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the door and slipped my shoes off.
    â€œI heard that you witnessed another murder.” There was sincere concern in his voice. The emotion warmed my heart. I couldn’t remember the last time a guy sounded like that when he spoke to me.
    â€œI didn’t witness it, exactly.”
    â€œWhat does that mean?” Gage asked.” ‘Exactly’? Are you hurt?”
    â€œNo, no, I’m fine . . . really.”
    â€œI’m in your parking lot. Hang on. I think this is a story I need to hear in person.”
    â€œI’m not dressed for our date,” I warned him as I glanced in the mirror above the entry shelf.
    â€œYou’re always beautiful to me, Pepper.”
    I couldn’t help the smile that lifted the features of my reflection. The sound of the front door buzzer jerked me from my warm and fuzzy thoughts. I pressed the button to let Gage into the building. Then I quickly fluffed my wild-child red hair and bit my bottom lip to bring some color to it. There wasn’t any time to fix my face. We might have known each other for ages, but Gage and I had only just started dating.
    He knocked at the door and on instinct I peeked through the peephole. Gage was a handsome man. He wore his dark brown hair short and well styled without being fussy. His nose was straight and his jawline chiseled. Gage was one of the few men I knew who didn’t have that thirty-something softness in his face. Maybe because he worked out regularly. Something I couldn’t seem to find the time to do.
    I opened the door. “Hey.”
    â€œHi.” His dark blue gaze lit up at the sight of me. It was enough to give a girl a shiver.
    â€œCome on in,” I stepped aside and he wiped his shoes on the rough mat outside my door and entered. His hands were in the front pockets of the leather jacket he wore. It wasn’t a biker’s jacket like my ex-boyfriend Bobby lovedto wear. Gage worked a nice Italian leather jacket cut to show off a man’s shoulders.
    â€œWow, you’ve really done the place up.”
    I colored at the praise. “I know, right? After I got rid of Bobby’s stuff, I realized I didn’t have much of my own. I started picking up whatever appealed to me.”
    â€œWell, you have good taste.” The blue of his eyes darkened and my brain fell out. I stood there like an idiot, staring, until he winked.
    â€œI don’t know what’s wrong with my manners.” I stepped over to the coat closet and opened the door. “Let me take your coat. It’s going to be a while before I’m ready to go out.” I held out my hand and he shucked the leather coat in one quick movement of his wide shoulders.
    Gage was six foot two and toned. He never had any trouble finding a date. Women had a tendency to trip over each other to get to him. It made his attraction to me seem all the more incongruous.
    Tonight he wore a barely pink long-sleeved dress shirt, without a tie. It was open at the collar, exposing the strength of his tan neck. I happened to know that he never went near a tanning salon. So how he managed to stay tan in Chicago was beyond me. I could only speculate that he did enough outdoor work that he didn’t need to go the artificial route.
    The shirt was tucked into dark dress slacks, highlighting his narrow waist.
    â€œOkay, so, you look nice and I’m not even close to ready to go out,” I worried out loud as I hung up the coat.
    â€œNo problem. After I heard about the murder, I called and changed our reservations to nine.”
    I caught myself looking at him as if I’d never seen a man before. “You made reservations?”
    â€œYeah.” He shook his head slightly and smiled. “It’s what a guy does when he takes a beautiful woman out on a date.”
    â€œHuh,” was all I could say. Bobby never made reservations. In fact, our last Valentine’s Day date had ended up at the bar across the street