Free Cold and Pure and Very Dead by Joanne Dobson Page B

were drawn to the biceps straining the sleeves of his close-fitting black T-shirt. Must have something to do with muscle mass.
    From its posters of “college girls” in pasties to the rich fug of beer and cigarettes and the lethal thunk of stiff, whizzing darts, Ernie’s Grill was a testosterone-powered, down-and-dirty kind of place. Aside from the bartender in her seam-stretched jeans and midriff-tied white blouse, I was the only woman in the bar. If there was a guy in the place who didn’t have lingerie shreds dangling from his eyeballs when he looked at me, hewasn’t letting their absence show. The leering contest was less about me—or any woman—than it was about the other guys at the bar, less about my body than about the perceived prowess of their own: competitive
cojones
.
    After a few minutes in Jake’s presence, I forgot all about Milly Finch. The man knew how to tell a tale. The lead kayak on the Tibetan whitewater expedition had just capsized and vanished beneath the waves, and my companion turned his relation of this fatal incident into a nuanced disquisition on the fragility of the human soul embarked on its perilous journey from zygote to coffin. “The boats battle the rapids,” he mused, “but the man inside the boat, his spirit, the muscle of the man, determines the fate of the craft.” He paused for a slug of Crown Royal, then continued. “It’s ironic, but I’ve never felt so alive as I did when that kayak went over. For poor Saunders, it was ending; for me, the quest was at its most intense.”
    “And you couldn’t rescue him?” I was horrified.
    “Nope. Didn’t even try.” His gray eyes were murky in the smoky dimness of the bar. “The current was too strong—would’ve taken us all.” Jake slugged back his drink and raised a finger to the bartender. Rescuing Saunders wasn’t the point; the point was the profound impact of Saunders’s demise on the Alpha male seated next to me. The murk in Jake’s eyes, I decided admiringly, was a brave attempt to mask this strong man’s pain. Then I thought again—and sighed. The murk in Jake’s eyes was most likely pure unadulterated murk.
    T hat afternoon , twenty minutes late for our three o’clock tour of the town, Jake had come striding into my office. “Page proofs,” he announced, thunkinga thick overnight-express envelope on my desk. “I’m going to have to beg off that tour we were planning and spend the rest of the afternoon going over these.” He shuddered in mock horror.
    “That’s too bad,” I said, and meant it. I’d been looking forward to his company.
    “So, how about maybe this evening?” Jake asked.
    “This evening? A town tour?”
    “No tour; I can find my own way around. Always have.” He perched on the edge of my desk and flashed me a smile. “How about a late supper and a few drinks? About ten?”
    My heart went
dum, dum, dum
, but I hesitated a cautious five seconds: That was a very late date. Was he trying to set me up? There was something about Jake Fenton that made a woman ask herself a question like that. But, hey, what the hell, I’m a big girl now. I could always say no. Or
yes
. I
could
say yes—if I wanted to. It was not an unprovocative thought. “Sure. I’m free this evening.”
    “Great,” he said, fiddling with the pencils in my pencil cup, caressing one gently between his fingers. “Where do I pick you up?” He plucked the pencil from the cup and scribbled directions to my house. Then he winked at me. “See you around ten.”
    “Sure.” To mask my unsophisticated excitement at this serendipitous date with the world-famous novelist, I hefted his UPS envelope from the desk. The thing must have weighed five pounds. “So, Jake, what’s the new book called?”
    “Birds of Prey,”
he replied, immediately retrieving the envelope from my hands. “But keep that to yourself. This baby’s slated for a huge promotional blitz, and the title’s part of the tease. We’re not gonna reveal