Lovers and Strangers (3 page)

But she only stiffened, like a mouse caught between the paws of a hungry cat. She turned her head slightly, looking nervously toward the bar. Jack let his gaze follow the path hers had taken and found Tim busy mixing something in a blender, unaware that a line had been crossed. He cut his eyes back to the scene in the mirror and met her gaze, head-on.

They stared at each other for a frozen moment. Her eyes were wide and half pleading, her expression strangely apologetic. Then she flushed and looked away, shamefaced and embarrassed. She said something to Freddie, a word or two, no more. He laughed and shook his head, playfully refusing to release her.

Jack waited another beat, hoping Tim would look up and notice what was going on.

Freddie's hand slid lower, all but patting the waitress on her little round butt.

"Oh, hell." He really didn't want to get involved, dammit. It wasn't his responsibility.
She
wasn't his responsibility. Unlike Tim, he'd outgrown whatever Galahad complexes he might have been born with a long time ago. And several hard knocks since then had taught him that sticking his nose into other people's private business was a good way to get it broken.

But what the hell was a man to do?

With a resigned sigh, Jack took one long, last drag from his cigarette, then slowly crushed it out in the bottom of the heavy glass ashtray on the bar. Reluctantly, hoping she'd find a way to handle the situation before he was forced to step in and handle it for her, he unhooked his boot heels from the lower rung of the bar stool and stood.

"Miss," he said, as he approached the small round table where Freddie held the waitress captive in the curve of his arm.

Both Freddie and the waitress turned their heads to look at him.

"I'd like a Corona and a plate of nachos when you get a chance." Jack nodded toward the row of black Leatherette booths against the far wall. "Over there," he said. His words, addressed to the young woman, were casual and polite. His gaze, locked with Freddie's, was anything but. It bored into the other man's—a warning, a threat and a challenge, all at once.
Take your slimy hands off of her, buddy,
his eyes said.

And Freddie did.

Quickly.

So quickly that the waitress all but tumbled into Jack's arms. He reached out to steady her as she stumbled against him, grabbing her by the upper arms to keep her from plowing into his chest. The round plastic tray she held in her left hand bumped against his thigh.

"Oh," she said, distressed. The word was a soft exhalation of air, warm against the wedge of skin in the open V of his khaki shirt. "Oh, dear. Excuse me, I..."

"Hey, it's all right, Angel," Jack soothed. His fingers curled around her biceps, automatically flexing to test the warmth and resiliency of her, unconsciously holding her there in front of him. She was soft, small and delicate under his hands, and her hair smelled like baby shampoo and innocence. He felt old, suddenly—far older than even his forty-three years of hard living warranted—and strangely protective. He felt as if he should scoop her up in his arms and carry her away to a tower somewhere, to a place where she'd be safe from all the crude come-ons and heavy-handed passes men were wont to make. Safe from ugliness and greed and everything bad. Safe in a way he knew, from firsthand experience, that no one in the whole wide world was ever safe.

"Please," she murmured, her head still down so that he had to stoop a little to hear what she said.

"It's all right, Angel," he said again, his lips almost brushing against her hair as he spoke. He squeezed her arms comfortingly. "Take it easy."

She pulled back, reaching up to put her free hand against his chest. "Please, I—" she began, lifting her head as she spoke.

Their eyes met. Not in a mirror, with half the width of the barroom and a veil of smoke between them, but over a distance of inches, only. A foot, at most. The distance at which lovers gaze into each other's eyes.

Hers were that indefinite color called hazel. Neither green nor brown, he decided, but an intriguing mingling of the two, shot through with delicate tracings of gold. Large and wide-set, fringed with lush, thick lashes, they dominated the delicate oval of her face. The expression in them was unguarded and open, making her emotions as easy to read as those of a child.

She was embarrassed.

And frightened.

And angry. At
him.

Jack stared back for a moment, stunned. He was the white knight here, wasn't he? He'd come riding to her rescue. Saving her when she couldn't seem to save herself. So why was she looking daggers at
him?

"Please," she said again, more firmly this time. He could hear the sound of the South in her voice. And a hint of desperation. "Let me go. I have to put in your order." She pushed harder against his chest.
"Let me go,
" she demanded.

Jack snatched his hands back as if she'd suddenly become too hot to hold. He raised them, fingers spread, palms out, as if to show her they were empty.

She shot him one long, last accusing look out of fiery, gold-flecked eyes, and fled.

* * *

Faith burst through the swinging doors that led into Flynn's kitchen as if she'd been shot out of a cannon. She slammed her tray down on the metal service counter and then glanced around guiltily, ashamed of her display of temper and half expecting to be slapped down for it. But the kitchen was blessedly empty, the big clock on the wall informing her that it was barely four-thirty. Faith sighed and closed her eyes, thankful for the time alone. Emotional displays—her own or someone else's—always unsettled her, and she needed a few minutes of solitude to get her feelings back under control.

She stood very still, her hands braced flat on the metal counter on either side of her black plastic tray, her head bent, breathing deeply in an effort to compose herself.

It was bad enough that Freddie Bowen had thought he had the right to put his hands on her. Bad enough that she'd been spineless enough to let him get away with it. But what was worse, what was absolutely the very worst, was that the other man, the stranger at the bar, had seen her shame. He'd watched in the mirror as she let herself be pawed and she'd seen the expression in his eyes before he finally looked away: the disgust for her helplessness, the pity for her weakness; that look that she could only describe as disapproval when he'd stared down into her eyes and seen her cowardice up close.

She knew it was unreasonable to be angry at him. He'd only been acting the gentleman by intervening, obviously doing what he'd seen as his masculine duty by rescuing her from an uncomfortable situation.

She should be angry at Freddie Bowen.

At herself.

And she was.

But, oh, how she hated the look she'd seen in the other man's eyes! The one that reduced her to a powerless, ineffectual, helpless nothing! It made her want to scream.

Stupid, stupid, stupid,
she berated herself silently.
How can anyone be so stupid? So incompetent? So inept. So—

"Faith? Faith, honey, what's the matter?"

Faith jerked upright, snatching at her tray with both hands as if she had somewhere to go with it. "Sammie-Jo." She forced her lips to curve into a smile of welcome. "You're early."

"Only a few minutes. I wanted to find out how you did on your own out there this afternoon. Thought you might need a pep talk before you felt up to facing your first Friday night Happy Hour at Flynn's."

"No." Faith shrugged, trying to look unconcerned and nonchalant. The effect was spoiled by the way she held the tray in front of her chest like a shield. "Everything's fine. My first solo shift went great."

"Sure it did." Sammie-Jo didn't even attempt to hide her skepticism. "What happened?"

Faith held her tray tighter. "Nothing."

"Don't you 'nothing' me, Faith McCray." Sammie-Jo's soft Southern drawl was equal parts exasperation and concern. "You're not the type who gets all upset over 'nothing.'" She reached out, putting her hand on Faith's fingers where they curled around the edge of the tray. "What happened?" she demanded, gently rubbing her thumb over the whitened ridge of Faith's knuckles.

"Nothing happened. Really. It was just..." Faith shrugged, still embarrassed by her loss of control and her failure to handle the situation herself.

If anyone had dared to try to take liberties with Sammie-Jo, she would have handled it with a careless laugh or a frosty glare and that would have been that. No fuss, no muss. No emotional upheaval. And no awkward, humiliating scenes for other people to witness. But Sammie-Jo was beautiful, smart and confident. She always had been.

Back at Pine Hollow High School in Georgia, Sammie-Jo had been a cheerleader, a member of the student council and the reigning star of the drama club. Despite the fact that she'd skipped a couple of grades, was three years younger than most everyone else in her class and smarter than Southern belles were usually allowed to be, she'd been elected Homecoming Queen by the football team and voted Most Popular Girl by the entire Senior class. To Faith, whose only extracurricular activity had been the Future Homemakers of America, beautiful, brilliant Sammie-Jo Sheppard had seemed like the epitome of sophistication and poise. It was a constant wonder to her that they had ever become friends in the first place, let alone remained friends over the intervening years since high school.

"Do you want me to go out there and spill a drink on some jerk for you?" Sammie-Jo offered.

Faith couldn't help but smile at that. "No, thanks," she said, moving around the counter to begin putting together the plate of nachos her customer had ordered. Strictly speaking, food service didn't begin until the Flynn's short-order cook arrived at five o'clock but Faith wasn't one to stand on ceremony. Anybody could make nachos—and the soothing routines of a kitchen had always been her refuge in times of stress. "It's time I learned to take care of the jerks myself."

"Amen to that." Sammie-Jo moved toward the swinging doors as she spoke. "Which one is he?" she asked, raising up on tiptoe to peer through one of the small round windows. "Maybe I can give you some pointers on—Oh, I see him." She lowered herself back to her heels. "How disappointing."

"Disappointing?" Faith murmured, her head down as she spooned refried beans onto crisp tortilla chips.

"He didn't strike me as a groper." Sammie-Jo sauntered over and leaned a hip against the counter, watching as Faith prepared the nachos with neat, economical movements. "I thought he'd have more class than that."

Faith looked up from her task. "But you warned me about him," she said, clearly puzzled by what her friend had said.

Sammie-Jo shook her head. "I don't know enough about Jack Shannon to warn anybody about him. He's only lived at the Wilshire Arms for about a month and a half and he hasn't been real sociable toward the rest of the tenants. Rumors have been flying around like crazy, of course, but nobody knows anything for sure and Mueller—" Carl Mueller was the building super "—is being mysterious and closemouthed, as usual. All anybody really knows is that he used to be some kind of a newspaper reporter. A war correspondent, I think."

"Rumors?" Faith prompted, knowing she shouldn't. Gossip was unseemly and sinful.

"According to what I heard, Irina Markova—You know, that sweet little Russian woman who brought us almond cakes and tea when you first moved in?"

Faith nodded and unsnapped the lid on a large plastic container of grated cheese.

"Well, Madame Markova has lived at the Wilshire Arms since practically before World War II or something and she said that she remembers that Jack Shannon lived there a long time ago. He and his brother and a bunch of other guys lived in 1-G." She lowered her voice for dramatic effect. "The very same apartment he's living in now," she said significantly.

"So?"

"So his brother died during a wild party at the Wilshire Arms," Sammie-Jo told her. "He fell off the balcony above apartment 1-G."

"Oh, how terrible," Faith murmured, instant sympathy clouding her expressive eyes.

"And that's not the best part," Sammie-Jo said with theatrical relish. "The best part is that it might not have been an accident."

"You mean..." Faith's gaze shifted toward the door. "Are you saying he
pushed
his brother off the balcony?"

"Well, no, not exactly. I mean, nobody ever actually accused him of physically shoving his brother over the balcony railing or anything. Officially, it was a suicide." Sammie-Jo shrugged, dismissing that bit of information as a minor technicality in her story. "But according to the stories I've heard, Jack Shannon and his brother didn't get along very well. Several witnesses said they'd heard the two of them having a loud argument that night."

"About what?"

"Who knows? But he disappeared right after the inquiry, didn't even stay for the funeral, from what I heard. And now he's back." She reached out and snagged a chip off the plate Faith was fixing. "Makes for an interesting story, don't you think?"

"It sounds awfully sad to me. The poor man's brother committed suicide."

"Well, yes, that part of it is sad," Sammie-Jo agreed. "But it happened a long time ago," she added lightly. "I was talking about now. What's going on
now
is what's interesting."