Mystery Man (The Dream Man Series Book 1)

I’d managed to get rid of Tracy, nuke and eat my Pad Thai and return to my computer but after an hour of work, my mind wandered. My foot came up so I could rest my heel on the seat, I swiveled my chair and I put my chin to my knee so I could comfortably stare out the window without doing anything too taxing, like holding my own head up.

I wasn’t daydreaming, I was thinking about where I’d gone wrong.

Two years ago, after Tracy had successfully passed an online course in bartending, she’d stepped out of her chosen career of hopscotching through every exclusive retail clothing store at Cherry Creek Mall and scored a job at Club. Club was a trendy eatery that had really good food, stylish, sophisticated glasses in which they served their drinks, three open fires that made the space warm and welcoming, every table was a booth and it had a huge circular bar in the middle where you could see and be seen.

At the time Club was Cam, Trace and my top spot for seeing and being seen while drinking cosmopolitans (though, to be honest, we went there because of the glasses which were flipping fantastic). It now was not since Tracy had broken so many of their fancy glasses, her boss had to let her go. He did this with tears in his eyes because he, like any man with a pulse, was half in love with her – I’d seen it, I was there, so was Cam and it wasn’t pretty.

But I was there one night a year and a half ago, drinking cosmos and keeping Tracy company on her shift.

I was well into cosmo number three and already slightly hammered because I was on some crazy diet where I was detoxing (though I had altered the diet to allow cosmos, of course) and therefore had nearly three cosmos under my belt with zero food for the day.

This was stupid, I could see this now. At the time, it didn’t seem stupid because Tracy was my ride. Troy had dropped me off and Tracy was taking me home. I could get as drunk as I wanted, flirt as much as I wanted and cackle with Tracy as much as I wanted.

Then he walked in, the Great Mystery Man, now known as Cabe “Hawk” Delgado.

I’d fallen in love with him at first sight. No joke. He was hot but it wasn’t lust. It was love.

Okay, it was part lust but it was mostly love.

There was no explaining this, even now, looking back. There was just something about the way he was, wearing faded jeans, a tailored black shirt and great black boots, clearly comfortable and confident in his style and in himself; the way he moved, graceful yet powerful, masculine, with his prowl, his confidence, his natural charisma and his looks, he owned the room; and the way he could sit at a booth and eat all alone and seem totally cool with that. He fiddled with his phone, receiving and sending texts, taking calls, he glanced here and there and he seemed like he was naturally alert to every nuance of the room but he was at ease in his own company and it was freaking awesome.

To my delight, they’d seated him at a booth on my side of the bar.

As usual when going out (Hawk did not lie, when I went out, I showed skin but that was me and Meredith taught me to embrace my own style so I did), I’d worn a skimpy, clingy, stretchy dress that showed lots of leg due to it being uber-short, lots of arm due to it being sleeveless and lots of back due to a low vee. At the time I’d owned eleven little black dresses and that dress was number three in my ranking of how hot they were (now I owned thirteen and it had slid down to position five). I had on spike-heeled, strappy sandals, my hair was out to there and my makeup was “do you come here often?”

I wasn’t on the prowl, I was there to have a nice night with my girlfriend who was fucking up at work and needed moral support but that didn’t mean I couldn’t look hot.

Sitting on my barstool, drinking cosmos like they were diet grape soda, I did everything I could to get Hawk’s attention, twisting and turning on my stool, crossing and uncrossing my legs, sucking and twirling a cocktail straw, flipping my hair unnecessarily.

And as he ate (and as I surreptitiously watched him eat, and sit, and fiddle with his phone, etc.), he didn’t even look at me.

So when he paid his bill, slid out of the booth and it was clear he was about to leave, I was devastated.

Yes, the feeling was devastated.

I knew in my cosmo-drenched brain that that man walking out the door was the end of my life. It was the loss of my last chance at happiness. It was the death of a dream.

And I’d turned to the bar, downed the last sip of my cosmo and contemplated hare kare when, suddenly, I felt a warm hand on the skin of my lower back.

I twisted my neck, looked up and there he was.

I held my breath and he asked, “You comin’ or what?”

That was it. That was his pickup line. “You comin’ or what?”

I went. I grabbed my purse, gave the high sign to a staring Tracy and walked out of that restaurant with him. He loaded me into a black SUV, asked my address, took me home and fucked my brains out.

I’d never done anything like that before in my life, not even close. It was an unbelievably insane thing to do.

And it was magnificent.

Until I woke up the next morning and he was gone.

I knew I’d fucked up. He was amazing. I was a drunken one night stand, I didn’t have his number and didn’t know his name.

I’d instantly plummeted into the depths of despair and washed away my hangover that very night with more cosmopolitans at Club, this time with Tracy bartending and Cam at my side where I explained the depths of my despair at length and every time the door opened or there was movement in that direction, I craned my neck, hoping he was coming in looking for me.

He wasn’t.

It wasn’t until three days later when I felt my comforter slide back, waking me from a deep sleep, my mind and body froze in terrified panic, then his weight hit the bed, his never to be forgotten voice said, “Hey babe,” his arms wrapped around me and he kissed me. Then he did other things to me, really, really good things.

Thus it began and even though at the start I was hopeful it would change – I’d manage to ask his name or he’d ask my number or he’d knock on the door during the day or he’d spend the night and take me out to breakfast – it didn’t change.

And sitting there in my office, staring out the window when I should have been working, I realized that I was right there with Tracy all this time. I was hopeful. I wanted that feeling back that I had when I first saw him and the feeling I got, but I foolishly denied, every time he came to call. The butterflies in my stomach. The certainty that was borne of nothing but instinct that he was the one.

But a year and a half slid by and I kept my hope while losing my dignity again and again and again.

Now things had changed.

And now I was learning that he might be hot, he might be confident, he might move with grace and there might be a multitude of things that were fascinating about him but he also could be an annoying, bossy jerk who told me what to do, didn’t listen to me and could hurt Troy’s feelings without batting an eye.

On this thought my phone rang and I jumped. It was the house phone which never rang. Everyone called my cell. But I’d turned off my cell so I could get some work done thus Tracy coming by for a surprise visit after she heard about my break-in and she couldn’t get hold of me.

Automatically I reached out and took it off its base then wished I didn’t as I beeped the button and put it to my ear thinking it was probably a marketer because on the rare occasion my phone rang it was always a marketer.

“Hello?” I asked hesitantly, ready to beep it off the instant I heard a marketer.

I didn’t hear a marketer.

“Ohmigod!” Cam shrieked.

I blinked and my chin came off my knee. Camille Antoine was not a girlie shrieker.

“Cam?” I called.

“Ohmigod!”

Oh boy. I knew what this was.

“Cam, the break-in… it’s cool, it’s –”

“You will not believe what happened!”

My back straightened.

Ohmigod! Leo proposed! Tracy, Cam and I had been waiting for-flipping-ever for Leo to propose (Cam obviously more than Trace and I but just barely). None of us could figure out, since they’d known each other for five years and been living together for four, what was taking so long.

Now it had happened.

Yay!

“Oh Cam, I’m so –” I started to gush.

But she cut off my gushing with, “Mitch asked to be taken off the case!”

I blinked again.

Then I asked, “What?”

“The case!” she cried. “The case! It’s the kind of case that could make his career. He scores a bust on this we’re talking awards, commendations, book deals. And he asked to be taken off the case because of you.”

Words were filtering into my brain like “Mitch” and “taken off the case” and “because of you”.

So, I repeated, “What?” but I did it in a breathy whisper this time.

“Gwen, I don’t know what you did but whatever you did, he… is… into you. Everyone is talking about it. I’ve been waiting all day to get a break so I could call then you weren’t picking up your cell so I had to wait to get home to my address book because I didn’t remember your stupid home phone number. I cannot believe this. He is fine. He is fine. And he’s nice. And he’s fine. Did I say he was fine?”

“Cam –”

“I mean, the Captain wouldn’t take him off the case but the fact that he asked. Shit, girl. Shit. Shit!” she shrieked.

“Cam –”

“I love this. I’m talking to Leo the minute his ass walks through the door. We’re setting up a double date.”

“Cam!” I shouted.

“What?” she asked.

“I was broken into last night,” I told her.

“I know all about that, girl,” Cam replied in a “So what?” voice. “Meredith called me this morning and it’s the talk of the Station. I know all about MM too. I know everything.”

Shit, would I ever learn? I should never take my friends home because Meredith wriggled her way into their lives being a good, funny, generous person. Then I never could keep anything secret. I learned that early but did I stop my stupid behavior? No! Meredith still talked to my friend Chelsea from junior high. Chelsea lived on the Costa del Sol in Spain with some English gazillionaire and she and Meredith chatted several times a year and I hadn’t spoken to her in fifteen of them. We didn’t even exchange Christmas cards.

Repeat after me: family here, friends there and never the twain shall meet!

“Cam, things have become complicated,” I told her.

There was silence and then, “No, Gwen, you complicate things. I heard that MM declared his intentions and you contradicted him. Mitch heard it too. Stick to your guns. I know Mitch Lawson; I’ve known him for years. He’s a good cop, a good man and he wants a house with a white picket fence, two point five kids, a dog and a woman who can match his libido, which, rumor has it, runs in the red zone. He’s just never been able to find the one, even though he’s expended a fair amount of effort looking. Girl, you could be his one!”

“Yeesh, Cam, how do you know so much about him?”

“Did I not say he was fine?” she shot back. “I got Leo but that don’t mean I can’t study fine, and I do.”

This was true. She did. She’d studied fine for so long and with such diligence, she was at a professorial level in fine.

“I can’t think about this, I have to work,” I told her. “I have commandos in my house installing a security system. Hawk crushed Troy like a bug in front of Tracy and the aforementioned commandos. My sister is in some serious shit that is leaking into my life. And Tack declared his intentions this morning and there was an Official Meeting of the Badasses in my yard, the culmination of which I am not privy to but I know that Lawson and Tack retreated and, from your news, I figure it’s to regroup. I also know that I’ve seen Hawk three times by the light of day and one of those times he brought me J’s Noodles for lunch so I’m guessing he thinks he’s the front runner.”

“He brought you J’s Noodles?”

“Yes.”

“How does he know about you and J’s?”

“Cam, I told you yesterday, he knows everything about me! And now, when I say that, I mean he knows everything about me. He told me himself he follows me, or his boys do and report in. It’s insane!”

“Why would he do that?”

“I asked and his answer was, ‘Babe’, which is how he answers a lot of my questions or responds to a lot of my yelling at him.”

“I don’t know, Mitch can be broody but I would suspect he wouldn’t answer a direct question with ‘babe’.”

Good God.

“I can’t think about Mitch, I can’t think about anything,” I told her. “I seriously need to work and all this is messing with my head.”

“Well, you need to think about MM because once I heard that a man named Hawk claimed you as his own last night, I asked some questions about him and found out a lot and the lot I found out means you need to cut him loose.”

Oh boy. That didn’t sound good.

“I don’t want to know about him either. After a year and a half I’m learning fast and the more interaction I have with Hawk, the more the threat that I’ll be the first victim of spontaneous head explosion becomes imminent.”

“You don’t like him?”

“I don’t have time to explain the complexity of everything I feel about Hawk right now. I have three hours to do ten hours of work and then I have to be at my parents’ house. They know Ginger’s in trouble and they may have disowned her but she’s their daughter and she’s my sister and they’re going to worry. I know that because, it sucks and I want to wash it away, but I’m worried. I have to gear up for facing that. I’m taking this all one step at a time.”

There was more silence then, “You don’t sound too good.”

I closed my eyes, leaned forward and my head collided with my desk.

Why was no one paying attention to me?

“Was that your head hitting your desk?” Cam asked in my ear.

“Yes,” I whispered into the phone, keeping my eyes closed.

“All right, babe, I’ll leave you alone but we need cosmos, soon. I’ll talk to Leo about a double date. Maybe since you aren’t a major player in this case Mitch’ll be able to do dinner. Or maybe we can just plan a get together at our house and no one will be the wiser.”

I opened my eyes and stared at my lap. “This isn’t letting me go, Cam, this is planning my romantic future with a man I barely know while I’m freaking out about how I’m going to get the man I also barely know but have been sleeping with for months to agree we’re over when his ideas on that subject violently clash with mine.”

Silence then, “Really? You told him it was over?”

I shot up in my chair and cried, “Cam!”

“All right! All right, I’ll let you go.”

“Call Tracy, brief her with the limited intel you have, it’ll save me time,” I ordered.

“Gotcha.”

“No double dates.”

“We’ll just get something in the calendar.”

“Cam!”

“Later, babe.”

Then I was listening to dead air.

I beeped the phone off and put it on its base. Then I got up and went downstairs because I was pretty certain I had frozen Twix bars and I was pretty certain about this because I always had frozen Twix bars but it wasn’t unheard of for me accidentally to eat my way through my stash while, say, watching a movie or just getting the munchies. Through copious experimentation I’d discovered that frozen Twix bars were proven to intensify focus. I needed my focus intensified so I was going to pull out the big guns.

I found I had frozen Twix bars.

Upon offering, I also found that commandos didn’t eat frozen Twix bars.

This was good. More for me.

I grabbed a twin pack, straightened my shoulders, with effort cleared my head and determinedly walked back up the stairs to my office.