To Protect & Serve (11 page)

His smile brought out the alarms in her spirit when he got in on the other side. He backed out, squealed the tires once, and they were off. The whole ride Lisa kept her gaze trained out the window, and her hands wrapped around the edge of her purse. When he turned on the stereo to slow, hold-me-tight music, she tapped her fingers over the purse trying to make time run just a little faster.

At the restaurant, Tucker let the attendant park the car. They were three steps up to the restaurant when Lisa noticed he had no notes in his hands. “I thought we were going to talk business.”

He looked at her and smiled in that infuriating way that said she really should stop thinking so much and just let him lead. “We’ll talk business later.”

Then what are we going to talk about now?
But she didn’t have time to ask that question as Tucker was already conversing with the maitre d’. Lisa clutched her purse tighter. Why was it that no matter what she said, guys just wouldn’t take a hint?

“Right this way,” the maitre d’ said, leading them up a short set of stairs to a table at the far end of the restaurant overlooking the shimmering blue water of the gulf beyond.

“Perfect,” Tucker said, and Lisa saw the bills pass from one hand to the other. Purposefully she sat down, grabbed the menu, and perused it. The only thought going through her head was that this one dinner might bankrupt her entire company. A moment more and Tucker joined her. “I’m surprised you didn’t have plans.”

“Plans?” she asked. “I was working if that’s what you mean.”

“No, I mean plans—you know with friends or something.”

“I had enough fun last week to last me awhile,” she said sourly. “The shrimp looks good.”

He wasn’t even looking at his menu. Instead he looked like he was trying out for some modeling job for Oscar de la Renta. That suit just screamed,
Do you know how much money I have?
It annoyed her to the nth degree.

“I’m sure glad Grandpa decided to go with your little firm. I just knew this was going to work out so well. In fact, I’ve been trying to talk the old man into letting me run with this. Well, with your help of course.”

“Hmm, that’s nice,” she said, barely listening. “I wonder if the swordfish is fresh.”

“I was really excited about it until he came up with this ridiculous public servant angle. I mean what can kids learn from the blue collar set about leadership? It’s almost laughable.”

Lisa’s gaze jumped to his as a serrated remark crossed her mind; however, the waiter picked that moment to approach their table. They ordered, and Lisa seriously considered grabbing onto the guy’s leg and begging him not to leave them alone. However, she discounted that plan because something said that might invite more trouble than it would thwart.

“It’s such a beautiful evening,” Tucker said, gazing out across the gulf as he took a small sip of water. Then he turned liquid eyes on her. “Almost as beautiful as you are.”

Well, that’s original
. “So, we were going to go over the venues?”

He brushed that idea away with a swipe. “Maybe later. How about we just get to know each other a little better?”

She started to protest, but he didn’t give her a chance.

“I bet you didn’t know I graduated from Yale,” he said, taking the words right out of her mouth. “Second in my class. Did my grandfather mention that?”

“Umm, no, I don’t think so.”

The waiter returned with two glasses of wine, and as Lisa looked at it, she wondered how fast she would have to drink one glass of wine to make her drunk enough to get through a nightmare like this one.

“Yeah,” Tucker continued without even acknowledging the waiter. “And at the rate I’m going, I’ll probably take over Cordell Enterprises by the time I’m thirty.”

“How nice for you,” she said, taking a
nother drink.

“I had offers lined up at the door when I graduated,” Tucker said, “but I said, ‘No, I want to stay with the family business.’ Loyalty you know. People see that, and they know I’ve got things figured out.”

With one solid knock, Lisa’s head started pounding. What she wouldn’t have given for a loud, chaotic club where conversation was futile. And what she wouldn’t give to have the guts to just stand up, call herself a cab, and tell Cordell Enterprises and Tucker himself to go jump off the highest cliff they could find. Instead, she forced a smile, telling herself that if it just got no worse than this, she could deal with it.

When Jeff unlocked his door on Friday evening, he set the two bags of groceries on the little table. His fingers reached into his pocket and pulled out the little card that had spent the last week there. Slowly he turned it over as he slipped the coat off his shoulders. Calling her was crazy. How many ways could a person say, “I’m not interested. Leave me alone”? However, as clear as that was to his head, his heart just wasn’t getting the message. Somehow he had hoped she would show up yesterday. Why, he didn’t know. It was just that now she and Thursday were somehow intertwined in his head.

Nonetheless, she hadn’t, and so here he was. He picked up the phone, held it for a moment, and then dialed his second choice. Maybe if he just talked to somebody who had some sanity left, that would help him forget about her. In a heap he slumped onto the barstool next to the wall. “Dustin? Hey, man.”

“Jeffrey! Long time no speak. What’s up?”

“Not much,” Jeff said as his fingers turned the card over. “How’s work?”

“Big station, lots of names. Great fun. You?”

“About the same.” Jeff leaned back against the corner of the wall. “How’s Eve?”

“Burning supper…
again,” Dustin said with a laugh.

“Hey!” the voice in the background protested. “I heard that.”

“It’s okay. I didn’t marry her for her cooking skills,” Dustin said, and Jeff heard her muffled voice. A twang jumped into his heart as the card flipped over his fingers and onto the counter. “No, she’s cool, but she wants to know if you ever got up the guts to go over to Travis.”

Air failed. No words would come.

“Hey. Jeff? You still there?” Dustin asked after a moment.

“
Yeah. I’m here.”

“So, did you go?”

“No. Well, not exactly, but we kind of bumped into each other the other day.”

“Fate. Cool. Tell me more.”

“Not much to tell. She gave me her card.”

“And you called her.”

“Well, no…”

“Jeffrey, bud. This bumping into each other thing is cool and all, but you’re going to miss this train if you don’t get it in gear.”

He got the number. Okay, a number. Why wasn’t that enough? “I just don’t want her to think I’m like…”

“Interested? You are interested. So what’s the problem?”

“I don’t know.” His head hit the wall behind him three times.

“Just call her,” Dustin said gently. “I’m sure she’ll be happy to hear from you unless she’s completely dense. Call her.”

Jeff finally sighed and looked down at the little card. “Okay. I’ll call her.”

Putting her hand on the table was a mistake. Lisa had gotten that message loud and clear. It was like Tucker’s buttery hand was a magnet for the top of hers. She had pulled hers back so many times by the time the entrees arrived, she thought she might get a repetitive motion injury.

“And Dad just thinks this’s such a wonderful opportunity,” Tucker droned on until Lisa’s brain had to find something else to think about lest she go insane. “I do too of course. I mean who wouldn’t? Great company, fabulous pay…”

The gold cross shining against the black backdrop of muscles and T-shirt floated through her mind, followed in the next heartbeat by that denim-and-suede jacket. It was so low-key, and yet so completely breathtaking. To be honest she wasn’t sure if it was the jacket or the layers underneath that intrigued her so much. That arm, exuding strength caught her attention, and she wondered how many hours someone would have to spend in the gym to get arms like that.

“So, how about it?” Tucker asked when the dessert dishes were cleared. “Lisa?”

“Oh, yeah.” She shook the dream away from her. “Okay.”

It was a good cover until she saw the Colgate smile that was in front of her rather than the lop-sided one in her memories.

“Great, then let’s go,” Tucker said as he took her hand to help her out of the chair.

Go? Where?
the middle of her being asked just as a layer down something said,
Never let them take you to the second crime scene.
She was really going to have to lay off the wine and those deadly fantasies.

“Hi, Lisa,” Jeff said, praying his voice would make it through this message. Leaving a message for her at work? Not a good idea, and yet he had made it this far, he wasn’t going to turn back now. “This…
this is Jeff. From the fire station. Umm, I thought you might still be at work, but I guess not. Well, I just wanted to call and say hi and ask how your week went, but… umm, if you get this sometime, my number is 555-8696. You can call anytime. I guess take care, and maybe I’ll try to catch you some other time. ‘Bye.”

His hand hung up the phone and collapsed head first into the couch. That had to be the worst phone message in the whole history of phone messages. Pushing himself up from the couch, he walked to the back of the apartment to the weight bench sitting in his bedroom. Yanking one barbell laden with weights up from its perch, he sat down on the bench and curved his arm to pull the barbell to him once, twice, three times. She wouldn’t call back. That much was for sure. Four, five, six. And why would she? He wouldn’t. Ten, eleven, twelve.

In fits his brain showed him pictures that he really didn’t want to see. Fourteen, fifteen, sixteen. Why did her smile have to make the top of his chest feel like it might explode at any moment? Twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two. One look should’ve told him he didn’t have a chance with her. She was beautiful, gorgeous. The kind of girl who walks into a room and heads turn. Not like him. No, when he walked into a room, no one even noticed. Forty-five, forty-six, forty-seven. Not that he cared whether they noticed or not. It wasn’t them he wanted to notice anyway—just one them, and he would be happy. At 75, he switched hands.

Dustin could do this. Lisa would’ve fallen into his arms in a heartbeat. Craig could’ve made it work. At least he would’ve gotten more than her work number. Thirty-eight, thirty-nine. And Ramsey, Ramsey would’ve already forgotten her name by now. He didn’t want to be like that, just a tenth of that. Yeah, a tenth would be good. Sixty-seven, sixty-eight, sixty-nine. But no, he had to be Jeff. Good, old, holding-the-table-down Jeff. He put the weight down as he laughed sarcastically at that thought.

Curling his toes under the bar at the opposite side of the bench, he let his back lay off of the support, down, down until the middle of his stomach screamed for mercy. Defiantly he pulled forward. Lisa was a nice dream, but she wasn’t destined for him. He let himself slowly back down. No, she was destined for somebody who knew the difference in years and makes of wine. He pulled up. And how many forks are supposed to go on a table, and which one to use with what. His body arched down. And the proper attire to wear for a Sunday luncheon with the mayor. Up.

He had no chance with her. Down. And the sooner he got that through his head to his heart the better.

“This, umm, this wasn’t what I had in mind,” Lisa said when Tucker’s car turned up the street to the Bar Houston. “I’m really not into dancing.”

“Just a little.” Tucker put his hand a quarter inch from where hers laid on her lap. “To take the edge off.”

“But I need to…”

“Shhh.” He laid a finger to her lips, and what she really wanted to do was bite it off. “I’ve got a friend who works here. He said he could get us in no problem.”

Funny, she thought as she slumped back into her seat, he had told everyone about what he obviously thought was a date except the one person on it with him. Had it not been for Burke and the account, she would’ve jumped out of the car—moving or not.

When they pulled up to the club, alarm bells jangled through her spirit. Before he could get around the car, Lisa opened her door and stood. She might not have much choice, but the last thing she was going to do was give him an inch of a chance to think this was going anywhere. At the door, Tucker made a production of summoning his friend, who indeed let them right in. Her brain searched frantically for some way out. However, it kept running right into Burke.

At a booth, Tucker stopped. “How about here?”

Anything but a booth, she thought tiredly, but she shrugged and slid in anyway. It took only seconds to realize what a huge mistake that was when Tucker arched one arm across the back of the booth while the other searched in the darkness under the table for her hand.

“You know,” she said in panicked retreat. “I’ve got to visit the ladies room.” She slid out the other side and fled for the back before he had a chance to protest. Once there, a plan formulated in her head, and she checked her watch. Ten-thirty. Terrific. Carefully she sat down by a wall and pulled out her cell phone. Of course there was no one to call, but the other restroom occupants didn’t have to know that. “Hi, yeah… Yeah. We just got here. Are you guys coming?”