‘I’m sorry,’ Jack said. ‘Shall I get you home so you can take them off, then?’
Evie didn’t want the night to end, but she didn’t want to spend anymore time amid all the politically-minded partiers around them, either. ‘Maybe we could just go someplace a little quieter,’ she suggested.
A devilish grin appeared on Jack’s sculpted lips and his blue eyes glittered. ‘I think that could be arranged,’ he whispered, leaning in close enough to take Evie’s earlobe between his teeth for a brief second.
As chills ran through Evie’s body, and Jack drew back, the anticipation she’d been feeling was replaced with horror. ‘Oh, God,’ she whispered.
Jack turned to see what she was looking at as Roger White’s parents approached the table where they sat. They were staring at Evie, and she was certain they’d seen Jack’s inappropriate ear nibble. Her mind spun. There was no time to hide now; she’d been seen. She tried to think of some kind of excuse, but there was little to explain her earlobe in a man’s mouth at a social function, especially when she was in attendance with someone other than Roger.
‘Evie, that is you!’ Mrs White shrilled, her smile not quite covering the confusion that still lingered in her eyes.
Evie stood. ‘Hello Mrs White, Mr White.’ She kissed cheeks with Mrs White and allowed Mr White to pull her into an embrace.
‘Well, we certainly didn’t expect to see you here,’ Roger’s father said. ‘Are your folks here, too, then?’
‘Ah, no,’ Evie said quickly. ‘They, uh. I …’
‘Allan White.’ Roger’s father extended a hand to Jack, who shook it firmly and smiled.
‘Jack Taylor,’ he said.
‘And you are …?’ Mrs White looked confused again.
‘A friend of Evie’s,’ Jack said simply.
The Whites glanced at each other and then back at Evie, who was completely lost for words. ‘Well, it was pleasant to see you,’ Mrs White said, her voice flat.
‘And you,’ Evie said quietly.
As the Whites moved away, Evie picked up her handbag. ‘We need to leave.’ She turned and walked away, leaving Jack to follow her out of the ballroom and down the stairs into the lobby of the opulent hotel. She stopped when they had reached the far side and ducked into a semi-concealed corner near a tall potted palm. ‘What am I going to do now?’ she asked Jack. ‘How will I explain any of this?’
‘Why should you have to?’ Jack asked.
‘Because I’m engaged to their son!’ Evie was feeling near hysterical. She was confused by her own feelings and her situation, and Jack’s nonchalance wasn’t helping. ‘Oh, God, I’ve ruined everything!’
Jack took her arm and led her from the lobby, signaling the valet for his car.
Evie let herself be led, and stood on the curb, her mind working through every possible outcome of what had just happened. There were no good scenarios. She almost didn’t notice herself sliding into the leather seat of Jack’s car, or the city streets sliding by as Jack navigated northward. When the land around them had shifted from bright lights to moonlit rolling hills, Evie began to come back to her senses.
‘Where are we going?’ she asked, sitting upright. ‘Where are we?’
‘North of the city. I thought a drive might calm you down.’
‘A drive? No, Jack, I have to go fix this. I have to figure this out!’
‘I don’t think there is much you can do at this hour.’ He pulled the car to a wide clearing and pointed as the Hudson came into view over the edge of the cliff side on which the clearing perched. The moon glinted off the surface of the water and danced in slivers as a gentle wind blew. ‘But you can choose to enjoy the rest of our night together.’
Evie turned to face Jack, intending to ask him to please just take her home. But when she noticed the way the moonlight reflected off the side of his angular face, illuminating the perfect lips, the high cheekbones … she felt the electricity flare within her veins almost immediately.
Jack must have seen the change in her, because he leaned toward her, taking her face between his hands and stroking her bottom lip with one thumb, his eyes intent on the task. He leaned in closer, placing a soft, gentle kiss on Evie’s lip, and then pulled back slightly to focus the icy blue gaze on her eyes. He was surely looking for resistance, and finding none he wasted no more time. His arms went around Evie’s back, and his mouth claimed hers.
Evie was surprised at her own reaction. The excitement and fear she’d felt that night seemed to combine to make her less timid than she’d ever been before. She found herself plunging her tongue into Jack’s mouth, her hands pulling at his coat. She didn’t have a plan for what might happen if she succeeded at removing his clothing, she only knew that she wanted to feel his flesh pressed against her own. She wanted to feel the heat of their bodies fused together.
Jack needed no further encouragement. His hands expertly pushed Evie’s dress up over her head, pulling her into his lap to straddle him on the wide seat. He helped her with the buttons on his shirt, and her hands spread it open, smoothing over the hard planes of his chest as her mouth placed kisses in a line along his jaw.
The night around them was full of sound – crickets, night birds, owls in the distance. And together they drowned all of it out with sounds of their own. For an hour or more, Evie allowed Jack to explore her body as her hands groped and grasped at his in wonder. She’d never felt as close to anyone, and every sensation Jack caused in her was new. She was overwhelmed and absolutely out of control, writhing and gasping beneath Jack’s hard body on the leather seat of his car.
When she felt that the tension within her might actually snap her body in two, Jack guided himself into her, filling and sating her in a way she hadn’t known she so desperately needed. Once Jack was within her, thrusting against her – gently at first, and then with mounting force – she devoted herself to moving with him.
For the time that they rolled and moved together in the car, Evie felt powerful and strong. As he thrust himself into her, pulling at her skin and gripping her breasts, Jack moaned and grunted as if she was the only being in the world who could give him what he needed. She experimented, moving different ways, flexing different muscles, letting her hands explore. She found that perhaps her new favorite thing was to find ways to make Jack moan, to cause him to make that needy guttural sound that caused a gush of wetness to explode between her legs.
Too soon, it was over. Jack’s moans had reached a shattering crescendo, and Evie had found her own body shaking and pulsing, waves of pleasure rolling through her.
As she lay in Jack’s arms staring at the moon, her mind cleared almost completely. If she had thought she was an adult when the evening began, she was certain of it now.
Chapter Eighteen
Tug
Tug dressed carefully the night she was to go back to see Texas Guinan. Though she was eager to visit the club owner again and begin work, she remembered well what had happened the last time she’d been out to Texas’s club. Derek had paid her a visit. And her father still seemed to be recovering from the effort he’d expended that night. He had already retired to his room when Tug stepped out into the warm close night. She had also not forgotten what had happened when she’d aimed to make a quick buck. She would listen to her instincts, but accept guidance from those who knew more than she did.
June was upon the city, and the air had become muggy and thick. Tug’s skin was wet almost as soon as she began walking toward the spot where she’d parked the car, and she wished that the big gray clouds that had loomed all day would just erupt and wash the moisture from the air. The city felt dangerous and dirty when it was hot like this, and the anticipation that loomed with the Democratic National Convention just around the corner felt laced with something foreboding. Tug shook off her unease and climbed into her father’s car.
Texas smiled and waved at Tug almost as soon as Tug had entered the lively club. There were fans blowing across the space, and being underground he
lped keep it cool, but the air felt sticky and oppressive still. Fewer people danced, but plenty were drinking, clustered in groups all around the room as the band played.
Tug followed Texas to the room where they’d spoken before, and was surprised to see piles of paper covering the desk and spilling over onto the floor.
‘I’m glad you came back, Tug.’ Texas smiled as she spoke. ‘My bookkeeper left.’
‘Just this week?’
‘No, almost a year ago.’
Tug’s eyebrows shot up. That explained the disorganized mess.
‘I pulled out all the stuff he was supposed to have been doing. Hopefully you can make sense of it.’
‘I should be able to, once I learn your system.’
‘Well that’s pretty simple.’ Texas moved around behind the desk and then looked up at Tug. ‘Well, come on! You don’t figure out bookkeeping at a distance!’
Tug followed the blonde around the desk and sat next to her, listening carefully as she explained the complex system she had for managing her accounts. They plowed together through one pile of paper, until Tug stopped Texas. ‘I’ve got it,’ she said. ‘I’m sure you have other things you need to attend to.’
Texas grinned. ‘That I do.’
‘There’s just the issue of payment,’ Tug said, willing her voice to hold strong. ‘We haven’t discussed how I’ll be compensated.’
‘We’ll give you a percentage of the profits each night,’ Texas said. ‘We’ll start with five and increase if things go well back here. I’m not really looking for a bookkeeper, Tug.’
‘You’re not?’ Tug was working to keep from smiling. She wasn’t sure what the club pulled in nightly, but she was fairly certain that five percent of it would be far more than she’d made working for Chuck and Roger.
‘No. I need another pair of hands. I need another Texas. You’re it.’ She winked and disappeared.
Tug had to force herself to stay seated and not rise to dance a little victory jig around the office. She picked up the pen and ledger and began sifting through records once again.
*****
The work in Texas’s office took Tug six hours to plow through, without stopping. Tug’s eyes had begun to feel dry and bleary, and she thought they might actually stick shut if she blinked too hard. She wandered back out to the main club floor after she’d tidied the papers into organized stacks and put rubber bands around them.
‘Done so quick?’ Texas laughed when Tug appeared.
Tug nodded, summoning up a smile despite her exhaustion.
‘Then we’ll see you here tomorrow, and I’ll pay you for today. We’ll be just a day behind like that, if you don’t mind.’
‘That’s fine with me,’ Tug said. She waved goodbye to the bartenders and her new boss, and slipped out the door into the dark night.
It was still hot as Tug drove home, but the clouds above had begun to rumble and shift, heralding oncoming rain.
Tug parked the car and walked quickly back to her house, letting herself in just as big fat wet drops began to fall. Sleep came easily that night, and Tug was not surprised to find Roger in her dreams. The odd thing was, when she woke the next morning it was with an awareness that despite the man in her dreams wearing Roger’s face, he had most definitely been her friend Chuck. She blushed when she considered what she and Chuck had been doing in her dream, and spent most of the next day feeling almost guilty. Exhaustion, it seemed, brought vivid dreams. Tug hoped that another night with Texas Guinan might bring another dream. It seemed that this was as close as she was going to get to actual romance.
*****
Tug put in long hours at Guinan’s every night that week. The old bookkeeper, as it turned out, hadn’t been a math whiz, and Tug found numerous errors in the work that had been done prior to her arrival. Though squinting at the numbers was making her eyes sting, when Texas brought an envelope of cash back and laid it on the desk before her, it all felt worthwhile. She’d been right – one night at Guinan’s was equal to about a week at her old job. It might not have been the kind of job you told your folks about, but Tug wasn’t the kind of girl who had folks to tell, anyway.
The post that weekend brought a card from Janie. It had a picture of the Eiffel Tower on the front and Janie’s tight curly writing covered the back.
‘Paris is incredible! The Olympics are in full swing, and there are people here from all over the world. I had breakfast with Eric Liddell, the “Flying Scotsman.” What a handsome gentleman! Come visit!’
‘So many exclamation marks,’ Tug said to herself in a low voice as she set the card on her dresser. Though she was happy with the turn her life had taken recently, it was hard to look around her house – which was slowly falling into disrepair with her father’s lack of attention – and feel good about her life. Her prospects had improved, but how long would she be employed by the proprietress of a successful illegal club? She admired and trusted Guinan, but it was hard not to wish for something more. Tug considered herself talented when it came to being happy with her lot in life. But Janie’s card had made her aware of the longing inside her for something more. To be in Paris! During the Olympics, no less! Tug shook her head. She was jealous. And while she’d often been jealous of Evie, she certainly never thought she’d be jealous of her reserved and shy friend Jane.
Tug wandered her house, feeling morose, for most of the day, wishing she could go to work.
The bell at the door startled her. She went to answer it with anxiety dancing a jig in her stomach. Ever since Derek had appeared at her home, she didn’t feel completely safe. But when she glanced out the small window at the top of the door, Evie stood on her doorstep, looking distraught.
‘Come in!’ Tug cried. ‘Oh bunny, what’s wrong?’
Tears had begun coursing down Evie’s cheeks as soon as Tug pulled the door open. Tug took her to the front room and sat her down in the wing chair where her mother used to sit. ‘What’s going on, Evie?’
‘Oh Tug, I’ve ruined everything!’ Evie held out a newspaper, and Tug took it, scanning the page. ‘The Mouse.’
Tug looked up to the corner where the popular society column always ran on Saturdays, and read the short column. It was all about a party for the Democratic candidate Al Smith that had taken place at the Waldorf Astoria the weekend prior. As far as Tug could tell, it was run-of-the-mill drivel about what people were wearing and who was talking too closely to someone else’s wife. Until she reached the bottom.
A certain uptown debutante appeared on the arm of a man who was definitely not her recently-troubled fiancé. Miss McKenzie looked quite cozy with professor and sometime club owner Jack Taylor, as the two whispered and petted one another over the salad course. They left early, and one can only imagine what might have taken place once they were out of the crowd, which included Roger White’s parents!
‘Oh Evie,’ Tug whispered, giving her a questioning look.
‘It’s all true,’ Evie said, her voice rising. ‘I’m such a dumb bunny. What was I thinking?’
Tug shook her head. ‘I honestly don’t know.’
‘I thought I was safe.’ Evie stared down at her lap.
‘What do you mean, “safe”?’
‘I didn’t think the Mouse would ever write about me like that!’
‘Why not? No one is safe from the Mouse. That column catches everyone at their worst behavior.’
‘I know.’ Evie sniffed. ‘I know better than anyone.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I know because I’m the Mouse.’
Tug almost didn’t hear Evie’s admission, and she disregarded it at first because it didn’t make sense. But as the words clicked, she leaned forward. ‘What did you say?’
‘I’ve been the Mouse, Tug! I wanted to be a journalist. I went to see about a job, and that was the one they gave me. I’ve been sniffing around town digging up dirt for months.’
Tug was confused. She stared at the incendiary words in the paper again. ‘Why
would you write this?’
‘That’s just it,’ Evie said, her voice a whine. ‘I didn’t write it. Someone else did.’
‘That doesn’t make sense. You just told me that you’re the Mouse.’
‘There must be another Mouse. He must have hired someone else. And that someone was at that party and decided to write about me!’
Tug shook her head slowly, thinking about that.
‘Oh Tug, Roger will hate me. He hasn’t called all week. I’m sure his parents had already told him. And I would have gone straight to him that night, but then something else happened.’
Tug waited, and Evie continued, the tears running down her pretty face again.
‘With Jack. In his car after the party.’
Shock spiked through Tug. ‘Are you telling me what I think you’re telling me?’
Evie nodded, staring at her hands in her lap.
‘Well, that was some party,’ Tug said. She bent her head down, catching Evie’s eye. ‘Was it fun?’
A small smile flickered across Evie’s face, but then disappeared. ‘It doesn’t matter. It was wrong.’
‘Are you going to see him again?’
‘He’s my English professor!’
‘What?’ How had Evie kept all this a secret, Tug wondered. ‘You’re pulling my leg.’
‘I wish I were. Tug, what am I going to do?’
Tug whistled, a low long sound. ‘Run away to Paris with Janie?’
Evie’s head snapped up. ‘Roger said the same thing.’
‘You said you hadn’t seen Roger all week.’
‘No, this was last week. He came to visit me, and he told me to go visit her. He’s worried that the charges against him will tarnish me.’
‘Might be late for that.’
‘Oh, Tug, you’re not helping.’ Evie stood and began pacing the room. ‘Maybe I should go,’ she said. ‘Just escape it all. Run away.’
‘The only problem with running away is that all the same trouble will be here when you come back.’ Tug watched Evie pace, wondering what it would feel like to even have the option of just picking up to run away to Paris. If anyone were justified in running, it’d be her.
The Glittering Life of Evie Mckenzie Page 14