ROMANCING THE BULLDOG (5 page)

toward his limousine.

“Please, just leave me alone,” Liz pleaded in a defeated voice, making clear that she’d

already told him she was not getting into any automobile with him. But she couldn’t find the

will to resist his pull. She, in fact, couldn’t find the will to do much of anything but to move

with his pull. He wasn’t exactly a stranger after all. This was Bulldog Rascone, the man who

had taken her on the ride of her life before. Somehow she knew, by getting in this limo with

him, he was going to try and take her there again. And given the bulldog in him, given how

stubborn he could get when he made up his mind, her opinion in the matter, though vital to

her, really wouldn’t make a hill-of-beans difference to him.

TWO

In the limo, Stephen sat next to Jason and Liz sat across from them both. She was dripping

wet, and wiping tears, and knew she looked like something out of a horror movie, but she

didn’t care. This day felt like a horror movie to her, and she wasn’t interested in pretending

otherwise.

When she looked at Jason, however, he seemed almost disturbed by her display. He looked

so superior, so know-it-all-ish that she felt an urge to tell him to let her out. And he just sat

there, staring at her as if she was some circus act. It annoyed her mightily.

“May I ask what you’re staring at?” she finally asked him.

He, of course, grinned. “No, was I staring?”

His charming grin, displaying bright white, perfectly lined teeth, disarmed Liz. She

remembered how he grinned when they had finished their, for want of a better term, bump and

grind session. “Yes,” she eventually said. “You were staring.”

“Didn’t mean to. Sorry. It’s just that you look rough, girl. You look as if you’ve had the

proverbial bad day.”

Liz wanted to smile. Now he was beginning to sound like the old Jason. But she didn’t say

anything.

“Look, I’m only saying that because I doubt if a little water splash could cause this much

emotion.”

Liz looked at him. “Where are you taking me?”

Jason smiled. “Wherever you want to go.”

“I’ve got to get to work.”

“And where is work?”

She hesitated. Then decided what’s the use. They’ve got to take her somewhere. “On the

eastside,” she said. “Phoenix Avenue. I work at the Meyers Center.”

“I’m not sure I’m familiar with the Meyers Center,” Jason said reflectively, looking at

Stephen for assistance. Stephen, however, only shrugged his shoulders with that
how should I

know about some eastside Center
arrogant look on his face. Jason often wondered why he

ever hooked up with a man like Stephen. He was a brilliant operative, yes, but his annoying

ways were beginning to outshine that brilliance. He then looked at Liz. “It’s a new facility

then?”

“New?” Liz said as if Jason had to be joking. “Of course it’s not new. The Meyers Center

was around when I was a kid.”

Jason smiled. “You’re still a kid.”

Liz almost found herself smiling. Almost. “Yeah, right.”

“But really, how old are you?” Jason asked this in a tone that belied his anxiousness, and

Stephen looked at him as if he’d gone batty. Who cared how old she was, Stephen wanted to

know. What was with his boss and this female?

“What difference does it make?” Liz asked and Stephen couldn’t agree more, going so far as

to nod his head.

Jason, however, remained interested. He wasn’t sure about the answer. Wasn’t sure at all

how long it had been. “It doesn’t make any difference,” he said, “but I still want to know.”

Liz hesitated. Rubbed her fingers across her forehead. Why didn’t he just leave her alone,

she wondered yet again. But she also didn’t want to be rude to a man who was actually giving

her a ride. “I’m twenty-eight,” she said.
Satisfied
?
Happy
? she wanted to add.

Jason grinned. “Twenty-eight? Why you’re nothing but a child,” he said, knowing that it

would annoy Liz. And Liz, true to form, rolled her eyes.

“What is it that you do at this Meyers Center?” Jason asked and both Liz and Stephen

looked at him, with neither understanding his interest. “Just curious,” he felt a need to add.

Liz shrugged. What was the use, she thought. “I’m the youth director,” she said. “A youth

director who’s very late and who really needs to be getting there.” She knew that she would

have been even later if she had been forced to ride the city bus, but since she wasn’t riding the

bus, thanks to him and his water splash, she didn’t see why she couldn’t at least get something

out of the deal.

Jason immediately pressed a button beside his seat. “Boris,” he said into the intercom.

“Yes, sir?” the driver of the limousine responded.

“Change in plans. Take us to the Meyers Center on Phoenix Avenue first.”

Stephen nearly jumped from his seat. “The Meyers Center!” he blurted out, astonished.

“But, sir, we’re almost at the Chamber! Boris can drop us off first and then he can take this,

this person---”

“Are you familiar with Phoenix Avenue, Boris?” Jason asked his driver, ignoring Stephen.

“Somewhat familiar, yes, sir, I believe I am.”

“What about the Meyers Center?”

“The Meyers Center? Ah, I do believe so, yes, sir.”

“Very good then,” Jason said and leaned back from the intercom. Stephen, knowing his

boss too well, pulled out his Blackberry with much frustration and began to communicate with

one of their advance people about this unfortunate turn of events. He even noted in his text

message that if he didn’t know better, he’d say that their boss was behaving like some “love-

sick juvenile.” But then he scratched that, because he did know Jason Rascone all too well,

and the idea that he could possibly be attracted to some street woman, and a black street

woman at that, was pushing it. He simply informed them to play for time, that they would be

there as soon as they could.

“Now that that’s taken care of,” Jason said to Liz as Stephen continued to peck furiously

into his Blackberry, “let’s talk about you. How long have you been the Center’s director?”

“The Center’s
youth
director,” Liz corrected as she folded her soaked handkerchief and

tried her best not to think about her pitiful circumstances. “I’ve been working there almost a

month.”

“No, one month? That’s all? Where did you work before that?”

“No-where,” she said and both Stephen and Jason looked at her. “I mean I worked, but not

here. I was in Philly. Philadelphia. I’ve only been in town a month.”

“So you’re a transplant?”

“In a way I guess you could say that. I was born here, but I left when I went away to

college, and I never came back.”

Jason’s look changed, as he stared unblinkingly at her. He remembered that part of it well.

She left him that morning and he felt oddly unhinged. Sex with her had been so good to him,

the best he’d ever had on so many levels, that he couldn’t get it out of his system. He slept

with other women, but none of them gave him that level of emotional connection he felt when

he had that night with Liz.

He had it so bad that he even went to the campus of Harvard University looking for her.

But from what he could obtain from the dorm, from the Registrar’s office, from a few people

that knew a few people, Liz never checked in. Terrified, Jason phoned her father. When

Hamp told him that he already knew, that Liz had met some civil rights fanatic and had taken

off with him, Jason was livid. He wanted to know where, and all the background on this guy

she fled with. But Hamp told him not to waste his time. He was so over that daughter of his

that he would personally harm the individual who so much as brought up her name again.

But Jason couldn’t let it be. The idea that she would have taken up with some guy nobody

seemed to know any substantive thing about, disturbed him. He hired an investigator. Within

a couple months they’d found her, living with some young hot shot activist in Philadelphia.

They had pictures. She looked happy, thrilled to be with the crowd she was now running with,

all hugged up with her new, young, gorgeous,
African-American
beau. And here was Jason:

older, white, not exactly a man she was in love with. He left her alone.

Liz looked at Jason, wondering why his already staring look had changed. Now he seemed

to be searing into her. “Do I have a growth on my nose or something?” she asked him. Didn’t

he know it was rude to stare?

Jason smiled, tried to grin but couldn’t pull it off. “You don’t remember me, do you?”

Liz’s heart dropped. He was going to go there. “Remember you? Why should I remember

you?”

“I’m Jason Rascone.”

“Yes, you told me.”

“And you don’t remember?”

Liz hesitated. She wanted to lie, but she didn’t. “I remember you,” she said.

It hurt Jason to his core. She said it almost coldly, like what they shared meant so little to

her. But he had perfected the art of playing along, too. He grinned.

“How about that?” he said. “You went away to Harvard, met some duffus, at least that’s

what your father called him, and followed him to the ends of the earth, aka Philadelphia.”

Liz continued to stare. This was Jason. This was the man who she allowed to. . . She

blinked.

“Hamp told me about it,” Jason continued, seeing her discomfort. “That was something like

a decade ago, but I remember he was quite pissed about it. He wanted you at Harvard, not

slumming around with some loser.”

“I wasn’t slumming around and he wasn’t a loser,” Liz said and continued to stare at Jason.

He was older now, and he no longer had that mustache, but yes, it was him. It was Jason

Rascone, the man she had allowed to take her virginity. After it happened she just knew she’d

never forget him. But as the months came and went she could hardly remember anything

about him, except what they’d done that night, and even that became shrouded in fog and

mirrors.

“So, of all the dames in all the world you, Hamilton Morgan’s daughter, ends up on the

same street corner at the same puddle at the same time that I happen to travel past and splash.”

Stephen, astounded, looked up from his Blackberry. “You have got to be kidding me,” he

said. “She’s Hamp’s daughter?”

Liz looked at Stephen and then back at Jason. And suddenly she felt awkward, exposed.

She remembered his nakedness, the way he held her, entered her, and she blushed to the roots

of her hair. “Yes,” she said, refusing to say any more.

“Remember? I worked for him back in the day,” Jason said, deciding it best to not go there

either.

“Of course I remember that,” Liz said with some irritation. “You’re his personal attorney.”

“
Was
his personal attorney, that’s right. We severed ties years ago. In fact, it was the same

year that we. . . that you left for Harvard,” he said and Liz thought she was going to faint. “I

am not one of Hamp’s favorite people at present.”

Neither am I
, Liz wanted to say, but didn’t bother.

“Maybe we should phone your father,” Stephen suggested. “I’m sure he wouldn’t want his

little girl stranded like this.”

“No,” Liz said quickly. “Thank-you, but no.”

“What do you mean no?” Stephen shot back. “Hamilton Morgan looks out for his own.

He’s a tireless defender of his people. And trust me, we know. We’ve been the brunt of his

defenses far too many times for my taste I can tell you. And a lot of it wasn’t fair. But when

did Hamp care about fairness?”

“That’s enough, Stephen,” Jason jumped in. “We aren’t going to bash her father.”

“He has no problem bashing you every chance he gets.”

“Why don’t you want to call your father?” Jason asked Liz, ignoring Stephen again.

“I just don’t,” Liz said and said it in such a way that Jason knew to leave it alone.

“So,” Jason said, seeing her discomfort, looking down at her body and remembering it, “you

came all this way from Philadelphia, back to good old Jacksonville, to become the youth

director of an inner city Center? Hamp Morgan’s daughter?”

Liz nodded. “Something like that.”

“Nothing like that,” Jason said as if he knew her like a book. Liz looked at him, amazed by

his smugness.

“I beg your pardon?” she asked, astounded.

But Jason would not relent. “Nobody leaves a place like Philadelphia to come back here

unless they have no choice. Bottom line. Point blank. Not that J-ville is a bad place to live,

don’t get me wrong, it’s a great place to live. But it’s no Philadelphia.”

Liz stared at Jason, and she wondered if he was seeing more to her than he could possibly