“Shall I bring you something more while you wait?” the dour-faced man inquired. He’d looked exactly the same since the first day Jason had come here with his grandfather nearly twenty-two years before. Jason had been six at the time and had been dressed in his best suit in honor of the occasion.
“Another one of these,” Jason said, finishing the first drink in two gulps.
“As you wish, sir.”
Jason caught the faint sniff of disapproval as the waiter retreated. It would be just like old Giles to feel duty-bound to cut him off. Jason’s gaze followed the elderly man as he crossed to the bar, his back ramrod stiff as he placed the order. Once assured that the drink would be forthcoming, Jason surveyed the other occupants of the tavern—the handful of people who’d sought refuge from the cold even though it wasn’t quite lunchtime.
The usual stuffy crowd. Even on weekends everyone had an uptight, button-down look about them, he’d decided until his glance fell on the woman at the end of the bar. For the first time in ages he felt a stirring of interest. Among those dressed in Brooks Brothers basic black pinstripe and those sporting academic tweeds, she stood out like a vibrant wildflower in a field of grass.
Her boots caught his attention first. They weren’t the elegant Italian leather boots favored by the style-conscious women in his crowd, but heavy black boots suitable for riding a Harley-Davidson. Even so, they couldn’t disguise the long shapely legs they covered to midcalf. Black jeans, faded nearly to gray, kept his attention as they hugged slender, boyish hips. The jeans nipped in at an impossibly tiny waist, where a bright orange sweater with a jagged thunderbolt of purple was tucked in. A black leather jacket completed the ensemble. Again the style was more suited to motorcycles than a Rolls-Royce.
Jason was both appalled and fascinated, even before his gaze reached her incredible, heart-stopping face. Her skin was pale as cream, her features delicate. Full, sensuous lips looked as if they’d just been kissed to a rosy pink. Short blond hair stood up in spikes, not from some outrageous styling, he guessed, but from a nervous habit of running her fingers through it. The result was part pixie, part biker.
The look in her eyes was definitely streetwise and every bit of her attention seemed to be as riveted on him as his was on her. Though he couldn’t explain the attraction, he was jolted by the first genuine excitement he’d felt in weeks.
Forgetting all about the second Scotch, forgetting the boredom, forgetting just about everything, he slid out of the booth and crossed the tavern’s wide plank floor. At twenty-seven Jason knew all about seduction, all about provocative charm. It was the one thing at which he was very successful. His walk was deliberately slow, paced to increase the mounting tension already sizzling between them. He kept his gaze locked with hers and felt another shock of pure adrenaline when she didn’t blink, didn’t look away. That serious, hard stare remained boldly fastened on him.
Jason was two steps away from her, poised to introduce himself, when she came off the barstool in one fluid, graceful motion—and slammed a fist into his jaw. Before he could recover from the shock of that, she was all over him, pummeling him with more fury than skill, landing just enough blows to assure him she was deadly serious. Her colorful curses turned the bar’s genteel air blue while an expectant hush fell over the room.
If the respected Halloran image hadn’t been deeply ingrained in him since birth, Jason might have laughed with sheer exhilaration at the unexpectedness of the attack. As it was, he knew if his grandfather caught him brawling with a woman in public, Siberia wouldn’t be far enough away for him to run.
Jason hadn’t boxed at Yale for nothing, though even that hadn’t quite prepared him for the unprovoked fury of this tall, lanky stranger. He dodged her next well-aimed blow, which had obviously been intended to do serious harm to his masculinity. He grabbed one of her arms and pinned it behind her, then latched on to her other wrist. Pressed tight against her and all too aware of every inch of invigorating contact, he looked straight into wide eyes that had turned an exciting, stormy shade of blue. Amusement tugged at his lips as he murmured, “Have we met?”
Apparently she was in no mood for his dry humor. Muttering another string of curses, she hauled off and kicked him. When Jason gasped and reached down to rub his injured shin, she twisted free and came at him again. Obviously she wasn’t nearly as familiar with the Marquis of Queensberry rules of fighting as he was. She got in two or three more solid shots before he wrapped his arms around her from behind and held her still, his blood pumping like crazy.
The bartender hovered nearby, obviously in shock. The tavern probably hadn’t seen this much action since the Revolutionary War. “Should I call the police, Mr. Halloran?” he inquired with an obvious air of dread at the stir that would cause.
Jason felt the woman stiffen in his arms. “I don’t think that will be necessary,” he said, then added more softly for her ears alone, “Will it?”
Her shoulders sagged in defeat. “No.”
Jason had learned the hard way not to trust her docility. “If I let you go, will you come with me quietly so we can talk about whatever’s on your mind?”
When she failed to answer, Jason chuckled. “So, you can’t bring yourself to lie. That’s good. It’s a basis for trust.”
Eyes flashing, she glared at him. “I
