It Must Be Love

Chapter Twelve

Joe took one look at the littletowel offered him and tossed it on the sofa. He preferred the loose-fit freedom of boxers. He liked lots of ball room to give the boys a chance to breathe, and there was no way he was going to run the risk of his goods hoisting that towel into a tepee.

He shifted his weight to one foot and rested his hands on his hips. Hell, he shouldn't even be standing in the middle of Gabrielle's living room. He should be on his way home, to a good night's sleep. He had a briefing at eight the next morning to discuss the stolen antiques he'd seen in Kevin's guest room. He needed to be rested and to have a clear head when he prepared the affidavit he would use to obtain a search warrant. The wording had to be clear and concise and as tight as a virgin's coochie. If not, he'd run the risk of having anything seized during a search thrown out later at trial. There were other things he needed to do to-night, too. He needed to do some laundry, and he needed to call Ann Cameron and tell her he couldn't meet her for coffee tomorrow. He'd stopped by her deli that morning before work, and she'd made him breakfast. She was a real nice lady, and he needed to call and break their date.

Instead, he stood in Gabrielle's house watching her pour oil into a shallow bowl and light candles on the mantelpiece and on different glass tables like she was preparing for a sacrifice. Instead of leaving, he tilted his head to one side and watched her ugly, shapeless dress ride up the backs of her smooth thighs, stopping just short of fantasy land.

She turned down the lights, then flipped the switch next to the fireplace, and orange flame shot from the gas vents and licked at the fake logs. He watched her tie back her long, curly hair with a piece of ribbon, and he debated whether he should tell her that the ivory chess set in Kevin's bedroom, the one with all those little pawns with their wicked little woodies, had been stolen from a house in River Run last month.

Ever since he'd watched her go over that balcony, he'd thought about telling her the truth. He'd thought about it on the drive to his house, while he'd talked to Walker on the telephone, and after he'd hung up. He'd thought about it as he'd stood on her porch with her key in his hand, and as he'd looked into her trusting green eyes. He'd thought about it even as he'd agreed to a massage that he knew was a bad idea.

The captain didn't want Gabrielle informed of anything, but Joe thought she deserved to know the truth about Kevin and about the shelves crammed with many of the antiques recorded as stolen in police central file.

Until about an hour ago, Joe would have been in complete agreement with Walker. But that had been before she'd stood guard outside the guest room door while he'd searched. Before he'd looked into her eyes and asked for her trust. Before she'd gone over that railing for him. Until an hour ago, he hadn't been sure of her innocence, nor had he really cared. It hadn't been his job to care. It still wasn't his job.

"I'll go get my massage table and you can get comfortable."

"I want to sit in a chair. One of those dining room chairs will be good." A hard, uncomfortable chair that wouldn't let him relax enough to forget she was his informant, not a woman he wanted to know a whole lot better.

"Are you sure?"

"Oh yeah." But when he'd seen her climb over that railing, clearly terrified, something had shifted within him and changed how he looked at her, what he felt deep down in his core. Watching her dangle above his head, those little white panties filling his view, his heart had lodged somewhere in his throat. As he'd looked up at her hanging above him, he'd known he would have a real hard time catching her if she fell, just as he'd known there was no way in hell he'd let her fall. And in that moment she'd become more than his informant with a killer body, she'd become someone he wanted to keep safe. Someone he wanted to protect.

He'd felt something else, too. As he'd held her in his arms and kissed her neck, he'd felt a sharp tightness in his chest even after the danger had passed. Maybe it had been residual fear or latent stress. Yeah maybe, but whatever it was, he didn't plan to examine it too closely. Instead he chose to focus his attention on Gabrielle's progress as she dragged a wooden chair from the dining room and set it in front of the fireplace.

Even though he believed she deserved to know about Kevin, he couldn't tell her, because she was so extremely readable. Everything she felt showed in her eyes. She couldn't lie without looking like she expected a bolt of lightning to zap her. He couldn't tell her, and he shouldn't stay.

He took a step backward and debated the wisdom of letting Gabrielle rub her hands on him. The debate didn't last long. She tilted her head to the side and looked at Rim. "Take off your shirt, Joe," she said, and her voice flowed through him like that oil she was warming on a little burner. He guessed he didn't have to leave just yet. He was thirty-five and in control.

It was a massage. Not sex. After he'd been shot, he'd had the knots kneaded from his muscles on a regular basis as part of his therapy. Of course, his therapist had been in her fifties and looked nothing like Gabrielle Breedlove.

Yeah, he could stay. As long as he remembered that Gabrielle was his informant, that screwing around with her would screw up his job. And that just wasn't going to happen. No way in hell.

"Aren't you going to take off your clothes?"

"I'm leaving my pants on."

She shook her head. "I wish you wouldn't. The oil will ruin your pants."

"I'll take my chances."

"I won't peek." The tone of her voice and the frown on her lips told him she thought he was absurd. Then she raised her right hand as if swearing an oath. "I promise."

"Towel's too small."

"Oh." She left and returned a moment later with a big beach towel. She tossed it on the arm of the sofa beside him. "How's this?"

"Great."

Gabrielle paid fascinated attention to Joe's hands as he drew the bottom of his silk polo from his gabardine trousers. Like a maddeningly slow striptease, he pulled the ribbed material just enough to give her a flash of flat stomach and a vertical line of dark hair before he released the shirt and it fell to his waist. She released a breath she hadn't known she was holding and lifted her gaze to his face. She stared into his brown eyes watching her watch him. He raised a hand to grab a fistful of shirt between his shoulders. Then he pulled it over his head and tossed it on the sofa next to the bath towel he'd refused to wear. His hands moved to his belt buckle, and she quickly glanced away.

She turned her attention to the almond oil she'd poured into a shallow lotus bowl and left warming on a vaporizer. Her mouth felt impossibly dry and watery all at the same time. She turned her gaze so he wouldn't catch her staring, but not before she'd seen the fine curls covering the defined muscles of his chest, spreading down his sternum and flat stomach and disappearing beneath the waistband of his trousers. His nipples were a darker brown than in her painting of him, the hair on his chest softer and not as thick.

She added three drops of benzoin and eucalyptus to the almond oil, then placed the bowl and defuser on a small table next to the fireplace. Joe spun the dining room chair to face the fire, straddled the seat, and sat backward. He folded his arms across the top rung and presented her with his smooth back. His tight skin stretched across hard muscle and the indent of his spine that ran between his shoulders to the small of his back. A nicotine patch was stuck to his waist and half hidden by the thick white towel hung low on his hips.

"Don't you think it's going to get too hot sitting so close to the ike?" he asked.

"If your skin isn't warm, your pores will be closed to the healing benefits of the benzoin and eucalyptus." She stood beside him and placed one palm across his forehead and the other at the nape of his neck. "Drop your head a little bit," she said and gently squeezed his knotted neck muscles. "Bring awareness to the tension in your head. Now take a deep cleansing breath and hold it until I tell you," she instructed as she rubbed the pad of her thumb up the top vertebras of his spine and into the fine hair at the base of his skull. She counted to five and slid her thumb back down. "Release your breath, and with it, the tension you feel in your head. Let it go."

"Ahh… Gabrielle?"

"Yes, Joe."

"I don't have tension in my head."

The relaxing essence of lavender and geranium filled her living room as she moved to stand behind him. Her hands slid to his temples, and she massaged away the tension he didn't think he had. "Joe, you're so tense you're brittle." She slowly combed her fingers up the sides of his head; his silky hair curled around her knuckles as she entwined them on top of his skull. She applied pressure with her palms and rubbed. "How does that feel?"

He groaned.

"That's what I thought." She spent a bit more time than usual on his skull and neck, but his hair felt so soft between her fingers that she couldn't help herself. A warm little tingle traveled up her arms and tightened her breasts, and she forced herself to move on, to relinquish the pleasure of touching his hair.

She poured a small measure of the massage oil from the lotus bowl into her palms. "Take a deep cleansing breath and hold it." She placed her hands on the back of each shoulder and rolled and squeezed his muscles. His trapezius and deltoids were tight and knotted, and she moved her hands to the outside edge of his shoulders and down his arms to his elbows. "Feel the tension in the base of your skull. Let it go as you exhale," she instructed even though she had a real good feeling he wasn't using his breathing to relax. She kneaded her way back up. "Visualize the bad stress flowing away from you and replace it with white prana, or clean universal energy."

"Gabrielle, you're scaring me."

"Shhh." She didn't believe anything scared him, especially her. She dipped her fingers into the oil, then slid her palms down, then up his back, preparing and warming his muscles for a deeper massage. She molded her hands to the contours of his flesh, feeling and learning the definition and shape of him. "Is this where it hurts?" she asked as her hands moved to his right shoulder.

"A bit lower."

She kneaded and squeezed and rubbed a drop of black pepper oil onto his aching muscles. The heat from the fire warmed his skin, while the light of the flames chased shadows across his flesh and gleamed in his dark hair. A pleasurable flutter settled in her stomach, and her mind and spirit fought to keep her touch impersonal. She might not be a licensed masseuse, but she knew the distinct difference between a healing massage and a sensual massage.

"Gabrielle?"

"Yes."

"I'm sorry about what happened in the park last week."

"For tackling me?"

"No, I'm not sorry about that. I enjoyed it too much."

"Then what are you sorry about?"

"That you were frightened."

"And that's the only thing you're sorry about?"

"Well, yeah."

She gently sank her fingertips into his flesh. She had a feeling he didn't apologize for anything very often, and she accepted it as his best effort.

"I've got to admit, I've never been mistaken for a stalker before."

"You probably have, just no one has told you the truth before me." She smiled and continued to stroke across his shoulder and down his arms. "You have a very menacing aura sometimes. You should work on it."

"I'll be sure to do that."

She slid her hands back up and pressed her thumbs in the bony ridge at the base of his skull. "I'm sorry I hurt your leg."

One of her thumbs brushed his jaw as he glanced over his shoulder at her. His dark eyes looked up at her, firelight casting his face within a golden glow. "When?"

"That day in the park when I got you on the ground. Afterward, you limped to the car."

"That's an old injury. You didn't do that."

"Oh."

"You sound disappointed."

"No." Her fingers fanned outward, and her hands moved to the sides of his rib cage. "Not disappointed exactly. You were so horrible to me, I just liked to think I made you suffer a little bit that day too."

He smiled before he returned his gaze to the fire. "Oh, you did. Every time I walk into the station, I get a raft of shit about you and your hair spray. I'm likely to hear about you for years."

"Once this case is over, everyone will forget about me." Beneath his hard muscles, his ribs tapered to his flat abdomen. "You'll probably forget, too."

"Now, that's never going to happen," he spoke from deep within his chest. "I'll never forget you, Gabrielle Breedlove."

His words pleased her more than she wanted to admit. They settled beneath her breast, next to her heart, and wanned her like the glow of a tea candle. She smoothed her hands down Joe's sides to his waist, up to his armpits, then back down. "Now bring your awareness to your shoulders. Take a deep breath, and hold it." She felt him suck his stomach in, and his muscles turned hard. "You aren't holding a deep breath, are you?"

"No."

"You have to use your breathing if you want to relax completely."

"Impossible."

"Why?"

"Just take my word for it."

"Would a glass of wine help?"

"I don't drink wine." He paused before he spoke again. "There's only one thing that would help."

"What is it?"

"A cold shower."

"That doesn't sound relaxing."

He laughed again, but he didn't sound amused. "Well, there is one other thing I've been sitting here thinking about."

"What?" she asked although she knew.

His words were low and husky when he said, "Never mind. It involves both of us naked, and that can't happen."

Of course she knew it couldn't. They were complete opposites. He upset her universal balance. She wanted a man of enlightenment. He was as enlightened as a caveman. He thought she was crazy, and maybe she was. Less than a week ago, she'd thought he was a stalker; now he sat in her living room while she oiled his body as if he were a Chippendale dancer. Maybe she was crazy. Still she asked, "Why?"

"You're my informant."

Which wasn't a good reason as far as she was concerned. The informant's agreement she'd signed was a piece of paper. A piece of paper that couldn't dictate desire. Now, the fact that they were two totally different people, with totally different beliefs, should have been a very good reason for them to avoid the huge mistake of falling in bed together.

But as she watched the glow of firelight flicker across his smooth back, their differences didn't seem to matter all that much. The movement of her hands turned fluid and soothing and sensual. Joe upset her balance so much that she forgot all about keeping her touch impersonal. She clipped her fingers into the warmed oil, and her touch grew feather light as she caressed his spine. "Bring your awareness into your solar plexus and abdomen. Take a deep breath, then let it go."

She closed her eyes and let her hands slide over the supple contours of his lower back. Then she lightly ran the tips of her fingers up his spine. He shivered even as his muscles bunched beneath his tight, hot skin, and she fanned her thumbs across his smooth flesh. Suddenly, she had an overwhelming urge to moan or sigh or lean forward and sink her teeth into him. "Bring your awareness into your groin."

"Too late." He stood and turned to face her. "It's already there."

She looked up into his heavy-lidded eyes and the curve of his mouth. A bead of sweat slid down his cheek and jaw, down the side of his neck, and settled in the hollow of his tan throat. She lifted her hands and placed them on his flat abdomen. Her thumbs stroked the line of dark hair circling his navel.

Her gaze lowered to his waist and the unmistakable swell of his erection. Her fingers curled against his belly, and her throat felt dry. She licked her lips, and her gaze drifted lower to the scar on his thigh just visible through the split in the beach towel.

"Sit down, Joe," she ordered and pushed until his behind hit the seat. The towel rode up his right thigh, revealing the bottom edge of a pair of black boxers. "Is this where you were shot?" she asked as she knelt between his knees.

"Yes."

She dipped her thumbs into the oil, then circled them over the scar. "Does it still hurt?"

"No. At least not like it used to," he said, his voice rough.

The thought of such violence broke her heart, and she gazed up into his face. "Who did this to you?"

Looking down at her through lowered lids, he waited so long to answer that she didn't think he would. "An informant named Robby Martin. You probably heard about it It was in all the newspapers about a year ago."

The name sounded familiar, and it took her a moment to remember. Then a picture of a young blond kid flashed across her memory. The story had been news for a long time. The name of the undercover detective who'd fired the fatal shot had never been mentioned, and she'd forgotten anyone but Robby had been shot. "That was you?"

Again he waited before he answered, "Yes."

Slowly, she slid her thumbs up and down his thick scar and added a little pressure. She remembered it so well, because just like everyone else in the city, she'd talked about it with friends, and she'd wondered if Boise didn't have a few trigger-happy cops running around shooting young men for nothing more than smoking a little pot. "I'm sorry."

"Why? Why would you be sorry?"

"I'm sorry you were forced to do something like that."

"I was doing my job," he said, a hard edge punctuating his words.

"I know." She gently sank her fingertips into his thigh muscles. "I'm sorry you were hurt."

"You don't believe I'm trigger happy?"

She shook her head. "I don't believe you're reckless, or that you'd take someone's life unless you weren't given a choice."

"Maybe I'm as cold-blooded as the papers said. How do you know?"

She answered what she knew to be true in her heart. "Because I know your soul, Joe Shanahan."

Joe looked into her clear green eyes, and he almost believed she could see inside him and know something he didn't know with absolute certainty.

She licked her lips, and he watched the tip of her tongue slide to the corner of her mouth. Then she did something that stopped his heart and sent pure lust slamming into his groin. She bent her head and kissed his thigh.

"I know you're a good man."

His breath caught in his throat, and he wondered if she'd still think he was a "good man" if he asked her to move her mouth a little north and kiss his other, bigger, owie. He stared down at the top of her head, but just as he worked up a real good fantasy involving her face in his lap, she looked up and ruined it. She gazed at him as if she really could look inside his soul. As if she saw a better man than he knew he was.

Joe jumped to his feet and turned his back on her. "You don't know shit," he said as he moved to the fireplace and grasped the mantel.

"Maybe I liked kicking down doors and using my body as a battering ram."

"Oh, I don't doubt that." She came to stand beside him, then she added, "You're a physical guy. What I doubt is that you had a choice."

He glanced across his shoulder at her, then turned to gaze at the little candles burning on the mantel. "I had a choice all right, I didn't have to chase a drug dealer down a dark alley. But I'm a cop, that's what I do. I chase the bad guys, and once I'm committed to something, I see it through. And believe me, I was committed to bringing Robby in." He wanted to shock her. Shut her up. Wipe that look from her eyes. "I was royally pissed off at him. He was my informant, and he'd double-crossed me, and I wanted to get my hands on him." He glanced at her again, but she didn't look shocked. She was supposed to be a pacifist. She was supposed to hate men like him. She wasn't supposed to look at him as if she felt sorry for him, for God's sake.

"I saw the burst of fire from Robby's gun," he continued, "and I emptied my clip into his chest before I even knew I'd drawn my weapon. I didn't need to see him to know I'd hit him. Once you hear something like that, you know what it is. And you never forget. Later, I found out that I'd killed him before he'd even hit the ground. And I don't know how I'm supposed to feel about that. Sometimes I feel like shit, and others I'm just damn glad I was the better shot.

"It's a hell of a thing to know you've taken away all a man is and all he'll ever be." He pushed away from the mantel. "Maybe I was out of control."

"I doubt you've ever been that out of control."

She was wrong. Somehow, she'd gotten him to tell her more about the shooting than he'd told anyone else. All she'd had to do was look up at him through those big eyes like she really believed in him, and he'd babbled like an idiot. Well, he was through talking. For the past half hour, he'd sat on that uncomfortable chair, wondering how her breasts would fit in his palms. He had a raging erection urging him to grab one of those soft hands she'd rubbed all over him and shove it down his boxers so she could stroke something more interesting than his elbow.

He reached for her and covered her mouth with his. He recognized the taste of her full, sweet lips, as if they were lovers. As if he'd known her forever. He slanted his head to one side, and her mouth opened to him, hot and slick and welcoming. He felt her shudder as his tongue touched hers. Her arms twined around his neck, and she clung to him. The front of her bibbed dress brushed his bare chest, while her hips arched toward him, pressing into his rock-hard erection. Joe grasped her waist, and instead of playing it smart and shoving her away, he ground his pelvis up against her. The pleasure was exquisite and painful. Throbbing agony and ecstasy, and he wanted more from her than a kiss.

His hands moved to the clasp of her overall straps, and he easily unhooked them. The bib fell to her waist, and he made quick work of the buttons closing her white shirt. He pushed apart both sides of her blouse and finally, finally, filled his hands with full breasts covered in lace. Her lips trembled and she gasped as his thumbs brushed back and forth across her hard, pointed nipples. Then he pulled back and looked into her face. Her lids fluttered open and she whispered his name, the sound filled with the same craving that twisted a painful knot in his belly. Hunger shone in her eyes, and knowing she wanted him the way he wanted her made his blood burn in his veins. She was beautiful inside and out. She was passion and longing and fire in his hands, and he wanted to play with fire for just a bit longer.

Joe took a deep breath and let it out slowly as his gaze traveled from the auburn hair framing her beautiful face with wild curls, past her lips, moist and swollen from his kiss, and down her throat to his hands filled with her plump breasts. "Now it's your turn," he said and looked back up into her face.

Her eyes stared into his as he pushed her blouse from her shoulders. The white material slid from her arms and fell to the ground. She stood before him, her bibbed jumper buttoned at her hips, and the scalloped edges of her bra cupping her breasts. In the very center, her nipples pushed against the white lace, very hard and pink. He turned slightly at the waist and dipped his fingers into the warm oil. Then he touched the base of her throat and slowly slid his fingertips down her sternum and between the firm swells of her cleavage. Her incredibly soft skin brushed the back of his knuckles as he twisted the center clasp of her bra. It sprang open, and her breasts popped out of the cups. So beautiful and perfect that his throat closed. Joe lifted his hands to her shoulders and slid the lace straps down her arms until the bra fell beside her blouse. Then he reached for the lotus bowl and raised it between them. Slowly, he tilted it until the small amount of remaining oil poured over her white flesh, running down the plump sides and in between her breasts, down her stomach to her navel. Without taking his gaze from her, he emptied the bowl and tossed it on the wooden chair. One clear drop glistened from her nipple, and he touched it with his finger.

He opened his mouth to tell her she had great breasts, but all that came out was a tangle of swear words as he spread the bead of oil across the tip and circled her puckered flesh.

Gabrielle swayed and placed one of her hands on the back of his neck. She pressed her moist lips to his and gently sucked his tongue into her mouth. Joe smeared oil all over soft breasts and smooth belly. He wanted her. He'd never wanted anything like he wanted to give into the aching lust pounding his groin. His palms moved to the sides of her throat, and he pulled back to look at her, at her breasts gleaming in the firelight, the peaks shiny and moist as if he'd kissed her there. He'd never wanted anything like he wanted to shove his boxers down around his ankles and shove Gabrielle up against a wall or down on the couch or on the floor or wherever. He wanted to kneel between her soft thighs, and with the sweet smell of candles and of her filling his head, bury himself deep inside her and stay there for a while. Wanted to pull her nipple into his mouth while he slid in and out of her hot, slick body. She wanted it as much as he did. So, why the hell not give them both what they wanted?

But he couldn't make love to her. Even if she wasn't his informant, he wasn't one of those guys who carried contraception in his wallet, and he almost laughed with relief. "I don't have a condom with me."

"I've been taking birth control for eight years," she said and moved one of his hands back to her slick-breast. "And I trust you."

He wished like hell she hadn't confessed that and given him the green light. The ache in his groin throbbed, and before his brain completely descended to his shorts he forced himself to remember who she was and what she was to him. He buried his face in her hair and dropped his hand to his side. He wanted her like he'd never wanted any other woman in his life, and he had to do something fast.

"Gabrielle, honey, can you channel Elvis?" he asked, gasping for breath and grasping at straws.

"Hmm?" Her voice was rough, as if she'd just woken up. "What?"

"Can you channel Elvis Presley?"

"No," she whispered and leaned into him. Her breasts brushed his chest, and the hard tips grazed his own flat nipples.

"Jesus," he wheezed, "can't you try?"

"Right now?"

"Yeah."

She leaned back to look at him through her heavy-lidded eyes. "I'm not psychic."

"So, you can't communicate with the dead?"

"No."

"Damn."

She slid her hand to his shoulder and cleared her throat. "But I have a cousin who communicates with whales."

The corners of his mouth twitched. A cousin who communicated with whales was only a slight distraction, but he would take anything that diverted his attention from Gabrielle's firm breasts. "Really?"

"Well, she thinks she does, anyway."

"Tell me something about whales?" Joe reached behind her and flipped her suspenders back over her shoulders.

"What?"

"Well, what do they think about?" He fastened her suspenders to the bib of her dress and covered temptation as best he could.

"I don't know. Krill or squid maybe?"

Despite his still throbbing groin, Joe walked to the sofa, dropped the towel, and shoved his legs into his pants.

"You're leaving?"

He looked over at her, at the confusion wrinkling her brow, and at the swells of her breasts spilling out the sides of her dress. "I have an early day tomorrow," he said and reached for his shirt. He shoved his arms in the sleeves and pulled it over his head.

Even as Gabrielle watched Joe pull the ends of his polo down his chest, she couldn't believe he was leaving. Not when she could still feel and taste his mouth on her tongue.

"I painted the storage room in your shop today," he said as if she weren't standing there without her shirt. As if her body wasn't humming from his touch. "If this investigation drags into next week, we'll have to think of something else for me to do. Kevin said something about a countertop, but I don't have experience with that sort of carpentry."

She moved behind the dining room chair she'd placed in front of the fire and wrapped her hands around the top wrung. Her knees shook, and she couldn't believe they were talking about his carpentry experience. For the first time since he'd stripped her to the waist, she felt exposed and raised her hands to her breasts. "Okay," she said.

Joe pulled out his keys and headed to the front door. "So, I probably won't talk to you again until Monday. You have my pager number, don't you?"

"Yes." He wouldn't try to call her or see her tomorrow. Maybe it was for the best. A few hours ago she wasn't sure she even liked him, yet now the thought of not seeing him made her feel hollow inside. She watched him walk from her house as if he couldn't get out fast enough, and as soon as the door closed behind him, Gabrielle slid into the chair.

The candles on the mantel flickered, but their scent did nothing to soothe her. Gabrielle's spirits pulled her north and south, yet all her desires seemed to be focused in the same direction-in Joe's direction. It made absolutely no sense. There was no balance in her life when he was around. No peaceful center, but standing so dose, feeling the warmth of his naked skin had felt so right. So complete. So whole. He'd confided in her, and she felt as if they'd connected on a more spiritual plane.

They'd known each other for such a short time, and yet she'd let him pour oil on her breasts and touch her as if they were lovers. He made her heart pound and her senses come alive until every part of her body, mind, and spirit focused on him. She responded to him like no man she'd ever known, yet she didn't know him. Her heart pounded as if she recognized him, and there could only be one explanation. She feared what it meant.

Yin and yang.

Darkness and light. Positive and negative. Two complete opposites coming together to make a perfectly balanced whole.

She feared it meant she was falling in love with Detective Joe Shanahan.