CHAPTER ELEVEN
When Tabby grabbed his hand, told him she’s over there, and then hurried him over to the property clerk window, he could hardly believe it.
She had no clue who she was manhandling.
She just knew this man could help her get her car back and that was her singular focus.
And in a way, that only made her even more worth it in his eyes.
But what Stuart also saw in her eyes, as she all but dragged him to that window, was desperation.
Because he knew what that looked like too.
To be in such an economic state that the least hiccup could cost you everything was nothing new to him.
He was born into that kind of life. His father would lose a piece of job and they were homeless again.
Or his mother would get arrested for drug possession and they were scrounging for food to eat again.
That young lady was desperate and, as far as she could see, he was all she had.
“You again?” the clerk said as soon as she finished with another customer and then it was Tabby’s turn. “I told you I don’t know where that car is.”
Stuart moved up beside Tabby. “What trucking company towed it away?” he asked the clerk.
Tabby could see how the clerk hadn’t expected somebody that looked like he was a man of authority to plead her case, but that still didn’t weaken her resolve. “I have no idea,” she said to Stuart.
“The police department ordered the tow, yes?” Stuart asked her.
“I have no idea,” she said.
“Call Chief Newfield. Tell him Mr. Jacobs is here to see him. Again.”
When he dropped the name of her boss, Tabby could tell she was stumped again. But she was about to refuse that order too. That was when the desk sergeant came over. “What’s the problem, Mr. Jacobs?”
“Miss--” Stuart looked at Tabby. He couldn’t remember her name.
“Tabby,” she quickly said, then realized he needed her formal name. “Tabitha.” But he was waiting for her last name. “Tabitha Morgan,” she said.
“Miss Morgan’s car was towed by order of this police department. She needs to pick it up. But your property clerk is claiming that she has no idea where she can pick it up.”
The sarge gave the clerk that you’re barking up the wrong tree look as he ordered her to do her job. “Find out which tow company has her vehicle,” he ordered her.
“Yes sir,” she said like a woman who still didn’t want to do her job. But she got on the phone.
“If you need anything else,” the sergeant said, “let me know.”
Although Stuart didn’t thank him for doing his job, Tabby did. “Thank you,” she said. She was too grateful for the help to pretend it was no big deal. It was a very big deal to her.
But as they sat on that bench watching the cops bring in the people they were arresting, and when it appeared that it was going to take much longer than just a few minutes for that clerk to get the information she needed, Tabby began to feel bad that she was wasting his time.
She looked at him. He had eyes so blue that they looked like an ocean on a clear day.
Or the sky on a perfect morning. And his eyelashes were almost as long as hers.
She realized, in that moment, that it was the first time since that day in Argyles that she actually looked at him.
It was the first time she realized just how attractive he was. And it kind of threw her.
“I’m sorry about this.”
He knew what she meant so he didn’t try to pretend otherwise.
“You don’t have to wait you know.”
“Oh yes I do,” Stuart responded. “The moment I walk out of this door, you may never get the information you need. I’m staying put until they give you what you need.”
Tabby smiled. She’d never met anybody like him. “That big fat tip you gave me did me a world of good.”
That interested Stuart. “Did it now?”
“Oh yes sir. I was able to pay off my car note, put two extra rent payments in the can should my hours get funky, and they did, and I was able to fill my frig with groceries. It was a blessing. Thank you again.”
“Glad to be of assistance,” he said with a smile as if he was a regular helper when he was no such thing.
But as she began looking around at a loud detainee who insisted he was innocent and he did nothing wrong, and she looked as if she could sympathize with that obvious crook, Stuart folded his legs and took full note of her.
There was something so kind about her that it perplexed him.
In the little time he’d been around her, including two years ago, she’d had nothing but maltreatment thrown her way.
Even down to her catching her boyfriend in bed with another woman from what he heard her admitting at the crash scene.
But she still smiled and kept a positive attitude and looked on the bright side every time.
He didn’t detect an ounce of bitterness or hatred in her anywhere.
Which was so unlike the world he came from that it was downright refreshing to see. It warmed his heart.
But when she looked at him with those soft, sincere, brownish-gray caring eyes but didn’t say anything when it was obvious she wanted to, he decided to go there. “You want to ask me something?”
His question stopped her from just gazing at him. And she had to think of something to say. “Do I call you Mr. Jacobs, or can I call you by your Christian name?”
“Of course you may call me by my Christian name.” When Tabby continued to just stare at him, he realized she may have forgotten his name. “Which is Stuart,” he added.
She extended her hand. “And I’m Tabitha. Hello, Stuart.”
He shook her hand. “Hello, Tabitha. Nice seeing you again.”
“Although most people call me Tabby. It’s like Abby with a T.”
“Do you like that nickname?”
“No,” she said. “But I hate Tabitha more. So I’m cool with it.”
Stuart considered her again. “Do you always look on the bright side?”
“Is that what I’m doing?”
They both laughed. Stuart nodded. “Yes. That’s what you’re doing.”
“I don’t call it looking on the bright side I guess. I just call it being realistic. It is what it is. That sort of thing.”
Stuart understood. “Got it.”
“But thank you for getting those charges dropped against me. Boy, was that huge. They were trying to railroad me for something I didn’t do. That girl had them snowed.”
“Was she a former friend of yours?”
“Her? No way! The first time I ever saw her was when she was in bed with my boyfriend.”
“But she was behaving as if you had wronged her.”
“That’s how these girls are around here. That’s why I don’t rock with any of’em.”
Stuart smiled at her rawness.
“They wanna fight over men all the time. Even when they’re the ones cheating right with the man. The way I see it? If that joker don’t want me then deuces. I’m out of there. What I look like wanting somebody that don’t want me? That don’t make no kind of sense, does it?”
“None,” Stuart agreed.
“But that’s why she was fighting me. She actually thought I wanted that cheater back.”
Stuart was hoping he knew the answer to his question, but he asked it just to be certain. “Do you want him back?”
“Hell no!” she responded, and he laughed. “I don’t stay with no cheating man. They can have that. I’m tired of that.”
But for some reason, Stuart was intrigued with her as if he was sizing her up the same way he sized up potential executives in his corporation. “You’re tired of it even if you love him?” he asked her.
But this time, she wasn’t so quick and firm. “They don’t love me,” she ultimately responded. “That’s the point. That’s what I’m tired of.”
Stuart was taken by her response. Which only confirmed his assessment: This young lady was not being treated properly by anyone. It was as if they didn’t realize they had a rare gem in their presence. Which, to Stuart, was most unfortunate.
But Tabby was beginning to think of him in similar terms. For he, too, seemed like a rare gem to her as well. So rare that she wanted to know more about him. “What about you?” she asked him.
He didn’t understand that question. “What about me?”
“You’re a businessman, right? Or do you wear a fancy suit around town for the heck of it?”
He laughed. “No, I’m a businessman, that’s correct.”
“Which business?”
“Dellstone Watersports.”
She knew that name. “I didn’t know they have a Dellstone here in Larkin.”
“No. Not here. I don’t live here.”
Tabby was surprised. “You don’t?”
“I was born here, but I live in New York.”
“Oh wow. So that’s why I never saw you again.”
“Excuse me?”
“At the restaurant. At Argyles. I looked for you after you gave me that tip. And it wasn’t for you to give me another big tip, but to thank you again. I looked for you for weeks after, but you never came back in.” She grinned. “Now I see why.”
She had a most beautiful white-teeth smile, and he was about to tell her so. But that property clerk finally called her name.
As soon as Tabby heard her name, she jumped up and hurried to the property desk.
Stuart’s body began to react sensually as he watched her tight butt and her smooth, athletically-shapely legs come down from her neat little shorts.
It usually took a mountain of sensualness to turn him on.
But yet this young lady was turning him on just by being there?
It was so out of character for him. But it was a fact.
He couldn’t stop staring at her neat, little body.
But what he didn’t realize was that as he was watching her body so intensely, that desk sergeant was watching him.
And when he finally looked away from Tabby and realized it, the sergeant was grinning and nodding at him.
As if he agreed that Tabby was hot. Which infuriated Stuart.
The last thing on earth he would do to Tabby was objectify her body like that.