Got Your Number

boyfriend."
    She gasped.
    "That's why you came back, isn't it? To see this Dr. Carl guy?"
    "You don't know what you're talking about."
    "Well, it doesn't take a detective to see the way you two were making eyes at each other. But he's a little ripe on the vine, don't you think?"
    She poked her tongue into her cheek. "What's the important thing that you wanted to talk about?"
    "Pistachio."
    "What?"
    "Pistachio ice cream. It's a weakness of mine, and I was hoping I could persuade you to join me." He splayed his hands. "Unlike Dr. Grandpa, I'm free of charge."
    "You're certifiable."
    "And you're hungry because you didn't get to eat dinner."
    "No I'm not." But her brain conjured up a picture of a big bowl of green ice cream and sent a prompt to her traitorous stomach, which howled into the silence.
    His laugh rode on the light breeze. "Liar. Come on, you don't have anything else to do tonight."
    She hesitated. "I'm not going to talk about Melissa Cape."
    He held up his hands in an off-limits gesture.
    She relented and stalked to the truck, but only because she couldn't bear the thought of spending an evening with Boots, Chester, Pumpkin, Buttermilk, and Pansy. She resisted his help climbing up, closed her own door, sat as far away from him as possible, and stared straight ahead.
    "Brrrr." He shook with an animated shiver. "There is a definite draft coming off you."
    "Go," she said. "Before I change my mind."
    He went, and soon they were seated at the crowded bar of an ice-cream parlor that brought memories flooding back.
    "This place used to be called Duck's," she said, mostly to herself.
    He handed her the chocolate malt she'd requested. He looked fair to middling in a black sport coat over dark jeans and a white dress shirt. "Used to come here a lot, did you?"
    "I worked here."
    He grinned. "No kidding."
    She surrendered a smile. "No kidding. Smock and apron and paper hat. The work was easy, and the tips were good."
    "Were you at Notre Dame on scholarship?"
    "No." She sipped her malt.
    "No offense, but how do you pay back school loans on the kind of money you make?"
    She glanced over. "That's absolutely none of your concern."
    "Hm. Well, is there anything we can talk about?"
    "Have you seen Frank Cape?"
    "No. I suspect he hightailed it back to Biloxi."
    The best news she'd heard all day. "I checked my voice messages. My neighbor said he'd seen a former boyfriend of mine lurking around—I suspect he's the one who broke in. If so, he's all bark."
    "You have a lot of former boyfriends."
    "Not so many."
    Capistrano pulled out a pad. "What's Romeo's name?"
    "Richard Funderburk."
    "Is he old, too?"
    She frowned. "Around thirty-five."
    He wrote it down. "Anything else I need to know?"
    She shook her head and sipped, noting the knuckles on his right hand still hadn't healed. "Who did you hit?"
    "Hm? Oh." He looked down at his hand and made a fist, then opened it again, stretching his fingers. "Some bum resisting arrest. I lose count." He made a rueful noise in his throat. "You and I, we've seen our share of bums, eh?"
    She nodded and sipped.
    He shifted on the tiny seat that had to be killing him. "Roxann, I don't agree with what you're doing, but I do admire your commitment to something you believe in."
    YOU FAKE. She couldn't look at him.
    "What I'm trying to say is that even if you haven't been honest with me about—"
    She shot him a warning look.
    "—about...you know, I still think you're an honorable person."
    She lifted her gaze and studied his brown eyes, made boyish by the spiky blond lashes, made wise by his line of work. Honorable? What would he think if she told him that she'd joined Rescue not out of any heartfelt commitment, but because a woman she respected asked her to? Because she needed a place to recuperate from Carl's rejection? And because after she'd recovered, it simply had been easier to stay and hide out? "Thank you, but like I said before, you don't know me."
    "I'm trying to."
    Roxann scoffed inwardly. He was trying all right—trying to work her. "You're wasting your time, Detective. You'll never find Melissa Cape through me."
    One dark eyebrow went up. "I thought that was off-limits conversation."
    "But it's why you brought me here, what you want to know."
    "No." His mouth tightened. "What I want to know is that you prefer chocolate malts over ice-cream cones—"
    "It was just a craving."
    "And that you have a great tattoo on your ankle—"
    "It's temporary."
    "And that you travel to so many