Have Me

“This is my friend Rebecca,” Katy said. “Interested?”

“In what?”

“Her. Going out with her. You know, a date?”

He stared again at the phone, at the picture. Rebecca Thorpe was a beautiful woman. Interesting beautiful. Her face was too long, her nose too prominent, but there was something better than pretty about her. Every picture he’d seen of her, didn’t matter who she was with, she seemed to be daring everyone to make something of it. Of her. Right now, looking at the overexposed camera phone photo, he had to smile. No choice. It didn’t hurt that she had a body that struck all the right chords. Long, lean, like a Thoroughbred. “You do realize you called Jake Donnelly, right?”

Katy laughed. “Yes. I’m very aware of who you are. And who she is. And I happen to believe you two would hit it off well. I’m pretty clever about these things. And don’t worry, she already understands you’re not in the market for anything serious.”

So this Thoroughbred wanted to go out with a quarter horse for a change of pace? “She knows I’m busted up, right?”

“Not a problem.”

He gave it another minute’s thought, then figured, “Sure. Why the hell not?”

“Great. How about the Upstairs bar at the Kimberly Hotel, tomorrow night at eight?”

It was his turn to laugh. “What is this, some kind of gag?”

“No. I swear. She’s great. You’ll like her. A lot.”

He’d have to wear something nice to the Kimberly. But he hadn’t worn anything nice in a long time. Before he got shot, that’s for sure. “I’ll get there a little early. Introduce myself.”

“Excellent. You’ll thank me.”

“I’m already thanking you. For thinking of me. Although I’m still unclear why.”

“You’ll see,” she said.

“Fair enough.” He disconnected from Katy, but stared at the picture on his phone for a while. God damn, she was something else.

Katy had been only the second woman he’d been with since he’d been put out to pasture. She’d been great, and if his life had made any kind of sense, he might have pursued more than a onetime thing. But the only thing he knew for sure at the moment was that he was a broken ex-cop without a plan in the world except for rebuilding the house he was born in so his father could live out the rest of his days at home. After that was anybody’s guess.

“Hey, Jake?”

He winced at the sound of his father’s voice, tinny over the walkie. “Yeah, Dad,” he said, his thumb finding the transmit button without his even having to look.

“How many cop jokes are there?”

He shoved his cell into his pocket. “Two,” Jake said. “All the rest of them are true.”

Laughter filled the mess of a bathroom, and Jake supposed that as far as problems went, having three lunatics telling him cop jokes all day was pretty far down the list.

2

REBECCA ARRIVED AT HER building just before 6:00 a.m. She needed coffee and lots of it. Facing her to-do list was not something she was looking forward to but there was no getting around it.

Her suite on 33rd was a behemoth. The size itself wasn’t the issue—it was the fussy ostentation that got to her, the image that nearly outweighed their purpose. There was an enormous fresh-flower display next to the huge mahogany reception desk. Warren, the receptionist, wouldn’t be in until eight-thirty, and Rebecca’s personal assistant, Dani, had been coming in at eight lately, an hour earlier than she had to. It was very, very still with no one else on the floor, but then that wasn’t unusual. The air of gravitas was nurtured like a living thing in this fortress.

Rebecca didn’t make a sound on the plush burgundy carpeting in the long hallway that led to her office. She swiped her key card, put her briefcase on her desk, her purse in her credenza drawer, and went to the small private room—the truest symbol of how much the founders had prized their creature comforts. She headed straight for the coffeemaker.

Once she’d finished with the prep and pressed the button for the machine to start brewing, she turned and leaned on the counter. There was a huge LED television mounted on the wall across from the deep and supremely comfortable leather chairs, museum-worthy paintings on the muted walls and a couch with such deep bottom cushions that it was more suitable to napping than sitting. Fresh flowers were here as well, replaced weekly by a service that understood decorum while making a point that when it came to the details, no expense was spared. It was as ridiculous as it was sacrosanct.

She was the first woman to ever run the foundation, and her ideas about modeling their business plan after the great philanthropic organizations like the Rockefeller Trust or the Carnegie Group continued to be an uphill war. Picking her battles had been one of her first and most important lessons.

That’s why she tried hard not to resent the time and money being spent on the donor dinner. The guest list included most of the Forbes top-fifty richest people in the world. They gave millions so that after all these years, their endowments were in the billions. She needed to remember that and just do the job.

Preparing her coffee in her favorite mug soothed her, letting her prioritize the next few unencumbered hours. It wasn’t until she took her first sip that her thoughts turned to Jake. And there was a problem.

Not her excitement, that was a pleasure and a rush. It wasn’t like her to want a man purely for sex. She was, in theory, at least to quote her mother, above that sort of thing.

Guess not, Mom.

When she returned to her desk, instead of clicking on her email, she got her purse from the credenza and took out Jake’s trading card.

Oh, yeah. She wasn’t at all sure why, but looking at him made her clench all kinds of important muscles. She hadn’t even met him and his face started a chemical spike inside her. The exact same reaction had occurred each time she’d sneaked a peek at his photograph. She refused to acknowledge how often that had been.

The problem was, with this level of excitement over the two-dimensional image, how on earth was the very three-dimensional living man going to measure up?

It was all about narrowing her expectations. She could do that. It wasn’t as if she wanted to fall in love with Jake or for him to love her. She hoped to like him, though, because she knew from experience that if he was a complete jerk, her attraction would vanish in an instant.

They were going to meet for drinks and that was to her advantage. She didn’t normally indulge to the point of feeling buzzed, but when she did, she became more forgiving. And, if it came down to it, she could probably get him to not talk at all.

She put his card away, determined not to look at it again until after work. Not only was she slammed for time, but she needed to get home early enough to go the extra mile with grooming. Oh, the joys and pains of getting naked with someone new.

She clicked on her email icon, and the sheer number of new messages was enough to chase away any thoughts of sweaty sex. Especially when the first of the emails was from her father. That never ended well.

THE MORNING COFFEE WAS already made by the time Jake limped his way down the stairs. It was freezing outside. Sitting in the kitchen, his father was bundled up in a thick wool sweater and had a lap blanket tucked around his lower half as he warmed his hands on his old NYPD coffee mug.

“The weatherman says we’re in for a cold one tonight.”

Jake nodded as he fixed his mug. Two sugars, half and half. He didn’t drink until he slid onto the banquette in the breakfast nook. He needed to do something about the cushion covers. They were almost as old as he was and the regular washings had made them threadbare and pale. “I’m going to the city.”

“Yeah?” his dad asked.

“Yeah.”

“Date?”

Jake drank some coffee, sighing in satisfaction as it warmed him. “Yeah.”

“I’ll get Liam to spend the night, then?”

“Already cleared it with him. He’s bringing over DVDs.”

“Ah, shit,” his father said, putting his mug down on the counter, then turning his wheelchair a few degrees so he faced Jake. “That means another goddamn Bruce Willis festival. Swear to Christ, Liam has, a whatchamacallit, a bromance, going with that guy.”

“What’s it matter? Pete’s got a hard-on for his car.”