To Catch a Thief Read Free

bleachers, where a lone man sat, legs stretched out in front of him, elbows propped on the bench behind. He looked aloof and out of place. He also happened to be handsome as sin, but in the last few days Gina had sworn off the type. If she never met another sexy charmer, it would suit her just fine. In fact, at the moment, Bobby’s disappearing act had made her view every male with healthy suspicion.
    “Who, pray tell, is he?” Lauren asked. “He’s definitely not one of us. Nobody we went to school with could improve that much in twenty years, much less ten.”
    Gina forced herself to give the stranger a closer inspection. True, he was gorgeous, in a citified, sophisticated way. Even in jeans and a chambray shirt—which looked brand-new from this distance—there was no mistaking the man for a cowboy. He was too polished, his chestnut hair a little too carefully trimmed, his complexion a little too pale, his cheekbones a little too aristocratic. He all but shouted that he was some Yankee blueblood.
    “Well?” Lauren prodded. “Do you know him?”
    Gina was certain she’d never seen him before, but that didn’t seem to stop her heart from doing a little lurch or her stomach from taking a dip. It was possible he was someone’s husband, sitting on the sidelines because he felt uncomfortable among all the strangers. She didn’t think so, though. She had the uneasy sense that his penetrating gaze was locked directly on her. Not on Lauren, who tended to captivate any male in a room, but on her, Gina Petrillo, with the untamable hair, too-wide hips anda ten-year-old sundress she’d snagged from the back of the closet in her old bedroom.
    Lauren, ever confident from years in the limelight, didn’t seem to notice that the man’s attention was elsewhere. She grinned at Gina. “Only one way to find out.”
    Gina wanted to tell her not to go over there, to steer as far away from the man as she could, but she knew the warning would only draw a hoot of laughter. There wasn’t a person born who could intimidate Lauren once her curiosity was aroused. That confidence was something new. In high school Lauren had been as shy as she’d been brainy. The adoration of millions of fans had given her self-esteem a much-needed boost.
    Gina deliberately turned her back on the scene and went in search of a desperately longed-for beer. She had just tipped up the can for a long, slow swallow when she heard Lauren say, “Oh, here you are. Gina, sweetie, this incredibly gorgeous man is looking for you. Aren’t you lucky?”
    Gina’s stomach plummeted as she slowly turned to face them. With every fiber of her being she knew she wasn’t the least bit lucky. Never had been, and certainly not lately. No, this man was not looking for her because he’d been dying to get her recipe for fettuccine.
    “Gina Petrillo, Rafe O’Donnell,” Lauren said, relinquishing him to Gina with a broad wink and then abandoning the two of them as if she’d just accomplished the matchmaking success of the century.
    Gina recognized the name with a sense of inevitability. She forced herself to look straight into the man’s unreadable topaz eyes. There was little point in pretending that she didn’t recognize the name. Nor did she have to work very hard to figure out what he was doing here. She was not going to let him rattle her, though. She would remaincool, calm and collected if it killed her. She refused to let him think for a second that she was harboring any sense of guilt.
    “A long way from home, aren’t you, Mr. O’Donnell?”
    “As are you, Ms. Petrillo.”
    “No, this is my home,” she said firmly.
    “And New York?”
    “Where I work.”
    “Not any longer, if I have anything to say about it.”
    She gave him a wry look. “Then I guess the battle lines are drawn. It’s a good thing you’re not either judge or jury. I might be quaking in my boots.”
    “You should be, anyway. I’m very good at what I do.”
    “And what is it that you