Hell Bent

herself get into that proverbial bed. But, strangely enough, it wasn’t as unsettling as one might think it would be for someone like Annabelle Drake.

Annabelle drove a hybrid car, recycled, donated to wildlife charities, used canvas shopping bags at the supermarket… She wanted to make the world a better place.

Jack sometimes wondered how she could, at once, want to save the world and yet not mind that he took people out of it. She was always quick with the retort that the two were not necessarily exclusive concepts.

Jack’s eyes, right now, were burning like sapphires. Annabelle didn’t say anything right away, allowing herself this rare opportunity to simply gaze at the man who killed for a living. He was a very handsome man. Jack was thirteen years her senior, and at forty-three, he was, as far as Annabelle was concerned, the perfect male specimen.

She didn’t know much about his past, in England, except that he’d grown up an orphan in Sheffield. They never talked about it much past that. But, she often wondered about it. What he’d done as a child, who he’d known – that kind of thing. She also often wondered whether Sheffield regularly produced men like Jack. If it did, she’d need to visit England soon.

His thick blonde hair had just begun to gray at the temples, which was a physical trait that Annabelle found herself unaccountably attracted to. His chiseled, handsome face was lightly lined and tanned from spending as much time as possible out doors while the weather was nice.

He was tall, at six foot two, and he was built, but not too built. He didn’t have a disappearing neck and his testosterone levels were just right. Jack was clean. He didn’t work out for the physique, but for the power that it actually afforded him. He was strong and he was fast.

And when that strong, fast body was positioned perfectly atop a Harley Davidson Softail of black and chrome, he was, without a doubt, well… If he wasn’t always married or about to get re-married – and if he wasn’t an assassin – things would be different between them.

Much different.

The Softail… The bike, Annabelle. She wrenched herself from her risque reveries and blinked. The bike. Transportation. Work. She blinked again and her vision focused to find that Jack was still watching her. His expression was so fixed, she nervously brought her arms up to hug herself. Pain stabbed behind her right eye, prompting her to act.

She winced. “Coffee,” she whispered.

Jack’s expression softened and he smiled. “Right.” He straightened and led the way out of her bedroom, through the living room and into the small kitchen beyond.

“I already know what you’ll say when I ask you this, but I’ll ask anyhow. Do you need help with your car?” His accented voice was low, his tone soft.

Annabelle shook her head, once, and reached for the mug that Jack pulled from an overhead cupboard. “No, I’ve got it. Thank you, though.” She knew that if she left it up to him, he would have her car out of the impound lot and to her work place before an hour had passed, but she couldn’t allow him to do it. When it came to Jack Thane, there was one rule that Annabelle never broke. She never took Jack’s money. Never. She knew where it came from. When she borrowed his bike, she always replaced what little fuel it used. Not that it wasn’t standard procedure to do so when borrowing an automobile of some kind from a friend, but Annabelle was particularly staunch about it when it came to her bosom companion, the paid assassin.

It happened to frustrate the hell out of Jack, and Annabelle knew this, but that was just tough. Short of finding herself suddenly and inexplicably in a situation where she needed the money for survival, she wasn’t going to change her mind on the issue any time soon.

It was blood money.

And, what was more, it would leave Annabelle literally indebted to Jack. That was a iced pond that she seriously did not want to skate across.

Annabelle had never come right out and asked Jack what kind of people he killed. She didn’t want to know. And he never offered the information, perhaps not wanting her to know. It was a side of him that she didn’t see and didn’t care to. As long as she didn’t know, she could pretend that he only took the jobs that he felt were warranted. Killed people who deserved to die. Rapists. Murderers. The like. She preferred the face that Jack Thane always showed her. And, who ever missed the dark side of the moon?

Annabelle pulled the soy creamer out of her fridge. She was lactose intolerant, so all of her “milk” drinks were made with soy these days. She poured a bunch of the white liquid into the bottom of her mug, and then poured the dark, extra-caffeinated coffee on top. The brew steamed, blessed and inviting. Annabelle smiled and took a sip.

Smooth, strong, perfect.

Just like the man who made it.

She smiled at her secret thought and tentatively swallowed the first few sips of the coffee. Then, growing more bold as her tongue adjusted to the temperature of the liquid, she took bigger swallows, downing the entire cup in forty seconds flat.

Jack’s brow arched. “Better?”

“Almost.” She concocted another cup and drank it down as well. “Yeah, getting there now.”

“Speaking of getting there, there was an accident on 35W, so you’ll need to take 77. And, don’t forget the construction.”

“Lovely.” Annabelle slowly sipped from her third cup of coffee and stared at the refrigerator, debating the merits of breakfast on an incredibly empty but rather unsettled stomach. She decided against it. She was just fortunate that coffee had never given her any problems. Most people would be sipping ginger ale right now.

As she always did, no matter how she tried to turn herself off to such things, she wondered about the accident he’d mentioned. “Was anyone hurt?” she asked softly.

“Hard to say.”

Annabelle cut her gaze to him. He had looked away.

So, there had been injuries. But, of course there had been, or he probably wouldn’t have heard of the accident. Most likely, he’d been listening to the morning traffic report while she slept. Or maybe watching the news. She looked down at the floor and gazed, unseeing, at a forgotten Cheerio between the fridge and the counter. Minnesota drivers were the safest she’d ever encountered. Lifetimes of harsh, dangerous winters had seen to that. But, the Twin Cities was vast and people had far to go. So, they went fast. When an accident occurred, it was often very bad.

“Any kids?”

Jack glanced at her and then sighed. “No,” he said simply. Annabelle believed him. She had no reason to believe he was lying. He was a hired killer. Why would he lie about people dying in a car accident?

She looked away and nodded. No kids. Whether it was the truth or not, it was what she was going to accept as true. Life was too hard the other way.

“The bike is downstairs,” Jack said suddenly and moved to her entryway closet. “I had a friend bring it over earlier this morning.” He opened the door and pulled out her jacket, helmet and gloves, then turned and held the riding gear out toward her.

Jack was the one who had taught Annabelle to ride. They’d been friends for nearly a decade. She’d met him on her twenty-first birthday, at a bar she’d chosen for her very first legal drink. He’d purchased it for her, much to her friends’ envy, and she’d flirted unabashedly with him the entire night. It honestly wasn’t like her to do so. She was, by nature, an introvert and normally fairly shy. But there was something about Jack that she’d liked immediately. And she sensed that the same was for him.

A year later, Jack taught her to ride. He’d started her out on a Kawasaki Vulcan 500, the perfect starter bike, and eventually she’d sort of adopted the bike as her own. He didn’t seem to mind. But the Vulcan was stolen and wrecked by a couple of teenage punks five months later, leaving Annabelle without a bike of her own. Since then, she’d borrowed Jack’s Soft Tails. Again, he didn’t seem to mind.

Annabelle put down her mug and held a finger out to him to signal that he needed to wait a minute. Then she headed back down the hallway to her bathroom and brushed her teeth. Twice.

Then she brushed her hair. She’d gone to sleep with it wet and, as a result, it had dried into a tangled mass of long reddish-blonde locks that literally fell to her mid-back. She looked like a druid who’d slept in a fairy ring all night. She smiled as she carefully combed through the last mass of knots.