X-Ops Exposed Page 40

  “You didn’t have to do that,” she said. “I know how difficult it can be getting into that place.”

  Gage opened the door of his shiny, black Dodge Charger for her—no guy had done that for her since her high school crush had taken her to the prom.

  He gave her a lopsided grin. “I probably shouldn’t be telling you this, but the only reason I was able to get in the place at all is because I helped out the head chef’s son a while back. He promised me a table for two anytime I asked.”

  “Now, that sounds like a story I’d be interested in hearing. But still,” she said when he’d climbed in beside her and started the engine, “Chambre Francaise is a very nice place. And expensive.”

  He glanced at her as he guided the car out of the parking garage and into downtown traffic. “I’m sure it’ll be money well spent.”

  That look turned up the heat between them even more. “You think?”

  “I do,” he said. “Although in the interest of full disclosure, I have to tell you the table also comes with a major discount. Which is actually the only way I’m able to afford to take you there. But like they say, it’s the thought that counts.”

  She couldn’t help laughing. “You really do hang out with men all day, don’t you? Little piece of advice—don’t let a woman know she’s getting dinner at a discount. It sort of ruins the gesture.”

  He chuckled. “For some reason I thought a journalist like you would be fixated on the truth.”

  “I am,” she said. “But just because I’m a journalist, it doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate a little chivalry now and then.”

  He gave her another smoldering look. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  Five minutes in and they were already flirting. At this rate, she was going to have a hard time remembering this was supposed to be a fishing expedition. Because so far, it was feeling a lot more like a date to her. She needed to steer the conversation back into safer territory, and fast. So, she brought up the one subject sure to cool things down—the man his SWAT team had killed at the warehouse.

  “I guess by now the department has told you who that thug at the warehouse was, huh?”

  If Gage was caught off guard by the sudden shift in subject, he didn’t let on. In fact, his expression didn’t change at all as he took his eyes off the road to check the rearview mirror. “Actually, I didn’t know who he was until I got home and saw it on the news.”

  She turned a little in her seat so she could see his face better. “Seriously? Isn’t the fact that a member of your team just killed the son of the most powerful criminal in the northern hemisphere something your boss thought he should mention?”

  “The department doesn’t work like that,” he said. “Internal Affairs talked to Xander and me, but their only concern is whether it was a clean shooting or not. They rarely tell us the name of the suspect in a case like that. The shrinks think it makes it too personal for the officer and can make the post-shooting counseling session even harder.”

  Huh. Considering their hard-core image, she hadn’t thought an officer in SWAT would even attend counseling like that.

  “That’s all fine and good if Xander shot your average guy,” she agreed. “But this was Ryan Hardy, the son of a man most people consider pretty damn scary. Word on the street is that he’s already blaming your SWAT team for assassinating his son.”

  He shrugged. “People always stir up crap when things like this happen, but they get over it—or they don’t. What’s Hardy going to do, take out a contract on the entire SWAT team?”

  “That’s exactly what I would think he’s going to do.”

  Gage didn’t act as if he thought that was very likely, but she noticed he spent a lot of time checking his mirrors. Dallas traffic was bad, but not that bad.

  Mac opened her mouth to call him on it, but Gage asked how long she’d lived in Dallas. Guess that was his subtle way of saying he didn’t want to talk about Hardy. Okay, she wouldn’t push. For now.

  “Since graduating from college,” she said in answer to his question. “I interned at the Dallas Daily Sun in the summers and loved it so much, I couldn’t turn them down when they offered me a full-time job.”

  Gage gave her a sidelong glance. “Being a journalist is in your blood, I guess.”

  She laughed. “I guess. I have my parents to thank for that. They’re both English professors at A&M. According to them, I started writing when I was four and haven’t stopped. I think they thought I’d follow in their footsteps, but I always wanted to be a journalist. What about you? Are you originally from Dallas?”

  “San Antonio.”

  She would have asked more, but they’d already pulled up in front of the restaurant. A valet immediately came around to take Gage’s keys while another opened her door. The rest of the conversation would have to wait until they were seated.

  There was a line of people waiting for tables, so Mac was surprised when the hostess seated them right away. But while the chef might have promised Gage a table for two any time he requested it, the Chambre Francaise was packed seven days a week. So their booth ended up being very small and out of the way. It wasn’t exactly in the kitchen, but close. Mac didn’t mind, though. The short, rotund chef, however, was clearly embarrassed he only had the small booth to offer them.

  “Don’t worry about it, Emile.” Gage stood and took the shorter man’s hand in one of his, clapping him on the back with the other. “The way I see it, this is the best seat in the house. I couldn’t ask for a better place to have a nice, quiet dinner, which is exactly what we’re looking for. How’s Kyle getting along?”

  Emile beamed as only a proud parent could. “He is doing very well. Good grades, and more importantly, he’s passionate about what he’s learning. And once again, I owe that all to you.”

  “It was all Kyle,” Gage insisted.

  Emile looked as if he would have argued, but Gage introduced Mac before the man could say anything else.

  The round chef took her hand in both of his with a smile. “A pleasure to meet you, mademoiselle.” He gave Gage an approving nod. “Finally, you bring a beautiful woman with you to dinner. I was starting to worry that with your job, you would be alone forever.”

  Mac laughed. If she didn’t know better, she’d think Gage was actually blushing.

  “Sorry to disappoint you, Emile,” he said as he slid into the booth. “But this is a working dinner.”

  The chef smiled. “It has been my experience that the best relationships start in the workplace. Look at me and my Fifi.” His smile broadened. “Okay, okay. I won’t embarrass you further, my friend. I will go back to the kitchen. Enjoy your dinner.”

  Gage shook his head as Emile disappeared through the door that led to the kitchen. “Sorry about that. He can be a bit outrageous at times. Goes along with being a head chef, I guess.”

  “Because he thought we were here on a date? I would have thought the same thing in his shoes, so no, I’m not embarrassed.” She looked around. The brocade wallpaper, gold accents, and crystal chandeliers were even more elegant than she remembered. “Do you eat here often?”

  He shook his head. “About once a month. Mostly to make Emile happy. He worries I don’t have enough fat in my diet.”

  Mac thought about how Gage looked in his uniform pants and tight T-shirt. Emile was probably right. “Yeah, I could see why he might think that.” She picked up her glass of water and took a sip. “So, what kind of favor did you do for him?”

  Gage shrugged. “His son Kyle got involved in some gang stuff. Nothing too serious, but the kid was definitely heading down the wrong path. The other guys on the team and I got him out and back on the straight and narrow. Once he figured out it was okay for a man to be a pastry chef, he decided to go to culinary school. I didn’t really do much except give him a little advice.”

  She waited until the waiter who’d ap
peared to pour glasses of white wine for both of them left. “Something tells me you’re downplaying your part. The head chef of one of the best restaurants in Dallas doesn’t offer a reserved table for life to someone who just gave some advice to his son.”

  Gage shrugged again in that self-deprecating way Mac was starting to like—a lot. “Maybe a little.”

  Mac would have pressed for more, but their waitress placed plates of salad in front of them. Mac had a tomato halfway to her mouth before she realized they hadn’t ordered anything.

  “Hey,” she said. “We never asked for salad.”

  Gage chuckled. “That’s my fault. I told Emile to surprise me the first time I came here for dinner. He hasn’t given me a menu since. If you don’t like it, I can ask him to send out something else.”

  She never would have pegged Gage as the kind of man who liked surprises, but if he could trust Emile’s choices, she supposed she could, too. Besides, she didn’t want to insult the chef.

  “No. This is perfect.”

  Delicious too, she thought as she took a bite. She knew she should be trying to wheedle information out of him that she could use in her exposé, but right now her story was the furthest thing from her mind. Anyway, it wasn’t like she could just come out and ask him why his men didn’t wear their NVGs, why they hadn’t taken Martinez to the hospital, or what kind of drug his team used to help them get their job done.

  So instead, she asked him why he’d joined the military straight out of high school. But while Gage willingly talked about himself, she noticed he kept bringing the conversation back around to her. By the time they’d finished their French onion soup, he probably knew more about her life growing up in College Station as she did. When he did talk about SWAT, it was about the men who worked for him and their accomplishments. He even admitted he worried about their safety.

  “Sometimes, I feel more like their father than their commander,” he said wryly.

  Mac couldn’t help but smile. Who’d have thought a big, hunky guy like Gage Dixon would have a paternal side? One more thing to like about him.

  “You’re definitely nowhere near old enough to be their father,” she told him.

  “Just listen to a conversation between Becker and me sometime,” he said. “There’s not a suspension bridge around that could span that generation gap.”

  She laughed. All her working dinners should be this much fun. They were usually spent parked in front of her laptop with a TV dinner and the television for company. She hadn’t realized how dull that was until now. She could definitely get used to sitting across the table from Gage every night. Especially one this small.

  It’d started with a few accidental touches as their legs brushed under the tiny table while they ate their salads. They both apologized, but when it happened again over soup, then again during the main course, she began to think maybe it wasn’t accidental at all. Not that she minded. Every time his pants-covered leg pressed up against her bare one, a warm tingle spiraled through her and settled in her tummy. That was when she realized she was the one initiating the contact, not Gage. In fact, he hadn’t moved at all.

  She blushed, attempting to restrain herself from playing footsie as she pushed a piece of lightly breaded chicken around the creamy wine sauce it was smothered in while Gage told her why he’d become a cop after pulling a six-year hitch in the army. She didn’t quite succeed, mostly because she couldn’t bring herself to totally break contact with the solid form of his muscular thigh. But it was the best she could do given the limited space under the small table.

  That was a lie, though. She didn’t stop because touching him felt too damn good. Hell, she couldn’t even remember the last time she’d been on a date. She hadn’t realized how much she missed it.

  She pressed her leg more firmly against his inner thigh and rubbed her knee against his as he steered the conversation back around to her again. If it bothered him, she had no doubt he’d let her know.

  But Gage didn’t even seem to notice. Or maybe he had noticed and simply didn’t want her to stop.

  “It sounds like you spend a lot of time at the office,” Gage observed as he sipped his wine. “That’s gotta be hell on your social life.”

  Her first instinct was to deny it and tell him she was getting busy every night. Not because she wanted to play hard to get, but because she didn’t want to seem like the pathetic workaholic she was. She caught herself, though. It wasn’t as if he was accusing her of being a loser, just busy.

  She finished her chicken and set her knife and fork on her plate. “Pretty much. I spent most of my adult life getting to the top of my profession, and every minute since then working to stay there. It doesn’t leave much time for anything else.”

  Gage smiled, and she could have sworn she felt his knee rub against hers. “Well, it’s not like I can say I’m much better. I’ve already admitted I spend a couple nights out of every week in the office doing paperwork, so you know my social life sucks.”

  She let out a little snort of laughter. “We do make quite the pair, don’t we?”

  He gave her one of those smoldering looks of his. “Yes, we do.”

  His leg most definitely rubbed against hers, she was sure of it.

  By the time dessert came out, she was starting to think Emile had turned up the heat in the restaurant. At least that would explain why she suddenly felt hot all over. Of course, the recent temperature spike might also have to do with the fact that she’d dropped her high heel off her right foot and begun casually running her toes up and down Gage’s lower leg.

  Gage leaned back comfortably in his side of the booth, watching her with smoky eyes the whole time she did it. In between, he asked her little tidbits about her life. Like whether she’d ever thought about making the jump to New York or Washington, why journalists made more money than reporters, and whether she liked to cook or order takeout.

  Carrying on a completely normal first-date conversation with an extremely attractive man while caressing his leg with her foot was probably the most erotic thing she’d ever done in a nonerotic setting. That the man just so happened to be the focus of her investigation also made it one of the crazier things she’d ever done. She was putting her story and her reputation at risk, and she couldn’t for the life of her say why. She couldn’t help it. There was something about Gage that brought out her inner seductress. The combination of physical perfection, charming personality, and vibrant masculinity did it for her. It was all she could do not to sit in his lap and kiss the hell out of him. Damn, if she could figure out how to bottle whatever it was about him that was so alluring, she’d quit her job and start a new line of men’s body spray—one that actually worked, unlike those silly commercials she saw all the time.

  It took every ounce of self-control she possessed to keep her foot to those parts of his leg below the knee. The way he was leaning back it was almost as if he was inviting her to run her toes up a little higher. But she knew that if she let herself start to wander, she wasn’t likely to stop until she got to his crotch. And that would be totally going too far. The thought alone was enough to make her whole body tremble.

  Mac pulled her gaze away from Gage to see what kind of dessert Emile had selected for them—chocolate soufflé, of course. She dipped her spoon into the center and tasted it. She sighed, unable to help herself.

  The sound made Gage look up from his own dessert, his dark eyes almost gold in the candlelight. She smiled at him.

  “When you asked me to have dinner with you earlier today, you said you needed to get to know me better so you’d feel more comfortable with me hanging around the compound.” She ran her toes up and down his leg again. “Did it work?”

  “Mostly,” he said. “I just have one more question.”

  His face turned so serious that she stopped moving her foot and lowered it to the floor. Maybe she’d been wrong to try and mix busines
s with pleasure. What if he thought her flirting was a game to get him to agree to let her hang around the compound? She wasn’t above flirting to get a scoop, but that wasn’t what she’d been doing with him. She was seriously attracted to Gage.

  “Okay,” she said. “What’s your question?”

  He was silent, as if he was searching for the right words. His eyes were so intense it almost took her breath away.

  “Would you print the story of a lifetime if it meant that innocent people got hurt?”

  She’d expected him to ask her if she was playing games with him to get what she wanted. She hadn’t expected a philosophical question like that.

  But looking into Gage’s dark eyes, she realized it hadn’t been a philosophical question about a hypothetical story. He was asking if the story she was planning to write about SWAT would hurt the people he cared about—his men.

  “I would never write a story if it meant innocent people would get hurt—no matter how big it was.”

  He regarded her in silence for so long she thought he didn’t believe her. But then the corners of his mouth curved. “Then consider me completely comfortable with you hanging around the compound.”

  Mac almost sagged with relief. “Are you sure the department won’t mind?”

  “They won’t mind.” He took a bite of the rich dessert. “They’re always trying to get me to do more community outreach. They’ll be thrilled.”

  Until they see the story on the front page.

  He gestured with his spoon. “Eat your soufflé before it gets cold.”

  She spooned another scoop of the scrumptious chocolate dessert into her mouth, chewing slowly as she wondered whether she should go back to playing footsie again when she felt Gage’s hand on her knee. The sigh she let out this time had nothing to do with how good Emile’s soufflé was. She thought for sure the sexual thermostat had been turned down for the evening after what they’d just discussed. Guess she’d been wrong.