Authors: Cathy Quinn
Getting Gabriel (6 page)
"What’s that hose doing there?" she asked. "Were you going to wash the pickup?"
"No. I stick the hose through the basketball hoop and use it as a shower."
Alice laughed in disbelief, even as images she had no business seeing flickered by her mind’s eye. "Are you serious?"
He shrugged. "I don’t have any hot water. This isn’t as chilly as the inside shower, and in this heat it’s great to take a cold shower outdoors anyway."
"It’s a bit public though, isn’t it?"
"Not really. Not much traffic in the street. And the trees obscure a lot. Wouldn’t recommend you doing it though."
Wow.
It was tempting to wash the car right here and now. Cool Gabriel down a bit while she was at it. He was probably going to shower there today anyway. Her fingers were all but itching to grab that hose and turn the water on him. A water fight... Wet t-shirt... Yum....
"You’re taking that course, Alice. And I’m coming with you."
Alice hesitated. "You’re coming with me? What do you mean? Is this a course for both men and women? I’ll get to practice the groin-kicking on you?"
Gabriel grinned at her. "Something like that."
"Hmm.... she mused aloud. "That might be a good place to meet men."
Gabriel’s grin widened. "Why did I suspect you’d say that?"
Alice pondered the situation. Maybe this was a good idea. She might meet some new guys, and even if she didn’t, learning how to throw Gabriel over her shoulder, not to mention how to release her wrist from that iron-clasp he was so fond of using, would be very useful.
Besides, she might get to sit on top of him, pinning his hands down while she searched him for concealed weapons...
Oooh, this had potential. Guilty thrill potential. Lots of guilty thrills. How could she resist that?
"Okay," she agreed, trying to keep her voice reluctant. "I’ll go. Which days are the class?"
"Tuesday and Thursday evening, Saturday mornings. Starting tomorrow."
"Starting tomorrow? Are you sure we can get in at such short notice?"
"I know the instructor. We’re in."
Alice shook her had. "So I’ll have Wednesday, Friday and Saturday evenings for dates and Sunday and Monday off. This will be a grueling schedule."
"We’re taking days off?"
"I have to have some time to go over the progress of the week and reevaluate my strategy." She backed up a bit. "Wait a minute. What do you mean ‘we’?"
"You’re not dating Internet strangers without protection. I’ll be your bodyguard."
"What? No. No way!"
"Yes way."
"I’m armed and loaded! And I’ll be taking self-defense lessons. What more do you want?"
"Save your breath. It’s not negotiable. If you’re going on blind dates with some guys you pick up online, you’ll need a bodyguard."
Gabriel’s dark eyes held determination she doubted she could fight. Alice frowned. She left the car door open and circled the car, and watched him wince when she hopped up to sit on the hood.
"Be reasonable, Gabriel. This is going to occupy all your evenings. You don’t have the time."
"Sure I do. Hey, I can sacrifice a few weeks in the pursuit of your happiness."
"But – don’t you have a life? Aren’t you seeing anyone?"
"Not really."
Not really? Not really? What kind of an answer was that? It was all-important to know. Of course, there hadn’t been anyone in his bed when she’d jumped into it last weekend. There were no feminine traces in that house of his. He hadn’t mentioned anyone. Michael hadn’t mentioned him seeing anyone.
He didn’t seem to be seeing anyone.
Then why had he said ‘not really’? Why not just "no"?
"You’re looking at me just like my mother does when I say ‘not really’ to that exact question."
Gabriel was laughing at her. She was just getting over the indignation of reminding him off his mother when he playfully caught her in a headlock and shook her. She didn’t mind. Not at all. But she had to struggle away, because he smelled so good close up that she wanted to crawl inside his clothes and surgically attach them together.
"Don’t you dare play matchmaker on me, Alice in Whackoland. I’ve taken enough of that from my mother through the years."
"Okay, okay," Alice mumbled as he let go off her. Matchmaker? Fat chance. The last thing she’d do was fix Gabriel up with someone. "Okay. You get to be my bodyguard on Friday. But I’m not making any promises about after that."
"You have a date on Friday?"
She nodded as she hopped off the car, crossed over to the hose and picked it up. She pulled it with her and squirted some water over the car, casually moving closer to Gabriel. Water sluiced down the hood, the resulting brown streaks not doing much to improve the car’s look. Damnit. Now she really had to wash it.
Gabriel sighed. "Who is it? Some guy off the Internet, I assume? Someone nameless, faceless nerd that you know nothing about?"
"Yes to the nameless, faceless, Internet part. I’ve put the prospective dates in alphabetical order." She frowned, trying to recall his vital stats. "This guy’s name is Alex or Alec, I think. He’s an architect, divorced, one kid. We’re meeting at a restaurant for dinner."
Gabriel leaned inside her car, rolled up the windows and shut the door. "It’s wise to have the windows closed while you’re spraying water over the car, Alice. What precautions are you taking?"
"Isn’t that rather a personal question?"
"Just answer the question. What precautions are you taking?"
She rolled her eyes. "You’re so bossy. What do you want me to do, wear a Kevlar vest? I’ve got you to scare him off. Why are you assuming I’m choosing axe murderers, anyway? They all sound perfectly nice and friendly."
"Anyone can sound perfectly nice and friendly in an email or on the phone. You can’t trust those guys."
"Anyone can sound perfectly nice and friendly in real life too. Believe me, I’m speaking from experience."
Gabriel grabbed the hose from her, and sprayed the top of the car and the side windows with quick, rough movements. "You know absolutely nothing about these people. Better safe then sorry. Be careful. Don’t tell them too much about yourself. Don’t give them your name until you know them a lot better. Don’t reveal any personal information that might identify who you are or where you live."
"Tell me, how am I supposed to get to know them if I’m not allowed to reveal any "possibly identifying personal information"? What are we to talk about?"
He thrust the hose back at her. "Movies, music, books, politics, TV, the stock market, local news, global news, food, world affairs, websites, sports, global warming, the rain forests, the economy..."
Alice held up a hand to stop him, as he seemed capable of going on forever. "I get it, I get it."
"You can talk to people for a decade without telling them where you live or where you work. Use your imagination."
"Sheesh. One would imagine you were the master of small talk, Mr. Strong and Silent."
She found herself wishing she was going on that date with Gabriel, to talk about movies and music and books and politics.
Then afterwards they could have a wrestling session... Mmm. Yum.
Gabriel shrugged as he fetched a bucket from the garage and tossed some soap in. "Maybe I’ll get to see you try out your stun gun or your new self-defense moves." He threw a sponge her way. "Stop messing around, and hose the car down properly, will you? And put some water in this bucket. I’m looking forward to seeing what color your car is under all the gray and brown."
Alice grinned and grabbed the bucket.
One day, she promised herself, she’d get that water fight.
Chapter 5
"So, where is everybody?" Alice looked around the small YMCA gym, empty apart from the plethora of lingering smells that always haunted gyms. "And am I over or underdressed? I’m figuring it has to be one or the other."
Gabriel glanced at her and she spread out her arms and spun in a circle. "You’re fine."
"I didn’t know what to wear, so I just wore my not-so-hip gym clothes."
"You’re fine," he repeated. "You look like a lollipop, but you’re fine. This isn’t a fashion show. Just wear whatever is comfortable and can take some beating."
"I look like a lollipop?" She bit her tongue. Hard. "Just how do I look like a lollipop?"
"Those red and white stripes on your arms and legs?"
Alice hurried towards the mirrors lining one wall. "Oh, lord. You’re right. I look like a candy cane."
"Yep."
"I never noticed that before." She frowned at herself in the mirror and spun around to check Gabriel’s outfit. He was wearing a t-shirt in a headache-inspiring shade of yellow, and black sweatpants.
"Well, you look like a bee," she informed him.
"Huh?"
"Black pants, yellow t-shirt. A bee. All you need is a stinger on your forehead."
Gabriel looked down on his outfit. "I just grabbed something comfortable."
"Michael says you must have suffered a knock on the head sometime in the last three years, and gotten your fashion centers damaged."
"There’s more to life than worshipping the gods of fashion. Help me get the mats out." He disappeared through a small door and she followed into the tiny storage to find him pulling a pile of blue exercise mats off the top of a closet. She stared at him, and located a clue at last.
"Wait a minute, Gabriel. You’re the instructor?"
He flashed her a mischievous smile.
"You said you knew the instructor."
"Yeah, I try to stay in touch with myself."
She stuck her head out into the gym and looked suspiciously around. A few women had entered the room and were chatting. "Where are all the guys?"
"There aren’t any."
She frowned at him as he dumped a pile of mats in her arms. "No men? But you said this was a course for both men and women."
"Did I?" He turned her around and pushed at her back to get her started out the door.
Alice sputtered. She’d been duped. "Same as. You didn’t object when I said this might be a good place to meet guys."
"Of course I didn’t."
"Why?"
"Would you have come if it hadn’t been for an opportunity to lure some males into your web?"
Alice turned her head to look at him, studying him through narrowed eyes. "You say that like luring males into my web is a bad thing. And no, I wouldn’t have." Well, she would have, but he needn’t know that. The opportunity to do indecent things to him in the name of education would have been irresistible, mantrap or not. Not smart – but irresistible.
"You needed lessons, I needed an assistant." He winked at her. "Match made in heaven." He threw the mats down in the middle of the gym and motioned for her to do the same.
This just kept getting worse. "I’m your assistant? What are you thinking? I don’t know the first thing about self-defense, remember? You held me against that wall and I couldn’t move an inch!"
"That’s fine." More women filtered into the gym, and Gabriel nodded at them, and kept his voice low. "That’s the whole point. You’ll learn as we go along. Normally I would use a volunteer from the group, but this is a group for recent victims of muggings, and they’re vulnerable – I don’t want to ask for a volunteer among them. One session without a helper proved that it was kind of hard to demonstrate things on myself. And even harder on a broom."
Alice grinned, picturing Gabriel wrapped around a broomstick. "How about a blow-up doll?"
"You’re better."
"You know, men tell me that all the time."
"Idiot," he said, in his almost-affectionate gruff tone. For some strange reason that insult had come to be almost an endearment from him. He glanced at his watch. "It’s almost time."
"So, what is my function? Am I just here to play a victim?"
"No. You’re learning how not to be a victim."
Without any further preparation, Gabriel clapped his hands together and summoned the twelve women in a half circle around him. She tried to join them, but he did his usual handcuff trick with his hand around her wrist, and since she hadn’t learned anything yet, that meant she had no choice but to stay put.
Then her Gabriel vanished, to be replaced with his identical twin, only this one was polite, considerate, charming and hardly scowled or growled at all.
She wasn’t sure she liked him at all.
Only twenty minutes later, Alice was out of breath and sweating, and she still hadn’t gotten to do anything indecent to Gabriel. This assistant thing was exhausting.
Her back to Gabriel, she stared at their reflection in the mirrored wall. A bee and a candy cane. Catch a bee with candy? Sugar water? If she sweated any more she’d end up a sugary puddle. She shut her eyes and clenched her jaw. What nonsense was she thinking?
