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I’d picked the restaurant, and my instructions from Ashley were to get a table and wait to meet my “detail,” whatever that meant.
* * *
I arrivedat Angelica’s early, and the hostess seated me at a table near the window. Without any names, I was left to look for men who showed up in off-the-rack dark suits, white shirts, thin, plain ties, probably sticks up their asses, and definitely super-short hair. Or maybe they were sending a woman as well. What did female FBI agents wear? Pants for sure…after that I drew a blank.
One guy too attractive to be an FBI prospect arrived. Blond, tall, and well muscled, he was also underdressed for an FBI dude. Blondie briefly looked in my direction, but then took up residence at the bar. Definitely lick-worthy, he ranked several points above any of the recent dates I’d been on. How come there weren’t some like him on SuperSingles?
A minute later an attractive redhead with the world’s deepest cleavage joined him. Lucky girl.
Maybe that was my problem—not enough cleavage in my SuperSingles profile picture. While I waited, I thought through the tops in my closet.
I glanced down. Definitely insufficient cleavage to be fishing in this pond. I undid a button.
An even taller, more muscled guy walked in. Mr. Muscles stopped to take in the room. The leather flight jacket over his button-down shirt still didn’t fit the FBI dress code. His eyes landed on me, and a hint of a smile tugged at the corners of his mouth before his scan moved on to the other tables.
At least showing a little more cleavage had gotten me noticed, a real improvement.
He continued past the bar to the bathrooms.
I went back to watching the front door for my detail.
“Kelly?”
I turned. It was Mr. Muscles, and this close, he looked oddly familiar.
He moved around to take the other seat. “Your profile picture doesn’t do you justice.”
He knew my name, and I realized why. He was Adam Cartwright from years ago in LA.
I blushed and cringed at the same time, if that was possible. Daddy would kill me if he knew I was even talking with a Cartwright. Daddy had been at war with Adam’s father forever, and my brother Dennis and Adam had serious bad blood between them for some other reason nobody had ever explained. The Hatfields and the McCoys had probably been friendlier.
He pulled out the chair. “It’s been a long time. How have you been?”
I fumbled for the right words. “Okay. But… But I’m expecting to meet some people, actually.”
He sat down. “I know. I’m your date. Adam Carter.” He said the last name slowly.
My mouth fell open.
“What’s good here?” He acted as if this was a real date, and our families didn’t hate each other. Or maybe he was pretending not to remember.
“You?” I couldn’t believe it. The feud had never made any sense to me, but Daddy would have a heart attack if he knew I was sitting across the table from one of the hated Cartwrights.
He skipped my query. “What do you recommend?”
I’d picked this place because it was close to work. “I’ve only been here once before, so I don’t really know.” I paused. “Are you?” I didn’t want to sayFBIout loud.
“Ashley asked me to dine with you, if that answers your question.”
That did answer one of my questions. If Ashley sent him, he was in the right place.
“You and…?”
“I think a dinner for two is much more intimate, don’t you?”
That answered my other question. My detail was apparently a single protector.
As he scanned the menu, I took in the person across from me. No longer the high school senior I’d last seen, this was a man—light blue eyes, an angular chin that could probably cut glass, and shoulders Apollo would be envious of. The too-short dusty blond hair was the only part I’d gotten right about him.
