Page 29 of The Last Close Call

“This is me on the left,” she said, grabbing her purse off the floor.

Jack pulled up to the curb in front of the parking garage.

“Well, it’s possible you’re right.” She made eye contact. “Maybe I handled it wrong. But I think your message got through. I really think you’ll hear from her in the next few days.”

She pushed her door open, and Jack felt a dart of panic as she slid out.

“Wait.”

She turned around, a wary look in her deep blue eyes as she stood in the rain. She was pissed at him. And he wanted a chance to smooth things over.

“How about dinner?”

Her eyebrows shot up. “Dinner?”

“Would you like to go get something together?”

“You mean, like, tonight?”

She didn’t look even remotely tempted by the invitation.

Jack cleared his throat. “Yeah, we could go grab a bite somewhere. My treat. Consider it a thank-you for helping me with the interview.”

A line appeared between her eyebrows. “I thought you said I botched it?”

“The jury’s still out on that.” He tried to keep his tone light, but she still looked less than thrilled by the prospect of dinner with him. And suddenly he desperately wanted to convince her. If she slammed that door and walked away, he might not ever see her again.

“Come on.” He gave her what he hoped was a charming smile. “Say yes.”

SEVEN

Rowan checked her reflection in the rearview mirror. Her hair was damp and frizzy, and the tip of her nose was pink from the cold. She put on some ChapStick and decided it was hopeless.

“Screw it,” she said, sliding from her dry car into the drumming rain. She jogged across the parking lot and hopped over a puddle near the sidewalk.

The inside of the restaurant was warm and dim and smelled of barbecue. Rowan hadn’t been here since a disastrous blind date five years ago. This one wasn’t off to a much better start.

But it wasn’t a date.

She stepped up to the host stand and spotted Jack in the bar at a high-top table. He slid off his stool as she approached him.

“This all right?” he asked, pulling out her chair for her.

Okay, maybe it was kind of a date. His badge and gun were no longer on display, and he looked like a civilian now.

“Sure.” She hung her purse on the back of the stool and sat.

“The dining room had a half-hour wait,” he said.

“Must be good.”

“Best brisket in town.”

That was saying a lot, given their location, but Rowan wasn’t much of a barbecue connoisseur.

She was hungry, though, and she grabbed the menu tucked behind the condiment bottles. It gave her a distraction as she felt Jack’s gaze on her.

He kept watching her, and whenever he did, she felt a warm glow. He rested his arms on the table, and she was acutely aware of his closeness as he read his menu. Jack was attractive. She couldn’t pretend otherwise.

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