Love Can Be Murder

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 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