I contemplated at least a million and a half different ways I could take Ashley on a date. I hadn’t done the dating thing for years, and even when I did, I didn’t feel this particular way about the woman I was taking out. I couldn’t explain the draw I had toward her, but I wasn’t going to fight it.
For more than a month, I’d watched her—a different side of the woman I’d met over a year ago—care for her father in a highly admirable way. From what I’d gathered on the few interactions I’d had with her since her father had his surgery, she was responsible, and it was apparent she’d put her life on hold for him.
Carmen was a saint for taking me up on caring for Mr. Taylor. I was thrilled to see Ashley, her dad, and Carmen connect on an entirely different level than I had anticipated when I offered to pay for Carmen to handle the in-home healthcare. Hell, I enjoyed Mark more than most of my patients. The man was direct and stubborn, yes, but he and I had built a unique relationship outside of what I expected. Perhaps it was my internal feelings of desiring more than just a one-night-stand with his daughter? Who knew? What I did know was that if he found out about that shit, he’d probably kick my ass, even with his heart condition.
Shit. I had to think. I had an hour until Ashley was off work, and I had made reservations close to my place in the Hollywood Hills in case she felt more comfortable there and closer to her dad. I didn’t think she was still allowing her fear of losing him at any second to continue to rule what she did, but I hadn’t talked to her since that morning I’d let her sleep in at the hotel. I would have preferred the retreat of my beach house in Malibu, which is also the place that her favorite portrait was delivered and received by my housemaid, but that place was more than an hour away, and I wasn’t sure she’d be okay going that far. I hoped that she would be, though, so I had also made reservations at The Penthouse where seafood would be on the menu.
I strummed my fingers on the steering wheel of my car, stuck in traffic, and eying the clock to find I had about thirty minutes until she was off. My mind was all over the place, trying to make this a comfortable night out, and I knew I was overthinking all of it.
I’d called Mr. Taylor and was thrown onto speakerphone with Carmen’s shrill of delight that I was taking Ashley out for the evening, and that settled my nerves more, but both were zero help in the dating department. They practically begged me to take Ashley off to a retreat to give her a break.
Thank God, Mr. Taylor thought well enough of me to say, “Don’t bring her home until Sunday!” Having gotten to know Mr. Taylor on a more candid level, I knew that he was half-joking and half-serious.
Now to pick her up and hope I survived this date without making a jackass out of myself. I swear to God that I felt like I couldn’t think around the woman.
“Shit, her car!” I said to myself, gripping the steering wheel and switching lanes where I found a hole in the traffic and accelerated to a piping-hot thirty miles an hour.
I used the car phone to dial out.
“What’s up?” Collin said, answering with a laugh. “Wait,” he laughed again, “you don’t even have to say it. I know you’re wondering whether or not I forgot to get Ashley’s car.”
“You finished?” I sighed. “And yes, I thought you’d have already picked it up and dropped it at my house by now.”
“The pad, right?” he asked, using the term everyone referred to the Hollywood Hills house as.
“Yes,” I said. “Have you dropped it off yet? Ashley said she was cool with you getting it when I texted her.”
I heard him and a woman laugh. “I’m on my way there now.”
“You’re supposed to be at the thing with my brother in less than an hour,” I mentioned in confusion.
“That I already know, brother,” he answered. “It’s why I’m in my car and not taking the Uber you suggested. I’ve got Katie with me, and she’ll drive Ashley’s car while she follows me to your place.”
My lips twisted. Who the fuck is Katie?
“Katie can drive your piece of shit. You’re driving Ashley’s car,” I said.
“I’m in the Lambo, man. Sorry, but no one drives this car,” he answered.
“Collin,” I said, not wanting a shit show to blow up over the damn car, but I told Ashley it would be Collin driving the vehicle, not some chick he picked up to wear as his arm candy at my brother’s get together.
“No one drives this car,” he said while I shuffled my thoughts.
“Katie, is it?” I questioned, jumping over Collin’s commands about his car.
“Yes, here.”
Good, I could tell I was on the car phone, and it was half the reason I wasn’t calling my best friend out for throwing someone I didn’t know in Ashley’s car.
“You know how to drive a stick?” I asked, internally praying she did.
“Yes,” she responded in a low, questioning voice.
“Do you think you can handle the horsepower of that car you’re in?” I asked with a smile, knowing that Collin couldn’t be a dick, and he’d put me in worse positions than the one I’d just thrown him into.
“Um, yeah.” She sighed. “I’m just not sure—”
“Collin’s cool with it,” I answered for my silent and most assuredly pissed-off best friend. “Collin, take the side streets through the hills to the house.”
“Jacob-fucking-Mitchell,” his voice rang through my car in a pissed-but-humored tone. I could tell he was off the speaker, and I was talking to him alone. “You are an ass who owes me, number one. Number two, I’m in the parking lot to the gallery, staring at a Honda Accord that’s oxidized so much the FBI couldn’t figure out the factory color. What the fuck are you even asking of me?”
“To be my friend and take care of Ashley’s car for her.”
“You call my car a piece of shit, yet, I believe that’s exactly what I’m looking at. Tell me again why I’m trusting a woman I met last night with my hundred-thousand-dollar car?”
“Because I’ll buy you a new goddamn car if it gets a scratch,” I answered, shifting gears and taking off after the traffic broke and the freeway opened up.
“You’re willing to buy me a new Lamborghini if mine gets scratched, and the car you’re asking me to take care of looks like it should be on the cover of Rust-Bucket Weekly.” He laughed at his joke. “Shit, man, you like this chick, don’t you?”
“Hey,” I heard Ashley’s voice through Collin’s phone. “Are you Collin?”
“Yes, and you’re Ashley?” he answered her. “Hey, Jake, talk to you later.”
The line went dead, and I had a feeling Collin was using his smooth tactics with Ashley to let a complete stranger drive her car.
Goddammit. Please don’t fuck this up, Collin.
I dialed Ashley, and it went to voicemail as I was getting off at the exit for the gallery. Instantly, she rang me back.
“Hey,” I said.
“Hey there. So, your friend just took off in my car, and I guess he’s taking it back to your place, eh?”
“Yeah, you cool with that? I should have asked.”
“I don’t care.” She laughed, and the weird anxiety I let build up over this melted away.
I pulled into the parking lot, catching her just before she went back into the gallery. I rolled my window down after hitting end on the call.
“Hey, sexy,” I said, prompting her to turn back to me in the car. “Can you save me the trouble of interacting with your annoying boss and text her that you’re leaving ten minutes early?”
She laughed me off as I expected. “How about you wait for ten minutes, either out here or in the gallery?”
“Is the bitch still in there?”
Her face twisted up into the most adorable grin, her eyes sparkling radiantly. “May I ask why you have a problem with her? Your brother seemed to like her just fine,” she stated.
I rolled my eyes. “One day, my brother will figure out why the woman is his friend.”
She went to walk away. “Ah, interesting,” she said, and then offered me a flirty wink that I wasn’t expecting.
My breath hitched, and I felt like a teenager, not a fucking heart surgeon when my body reacted to a gesture that gave me hope that she was as excited as I was for this night.
After parking the car and pulling up my reservations, Ashley walked out. I stepped out of the car and walked over to her door, “So what shall it be?” I smiled at her as she slipped into my front seat, looking up at me, “Surf or turf for dinner?”
She smoothed the short red skirt over her thighs. “I love seafood.”
“Then it’s the beach for the woman I finally can have more than three minutes’ worth of a conversation with.”
“The beach it is,” she said as she pulled the seatbelt across her.
Well, shit, I might pull this whole thing off after all. Ashley was smart, and if she lived in Burbank, the beach was about an hour away. If that idea bothered her, I know I would’ve seen that panicked look in her stunning chocolate eyes. Carmen was right when I inquired about Ashley yesterday at their appointment. The woman was putting herself in a healthier state and starting to live again outside of her father’s situation. Carmen’s smirk told me that she’d been hard at work and had seemed to have gotten through to Ashley. Now it was my turn to ensure Ashley had a fantastic night away, and the table I’d reserved on the patio overlooking the ocean was a superb start.
