Hungry Like the Wolf(28)

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 appeared 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.