She wasn’t entirely sure he was right. Nor was she sure if that was all he meant, or if he was asking her something. All she knew was that if he wanted her to initiate a kiss, it wasn’t going to happen. She wasn’t going to risk ruining their working relationship, the budding friendship sort of thing they had happening.

“Like dancing,” he added. “Once you decided to go out there, you went for it.”

That embarrassed her. Maybe because dancing, putting it out there, reminded her of the flaws in her mother, that lack of control she had frequently displayed. Sara backed up, broke away, both physically and emotionally. He wasn’t going to touch her, she could sense that. And she was too raw to make a move, wasn’t sure it was a good idea at all. “Yeah, and when you decide to sketch, you climb out of a window to do it.”

Gabriel didn’t answer, just watched her with eyes that spoke volumes, yet not in a way she could understand. “Is there somewhere I can get some coffee?” she asked. She needed to get away from him.

“Turn right on Royal and go down a block.”

It never seemed to jar him that she switched subjects clear out of the blue, and he never missed a beat. Maybe it was because he was as random as she was.

“Thanks. Want anything?”

He shook his head no. But he gave a soft laugh, a sort of scoff of disbelief.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

It was possibly the most irritating word in the English language.

So without bothering to pursue that any further, Sara dug into her purse for her sunglasses and headed for the door.

Chapter Nine

Chapter Nine

Gabriel wanted to find the child. If the coroner claimed Anne had given birth, then it was possible the child had been stillborn. Or died shortly thereafter. But if the child had died at birth, or some point after, there would be birth records. Assuming that Anne hadn’t given birth before the age of fifteen, Gabriel had ordered the birth records for children with the surname Donovan for all of New Orleans for the years 1841-1849. He didn’t think it was possible that Anne had given birth the year she had died, because he had known her most of that year, but it wouldn’t hurt to scan the results.

While Sara was off getting coffee, he sorted through the data, which had been e-mailed to him. Since he didn’t need to see the actual physical birth certificates until he found a viable name, he could just search and scroll through the list of names.