Darling Jack. Mary McBride

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      It was almost second nature for him to rise, clench his cigar in his teeth and move in on the bustling, hustling dollies.

      

      When Anna got off the train in Coal City, a second blast of steam curled whatever hairs the first one had missed, in addition to nearly scalding the skin from her face. Good Lord, she’d be lucky to get to St. Louis alive. Right now, however, her immediate destination was elsewhere.

      She approached the conductor, who was stretching his legs on the platform while winding his watch. Anna cleared her throat. “Excuse me, sir. Would you please direct me to the smoking car?”

      The man dropped his watch. It draped over his belly by its thick gold chain as he peered down at Anna. “Sorry, madam. You startled me. I didn’t notice you standing there.”

      “The smoking car,” Anna repeated as her chin came up a determined notch. “Which one is it, if you please?”

      “Oh, the Pinkerton lady. Looking for Mad Jack, are you?” He grasped her elbow firmly. “You just come along with me.”

      She hadn’t really wanted an escort, Anna thought, or needed one. She had to trot to keep up with him, and when they reached the second-to-last car of the train, the conductor gave her a boost, which Anna wasn’t quite prepared for. She stumbled headlong into the acrid, smoke-filled coach, stopping at a pair of high-glossed boots that shone even through the murk. Anna’s eyes jerked up.

      “Mr. Hazard?”

      He sat, or rather reclined, with a female on each knee. He appeared to be wearing them, actually. Like trousers, one leg blue and the other a garish green. And he was also wearing a wide white grin that, under the circumstances, struck Anna as altogether brazen and shocking and, well…beautiful.

      “Mr. Hazard,” she said again, this time a little more breathlessly than before, and then she simply stood there, mute. What the devil did one say to a man with two women on his lap?

      Suddenly the conductor was standing at her shoulder. “Well, I see you’ve found him. This little lady has been looking for you, Jack.”

      “And I’ve been looking for you,” Hazard said to the conductor, ignoring Anna as he stood abruptly and the females went tumbling to the floor. “These women are pickpockets, Dooley.” He bent and slid a lithe, long-fingered hand into a green bodice, coming up with an elaborately engraved pocket watch. “This is mine. There’s more, if you’d care to search them. After that, I expect you’ll want to turn them over to the local constable.”

      The women were struggling up from the floor now. “Bastard,” the green one hissed at Jack, while the blue one gave out a blistering string of curses meant for anyone and everyone within hearing distance.

      “Here, now.” The conductor grabbed the women by their arms and hauled them to their feet. “You two have met your match with the Pinkertons, I’d say. With Mad Jack and his partner here.”

      Jack lifted an eyebrow. “Partner?”

      The conductor blinked, then glanced from Jack to Anna and back again. “That’s what she told me. She said she was your partner.”

      “More like my life partner, wouldn’t you say, darling?” Jack purred as his arm reached out and reeled the unsuspecting Anna in. He grinned down at her—it was the same grin that only moments earlier had stolen her breath away—then angled his head toward the conductor. “She’s my wife, Dooley. Although the knot’s only been tied for…what, darling? Fifteen or sixteen hours?” He lowered his voice and closed one eye in a slow wink. “Haven’t yet had an opportunity to make her truly mine, Dooley, if you take my meaning.”

      Anna caught it, and blushed. So did the woman in the green dress, who didn’t blush at all, but rather shook her fist at Jack and bellowed, “Yeah, and here’s hoping you never do, buddy! Her or anybody else, ever again.”

      “That will be enough out of you, ladies.” The conductor tugged the two pickpockets toward the door. “Thanks, Jack,” he called. “And my best wishes. To you and the little missus.”

      A moment passed—or crawled, it seemed to Anna—during which she cleaned her spectacles and stared at the floor while trying to recover enough breath and enough sense to speak coherently.

      “Mrs. Matlin?”

      His voice seemed to drift down and curl around her like warm woodsmoke. Anna didn’t dare look up. Her face was on fire as she stood in the crook of Johnathan Hazard’s arm, her hip quite plastered against his and the heat from his body seeping into her own. She couldn’t breathe, and she feared it had nothing to do with the stagnant air in the smoking car. It was him. How in blazes was she going to work with this man if she went to pieces each time she looked at him? Glue yourself together, girl.

      “Yes?” she managed to squeak, putting her glasses back on and raising her eyes as far as the middle button on his perfectly pressed white shirt.

      “How do you do?” he said softly. His faint accent greeted her ears like elegant music. “I’m Jack Hazard.”

      “Yes. Yes, I know.”

      He chuckled now, a rich bass rumbling deep in his throat. “How can you be so certain, Mrs. Mathn, unless you look at me?” Warm, gentle fingertips found her chin then, and coaxed it upward. “There. Now that’s better.”

      His eyes took her in then—fairly consumed her before coming to rest on her mouth. He made a tiny clucking sound with his tongue. What that meant, Anna didn’t know. Nor could she fathom the meaning of his huskily breathed “Well, now.”

      She did know what “All aboard” meant, though, and when the cry suddenly sounded, Anna stiffened and stepped back.

      “I ought to be returning to my seat.”

      “I’ll come with you.”

      Oh, don’t. Anna was thinking that if she could just get away from him for a moment or two, she would be able to pull herself together. But as she cast about in her brain for an excuse to go alone, Johnathan Hazard’s warm hand folded over her elbow and he moved determinedly toward the door, and then, a moment later, those long, lithe fingers of his were fitting themselves to her rib cage as he lifted her down to the platform.

      He held her then, just a fraction of a second too long, but long enough for Anna to recall how good it felt to be touched, to be in a man’s possessive grasp. It had been years. Since Billy had left her, the most Anna had done was shaken hands. And now she was shaken to the very marrow of her bones.

      She was hardly aware that she was being propelled along the platform now, her feet somehow managing two steps for each of Hazard’s strides. Ahead, the big locomotive was building up a towering pillar of steam. On her right, the coaches were trembling and grinding at their couplings. Anna quickened her steps.

      Nearly rushing now, she wasn’t sure whether her haste was to get on board the departing train or to escape this unsettling, disconcerting man. СКАЧАТЬ