The Love Experiment (Stubborn Hearts 1)

“Not if you want me to pay for it.”

“Oh.” That.

He took a soft pouch from his pocket. Lifted a homemade pre-rolled cigarette from it and put it in his mouth, but he didn’t light it. The smell of almonds, cinnamon and spicy honey hit her.

“What kind of tobacco is that?”

He said, “Clove,” with his lips still wrapped around the cigarette and no eye contact.

To think she’d thought she could drop the burlap and finagle a mentor, that he wasn’t so intimidating; wrong, so very wrong. He’d seemed different in the bar. Now he was as remote and surly as a dull stone pillar. He took a few steps away and lit that cigarette, kept the hand holding it and his face turned away, but the sweet sultry scent of it was strong.

The longer they waited, the more uncomfortable she felt. Did he not feel that too? What would it cost him to chat about something, anything? They’d really needed the near unmanning, the food and the experiment questions to connect at all.

He was scanning the traffic for a cab, and when he turned his head her way she said, “For what in your life do you feel the most grateful?” It was question number five.

His arm shot out and he stepped toward the curb. “For this damn cab pulling up.”

Well, hell. Way to make a girl feel like punishment.

He opened the cab door, spoke to the driver across the seat and handed her a voucher. She didn’t look at him, just took the slip of paper. He was a bastard, and for a little while she’d forgotten that. Stupid. Inside the Courier, anyone known as a bastard had a reputation for being tough and efficient, for knocking down doors, breaking hearts and taking numbers, and never writing with clichés. The word was a compliment.

There was a print newspaper definition for a non-standard width for a column of text known as a bastard measure. That was Jackson Haley. Non-standard, not a good fit with those around him, and she’d do well to remember that.

She got in the cab, reached for the door to close it and found he had a hold of it still. “What did you last sing to yourself, Honeywell?”

She yanked on the door. That morning she’d murdered Beck’s “Guess I’m Doing Fine” but there was no way she was telling him that.

Chapter Six

Honeywell’s cab pulled out and Jack changed his mind about going to the office, ditched his cigarette, and hailed the one behind it. He gave the driver directions to the church and called Barney.

“Haley,” Barney said over the customary din of a dozen or more men shouting and cheering.

“Can I get in the pit?”

“Now? No. Twenty-four hours’ notice and you know it.”

“I’m ten minutes away.”

“I don’t care if you’re on the fucking moon without a spaceship. Twenty-four hours.”

Jack ground his teeth. He hated calling in favors, but he hated himself more tonight. Honeywell was fine with the whole experiment gone bust, but the look on her face when she worked out he wasn’t a nice guy under the bastard carved a hole in him he needed to fill or he wouldn’t be able to concentrate on the contents of Henri Costa’s envelope. He didn’t understand why that mattered to him, but it did, and it was a distraction he needed rid of.

“Barney, I’m calling in a marker.”

“Fucker.” Barney disconnected, but he’d get a fight.

Inside the old garage that housed the Church of St. Longinus of the Cocked Fist, Jack pulled his gear from his locker and changed his suit for cutoff sweatpants and gym boots, and swapped his glasses out for contacts. The envelope made him hesitate. It was the only thing of irreplaceable value in his possession, but then it would be meaningless to anyone else.

He had a half hour wait for the bout Barney had arranged for him. Time to warm up, glove up. The current bout was bare knuckle. It’d been going for a while, both men bloody and unsteady on their feet—one of Barney’s refs would call it soon enough.

Jack stood above the fighting pit and watched the two men take out whatever anger the day had inspired on each other. Better than the wife, the kids, someone in the wrong place at the wrong time at work, themselves. He liked the madness of bare knuckles, but he couldn’t work with busted hands, needed them for the keyboard, so tape and gloves it was.

He also didn’t have any martial arts expertise to his name. He could box and he could brawl, but he couldn’t land a kick. His opponent, gloved and standing on the other side of the pit, could. This was going to be interesting.

“Best I could do, short notice,” Barney said. “Ryan knows this is a straight boxing match, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he forgets. If he lands a shin on you, he’ll be disqualified. You’ll win, but you won’t care ’cause you’ll be in the heart of hell. You still in?”

Jack nodded. He knew tonight’s doctor on call was McGill. If he ended up with broken ribs, he’d have decent care.