Not the Marrying Kind (Destiny Bay Romances - Forever Yours) (4 page)

Pretty, she thought with sudden anxiety, but naive.

“What's the cure for peckishness?” she asked, as much to banish the thoughts of inadequacy from her mind as to find the answer.

“Sushi,” he answered with sublime aplomb.
 

“Sushi?” She stopped dead in the center of the sidewalk, heedless of the people pushing past.
 
Oh oh.
 
She couldn’t eat sushi.
 
She’d had a bad incident years before.
 
She’d been sick for days.
 
She could hardly even look at the stuff.
 
But she couldn’t admit that to him.
 
He would think she was a hick.
 
“Uh, I’m not really hungry.”

His eyebrows rippled.
 
“Nonsense.”

She shook her head slowly, her dark eyes wide. “No, really. Actually, now that I think about it, I really should get back to work. If you'll just ...” Her words trailed off as she winced, knowing she was being a coward.
 

The ghost of an impatient frown feathered between his brows. “Don't you like sushi?”

She swallowed. “Like” had nothing to do with it.
 
“I uh…”

He dismissed what she'd said with a wave of his hand and took her by the elbow again, walking with a long, sure stride that had her jogging beside him like an eager puppy. “No one is too busy for this kind of thing,” he informed her sunnily. “Sam recommended a sushi bar in the next block. Let’s give it a try.”

There was no more time for protest. Michael was leading her in through a doorway marked by a bright cotton banner, and before she had a chance to think of a new means of escape, she was seated at the long, blue-tiled counter, staring into the eyes of a man who looked for all the world like a Samurai warrior, sword and all.

“We'll need just a moment to discuss our order,” Michael told him, testing the air with anticipation. “What’ll it be, Shelley? Squid? Octopus? Abalone?”

“I told you I wasn't hungry.” Shelley was gripping the edge of the counter as though afraid she wouldn't be able to stay in her seat without help. She wasn't sure why the thought of this food terrified her so, but she knew she'd never make it through a meal of it without an embarrassing incident.

Suddenly she found Michael's hand covering hers. “Hey,” he said softly, a puzzled look in his eyes, “don't worry. I'm not going to force-feed you.” His fingers tightened. “We'll go somewhere else.”
 
He hesitated.
 
“The only thing is, we’ve got to lay low.
 
I really shouldn’t be seen with you right now.
 
Sam suggested this place.
 
It’s dimly lit and not all that public.
 
But if the food really doesn’t agree with you…”

She felt color flooding her cheeks.
Great,
she thought.
Just the thing for a freckled face. A nice rosy background to make the freckles stand out like ants on a picnic cloth.
She'd been acting silly and she knew it. Somehow she had to erase the image of skittish filly she knew was being implanted in Michael's mind. Forcing back her feelings of fear, she managed a tremulous smile.

“Don't be ridiculous,” she said as breezily as she could. “This is fine. I'll just have some tea and watch you”—she couldn't hold back a quick shudder—“eat.”

He hesitated, then grinned. “Good girl. But we won't make you watch the sushi preparation. Not this time.” He called over the sushi chef, ordered something incomprehensible, and asked him to deliver the order to a table on the other side of the room.

“A secluded booth,” he said softly to her as he led her to it. “You won't have to watch how sushi is made, and others won't be able to watch what we're up to.”

The strong attraction she felt for him had been obvious from the beginning, but she hadn’t expected him to practically come right out and reference it.
 
She threw him a startled look and purposefully slid only halfway across the red plastic seat, leaving no room for him on her side of the table. He sighed, but didn't make an issue of it as he sat down across from her.

A waitress quickly followed, serving them tea and bowing gracefully as she backed away.

“Now,” Michael said firmly, leaning forward to look deeply into her eyes, “tell me all about yourself. How does a psychologist come to be so afraid of unfamiliar foods?”

She stared back at him, thrown off-guard by his direct approach. It wasn't really true. On the whole she was as ready as anyone for new experiences. Wasn't she? Suddenly she realized just how long she'd been caught up in her work, totally immersed in it. Maybe it was time she took a little pause for reassessment. But this was hardly the time to think about that.

So instead of answering, she came through with a counterpunch. “First you explain to me how a shoplifter comes to be so buddy-buddy with the police,” she asked tartly.

His laugh was soft and low. “Criminals and cops have a symbiotic relationship. Just like those little birds that live on top of hippos in the wild. We couldn't do without each other.”

There was more to it than that. She'd sensed it before, and she could see it in his eyes now. She wanted to know.
 
She needed to know.

“You're not really a shoplifter, are you?” she guessed, narrowing her eyes as she studied him. “What were you really doing in that department store today?”

His smile faded a bit. “I hope the man I created that charade for isn't as perceptive as you are,” he answered. “If he is, all will have been in vain.”
 

“Ah-hah,” she pounced. “So it was for show. But why?”

He stretched back in his seat, a smile on his face. “Send a thief to catch a thief, they always say. There was a man—his identity is unimportant— working on that floor, who badly needed proof that I have sticky fingers. And so I was providing it for him.” He chuckled. “You wouldn't believe how many things I picked up right under people's noses, and no one said a thing. Until I found you.”

A light went off in her memory. “He was the one you were looking for when you made me wait before accusing you out loud.”

He grinned. “And you waited too. That surprised me. One look at your determined face and I thought the show was going to be all over before the audience arrived.”

The waitress appeared at their table with the food, giving Shelley a reprieve from having to explain how he'd fascinated her, how she'd been consumed with curiosity about him and his strange activities. She sat back in the seat, watching with wary apprehension as the waitress set a beautiful black lacquer tray in front of Michael. Strange things were sitting in little mounds on the tray, and she avoided looking directly at them. She felt almost as though she were sitting across from someone who was gleefully looking forward to consuming live ants on a stick, followed by a chaser of wriggling earthworms.

“For you,” the delicate waitress said, bowing as she set a small porcelain dish before Shelley. In the center, artfully surrounded by slivers of white vegetable and coils of orange ginger, lay a long, black cylinder, cut across into slices like a very small jelly roll.
 

“California roll,” she announced with aplomb.
 

Shelley recoiled, ready to insist that she wasn't hungry and was not about to touch anything in this restaurant, but when her eyes met the hopeful gaze of the waitress, she swallowed her words.
 

“I'm sure I’ll love it,” she replied weakly. “Thank you.”

Michael was grinning at her as the waitress departed. “Don't worry,” he said. “Not a piece of raw fish has even breathed near that roll. If you'll look carefully, you'll see nothing more threatening than nice pink, well-cooked shrimp and green avocado.”

She looked down and saw what he was talking about. “That may be,” she said suspiciously, “but what about the seaweed wrapped on the outside?”

A vague shadow passed over his face. “Just taste it and ...”

Shelley gave him a look of long-suffering patience. She poked at a slice of it with a single chopstick, feeling very silly for her irrational fear. A psychologist should be above these things, she told herself. A psychologist should have her life under control. She'd thought she did. But maybe that was because she'd been swimming along in her own stream, unchallenged by any unusual currents. Looking into Michael's eyes, she thought she could see hints of a whole ocean of wild water waiting just beyond.

“Come on,” he urged softly. “Be brave.”

She flashed him a searing glance. “Bravery has nothing to do with it,” she lied. “I'm just not very hungry.” But she knew she couldn't get away with that much longer. Clutching both chopsticks in her hand, she gingerly picked up a thick slice and, holding her breath, nibbled at a few kernels of rice.

“You were telling me about your crime,” she reminded him, hoping to take his mind off how she was coping with the food. Actually the rice wasn't half bad. She took another nibble, this time snagging a piece of plump shrimp and a dash of avocado. “Do you work for the police?”

He shrugged. “Not exactly. I'm with the district attorney's office. And since I've just moved into this territory after five years in the Bay Area, the local police, except for Sam, didn't know who I was at first.”

She realized she'd devoured the whole slice of California roll without a qualm. Her stomach hadn't made one protest. Even the delicate seaweed covering tasted good. Not sealike at all. She picked up a second slice and began work on it.

Michael handled the wooden eating utensils with the same deft grace that seemed to come naturally to everything he did, Shelley noticed. She found herself watching him, studying little things, like the way the corners of his mouth seemed to tug into a smile almost against his will, and the way he narrowed his eyes when enjoying a special taste—or looking at her.

It was true, she realized with a start. He was enjoying looking at her. She could see the telltale signs. Suddenly she found her own mouth curving into an unbidden smile as well. It had been so long since she'd noticed a man in this way—noticed him noticing her—she'd forgotten how nice it could feel.

“What are you, then?” she challenged him. “An undercover agent, or what?”

He glanced around the room with lazy chagrin. “Let’s not tell the world,” he reminded her softly as he put a cloth napkin to his lips and reached for his round teacup. “This is not a piece of information meant for public knowledge. In fact, Sam would probably have me fired just for telling you.”

Her gaze met his sparkling blue eyes, and she knew it was a game to him; a big, funny, exciting game. And he was confident of winning every time. She couldn't help but laugh back at him.

“But you know you can trust me,” she told him. “Right?”

He chuckled aloud. “No, now that you mention it, I don't know anything of the kind. But I thought you deserved to know the truth, after the award-winning performance you played for me today.”

The smile faded from her face. She remembered how frightened she'd been, how she'd had to steel herself to do what she thought was her duty. “That wasn't a performance,” she told him softly. “I thought you were for real. I wanted you stopped.”

“And you did the job beautifully. Sandra Bullock, eat your heart out.”

She gazed at him levelly, realizing how different their memories were of the event they'd shared. She remembered the fear, the anxiety. Meanwhile Michael remembered the thrill, the triumph of a plan well executed. They were very different, weren’t they?
 
He wasn’t for her.
 
But she knew that.
 
And it was a good thing she didn’t really expect anything from him.
 
His whole life screamed “Heartbreaker” in every way.

“I didn't know the district attorney did this kind of thing,” she commented. “I thought that was left to the FBI.”

He smiled. “We work in connection with them, just as we do with the local police. You see, there's a new emphasis on white-collar crime, especially in areas like this where there’s new money and people who like to speculate with it. We're working under a special federal law-enforcement grant. We're kind of a penthouse bunco squad.”

“White-collar crime?”

“Swindles. Real estate scams. Investment fraud. Setting up suckers where they have to throw in a lot of money to reach a tempting goal, but somewhere down the line the goal evaporates on them, and they never get their money back. In the past that sort of thing has been prosecuted on a hit-or-miss basis, changing attorneys with the changing seasons. What we're trying to do is set up a separate unit of investigators and attorneys who will stay with each case from undercover work right on through conviction and sentencing.”

His eyes were shining as he talked, and she could see he loved his job. He loved playing at being a crook.
 
How deep did it go?
 

No.
 
She didn’t belong here, belong with him, belong in his world.
 
It was just as well.
 
She felt a tinge of sadness.
 
This man was not for her.
 
In an hour, she would probably see the last of him.
 
And she ought to be glad of it—so why was there a stinging sensation in her eyes?

“So you were working on the undercover stage when we ran into each other,” she said, trying to get her mind off her thoughts.
 
“But why did the police go through with the charade of sticking you in counseling for six months?”
 

He shrugged, chasing a stray chip of ginger around the edge of his lacquer tray with his chopsticks. “It's all part of the attempt at verisimilitude. I'll show up for the first few appointments, but once this case is closed, I'll drop out.”

She cocked her head to the side, looking at him speculatively. “Maybe you ought to take this opportunity to get some real help,” she told him, not noticing how his brows drew together at her suggestion. “Jeff ... I mean, Doctor Kramer's very good at psychotherapy.”