“You never spent time anywhere near the quarry?” He braced himself for the answer, even though they were talking about things that had happened long ago.
Things he couldn’t change.
“No.” She met his gaze, perhaps sensing the answer was important to him.
Thank God. He couldn’t imagine how easy of a target she would have made as a teen—out by herself, with little parental supervision and a damaged relationship with her mother.
Of course, Gabriella had been in the same situation.
“Did you have a laptop? Or a family computer you used?”
“No. My parents said we should be outside doing things, not indoors and plugged in. And given how much my home life sucked by then, I wouldn’t have wanted to be glued to a laptop.” She rose from where she’d knelt by the baby seat and returned to the couch.
Did that mean she felt like the most stressful part of the conversation was over? He hated to think in terms of catching her off guard when he liked Amy. A lot.
But this case was too important to overlook key pieces of evidence just because he was attracted to her—then and now.
“When was the last time you remember seeing Gabriella?”
Her expression shifted. Shuttered. She went back toflipping the hem of her dress over her knees, tugging and tucking it under her.
He hadn’t been imagining it. She knew something.
“I listed a couple of occasions when I thought I might have seen her. I can’t remember for sure.”
Vague information from the woman who liked data and details.
He debated how tough to play it. How much to push.
But before he knew what was happening, she was on the love seat next to him.
“What about the last time I saw you, Sam?” Her voice had a soft, intimate quality to it that changed the air in the room.
Her knee brushed his. Her cool fingers landed on his arm.
Everything in him stilled for a moment. Right before his heart rate jacked up.
“What about it?” He had thought about that night a lot—especially lately. But he hadn’t planned to make it part of this conversation.
“I can remember a lot of details about that.” Her soft words weren’t flirtatious. She wasn’t a flirt.
So if she was bringing it up now, it meant...
She was totally serious about what she was saying.
His pulse moved into overdrive and stayed there.
“I don’t think a ten-year-old discussion of us going all the way affects the outcome of this case.” Because that had been the topic of their last conversation. He remembered that day just fine, and that was not the direction he wanted to take this visit.
So when his gaze slid down to the soft fullness of her mouth, he cursed himself for being ten kinds of idiot.
“I took a lot of grief from my mom about us having a physical relationship that we never actually had.”
“That seems like a technicality. Witness the skinny-dipping day.” Things had been physical, to say the least. Teenagers excelled at pushing those boundaries. They’d both known where the relationship had been headed.
“Still.” She tipped her head sideways against the love seat, contemplating him from just inches away. “It always struck me as damned unfair that I bore the punishment without any of the fun.”
He closed his eyes to try to dilute the appeal of this woman who’d gotten under his skin from the first time they’d met. Like she’d been born knowing how to turn him inside out when other women called him unapproachable. Intimidating.
