Jim slowly dropped his hand, his nape tightening sure as if a cold palm had settled on it.
None of them cast a shadow. As they stood backlit by the brilliant sunlight, in the midst of the spindly dark trails thrown by the bare branches of the trees around the garage, it was as if they had been Photo-shopped in - in the landscape, but not of it.
"Do you know...an English guy named Nigel?" As soon as the words left Jim's mouth, he knew the answer.
Adrian smiled a little. "Do we look like people who'd hang out with a Brit?"
Jim frowned. "How did you know where I lived?"
"Chuck told us."
"He tell you it was my birthday Thursday night?" Jim slowly got to his feet. "He tell you that, too? Because I didn't, and you knew yesterday when you asked if I'd had myself a birthday present."
"Did I." Adrian's big shoulders shrugged. "Lucky guess on my part. And you never did answer that question of mine, did you."
As the two of them went nose-to-nose, Adrian shook his head with a curious sadness. "You did her. You had her. At the club."
"You sound disappointed in me," Jim drawled. "Hard to believe, considering you were the one who pointed her out to me in the first place."
Eddie stepped in between them. "Relax, boys. We're all on the same team here."
"Team?" Jim stared at the other guy. "Didn't know we were on a team."
Adrian laughed tightly, the piercings at his eyebrow and lower lip catching the light. "We aren't, but Eddie's a peacekeeper by nature. He'll say anything to chill people out, won't you."
Eddie just fell into silence and stayed right where he was. Like he was prepared to physically break things up if it came to that.
Jim leveled his stare on Adrian. "Englishman. Nigel. Hangs out with three other pantywaists and a dog the size of a donkey. You know them, don't you."
"Already answered the question."
"Where's your shadow? You're standing in sunlight and throwing a whole lot of nothing."
Adrian pointed to the ground. "Is this a trick question?"
Jim looked down and frowned. There on the concrete was the black reflection of Adrian's wide shoulders and tight hips. As well as Eddie's huge body. And Dog's scruffy head. Jim cursed to himself and muttered, "I need a f**king drink."
"You want me to beer you?" Adrian asked. "It's five o'clock somewhere in the world."
"Like England," Eddie cut in. As Ad glared at him, he shrugged. "Scotland, too. Wales. Ireland - "
"Beer, Jim?"
Jim shook his head and planted his ass back on the floor, figuring that if his brain wasn't working right, he wasn't about to chance his knees anymore in the event they decided to take up the fad. As he stared out at the pair of Harleys in the drive, he realized he was in a rat-piss kind of mood and clearly paranoid. Neither of which was a newsflash.
Unfortunately, beer was only a short-term answer. And head transplants had yet to be approved by the FDA.
"Any chance you know how to work a socket wrench?" he said to Adrian.
"Yup." The guy took off his leather jacket and cracked his knuckles. "And I got nothing better to do than get this piece of junk back on the road."
As Vin stared across the table at Marie-Terese, the cascading daylight filtering through the diner window transformed her into a vision, the echoes of which resounded in the back of his mind. Where did he know her from? he thought once again. Where had he seen her before? God, he wanted to touch her hair.
Vin forked up the last bite of his pancakes, and wondered why she had asked him if he liked redheads. Then he remembered. "I don't like red hair enough to be with Gina, if that's what you want to know."
"No? She's beautiful."
"To some...probably. Look, I'm not the kind of guy who - "
The waitress came up to the table. "More coffee? Or do you want the ch - "
" - f**ks around with other women."
Marie-Terese blinked and so did the waitress.
Shit. "What I mean is..." Stopping himself, Vin glanced up at the other woman, who seemed to be ready to hang around. "Are you pouring? Or what?"
"I - ah, I could do with some more coffee," Marie-Terese said, holding up her mug. "Please."
The waitress topped slowly, looking back and forth between them like she was hoping to hear the rest of the story. When Marie-Terese's mug was full, the woman went to work on his.
"More syrup?" she asked him.
He pointed to his clean plate. "I'm finished."
"Oh. Right." She cleared what was in front of him and walked away with the same alacrity with which she'd worked the pot: Molasses moved faster.
"I don't cheat," he repeated when there was some privacy. "After watching my parents, I learned more than enough about what not to do in relationships, and that's pretty much rule number one."
Marie-Terese held out the sugar to him, and when he stared down at the bowl like he didn't know what it was, she said, "You know, for your coffee. You put sugar in yours."
"Yeah...I do."
As he doctored up his Java, she said, "So your parents' marriage wasn't a good one?"
"Nope. And I'll never forget what it was like to watch them rip each other apart."
"Did they divorce?"
"No. They killed each other." As she recoiled back in her seat, he wanted to curse. "Sorry. I probably shouldn't be so blunt, but that's what happened. One of their fights got really out of control and they fell down the stairs. Didn't end well for either of them."
"I'm so sorry."
"You're very kind, but that was a long time ago."
After a moment, she murmured, "You look exhausted."
"Just need a little more coffee before we go." Hell, on that theory, he'd keep drinking the stuff until his kidneys floated if it meant they had more time together.
The thing was, as she stared across at him, her warm concern made her...precious. Utterly precious and therefore susceptible to loss.
"Are you safe on the job?" he blurted. "And I'm not talking about from violence." During the long pause that followed, he shook his head, feeling like both his loafers had just served as pancake chasers. "I'm sorry, it's none of my business - "
"Do I practice safe sex, you mean?"
"Yeah, and I'm not asking because I want to be with you." As she jerked back again, he cursed himself. "No, I mean, I want to know because I hope you're taking care of yourself."
"Why would that matter to you?" He stared into her eyes.
"It just does."
She turned away and looked out over the river. "I'm safe. Always. Which makes me very different from loads of so-called 'honorable' women who sleep around without using anything. And you can stop searching my face like you're trying to solve some deep mystery. Anytime. Now would be good."
He resigned himself to staring down into his mug. "How much do you cost?"
"I thought you said you didn't want to be with me like that."
"How much?"
"What, because you want to pull a Pretty Woman and buy me out of my horrible life for a week?" She laughed in a short, hard burst. "The only thing I have in common with Julia Roberts in that movie is that I get to pick who I'm with. As for how much, that's none of your business."
He still wanted to know. Because, hell, maybe he hoped that if she was very expensive the quality of men would be better - although if he was honest with himself, that was a crock of shit. He did want to pull a Richard Gere, except he didn't want to buy a week. Years was more like it.
Even though that was never going to happen.
As the waitress trolled by with the pot of coffee and both her ears open, Marie-Terese said, "The check would be great now."
The waitress put the pot on the table and fished around in her apron for her pad. Ripping free a page, she put the thing facedown. "Take care, you two."
As she went off, he reached across and touched Marie-Terese's arm. "I don't want this to end on a bad note. Thanks for keeping me out of it with the police, but I want you to come clean about me if you get any heat, okay?"
She didn't pull away, just looked down at where they were linked. "I'm sorry, too. I'm not great company. At least...not for the civilized."
There was pain in her voice - just a sliver of it, but he heard the note as clearly as a bell struck on a still night.