Romancing the Bulldog Read online

  “Yes?”

  “Yes, I was mugged, and my hands got entangled in my purse straps so the guy ended up dragging me along.”

  Jason shook his head in disbelief. “When did this happen?”

  “A little before you splashed me.”

  “Oh, Liz,” he said, placing his hands on her small shoulders. “And you didn’t go to the hospital, or--”

  “I don’t need a hospital, or to see any doctors, I’m fine.” She began heading for her back room. “All I need is a warm bath.”

  Jason followed her. “I want to take a look at your injury first.”

  “I don’t have an injury, Jason, I told you that. I’m just a little sore. I’ll be fine. So please leave. You’re no longer my father’s fixer. You don’t have to play that role anymore.” This offended Jason, but he kept following her anyway. By the time they made it to the small bedroom, and Liz began heading for the adjacent bathroom with every intention of closing the door to get away from him, he got serious. “What do you think you’re doing?” Liz looked at him. “I told you I’m going to take a bath.”

  “And I told you I want to see that injury or ache or whatever the hell it is, first. Show it to me.”

  Liz could not believe his insolence. She began to walk away again, not about to let him handle her like that, but he took her by the arm.

  “Okay!” she said, snatching away from him. “Goodness.” And she lifted her blouse.

  Jason moved up to her and looked at her bare side. “Show me where it hurts,” he ordered.

  Liz pointed to the spot. “There,” she said.

  As soon as Jason touched the spot, Liz flinched again. He touched around the spot, as if he knew what he was doing. Soon his touch began to feel more soothing than painful, almost exactly the way she felt that night ten years ago. Painful first, and then soothing. She looked into his eyes. “Nothing’s broken,” she assured him.

  “No, thank God,” he said, continuing to touch her, and to return her look. “But definitely sore.”

  “Definitely,” she agreed.

  “Get out of those clothes,” he abruptly ordered as he stopped touching her and moved toward the bathroom, “I’ll run you a bath.”

  Liz started to argue with him, but then she just stood there and shook her head. She’d never met a more take-charge man before in her life, especially when he hadn’t been invited to take charge. But it didn’t matter. She could see that already. Jason Rascone was the kind of out of control bulldog who did whatever Jason Rascone wanted to do. And Liz and anybody else in his wake had better either get with his program, or run, not walk, out of his china shop.

  THREE

  She looked lost, Jason thought as he stood at the bathroom door and saw her sitting on the side of the bed, her hands loosely clasp on her lap, her face unable to shield her uneasiness.

  She wore a white, terrycloth robe that looked two sizes too big for her and seemed resigned to some fate that had her drained of all fight. What happened to her, he wanted to know. She used to be so feisty, so tough, so full of so much mouth that he wanted to shut it himself a time or two. Now she looked about as sassy as a nun in church. He exhaled. What happened to her?

  Liz heard his loud exhale and looked up. He was standing at the bathroom entrance, leaned against the doorjamb, staring at her. He had discarded his suit coat – she didn’t even notice when he did so –and had his shirt sleeves rolled just above his elbow. And it felt surreal to Liz. He was that same Bulldog Rascone from all those years ago, but he was so different, too. He was a political heavyweight now, she understood that, but his difference was more than a change in position. It was a change in demeanor, as if he was doing all he could to hide his wild side, to prove wrong all those men who had named him Bulldog in the first place. He was no bulldog, his restraint was attempting to show, he was no uncontrollable bomb thrower.

  But Liz could still see that fire whenever she looked into his world-weary eyes. That edginess she used to fear was still there.

  “It’s ready,” he said to her and continued to lean against the jamb as she made her way to the bathroom. “Sure you don’t need any help?”

  “Positive,” she said, expecting him to step aside so that she could past him unobtrusively.

  But he didn’t bulge, forcing Liz to squeeze past him. They almost touched as she past, but Liz was small enough to make it through.

  “Thank-you,” she said belatedly, and then closed the bathroom door behind her. When, after a moment’s hesitation, Jason could hear her lock the bathroom door, he smiled. Then pushed himself away from the door and pulled out his cell.

  He walked around the small, neat apartment and phoned Stephen, who was ready to come and pick him up. “Not yet,” he told his aide. And when he added he’d call him later, when he was ready to leave, the doom and gloom tirade began. But that was Stephen. Every public move by Jason was seen as either a wildly successful photo op, or an unmitigated disaster.

  Liz’s wrenching cry of pain came just as Jason was hanging up in Stephen’s face. He tossed his phone on Liz’s sofa and ran as if his life depended on it to the bathroom.

  “Elizabeth!” he yelled, but he didn’t wait for an answer. He lowered his muscle-tight shoulder and burrowed his way through the locked door, splintering it as it flung open.

  “I’m okay,” Liz said as she was just lowering herself into the tub of water. “I just twisted the wrong way.” Tears were already in her eyes. “And it hurt,” she added, as if she was finally admitting defeat, and that she actually did need his help.

  This touched Jason, because he knew what it took for her to admit any kind of weakness.

  Like a man on a mission, he quickly unbuttoned his shirt and kicked off his shoes, unzipped his pants and dropped them down his leg along with his briefs, stepping out of both. Completely naked, he got in the tub behind Liz, at first startling her. But she had no fight left, and they both knew it.

  Sitting against the cold back of the tub, he cautiously leaned her body back against his. He expected some token resistance at least, but she didn’t even bother. She leaned back effortlessly. And then frowned.

  “This is so ridiculous,” she said. “I’m behaving like a child.”

  “You’re behaving like a young lady in pain, Liz,” Jason said soothingly. “You were mugged, you were dragged like a Raggedy Ann doll, and you’re sore. There’s nothing ridiculous or childish about admitting it. Now I want you to relax. Your muscles feel so tense,” he said, rubbing her arms, “that it feels like I’m touching steel. Relax.” She leaned herself completely back again Jason’s strong chest. She knew he was right, but she also knew this was crazy. She’d never been around Jason Rascone over any appreciable period of time, yet the two times she was around him for an extended period, ten years ago and today, they ended up naked together. And the fact that his manhood was resting itself against her butt, and had already expanded to such an extent that it was now wedged between her cheeks, didn’t make it any saner. He must view her as some kind of a freak, some kind of a helpless damsel always in distress, she thought with some degree of apprehension.

  But actually, Jason only viewed her as lovely. No other word for it. He looked down the length of her long, swanlike neck, her small, straight shoulders, her perfectly proportioned breasts, abs and hips. Her womanhood. He remembered ten years ago, when he took her virginity, and how he thought her the most desirable woman in the world that next morning.

  They relaxed, with neither attempting to do anything but lean back and relax. Then Liz shook her head as if she knew this couldn’t last, removed the bar of soap from its holder, and was about to lather up. But Jason removed the soap from Liz, lathered up his own hand, and began to bathe her.

  “Jason,” Liz mildly protested, but Jason would have none of it.

  “Didn’t I tell you to relax?” he told her. “I got this.”

  Liz smiled at his vernacular. “And they elected you mayor of this town?” Jason laughed, and then
smudged her nose with soap subs. Liz leaned back again and for the first time in a long time, actually did relax.

  And he bathe her expertly. He bathe her back, her neck, her shoulders, her arms. Her breasts, lathering her nipples until they were hard as gold. Liz continued to relax against him as he bathe. He was gentle with her sore side, barely rubbing it, and for a moment she thought he had stopped. Until he began again, this time bathing her womanhood, caressing it as he bathe it, enjoying it just as much as he hoped Liz would be.

  And she was. She loved his touch, and hated that she loved it, but she allowed it, may have even needed it. But neither talked about it, neither worried about it. They just relaxed.

  Afterwards, when he had bathe her thighs and eventually her legs, he helped her up and out of the tub, dried her off himself, and then carried her, as if she were a precious cargo, into her bedroom. To Liz’s shock he even put her to bed.

  “I’m really all right, Jason,” Liz said when he literally tucked her in. Then he stood there, studying her, his face a mask of concern.

  Liz tried to ignore his stare, but couldn’t. She looked at him. “What?” she asked him.

  “What happened?” he asked her.

  “I told you what happened. This boy tried to steal my purse--”

  “Before that. Long before that. What happened to you? Where is that sparkle you used to have, that thirst for living that used to drive Hamp crazy? Where did it go?” Who took it away from you, he wanted to add, but didn’t.

  Liz looked away from him as tears tried to well up in her eyes again. She knew exactly what he meant, but she couldn’t deal with that now. Not now. “I’m okay,” she said softly, and it was all she would say about it.

  Jason slouched down in a chair near her bed, and continued to watch her, to wonder about her, to find himself beginning to get too concerned about her. Liz felt his concern, felt his stare. She wanted to tell him that he could leave now, that she had it all in control. But another part of her, the bigger part, wanted him to stay right where he sat.

  And they remained quiet, the two of them, until Liz finally fell asleep. Jason stared at her some minutes longer, still perplexed about her, and then he went into the living room and looked out of the window. Just as he suspected, Stephen, his nervous aide, a man who somehow believed that Jason’s political fortunes would propel him forward too, was parked at the curb, waiting for him.

  FOUR

  She sat behind her desk at the Meyers Center and tried her best to concentrate on the work before her. As youth director she had two bosses, the executive director, Milo Carpenter, and the administrative director, Kirk Thomas. Both wanted her to handle all requisition orders for not only the youth division, but the senior living and adult basic ed programs. She was also tasked with conducting counseling sessions and making home visits on behalf of the troubled youth that came to the Center, many of whom were looking for a way out of violent relationships, abusive home environments, peer pressure, criminal activity, anything and everything.

  She was offered this job, thanks to her aunt, while she was still in Philly and in need of a serious helping hand. Her aunt all but begged her to come back to her hometown and make a fresh start. “You’ve been through enough,” her aunt had said. “Jacksonville and its slower pace is just what you need.”

  But now, as she thought about that attempted mugging yesterday; as she thought about her beloved car sitting in some musky repair shop soon to start racking up storage fees if she didn’t come up with three grand; as she thought about Jason Rascone and how touched, how scared she was by his concern, she could only wonder if this was what she needed at all.

  She moved to Philly years ago on an impulse, when she took up with a civil rights activist within moments of her arrival on the campus of Harvard University. She didn’t want to be there, wasn’t ready to make that kind of academic commitment, and was tired of trying to please her father when all she did was never good enough. Bronson, the activist, was funny and smart and had organized a protest of some Harvard professor who had given a derogatory speech about minority students. He was packing up his podium when he spotted Liz in the crowd. They talked, hit it off right away, and Liz decided, on the spur of that moment, that this was her opportunity to live her life on her own terms, to finally experience a great adventure that was everything her father despised. In fact, when she phoned her father and told him that she was going to “delay” her entrance into Harvard and was traveling to Philly instead, he hung up in her face.

  She never spoke to him again.

  Her relationship with Bronson fizzled as quickly and as haphazardly as it had started: within a matter of months he was off on another urgent crusade and pretty much abandoned her. Liz was hurt by his sudden disinterest, but she wasn’t mortified, it wasn’t as if she had fallen in love with Bronson. But it did put her in a dilemma. She had no family in Philly, nowhere really to go.

  What she did have, however, were some associates of Bronson’s that liked her and were willing to give her a helping hand. They put her up at their place, helped her to find employment. She was finally getting her sea legs. Before long, however, she had hooked up with Scotty, the man who would become her husband. She thought he was a real estate mogul, he even had the office and staff to prove it. What he was, in fact, was a local drug kingpin and that office and staff was just a front. His arrest, on a cold, dreary December morning, was the beginning of a downward spiral for Liz that still had her reeling.

  “Sorry to bother you, boss,” Shameika Jackson, her young secretary, said as she entered the office. Liz didn’t hire her, the church did. To Liz she wasn’t exactly secretary material, she was a little too in your face to be an effective people person, but she was good peeps herself, and Liz liked her.

  “What’s up, Meek?”

  “Reverend Wheeler again.”

  Liz rolled her eyes. “What is it this time?”

  “He’s upset you didn’t make it to church on Sunday. He believes that the youth director should set an example for the young people she’s leading.”

  “I told that man that going to his church is not a part of my job description. I think I should have the freedom to choose where I want to worship the Lord.”

  “I agree. But he seems to be of the opinion, thanks to the spies he has in this neighborhood, that you didn’t go to anybody’s church on Sunday.”

  “He has spies?” Liz asked, surprised.

  “You better believe he does. And some of those spies are vindictive, girl, let me tell you.

  They think it was wrong for the church to hire a non-member to begin with. A few of those spies, in fact, believes that the church should have hired them. If your father wasn’t Hamp Morgan, they said, and your aunt was Hamp Morgan’s sister, you would have never gotten this position.”

  “My father had nothing to do with this,” she said defensively. Then she exhaled. “So that’s what I’m up against?” she asked.

  “You got it,” Shameika replied.

  Liz leaned back and nodded. “I’ll deal with Wheeler,” she said. “What about Milo? Have you heard anything about my request?”

  “What request?”

  “I asked him two days ago to get me some help. I can’t be expected to handle the youth division and the seniors and the adult programs, too.”

  “Oh, that. Nope, haven’t heard a word. But I have heard that Milo might not be your biggest fan.”

  Liz smiled. AI already figured that one out. He thinks I’m some heathen who only got this job, not because of my father, but because of my aunt’s close friendship with the pastor’s wife.”

  “But that’s bogus. You ran a community center before in Philadelphia, didn’t you?”

  “I ran the agency that funded and oversaw many community centers in Philadelphia, and all of them were bigger than this one. But I had help. Plenty of it. Which is what I’ve got to have now.” Then she exhaled again. AI don’t know, Meek, sometimes I feel as if I’m . . .”

&
nbsp; “As if you’re what?”

  Liz hesitated. “As if I’m being set up to fail.”

  Shameika looked at her in shock. “You’re just figuring that out?”

  “So it’s true?”

  “Of course it’s true! What you think? Here you are, this outsider, who just waltzes in here as far as they’re concerned and get this plum position.”

  “What plum position? This job barely pays my bills!”

  “They don’t care about the money. It’s the title they’re after. And they don’t think you, this young, pretty female who act like she’s got it going on like that, deserves it.”

  “And Milo feels this way too?” she asked Shameika.

  “Milo, Kirk Thomas, practically all of the leadership of First Bethel. Your aunt and the pastor’s wife are about the only supporters you have.”

  “You talk as if I’m doomed.”

  “You probably are.”

  ‘No, I’m not. They hired me as youth director, not executive director or admin director, and that’s why I’m going to focus on the youth division. If I fail there, then yeah, they can blame me. But they aren’t blaming me if the senior division and the Adult programs get slighted. I’m only one person.”

  “Well, three if you count me.”

  Liz smiled. “You’re right. I’ll be lost without you.”

  “I know that’s right,” Shameika said as she sat a stack of papers on Liz’s desk. “Now will you sign these requisition orders?”

  “For what?”

  “Three more computers for the senior division and the adult basic studies program.” Liz shook her head. She can’t win, she thought, as she signed.

  ***

  Downtown, at city hall, Jason Rascone entered the spacious mayor’s office with four of his aides hurrying behind him. One of them, Carl Browning, his communications director, was talking as he followed.

  “Your favorability ratings are still up, which is great. Your negatives are still, well, about the same, which we’ll working on improving. We believe a few more picnics and barbeques with the hard working people of this town should get us there. And your job performance is still up. All good news for somebody who’s going to announce his reelection bid in a few months.