“Course not, luv,” he finally replied, his lips curling into a wicked smile. A hint of something nefarious flashed in his deep blue eyes.
She narrowed her own. “Don’t even think about it. Get out of bed and order some room service.”
The smile became a grin, flashing perfect white teeth. His grip tightened where it rested on her upper thigh. Hell, if she wasn’t going to hate him, he was bloody well going to take advantage of it.
“
He laughed out loud and rolled away from her, leaving the sheet behind.
When he did, Annabelle caught sight of the tattoo on his left shoulder. She had never seen it before. She’d never even seen his un-clothed back before, in all honesty. Before last night, she’d had no idea that the few scars she’d seen on his arms were much more plentiful across his abdomen and chest. As strong and sculpted as it was, his body frankly looked as if it had been to hell and back.
Her mother had once told her that each scar on a person’s body had a story to tell. If that were true, Jack’s body could fill a few volumes.
But the scars didn’t bother Annabelle. Not in the least. It was the tattoo that gave her pause.
It was an “81”, with a strange ring that looked like a thorny Celtic knot wrapped tightly around it. The tattoo, itself, even bore a scar. Just another of Jack’s near misses.
Which meant that he’d had it for a while.
Annabelle watched the assassin get out of bed, pull on his pair of jeans, and move to the phone that hung in a mounted cradle on the wall.
“You’ve been holding out on me, Jack.”
Jack turned to her, the phone in his hand. His brows were drawn. “What, luv?”
“How long have you been a Hell’s Angel?”
Jack’s eyes widened, almost imperceptibly, and his lips parted. Then recognition dawned on him and he looked to his left shoulder. As if realizing that he couldn’t see the damned tattoo from this vantage point, he lowered his gaze and took on a thoughtful expression. Then he put the phone back in its cradle and very slowly looked back up at her.
“A while.” He said, softly.
Annabelle watched him for a moment, their gazes locked inexorably together. And then, with tremendous will, she pulled her own gaze away, rolled over, and got out of the bed. She left the sheet on the mattress, figuring that there was no longer any part of her body she needed to hide from Jack Thane.
Without a word, she bent and picked up her clothes, piling them into one arm so that she could pick up her boots in the other. In harsh contrast to what normally happened when she was troubled, her mind was not filled with a multitude of racing thoughts and fears. Only one thought now presented itself to her.
If Jack hadn’t told her about this, then what else was he keeping from her?
It wasn’t like he’d simply forgotten to tell her, “Oh, hey, honey, I forgot to mention that I enrolled Billy in the 4-H club.” Or, “I signed us up for swim lessons every other Tuesday.” Or, “Didn’t I tell you that I used to belong to the KKK?”
No. A Hell’s Angels member was a member for life. Its riders lived – and died – by its code. “H” was the eighth letter of the alphabet. “A” was the first. If you were 81, you were
She’d been right about Jack. He was an angel, after all. And she’d been right about the Hell thing, too.
Jack watched Annabelle move through the room, lifting her clothes and shoes, and making her way silently to the bathroom. She never looked at him, and he could glean no one emotion from the enigmatic expression on her lovely face.
It was hard enough to watch the woman he loved naked, at last, and bending over and walking around in front of him with reckless abandon. To know he couldn’t go to her, pick her up, and throw her down on the bed and have his jolly old way with her was truly much more difficult. But, to realize that he loved her so bloody much that he absolutely respected her feelings and fears a whole hell of a lot more than his own shallow needs would have utterly floored him – if he hadn’t known it already.
When he heard the bathroom door softly close, he ran a hand through his hair and fell back against the wall, absently lifting the phone from its cradle once more.
The least he could do was order breakfast.
“Hello?”
Annabelle spared a glance up at Jack, who nodded once in encouragement. Annabelle licked her lips and spoke into the cell phone.
“Hi. Is this Virginia Meredith?”
There was a pause on the other end. Then, “Yes. May I ask who’s calling?”
Caller ID was probably supplying Meredith with a phone number, but it wouldn’t be one she recognized.
“My name is Annabelle Drake. I’m calling about Craig Brandt.” She paused a moment, allowing the name to sink in. “I… was wondering if you would be willing to meet with me. Craig was a friend of a friend’s. Teresa Anderson.”
The silence on the other end stretched. Annabelle swallowed. She squeezed her eyes shut and willed Virginia Meredith to say “yes.”
And then, as if she were speaking with a voice that might choke, Meredith asked, “Can you meet me at the Lavender Garden in an hour?”
Annabelle’s eyes flew open. She blinked. “Yes,” she said. “Definitely.”
The line went dead and Annabelle closed the cell phone and handed it back to Jack. “The Lavender Garden,” she said softly. “In an hour.”
“What’s the Lavender Garden?” Cassie asked.
Annabelle shrugged. “I have no idea.”
Jack popped open the phone again and pressed a speed-dial number. He put the phone to his ear. In a moment, he said, “Hey. Find the location and venue of the Lavender Garden in New York, would you?”
He waited and they all waited with him.
In another few minutes, he nodded. “Right. Thanks, mate.” He closed the phone and turned back to Annabelle. “It’s a multi-level used book store and coffee shop on the corner of Milwaukee and Sherman. Forty minute drive from here.”
Was there anything Jack Thane could not learn if he wanted to? Annabelle shook her head in wonder.
“Ri’, so we’d best be getting’ a move on,” Clara said as she stood from where she’d been seated on the arm of the sofa.
Jack turned to face his daughter. “Not you, Clara. You and your mother will stay here with Sam. This’ll just be Dylan, Annabelle and I.”
Clara’s gaze narrowed dangerously and she put her hands on her hips. “I don’t bloody-well think so, da’!”
“It makes sense, Clara,” Cassie interrupted, when she saw Jack’s gaze narrow as well. “Virginia Meredith isn’t expecting a parade of people. We all show up and we’ll scare the crap out of her. Dylan should go because this directly concerns him and Teresa was his mother. Annabelle has to go because she’s the one who made the call.” She hesitated then, glancing in Jack’s direction. He was leaning against the kitchen table, looking a bit like the Terminator, without the steroids.
She swallowed. “To be frank, Thane, you probably shouldn’t go either. You’ll scare her worse than we would.”
Jack smiled at that, the fire in his eyes dying down a little. “I’ll be across the street keeping an eye on you two,” he said to Annabelle and Dylan. They nodded their understanding.
Clara sighed and sat back down on the arm of the sofa, her arms crossed over her chest. It was clear she wasn’t having any fun. She had a gun in her holster and desperately wanted to use it. Her mother patted her arm sympathetically and through the thin fabric of her jacket pocket, Annabelle could see that the woman absently
