Free Borrowed Bride by Patricia Coughlin Page B

and slant it to make it look like we’re talking about a small bookkeeping error instead of a professional wash-and-dry operation for hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. And barring that, I’m sure you’d love to persuade me that your dear old friend Adam is just some kind of innocent bystander to whatever is going on instead of being at the center of it, involved in fraud and racketeering and maybe murder right up to his lying eyeballs.”
    â€œYou have no proof of any of that.”
    â€œYet,” he snapped, leaning over the motor to glare at her.
    â€œYet?” she scoffed. “How do you expect to come up with any proof while you’re hanging around here baby-sitting me?”
    â€œI don’t have to. Half the state police crime and undercover units are working on it right this minute, and the proof will come. Count on it, Gaby. And when it does, it’s going down... and Adam Ressler is going with it.”
    Her head shook with bleak amazement. “You sound almost happy about it. I thought Adam was your friend.”
    â€œYeah, I thought so, too.”
    â€œDon’t you think that you at least owe him the benefit of the doubt?” she pressed. “That you should try talking to him?”
    â€œThe way Joel tried to? No, thanks.”
    Gaby went pale.
    Connor tossed aside the rag he’d been using to wipe grease from the motor. “Look, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”
    â€œWhy not, it’s what you believe, isn’t it?”
    He nodded slowly, his expression solemn. “Yeah. It’s what I believe.”
    The arms folded across her chest tightened, and it almost seemed to Connor that she shivered in spite of the heat that was sending a steady stream of sweat trickling down his back. He took a step forward, struck by a powerful and unsettling urge to reach out and offer comfort. He could almost feel what it would be like to take her in his arms, to feel the silkiness of her long hair brushing his bare skin and the delicate line of her backbone as he moved his hand consolingly along her back.
    He quickly reached for the screwdriver and bent over the engine once more. He was going to loosen that blasted screw if it took him all day. After a minute or so, he sensed her moving and cursed himself for feeling a stupid hope that she was coming closer instead of trying to get away from him. A quick glance up from what he was doing told him she wasn’t. That was all the time it took for Murphy’s Law to kick in. The screwdriver slipped off the screw, and the pressure he’d been exerting on it was enough to drive his hand forward toward the propeller. His fingers jammed between the metal blades and the casing, and one of the rusted blade edges ripped a four-inch gash across the back of his right hand.
    â€œAh—” He cut off the epithet as Gaby whirled back to him, her quizzical expression giving way to one of horror as she saw the blood spurting from the open wound. From his vantage point he could see that the blade had sliced all the way to the bone.
    â€œOh, my God, Connor, what happened?”
    â€œI got stupid,” he muttered. He squeezed his eyes shut to see if he could stop his head from spinning. His stomach was doing the same. When he opened them again, Gabrielle was standing directly in front of him looking frantic.
    â€œSit down,” she ordered.
    â€œI’m fine.”
    â€œSit.”
    He sat, nearly as grateful that sitting controlled the dizziness he was feeling as he was disgusted with himself for feeling it. Hell, he’d been shot, knifed and thrown from a bike doing sixty and never before gone all queasy like this. For an awful moment he thought he might actually pass out. Then the cool touch of Gaby’s hands on his face drew him back from the brink of that singular humiliation.
    â€œLet me see your hand,” she said.
    â€œRelax.” He smiled weakly, the only way he