Jennifer Apodaca - Samantha Shaw 04 - Batteries Required (14 page)

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Authors: Jennifer Apodaca

Tags: #Mystery: Cozy - Dating Service - California

BOOK: Jennifer Apodaca - Samantha Shaw 04 - Batteries Required
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Not good.
“No.” I put my hand over his dialing finger. “Go on your case. Vance will probably have found Zack. Angel’s at her mom’s house. Everything is under control.”
Something feral rolled through Gabe’s eyes and stamped down hard on his face. “Under control?” He shut off his phone, dropped it on the bed, and reached for me, taking hold of my shoulders. “A man held a gun to your face and you think it’s under control? Then you were too chicken-shit to call my cell phone back after Dee answered and demand to talk to me? No, babe, this is not under control.”
Startled by the depth of his feelings, I shot back with, “I am not chicken-shit. OK, I am, but not like that. I would have called you if I—” I broke off. If I what?
“If you
needed me
?”
He dragged me closer. Close enough to see that he had taken time to shave his hard jaw smooth. “Tell me you didn’t need me after looking down the barrel of that gun.”
I glared at him. “I did call you!” Then I got it. “Don’t turn this back on me. You’re mad at yourself because you didn’t answer your phone. The hero inside you just can’t stand that you missed a rescue-me call.” I jumped up, dumping the sex-toy kit on the floor. Glaring down at Gabe, I said, “Maybe if you weren’t trying to make me jealous—”
Gabe unfolded from the bed to his full six-foot-plus height. “Jealous?” His voice sank down to that silky death tone. “You have me arranging my entire life around you, and you think this is about jealousy? Maybe,” he leaned forward but didn’t touch me, “I’m tired of being second string in your life.” He turned, went to the bedroom door, and yanked it open.
“Second string? What the hell are you talking about?” Honest to God, I didn’t know!
He turned back, looking every bit the part of the oh-so-done Rhett Butler in
Gone with the Wind.
“I won’t beg for your love, Sam.” He was gone.
My chest hollowed with shock. I took a step to run after him, but the toe of my left foot caught on the sex-toy kit. I stumbled and fell to one knee. The skin of my left knee burned across the carpet.
I hated that sex-toy kit. Picking up the velvet box, I hurled it out of my way. It hit the wall two feet from my bedroom door and thunked to the ground. Stuff spilled out of it. I didn’t care. I got to my feet; I had to catch Gabe. To stop him. To wipe that wounded look off his face.
I stepped on something pebbly hard. Yelping, I lifted my foot and looked down at a black jeweler’s bag that was a bit smaller than an index card. I started to ignore it and rush out when a hard glitter caught my eye.
I knew Gabe was already gone. I was too late. Something terrible, knotty, and acid-tasting was ballooning up my throat. Through a hot film of tears, I stared at the glitter spilling out of the loosely tied end of the jeweler’s bag. Sinking down to my knees, I reached out and touched the black bag. It was velvet, just like the sex-toy kit lying open on its side. Next to that was the lavender vibrator with the appendage. The end of the vibrator, what I assumed was the battery compartment, gaped open like a perfectly round mouth. The black jeweler’s bag must have fallen out after the sex-toy kit hit the wall and spilled out the vibrator.
I picked up the black velvet bag, put my fingers inside the opening, and pulled the gold strings open. Then I turned the bag over and dumped out the contents.
The just rising morning sun streamed through my bedroom window and caught the icy fire in the most gorgeous diamond necklace I’d ever seen. It had three strings of beautifully cut diamonds in what I guessed was a platinum setting. It looked like it belonged around the neck of Jennifer Lopez in one of her fabulous low-cut gowns. Instead, the necklace rested cool and hard in the palm of my hand. I stared at it. An answer. Here was the answer to what Zack was looking for at Angel’s house.
But all I saw was Gabe’s wounded face. I knew what I felt for Gabe. But I also knew that Gabe was healing from the nightmare of the murder of his wife and unborn son. Once he healed from that, he’d want a family again. A wife and children of his own.
I was just a stepping stone in that process. I was five years older than Gabe, I already had my children, and I was a miserable failure at love. Heart Mates and reviewing romance novels were the closest I could get to love.
Closing my fingers over the sparkling diamond necklace, I couldn’t stop myself from whispering. “I do need you.”
I had to pull myself together. I had two sons who needed me, a best friend in serious trouble, a business to run, and a life to live. I stuffed the necklace into the pouch and placed it back in the lavender vibrator. After that, I reassembled the sex-toy kit and closed the box.
Getting up off the floor, I tried to think.
Vance. Call Vance.
I went to my purse, dug around, and came up with Gabe’s house key.
Shaft of pain.
Ignore it.
Holding the key, I got out my wallet and found Vance’s card. I called the police station, punched in Vance’s extension, and got his voice mail. OK, here goes. “Vance, it’s Sam Shaw. I found a diamond necklace inside a box that Angel and I got from Daystar. That must be what Zack Quinn was looking for. I will bring it by the police station on my way to work this morning.” I hung up.
OK. So far so good. Next, I dialed Angel at her mom’s house. And held on to the key to Gabe’s house.
“What? Who gets up this early?”
“Angel, it’s me. I opened the sex-toy kit and found a diamond necklace. I called Vance. Meet me at the police station—”
Angel woke up. “A diamond necklace where? I’ll be there ASAP!” She hung up.
I set the phone down and squeezed the key in my hand. What next? Clothes. Couldn’t go to the cop shop and work in a T-shirt and panties. I went to the closet and pulled it open. Dressing quickly, I put on a pair of black jeans, a pink tank top, and a jacket over that. Put on minimal makeup, fluffed my hair, and took a deep breath.
I squeezed Gabe’s stupid house key in my hand. Mail it back? Drop it off? Give it to Blaine and tell him to return it? What did I tell my kids? Hey, boys, I just got dumped by your hero. Want some Fruit Loops?
Stop it. Just stop it. I stuck the sex-toy kit in my purse and forced myself to leave my bedroom. Grandpa’s door was still closed.
Hell. I was up before Grandpa. That meant I had to make the coffee. I stopped halfway down the hallway and sniffed.
So why did I smell coffee? Angel couldn’t have gotten here that fast. Did criminals looking for diamond necklaces break in and make coffee?
I doubled back to my bedroom and set my purse on the bed. Returning to my closet, I found my big can of pepper spray. After positioning my finger on the nozzle, I went back out in the hallway and walked as softly as I could in my boots. The doorway to the kitchen was on my right. From there, I could see the back door was closed, with the dead bolt lock turned.
But the smell of coffee was stronger. The kitchen was a long galley kitchen that opened into the dining room. There was a sliding glass door there someone could break in through. Or the front door . . .
Finally my common sense kicked in. I had an alarm system, and better yet, I had a crack guard dog. If someone had broken into my house, they’d be ground meat by now, or at the very least, I’d have heard Ali’s warning barks.
The coffeemaker had a timer. Sometimes, Grandpa set the timer.
I squeezed Gabe’s house key in my left hand, while dropping my right hand, which held the pepper spray, to my side. “Idiot,” I muttered. Taking a breath, I tried to pull myself together and walked into the kitchen.
Gabe leaned against the counter with his back to the window over the sink. He sipped coffee. And watched me with a subzero expression.
Stunned, I stopped cold. My mouth fell open. “Uh . . .”
He arched a single eyebrow. It was a signature look for dealing with me.
“I thought you’d left.”
“You would.” He took another drink of coffee.
My stomach squeezed up a splash of acid. I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to escape. To not face all the being-adult-about-a-breakup crap. I didn’t want to be adult. I squeezed the house key.
House key. Gabe’s. Adult women returned their boyfriends’ house keys. Unless they were Angel, in which case they used said house keys to fill up their boyfriend’s house with Vaseline and toilet paper.
I knew I’d better return the house key. My feet felt like lead bricks in my pointy-toed boots. I took a step and held out my hand. Unclenching my fingers, I turned my hand palm up. “Here’s your house key.”
He glanced down at the key, then he slammed his frostbite gaze back into me. And didn’t move.
I could spray him. That would have zapped that icy look right off his face. My right hand actually twitched around the can of pepper spray. He stood there so damned sexy and mysterious, making me squirm because I didn’t have the guts to tell him I loved him. God, I really wanted to spray him.
“Try it, Sam. Go ahead.”
I turned around, took a step to the stove and slammed the can down beside it. It made a satisfying thunk. “What are you, Dirty Harry now, Gabe?” I smacked the key down next to the can, but it barely made a sound. I had the urge to pick up the can of pepper spray and bang it on the counter over and over. “Get your own house key.” I turned to storm back to my room.
Gabe caught my left elbow, then shoved me up against the old olive green refrigerator. It hummed against my back from the vibrations of the ancient motor. Gabe’s face was so tight, I saw white lines around his mouth and nose. But his voice was soft. “I don’t want my house key back.”
“You don’t?” That was too weak and hopeful. Using the fridge to pretend I had a backbone, I said, “I played that love-your-man game once, Gabe, and came out looking like the town dupe. I’m not going to do it again. Besides, we both know that I’m just a stepping stone for you.” There. I told the truth. “You can take your house key now.”
I heard the chugging of the refrigerator motor behind me. In front of me was dead silence.
“I smell coffee,” Grandpa’s voice was cheerful as he walked into the kitchen. He stopped when he got to my right shoulder where I was pinned up against the refrigerator. He had on gray slacks, a yellow-and-green-plaid shirt, and a crinkly smile that never wavered. His milky blue gaze slid from me to Gabe, who had both his hands placed flat against the fridge just above my shoulders. Grandpa made a swift about-face. “Forgot something,” he said, and went back down the hallway.
Great. I stared after him, willing him to turn around and come back.
Gabe’s voice climbed up from silky death to baffled when he said, “Stepping stone? You are a stepping stone?”
Since Grandpa had bailed, I had no choice but to turn back to Gabe. He looked like the words didn’t fit in his mouth.
“Stepping stone. Stopover. Rebound. The one you bang while your heart heals, then you move on. Come on, stud, this should all be old news to you.” My face burned hot enough to fry an egg on.
He rolled his eyes. “This is what I get for falling in love with a woman who reads romance novels. I should be shot.”
“You have been shot,” I pointed out. That was what had led him to taking an early retirement from the LAPD and landed him here in Lake Elsinore to open his PI business. I didn’t like thinking about Gabe’s being shot, so I turned to his romance novel comment. “Don’t be so smug. I’ve seen you read one or two of my books.”
He leaned his head down. “I read them for the sex.”
“Whatever. Are you done threatening me? I have a full plate this morning. You know, break up with my boyfriend, hurl the sex-toy kit at my bedroom wall, then discover a diamond necklace in the vibrator, get the boys ready for school, dash off to the police station to explain the necklace in a vibrator to Vance—”
Gabe thawed and slid his hands behind my head and back, pulling me toward him. “Slow down. Diamond necklace in a vibrator?” He shook his head. “We’ll get to that in a minute.” He took a breath. “Stepping stone. Christ, I don’t even know how you dreamed that one up.”
I decided to help him out. “You will want a wife and kids again.” I was older. I knew what I was talking about. “Gabe, look at how good you are with TJ and Joel. As time goes by, you’re going to realize that it wasn’t your fault . . . what happened. And you’ll want it all. You were meant to have kids.”
He was silent. One of his hands found the sore spot on my neck and gently rubbed it. “That’s the biggest load of bullshit I’ve heard since I’ve been off the streets.”
I blinked. “Excuse me?”
The vicious ice mask over his face dissolved completely. “Bullshit,” he clarified.
Reaching out, I shoved at his chest.
He didn’t move.
“Listen here, stud. I am not bullshitting you. I’m trying to be realistic. I’m trying to be an adult. And damn it, when I push you, move!”
He grinned. “Touched a nerve, huh? And do you know why, Sam? Because you are scared of what you feel for me.”
“I could be a lot madder at you if you’d stop rubbing my neck.” I swear, if he made me cry, I was going to get the pepper spray and make him cry. I hated being this vulnerable. “Stop smiling like that! I fell for that happily-ever-after stuff once. I won’t do it again.”

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