“Restaurants are crowded…movie theaters, too.”

She laughed. “I don’t know.”

Carter lifted her chin and stared into her eyes. His fingers trailed along her jaw with one simple stroke that fired all of her senses and surged energy down her spine.

“It’s dinner. We both eat. And I could use a real night off.”

Eliza fixated on his lips and felt the tip of her tongue sneak out of her mouth to moisten hers.

Carter sucked in a quick breath.

He was dangerously close. Close enough for her to absorb the masculine scent of his cologne, the very fragrance that lingered on her skin after their one brief intimate moment.

“Have dinner with me, Eliza.” The deep tenor of his voice rumbled in his chest.

“Dinner? I can do dinner.”

A sly smile lifted his lips and he moved even closer. His kiss hovered close and she moved closer.

“I want to kiss you,” he said, stroking her chin with one hand and keeping her tucked into his side with the other.

Eliza gave a tiny nod and waited for him to make good on his remark.

“But I think I’ll wait.” His words registered even though he didn’t move away.

“Wait?”

“I rushed you the last time. I don’t want to repeat the same mistake twice.”

Eliza tore her eyes from his lips and caught the mischief dancing behind his eyes. “Kissing me was a mistake?”

“Kissing you was a taste of heaven. Rushing you into that kiss…that was a mistake. I won’t rush you again.”

What if she wanted to be rushed? Talking about kissing and the act of kissing were very different monsters. Right now she was hungry for a taste of his lips. Before she could take action, Carter pulled away.

“I’ll pick you up tomorrow night, six o’clock.”

“How should I dress?”

“Casual.”

She could do that. What she didn’t think she could do was rest until he delivered his promised kiss.

Chapter Thirteen

Dean ripped open a plain envelope that sat on his desk with his name scribbled on the front.

A note was stapled to a receipt from a department store. Your shoe-eating dog loves the taste of leather. What did you do, give him a cowhide to gnaw on?

It was signed simply “E.”

Dean scraped his jaw with his palm and covered a laugh. Sure enough, Eliza had sent him a bill for two pairs of shoes. Looking at the price, he knew Eliza had gone ahead and bought a more expensive pair than she usually wore.

He tossed the note on his desk and logged into his computer. With Eliza on his mind, he typed in the name of felon responsible for Zod’s presence in her life and waited for the man’s current location to pop up.

The prison records stated that he had been moved within the jail he’d been housed in for over a year. Dean wrote down the jail cell number, determined to find out who bunked with the scumbag.

He typed up a quick email to the warden asking for details and sent it off.

Dean already knew the man in jail had “good behavior” privileges. Newspapers and the television would be accessible.

It would be a lot easier if the man assaulted someone on the inside. Then his chances of seeing Eliza on the news or in the papers would be more difficult.

Dean wasn’t that lucky.

At least Eliza was sailing under the radar and had managed to keep her face out of the news for the past week.

Dean patted his jacket pocket by habit, searching for his pack of cigarettes. He bit his lower lip in an effort to squelch the need for nicotine. Eliza’s comment when she’d seen him hummed in his brain. He wanted to quit and purposely left the pack at home. He hadn’t smoked for thirteen hours and already his nerves were fried.

He sucked down his cold coffee in an effort to replace one chemical for another.

Damn warden is taking his time getting back to me.

Dean glanced at the time he’d sent the email. It had only been twenty minutes.

He’d picked a hell of a time to quit smoking…again.

****

They skipped the movie and played miniature golf. Carter knew if he sat down in a dark theater, he’d fall asleep within minutes. That wouldn’t bode well for his being voted “date of the year.”

What he wasn’t expecting was his date to be Little Miss Hole-in-one.

For the most part, they went unnoticed on the small golf course. Filled with families and teens, the patrons were too engrossed with each other to identify him as the potential next governor of the state. For once, he was happy to be invisible.

Carter leaned on his putter as Eliza lined up her ball.

“There’s no way you’ll make that with one swing.”

“Is that a challenge, Hollywood?”

“Even the sign says PAR is three.”

“Par schmar. It’s all in the angles, just like bowling and pool.”

Carter narrowed his eyes and waited while Eliza tapped the ball up an embankment, through a narrow hole and come within two inches of the hole before it stopped.

“Told you.”

One tiny tap and the ball went in. “That’s still one under PAR. You’d have to make this in one shot and the next three just to catch up.”

Carter dropped his ball and attempted to see the angles Eliza referred to. “I didn’t know you were so competitive.” He tapped the ball, watched it roll up, and then right back down before it landed within a foot of where he started.

Eliza laughed. “Why do things half way? Do it right or don’t do it at all?”

He hit the ball again and made it through the hole. “Who taught you that?”

“My dad, actually. He was an optimist who believed anything was achievable with hard work and determination.” Her voice softened and Carter glanced up from the ball to see her gazing into the sky. He’d never heard her talk about her parents. Considering the events in her life, she probably never did.

“Was he a hard worker?”

Eliza sighed. “Eighteen hour days. He held a nine to five and then picked up extra work after hours. He believed in parents staying home to raise their children.”

Carter tapped the ball, overshot his mark.

Eliza kept talking. “My mom took care of the house, cooked…she baked bread. I remember our whole house smelling like yeast and dough. Some kids wanted their moms to bake cookies. I used to live for a thick pad of real butter smothered over oven-hot freshly baked bread.”

Carter couldn’t relate, his own mother wouldn’t know the right side of a spatula.

“We always ate dinner as a family. My dad would come home between jobs, shower and sit down to three courses before moving on to his next job. He never complained. When I would moan about him not being around, he’d remind me how lucky we were to have so much. Most of my friends at school were latch-key kids who didn’t see either of their parents.”