I know Jacob is following me, but damn it, I can’t spot him. I feel him. God, I feel that man way too easily. I spy a subway station and I decide to throw him for a loop. I head down into the next subway tunnel and I am quick on the draw with my pass card. In short jog, I’m through the gates, down the stairs and jumping on the next train. I’m smiling when me and a horde of twenty people step onto a train. There is no way, Green Beret or not, that man kept up with me.
The price I’ve paid however, is being squashed between bodies and forced to grab the overhead grip that I’m barely tall enough to snag. The train starts to move and sway when I have that awareness of Jacob I’ve had all day. No. Impossible. I scan over the top of heads, and my gaze collides with a set of gray, intense eyes looking right at me, a punch of awareness hitting me that is all about the man he is, not about the incredulousness of his presence. Jacob is here, that rat bastard. He arches a damn arrogant brow, and I gape at him and mouth, “How?”
He doesn’t smile but he mouths back, “Green Beret.”
I laugh. I can’t help it. He’s joking. I know that, but yet this man doesn’t laugh or smile. He’s stone-faced. And while I’d never admit this to him, it’s an endearing reminder of my uncle, who was Mr. Stone Face, who seemed so damn cold, but everything he did was to protect the innocent. And Mr. Green Beret didn’t join the army to protect himself. He’s one of the good guys, and I know this by instinct, history, and actions. I offered him a vacation. He declined. As much as I wanted him to back off at the time, he didn’t, and no man of honor would have.
Nevertheless, despite his honor thus far, macho, alpha guys like Jacob, of which the department has many, push hard when they have a pushover in front of them, I consider giving him my back. But then, I can’t see him either. I miss any chance of reading emotion in those stoic handsome features and can’t know what he’s thinking, if that’s even possible. But more so, I can’t see where he is and with about twenty bodies between us, and another twenty on either side of us, it would be easy to lose him. And so, I school my features to be as stone cold as his, and we stare at each other, in what is the most intimate moment I’ve shared with a man in years. Okay, technically not the most intimate. I’ve had sex. Once. But I didn’t look into his eyes.
The train stops, and I don’t immediately move. Jacob is on the other side of the train, which was a misstep in my book. He can’t get to the door or me in anywhere near enough time to keep up. I watch him. I wait to see the moment he moves. The doors open and the rush to the door erupts. I slide into the center of the crowd, and just as they rush out, I do the same. I’m out of the train long before Jacob and hurrying up the stairs, only to have him step to my side.
He looks over at me and I look at him, and damn it, I smile and shake my head. Damn it, because I’m encouraging him, which isn’t the idea here. We hurry up the remaining steps and then through the station to the next set of steps that leads to the quiet street above, not far from my apartment. Once we are there and past the exit, I turn to him, my hands in the air. “How? How can someone as big as you get around like you do?”
“I lived in a jungle for six months at one point,” he says. “The city is only slightly more challenging.”
“But I can’t lose you and I don’t see you when you follow. How do you do it?”
“I’ll tell you over that dinner.”
“Dinner is already planned,” I say, a chilly breeze teasing my exposed neck, my braided hair and unlike Jacob, who is properly attired, no coat for shelter. But I don’t shiver. I don’t show weakness. I’ve learned that any little blink could get me pushed around, or worse, dead. Instead, I start walking, looking forward to a warm indoor location and food.
“I thought you had court tomorrow?” Jacob asks, falling into step with me.
“I do,” I respond. “But this meeting is business and it’s only a few blocks from my apartment to Nino’s Pizza, my dinner destination, which is amazing by the way. I think you’ll like it, if you give it a shot.”
“You do know that the best way to keep this low key and off everyone else’s radar is for you to communicate with me, right?” he asks, missing my hint that he’s my dinner date.
“The best way to keep this off everyone’s radar, is for you to take a vacation, but I get it. You won’t.” We turn a corner, onto a quiet street that has apartments sprinkled in between random gift shops and bakeries, among other businesses.
“I told you why I won’t walk away from this,” he replies.
“Yes,” I say, giving him a look. “You did.”
“And?” he prods.
“I didn’t say ‘and.’”
“There was an ‘and,’” he insists as we stop in front of Nino’s Pizza, which is more an Italian sit-down restaurant than just a pizza joint.
“And I actually respect you for your obvious morals. It’s inconvenient for me, but you were right earlier. I might not hate you.”
He gives me a deadpan look. No reaction. Just, “Is that right?”
“Yes, but that doesn’t mean I trust you. Not when your military file is top secret. That leads me to questions you won’t answer. But at this very moment, those questions are not on my mind. Food is on my mind. I’m going inside.”
“Are you going to text me when you’re done?”
“There is a zero chance of that happening,” I say, and giving him no chance to argue, I cross to the restaurant door, open it, and enter the dimly lit, and amazingly cozy restaurant.
One of the owners, Rosie, a plump, wonderfully warm Italian woman in her sixties, with white-gray hair she wears to her shoulders, greets me. “Twice this week,” she says. “I love it.”
“I love it too,” I assure her. “All of it. Everything about this place.”
She smiles. “You make me a happy old woman,” she says. “And your regular table is open.”
“Terrific,” I say. “Thank you.”
She leads me to my spot on the opposite side of the restaurant in a back, private corner nook, where the table barely fits four. I settle into the seat with my back to the wall and Rosie chats with me a few minutes before departing. My waiter, Sebastian, Rosie’s good-looking thirty-something son, arrives to greet me. “The lovely detective is back,” he says, his dark hair curling at his temples. “Do you want your usual?”
“Make it an extra-large tonight,” I say. “And I’ll take two Coronas.”
“Two?” he asks holding up fingers.
“Yes. And two plates.”
He wrinkles a brow. “Is it a date and I no longer have a shot at being your one and only?”
I laugh. “You are already my one and only. You make me pizza. I’m easy like that.”
He laughs and hurries away, while I open my briefcase and pull out the Marks file and hang the strap on the seat next to me. I then set the file on the seat. Already, Sebastian is returning with the plates and the two beers. “Should I tell my mother to be on the lookout for your guest?”
“No,” I say. “He’s an expert at finding me.”
“I sense a story behind that.”
“Not a good one,” I assure him.
“Now I’m curious, but I’ll ask questions the next time you’re alone with a full belly.” He turns and departs.
My phone buzzes with a text from my father. I’m stuck in a meeting. Are you okay with everything?
I want to say no. No, it’s not okay. You’ve turned a seasoned detective into a college kid with a babysitter, but Jacob’s words “we’re hard to love” play in my head and I bite back the words. Besides, I’m making this work already. Jacob is going to help me close a cold case. With all this in mind, I type: I’m great. Love you Dad. But I don’t hit send. I really am not that agreeable. I backspace and clear my words to amend my reply to: I don’t like this but I’m working out a livable situation with Jacob for one reason and one reason only. I love you.
He replies with: Thank you, daughter of mine, who I adore and cannot lose. I love you, too.
I can almost feel his relief in that typed message and I am suddenly, incredibly glad that I didn’t say no to this Walker Security intrusion.
Refocusing on my plan for now, I set the beers side-by-side, pull my phone from my pocket, and snap a photo. I then snap a second photo of the empty chair in front of me. I text both to Jacob. I send no caption. He’s smart. He’ll get it. I move his beer to the side of his plate and take a drink of mine. I’ve just wet my tongue when Jacob appears in front of the table, almost too fast, as if he was already headed to me before I sent those photos.
I set my beer down and tilt my chin up, my gaze admiring the journey upward and over the perfect, hard length of his body, by accident of course. Eventually, too soon really, since his body is the least complicated part of this man, I meet that intense gray stare of his. Eyes that are sharp even in the dim lighting of the cozy restaurant, which in hindsight might have made this a bad choice. This isn’t a date. It’s a business meeting with a man who just happens to be looking at me with the kind of intensity I don’t invite from any man, especially one who is now my personal bodyguard. And yet I’m looking at him just as intensely as he’s looking at me, and I find that I want to know what’s behind his wall and I won’t pretend it’s all business. The truth is, that I want is not a statement I have made in a very long time.