Getting Gabriel by Cathy Quinn Read Free Book Online

dividing the objects on the counter into things they were buying and things they were leaving. It was touch and go which pile was bigger. "This stun gun is our lightest model. Very popular with the ladies."
    "No guns!"
    Gabriel weighted the object in his hand. "Excellent. We’ll take it."
    "Gabriel!" She tugged at his jacket, then slapped his upper arm, almost jumping up and down in frustration. "Didn’t you hear me? I said, no guns!"
    He glanced at her for a whole millisecond. "It’s not a gun, it’s a stun gun. Big difference. It might save your life, and if it makes you feel better, it’s a lot less brutal than a key to the eye."
    There was no reasoning with him. She just stood there, shaking her head and muttering key phrases about overbearing and arrogant males as the two of them stole her purse away from her and filled it with the junk. He was possessed.
    And she was intrigued. Very intrigued. Strange as it sounded, there was something very sexy about Gabriel bossing her around like this.
    As they walked out of the store, her purse quite a bit heavier, she stared at him, vaguely amused, somewhat annoyed, but mostly astonished. "Boy, will you make your teenage daughter’s dating debuts a living hell. So, I’m safe to go dating now?"
    "No. But if I can’t stop you from dating nameless, faceless, potentially homicidal Internet weirdoes, at least I can provide you with the weapons to fight them off with."
    Alice climbed into his car and started rummaging through her purse. What a load of junk. "Gosh, Gabriel, you need to get over your Internet phobia."
    "I’m signing you up for self-defense lessons," he informed her curtly as he started the car.
    She laughed. "Whatever for? You already taught me to perform delicate eye surgery with my house keys. And I’ve got enough weaponry here to invade a small country."
    "This is a good course. You’ll learn simple, basic moves that might save your life. You’ll feel a lot safer after you go through this. It’s only three evenings a week for one month."
    "Three evenings a week?" Alice sputtered. "Every other evening? I do have a life, thank you very much. How am I supposed to have time for all my dates?"
    He grinned, flipped his sunglasses open and put them on as he pulled out of the parking space and onto the street. "Guess you’ll have to scale your plans down a bit."
    She crossed her arms on her chest. "I’m not going."
    The ride home was silent. Gabriel didn’t speak again, until he had pulled into his driveway and stopped the car, but then he answered her statement from twenty minutes before. "Yes, you are."
    "No, I’m not. You promised to help me and not squeal on me to Michael if I got all the self-defense junk. Well, my purse is crammed. I’ve fulfilled my end of the bargain. I’m a walking five foot, half inch, featherweight armory. You can’t make me take some silly course on how to kick men in the groin."
    Not waiting for him to answer, Alice jumped out of the car and the humid heat of July wrapped around her. She sighed and wiped her forehead, already pearled with moisture. That mankind had survived and evolved for millennia without air conditioning was beyond belief.
    She got out her keys and opened the door on her own car, placing her purse in the seat. The inside of the car was blazing hot, and she didn’t look forward to getting inside. Gabriel was standing on the other side, one elbow braced on the roof of her car as he traced patterns in the dust with the other hand.
    "I know, I know," she muttered. "I’ll wash it this week. Not that you’re one to talk, I can hardly tell what color that pick-up is under all that dirt." She eyed the hose, lying near the garage, wondering just what he’d been doing with it. Clearly not washing his car, and from the state of the barely alive yellowed grass in the front yard, he hadn’t been watering anything.
    "What’s that hose doing there?" she asked. "Were you going to wash the pickup?"
    "No. I stick the hose