"A person would think you'd get tired of hearing the same old things about my father, and not believing them." "It's not a question of believing," he said quietly. "It's a question of finding out the truth." He smoothed his fingers over the rich red tablecloth, then brought them to the side of his teacup in an absent-minded caress. "Obviously, this wasn't the place to find it." "Obviously." A small sense of giddiness burbled up inside her. One meal and too much conversation later, the Pinkerton man still wasn't any closer to tracking down her father than he'd been walking in—even after all his piles of questions. She couldn't help but feel a little vindicated. Her father was innocent, blast it! Somehow, she'd prove it, too. But to do so, she had to gain some measure of Gabriel's trust—something she wasn't likely to do without first softening the cynical bend of his thoughts. So far, doing that had proved more difficult than she'd envisioned. Gabriel had remained unmoved by her friend Hop Kee's jovial presence and lively conversation.
