LITMIR.BIZ

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He thought he was smooth.

      “Gabrielle?” Omar prompted when she didn’t speak.

      “I...” Gabrielle began, but her voice trailed off. How could she answer that? She hadn’t even discussed her plans with anyone from the network. She hadn’t been at the fire scene in any official capacity. “I... It was just something I was compelled to do,” she finally answered. She certainly wasn’t going to get into the real reason. He didn’t need to know about her parents’ restaurant.

      Omar nodded. “In the future, I think you should leave the detective work to the professionals. You could get yourself hurt doing what you did.”

      “I assure you, I’ll be fine.” She paused. And when she met his gaze, she had to look away. He had this way of looking at her, as though he were seeing deep into her soul.

      “Mr. Ewing—”

      “Omar.”

      “Omar,” she said. “I do have to get going.”

      “You didn’t answer me about dinner,” he said.

      She opened her car door. She got the sense that if she didn’t get behind the wheel, he would keep talking to her. “One minute you thought I was the arsonist. Now you’re asking me out on a date?”

      “I wasn’t asking you on a date,” Omar said. “But, hey. We can always kill two birds with one stone,” he added, smiling with humor.

      He was unbelievable. Gabrielle knew his type. Men who thought that because they were sexy, they could have any woman they wanted. Add to that the fact that many women lost their heads over men in uniform, and she could only imagine that his ego was even more inflated.

      “If you’re really serious about discussing the arsonist,” she began as she got into the car, “call my assistant.”

      She heard his soft chuckle. “Wow, you’re tough. I can see why you were out on the street going after the arsonist.”

      “Good day, Mr. Ewing.”

      As she closed her car door, she heard him say, “Omar. Call me Omar.”

      She backed her car out of her parking space, and started to drive away. Just when she was about to turn onto the main street, she looked in the rearview mirror.

      She saw Omar standing there, his arms on his hips and looking like a GQ model, watching her drive away.

      She quickly turned right and slipped into traffic.

      * * *

      What the heck had just happened? Was it possible that Omar was losing his touch?

      As he watched Gabrielle’s Mercedes turn onto the street, he couldn’t have been more surprised. He had gone to see Gabrielle to apologize, and to make amends. And she had reacted as if...

      Well, she had reacted as if he had the plague.

      He’d been nice, respectful. And she had treated him with disdain that he couldn’t comprehend. Was there something written on his forehead that said he was a jerk?

      Despite her reaction to him, there was still something about her. Something about her that got his blood pumping.

      It was proving to be a challenge even to get a moment of her time.

      But Omar was nothing if not up for a challenge.

Chapter 4

      Gabrielle drove as if the devil were chasing behind her. Why on earth had Omar Ewing come to see her?

      Her stomach was tight. Her heart was pounding. And it was aggravating.

      Good Lord, Omar was sexy. While looking at him, a part of her came alive. She didn’t understand this intense and idiotic attraction to a man like him.

      “Forget him,” she told herself.

      She turned up the music as she continued driving to her parents’ place. They still lived in the childhood home she had grown up in. It was a house overlooking the water, close to the beach. Her parents—Joe and Gina Leonard—had both worked two jobs when she’d been young, building the American dream for their children. Her mother used to work in a daycare during the day, while her father did construction. At night and on weekends, they cleaned office buildings. Their hard work had paid off.

      Gabrielle had been ten when her parents had bought the house that ultimately became their home. It had been small, a split-level ranch house, with a huge backyard. The plan had always been to renovate the house and make it their own, something her father could do well because he worked in construction. The first order of business was to expand the house into the backyard. Her father had built his wife a dream kitchen. After that, the bedrooms had gotten bigger. An additional den had been added. Her parents had been able to renovate the house exactly to their liking. Because it had needed work and a lot of TLC, they had been able to purchase a house in a prime real estate location for an incredible price. But they had turned the house into something spectacular.

      Gabrielle still remembered the celebration when the house had been finished. Her parents had been so proud. She and her sister, Grace, had been elated. And finally, her parents had stopped working quite as hard, allowing them to all spend more time together as a family.

      Everything her parents had done had been for Gabrielle and Grace. She knew that. Joe and Gina had come from far more humble beginnings, and wanted their own children to have more.

      Her parents had successfully conquered two goals. Raising two children, and having a house you could call a home. Now they wanted to spend their later years building another dream.

      Just last year, her parents had decided to finally invest in something for themselves. For years, they had dreamed of opening a restaurant. Given that they had worked so hard to build a home for their children, her mother had not been able to follow her culinary passion when she’d been younger. Finally feeling financially secure, later in life, her parents took out some of the equity they had built up in their home to invest in opening a restaurant.

      Gina’s Steakhouse.

      Gabrielle smiled sadly as she remembered the day the doors had opened. Her mother had beamed with such pride. Her father had insisted that the restaurant be named after his wife. After all, she had given up going to culinary school to raise a family and work to make sure food stayed on the table. Her father had wanted to make sure that her mother finally fulfilled her lifelong dream. And seeing her name on the side of a building had brought her mother incredible joy.

      As Gabrielle drove, tears misted her eyes. She had been moved to tears by her mother’s emotion on the day of the grand opening. Gabrielle knew that her whole life her mother had worked extra hard to make sure that she and Grace would have everything they needed in life. Finally, she had had something for herself.

      But only six months after opening, the restaurant had gone up in flames.

      Torched by the arsonist.

      And two weeks after that, her father had his near fatal heart attack.

      Gabrielle pulled into the driveway of her parents’ home. She looked at the house where she had spent her happiest years. And wiped the tears from her eyes.

      As she made her way to the door, she looked at the wood exterior that her father had repainted just last year. A mix of blues and yellows gave the house a cheery feel. How ironic that inside, so much sadness existed.

      Gabrielle rang the doorbell. A minute later, it opened, and her mother smiled at her. “Hello, sweetheart.”

      “Hi, Mom,” Gabrielle said. She stepped into the house and put her arms around her mother. She held her tightly, noticing that her mother seemed to shake beneath her touch.

      “How’s Daddy?” Gabrielle asked.

      “He’s hanging in there, but he’s the same.”

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