* * *
Jack brooded over his whiskey and soda, restless, sullen -and if he was being honest- spoiling for a fight. He'd been stuck at Statesman HQ in New York City for a month now, handling corporate overflow for Champagne, and he was bored, stale and morose. Funding the revival of Kingsman and dealing with the inevitable red tape of routing such huge sums of money around the world ate up every minute he had to give, and plenty of time he didn't have to spare.
But Jack rebelled tonight. The Speakeasy Three were doing a one-night-only concert with his favorite old-school big band, the Swing Ninjas, and he used Statesman's clout without a second thought to wrangle himself a ticket to the sold-out show. He thought about getting two tickets and securing himself a date, but the idea of keeping a date amused and intrigued for the night just made him irritable, so he came alone.
The venue did catch his attention though, a huge old deconsecrated cathedral converted to a high-end nightclub. Whoever bought the building sank a lot of money in renovating the place with taste and style, the dominant theme a swing-era effect that looked sensational, but obviously cost the moon and a couple of asteroid belts to achieve. Custom oiled woodwork everywhere, pillars, wall trim, stairways, railings and balconies all gleaming with hand-rubbed lemon polish that smelled heavenly; on the marble floor below round tables with big, comfortable chairs and plenty of room between each table boasted monogrammed linen tablecloths, Baccarat crystal stemware and Tiffany candle lamps; and the big horseshoe booths lining the side walls featured heavy wood tables and overstuffed leather cushions that looked enticingly comfortable.
This place was damn big, but so was the crowd. Every table was filled, there wasn't a place to sit at the bar anywhere, and he wanted to be comfortable. Dammit, he wanted to sprawl out and listen to the music, and as it was he was fighting for elbow room just to set his drink down.
An odd little alcove on the upper level caught his eye. A set-apart corner that must have been a choir loft when this renovated building was still a church had been converted in to a cozy nook that reminded him vaguely of Kingsman's HQ. The interior was wallpapered in a tasteful dark gold fleur-de-lis pattern on a deep forest-green background, velvet drapes of more deep green partially curtained off the alcove, two enormous old wing chairs faced each other across a carved wood pedestal table, and two Tiffany lamps, a carved Chinese cabinet and matching sideboard and hat rack filled up the remainder of the space neatly. Cozy, comfortable, and positively dripping class... but nothing compared to the woman sitting in the farthest wing chair. Now that was class...
His Statesman professionalism kicked in and Jack assessed her, genuinely intrigued now. The wool coat hanging neatly beside her was a Burberry bespoke job, the gloves lying carelessly on the sideboard were Florentine kid, the watch on her wrist was a vintage Cartier, and the necklace around her throat -his eyes widened- was a century-old Fabergé. Her periwinkle blue wraparound blouse was silk so heavy it shimmered lustrously in the dim light, the sash ends floating softly in the air, and the jeweled pin nestled in her hair was a Mucha Art Nouveau peacock that threw glittering jewel-toned highlights onto the waterfall of long, lazy blond locks spiraling over her shoulders and down her back.
Copper-rimmed glasses framed her eyes, but the light wasn't enough to tell him what color they were. And unless he was way off, those were familiar old Levi's jeans and Reebok high-tops she was wearing. What an intriguing little bundle of contradictions... and Jack judged he would fit quite nicely in that empty wing chair across the table from her. He might as well see if she liked cowboys, and if she did, the long slim legs those Levi's were outlining would feel pretty damn good wrapped around his waist... something stirred in his gut that wasn't the need for a fight, and feeling a bit less grouchy, Jack threaded his way through the crowd towards the stairs leading up.
* * *
It took Jack a good ten minutes to work his way through the crowd and when he reached the top of the short stairway that led to the loft, he found someone else beat him to it.
"C'mon, that's way too much car for a woman," a voice oozing sleaze was drawling, and when Jack looked through the curtained archway he saw a snot-nosed young punk in an Armani suit leaning over the lady's wing chair with an entitled, possessive air that immediately pissed him off. "You need a man to handle a car like that." He leered at her suggestively. "You need a man for anything else, I can handle that too."
Her lip curled in disgust, and Jack could tell her patience with this dickhead was about to run out.
The punk's hand dropped down toward her breast, and even as her eyes narrowed in anger and she moved to knock the pawing hand away, Jack was across the alcove with the punk's arm twisted up behind him in a hold that not only immobilized, it hurt.
"The lady ain't interested, junior," Jack drawled softly, "and dickheads like you give real men a bad name." The punk looked disposed to argue and Jack twisted harder, and the dickhead went white as pain choked off anything he might have said.
"Take off," Jack said, his tone soft but so loaded with menace the punk finally figured out he was up against someone way out of his league, and he'd be lucky to get out of this without a broken arm.
Two enormous bouncers appeared in the archway in the time it took Jack to immobilize the punk, and he noted with approval they knew exactly what was going on, and didn't waste a minute taking custody of the Armani-clad asshole.
"We'll take him now, sir," the nearest bouncer told him, his deep voice briskly professional. "We appreciate your assistance."
The other bouncer had taken up a guard stance by the archway entrance, and Jack noticed him quietly querying the lady with a glance if she wanted him escorted out as well.
A slight shake of her head gave the bouncer his instructions, and so he merely nodded at Jack and said politely, "The rest of your evening is on the house, sir. The Cathedral Club greatly appreciates your courtesy." He bowed slightly to the lady and followed his companion out, the punk hanging like a doll in the bouncer's meaty grip.
"Thank you for your help," she said, studying him curiously. "That was thoughtful."
Jack shrugged, doffing his hat with a restrained flourish. "No trouble, ma'am. Just don't like to see a lady pawed at. Manners maketh man, you know."
A smile quirked the corners of her mouth. "I haven't heard that phrase in a while."
Jack found himself entirely unwilling to repeat the punk's intrusion on her privacy, so he simply tipped his hat to her before putting it back on his head and said, "If there's nothing else this old cowboy can do for you, ma'am, I'll be on my way."
She cocked her head slightly and a second smile curved the corners of her mouth higher. "There might be one thing, if you mean that."
A little startled at her reply, Jack was more than a little startled at how it warmed his heart to hear it- and she was even prettier when she smiled for real. "Say the word and it's done."
"That's the third jerk the bouncers have hauled out of my loft tonight. I need them down on the floor, but that empty chair across from me seems to be an irresistible invitation. Perhaps you'd be so kind as to occupy it and solve the problem for me?"
Her first comment warmed his heart, but the cleverness of her request made him grin.
"It would be my absolute pleasure, ma'am." Jack spun his hat through the air at her hat stand, and it dropped neatly on the hook beside her coat as he sank into the wing chair across the table from her. It was just as comfortable as it looked, and Jack was briefly disconcerted at how comfortable he felt sitting across from a woman whose name he didn't even know. "Anything else?"
Her dancing eyes carried a definite dare. "Try and look possessive? Not too much, just enough to scare anyone else off."
Jack had to laugh, she'd managed to charm him out of his bad mood and he was grateful. "I'll do my best, ma'am."
A perky waitress dressed in a spangled top and satin shorts appeared with a fresh whiskey and soda and set it on the table by Jack's elbow with a smile. "Anything else for you, sir? Perhaps you'd care to try our specialty of the day appetizer platter? It's excellent tonight."
The service here was damn impressive, Jack decided. At this rate, he might have to become a regular at this club when he was in New York. "Not a thing, little lady, thank ya kindly."
"Not hungry?" his hostess asked, her eyebrow arching again.
His traitorous stomach growled so audibly it could be heard over the band, and Jack flushed. "I mighta forgotten to eat dinner," he admitted, casting his mind back and trying to remember if he ate anything today other than countless cups of coffee. Admittedly, it was very good coffee, but still...
The waitress giggled and his hostess smothered a laugh.
"Bring my guest the specialty appetizer platter, Jenny, and tell Mickey to make me a fondue. I might've forgotten to eat dinner too."
"And lunch, boss," Jenny said, her attitude pert but tempered with genuine affection, and Jack realized with a start he was sitting across from the owner of this club, and her employees were not just impressively professional, but personally loyal as well. That was a surprise. A pretty nice one, actually.
"Scram or I'll ask how your midterms went, imp," his hostess said with mock sternness, and Jenny squeaked and fled.
Jack laughed out loud and lifted his glass in a toast. "If you ain't the sweetest surprise this old cowboy's run across in a dinosaur's age... here's to you, sugarplum."
His hostess dissolved into laughter. "Sugarplum, cowboy? Really?"
"I call 'em like I see 'em, sugarplum." His grin carried a dare right back, and Jack was glad to see she was taking his absurd raillery just the way he intended. It got so tiresome explaining jokes- he really had to start picking his dates with an eye for more than a nice set of curves. He was getting too damn old to carry both sides of a conversation, and having someone to trade witty repartee with was a helluva lot more stimulating -not to mention more fun- than anything he'd done in another age.
"Seeing the world through your eyes must be a trip- does it require peyote or just a lot of whiskey?"
Jack dissolved into laughter right along with her.
* * *
Hours later, Jack ambled back to his car feeling better than he had in a long time. And all right, he was going back to his penthouse suite at the Statesman building alone, but he spent the whole night talking, laughing, eating some of the best damn food he ever tasted, listening to some amazing music, and he even coaxed his sugarplum out onto the dance floor a couple times- he particularly enjoyed the pole-axed stares he got from the staff for that stunt.
All in all, a damn successful night. He still didn't know his pretty sugarplum's name -they'd made a game out of the nicknames sugarplum and cowboy- but since she owned the club, Jack knew he could come back and stand a good chance of finding her any time he liked. And he did like that idea, quite a lot...
* * *
This was not the way Marissa wanted this night to end- because getting swept off her feet by a handsome cowboy turned out to be more fun than she had in years. He even coaxed her into dancing, and she could hardly believe she could even remember how, but her cowboy had such a strong lead -like that wasn't an ironic thought!- he swept her along on the dance floor just as readily as he swept her along, period.
Playfully dodging all his attempts to nail down their next date -how he convinced her so readily there would be a next date was still a mystery to her, he outfoxed her very cleverly that way- had left her helpless with laughter more times than she could even remember.
But this, this was not the end of the night she wanted, or even wanted to deal with, as she stared in dismay at her beloved roadster- all four tires flat, the air intakes expertly cut at the base and then literally ripped out with pliers or vice-grips. A long, tired sigh escaped her before she could stop it.
"Fuck. Why didn't I just stay the hell home tonight?"
* * *
Jack lifted his head in surprise. He was driving one of Statesman's NYC office company cars -a damn nice vintage Corvette, even he had to admit- so he parked it at one of the high-security parking garages a block away from the venue. That was the voice of his brand-new lady friend, and up until a second ago he would have bet good money a word that vulgar would never cross her lips.
She was standing only half a dozen yards away, up until now half-hidden behind a concrete pillar, but something about her posture sent a warning thrilling along his nerves, and without conscious thought his hand slid under the back of his jacket and found the handle of his whip as he sauntered over.
"Hey, sugarplum. What's got you..." His gaze fastened on what she was staring at so sadly, and his jaw dropped as his eyes nearly popped out. "Shit! Is that...?"
Marissa looked back over her shoulder at him, looking much the same as Jack felt- like running into each other a second time was awesome, but not like this...
"A custom 1914 Barris Stutz Bearcat," she said tiredly. "With four flat tires. Looks like our dickhead friend you took care of got the last laugh after all. Even I don't have four spares for this beast. I'll have to special-order them."
Jack saw red- and then his professional instincts kicked in. "Sugarplum, this is a trap," he said, looking around warily and sliding closer to her. He caught something moving in the darkness near the ramp that led down to the lower levels and eventually the street. Someone -several someones- trying not to be noticed, but they weren't any kind of a pro and sure as hell weren't going to fool a Statesman.
Her eyes went almost as wide as his did when he saw the beautiful antique, but not in any good way, and Jack was a little surprised to notice she grasped the implications instantly.
"Shit," she murmured and moved closer, shifting her stance so she was back-to-back with him, and her hand slid into her briefcase, feeling for her father's treasured Walther PPK that she carried in a concealed pocket there.
"The black Corvette," Jack said, realizing with a start she was armed. "We'll drive down to the night watchman's office and tell them to send a tow truck. But right now we are getting the ever-loving fuck out of here."
She'd seen them too, and didn't argue. They moved together towards the Corvette, but when the clump of shadows broke and started running their way Jack tossed her the keys.
"Drive!" Jack shouted, his whip sailing out from behind his back as he stepped away from the car, planted his feet and sent the whip lashing out to lay open the first attacker's forehead from temple to temple and flood his eyes with blood.
Caught totally off guard, the dumb shit shrieked in terror as his own blood blinded him, and the other attackers faltered, obviously not expecting this kind of opposition, but goddammit Jack had been spoiling for a fight all month, he had a pretty damn good idea about what this bunch of jerks had in mind for his charming new lady friend, and he was going to fuck them up but good.
The whip snapped out again and whipped around the neck of the next idiot, a burly jock with the bulging muscles of a gym rat, but he moved like a tank and didn't stand a snowball's chance in hell against anyone as fast and experienced as Jack.
Jack yanked expertly and the burly jock went sailing into the guy next to him, sending them both crashing through the rear window of a Lexus. The car's alarm went off, and behind him Jack heard the Corvette's engine roar like a lion as tires squealing, his pretty lady friend whipped the car out of its space in reverse, spun the car around to face their attackers, dropped it into first and hit the gas. Once again the engine roared, the sound filling the empty echoing space as the Corvette practically leaped forward, straight at the goon with a tire iron trying to flank him on the left as Jack yanked the feet out from another coming at him with a baseball bat.
The bat went flying in one direction as the goon went flying in another, and Jack watched, bemused, as she used the Corvette's chrome steel bumper as skillfully as any soccer player to sweep the goon with the tire iron right off his feet and send him flying. Tires squealed again as she shifted into reverse and backed right into another idiot who hadn't bothered to look behind him, and as he went flying Jack's way the Statesman took the opportunity to kick him squarely in the face. Bone crunched as the dick's nose shattered flat, spreading blood across half his face, and the high-pitched scream cut off abruptly into a wet choking gurgle as blood poured back down his sinuses into his throat, choking off the sound.
The last attacker was their dickhead friend, and he stared around wildly, wondering what the hell just happened, as Jack pulled the whip slithering back to strike again. His pretty lady had the dickhead neatly boxed in between him and the Corvette, and Jack was positively delighted when she revved the engine in an unmistakable growl as their last remaining attacker realized, terrified, he was trapped and had nowhere to run.
"Sugarplum, you're stealin' my heart here," Jack muttered irrepressibly, and raised his voice.
"All you had to do was take no for an answer like a gentleman, ya damn dickhead," Jack said, sauntering forward with the whip curling and hissing around his feet in a manner terrifyingly reminiscent of a live cobra. The moving whip looked positively malevolent in the glaring illumination of the building's fluorescent lights. "Then none of this'd be necessary."
Jack snapped the whip back around and before dipshit could even register the movement, the lash had his arms pinned tightly to his sides.
"But you had to be a jerk, and then you tried messin' with the pretty lady, and for that," Jack yanked hard on the whip handle and the jerk came flying toward him, "I am gonna fuckin' wreck you!"
He threw a haymaker of a punch straight at the jerk's face and irresistible force met immovable object as his fist and the dickhead's jaw connected. Jack felt the douchbag's jawbone snap clean under his knuckles, and three teeth went flying as he followed through with the punch and sent the dick crashing to the concrete so hard he bounced twice before settling into an unconscious heap of limp, awkwardly sprawled limbs.
Jack thumbed the switch on his whip and sent the lash snapping back into the handle as he sauntered over to the Corvette, stopping only long enough to kick the idiot still trying to claw the blood out of his eyes unconscious.
"Dang it," Jack grumbled, looking at the layers of blood splattered across his brand-new-as-of-last-week cowboy boots, "now I gotta get my boots cleaned."
His pretty lady was leaning on the Corvette's steering wheel with her wrists crossed and a disbelieving smile playing around the corners of her mouth.
"If this is the kind of fun we'll have together, I might have to reconsider that offer of a date," she said, her eyes laughing up at him, "if it's still open."
In the brighter light he could tell her eyes were gray, Jack noticed, a shifting storm-gray like the darkening clouds before a prairie thunderstorm. It was unreasonably sexy but he wasn't about to complain.
"Oh, sugarplum, I am open to anything you want," Jack assured her, strolling around to the passenger side of the Corvette. Sliding into the passenger seat and picking up her hand, he brushed his lips over the back of it in a slow caress. "Thanks for the backup."
"You want me to drive?" She looked even more amused.
"You still need a ride home," Jack pointed out sensibly, "and you know the way and I don't."
She chuckled, a low rumbling purr that Jack liked a lot better than the high-pitched giggles he was used to getting from younger women. "A man who understands logic. Cowboy, I am liking you better all the time."
"Hey, if you ever decide you wanna keep this old cowboy," Jack told her with utter sincerity, "all you gotta do is say the word." He was going to start dating a little closer to his age, Jack decided. The young ones were lighthearted and fun, but the level of cool, competent sophistication -and humor- his new friend was showing was a helluva lot sexier, and he had to admit he felt a lot more comfortable around her than any woman he'd run across in a long time. Or maybe he should just forget about other women for a while, and set his sights on this one... another month in New York might not be so bad after all.
The Corvette's engine purred, in striking contrast to the way she made it roar only moments before, and Jack leaned back luxuriously as the car slid forward with a silky sinuousness that made him want to purr, too...
* * *