Valentine's Day Anthology: Hearts and Handcuffs

by Renee Grace Thompson

  The question was, did the pretty brown-eyed woman know Jogan? And was she helping him?

  She had said she’d lied. Just how good a liar was she?

  Thursday

  Thursday morning brought a light dusting of what started as snow but degenerated into a wintery mix, a nasty gray paste that was slick underfoot and salty enough to be corrosive to anything natural. She overslept, spilled her coffee, and slipped while crossing the road, smearing ice paste all over the back of her new cashmere coat.

  By the time she got to work, the world looked bleak. If she ever saw Creepy Joe again, she’d lay into him.

  It didn’t help that as she shuffled through the sleet-goop, Sasha texted. Can’t wait to meet this dream guy! 2 days to go!

  Ugh!

  Nor did it help that her 9 a.m. was waiting for her outside the door on the freezing sidewalk doing the cold dance – and thankfully grinning.

  “Mary, I’m so sorry! It’s been a crazy morning.” Phoebe opened the door and ushered the bride-to-be inside. “Let me get some coffee going. Take a seat, and I’ll be right back.”

  She hustled through the swinging door to the backroom. There, she set up coffee and opened the back door. Jimmy, her delivery guy, was already there, waiting in the back alley, truck running, skull cap on, something smelly and smoky and rolled up hanging out of his mouth. She let him in – after he put out whatever he’d been smoking. He did nothing more than offer up his customary grunt and start loading.

  “Here’s the inventory and the list of deliveries. It’s a big day today with Valentine’s Day in two days. Please check everything against it. And be careful. These arrangements cost a fortune to make.”

  He grunted again.

  She’d been working with Jimmy for six months now, and he’d never made a mistake. Not once. With him settled, she poured two cups of coffee and headed back to Mary to plan.

  The wedding was in June. The bride wanted peonies and orange blossoms. Piece of cake.

  “I was thinking for the boutonnieres, I’d like to do something with fiddlehead fe–” Mary broke off, staring at the door.

  The tinkle of a bell, followed by a gust of cold air announced a new arrival.

  Phoebe twisted in her seat, a welcome smile plastered on her face that quickly melted into a scowl.

  It was him. Creepy Joe was back. Only he didn’t look half as creepy today. He’d left his costume at home in favor of jeans, boots, a sweater and a wool overcoat. Dark beard stubble, brooding face, and burning gaze, he looked like a movie star or a male model. For some reason, it annoyed her all the more that he was so damned handsome.

  “I’m busy, Creepy Joe,” Phoebe snapped. “You should leave.”

  He smiled. “My name is not Joe.”

  “But you are creepy.” Phoebe turned back to Mary. “I’m so sorry, please ignore him.”

  His steps moved slowly closer. Mary stared and mouthed an awed “wow” before shifting her papers around the consultation table. “Actually, Joe, I was just leaving.”

  Phoebe frowned. “We still need to go over the boutonnières and the mother’s corsages.”

  “I’ll email you,” Mary said gaily, throwing her coat around her shoulders. She glanced back at Joe, then leaned in. “He’s dreamy. And so tall. Stop being so mean!”

  Phoebe frowned. Handsome. And dreamy. And tall.

  She whirled in her seat, eyes locking on Creepy Joe. He was dreamy!

  “See you later,” Mary called, hustling out the door with a tinkling bell.

  Phoebe’s hand closed around her crystal pendant, stroking it pensively. She studied him with new eyes. He really was handsome. And tall. It could work. She narrowed her eyes.

  He perched a hip on her counter.

  “Why are you so dressed up?” she asked.

  He looked down. “I was assured by the woman who sold me these clothes that they were fashionable. Do I look… unpleasing?”

  She couldn’t bring herself to lie. He looked so earnest.

  “No. You look fine.” She picked up her notepad and pen. He was too weird to try to pass off as her boyfriend. No. He might be exactly what she sought, but tall, hot and dreamy didn’t negate creepy, crazy and maybe dangerous. “Go away. I’m busy.”

  He studied his nails. “I’m not leaving until you tell me about this man you are seeing.”

  She spun to face him. “There is no man!”

  He pinned her with that piercing chartreuse gaze. “Then any man. Every man you’ve seen. I need to know about them.”

  She gathered up the coffee mugs and headed toward the side door. “I don’t see anyone, Joe. I already told you. There are no men in my life. My customers are all women. I work with women. I have two friends, both women. I have one assistant. Her name is Tina. All women.”

  Joe followed her into the backroom and watched as she rinsed out the coffee mugs. Tina rose when she saw them and muttered something about checking inventory. She disappeared like a traitor into the flower fridge.

  “Who is the last man you saw?”

  “You.” She sent him a dark glare. “And you aren’t representing your kind very well.”

  “Other than me.”

  She glanced up at him, hands busy in the sink. “Jimmy. He is the only man I’ve seen all week.”

  “Who is Jimmy?” Joe’s voice was like gravel.

  “My delivery guy. He comes three days a week.” She turned off the sink, dried her hands and spun to face him.

  He stepped closer, towering over her. “Why are you only mentioning him now?”

  She shrugged and tried to step back, but there was nowhere to go. Her hips bumped against the counter.

  “Where is he?”

  “I’m not telling you anything about my employees. He’s an innocent man. And I don’t know you.”

  “I’m a good man. Looking for a bad man. Your Jimmy could be a murderer.”

  She gritted her teeth. “He is not.”

  “How long has he worked for you?”

  “Long enough not to take the word of a creepy stranger over his.”

  “I’ve been searching for this man since his escape two years ago.” He held up his round device, the white clown’s image on it. “Is this him?”

  She shook her head without bothering to look.

  “Look at his face.”

  “Jimmy doesn’t have white hair or a goatee.”

  “Look at his face.”

  “No.”

  A growl built in his throat. He stepped even closer until his hips pressed against hers. She swallowed thickly against the surge of adrenaline building in her system. He smelled like cinnamon and leather. And he was a total stranger. She didn’t even know his name.

  “What do you want?” he snarled. “Money? I can pay you.”

  “I don’t want your money.” She didn’t. There was only one thing she needed, and he wasn’t…

  His broad hand closed on her hip, the palm stretching all the way around her side, fingers resting on the small of her back. His head bent. Those eyes were mesmerizing, and they dropped to her lips. Those lashes… if only they could bottle those lashes. He licked his lips. “Tell me what you want.”

  Her eyes were so heavy. They drooped. He was dreamy after all. It would solve a major problem. He might be weird, but she really, really, didn’t want to have to admit to Sasha that she was a liar and a loser. And now that he wasn’t all strapped up with fake knives and pistols, he seemed less crazy. Her body certainly liked the way he was touching her. Her mouth opened. The words poured out. “I need a date to a party.”

  He froze. “A party?”

  She nodded. “Pretend we’re dating. Come to this one party with me. And I’ll take a serious look at the white clown.”

  He made a face. “You say strange things.”

  “So do you, Joe. Trust me.”

  A grin tugged at the side of his mouth, flashing white teeth and a glimpse of ridiculously sexy smile lines at the corners of his lips. “That’
s not my name.”

  “You’ve never told me your name.”

  “Szar,” he said. It sounded like the Russian royals. Figures a guy who looked like him would have a name like that.

  “Just Szar, huh? Well, I’m Phoebe Peacock.”

  His brow twitched. Another flash of white teeth. “Peacock is a pretty, strutting bird on this planet, right?”

  “You keep getting weirder with each thing you say Just-Szar.”

  He tugged on her ponytail. “Suits you.”

  Enough. He was too close. She pressed her hands right into the center of his sweater-covered chest. Warm, hard muscle lay under the wool. It was kind of a mistake. He might be creepy, and he might be crazy, but he felt good.

  “I don’t strut.” She pushed. He stepped back, but there was no doubt that he did it because he wanted to, not because she’d pushed him.

  “A little.”

  She ignored that and pointed at the devise. “Let me see this guy.”

  Szar held up the image, and this time, she took the device from him. It was light in her hands, about half the weight of her own phone. The white-haired man was older. Maybe he’d been handsome once. A little wild looking. She shrugged.

  “He looks nothing like Jimmy. Jimmy doesn’t have a goatee.”

  “Could he have shaved? Look at his eyes. The shape of his nose.”

  She sighed, ashamed to admit she’d never paid that much attention to her recalcitrant delivery guy. “I don’t know.”

  “That’s okay. Where is he now? We’ll go find him.”

  “You won’t hurt him?”

  “If he is not the man I’m looking for, I will not hurt him.”

  She swallowed at the words he wasn’t saying. She nodded reluctantly. “Okay. Just-Szar. You’ve got a deal.”

  “Deal, Peahen. Let’s go.”

  The train system in this city was a disaster. And according to the briefings from Szar’s commanders, this was the capital of the most powerful country in their world. One would think they’d have a better method for moving their citizens around.

  The escalator took them so far underground, into a warren of oppressive concrete better suited to a war bunker, that his comm ceased working and his ears popped. The train itself was sluggish, rusty and loud. It had to be older than he was, but the woman took it all in stride, casting dubious frowns his way at every possible occasion.

  He’d never spent much time in the company of a woman, but this one was fun. And nervous. “Relax, Peahen.”

  That bottom lip stuck out, and he chewed the inside of his cheek against the desire to lean in and kiss her just to see what she’d do about it.

  She picked up her own comm device, what she called a cell phone, and typed away busily.

  “He’s at the Adams.” She glared up at him. “I feel like a spy. A bad one. Like a double agent or something.”

  He shrugged. “He has nothing to fear from me if he’s innocent.” Not entirely true. His superiors would undoubtedly pull this Jimmy in for questioning either way, but he wouldn’t be harmed if he had nothing to hide. Not seriously, anyway. “What’s the Adams?”

  “A hotel.”

  “Address?”

  She made a face. “I don’t know the exact address. It’s on the corner of 15th and F.”

  He’d report in as soon as they were above ground. Back-up would be needed. Jogon was a slippery son of a bastard.

  The toe of her book tapped a beat on the train’s floor. “And for the record, I don’t like being called a ‘hen.’ It sounds… sexist or something.”

  A smile tugging at his mouth, he glanced around the wildly rocking cabin of the subway car. Beneath the flickering lights, people were all manner of distracted, faces glued to devices and newspapers, lost in thought, self-deafened with blaring music in their ear canals. Two were actually sleeping. Not feigning sleep. He could tell by the sound of their breathing. They were out cold. “It’s better than the alternative. I am learning your language.”

  She crossed her arms, leaning against the stanchion. “What’s that got to do with my name? What alternative?”

  “I know enough of your language to know what cock means.”

  Her face flushed as pink as her lips.

  “I refuse to call someone who looks like you a cock. Even if pea comes first.”

  “You say the weirdest things.”

  When she smiled, she wasn’t just cute, she was luminous. Breathtaking.

  “’Hen’ still isn’t very flattering, though.”

  The distraction was working. She’d stopped tapping her foot and sending him dark looks.

  He shrugged, and the train car jolted, and he put a hand on her back to make sure she didn’t fall.

  She shook her head with an exasperated sigh, tugging on the crystal pendant that hung between her breasts. She did that a lot, he’d noticed. Maybe for comfort.

  “What’s up with the necklace?”

  She looked out the windows, black punctuated by flashing bursts of lights and splitting tunnels. “It was my mom’s. She died when I was in college.”

  Szar wanted to tell her she was lucky to have ever known her mom. His own died when he was too young to remember. “And your dad?”

  She shook her head. “Never met him.”

  Another passenger lurched, nearly bumping into her. He pulled her against him, and she didn’t resist. At least, if none of these people had any sense of self-preservation, she didn’t have to be harmed on his watch.

  She sighed very softly, and her body relaxed against his. It wasn’t his imagination.

  It wasn’t hard to find Jimmy. He responded to Phoebe’s text quickly.

  Szar did something on his device as they rode the escalator out of the metro station.

  She felt like the biggest, stinkiest, yellowest, back-stabbing turn-coat on five continents as the liveried doorman opened the gilded lobby doors of the hotel. She was selling Jimmy down the river in exchange for a date with a guy named Szar who was seriously confused about his relationship to planet Earth.

  He was lucky he was so dreamy. Most people probably didn’t complain too much about how odd he was.

  The Adams was stuffy and old – Sasha would probably want it for her wedding— with hand-painted wallpaper from the turn of the century, soaring ceilings, low lighting, and discrete seating area. It was the kind of place where people instinctively whispered.

  Just as she moved to enter through the door held wide by a liveried doorman, Szar pressed his hand into her lower back and pushed her to the side. “Wait here.”

  “Absolutely not.”

  His eyes brokered no disagreement. “It could get dangerous. Stay out of the way.”

  She lowered her brows, watching, through the glass with irritation as he moved through the door. Three other big men, wearing the same kind of flightsuit Szar had on yesterday with orange plastic space-pistols on moved in beside him.

  Her eyes bugged out of her head.

  Jimmy didn’t see them, the enormous arrangement, all red and pink and white, held up in his arms, blocking his view, but she recognized him from the white sneakers and the faded jeans.

  This wasn’t right. She should warn Jimmy or something. He worked for her. She owed him. This was all wrong.

  Even through the window, she could hear Szar’s deep voice. “Jogon.”

  Jimmy froze, flowers held in front of him, hearts quivering.

  What have I done? Enough.

  She barreled past the surprised doorman. Her heels clicked on the floor and Szar turned to see her, his eyes widening.

  Szar held her back with a hand on her wrist.

  “Let go of me!” She tried to tug away, to get to Jimmy.

  A suited concierge behind a Louis XVI desk cast a disapproving glare in their direction.

  Jimmy shifted at the sound of her voice, flowers still held before his face.

  Szar’s hand left her wrist and shifted toward his belt.

  She froze, too. Any minut
e now, surely, Jimmy would put down the arrangement and give her his standard glower.

  That’s not what happened, though.

  Not even close.

  “You’d better catch this, Szar,” Jimmy shouted.

  The flowers and their glass container flew across the lobby like a spinning missile, fancy paper hearts waving, roses and gardenias raining down across the floor, aimed straight toward her head.

  She thought about ducking, or shouting, or throwing up her arms.

  She just didn’t get that far.

  One second she was inches from certain death, decapitation by heart bouquet, and the next her back hit the marble floor. Her head smacked down so hard that her vision blackened and everything sort of paused.

  And shook.

  And blinked.

  Her head buzzed, ears roaring, eyes drifting.

  Ouch. So much for feeling guilty about selling Jimmy down the river.

  Nothing.

  Blackness.

  Then Szar’s weird green eyes were sharp on hers, his big hard body pressing her into an even harder floor.

  Then he was gone. And everything was black again.

  Which was a good thing, because in the blackness, at least her head didn’t hurt.

  And it was a bit like floating on a sea at night, endless and vast… and… nothing.

  She woke up at home, in her bed, wearing a nightgown, head aching like it was about to explode. No Szar. No Jimmy.

  How had she gotten here? She could only imagine Szar moving her, maybe undressing her unconscious body and dressing her. A flush ran up her cheeks thinking about her choice of panties that morning – white, no-nonsense, I-have-no-interest-in-getting-laid cotton.

  Oh, jeez. The day couldn’t have gotten worse.

  She chugged down the water on the bedside table and drifted back to sleep, too exhausted even to worry about how the rest of the day had gone.