Looking for You (2 page)

He wanted to kiss it. Bad.

Which showed how insane he really
was, because if there was ever a woman he shouldn't lust after, it was
Gwendolyn Pierce. He stole another glance at her. What color was her hair this
week? The last time he'd seen her it'd been a sick shade of pink. Today it had
red and orange stripes in the crazy curls. Even with her hair wet, the streaks
looked interesting. Pretty, like a sunrise. She used to look like a psychedelic
Shirley Temple, with her rainbow curls, and since her hair had grown out past
her shoulders, she looked...

Kind of sexy, actually.

But it was still weird. Weird was the
perfect word to sum up Gwendolyn Pierce. Shaking his head, he said, "You
should drive on days like this."

"I don't have a car," she
said in her surprisingly husky voice, "and even if I did, I wouldn't be
able to drive it because I don't have a license."

He stopped at a red light and faced
her. "How is that possible?"

She shrugged. "I've never needed
one."

"Everyone needs a driver's
license."

"So nosy people like you can use
the info to stalk me?" She tipped her head, brow arched. "The light's
green."

He stared at her, not sure which urge
was stronger: to spank her or kiss her. He would
not
think of doing both at the same time. He returned his attention
to the road and focused on getting her home, wherever that was.

As if reading his mind, she said in
her bedroom voice, "You haven't asked me where Narnia is."

Gripping the steering wheel, he
glanced at her. "Narnia?"

"My flat." She looked at
him with those waif eyes that could make a man drop to his knees and promise
the world. "I named it Narnia, because when you step through the front
gate you enter a magical realm. It's the perfect artist's
atelier
."

"Atelier?" He arched his
brow. She said the word in a perfect French accent.

"Attic. Workshop.
Whatever." She waved a graceful hand.

"Sure, whatever."

"Go onto Masonic and turn right
on Page," she instructed. "I'm up a couple buildings on the next
street, Ashbury, just below Haight."

The upper Haight was a high rent
area, and Laurel Heights had some of the most expensive retail areas in San
Francisco. How did an artist afford one of those places, much less both?
"Do you have roommates?" he asked.

"No."

"Don't tell me people actually
buy those vegetables you paint."

She faced him. He didn't look at her,
but he could feel her glare across the seat in the dark. "They're gourds,
and my work is quite fine, I'll have you know."

"They look like hollowed-out,
deformed pumpkins." Actually, one time Olivia had dragged him into Outta
My Gourd and when no one was looking, he'd examined one of the gourds. The
painting on it had been exquisite. Not that he'd ever admit that.

"They aren't deformed pumpkins.
They're art," she declared proudly. "In fact, the de Young museum has
asked me to participate in a show they have coming up. 'Artisans of the
Americas: Past and Present.'"

Impressive. "That makes sense.
Pumpkins are an early American thing."

"They aren't pumpkins, but I
guess I shouldn't expect you to have an educated view on art."

"Why not?" He'd studied
criminology, but he'd taken an art history course one semester, mostly to meet
girls but he'd been surprised that he'd enjoyed it.

"Because you're so blue
collar."

Even he had to grin at that.
"Does that intrigue you? Is the princess attracted to working class
men?"

Gwen stiffened. "Don't call me
that."

Princess? He wanted to ask why not,
but then she turned on him. "Why did you offer me a ride? You obviously
don't like me, and Olivia wouldn't have known if you'd driven right on by. So
why are you doing this?"

Agitated, her voice almost sounded
like it had an accent. It was faint, but he'd bet his PI's license he wasn't
imagining it. It had a French lilt to it. "Because you were rollerblading
in the rain."

"So?"

"So it's crazy. Who does
that?"

"I do." She stiffened.
"I do whatever I please. I don't have to answer to anyone anymore, much
less you."

Who did she answer to before? A man?
And why did it bother him so much that there may have been a man that she'd
been beholden to? He shouldn't care one way or the other.

He cleared his throat. "It's not
safe. Rollerblading at night is bad enough, especially given the areas you're
going through, but in the rain with the way people drive in this city, you're
liable to get yourself killed."

"San Francisco is one of the
safest cities I've been to in the world. I'm not sure why you care
anyway."

Neither was he. He tried another
tactic to get information out of her. "What's the least safe city you've
lived in?"

She gave him a baleful look.

Those eyes were lethal. He shook his
head and kept his gaze forward. "You must have gotten everything you
wanted as a little kid."

"Not hardly."

"I would've bet Lance that you
were pampered as a kid."

"Lance?"

"My car."

She snorted. "Because you're
being nice to me and giving me a ride home, which I didn't ask for, by the way,
I won't make any comment about Lance. But don't cars usually have girl
names?"

"Feeling Lance's power, you
can't possibly doubt that he's all male." He patted the console.

"Men and their toys."

He saw a smile flirt with her lips
and got lost in a carnal daydream involving her lips and a certain part of his
anatomy. He cleared his throat. "You were telling me about your
childhood."

"No, I wasn't." Her smiled
faded. She crossed her arms and stared out the window.

Not a happy childhood, then. But in
what way? Was her family tough on her, or was she an orphan? He'd ask Olivia,
except she'd take it to mean that he was interested in Gwen and he didn't want
to open that can of worms.

So he tried another tact. "I bet
your parents hate that you rollerblade late at night."

Next to him, Gwen wilted, drawing
into herself, looking small and cold, like an orphan.

Christ—maybe she was. He felt a
wave of remorse and the urge to take her in his arms and offer comfort. Before
he could say anything, she pointed to the left, across the intersection, and
said, "Pull over there."

He did as she asked, putting the car
in park. Then he faced her.

She shook her head. "I don't
want to hear it. You gave me a ride, I'm going to thank you, and then I'm going
up and taking a bath."

The image was instant: her, soaking
in a large tub, her toes peeking, her body obscured by a million bubbles. An
unruly part of him grew a little too interested.

"So, thanks." She grimaced
a smile and opened the door.

He reached out and grabbed her
sleeve, startling both of them.

Gwen blinked at him with her amazing
eyes. "What?"

Before he could stop himself, he
leaned across the seat and kissed her. Her lips were soft. They were innocent.
And
hot
.

He stilled, looked at her with her
eyes wide like a caught deer, and knew he was a goner. With a groan, he tangled
his fingers in her hair and lifted her mouth to his.

She took him, less with finesse than
eagerness. She scorched him with her lips, the promising flick of her tongue,
her greedy hands teasing his skin and hair.

Something woke inside him, roaring to
life, urging him to take her. It was as unexpected and startling as it was
exciting.

She sat back, her lips glistening,
her eyes wide with the same shock he was feeling. She swallowed audibly, her
gaze on his mouth. Then without a word, she got out of the car, closed the
door, and rollerbladed to the next building.

Rick sat and watched her put in a
code for the gate. He waited until she was inside, until he couldn't see her
any longer.

He gripped the steering wheel to keep
from running after her. That was a bad idea. Gwendolyn Pierce was the last
woman on earth he should want. She was hiding things.

But the way she kissed...

He shook his head. He couldn't go
there. Yet.

He'd been a PI for too long. He lived
by his instincts, and they were screaming that something didn't add up.

Gwen didn't add up.

Who was she?

He sat in the car, blown away by her presence.
He made it a point not to check up on people that he knew. It was too easy to
get caught up in the distrust that went hand-in-hand with being an
investigator. Everyone hid something. Everyone had secrets.

Gwen set off his alarms though. Big
time.

He'd check up on her. A little. Chances
were he wouldn't find anything.

He didn't believe that in the
slightest.

Chaos was not Camille's friend.

Phones ringing, people shouting over
short gray cubicle walls, printers constantly spitting out pages... She was
surprised more reporters didn't go postal.

She huddled in her un-ergonomic work
chair and tried to focus on the article she was supposed to turn in that
afternoon. She stared at her ancient monitor and the Word document displayed on
it. She only had one paragraph—not a good one at that. She kept trying to
bring excitement to the beekeeping phenomena swarming San Francisco, but she
wasn't succeeding.

She wasn't sure she could be blamed.

"Bernard!"

Wincing at the strident yell, she
cautiously stuck her head up over the walls of her "office."

Her boss stood in the doorway of his
office—a true one, with real walls and a door. He waved a paper at her
impatiently. "Get your butt in here, Bernard."

Sighing, Camille stood up and tugged
her skirt straight. She grabbed a pad and pen for notes and went to see what
torture Mac Murray was going to inflict on her next.

Mac didn't look up from his keyboard
when she walked in. "Close the door," he barked, pecking out letters
with his index fingers.

How an editor could have such poor
typing skills, she didn't understand. Watching him was painful. She figured
that was the reason Mac looked like a caricature of a newspaperman. The
comb-over, disheveled stained button-down shirt, and paunch hanging over his
belt made him appear legit.

She sat in the chair across from his
desk and waited for her next assignment, wondering what it was going to be. An
exposé on school lunches? The plight of San Francisco's sea lions? The
astronomical number of souvenir sweatshirts sold to tourists every year because
they didn't expect the weather in the city to be so cold in August?

Camille shook her head. Those weren't
mundane enough. Mac had a gift for giving her the dullest topics known to
mankind.

"Bernard," Mac said,
pushing his keyboard aside, "I want you to write an article about feng
shui."

"Seriously?"

"No, I'm just kidding." He
rolled his eyes exaggeratedly. "Yes,
seriously
.
It's the sort of crap people care about in San Francisco. That and
recycling."

She told herself to feel lucky that
she wasn't asked to write about plastic bottles. "Is that it?"

"No." Mac shoved around
stacks of paper, obviously looking for something. "I also want you to
cover the new exhibit at the de Young. It's something about local artists' take
on relics of the Americas."

That sounded moderately interesting.
"Okay."

"They've asked some artists to
participate, but you'll have to find out who has and who hasn't. I have the
names of some of the potentially participating local artists." He held up
a page, triumphantly. "Here."

"A rug weaver? A
gourd artist
?" She hated this job.

"Yeah, whatever the hell that
is." He reached for his keyboard. "Interview them. The museum's
director, too. Get on it as soon as you turn in your feng shui article."

She took the notes and stared at
them. If she were her mother, the Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Elizabeth
Bernard, she'd throw the pages back in Mac's face and demand a decent
assignment. Something important, like teenage crack whores on San Francisco
streets, or corruption in the city government. Her mother wouldn't even
touch
a fluff piece on rugs and gourds.
Her mother would give her that steely look and tell her to grab her nuts and
demand what she wanted.

Elizabeth was often disappointed in
her.

Camille cleared her throat. "I
can do both of these, Mac, but maybe I could also do a bigger article, maybe
something about—"

"No." Mac leveled a stare
at her. "Look, Bernard, I know you're looking for a big break, but this is
the way to syndication. You pay your dues with these articles and you'll make
it to the big time."

"Like Leona James?" she
asked with more sarcasm than she usually let leak out. She couldn't help it.
Leona had told her she'd been fed the same line of crap that Mac was trying to
get her to swallow. Only now it was twenty years later, and Leona was still
covering stories about seagulls at the Giant's ballpark. It put Camille's five
years here at the paper in harsh perspective.

Mac frowned at her. "Are you
sassing me, Bernard? You know there are plenty of hungry kids out there who'd
love to have your job."

"No," she backtracked
quickly. "No sass. I'll get on this story right away."

"Good." He waved at her
dismissively and grabbed the phone. "Get the hell out of my office."

She stood stiffly and walked out. The
second she stepped into the open office space, her ears were assaulted by all
the ringers.

She hated the phones most of all. She
cringed each time a shrill ringer sounded as she wove through the rat's maze of
cubes.

In a perfect world, she'd have her
own office, gently lit with indirect sunlight and no noise except for Bach
whispering through computer speakers. One time, she'd gone through the office
after everyone had left for the night and turned all the ringers off. It'd been
a whole blessedly quiet day before anyone had realized.