“No problem.” He gestured toward the door. “Lead the way.”
Just then, Detective Masters called out to him. “Guthrie, we’ve pinpointed the shooter’s perch. Empty office on the fifth floor. Forensics needs you.”
Of course they do.
“There’s your reprieve, Counselor,” he said reluctantly. “I’ll send an officer to see you safely home.”
“I’m not going home,” she said quickly. “I’m going to my parents’ restaurant, Sunsets.”
“The luau place?”
“Best guava cake in town. My parents keep an apartment upstairs, so I can crash there tonight if I need to. Lots of people around. I’ll be perfectly safe.”
Adam pursed his lips, considering. This was a good situation, under the circumstances. Anyone targeting her wouldn’t likely think to go after her in such a public place. Still, he’d send the uniform along just in case, and then he’d stop by later to return her belongings and make sure she was all right.
Maybe resume a little of the flirting.
“You’ll stay with her?” he asked Kalani.
She saluted. “Absolutely.”
“Good. I’ll see you later, then? For our slumber party?”
He turned and stalked off quickly after Masters, giving Faith no time to argue or gauge if he’d been kidding. Which he had been—sort of. He glanced over his shoulder and barely contained a chuckle. She stood there with her mouth open and her finger poised, as if she’d prepared an objection that he’d left her no time to make.
“F EELING REJUVENATED YET ?”
Swirling her fork, Faith scooped up every last sweet crumb left on her plate. With a flourish, she slid the fork into her mouth, relishing the exotic flavors gliding over her tongue. No one made guava cake like her foster mother. And no one could look both contented and concerned at the same time like Lu could, either.
“Doctors should prescribe this stuff instead of Prozac,” Faith said.
Lu wiggled her ample bottom into the rattan chair across from Faith. “I keep trying to convince the pharmaceutical companies, but they aren’t buying.”
“You could do takeout,” Faith suggested, for what was probably the thousandth time. The food at Sunsets was, thanks to Lu and her homegrown culinary skills, beyond compare. The restaurant was fiscally healthy, with a steady stream of regulars and bonus business from special celebrations such as birthdays, anniversaries and office parties. Faith appreciated that not once since the Apalos had taken her into their home had Faith had to worry about her family’s finances, the way she had with her mother. And since she’d gone out on her own, she could always come home for a hot, delicious meal and love-inspired pampering. When her career allowed, which wasn’t very often lately.
“If I did takeout, you’d never stay more than ten minutes. You’d go back to that little house of yours and work all night and never eat and, more importantly, never see your family.”
Faith winced, conceding that if left to her own devices, she’d be exactly the hermit Lu described. Even after more than twenty years of living with the Apalos, she still had to fight her instincts to remain indoors, buried beneath a blanket with a book, or now a case file. The neighborhood where she’d grown up in L.A. hadn’t exactly been conducive to outdoor play. Not unless you wanted to get shot, stabbed or mugged while you played hopscotch on the sidewalk.
“I guess I would’ve turned into a recluse if not for you guys.”
“A malnourished recluse,” Lu said, waving Paolo over. The waiter, bare-chested, tanned and wearing a colorful half sarong and lei, dashed over with a tray balanced on his hand. “Bring Faith another slice of cake,” Lu ordered.
“No, Lu, really. I have to go upstairs and—”
“What? Do more work? Do you have a court appearance tomorrow?”
Faith knew what was coming. “No, ma’am.”
“Briefs that need to be filed before the weekend?”
She shook her head. “I called Roma and cancelled all my appointments.”
Lu’s face broke into a wide smile. “That’s my girl.” Then with a scowl, she looked over her shoulder and caught Paolo just standing there, grinning, instead of fetching Faith more cake. He was a cutie, Faith thought. Might be good for taking her mind off what happened today, except that he was barely twenty-two and thought surfing was more religion than sport.
Not that Faith wasn’t inclined to agree, when the waves were just right. Good Lord, how long had it been since she’d hit the surf? She wasn’t even sure where she’d last stored her board. In the attic here at the restaurant? In storage at her office? She doubted that. She’d never bring the symbol of her secret indulgence anywhere near her law firm. Wouldn’t want to give clients the wrong idea.
Lu stood, her hands flat on the table as she leaned in and kissed Faith on the cheek. “You have another piece of cake, you hear? Or pork. Or fruit salad. I don’t care. Sample the whole buffet. I know you skipped breakfast, and you probably skipped lunch, too.”
Faith glanced away, caught. Paolo instantly disappeared, no doubt off to fetch the second helping of confectionery delight. Ah, well. Faith could go to the gym tomorrow. Maybe hit the pool. Or maybe she’d just lounge around for a day and enjoy three delicious square meals and a little more motherly spoiling.
Minutes later she was about to dig into her newly delivered second slice of cake, daydreaming of chucking all her responsibilities for twenty-four hours and enticing Kalani to run off with her to the beach, when a sultry male voice caressed her from behind.
“You look delicious.”
She put down her fork and glanced over her shoulder, not surprised to see Detective Guthrie standing there. He looked the way she’d felt two hours ago—exhausted and close to collapse—and he was carrying an accordion file as if it weighed a ton rather than a few pounds. He needed a strong dose of the treatment she’d received from Lu.
Upon her arrival at the restaurant, her foster mother had promptly thrown her into a hot, papaya-scented bath and ordered her to soak for no less than thirty minutes. Lu had remained in the bathroom long enough to give Faith’s hair a good washing, just like she used to when Faith was so much younger and having a particularly rough day. Lu had crooned old Hawaiian tunes for ten minutes, before leaving Faith alone to wash off the ugliness of her day. Now, wrapped in one of the spare sarongs the waitresses wore, and sporting two tiny lavender orchids tucked behind her ear into her naturally wavy, air-dried hair, she could smile with genuine warmth and sincerity.
“If it isn’t my Galahad,” she crooned, offering him a chair.
“Let’s not be melodramatic.”
“I’ll cease and desist on the melodrama if you take a rain check on the flirting.”
Not that she didn’t enjoy his attention. But during that bath, she’d convinced herself that messing with a man like Adam Guthrie, even if all in good fun, could hurt her credibility in the courtroom. Before today, she’d inspired a modicum of trepidation and fear in the officers of the court with whom she tangled. She wasn’t too proud to admit she enjoyed her cutthroat reputation. Then again, since Adam had saved her life, she was pretty sure his grandiose assumptions about her, if he’d had any in the first place, were not quite so larger-than-life anymore.
“No can do,” he said. “Comes too easy.”
She couldn’t argue, so sipped her coffee instead. A lawyer who couldn’t argue? What was the world coming to? Still, as a lawyer, she wasn’t one to ignore facts.
Adam Guthrie was a major heartthrob. And she hadn’t had an honest-to-goodness heartthrob in her