ROMANCING THE BULLDOG (10 page)

making a deal with some lobbyist in exchange for his interest group’s support. Liz, too, caught

his sudden hesitation.

“Thanks, but no,” she said, although a part of her might have liked to go out on a date

again. It had been one hellava messy divorce and a long time since she’d had the privilege.

“But thanks anyway,” she said again.

The deflated sound of her voice, as if she could sense his hesitation, pained him. The last

think in the world he had wanted to do was hurt her. For some crazy reason even he couldn’t

understand, he decided then and there that he couldn’t back down.

“How about eight?” he said.

“Eight?” Liz asked. “I think I just said no, Jason.”

“I know what you said, but I really need this favor, Elizabeth.”

Liz frowned. “What favor?”

“I really need you to have dinner with me tonight.”

There he was with that
need
word again. Did this town have an unstable mayor on their

hands, she wondered. “Why would you need me to do anything with you? You don’t even

know me.” Then she blushed. Besides the
Biblical
sense, she wanted to say.

“But I need, I want to get to know you.”

“But why?”

Jason hesitated. Placed his hands back in his pants pockets. Staring at her. “I don’t

know,” he finally admitted.

Liz, taken by his honesty, understood. She nodded her head. “Okay,” she said.

“Okay what?”

“Okay I’ll have dinner with you tonight.”

Jason smiled for the first time since his arrival and this was the Jason, the man, that she had

liked. “Perfect,” he said, satisfied. AI have meetings up until after seven, so I’ll have to meet

you at the restaurant if that’s okay? Do you know where to find Chevette’s?”

“Yes, but. . .”

“Great. I’ll see you there at eight.”

“I don’t, I mean, I don’t have my transportation right at the moment, it’s in the shop, and I

can’t. . .” And she can’t afford a cab, she had wanted to say, but couldn’t bring herself to say

it. “Never mind. I’ll get somebody to drop me off.”

But who, she wondered. There were only two people that she would ask, her aunt and

Shameika, and they both led exceedingly busy lives.

“Nonsense,” Jason interrupted her thoughts. “I’ll send my . . .” He almost said that he

would send his driver to pick her up, but he really didn’t want anybody else knowing about

their date, especially not after the way his staff had acted about yesterday. He wanted this

date to be completely private and separate from his public life.

“Tell you what,” he said, pulling out a set of keys and removing one from the chain. “You

drive the car.” He handed her the key.

“Drive the car?” Liz asked, confused. “Drive what car?”

“My car. It’s out front.”

“But. . . how are you supposed to-”

“I’ll have your secretary call a cab. While I’m waiting I want to check out the Center. You

stay here and finish your work. I’ll see you at Chevette’s tonight at eight.”

“But Jason---”

“See you tonight, Elizabeth,” Jason said so firmly that Liz was hard pressed to say anything

more. Realizing this he smiled, and then he left.

Liz just stood there, not sure if she should welcome his attention or be repulsed by it. Then

she realized she had a car key in her hand. She hurried to the window. No, he wouldn’t leave

her with that great a responsibility, she thought. But he had. For sitting at the curb in front of

the Center was what looked to her to be a spanking brand new, apple-red, Aston Martin sports

convertible. At least the top, she thanked God, wasn’t down. But what if somebody dented it,

or stole it? She probably couldn’t afford to replace a bumper on a car like that!

But then she exhaled. And even smiled. A man who would entrust her with a baby like that

car, meant business, she thought, which somehow pleased her. Although, the more she

thought about it, the less she smiled. Until she wasn’t smiling at all. He meant business, all

right, she thought. But what kind of business did he mean, she wanted to know.

She forced herself to stop thinking about it, until some half an hour later, when Shameika

walked in.

“I want the truth,” Shameika said, closing the door, “the whole truth, and nothing but the

truth.”

Liz looked up from the file on her desk. “He wanted you to call a cab for him. Did you do

it?”

“Why he need a cab?”

“Meika!”

“Okay. He asked me to call him a cab and I was about to, but when I told him that cabs

didn’t exactly hang out in a neighborhood like this and that he could get one a lot quicker if I

mentioned his name, he told me never mind. Like he didn’t want nobody to know he was

here. I started to tell his little arrogant Republican butt something, too. Don’t look at me like

that. I got more sense than that. He’s a Republican, he’s an a-hole, but he is the mayor. I

ain’t crazy, girl. Besides, he pulled out his cell phone and called somebody himself. And a car

was out there for him in less than fifteen minutes, girl, like they was scared we was gonna

harm him or something. Now let’s have it: what did he want?”

Liz leaned back in her chair. “I don’t think he knew himself.”

“But you know him, right?”

“We met yesterday, yes.” And ten years before, but that wasn’t Shameika’s business. “He

gave me a ride home after I had to leave my car at the repair shop. But that was it.”

“And he just decided to drop by?”

“Seems that way. He invited me to dinner,” she added. “For me to meet him for dinner,

that is.”

“Dinner? Are you serious?”

“Why wouldn’t I be serious?”

“But wait a minute. He wants you to ‘meet’ him for dinner? Why he can’t pick you up?

And besides, you ain’t got no car to be meeting nobody!”

“I do have a car.”

“You know what I mean.”

“I know. He knows. That’s why he left me his.”

Shameika frowned. “He left you his car? You mean, he . . . But I thought somebody had

dropped him off, that was why he wanted a cab. But he wanted the cab because he had given

you his car?”

Shameika stared at Liz and then hurried to the window and looked out. When she saw the

apple-red Aston-Martin, she grinned. “Damn!” she shrieked. “That’s what I call a bad ride.”

She looked suspiciously at Liz. “And he just handed over the keys?”

“He just handed them over, girl.”

“When’s the wedding?”

Liz looked at her assistant with alarm. “What? What
wedding
?”

“Yours and his, that’s what wedding. Ain’t no man no-where that’s gonna hand over keys

to a car like that, and to a woman he just met, unless he’s either crazy or in love. There ain’t

no in between on this one.”

“Then he must be crazy because love’s got nothing to do with this. And you best believe

that.”

Shameika looked at her boss.
That’s what you think
, her look made clear.

SIX

Jason arrived early at Chevette’s and took a seat in his regular booth. The waitress who

seated him returned immediately with his drink order before he could place the order himself.

“Your usual, sir,” she said when she placed the order down. Like many a single lady, this one,

too, smiled overly broad at Jason and was so solicitous to him that he often wondered if they

actually believed that their motives weren’t as obvious as the nose on their pretty little faces.

But they were wasting their time tonight. Jason was preoccupied. That, too, was obvious.

When he didn’t engage her in small talk and wasn’t his usual flirting self, she left. He

unbuttoned his suit coat and leaned back, his body drained from another day that was too

busy, too long, and far too unfulfilling.

He sipped wine from his drink and looked out of the window beside him as the sun of the

day was now replaced by the cool set of the evening. But that was the rub for Jason. He felt

unfulfilled. He was busy, probably too busy, and he loved his job as mayor of his hometown.

But after the meetings, after the back slapping and promises and power lunches, he always

went home alone.

He hadn’t designed it that way. He had every intention of being married with children by

now. And there had been many women that he’d tested the waters with. But every time he

was ready to take the relationship to that next level, every time he was sure he had found the

right one, something would always happen, something eye-opening, that made him thank the

Lord he saw the truth in time.

But that didn’t help his loneliness, he thought, as he continued to stare out of the window.

Which was probably why he didn’t phone up Liz earlier and cancel this dinner date, something

he thought about doing many times as the day stretched on. Then he thought about his lonely

home, and another evening of desperate silence, and he came early. He couldn’t wait to get

here.

It was nearly twenty minutes later that Liz arrived. He saw his Aston Martin drive up to the

anxious valet that stood in the front of the restaurant, and Jason smiled. There was something

sexy about seeing her driving his car. And when she stepped out, in a gorgeous green pant suit,

her silky hair blowing bouncily with the cool evening breeze, his heart raced. There was

definitely something wonderful about her, about the way she handed the keys to the young

attendant and walked so gracefully toward the restaurant’s entrance, about the way other men

around took sly (and some not-so-sly) looks at her. It made Jason proud to have been her

first, proud to have deflowered such a lovely human being. But it also made him antsy.

Because she was evoking feelings in him that were so strong that it was already making him

wonder if maybe, just maybe, she could possibly be the one.

But then he caught himself. All of his previous women turned him on, too, every one of

them, only to disappoint him in the end. So what made him think that Liz Morgan of all

people, Hamp’s little girl, would be any different? They had a history, but it only lasted one

night. But the more he thought about that night, and yesterday, the more he knew his slow

and steady approach was seriously in jeopardy. He looked toward the restaurant’s entrance

like a love sick school boy, and waited with baited breath for Liz’s sexy body to appear.

Liz entered Chevette’s feeling more apprehensive than sexy. Why in the world had she

agreed to this date? She had nothing in common with Jason Rascone. The mayor for crying

out loud! When he left the Center earlier today she’d hurried to her computer and Googled

him, to find out all she could about him. Although there were some articles about his days

when he was her father’s attorney and Mister Fix-It, the bulk of the articles concerned the big

court cases he defended. Also well documented were his days as a politician, with talk about

running him for Governor someday. And what she read, about a man born on the rough side

of the tracks, about a man nicknamed Mr. Conservative because of his far right-wing,

evangelical views, about a man who had never been able to garner more than a few percent of

the town’s African-American votes, made it all the more clearer to her that this so-called date

was a bad idea.

“May I help you?” the maitre’d asked in a way that seemed to suggest she didn’t belong

there.

“Yes,” Liz said, focusing again, refusing to let the man’s attitude affect hers, “I’m here to

meet the ma. . . a gentleman this evening.” She began looking past the maitre’d. “I’m not

sure if he’s arrived.”

“You’re Miss Morgan? You’re the mayor’s date?” He asked this incredulously, as if no

way she could possibly be Jason Rascone’s date.

Liz smiled, as if nothing could be less incredible. “Yes, I am,” she said.

The maitre’d cleared his throat. “He informed us that you would be arriving. Come with

me, please.”

T he maitre’d escorted Liz to Jason’s back booth. When Jason saw her approaching he

stood to his feet and greeted her with that disarming smile of his.

“Here you are, madam,” the maitre’d said, pulling out her chair. When they were seated, he

took Liz’s drink order and left. When she and Jason sat down across from each other, he

smiled.

“Thanks for coming.”

“Thanks for giving me the wheels to come. Wheels I will gladly turn back over to you.”

“What?” Jason asked, “Yours out of the shop?”

“Yes. I mean, my car is still in the shop, but---”

“But what? Keep it.”

“Keep it? Until when?”

“Until you don’t need it anymore.”

“Look, Mayor Ras---”