Free Cold Day in Hell by Richard Hawke

actress had looked directly into the camera and pronounced, “Let’s just say this is one hungry cowboy and leave it at that, okay?”
    Robin’s first direct encounter with Fox came midway through the party, when she found herself cornered on the large patio by a large drunken British film director who had snared the last drink from her tray then locked a grip on her free arm as he looked her up and down with red bleary eyes.
    “By
fuck
, if I couldn’t bend you over this rail right now and give that lovely USDA a proper nailing.”
    In the process of attempting to free herself, Robin lost control of the empty tray, which clattered loudly to the patio floor. The director tightened his grip on her arm. As he moved closer, Robin was treated to a putrid exhaust of Scotch fumes.
    “Let’s have us a fuckin’ kiss. Come here now.”
    “Jeremy!”
    Robin whipped her head around. It was Marshall Fox. As Fox made his way across the patio, he tossed his drink glass into the shrubbery. My God, Robin thought. Cowboy saves the day.
    The Englishman gave Fox a sloppy smile. “Hallo, Marshall. Stinkin’ little bash, in’t it? I take it you’ve seen these lovely appetizers?”
    “Let her go, Jeremy,” Fox said evenly. His voice held a low, liquid menace.
    The director scoffed, “Fuck all, Marshall. Don’t be a prig.”
    Fox glanced at Robin, then addressed the director. “Jeremy…
old chap
. How about for just one moment you pretend you’re not an asshole. Hmm? I know it’s hard,
old chap
. None of the rest of us have ever been able to do it. But why don’t you give it a try?”
    Without warning, Fox’s left arm shot out, his open hand catching the Englishman square in the chest. As the director went tumbling into a deck chair, Fox grabbed Robin’s other arm and yanked her free. She stumbled up against him. Fox grinned and took a chivalrous step backward.
    “I apologize for Jeremy. We don’t know who it was that let him off his leash.”
    Still muttering, the director attempted to rise from the deck chair, but Fox placed a foot on the arm of the chair and succeeded in toppling it. The Englishman tumbled onto the tiles and went silent. Fox bent down and retrieved the tray that Robin had dropped and handed it to her. “It’s so hard to get good guests these days.”
    He squeezed off another smile and left the patio by a nearby set of winding stairs, rejoining Kelly Cole, who was standing barefoot down on the grass, tolerating the stories of two overexcited young screenwriters. Robin had a sense that the entertainer knew full well she was watching him.
    It wasn’t long after midnight that Kelly Cole lifted a martini from Robin’s tray, instructed Marshall Fox to get the hell out of her life
immediately
and then proceeded to launch the contents of her martini glass at him. The reporter’s aim was perfect, and the drink landed squarely in Fox’s face, the olive bouncing off his cheek. Robin had never seen a face as red with fury as Kelly Cole’s. The reporter’s expression was volcanic. For his part, Fox took a beat, then reached down to pick up the olive off the ground and blithely handed it over to his infuriated date. “I’m sorry, sweetheart, but I think this fell out of your ass.”
    Cole’s slap seemed to echo back all the way from the boathouse. She stormed into the mansion. Fox produced a handkerchief and dabbed at his face and the front of his shirt. Conversation in the immediate vicinity had stopped, and Fox shared a bemused expression with astonished faces.
    “Favor? The next time Ms. Cole orders herself a martini, could someone please ask the bartender if he can’t make it really, really,
really
dry?”
    Soon afterward, Robin was down on the lawn, taking a moment to look out at the moon-blue water and the several boats that were anchored just offshore, when she became aware of a couple tangled together in a nearby hammock. Just as Robin realized that the couple were doing exactly what it sounded