ASHFORD (Gray Wolf Security #5)

by Glenna Sinclair

  He blinked at me, taken aback, before bursting into loud, helpless belly laughs. He held his middle and practically tripped and fell onto my couch, hooting and hollering.

  “What’s funny?” I demanded, but then a smile was creeping up on my own face. Had I really just told him to “fuck on off out of here”? Damn.

  “I can see that my brother’s foul mouth has rubbed off on you,” he observed when he could speak again, wiping tears of mirth from his eyes. “Poor thing. He is offensive on his best days.”

  “Excuse me, but I had this sailor mouth all to myself before I so much as stepped foot in Seattle,” I said, putting my hands on my hips.

  “You sound pretty proud of it,” he said, grinning at me.

  “It comes in handy for breaking the ice,” I said, feeling better—excited, once again, for the opportunity to spend time with the strange man who’d invaded my apartment and my life. “Now, take me to dinner. I’m starving, and that seafood isn’t going to eat itself.”

  Dan drove fast and flashy to match his sports car, and I alternately gripped my purse—as if it would somehow magically make Dan drive slower—and mashed an imaginary brake with my heels. The pedestrians and buildings whipping by kept me from enjoying the sumptuous interior of Dan’s car—the moon roof that practically encompassed the entire ceiling panel, the buttery soft leather that coated nearly every surface, the new-car smell. To live in one of these would be a real luxury, I decided, even if it would be a bitch to keep the leather clean and cool.

  Of course, these days, I didn’t live in cars. I lived in apartments, like a real person.

  On the way to the restaurant, Dan peppered me with questions: What did I like to do for fun? What was my favorite food? Favorite drink? Color? Sport? Where had I been in the city already? What did I want to see?

  My answers mostly depressed me and made me feel stupid.

  “Watch TV and clean house.”

  “Everything.”

  “Vodka.”

  “Black.”

  “None.”

  “Nowhere.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Beauty!” he exclaimed, exasperated. “What am I going to do with you? Are our dates going to be sweeping the floor of your apartment with the TV on? Take pity on me and tell me what you like doing so I can take you to things you actually want to be doing. Do you like movies? The theater? Art? Sailing? Hiking? Swimming? Clubbing? Karaoke? I already know you like dancing, of course.”

  I blew my breath out at him. “I don’t like that kind of dancing,” I corrected. “That was just for money.”

  “We do lots of things for money,” he said, sighing in agreement.

  I laughed at him outright. “Who’s the ‘we’ you speak of? Just what is it that you do for money? Did you take your clothes off for this fancy car?”

  We rolled into the valet parking for the restaurant, and Dan revved the engine suggestively, leering at me.

  “You’re such an ass,” I said, unable to stop myself from laughing at him. “And just what makes you think that I’m going to let you take me out on any more dates after tonight? You haven’t impressed me much, yet.”

  “That’s what dinner’s for,” he said, winking as he got out of the car. The valet helped me out of my seat, and I tried my very best to get out of the car in a ladylike manner.

  “It better be an amazing dinner, then,” I said, rolling my eyes as Dan offered me his arm. “What a gentleman.”

  “All I’m trying to do is get to know you better,” Dan said, walking me inside the establishment. The smell hit me instantly—hot, delicious food. I was definitely ready to eat.

  It was as fine a restaurant as I’d ever been in, all quiet, polite conversation and violin music. I’d done right by wearing a dress, but I still felt out of place, afraid that, despite my makeup, everyone would realize that I had no business being here, let alone on the arm of this man.

  “Reservation, please?” A concierge in a tuxedo was scribbling in a book on a podium at the front of the restaurant.

  “That won’t be necessary,” Dan said.

  “Won’t be necessary?” the concierge repeated drily. “This is one of the most exclusive restaurants in the entire city. Reservations are a requirement. We’re booked for weeks.”

  “I said it won’t be necessary,” Dan reiterated, putting his hand down on top of the book the concierge was writing in.

  It was unbearably rude, and I flushed with embarrassment, cutting my eyes to the side to see if anyone was witnessing this. In the service industry, this was a foul move to pull, to assume that you were more important than anyone else. I wanted to be anywhere but here.

  “Dan Shepard, party of two,” he said coolly, and withdrew his hand. He’d left a hundred-dollar bill on the book.

  “Mr. Shepard,” the concierge said, looking up, his bushy eyebrows raised nearly to his hairline. “I’m so sorry. Of course. Everything is fine. We…we’ve been so busy tonight. Table for two. Right away.”

  The concierge seated us himself and snapped his fingers. Instantly, a waiter was at his side, offering us menus.

  Dan immediately started rattling off French—I thought—and dates I didn’t quite follow until I realized he was ordering bottles—whole bottles—of wine.

  “Right away, sir, Mr. Shepard,” the waiter said. I could tell the waiter was nervous, rattled by the relative importance of the man sitting next to me. He wasn’t that important. He just had money. I pitied the poor people who worked here, intimidated by what Dan represented.

  “Now, what looks good to you?” Dan asked, looking at the menu. “We’ll ask what the chef’s special is, of course, and I can make several recommendations for you.”

  I was silent until he looked up from perusing the menu.

  “What?” he asked, and I realized he was completely clueless about his missteps.

  “You can’t just come in here without a reservation; it’s rude,” I informed him. “This is a busy, popular place, from the looks of it, and you’ve ruined somebody’s night by taking their table. You have to play by the same rules as everyone else.”

  “It all worked out,” Dan said innocently. “We got a table, the concierge got a little richer, and I’ll tip the waiter handsomely. I always do.”

  “You can’t always just throw money at something to excuse your behavior,” I protested.

  “But what else am I going to use it for?” he asked, and I had to laugh at his ignorance.

  “I’m sorry if I offended you,” Dan said, capturing my hand and kissing it. “We grew up with money, my brother and I, and I guess I never really learned my manners. I was the baby of the family—and spoiled.”

  “I’ll teach you manners for free,” I offered, smiling, “if you can teach me how to behave in your world.”

  “What do you mean, ‘in my world’?” he asked, cocking his head.

  “I don’t know a thing about wine, for one,” I said. “I only like vodka because it gets me drunk so I don’t have to think about…things. I haven’t had leisure time in a long time, so I don’t know what to fill my weekends with. Teach me…how to be normal, how to act normal and do things that normal people do…and I’ll teach you your manners.”

  “Looks like we both have difficult tasks ahead,” Dan said. “Everyone tells me I’m selfish and oblivious—well, that was just my last girlfriend. And you don’t know what you like to do. I enjoy a challenge, but why do you want to be normal? You’re extraordinarily beautiful. Don’t you realize that? If the right doors opened for you, Beauty, you’d be unstoppable.”

  “You mean the doors with money behind them?” I asked, raising my eyebrows to distract from the way Dan had just made me blush. “I hear money makes people rude.”

  “At least I know what we’re going to do on our next dozen dates or so,” he said.

  “What?”

  “Everything.”

  The waiter returned with a bottle of wine, and he and Dan engaged in what seemed to
be some kind of complicated ritual of sniffing and swirling and sipping and nodding. My wine glass was soon filled modestly, and the waiter settled the bottle into a tableside bucket of ice.

  “Are you ready to order?” he asked, having regained some of his composure around Dan.

  “Ladies first,” Dan said, holding his hand out to me and smiling.

  Oh, no. Put on the spot. I hadn’t so much as cracked the menu, and when I did, my eyes bugged out at the offerings. Most of the items were in a language I didn’t understand, and the prices were hard to fathom. I picked the first thing I recognized—crab de something or other—and cringed at the price.

  “And for you, sir?”

  “The surf and turf,” Dan said, folding his menu shut. “The filet needs to be rare—very rare. Bleeding. Practically still alive.”

  “Very good, sir,” the waiter said.

  “I thought we were going to get seafood,” I said, eyeing Dan with amusement. “You marketed this restaurant to me as the best seafood in Seattle.”

  “And it is,” he said, handing the waiter our menus. “But its hidden secret is that it has the best steak in Seattle, too. I’m getting the best of both worlds. It’s your own fault you didn’t get the surf and turf.”

  I didn’t order the surf and turf because it was one of those scary options that didn’t have a price beside it. What prices I could see overwhelmed me to begin with. I was a modern woman, but I sincerely hoped Dan’s dinner invitation meant that he was paying, too. I could see our tab traveling upward toward the cost of my monthly rent, especially with the litany of bottles he’d asked for. I’d never heard of anyone buying an entire bottle of wine at a restaurant…let alone three. I was more than sure I’d be able to polish them off, but I would’ve never dreamed I could afford them, not without Roland’s credit card at my disposal. I somehow doubted that he would approve of me snapping up expensive bottles of wines with his funds though.

  “Well, you’ll just have to give me a taste of your filet when it comes,” I suggested, taking a small sip of the wine he’d ordered for me. It was good—crisp and airy with just a hint of carbonation. That part I didn’t like, but I could ignore it.

  “What makes you think I would want to share it?” Dan asked, looking at me from beneath his eyelashes, as he took a sip from his own glass, playful and buoyant. He was in a good mood. Had the fact I had agreed to go on this date with him really pleased him so much?

  “You billed this evening as showing me everything good about Seattle before your brother ruined it for me,” I reminded him. “You’re going to hurt my feelings if you don’t share your steak with me. You don’t want to do that, do you?”

  “Absolutely not,” he said, faking his sincerity. “I want to be your guide to how amazing this city is. And now that I get to be your guide on how amazing life can be, I’m even more thrilled. We’re going to do things you’ve never dreamed about.”

  It was a little patronizing, the way he was talking about it, as if I were some sort of pet project, but I was the one who’d asked him to help make me normal—for better or for worse. However, I was the one who’d been living in a car up until this point. I was definitely more than a little deprived of the finer things in life. So, I needed to hold up my end of the bargain, too.

  “Excuse me,” I said, raising one finger. “Our manners lessons begin with the fact that just because I don’t really know what to do with my free time doesn’t mean that I don’t know how to dream. That’s a bad assumption—a condescension.”

  “Really?” Dan wrinkled his nose, then washed the look away with some wine.

  “Yes, really,” I said. “I’m the manners expert. You have to trust what I say.”

  “Fine, fine,” he said, almost impatiently. “Sorry for condescending. I didn’t mean to, but you don’t understand all the amazing things we can do…that I can show you.”

  “I probably don’t understand,” I acknowledged. “And I’m excited to discover new things with you.”

  “So there are more dates in our future?” he asked, his face boyish in spite of the beard, his eyes twinkling.

  I heaved a sigh. “Yes. More dates in our future.”

  “You’re making me a happy man, Beauty,” Dan announced, raising his glass to me. “Cheers to a wonderful future.”

  “Cheers,” I said, a little uncertainly. I’d never counted on a wonderful future, not after what had happened to the people I’d loved.

  But it was something of a relief to not think about them—or about what I’d done—for this entire evening…up until this point. Dan was working his magic of distraction. I couldn’t ask for much more than that.

  “Get ready to enjoy your first normal girl experience,” he said, grinning at me so infectiously that I couldn’t help but smile back. “Here comes our food.”

  “Already?” I was puzzled. An order like ours should’ve taken longer. I understood, more or less, the mechanics of what went into those dishes from my time working in restaurants. But there was our waiter, looking pleased with himself, bustling over with an enormous platter of food.

  “I had them rush the order especially for you and your lady friend, Mr. Shepard,” the waiter confided.

  I glanced around. We were getting ugly looks from people who had been seated for much longer than we were. I raised my eyebrows in what I hoped was an expression that would convey to Dan that this was unacceptable behavior.

  He frowned at me before clearing his throat. “That was really not necessary,” he said, “but no use letting this great food go to waste. Beauty?”

  I figured he had a point. It wasn’t like we could donate our specially-made dishes to the irritable people around us.

  The crab I’d ordered was steamed to perfection, artfully arranged amid seasonal vegetables and rice pilaf. I was about to happily get to cracking with the various mallets and tools the waiter revealed within a folded napkin, but he began doing that for me instead.

  I opened my mouth to protest, but Dan made a sound at me from across the table.

  “Our normal girl lesson begins with letting other people do the dirty work for you,” he said, striving for a serious face before letting a smile spoil it.

  “But the dirty work is fun, sometimes,” I said, watching the waiter bash the legs with the mallet and extract the succulent meat from within. It’d been a while since I’d had crab, but I remembered the strangely satisfying sensation of working for the sweet flesh inside the shell.

  “But not something you have to do for yourself,” Dan said. “Now, here…try this steak. This steak will make everything fall into place. It will give you good dreams for the rest of your life. This is the steak that you will compare to all other steaks from now on. This steak is pure poetry pulled from a living thing for your pleasure. Taste it. You have to.”

  “I can’t not, after that speech,” I said, dazzled about how someone could be so passionate about a hunk of meat. It looked good—I didn’t want to sell it short—but it was hard to believe that anyone could wax poetic about it.

  That all changed once the bite practically melted in my mouth. It was so tender that I virtually didn’t have to chew it, so juicy that I felt my mouth was filled with more liquid than meat. It had only been lightly seasoned so that the high quality of the filet could take center stage, shining through the dusting of salt and pepper. It was a lesson in perfection, and part of me regretted ordering the crab, even as the waiter bowed to me, presenting me with the meat he’d foraged out of the shells.

  “Best steak you ever had?” Dan asked, grinning at me, knowing damn well the answer to that question.

  “Of course it was,” I said after I’d swallowed my bite, somewhat regretfully.

  I thought my meal would pale in comparison, but the crab made me soon forget about the steak I’d savored. The sweet meat was perfection dipped in garlicky butter, especially paired with the veggies and rice. I enjoyed each bite, washing it down with wine from the new bottle the waiter brought ou
t, Dan again engaging in the sniffing and slurping ritual.

  “What is that?” I asked, looking at him nod at the waiter to fill our glasses.

  “What is what?”

  “You sniffed the cork for both of our bottles,” I said. “Then the waiter only poured you a splash, and you sniffed it and sloshed it around before taking a tiny sip. Then, and only then, did we get our glasses filled.”

  “I’m checking the quality of the wine,” he explained. “If it’s no good, I send it back.”

  “But it’s already opened,” I said, aghast. “What do they do then?”

  “That’s their problem,” he said, shrugging. “I’m paying enough money that the wine had better be amazing.”

  “And how can you tell if it’s not?” I asked. I’d downed screw-cap wine I’d bought from a gas station. This wine tasted better, but they were both a means to achieve the same end to me.

  “That’s something we can do on one of our dates,” he said, taking another sip of his wine. “We’ll go to a vineyard. Do a wine tasting. Go to a class. It’s really quite interesting, and you should know how to order wine, and how to know what you like.”

  “Is that something people here do?” I asked. “Just go around, taking classes on how to drink wine? It’s not that hard.”

  He laughed. “It’s more nuanced than that. You’ll see.”

  I ate until I was stuffed and even refused a taste of the lobster that came with Dan’s immaculate filet mignon. However, he insisted on dessert.

  “Our last bottle of wine is a dessert wine, so we need to pair it with something sweet,” he explained.

  “Can’t the wine just be our dessert?” I complained, wishing I’d had the foresight to wear control-top pantyhose or something to hold in my protruding stomach. There was so much crab and wine in there. It was almost too rich.

  “Absolutely not,” Dan said, shaking his head firmly. “We’ll be wanting the chocolate cheesecake. Chocolate is excellent with red wine. There’s wine lesson number two for you.”

  “You’ve been acting like a perfect gentleman for quite a while,” I said, feeling a little buzzed as the waiter brought out a smaller bottle of wine than the previous two—thankfully. “I’m starting to fear that our lessons exchange is going to be a little one sided.”