The Tough Guy and the Toddler

by Diane Pershing

  Damn it, he liked his life simple.

  He picked up Jordan’s picture and stared at it. “Have a good life,” he’d told her the last time he saw her. Good advice. Yeah, that about summed it up. He put the photo back in the file folder and, with a silent goodbye, was on the verge of tossing the whole thing into the wastebasket when his hand stilled.

  No, he thought. Not yet. Yeah, she brought up complicated emotions, ambivalence, guilt, the whole nine yards, but so what? He could handle it. And besides, he was just not ready to let Jordan Carlisle go.

  At five o’clock, when Jordan was in the small back office collecting her purse and getting ready to go home, the phone rang. She picked it up. “Riches and Rags. How may I help you?”

  “D’Annunzio, here,” Dom barked into the receiver.

  The brusqueness in his voice took her aback for a moment, but then her insides filled with warmth at the fact that he’d called her. “Carlisle here,” she responded with a smile, lowering herself onto the desk chair.

  After a pause, he said, “So, how are you?” just as gruffly as he’d greeted her. For a moment she wondered why, but the answer came to her right away. He was nervous, she realized. The big, street-tough cop had decided to call her and was not feeling smooth and in-charge about his decision.

  She couldn’t help the smile that curved the sides of her mouth. “I’m all right, thanks, and you?”

  “Okay.” His attitude seemed less abrupt when he added, “Have there been any more notes?”

  “No, nothing. You were right. Someone was playing a joke.”

  “Pretty sorry joke,” he muttered. “You okay about it?”

  She fingered the picture of the little boy that was still in her purse. No, not really, she wanted to say, but refrained from doing so. “Yes, I’m okay.”

  A moment of silence went by before he said, “Well...I, uh, just wanted to check up on you, you know, to see if you’re all right.”

  Oh, Jordan thought, with a sense of disappointment. That was why he’d called, a sort of follow-up to his visit. Maybe it wasn’t nerves that had made him sound gruff. Maybe he was in the middle of a difficult case and he’d taken a moment out to check up on her. Maybe the call wasn’t personal.

  She played with the phone wire. “Well, thank you for calling. In fact, I’m glad you did. I wanted to say thank-you, you know, for everything.”

  “Forget it.”

  “No, really, I mean it. Thank you.”

  “Yeah, well, fine. You’re welcome. Look—”

  “Yes?”

  “I was wondering, maybe...”

  She waited, a small spark of excitement building again. “Yes?”

  “Would you like to grab a cup of coffee or something, sometime?” The gruff voice was back.

  Yes! Jordan thought. Her initial impression had been right—Dom was nervous about calling her. Which meant it was personal. The realization filled her with an almost giddy sense of happiness.

  “I’d love to,” she gushed. “In fact—” A new notion popped into her head, a crazy notion, but, playing nervously with the phone wire, she went with it without giving herself a chance to think. “Dom, will you let me buy you dinner?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I want to take you out to dinner, to thank you.”

  He didn’t answer right away. Then he muttered, “You don’t owe me anything.”

  “Yes I do.” Now that she’d said it, it felt exactly right. Her confidence grew as she went on. “First you rescued me from the media, then you came to my house after work and gave me advice, you listened to me going on and on about my son, you let me weep all over you, so, yes, of course I owe you something.”

  Dom’s hand gripped the receiver a little harder as he swiveled in his chair to face the back wall. In Jordan’s little list of his good deeds, she’d left out the last part. The kiss. Wiped it away like it didn’t exist “Look,” he said brusquely, “I was just doing my job, okay?”

  “No,” she countered, “you did more than your job, and I insist on thanking you properly.”

  Thanking you properly. Images of silken sheets, pillows tossed to the floor, her pale alabaster body rising and falling with her heavy breathing as she lay, sated, in his arms. The picture made him shift his position. “Hey, Jordan, let’s not make a big deal out of this. If it’ll make you happy, you can buy me a drink.”

  “No,” she said insistently. “Dinner. How’s tomorrow night?”

  “Well...”

  Hell, Dom thought with a frown, he’d had some vague idea about a cup of coffee, sometime in the future, and now she was taking the ball, running with it, and pinning it down to the next day, which made him really squirmy. He called himself an idiot for wavering like this, something he never did. There was this war in his head between reluctance and a sense of excitement. He wished he hadn’t called her. He was damned glad he’d called her. He hated ambivalence, didn’t believe in it.

  “Are you—” Jordan began, then laughed. “I don’t know the terms. Are you on duty or something?”

  “Actually, tomorrow’s my day off.”

  “Good,” she said briskly. “If you don’t have any plans, please let me buy you dinner.” When he didn’t reply, she said with a smile, “You do eat, don’t you?”

  He found himself responding with his own smile. “Oh, yeah. Too much, sometimes.”

  “It doesn’t show,” she said, and he heard the admiration in her voice.

  That was followed by a glaring silence, as though Jordan realized she’d ventured into territory that she might not want to visit. “So,” she went on brightly, “what do you like? Indian, Japanese, Thai? Steak, fish?”

  “Hey, you put it in front of me, I eat it.”

  “I’ll bet you do,” she said throatily.

  Again, an embarrassed silence. Between the two of them, he thought wryly, this whole phone call was sounding like two green teenagers with no experience, tiptoeing on a conversational minefield.

  Dom swiveled his chair and sat up straight, determined to take some kind of action. “Okay, I accept. Tomorrow night’s fine.”

  “Wonderful. How about eight o’clock at Bistro Rodeo?”

  Dom frowned. She was going fancy, but then what did he expect from a Carlisle? A corn dog? He would have to wear a jacket. His one decent one was in the cleaners. He’d have to swing by and pick it up. On his days off, he preferred not to wear a jacket, but what the hell. “Okay, sure. Do you want me to pick you up?”

  “No, I’ll meet you there. Bye.”

  She hung up, so he did, too, but he kept staring at the phone, not sure how to feel. He sensed he was being watched. He looked up into Steve’s brown-eyed gaze. His partner had wandered in somewhere during his conversation with Jordan and had a look of speculation on his bronze face.

  “Setting up a date, are we? The woman has questionable taste. Who is she?”

  Dom shuffled some paperwork, shrugged indifferently. “Jordan Carlisle.”

  “That the Beverly Hills lady?”

  “Yeah,” he grunted.

  “You got something going on there, my man?”

  Dom looked straight at his partner and nodded. “Sure,” he said, arranging his features into a sardonic, bored mask. “The dame’s giving me fashion tips.”

  Chapter 5

  Jordan was early, ten minutes early, in fact. At home, she’d been restless and fidgety, had changed her outfit three times. Finally, disgusted with herself, she’d settled on a dress, donned it and headed to Bistro Rodeo. So, here she was, sitting at the restaurant’s bar, sipping a martini and waiting for Dom.

  Her gaze roamed the room, over the graceful potted palms in the corners, the modern art on the walls, the crisp white tablecloths, gleaming silver and crystal. She’d been here many times with Reynolds and had thought it was a good choice. Now she wondered if Dom would like it, or even if she did anymore.

  “Jordan?”

  Her head whipped around at the sound of her name,
then the smile on her face faltered. “Hal,” she said politely, as the large, ruddy-faced man approached her.

  “Hey, great to see you.” Hal Cooper leaned in, arms wide. With a neat maneuver of her body on the bar stool, she managed to avoid his embrace and accepted a wet kiss on the cheek.

  “How’ve you been, Jordan?” he said, beaming at her. “We’ve all missed you.”

  Really? She hadn’t missed him. Hal Cooper had been one of Reynolds’s oldest and best friends, dating back to the exclusive private high school they’d both attended. Of the whole bunch she’d been forced to socialize with during her marriage, Hal had been the one with the busiest hands.

  “How is Sherry?” Jordan asked, naming his wife.

  “Oh, you know Sherry—” He winked conspiratorially. “Still dieting, still shopping.”

  “Well, send her my love.”

  “Sure.” He stood back a step and raked her up and down with his gaze. “You look terrific. I always told Reynolds he got the biggest prize of all of us.”

  Her answering smile was not warm. “Thank you.”

  Again, he sidled up to her and leaned a hip against the side of her chair. He was close, way too close. His breath smelled of the fat cigar he’d probably just put out. It made her stomach churn. “So, you here with anyone?” His tone was sly. “Because if not, maybe I could—”

  As it was impossible to shift any farther without falling off the stool, she hopped off and kept a couple of feet between them. “Thanks, but I’m waiting for someone,” she said, her gaze roaming the room. Relief poured through her as she spotted Dom. “And here he is now.”

  Her rescuer, she added silently—the man who seemed to always show up at the right time. He was at the maître d’s desk, where he was being directed to the bar.

  She kept her gaze on Dom as he walked through the crowded entryway in her direction. While his eyes darted here and there, observing the crowd, taking it all in, his face wore that same brooding, on-guard look that seemed to be its habitual expression. He held himself like a boxer waiting for his opponent to make a move—perpetually ready to defend himself.

  When he spotted her, she could have sworn there was a faint change in that harsh face of his, a lightening up, pleasure, even. But it was so subtle, it could have been her imagination.

  With the part of her mind that always assessed people’s wardrobes, Jordan applauded the nicely cut charcoal gray jacket and black pants, cream-colored shirt and subdued tie he had chosen. He was clean shaven—it was the first time she’d seen him so—and his thick, curly black hair was neatly combed. As her mother used to say, the man cleaned up real good. So, Jordan thought, aware of a giddy sensation just below her breast, he, too, had made an effort this evening. For her.

  As he grew closer, she felt a telltale flush of excitement heating her cheeks. She even had to repress an urge to giggle. Who’d have thought she would ever feel this innocent again?

  “Hello,” Dom said, placing himself right in front of her and gazing at her from under hooded eyelids. She took in the olive skin, the thick black eyebrows, the sensual Roman mouth of his ancestors with that intriguing scar in the right corner. She must remember to ask him about that scar.

  “Hello,” she said breathlessly.

  Dom’s gaze shifted to her left, and he raised an inquiring eyebrow. Jordan turned to see what had grabbed his attention.

  Hal. She’d forgotten he was there. Her glance moved from Hal to Dom. The two of them were sizing each other up and, in that brief instant, it was obvious that neither liked what he saw. If they’d been bulls—and maybe they were—they would have been pawing the ground and flaring their nostrils. The tension was palpable.

  Jordan put her arm through Dom’s elbow and said brightly, “Hal, meet Dom. Dom, Hal.”

  Quickly, she grabbed her clutch purse from the bar and smiled at Dom. “Shall we?” As she steered him away, she called over her shoulder, “Love to Sherry,” then turned her full attention to Dom. The impact of his extremely masculine presence was pretty powerful and she had to swallow before she gave his arm a squeeze and said, “Glad you could make it.”

  He nodded. “Yeah,” he said, peering one last time at Hal. She could tell by the way the thick muscles of his biceps clenched that he was still in defensive mode. The don’t-mess-with-me expression on his face reminded her of Al Pacino or Robert De Niro in bad-guy roles—the type whose fate it was to sleep with the fishes.

  “Who is that guy?” he asked her.

  “No one important.”

  They were shown to their table, a small one in the corner, as she’d requested. As they sat, a uniformed busboy set down a basket of bread and tubs of sweet butter. The waiter—clean, courteous and slightly effeminate—handed them menus, then said, “May I start you both off with a cocktail?”

  “A vodka martini,” Jordan said, “very dry, two olives.”

  “Same,” Dom said, his gaze darting restlessly around the room before it returned to settle on her.

  “Funny,” she said, “you don’t seem the martini type.”

  “I’m not.” He shrugged. “When in Rome...” He seemed to study her for a moment before he said, “So.”

  “So,” she repeated.

  He assessed her some more. For the life of her, she couldn’t read his expression. “How’s your day been so far?”

  “My day?” she said stupidly, as though there was someone else at the table whose day he could have been referring to. “Fine,” she said automatically, then thought about it and, with a small smile, said, “You know what? It really has been. Fine, I mean.”

  “Good.”

  “And you?”

  “Good.”

  “Busy?” she asked.

  “Always. The bad guys just keep on coming.”

  Small talk, Jordan thought. There it was again, that tension in the air between them. She sensed an edginess in Dom. Of course, she wasn’t exactly the picture of a relaxed, confident woman, was she?

  As she usually did when feeling off-kilter, Jordan slid into her hostess mode. She touched his hand briefly, then removed it. “I’m glad you could come tonight. I really am so grateful to you.”

  A crease of annoyed embarrassment crossed his brow. “Hey, I didn’t do that much.”

  “Maybe not, but...” Wanting to make him understand, she searched for the words. “Have you ever had the experience of needing to talk about something and trying to talk about it to all the right people and then suddenly you find yourself unburdening yourself to—”

  “The wrong people?” With one eyebrow raised sardonically, he finished her sentence for her.

  “No.” At first she felt flustered, then annoyed. She’d been trying to make a connection, and he was being deliberately obtuse. Baiting her in some way. “I wasn’t going to say that. I was going to say unburdening yourself to someone you don’t know very well at all.”

  “Ah.” He seemed to give it some thought, then said, “No, I’ve never had that experience.”

  “Oh.”

  If Dom had been trying to deflate her, that remark did the trick. As she opened her mouth to respond, the waiter appeared with their drinks. When he’d left, Jordan glanced at her martini, then at Dom. “If I offer a toast, will you bite my head off?”

  For a moment, she swore he had no reaction to her question. Then, with a slight loosening of the muscles around his mouth, he asked, “Am I being a jerk?”

  “You could say that. But...I have a feeling you’re angry. Is it at me? Something I said or did?”

  “Nah.” Expelling a breath, he closed his eyes, opened them again, then shook his head. “No. You’ve done nothing, Jordan.”

  “That’s good to know. . .Dom.”

  Jordan. Dom.

  The way Jordan emphasized his name made Dom aware that this was the first time either of them had used the other’s first name. He felt a slight shift in the atmosphere and allowed himself a rueful smile. She smiled back and, just like that, the ice was bro
ken.

  Good thing, too—he’d been about to jump out of his skin.

  All that day, the knowledge that he would be seeing Jordan Carlisle that evening had kept him strung tighter than a piano wire, and he’d brought that mood with him to the restaurant. The minute he saw her, he realized all over again how much he wanted her. But he didn’t want to want her, not this much. He took a deep breath and made himself relax.

  “How about if I offer the toast?” he said, to make up for his surliness. “I’m afraid if you do it, you’ll start slobbering all over me with gratitude again.”

  That got a laugh out of her. “I don’t slobber.” She held up her drink. “You’re on. Let’s hear it.”

  Terrific. He’d opened his big mouth. Now, what the hell was he going to say? Here’s looking at your gorgeous eyes? A toast to that sexy mouth of yours, which I haven’t been able to forget since I tasted it? Or, more impersonally, to your health, to my health, to the world’s health?

  He settled for, “Here’s to a good dinner and good company.” Neutral. Not real exciting, he thought, but hey, you went with what you had.

  “I’ll second that.” They clinked glasses then sipped.

  The martini was good. He popped one of the olives in his mouth, took another slug, then set down the glass. The liquor warmed him, settled him down enough that he allowed himself to look at Jordan. Really look at her, and what he saw was real fine.

  At their two previous meetings, she’d worn slacks, but tonight she wore a dress, some sort of soft, flowy thing with a scooped neck and no sleeves. Feminine. She had long, pretty arms, but the dress’s color was what struck him. An ice-cmam color, kind of a pinky peach, and it brought a glow to her cheeks. “Nice dress,” he offered.

  “You like it?” Her eyes lit with pleasure. “It’s from the shop.”

  “Shop?”

  “Oh, that’s right, you don’t know where I work.”

  “You work?”

  “Part time, for now. But I hope it will be full time soon.”

  He’d had no idea that she had a career of any sort. She’d retired from modeling, that he knew, and figured she spent her days being a rich widow. “Tell me about it.”