Chapter 3
Strawberry blond. That’s what she was, Gabe thought. She glanced up at his approach. Her eyes were green, her brow furrowed. The expression made her look like a perturbed schoolgirl, bent forward as she was, pen poised over a square cocktail napkin. It was in pristine condition but for her blocky handwriting.
“I wanted to apologize,” he said and motioned jerkily with the Wild Turkey back at his just-abandoned table. “About before. I’m not usually so antisocial.” That was probably not true, he thought, but she didn’t seem to notice.
“No problem.” Sliding the napkin out of sight, she crumpled it in her fist. “I didn’t mean to interrupt,” she said, and despite the fact that his life was going to hell with the speed of a damned torpedo, he almost smiled, because she hadn’t been quite quick enough removing the napkin; he’d read the first line.
“Drafting a resignation letter?” he guessed.
“No. Not at all,” she said and cleared her throat. “You want to have a seat?”
“A Dear John letter?” he asked.
She shook her head and glanced away as he sat down. “Why would you think that?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Acceptance speeches rarely begin with ‘Dear Dickhead,’” he said.
For a moment, he thought she’d sputter a denial, but finally she smiled. A little flushed and as fresh-faced as a Girl Scout. “All right,” she said. “I am resigning. Sent the email three hours and…” She checked her wrist. It was absolutely devoid of a watch. She shrugged, unconcerned. “…seventeen minutes ago.”
He stretched out his aching right leg. “Resigning from what?” he asked.
“My desk job,” she said and took a sip. “Do you want to know why?”
“I’m going to assume it’s because your boss is a dickhead.”
“That’s right.” She leaned forward suddenly, and in that moment of abrupt animation she reminded him of every woman who made life worth living. Or a living hell. “And do you want to know why he’s such a dickhead?” she asked but continued before he could respond. “It’s because I’m a woman.”
“Are you sure?”
She leaned back in her chair, brows raised. “Am I sure that’s the reason, or am I sure that I’m a woman?”
He was pretty confident of her gender but didn’t mention the fact. “Seems to me people are dickheads for all sorts of reasons,” he said.
She watched him as he drank. Her eyes had softened a little. Maybe he’d rushed to judgment. Maybe they weren’t just green. Maybe they were forest green. Or fresh asparagus green.
“What’d they do to you?” she asked.
He flexed his right hand, almost tempted to tell her, to let her pity cushion the pain but he tested a lie instead. “They passed me over for a promotion.”
“Me, too!” she said and smacked the table with enough force to make him wonder how much she’d had to drink.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. That’s why they’re dickheads.”
He watched her mouth form the words. He couldn’t help himself. Perhaps it was because he was wasted. But perhaps it was because there was something about hearing obscenities fall from her sweet-cherry lips that was weirdly erotic. Not that he could do anything about eroticism at that precise moment.
“Because I’m qualified,” she said and slammed down the remainder of her drink with a scowl. “I’m more than qualified.”
Probably true, he thought. She seemed to have all the qualities an employer could want: intelligence, integrity, compassion…looks. Or maybe those were the attributes he wanted.
God, how drunk was he?
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be whining when you…” She paused. “What’s your name anyway?”
He was almost tempted to try another lie. As if taking a new identity could clear out the past, could pave a new future. “Gabriel,” he said. “How ‘bout you?”
“Jenny.”
“With an ie?”
She shook her head, jiggled the ice in her glass. “A y.”
“You look more like an ie to me.”
“Maybe I’ll have to reconsider,” she said and motioned for another drink. Her blouse gaped a little at the neck; the waiter seemed to appear instantaneously, like a character in a kid’s pop-up book.
“Thanks, Walt,” she said. Burly and florid, Walt nodded once before returning to the bar. “I don’t usually imbibe,” she admitted once they were alone again. “Mom was an alcoholic. At least, that was Dad’s opinion.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Oh. No,” she said and waved off his sympathies. “She wasn’t…I mean…Dad was the psycho. But he was hardly ever around anyway.”
“Divorced?”
“Thankfully.”
He lifted his drink in some kind of idiotic salute. “Mine, too.”
“Your mom ever get over it?”
He shrugged, thinking of the woman most referred to as Sarge. “Ma kind of defies description.”
“Give me a for instance,” she said.
He considered remaining mute. There was lots to be said for mute. Such as, it generally didn’t get you shot or make you look like a dumbass. But he spoke anyway. “For instance, she’d kick me from here to Christmas if she knew I wasn’t making a pass at you.”
“I don’t think…” she began then paused. “What?”
He’d been wrong. She wasn’t cute. She was gorgeous. Almost too good to be true. If the bastards in Basic wanted to send the perfect woman to test his willpower, she’d be the one.
“She doesn’t hold with self-pity,” he said.
“So why haven’t…” She paused but spoke again in a moment. “Are you gay?”
He choked on his whiskey, coughed twice then wiped his mouth with the back of his left hand.
“Don’t get me wrong,” she added, angel eyes wide as forever. “I’m not homophobic or anything. One of my best friends…”
“No,” he said.
“You’re not gay?”
“Someone would probably have informed me by now if I was.”
For a second, she looked ready to continue that line of questioning, but finally she shook her head. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I don’t usually act so weird.”
“Sometimes the dickheads get to you.”
“I guess so.” She shrugged. The movement shifted her blouse a little more, showing the slightest bit of cleavage. And wasn’t that interesting—turns out half a barrel of whiskey wouldn’t limit his ability to do something about her eroticism, after all. But there were other things to consider. For instance, she appeared to be slightly younger than his combat boots. “I kind of thought he was my friend.” She glanced at her drink, causing a shiny lock of hair to fall across her cheek. He could imagine it slipping soft as a sigh through his fingers. And with that image in his mind, he realized his combat boots were pretty damned mature for their age.
“The dickhead?” he guessed.
“Yeah.”
“Sometimes even friends screw up.”
“Especially friends,” she corrected, and he nodded.
Their gazes met and held. Something sizzled through his inebriated system. Sexual tension maybe. Then again, it might be alcohol poisoning.
“Well…”
They spoke in unison, then drew identical breaths and laughed at the chemistry that bubbled between them, as harmless as nitroglycerin.
“I should get home,” she said and motioned for the nearby waiter, but Gabe shoved a fifty into the man’s hand and shook off her protests.
“My pleasure.”
She looked pretty steady as she rose beside him. “Well...I wouldn’t want to ruin your pleasure.”
He caught her gaze. She embodied an odd meld of shyness and bravado that he found dangerously appealing. Matched with her sugarplum smile and slim, rocking body, she was all but irresistible.
But he would resist. He’d been trained to resist. To overcome. To lead the damned way, as the Ranger credo said.
Pushing back the flagrant flow of memories, he lifted his left hand to the small of her back and ushered her toward the door. “Can I call you a cab?”
“No. Thank you. I only live a few blocks from here.”
“You don’t plan to walk,” he said and glanced out the window. By the glare of the overhead lights, he could see it was beginning to spit some kind of viscous precipitation.
“I’ll be fine.” She turned, but somehow he had moved closer than he’d intended. Her hip brushed his crotch. Her shoulder grazed his chest, and when she inhaled, they shared the same breath. “I’m…ummm…” Her voice was quiet, and there suddenly seemed to be a distinct lack of oxygen. “I’m tougher than I look,” she said, but her words were little more than a kitten-soft murmur.
“Yeah?” Sparkling repartee, Durrand. But what did he expect? He could barely breathe. Thinking was out of the question. “Listen.” His voice sounded oddly raspy, as if it intended to cold-cock his good sense and blindside his best intentions. “I don’t think you should get involved with someone like—” he began.
But that’s when she kissed him.