Broken Toy [Suncoast Society] (Siren Publishing Sensations) (16 page)

“Oh, yes, seems I heard about that,” Walker said, glancing back at Ella—
Gabriella
, Bill corrected himself—who was now looking at a legal pad clutched in her hands.

Bill’s eyes didn’t leave her face. Every time she glanced up, she looked away again. Walker took a seat at the head of the table as she unslung a laptop bag from her shoulder and got it ready to hook up to a monitor.

“I’m going to let Special Agent Villalobos take things from here,” Walker said. “She’s going to fill you in on the history and information we have so far, and she’s prepared handouts to e-mail all of you.” He passed out a paper to everyone. “Her e-mail and contact info is on there, as is mine. Just shoot her an e-mail so she can send it to you.”

She seemed to fumble the cable connection as she tried to get her laptop hooked up to the monitor. It took her a few moments to gather herself and start speaking, but once she did, shifting into what was obviously her work mode, Bill’s attitude started to adjust.

By the time she finished with the summation an hour later, he was full of admiration for her.

She still wouldn’t meet his gaze head-on.

He couldn’t blame her.

They needed to break for lunch and were all going to hit the Bob Evans a few blocks down the road. Bill excused himself from Al and stepped over to her, dropping his voice. “We need to talk.”

She started to say something, but he cut her off. “I’ll ride to the restaurant with you. Or did you come with your boss?”

“Fine,” she muttered.

He told Al to head over without him, that they’d be there in a few minutes. Al actually opted to ride with his friend from Sarasota county and a couple of others. Eventually the room emptied, leaving the two of them standing there.

It was obvious she wasn’t going to speak first, so he did. “So what do I call you? Ella? Gabriella? Special Agent Villalobos?”

“Car,” she muttered. She fished her keys from her pocket, slung her laptop case over her shoulder, and headed out the door without bothering to see if he was following her.

* * * *

Gabe could barely breathe. She’d been praying the little creeps who’d mugged her would plead out, meaning no reason to ever see Det. William Thomas again.

Boy, was I ever wrong.

Never in her life had she dreamed he’d be plopped onto the task force. Then again, had she stopped to think about it instead of being so excited to be on the job again, she would have realized there was a decent chance of it happening.

She suspected Walker would grill her later, once they could speak alone, about her reaction. Then she’d have to come up with a suitable cover story. As it was she fought the urge to break into a run as soon as she emerged from the building into the daylight of the warm afternoon. She turned right, toward the rear parking lot, well aware of Bill following close behind her.

He didn’t speak, waiting by the passenger door until she got her door open and popped the locks to let him in. Once they were inside, engine on and AC running, she sat there with her hands on the steering wheel and her eyes facing forward.

“You didn’t answer my question,” he finally said.

“What question?”

“What do you want me to call you? Unless you meant you wanted me to call you ‘car,’ which I highly doubt.”

“Gabe’s fine,” she said. “That’s what everyone else usually calls me.”

“Okay,” he said. “I can request someone else be assigned to the task force in my place.”

She looked at him. “Why?”

“It’s obviously going to be an issue for you.”

That got her dander up. “What the heck does that mean? I never said it was going to be an issue for me.”

“You could barely talk in there at first.”

“I was a little surprised to see you there. Duh.”

“Yeah, well since you’re not the replaceable one here, it should be me.”

“You saying you don’t want to work with me?”

“That’s not what I said.”

“Sounds like it.”

“So let me ask you something. Sunday night, you obviously recognized me. I thought there was something familiar about you, but I couldn’t get a look at you because of your raincoat. Then it started pouring. Why didn’t you say anything then?”

She knew no excuse she gave would sound good.

That’s why she opted for the truth. “I was scared,” she quietly admitted. She finally looked at him.

His handsome face wrinkled in a scowl. “You were scared of me?” he quietly asked.

“No. Not of you. Of…everything.”

“Is that why you didn’t come back Saturday?”

“I—” Her mouth snapped shut. “I don’t know.”

“You didn’t want to see me again?”

“No. I mean, no, that’s not why.”

“Then tell me.”

“Why didn’t you tell me you’re a cop?”

“Probably for the same reason you didn’t tell me you’re an FDLE agent.” He leaned back in his seat. “I called that one wrong. I saw you carrying at the munch, but I honestly didn’t think you were a—”

Dammit.
“What?”

“Carrying.” He glanced at her. “You leaned forward once and your gun printed.”

She closed her eyes and groaned.
Rookie mistake.

“It wasn’t obvious to anyone else,” he continued. “The only reason I noticed it was I saw how you were sitting in your chair.” A corner of his mouth curled in a smile. “Occupational hazard.”

“I suppose you weren’t carrying? I find that hard to believe.”

He shrugged. “Ankle holster. And we’re straying off the topic with little time left to talk.”

“I can work with you. All right?”

“Really?”

“Yeah, really.”

“I’m guessing you and Walker didn’t come together.”

“No, I drove down from Sarasota. He drove in from Miami this morning.”

He nodded. “Good. Then you can drive me back to Port Charlotte this afternoon. That will give us plenty of time to talk.”

“What?”

He turned in his seat again to face her head-on. “If you can’t spend forty-five minutes talking to me in a car, I might as well request someone else be assigned in my place to the task force this afternoon, before we get too far along.”

The truth was she didn’t
want
him to be reassigned.

She wanted to work with him.

“Fine.”

“Fine you want me to ask for reassignment?”

“No.” She shifted the car into reverse and started backing out. “Fine, I’ll drive you back to Port Charlotte this afternoon.”

* * * *

Lunch wasn’t exactly uncomfortable, but it wasn’t a fraction as fun as the munch or class had been. Bill sat next to her while they ate and eased up on the staring once back in the conference room. He also used his work phone to run down some information and history on her.

He had to admit he was damned impressed. She had a remarkable record and apparently zero ego about it. He’d unfortunately met more than his fair share of pompous assholes on the job, investigators who liked to flaunt their records as part of their self-worth.

Apparently, Gabe fell squarely into the “just doing my job” camp.

He respected her even more for it.

At the end of the day, he told Al to go on without him. “We’re going to discuss the mugging case on the way back. I have a few things I can have her sign off on.”

Al’s faint scowl made Bill silently swear. “Oookay,” Al said. “Whatever you say.”

“And I’m going to take her over to Marelli’s for dinner.”

“Oh.” Al grinned. “You’d think he’s their personal PR rep,” Al told her. “You’ll love their food.”

Travis Walker came over, wearing a smile. “Ah, so you’re the detective that caught her not following orders, huh?”

“What?”

Walker laughed. “I’d distinctly ordered her to take three weeks’ vacation and not work, and she ends up tangled with a mugging.”

“Hey,” she snapped, more than a little testiness in her tone. “I
was
the victim, you know.”

“I’m just teasing you, Gabe,” Walker said. He leaned in. “See what I mean?” He hooked a thumb at her. “This agent is a massive workaholic. One of the best ever, but I keep telling her if she doesn’t learn to balance her life, she’s going to burn herself out.”

“Work
is
my life,” she shot back.

“You do need balance in this line of work,” Bill agreed, as if she hadn’t spoken.

She glared at him as she shut down her laptop and got her stuff put away, but she didn’t respond.

On their way out to her car, she asked him, “Do you think he bought that?”

“What? Who are we talking about?”

“Your friend, Al. Did he buy your excuse?”

He stopped and turned to her. “What excuse? I am taking you out to dinner.” He stared down at her. “You have a problem with that?” he softly asked.

Let’s see how she likes the real me.

He thought for a second she was going to say yes, she had a huge, fat-ass problem with that, but then she gave a faint shake of her head that threatened to harden his cock right there.

Technically, they didn’t work together. They worked for completely different agencies.

Technically, it wouldn’t be a problem.

He held up a finger. “And this is my treat. No arguments. Your gas money and your time driving me back down there, and back up, of course, so I get to buy you dinner. Fair trade. Got it?”

She nodded.

“Good.” He took her keys from her and walked to the driver’s side, unlocking the door and holding it open for her. Once she was in, he walked around and got in.

She was staring at him from the driver’s seat.

“What?” he asked.

She looked like she started to say something, thought about it, stopped, then shook her head. She started the car, pulled out of the parking lot, and headed south on US 41.

“Where to?” she asked.

“That way,” he said.

Gabe didn’t understand it. She didn’t understand why she didn’t just tell Bill to go fuck himself when he’d said he wanted her to drive him back. And then buy her dinner?

You know, normal guys
do
buy their dates dinner.

This is
not
a date!

Yeah, she knew she could lie to herself all she wanted, it’d still be a date. The date they didn’t get to have.

The date she’d nuked by skipping the second class and standing him up.

Yes, that was all on her, and she knew it. At the very least, she should have contacted the club to forward her apologies. But then she’d run into him the next night at the mall, and it had totally thrown off her equilibrium.

That wasn’t a state she was used to.

At all.

“Tell me about the scars on your back.”

She nearly slammed on the brakes. “What?”

“The scars on your back. I saw part of them during class. They look pretty bad. Either tell me about them, or tell me it’s none of my business. Either answer is acceptable.”

Well, wasn’t this kind of what she thought maybe she’d been looking for when she indulged in her stupid little fantasies? An Alpha guy she could trust not to be an asshole?

“Courtesy of my grandmother,” she mumbled.

“How old were you?”

She snorted. “Which time? I lived with her from when I was eight until the day I graduated high school. The most recent ones are the top layer. Last time she actually got me hard enough to break skin, I’d just turned seventeen.”

“What about your parents?”

“They died when I was eight. Car wreck. She got custody of me because my mother’s parents were dead, and both of my parents were only children. No aunts or uncles who could take me.”

“And then?”

She stopped for a red light before she looked at him. “You’re awfully nosy, aren’t you?”

He arched an eyebrow at her.

When he didn’t say anything, she let out a frustrated sigh. “Went right into basic training after high school. Four years in, college at UF, police academy, then straight into law enforcement.”

“Brothers or sisters?”

“Nope.”

“You never pressed charges against her for the abuse?”

“I had no other family I could turn to. She had me in a strict Catholic school. What do
you
think I did?”

“Fair enough.” He remained quiet for a moment. “You can ask me questions, too, you know.”

“Why didn’t you get remarried before now?”

“Like I said, I guess I wasn’t fishing in the right pond.”

“So you did that stuff with your wife?”

He shrugged. “Not really. In bed we weren’t vanilla, but we weren’t crazy, either.”