by Francis Ray
“Too Victorian. Kneeing is the modern method for unwanted advances.”
“Ouch. Then I’m doubly glad.” He kissed her again. “This is crazy. I’ll be gone in a few weeks.”
“I’ve told myself the same thing, but I don’t think I’m listening.”
Black eyes stared down into brown ones. “Maybe it’ll wear off.”
“Maybe,” Julia answered, her hands now on his wrists. She turned her head to brush a kiss against the top of his hand, the dimple in his chin, his soft mouth.
He shuddered, then captured her lower lip and suckled. “I want to see you tonight.”
“W-what?”
“Tonight. What time?”
“Six,” she murmured, seeking his lips again.
He barely lifted his mouth from hers. “I’m picking you up at your place and taking you home.”
“So this is a date?” she asked breathlessly.
“You better believe it, and just so there’ll be no misunderstanding …” His mouth came back down on hers.
By four-thirty that afternoon Julia knew she’d never leave the shop by five and be ready for Chase by six. As sometimes happened, they’d had a rush. Men who had forgotten birthdays or anniversaries. Women who had forgotten the same thing. Or customers who simply wanted the best chocolate on the East Coast.
Smiling at her own boastfulness, Julia gave a final pat to the pink ribbon bow on the basket she had just finished, then carried it out to the waiting hands of a young man. “Happy first anniversary. I wish you many more.”
“Thanks,” he said and moved to get in the growing line at the register.
Julia glanced around the shop to see who needed help next. They were four deep. She barely refrained from glancing at her watch. She needed to call Chase and tell him she’d be late, but the customers always came first. Why since Chase had come into her life did she have to keep reminding herself of that fact?
The little tingles of awareness that swept through her at the mere thought of him were her answer. She’d just have to learn how to deal with whatever was between them. She definitely wasn’t going to turn her back on it.
Moving to help an elderly couple in Toyland, she saw her older sister with her cell phone glued to her ear as usual, a briefcase in the other hand. Suzanne capably juggled the four two-pound gold foil boxes of truffles under her arm just as she did her hectic life as a lobbyist.
With a sigh of resignation, Julia scanned the store. Still full, and Georgette was on the phone by the register. She didn’t have time to go to her office. She switched direction.
“Hi, Suzanne.” Careful not to disturb the delicate balance of her sister’s packages, Julia gave her a hug. Taller by two inches, Suzanne was stylishly dressed in a black Prada pantsuit and shoes by the same designer.
“Can I ask you a favor?” Julia preferred not to involve her overprotective sister in her personal life, but at the moment she had no other choice.
“Hold on, Harold,” Suzanne said. “What’s up?”
“Please call Chase Braxton at the Hotel George and leave a message that I’m running late and I’ll call.”
Suzanne lifted one naturally arched black brow in a face that had been known to stop traffic on the busy D.C. streets and said into the receiver, “Harold, let me call you back.” She disconnected the call. “Is he a client?”
“No.” Julia moved away before Suzanne could ask questions but knew they would come later. She hadn’t had a meaningful date in over five years. Since she had opened Sweet Temptation, the store had always been her top priority. Dating took a back seat. Socialization was work- or family-related.
Ten minutes later when she was in the gift-wrap room in the back, someone tapped her on the shoulder. She glanced around.
“Chase said to tell you he’d wait for as long as it took.”
“You actually talked to him?” Julia asked, surprised and impossibly touched by his words.
“Yes.” Suzanne’s intelligent brown eyes narrowed. “He seemed surprised by the fact also. He says he’s a Texas Ranger.”
Julia was well aware that Chase had not volunteered the information. He wasn’t the talkative type. Suzanne wouldn’t have let that stop her. She made her living ferreting out secrets and obtaining information. “He’s a lieutenant in charge of his own unit,” Julia told her. Unabashed pride rang in her voice.
“So this is a date?”
“Yes,” Julia answered, sure of what was coming next. She was not disappointed.
“How long have you known him?”
Julia rolled her eyes and tore off a two-foot length of wrapping paper with footballs scattered on a white background, then set a specially constructed box with a hollow chocolate replica of a Washington Redskin football inside on top of the paper. “Suzanne, I love you dearly, but I’m busy.”
“Two years ago, I could have probably gotten the answer,” Suzanne said with a hint of annoyance.
Julia sealed the wrapping paper around the box with invisible tape and spoke without turning. “Yes, you could have.”
“Even before you opened this shop, you never went out much. You need experience in the trenches, so to speak, to be able to tell if a guy is on the level. Experience you don’t have. Sweet Temptation is a testament to your being a savvy businesswoman, but when it comes to people, you’re too trusting and naive,” Suzanne said, obviously worried. “There are some real dogs out there. They get sneakier and more underhanded each year.”
“Chase isn’t one of them,” Julia defended him, turning at last to face her sister.
“You sound serious about this guy.” The words came out as an accusation.
Julia returned to wrapping her package. “Suzanne, I really am busy.”
“Do you know how difficult it is to have a good relationship with a man when you’re in the same city? Long-distance romances are doomed. You’re setting yourself up for heartache if you let yourself become involved. I’ve seen it happen over and over again.”
“Do you think the white or the brown ribbon? Brown, I think.” Quickly Julia made the bow and attached a referee whistle. “Their six-year-old grandson will love the whistle, but his parents may want to strangle me.”
“I can certainly empathize with them,” Suzanne said, glaring at Julia. “I’m calling in the morning.”
Accepting the thinly veiled threat and the love behind it, Julia reached for a Sweet Temptation sticker. “I love you, too.”
Chase’s black eyes narrowed as Julia’s vehicle came barreling around the corner of her condo building at ten miles over the speed limit. In a town crowded with expensive imported cars and SUVs of the same makes, her white Caravan minivan stood out. He applauded her sense at not putting her store’s name on the side, since she obviously drove the vehicle all the time. Too many thieves would view a woman driving it as an easy mark.
Julia pulled to one side and braked across from the white guardhouse where he and Percival, the security guard on duty, had been talking.
“Hi, Percival. Hi, Chase. Sorry I’m late.”
“Evening, Miss Ferrington,” the guard greeted her.
Chase took his time answering. She looked beautiful, delectable, and harried. He wanted to kiss the frown from her face, watch her fall asleep in his arms. Each time he saw her, she surprised him by causing some new emotion to churn within him.
Slowly, when he wanted to run, he went to her van. “You were speeding.” She had been speeding last night when he had secretly followed her home as well.
She had the audacity to grin. “Unless you park in a restricted area the police here are very liberal.”
“I noticed on my drive in from the airport and every day since. People jaywalk and disobey traffic laws at will.” He shook his head in disgust and placed his hand on the roof of the vehicle. “Driving in this city is a real challenge. My brother and father in the Austin Police Department would have a field day issuing citations.”
“They’d have to catch us first.”<
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“They would.”
Julia easily heard the assurance in his voice. “Any other siblings?”
“It’s just the two of us.”
“There are three of us. All girls. My father always joked that he could open a clothing store if he ever left banking. Suzanne is the oldest.”
He chuckled. “The interrogator.”
Julia put her head on the steering wheel, then glanced up. “I knew I was taking a chance when I asked her to call.”
“No problem. It showed she cares.”
“Thanks for understanding. As the oldest, she grew up watching out for me. Unfortunately, at times she forgets I’m a grown woman. I hope you’ll be equally understanding if you meet Amanda, who can be just as bad as Suzanne. Amanda is two years older than I am and works in the State Department.”
“You’re the baby.”
She wrinkled her nose. “Guilty.”
“So am I, and in their eyes we never grow up.”
“True.”
“We’ll have to show them differently.” He studied her closely. “I have a feeling you already have with your shop.”
“You’re right. At first they thought I had lost my mind,” she said.
“I remember something similar when I decided to go into the Department of Public Safety instead of the Austin Police Department.”
“You broke tradition.”
“The same for you?” he questioned.
She nodded. “Politics and high finance. Those were the choices. My mother actually has records dating back to 1886 where my great-great-great-uncle loaned money.”
“My brother is a third-generation city police officer.”
“But you’re still in law enforcement.”
“Not the same branch. Each of us takes pride in his area of enforcement and thinks he can do better than the other.”
“But I bet you both can’t stand the FBI.”
“True.”
They stared, grinning, at each other. “My family still can’t believe I’m not in some form of politics like my sisters.” Her brown eyes twinkled. “If they only knew how diplomatic I have to be sometimes with customers trying to decide on a gift.”
“From what I saw today, you’re very good at your job.”
Pleasure shone on her face. “Thanks. I try. Hopefully they’ll realize we want to make a difference in a different way, but that difference is still important.”
“You have a nice way of putting things.”
“Practice,” she said with feeling.
Chase had noticed something else very nice. Julia’s mouth. He felt its inexplicable pull. He wanted his mouth on hers again. Instead of acting on his desire, he glanced around at the approaching darkness. “I thought we might do a little sightseeing since I changed our dinner reservation to eight, but it’s too late now.”
She shook her head. “D.C. by night is even more beautiful and powerful. I’ll be ready to go in fifteen minutes.”
He stepped back from the vehicle instead of leaning closer and sampling her mouth. “Take your time, I’ve enjoyed talking with Percival.”
She smiled at the gray-haired man in the booth. He was lazily flipping through several sheets of paper on a clipboard. “He’s a hoot and a good man.”
“He thinks highly of you as well. Says he’s known you since you were in diapers,” Chase told her.
Julia wrinkled her nose. “He knows the whole family. He was one of the security guards at my father’s bank until five years ago when the board decided to replace all the guards with off-duty policemen.”
“I think he likes it here better so he can keep an eye on you.”
Her smile returned. “We keep an eye on each other.”
“So I’m finding out.” Chase had also found out from the outspoken Percival that Julia seldom dated. “Get going. We might as well put off the sightseeing until after dinner. You probably were too busy to eat.”
“I was,” she said, delighted that he had thought of her.
“Then go on and we’ll see if we can get seated early.”
“Yes, sir.” Putting the car in gear, she backed up, then drove past the black iron gate, down the slight incline, and abruptly stopped. Expecting that she had forgotten to tell him something, Chase started toward her.
Her door opened, and out she came at a fast clip with a small Sweet Temptation bag in her hand. Without a glance in his direction she went straight to the booth. After a brief conversation with a grinning Percival, she gave him the bag and planted a kiss on his heavily lined cheek. Waving to a watchful Chase, she ran back to her car.
His gaze followed. He openly admired her ability to run in three-inch heels, the graceful way she moved, the sway of her hips. He watched until she got in her van, then turned and started for his Jeep.
“Chase.”
He spun back around. This time she was running straight for him. Seeing the anxiety in her face, he quickly sprinted to her. Automatically his hands closed over her shoulders. “What’s the matter?”
“I forgot to tell you where to park.”
He barely managed to keep from laughing aloud. “Percival told me.”
“Oh. Of course. Then I’ll just run along. I’ll leave the door open.”
Chase’s hands tightened, his expression changed. “No, you won’t. Percival says there’s a seating area by the elevator. I’ll wait there.”
“You can’t wait in the hall,” she protested, outrage in her lovely face.
“I can and will.” He pointed her toward her car. The driver’s door was still open. “Now get going and don’t worry.”
“I’ll hurry.”
This time Chase watched until she rounded the corner in the parking garage. Still shaking his head, he started for his Jeep. He’d just seen another side of Julia: flustered. The idea pleased him immensely, especially since he had felt the same way that morning before entering her shop.
Percival waved Chase down as he walked past. “I get off at ten. You make sure Miss Ferrington gets home safely.”
“I will.” She also had people who cared about her. Her sister had politely asked where they planned to go, then inquired if possibly she had met him. Chase had gotten the distinct impression that if his answers hadn’t satisfied her, the pleasantries would have abruptly ended. “You don’t have to worry.”
“Miss Ferrington is a fine young woman,” Percival said. “She cares about people.”
Chase rubbed his stomach with remembered pleasure. “I found that out before we met when she sent me one of her special baskets.”
“Sounds just like her. She saved my life,” Percival said quietly, then continued, “The stress and tension of my job at the bank had me hitting the bottle pretty hard. I blamed everyone but myself. Then came the layoff and I started reaching for the bottle more and more. Miss Ferrington came by my place one day to visit me and saw what a mess I’d made of my life. She didn’t preach or turn away in disgust, just fixed me a decent meal and kept coming back, kept encouraging me to go to AA and get help. Finally I listened.”
Percival held up his bag. “My reward for sticking with the twelve-step program. I haven’t had a drink in almost four years.” He inclined his head toward the eight-story building behind them. “After my first AA meeting she got me the job here.”
Chase’s expression saddened. “I’ve had friends and associates who couldn’t or wouldn’t turn away from the alcohol and drugs and ended up losing their family, their jobs, their self-respect, and, as you said, their lives.” His sigh was long and telling. “Being in law enforcement isn’t easy, but it’s a job that has to be done.”
“I agree.” Percival’s eyes narrowed. “There are a lot of mean, unscrupulous people in the world who won’t hesitate to take advantage of others.”
Chase lifted a heavy brow. Had Percival’s comment been a veiled insinuation? “I’m not one of them.”
“Never said you were, but just so you know, I keep a close eye on Miss Ferrington.” P
ercival leaned closer, his gaze direct. “Don’t you go forgetting she’s a lady.”
“That’s one thing neither of us have to worry about. Good night, Percival.” Chase continued to his Jeep and got in, his face thoughtful.
The lady and the lawman were an impossible mix, but he was finding that with Julia the impossible became possible. That was another thing he didn’t understand. He wanted to lay her down and make love to her in every way known to man, but he also wanted to protect her, cherish her. He had a sinking feeling that he could do one but never both.
True to her word, Julia was ready in fifteen minutes. Slowly Chase rose from the settee in front of the elevator and watched her walk gracefully toward him. She literally took his breath away.
Her knee-length, long-sleeved black knit dress bared smooth brown shoulders. The clinging material flowed irreverently over her body. His mouth watered. A man could spend a lot of time debating what was under the dress and how fast he could get it off.
She stopped inches from him. As if the dress weren’t enough, her perfume reached out and punched him in the gut. “I hope I didn’t keep you waiting.”
“You made it worth the wait.”
“Thanks,” she said, hoping her voice didn’t sound as giddy as she felt.
His gaze wandered down her shapely legs to the high-heeled sandals on her feet. “If we decide to check out some sites after dinner and walk, will you be comfortable in those?”
“My other shoes are in here.”
Chase glanced at the small bag in her hand. “In there?”
She pulled out a pair of soft-soled black ballerina shoes. Carrying a canvas bag would have ruined what she hoped was the impact of the dress. Usually she wasn’t so vain, but she was honest enough to admit her attraction to Chase wasn’t the usual.
“Next time, bring sturdier shoes.”
Next time. Julia’s heart soared. “I will.”
The food, the ambience, the soft jazz music in the background at Leo’s were absolutely perfect. Julia cherished every moment and eagerly looked forward to being in Chase’s arms again, to having his lips on hers again. Apparently so did he, because he took her straight home after they left the restaurant, and as soon as she opened her door he pulled her into his arms.