Romancing the Bulldog Read online

  But it didn’t stop there. After assuring the men from across the street that she was fine, and after knocking the dirt off of her pantsuit, Manny stepped outside, wiped his hands on a grease-filled rag, and told her that her only mode of transportation, her 13-year old Mustang, would cost three-thousand-dollars to repair. And that, he added, didn’t include the labor.

  Liz knew she had to have given that mechanic a look something crazy because even he said,

  “I’m just sayin’,” and took a step backwards. It felt like another attempted mugging to Liz.

  She had been back in town for only a month and nothing was turning out the way she had hoped. Not the job she ended up settling for; not the apartment she had no choice, given her salary, to rent; and now not even her reliable car. Then for Manny to talk about how her engine was shot, along with her motor mounds, her pcv valve, and other parts he kept naming long after she had stopped listening, and that they all together would cost three thousand dollars to repair, was beyond the pale. Three thousand dollars, he’d said, when she didn’t have three hundred.

  But just like the drama she left behind in Philly, this one was one humiliation after another one. Because if her attempted mugging wasn’t bad enough, if her car repair bill wasn’t bad enough, if her sorry life in general wasn’t bad enough, a limo decides that it wants in on the get Liz action too, and splashed her.

  First she just stood there, as the wetness chilled her to the bone, and then she pulled a handkerchief from her purse and began wiping the mud off of her outfit - only to smudge it even more. And the tears that had been waiting months to shed stained her lids. She’d made mistakes, Lord knows she’d made more than her share of mistakes, but how much more, she wondered as she wiped, did she have to endure?

  “Are you all right?” a male’s voice yelled out at her. She looked up and saw that the limo had backed back up and the backseat occupant had pressed down the window to reveal himself behind the shield of the limo’s pure black tint. Liz wanted to show spunk, the way she usually did, and tell him did it look like she was all right, but she couldn’t muster the energy.

  She just stared at him instead, her big, golden-brown eyes like darts staring through him; her soft, pretty face revealing such a mask of agony and despair that the limo’s occupant quickly flew open the back door, and stepped out.

  He stepped out as if he owned the street, Liz immediately thought, as his abrupt, high-handed manner unnerved her. He wasn’t a necessarily tall man, but he was an imposing one, his athletically sculptured body lean and strong; his every movement personifying power and prestige. And as he buttoned his obviously expensive suit coat and began moving deliberately toward Liz, she could feel his startling blue eyes staring deep into her brown ones, with his furrowed brow giving off the impression that what he was seeing disturbed him mightily.

  “Are you all right?” he asked again, this time his body leaning toward hers, as if he was expecting her to whisper. “You don’t look so good.”

  Then he sighed, as if he was upset that she wasn’t responding to him. “Didn’t you know better than to walk on the edge of a road that’s filled with water puddles?” he asked, as if he were blaming her for his limo driver’s carelessness.

  Normally Liz would have corrected him without hesitation. I know you’re not even thinking about blaming me for what your driver did! she would have said. But this was no normal day. That was why she didn’t bother to respond, but continued to stare at the hot shot, wondering why he didn’t just play his little blame game and then leave her the hell alone. But nooo. He just stood there, his brownish-blonde hair conservatively styled in a severe, short cut that stopped at the nape of his neck, his deep blue eyes looking almost as world-weary as Liz felt.

  “Can you hear me?” he said after apparently saying other things that she should have responded to. “Do I need to phone for help?”

  “No, thank-you,” she said and began to move away. But he caught her by the arm.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” he asked her. “You can’t just leave.” She looked at his hand on her arm and then at him, as if he was the one who was behaving oddly. “Says who?”

  He stared into her eyes, and he desperately wanted to say, says me, because he felt just that possessive for just that moment in time, but he knew he couldn’t go there. He said nothing, causing Liz to feel strange, too. Wait a minute, she thought. There was something familiar about him.

  “I’ve got to go,” she said with a defeated drone in her voice, bending her arm to remove it from his grasp.

  But he wouldn’t let her go. Because there was something about the way she spoke, the way she looked and sounded, that pricked at his heart. Did he know her? “What’s your name?” he asked softly.

  Liz frowned. “My name? What does my name have to do with anything?” He knew her. “What’s your name?”

  “What difference does it make?”

  “It makes a great deal of difference. I’ve splashed you. I have a right to at least know your name so that I can apologize properly.” Those bright brown eyes, those full, puckered lips, that dark brown, radiantly beautiful face. He knew her.

  “You didn’t splash me, your driver splashed me.”

  “Same difference. What’s your name?”

  “Liz, all right? My name is Liz. Now will you please let go of my arm?” Liz? This was feisty Liz Morgan? His heart dropped.

  “I said let go of my arm,” she said again.

  “No,” he said this time without hesitation, with even a tinge of irritation in his voice, and his effrontery astounded Liz.

  “Excuse me?” she asked.

  “It’s nice to meet you, Liz. I’m Jason Rascone.”

  She shielded her shock. She was able to shield it. But she could hardly believe it. This was Jason Rascone? Where was his mustache, where was his bad boy swagger? He looked so different, so conservative now, like the president of some glee club or something.

  He wasn’t certain if she remembered his name at least, so he continued talking. “I apologize for ruining your lovely suit.” His eyes swept over her body as he said this, remembering every inch of her. Liz began to feel uncomfortable.

  “Jace!” a voice said near the limo and both Jason and Liz turned in the direction of the sound. Stephen Armitage, medium height, thin as a rail, had stepped out of the car. “Do you realize what time it is?” he asked with his arms wide open, a Blackberry in one hand and a smart phone in the other. “The entire Chamber of Commerce is waiting on you!”

  “Just give me a sec,” Jason replied to his excited colleague, but his colleague wasn’t trying to hear that.

  “But sir!” he said. “You can’t just hold up the entire Chamber of Commerce over some female. Will you please come on?”

  Jason looked at Liz. “That’s Stephen,” he said. “He works for me, although you wouldn’t know it by this conversation. Stephen, say hello to Liz.”

  Stephen, an overly dramatic sort of person in Liz’s estimation, rolled his eyes. “Hello, Liz,” he said in an irritated tone and then immediately returned his attention to Jason. “Now, will you please come on, sir?”

  “Where are you headed?” Jason asked Liz.

  Liz could not believe this man. He didn’t remember her, and she wasn’t letting on that she remembered him. Why didn’t he just go on to his business meeting or wherever else he had to go on to?

  “I was about to catch the bus,” she said. “And if you remove your hand, I’ll gladly be on my way.”

  Jason grinned. “You can’t catch a bus looking like that,” he said, looking down at her mud-smudged pantsuit again. “Now that’s a fact.”

  “Sir!” Stephen said again, but Jason ignored him.

  “We’ll give you a lift,” he said, pulling Liz toward the limo, but she quickly pulled back.

  “No, you will not,” she said, forcefully removing her arm from his grasp. “I don’t know you from an ax murderer!”

  Jason grinned. “No, you d
on’t think that, do you? Do I look like an ax murderer to you?”

  “Nobody looks like an ax murderer,” Liz replied, unimpressed with his self-assurance, “but that doesn’t mean there aren’t plenty out here.”

  “Okay. Point taken. But this is the deal: I can’t just let you leave like this.”

  “And why not?” She began to feel her spunkiness return, and he was beginning to sound just like the old Jason.

  “If you think I’m going to be responsible for this fashion disaster,” Jason said, motioning his hand toward her pantsuit, trying his best not to reveal his real reason, "and just drive away and let you walk away, you don’t know me very well.”

  “I don’t know you at all!” She said this and meant it. She used to know him, but she wasn’t ready to admit that much. Given what they did when they did know each other, she wasn’t sure if she wanted to ever admit it. “That’s the point,” she added.

  “I’m on my way to give a speech to the Chamber of Commerce.”

  “Your assistant made that abundantly clear.”

  “Ax murderers don’t get invites to speak at chambers of commerce.”

  “There’s a first time for everything. Now will you please excuse me?” Liz said this with some degree of finality and then began moving away from Jason.

  But as she stepped off of the curb and onto the oil-slicked road, her high heel gave way, causing her to slip backwards and then fall rump-first into another puddle of standing, muddy water. Jason, horrified, hurried to her aid.

  “Good gracious woman, what’s wrong with you!” he asked with a tinge of anger in his voice. He helped her to her feet, his large hands circling her waist now, and she just stood there, dripping wet, as tears began to drip from her eyes.

  When he saw those tears his heart dropped, and a sense of foreboding came over him. “Are you hurt?” he asked her tenderly, looking her over, a frown of concern all over his face.

  “Other than your pride, I mean?”

  Liz just stood there, as if she was being held up only because of Jason’s hands, and then she slammed her own hands against her side in a teary-eyed frustration. Jason knew what that meant. She was giving up.

  “Okay, party’s over,” he said decisively as he took her by the arm and led her, forcibly, toward his limousine.

  “Please, just leave me alone,” Liz pleaded in a defeated voice, making clear that she’d already told him she was not getting into any automobile with him. But she couldn’t find the will to resist his pull. She, in fact, couldn’t find the will to do much of anything but to move with his pull. He wasn’t exactly a stranger after all. This was Bulldog Rascone, the man who had taken her on the ride of her life before. Somehow she knew, by getting in this limo with him, he was going to try and take her there again. And given the bulldog in him, given how stubborn he could get when he made up his mind, her opinion in the matter, though vital to her, really wouldn’t make a hill-of-beans difference to him.

  TWO

  In the limo, Stephen sat next to Jason and Liz sat across from them both. She was dripping wet, and wiping tears, and knew she looked like something out of a horror movie, but she didn’t care. This day felt like a horror movie to her, and she wasn’t interested in pretending otherwise.

  When she looked at Jason, however, he seemed almost disturbed by her display. He looked so superior, so know-it-all-ish that she felt an urge to tell him to let her out. And he just sat there, staring at her as if she was some circus act. It annoyed her mightily.

  “May I ask what you’re staring at?” she finally asked him.

  He, of course, grinned. “No, was I staring?”

  His charming grin, displaying bright white, perfectly lined teeth, disarmed Liz. She remembered how he grinned when they had finished their, for want of a better term, bump and grind session. “Yes,” she eventually said. “You were staring.”

  “Didn’t mean to. Sorry. It’s just that you look rough, girl. You look as if you’ve had the proverbial bad day.”

  Liz wanted to smile. Now he was beginning to sound like the old Jason. But she didn’t say anything.

  “Look, I’m only saying that because I doubt if a little water splash could cause this much emotion.”

  Liz looked at him. “Where are you taking me?”

  Jason smiled. “Wherever you want to go.”

  “I’ve got to get to work.”

  “And where is work?”

  She hesitated. Then decided what’s the use. They’ve got to take her somewhere. “On the eastside,” she said. “Phoenix Avenue. I work at the Meyers Center.”

  “I’m not sure I’m familiar with the Meyers Center,” Jason said reflectively, looking at Stephen for assistance. Stephen, however, only shrugged his shoulders with that how should I know about some eastside Center arrogant look on his face. Jason often wondered why he ever hooked up with a man like Stephen. He was a brilliant operative, yes, but his annoying ways were beginning to outshine that brilliance. He then looked at Liz. “It’s a new facility then?”

  “New?” Liz said as if Jason had to be joking. “Of course it’s not new. The Meyers Center was around when I was a kid.”

  Jason smiled. “You’re still a kid.”

  Liz almost found herself smiling. Almost. “Yeah, right.”

  “But really, how old are you?” Jason asked this in a tone that belied his anxiousness, and Stephen looked at him as if he’d gone batty. Who cared how old she was, Stephen wanted to know. What was with his boss and this female?

  “What difference does it make?” Liz asked and Stephen couldn’t agree more, going so far as to nod his head.

  Jason, however, remained interested. He wasn’t sure about the answer. Wasn’t sure at all how long it had been. “It doesn’t make any difference,” he said, “but I still want to know.” Liz hesitated. Rubbed her fingers across her forehead. Why didn’t he just leave her alone, she wondered yet again. But she also didn’t want to be rude to a man who was actually giving her a ride. “I’m twenty-eight,” she said. Satisfied? Happy? she wanted to add.

  Jason grinned. “Twenty-eight? Why you’re nothing but a child,” he said, knowing that it would annoy Liz. And Liz, true to form, rolled her eyes.

  “What is it that you do at this Meyers Center?” Jason asked and both Liz and Stephen looked at him, with neither understanding his interest. “Just curious,” he felt a need to add.

  Liz shrugged. What was the use, she thought. “I’m the youth director,” she said. “A youth director who’s very late and who really needs to be getting there.” She knew that she would have been even later if she had been forced to ride the city bus, but since she wasn’t riding the bus, thanks to him and his water splash, she didn’t see why she couldn’t at least get something out of the deal.

  Jason immediately pressed a button beside his seat. “Boris,” he said into the intercom.

  “Yes, sir?” the driver of the limousine responded.

  “Change in plans. Take us to the Meyers Center on Phoenix Avenue first.” Stephen nearly jumped from his seat. “The Meyers Center!” he blurted out, astonished.

  “But, sir, we’re almost at the Chamber! Boris can drop us off first and then he can take this, this person---”

  “Are you familiar with Phoenix Avenue, Boris?” Jason asked his driver, ignoring Stephen.

  “Somewhat familiar, yes, sir, I believe I am.”

  “What about the Meyers Center?”

  “The Meyers Center? Ah, I do believe so, yes, sir.”

  “Very good then,” Jason said and leaned back from the intercom. Stephen, knowing his boss too well, pulled out his Blackberry with much frustration and began to communicate with one of their advance people about this unfortunate turn of events. He even noted in his text message that if he didn’t know better, he’d say that their boss was behaving like some “love-sick juvenile.” But then he scratched that, because he did know Jason Rascone all too well, and the idea that he could possibly be attracted to some street
woman, and a black street woman at that, was pushing it. He simply informed them to play for time, that they would be there as soon as they could.

  “Now that that’s taken care of,” Jason said to Liz as Stephen continued to peck furiously into his Blackberry, “let’s talk about you. How long have you been the Center’s director?”

  “The Center’s youth director,” Liz corrected as she folded her soaked handkerchief and tried her best not to think about her pitiful circumstances. “I’ve been working there almost a month.”

  “No, one month? That’s all? Where did you work before that?”

  “No-where,” she said and both Stephen and Jason looked at her. “I mean I worked, but not here. I was in Philly. Philadelphia. I’ve only been in town a month.”

  “So you’re a transplant?”

  “In a way I guess you could say that. I was born here, but I left when I went away to college, and I never came back.”

  Jason’s look changed, as he stared unblinkingly at her. He remembered that part of it well.

  She left him that morning and he felt oddly unhinged. Sex with her had been so good to him, the best he’d ever had on so many levels, that he couldn’t get it out of his system. He slept with other women, but none of them gave him that level of emotional connection he felt when he had that night with Liz.

  He had it so bad that he even went to the campus of Harvard University looking for her.

  But from what he could obtain from the dorm, from the Registrar’s office, from a few people that knew a few people, Liz never checked in. Terrified, Jason phoned her father. When Hamp told him that he already knew, that Liz had met some civil rights fanatic and had taken off with him, Jason was livid. He wanted to know where, and all the background on this guy she fled with. But Hamp told him not to waste his time. He was so over that daughter of his that he would personally harm the individual who so much as brought up her name again.