Lois gave a sensual wince. “Don’t I wish. That dark hair with those blue eyes…that body…” She shuddered. “He’d be an incredible lover.”
Erin’s amusement evaporated, and she became annoyed with the conversation, although she couldn’t say why exactly. “Just because he’s good-looking—”
“It’s more than that,” Lois declared. “When you get to be my age, you have a certain instinct for men. It’s like a radar. You know almost immediately the ones who’ll remember your birthday, the ones who’ll be nice to your mother. The ones who’ll be good in bed,” she added with a sly smile.
“And you think Detective Gallagher would be nice to your mother?” Erin couldn’t help asking.
“Honey chile, my dear ole mother would drool all over him,” Lois drawled, mimicking Erin’s Southern accent.
“Would he remember your birthday?”
Lois gave that a moment’s consideration. “No,” she said finally. “He’s not the type of man who would remember a woman’s birthday. But he’d sure as hell know how to make it up to her.”
ERIN STEPPED OUT onto the portico of the dean’s house a few minutes later, breathing a sigh of relief that she’d finally made good her escape. Then she paused as her gaze lit on a man lurking on the sidewalk across the street. He stood beneath the limbs of a giant elm, his face filtered from the streetlight, and for a moment, Erin’s heart started to race. Had he followed her here? Had he been standing there all evening, waiting for her to come out? If so, why?
An image of the skeletal remains of Case 00-03, locked tight in her lab, flashed through Erin’s head, and panic bloomed inside her. Just as she turned to go back inside the house, the man stepped into the street, leaving the shadows behind, and Erin recognized him. She felt relief and anxiety all at once, and her heart continued to pound as she watched Detective Gallagher cross the street and head up the flower-lined walkway.
He’d be an incredible lover.
Erin cursed herself for lingering as long as she had over that conversation with Lois, because now she couldn’t get the woman’s observations concerning Detective Gallagher out of her head.
Honestly, Erin told herself irritably. Whether the man was Don Juan himself had no bearing on her dealings with him.
And I can tell you without a doubt, he’s no virgin.
Brilliant, Erin thought dryly. It didn’t exactly take a Nobel prize winner in genetic engineering to reach that conclusion. Anyone who had gazed into those baby blues would have deduced that much in two seconds flat, even a forensic anthropologist whose sexual exploits—and it was being extremely imaginative to use that term—were few and far between.
When he drew near her, his steps faltered for one split second before he approached her. “Dr. Casey?”
“Yes.”
“I almost didn’t recognize you.” His gaze swept over her, taking in her loose, flowing hair and the clingy fabric of her tunic and pants. The look on his face made Erin grow almost breathless.
“H-how did you know I’d be here?” she said, wincing inwardly at the stammer.
“Your secretary told me.”
Gloria again. Not only did the woman talk too much, she wasn’t above selling out her boss in order to gain the favor of an attractive man.
Well, who could blame her? a little voice jeered as Erin’s gaze slipped over Detective Gallagher in the dim light. He’d shed the sport coat and slacks he’d worn earlier in favor of jeans and a cotton T-shirt which melded very nicely to his muscular torso. Erin was beginning to appreciate a little more than just his bone structure, she realized. Perhaps she hadn’t given enough credit in the past to toned muscles and tanned skin.
And now you sound just like Lois, that same little voice taunted her.
Well, hell, Erin thought, wrapping her shawl more tightly around her shoulders.
“Are you ready to go?” His gaze flicked over her again, as if he still wasn’t quite convinced she was the woman he’d been expecting.
Erin knew she should be flattered, but for some reason she wasn’t. Had her appearance been that lacking earlier?
And so what if it had? Why should she care what Detective Gallagher, or anyone else, thought of her looks? Erin had never been a vain person. There had always been so many more interesting pursuits with which to occupy her time. She didn’t even like to shop. She’d ordered the outfit she had on tonight via the Internet, not having concerned herself for more than a minute with the fit, color, or fabric.
Judging by Detective Gallagher’s reaction, the selection was a success, and Erin felt herself growing even more agitated the longer he stared at her.
She pushed back her hair. “I’ll need to go home and change first. Then I’ll have to go by the lab and pick up my equipment.”
“Fine. I’ll drive you.”
Erin started to tell him she had her own car, but then she remembered that she’d walked the few blocks from her garage apartment to the dean’s house, not wanting to be bothered with parking on the narrow street. It had still been daylight then, but now that it was dark and growing cool, she didn’t relish walking home alone. She shrugged. “Thanks. I’d appreciate the ride.”
They started down the marble steps together, and he took her elbow. An old-fashioned, courtly gesture that Erin suspected had been drummed into him by his mother. But for some reason, his touch seemed intimate and knowing, as if he were all too aware of Erin’s reaction to him.
I’ve been in the lab too long, she thought almost in panic, if my insides turn to jelly by the mere touch of an attractive man.
But Ed Dawson’s touch hadn’t affected her that way, Erin reminded herself. Quite the contrary, the feel of his hand on hers had been almost repugnant, and his age had nothing to do with it. She’d always been attracted to older men, and Dawson had the same timeless appeal as Sean Connery. Yet Erin’s instincts had been wary of him from the first and she didn’t know why.
She wondered what Nick Gallagher thought of his mother dating the superintendent of the police department. Did that pave the way for him and his brothers to rise in the ranks?
Erin had an instinct for Nick Gallagher, too, and she didn’t think he was the type of person who would ride another’s coattails. He was restless, driven, almost dogmatic, she suspected, when battling for a cause he believed in. And God help anyone who got in his way.
She shivered as his grasp on her tightened almost imperceptibly when they reached the end of the walkway and he guided her toward his car. “This way.”
He dropped his hand from her elbow, and Erin experienced that same sense of relief and anxiety she’d felt earlier. What was it about him that kept her so off center? She hadn’t felt this way, at least not so quickly, even when she’d fallen madly in love with one of her professors her first year of college. The affair had been disastrous, naturally, because he’d been older and wiser and, she’d discovered too late, married.
A wave of shame washed over her at the memory, but Erin tried to shove it to the farthest recesses of her mind. No use crying over spilt milk, her mother had always told her.
Detective Gallagher opened the door of his car, and Erin slid inside, admiring the smell and feel of the leather seats. The sports car was an import, not one of the more expensive ones, but low-slung and fast just the same. He climbed in on the other side and started the powerful engine, glancing in the rearview mirror before pulling away from the curb.
The interior of the car was dark and close, the glow from the dash casting only the faintest of light on his features. He barely glanced at her, but seemed deeply preoccupied by his own thoughts. Was he thinking about the remains they would excavate in the morning?