learned about anger went too deep for him to stay mad all the time. One morning he'd woken with a woman whose name he didn't know cuddled up to him, her face all s.h.i.+ny and hopeful.

Self-disgust had put a stop to that kind of thing. He'd buried himself in work for a while, and that had been a pretty good way of handling things. He'd made something of himself and the firm; eventually he'd bought out his uncle, and now his only partner was the bank.

After his workaholic years he'd had a fling with self-improvement. There had to have been something wrong with him if his wife couldn't handle more than ten months of his company.

Well, nothing wrong with wanting to fix things when there was a problem, he mused as he headed east on Boylston. But he'd made a major mistake. He'd listened to his female cousins.

They'd insisted women wanted gentle, sensitive men. He'd figured he was okay with the gentle part; after all, a man his size had to be careful with the softer half of the human race. So he'd thought his problem must be the sensitivity deal. Not much doubt he was lacking there. Every woman he knew a.s.sured him of that.

Problem was, "sensitive" turned out to be some sort of female code. They all seemed to know what it meant, but none of them could explain it. When he'd asked three of his cousins for specific actions he could take to be sensitive, they'd looked at him funny and shaken their heads. Amy had told him to get in touch with his feelings; Jo had talked about communication and subtext and nonverbal cues. Katherine had just patted his shoulder and said something about lost causes.

The only useful data he'd gotten out of them had been remembering birthdays-there were rules for that, it turned out-was.h.i.+ng dishes at least half the time, and never looking at another woman.

Ethan snorted. Birthdays and dishes, yeah, he could handle those. But not to even look?

"You don't agree?" Claudia lifted her eyebrows. He had no idea what she'd just said.