Got Your Number

exotic places that you need a special watch—"
    "It's for work." She gave him a wry smile. "See? You don't know me." She looked away and toyed with the straw, twirling it in the thick malt. Honorable? Yeah, right.
    He didn't intrude on her silence, but she could feel his gaze on her, leaving her itchy and raw. Goose bumps skittered over her shoulders and arms, and she suddenly remembered how cold they always kept the ice-cream parlor. A shiver took hold of her, and her teeth chattered. Her chest tightened and her throat ached. Either she was coming down with a case of the flu, or a case of the guilts.
    He shrugged out of his coat and settled it around her shoulders. She stiffened before conceding that the silky fabric felt good against her skin. When she was young and her parents happy, they would come in from parties, her mother wearing her father's sport coat over her pretty dress. It had seemed so intimate to her, and so grown-up.
    Roxann sunk her teeth into her bottom lip—Capistrano was certainly playing the knight-in-shining-armor bit to the hilt. Still, he'd chased away her chill.
    Conjuring up a smile, she turned toward him. "Thank you. I'm sorry. I was rude."
    He shrugged enormous shoulders. "You're entitled not to trust me."
    She signaled the waitress for a glass of water. "Don't take it personally—I don't trust anyone."
    He dipped back into his ice-cream bowl. "Your dad told me about your mother—I'm sorry."
    She bristled. "What did he tell you?"
    He studied her. "That she died in a car accident."
    "Oh." She looked down at the counter. "She did."
    "How old were you?"
    "Eleven."
    "That's tough. Are you an only child?"
    "Yes. You?"
    "Nope. Six besides me, three brothers, three sisters."
    Large families fascinated her. "Are you close?"
    He pursed his lips and nodded. "Yeah, even though we're spread all over. It's nice."
    "And rare."
    "Your job has made you cynical."
    "Yours hasn't?"
    "Maybe," he admitted, then turned his spoon over and licked it clean. "But I'm always on the lookout for a reason to be optimistic."
    "How's your partner?"
    His expression turned rueful. "Same. But thanks for asking."
    A family of six bustled in and ordered cones all around, the smallest ones barely able to see into the display case of forty-two flavors. A smile pulled at her mouth as she remembered the joy of handing a cone of blue or pink ice cream to a toddler. Ice cream could cajole anyone out of a bad mood—except her, it seemed.
    "So, Detective, what does your family think about your being on the road like this?"
    He scratched his head. "My parents haven't kept tabs on me for a while now." Then he smiled, which caught her off guard. "Oh, wait, you're asking if I'm married."
    "Just making conversation."
    "No, never been. You?"
    "No."
    "Not all men are as bad as the thugs you've dealt with in the Rescue program."
    She pursed her mouth.
    "That subject is off-limits, too, I suppose. Okay. So what do you plan to do once you get back to Biloxi? For a living, I mean."
    "Why do you want to know?"
    He spooned up a last hefty mound of pistachio ice cream. "I feel bad about getting you fired, thought I might help you find a job. Something in law enforcement, or maybe in the courthouse."
    Courthouse? "You've been talking to my father."
    "Did he want you to go to law school?"
    She nodded.
    "Why didn't you?"
    She shrugged. "It seemed like an indirect route to contributing to society."
    "You don't strike me as someone who would have chased ambulances." He cocked his head. "Maybe a...prosecuting attorney."
    She stopped mid-sip. One item on her life list that she'd written under the influence of cheap marijuana. She managed a laugh. "I don't think so. Thanks for the offer to help, Detective, but I'm not going back to Biloxi."
    "Oh." He mulled the news, then pushed the ice-cream bowl away. "Where are you moving?"
    She shrugged.
    "Here? With that Dr. Carl guy that you're so ga-ga over?"
    Roxann lifted an eyebrow. "Ga-ga. Now there's a word I would have bet wasn't in your vocabulary."
    Suddenly his face turned serious. "The guy's a player, Roxann."
    "What?"
    "Your professor—he's a dirty old man who likes to nail young women."
    Roxann went still. "That's a filthy thing to say. You don't even know him."
    "I don't have to—there's one in every college in this country, from the Ivy Leagues down to the rinky-dinks."
    "One what?"
    "One horndog professor who makes it with all the busty girls in his classes."
    Disgusted, Roxann shook her