Unauthorized Obsession (Unauthorized Series Book 3) (5 page)

Kara pawed through the clothes in her closet and tried to decide what to wear. She cursed herself one more time for not finding out where they were going. Since she didn’t have a clue, she wanted to look fairly dressed up but not overdressed. She finally decided on a pair of tight jeans, snip-toe, suede cowboy boots with pink accents, and a black silk blouse with a low back. She locked her gun in her safe, thinking lightly about Zane’s earlier teasing, when her gaze fell upon her handcuffs. She picked them up and looked at them, thinking she could tease him back if the date went well. Unnoticed by her, a flush heated her face, but her hands stuffed the handcuffs into her back pocket, and then she retreated to the bathroom to make herself up.

Kara stared at her reflection in the mirror. At work she wore no makeup, and recently she had gotten lazy even outside of work. She didn’t think she had put makeup on at all in a couple of months. She settled on a bit of eyeliner, lip stain and mascara, then tied her hair back in what she hoped was a casual up-do. She brushed her teeth and stuffed gum in her front pockets then ran out to look at the time. 6:30. Her mouth dried in an instant and adrenaline shot through her system, like she was being challenged on the street.
It’s just a date,
she told herself.
Calm down.
She took a deep breath and an image of Zane’s cocky smile jumped into her mind. Oh how she wanted to like that cocky smile - and she would as long as he wasn’t an arrogant jerk. She loved cocky, confident, unpredictable men.

Kara put the finishing touches on her face, said goodbye to Duke, and left the house, double checking the lock before she walked to her car. As she drove to the station, she turned the radio on, trying to keep her nervousness at bay. FUN’s
Some Nights
came on and she rolled her windows up so she could sing along at full volume and not get looks from other people.

Kara pulled into the parking lot of the police station and deliberately parked in a dark, quiet corner, as far away from the receiving doors as possible. She got out and walked closer to the station, looking for Zane's truck. She was early, but so was he. She saw his large, blue truck almost immediately and bounced over to it, waving lightly, her heart hammering in her chest.

As soon as Zane saw her a smile crossed his face. He jumped out of the truck and ran to the passenger side, opening the door for her. Kara was happy to see he was also dressed in jeans and a dressy silk shirt.

“Hi,” he said, his eyes drinking her in. “You look amazing.”

Kara heard deep sincerity and admiration in his voice and it made her blush. She always thought of herself as a little too wide in the hips and a little too small up top with a few too many muscles for most men, but Zane didn’t seem to think that at all. “Thanks,” she breathed, warm from her head to her toes.

He held out a hand for her and helped her up into the cab of the large truck. He ran around the other side and climbed in. He patted his keys in the ignition three times, then started the truck and pulled out of the police department parking lot.

“So where are we going?” she asked.

“Is Wednesday’s okay? My buddy is playing a set there tonight.”

Wednesday's was an expensive bar downtown, with a highbrow clientele. Kara had never been there, not even for an emergency call. “Sure,” she said.

He glanced at her again. “You look really good.”

Kara laughed. “You already said that.”

“Oh,” he said, facing back out the front window. Kara noticed that the cocky smile hadn’t put in an appearance yet.

“You look good too,” she told him, “Except for …” She leaned across the cab of the truck and pulled a tuft of long red fur off of his jeans holding it up for him to see.

He grabbed it, embarrassed, and threw it out the window. “Those dogs, I swear, no matter how often I get them groomed they shed all over everything. Including me.
Especially
me.”

“They are beautiful dogs,” Kara said.

Zane nodded. “They are beautiful, loyal, and mostly well-behaved, the best you can hope for in a dog. It makes it worth the small inconveniences.”

Kara stifled a giggle. “I really love their names.”

Zane glanced at her, amusement in the lines of his face. “Are you making fun of them? Or of me?”

“No! I would never do that. But Lucy and Kevin? You have to admit they are strange names for dogs.”

“Well, once you hear their original names you’ll probably like Lucy and Kevin.”

“You changed their names? Why?”

Zane made a face. “It’s a long story and one I really didn’t want to share on the first date.” His face softened. “But I might as well get it over with. I’ll tell you when we get inside, OK?”

Kara looked up. They were here already. “OK.”

Zane parked, patted his keys three times, then pulled them out of the ignition. Kara watched him with the observation skills of a cop and decided not to comment on it.
So he had a quirk, so what? He’d only done it twice. That wasn’t too weird … yet.

He got out of the truck and ran around to her door, but she was already out before he could open it for her. He closed it behind her and motioned for her to follow him into the bar. From the outside, it looked like a small place. A brick building jammed in between the restaurant on one side and a real estate office on the other, with barely enough room to walk between, plus a small, understated sign reading Wednesday’s above the door.

He held the door open for her and as she walked in her eyes scanned the room. Every table was full. It looked like they were going to have to sit at the bar, but the bar was jam-packed also. She wondered if he would want to take her somewhere else.

The hostess, a tall blonde wearing all black, smiled artificially at her, but when she saw Zane sunshine lit her face. “Mr. Rowe, I’m so glad you could make it. We saved a special table for you.”

He nodded and smiled at the hostess and she led them to a dark corner of the room. The table was perfect; close to the band, but not close enough that they wouldn’t be able to hear each other speaking. She sat down, then looked around, taking everything in. The music was acoustic and soothing with a solid beat. She eyed the band, wondering which one was Zane’s friend. The lead singer reminded her a bit of the dark-haired guy from Savage Garden, which was interesting since the music was similar to Savage Garden's also.

The waitress materialized at the table immediately, wanting to take their drink orders. Zane looked at Kara pointedly and she asked for a beer. Zane smiled at her order, then ordered a beer and a water and asked the waitress to bring the house appetizers. The waitress seemed almost star struck and called Zane Mr. Rowe, just as the hostess had done. Kara raised an eyebrow, then noticed the waitress’ puppy dog eyes. She was looking at Zane intently like he was her long-lost crush from high school. Zane thanked her kindly and she finally scurried off.
That was weird
, Kara thought. He must be a regular here, and apparently at least one waitress had the hots for him.

The song finished and the people in the audience began to clap. Zane slammed his hands together as hard as anybody and let out a piercing whistle. He leaned in to Kara and said, “That’s my buddy, Clint,” while pointing to the lead singer. “He’s really good. He just turned down an offer to sign with a record label because he’s trying to stay indie for the fans. I’m hoping to convince him to start his own record label.”

Clint waited for the applause to stop and then started talking, his eyes sweeping the audience, his gaze finally stopping on Zane and lighting into a smile. Kara listened to hear what he was saying.

“Thank you so much for coming out to hear us tonight. And while I’m thanking people, I need to thank our sponsors that make the music possible. There’s one sitting over there. Zane Rowe of Rowe Construction. Stand up, Zane.”

Zane look at Kara and shrugged, then bounced to his feet. He waved at Clint and Clint said, “Thanks buddy, we couldn’t have done it without you.”

Zane popped both thumbs out and the crowd laughed in approval. Zane took a bow, then waved a final time and sat down again. Kara was struck by how natural he seemed in the limelight.

“You have a construction company?” she asked.

“Yeah, I bought it six years ago. We’ve got a lot going on right now, in fact that afternoon you saw me at my neighbor's house I had just come home from a meeting. I landed the job of the century. My company will be putting up the new McLean Building downtown.”

Kara whistled. She had heard of the McLean Building. It had been a controversial project from day one as the state and the city fought on opposite sides and the billionaire Harvard McLean pushed to allow it to move forward. It was supposed to be a billion-dollar project. She felt deeply impressed and suddenly a little bit nervous. Was Zane rich? What was he doing with her? She pushed the thoughts aside. She was smart, cute, and hard-working. Just because she wasn’t rich didn’t make her less of a person. He started talking and she struggled her attention away from her pep talk and back to him.

“Yeah, I think that’s what gave me the confidence to ask you out,” he said.

Kara started to laugh but then saw the dead serious look on his face. She pursed her lips and looked around for her drink, something to cover the awkwardness of the moment. Luckily, the waitress was quick and she was right there, stepping in between Zane and Kara, giving Kara a moment to think about her answer.

When the waitress left, she took a sip of her drink and then said, “You don't strike me as a guy who lacks confidence.”

“You’d be surprised,” he replied, and then he winked at her.

Kara’s eyebrows furrowed. What he
said
was in stark contrast to what he
did
. For a second, she saw the cocky grin reappear and she was entranced by his incongruence. The band started playing again and Kara let her attention wander for a moment. Zane also watched the band and tapped his feet along to the music.

She leaned over to him. “So the McLean Building, how did you get the contract?”

Zane turned to her and she saw a new light in his eyes. His work was definitely one of the loves of his life and she was fascinated by the liveliness in his face and manner as he talked about it. Within moments though, the story fascinated her even more. It gave her an insight into his life and his drive that she wouldn’t have been able to see any other way.

“That’s a long and boring story. Are you sure you want to hear it?”

She nodded.

“I started working on him three years ago. Harvard McLean, I mean. This was when the controversy first started around the building he was planning to construct downtown. At that time, I was struggling. I had just gotten my contractor's license and we only had a few jobs around town. I could barely pay my employees. I saw the story in the newspaper about the opposition to the building and I read between the lines that it was going to take a while for him to get approval from the city and the state to put his beloved building up, so I decided right then that I was going to get his attention and be the one to put it up for him. He had a contractor all picked out but I thought if I could get close to him I could change his mind. I did some basic research on him and found out where he keeps his yacht. That and his office building seemed like the best places to be in his face but not stalking him, if you know what I mean.”

Kara jumped at the word stalking but raised a hand to her hair and patted it, trying to cover up the movement. She hadn’t thought about the mess she was going through for at least an hour or two now, and that was good. She turned her full attention back to Zane.

“I decided to try the Marina. I contacted the general manager and asked him if he needed any work done on the Marina itself. I volunteered to do anything for free, all he needed to do was buy the materials. He was suspicious and he didn’t seem to want any part of it at first, so I had to come clean and tell him I was trying to impress someone. He seemed to understand that so he went along with it.

The first thing I did was hand most of the general operations of my business over to my second-in-command and then I spent every day sprucing up the Marina. I painted the docks, I sanded and replaced loose boards, I hand-tested every slip for buoyancy and things like loose nails. I paid one of the valets twenty bucks a day to keep an eye open for me and call when Mr. McLean dropped his car off. That way I could be near his slip when he came in. Every day I saw him I respectfully said hi, and once he considered me a fixture, I started asking him if there was anything I could do for him. He always said no, but one day he seemed angry about something.

I offered to help him as usual, and he hesitated. I stepped forward and told him anything he needed me to do I would do it, and it turned out he needed someone to drive two states over to retrieve his daughter’s cat from a friend of hers who had taken the cat because she was mad at the daughter. I did it for him and after that he started inviting me on his yacht and asking me to do other jobs for him. When he found out I was a contractor, he looked at me slyly, like he knew exactly what I had done, but he didn’t order me to get away from him. Instead he continued our work relationship, and then one day he asked me what made me think I had the ability to do a project as big as the ones he worked on. I’d been waiting for that moment. I pulled out my plans and showed him everything that was wrong with his current operation and what the contractor he had lined up frequently made mistakes with and how I would fix those issues. He told me he would consider it. On Friday, he called me into his office and said the old contractor was out, and I was in.”