Once the tangles were gone, she pulled the hair back into a loose pony tail and called it good. There was no point in attempting anything fancier with it since the helmet would just squash it to her head anyway. She hated that. But Jack was a stickler with helmets. Or, he was with hers, anyway. He never wore one himself.
“Bloody hypocrite,” she muttered, still smiling as she left the bathroom and re-entered the kitchen. Jack had set the helmet, gloves and jacket on the table. Annabelle took the bottle of pills out of her front jeans pocket and put it into her jacket pocket, zipping it shut. Then she slid the jacket on and followed up with the gloves.
Jack was pulling on his own long black trench coat. Over a black t-shirt, tight black jeans and black riding boots, the trench made him look like nothing short of an older version of a Lost Boys vampire. Or a gang member. Or an immortal highlander. Could he hide a sword under that thing? Suddenly, she was wondering how he killed his marks…
“Bella?”
Annabelle blinked and took a deep breath. “Yes?”
“You all right, luv?”
She shook her head and once again shrugged away her thoughts. “I’m fine. Nice coat, by the way. London Fog?”
“Stefano Genovese,” he said, his eyes twinkling with amusement.
She shrugged. “Whatever.” Then she brushed past him, which was like brushing past a brick wall draped in wool, and headed out her front door, tucking her apartment key in her front pocket as she went. Without waiting for him to follow or catch up, she strode down the hallway and turned the corner, opting for the stairs instead of the elevator, which she never rode and never would, so long as she could walk.
She flew down the stairs, her boots gripping the carpet tightly. As she neared the first floor, her heart beat sped up. There was little in life that getting in the saddle of a Harley couldn’t make well. A headache and a stressful job were easily cured, for a little while, any way.
She shoved through the front glass doors of the apartment complex without slowing and then came to a halt on the front step. Dead ahead, in the middle space reserved for motorcycles and scooters, waited the shining Night Train. It was alone and it looked like a dream, sitting in an early morning sun beam, chrome sparkling like smoothed-out diamonds, handle bars begging to be gripped…
Annabelle began to move forward once again, but a hand on her shoulder stopped her.
“You forgot this.”
Jack was behind her. In his right, gloved hand, he held out her helmet. Inside the helmet rested the key to the bike. She glanced at it and sighed, disappointed. The message was clear. No helmet, no key.
“Just this once-”
“No.” Jack gently shoved the helmet against her chest, and she grabbed it as he let it go. Then he moved around her toward a shining black Audi A8, an admittedly gorgeous luxury sedan that was not quite as conspicuous as a Bentley, BMW or Mercedes. Jack didn’t do conspicuous. It wasn’t good for work.
He calmly strode toward the sedan, pressing a button on the black keypad in his hand. The car’s headlights blinked once, and Annabelle could hear the doors unlock. “Be safe, Bella. I’ll speak with you tonight.” He paused at the door to the large black car and shot her a killer smile.
She smiled back. “Thanks, Jack,” she said, meaning it. “For everything.”
He watched her for a long moment, then nodded once and gracefully took the driver’s seat of his car. Once he was behind the darkened windows, she could barely make out his form. So, she looked away as he started his engine and focused her attention on the Harley.
It wasn’t hard.
“How is the car?”
Annabelle looked up as she entered the small private office, hoping that the blush she felt creeping up her neck didn’t give her away.
“No shit?” The middle-aged woman behind the desk stood up and opened up a cupboard door just as Annabelle pulled off her jacket and gloves and shoved them, along with the helmet, into the bottom of the cabinet.
“Well, I guess the helmet’s a dead give away,” the woman said, shaking her head and shutting the door . She stood around five-foot-three, a few inches shorter than Annabelle, and had short wavy red-brown hair. Her eyes were brown, like Annabelle’s, but big and round instead of almond-shaped. She had a ruddy complexion and an impressive set of naturally large breasts that made her appear to be more heavy-set than she actually was. She turned back to Annabelle. “You’d better hope Max doesn’t need anything out of that drawer. He hates you on those bikes.”
Annabelle shook her head. “I’ve given myself away just by riding up on it. You can hear the bike at the other end of the block.” She took a deep breath and sighed. “I’m sorry I’m late, Cass.” Annabelle always truncated her friend’s name to its shortest syllable when she spoke to her, not because it was easier, but because anyone who called her Cassiopeia, to her face, was sure to get clobbered by a woman who packed quite a bit of muscle beneath her deceptively docile exterior.
“Doesn’t bother me, sweet heart. I know you’ve got your bad days, like everyone else.”
“Bad night, actually.” She took a seat beside her co-worker and logged onto a Mac in front of her. A giant flat-screen monitor dominated most of the desk top and when the green screen popped up and asked her for her password, she logged it in, then turned back to the woman beside her. “Jack got married again, did you know that?”
“You’re kidding me. Already? Didn’t he just get divorced?” Cassie set down an electronic pen that she’d been using to shade something on her own giant flat screen and turned to face Annabelle. “I know it hasn’t been that long.”
“Two months. I guess he’s not a patient man.”
“Co-dependent.”
“You think so?” Annabelle smiled and mulled that over for a moment as she brought up the Photoshop program and loaded the project she’d been working on for the past week. “Maybe.” She laughed. “I’ll tell him you said so.”
“Don’t you dare, honey. That man may be rich and fine but there’s something in his eyes that gives me the willies.”
Annabelle cocked her head to one side and blinked. “Really?” She chewed on the inside of her cheek. This was dangerous territory that Cassie had suddenly stumbled into. “What do you mean?”
“I don’t know. He’s just… intense or something. And why the hell can’t he stay married? What’s he doing wrong?”
“He’s out of town too often,” Annabelle answered quickly, steering the conversation in a safer direction. “If he were just old and ugly and rich, his wives wouldn’t mind all that much. But I think one or two of them here and there are actually marrying him for…” She paused, finding the right words. “Other reasons.”
Cassie laughed. “Yeah. I guess I can see that. You marry a man with a body and an accent like that and you want him to warm your bed at night and whisper sweet nothings to you.”
Annabelle laughed, shaking her head. “I didn’t know you liked his accent.” She’d thought she was the only one who turned to rubber when he spoke.
“Honey, he sounds like Sean Bean. There’s nothing finer than Sean Bean.
Okay, she had a point there. Sean Bean was, admittedly, one of the single-most sexy men on Earth. An actor out of Britain, he possessed a fan base more or less composed of Europeans. However, Annabelle had fallen for him years ago, when she’d seen him in an Acuvue commercial and she’d taken it upon herself to educate Cassie on him. They’d once taken one full weekend and dubbed it “Sharpe Marathon” weekend. They’d watched every Sharpe series episode they could get their American hands on, which wasn’t as many as Annabelle would have liked, considering how difficult it was to obtain BBC material in the US. But it was enough. And Cassie was hooked after the first few shows.
