The Man from Gossamer Ridge

She eyed the brightly colored sofa warily, feeling a little guilty at the idea of his spending the night hunched up there, trying to make his long limbs fit. “It’s not very big.”

“It’ll do.” He dropped his hand away from her shoulder and sat on the sofa, hunching forward to rub his face. His palms swished audibly against the rough patch of beard growth shadowing his jaw. “I’m keeping you up. You probably have classes in the morning or something.”

“I have a lab at eleven,” she answered softly, surprised by how much willpower it was taking not to snuggle up next to him on the sofa. Where had this sudden susceptibility to big biceps and sexy blue eyes come from?

She was a career woman. Dating was a sporadic thing for her, worked in around classes and studies. She’d tried dating entirely outside the criminology pool, which ended in disaster. Then she’d tried dating a cop—not quite a disaster, but no happy ending there, either. She couldn’t give the time or attention required to nurture a long-term relationship.

Recently, she’d stopped trying.

“Why criminology?” Gabe’s voice rumbled into the middle of her musings. She found him looking up at her, curiosity tinting his blue eyes with hints of smoky gray.

“Why not?” she countered lightly, not sure she really wanted to get into the whole sordid Solano family saga at this time of night.

“My brother Aaron became a deputy after he was arrested for toilet-papering a neighbor’s house,” Gabe answered, leaning back and threading his fingers together behind his head. “Well, not immediately after. In between, he blew out his knee, ending a promising college and maybe pro football career. That might have had something to do with it, too.”

“Probably.” She dropped to the ottoman, trying not to stare too obviously at the lovely things his taut chest muscles were doing to the front of his gray polo shirt. What had they been talking about? Oh, right—criminology and why she’d chosen it as a career. She squelched the urge to fan her hot cheeks.

“My brother-in-law, Riley, became a cop because he didn’t want to be a rancher, so when his best friend became a cop, Riley figured, why not?” Gabe’s eyes narrowed slightly, watching her through the space between his ridiculously long, dark lashes. “Which brings me back to you. How did a nice girl from San Francisco end up in Millbridge, Alabama, investigating murders in the first place?”

She smiled down at him. “It’s a long story, and we both need a little sleep. So how about this? I go get you a pillow and a blanket, and in the morning, over that omelet I promised, I’ll tell you the story of Alicia Solano, girl detective. Sound like a plan?”

The sleepy-eyed look he gave her almost made her knees buckle. For a second, any thought beyond dragging him back to her bedroom with her fled her mind. But she managed to get a grip on her hormones before she did something stupid and headed out of the room in search of bedding.

In the hall closet she found a spare pillow and a thin cotton blanket which should offer just enough cover in this warm climate. She pulled them out and held them tightly against the front of her robe, taking a couple of bracing breaths before she returned to the living room.

Okay, add “sexy Southern men” to the list of “things that make Alicia lose her head and behave like a blithering idiot,” she thought. Not that any of the other men around here had ever had quite such a potent effect on her equilibrium before.

He wasn’t even her type. He had to be in his mid-thirties, putting him nearly a decade older than she was. She’d never been one to find older men particularly attractive.

Yeah, but those older men didn’t look like Gabe Cooper, chica.

She took no small amount of pride in the steadiness of her gait as she took the bedding back into the living room. Gabe was in the kitchen, refilling his glass of water. He’d stripped off the polo shirt he’d been wearing earlier, revealing a plain white T-shirt beneath.

Alicia held back a whimper when he came around the kitchen counter into the living room, revealing just how tightly the soft cotton hugged his muscular arms and shoulders. She dropped the bedding on the sofa and retreated to the kitchen for her own glass of water.

She gulped it down greedily, keeping her back to the living room. She ventured a quick glance over her shoulder. “Do you need another pillow or a heavier blanket?”

“No, this will be fine.” Gabe’s muscles flexed as he unfolded the blanket and laid it over the back of the sofa.

By the time Alicia returned to the living room, he was sitting on the sofa with one boot off, busily untying the string of the other boot. “When I was a kid, we used to go camping in the woods up on Gossamer Ridge—it’s the mountain behind our house. I have five brothers and a sister, and the whole crew would go—even Hannah, who was the baby.” He grinned up at her, clearly caught up in the memory, and Alicia sank to the ottoman before her legs gave out on her.

“Big family, huh?” Her voice sounded faint and raspy, but if Gabe noticed, he gave no sign.

“Yeah, and getting bigger all the time. Aaron’s getting married next month, and Luke and Abby just found out she’s expecting. There’ll be Coopers running all over Gossamer Ridge for generations to come. I reckon most of them will go camping during the summers, too.” He waved at the sofa beneath him. “Won’t have a bed quite this comfortable, though.”

“You’re just saying that to make me feel like less of a hostess failure.”

He grinned at her, and her legs went gelid. “Did you ever go camping? There are some great places near San Francisco for hiking and camping.”

She laughed aloud at the thought. “My parents were about as far from the camping type as you get. We spent our spare time at museums, libraries and rallies.”

“Well, that can be fun, too,” he murmured, kicking off his other shoe. She couldn’t tell whether he was sincere or just humoring her.

“Sure, but a little camping might have been fun once in a while,” she grumbled. “Just for variety.”

“Tell you what. Next time you and Cissy have a break at school, get her to take you up to Gossamer Ridge and I’ll see how many Coopers we can gather together for a camping trip.” He stripped off his socks and folded them on top of the polo shirt sitting on the coffee table. “Maybe we’ll even take you on the haunted hike.”

She could tell by his tone of voice that he was enticing her into asking the obvious question. But as much as she wanted to know exactly what a haunted hike was, she resisted. Despite her later class schedule, she still wanted to get up early and do some more work on her thesis. And Gabe looked as if he’d just run a marathon uphill. They both needed sleep.

“I might take you up on that if I ever finish my thesis.” She stood, flattening her robe where it had bunched from sitting. “But for now, I have plans to work in the morning before my classes, and you can certainly use a little sleep—”

“Wait.” Gabe’s hand snaked out to circle her wrist. Almost instantly, her whole arm went tingly and hot. “You said you think I should try hypnotic regression, to remember more about what happened the night of Brenda’s murder. I think it’s worth a shot. Do you know anyone here who could do it? Maybe set me up with someone—”

“Actually, I’m a licensed hypnotherapist,” she answered, forcing her voice past the growing lump in her throat. “I could do it.”

“You?” His eyes narrowing, he released her arm. She tucked her wrist against her belly, resisting the urge to rub the burning skin where he’d touched her.

“After I got my masters in psychology, I did the course work necessary to earn my license. I thought it might be a handy skill if I continued with my criminology work.”

He gazed up at her, bemused. “Just how old are you, anyway?”

She lifted her chin. “Twenty-five.”