Jack Beale 00 - Killer Run

lips brushing his cheek were not a dream, and the caresses of her fingertips, and the weight of her body as she lay on top of him were very much real. When they had exhausted each other, he slept again.
    * * *
    “Jack. Jack.” Max shook him gently. “I have to get to work; it’s nearly noon.”
    He woke up in time to catch, “Come over whenever you get up.”
    “I’ll be over in a while,” he mumbled.
    “Good. Gotta’ go.” She kissed him and disappeared around the corner.
    * * *
    Max wasn’t in the bar when Jack came in.
    “Hey, Jack. How’s the head?” asked Patti. She searched the bar for her drinks, but Max hadn’t made them yet.
    Jack had managed to take off the large bandage that seemed to cover half of his head and replace it with something more modest.
    “It’s okay. A little tender, but I’ll live. Where’s Max?”
    “In the kitchen, I guess. She should be right out. Tell her I’ll be back.” Then she headed toward the dining rooms.
    It was one of those beautiful sunny fall days that was surprisingly very busy. Jack didn’t have much to do, so when Max returned from the kitchen he ordered some lunch and a beer and sat back to enjoy the show. Max and Patti seemed to be everywhere all at the same time as they took care of a full bar and the full dining rooms. However, whenever he got up to lend a hand, Max promptly came over and made him sit back down. After all their years together, he knew better than to protest.
    As the lunch crowd thinned out and tables emptied, Max and Patti seemed to disappear into the kitchen for increasingly longer periods of time. During one of these gaps, he heard her voice.
    “Jack?”
    He turned and looked at Sylvie.
    She said, “Oh my god, what happened to you?”
    It seemed like she had walked right in from his dream. He sucked in his breath and smiled. Memories of their time at the Rockdog flooded his head.
    “Sylvie,” he stammered. As attractive as he had found her before, now he was nearly speechless. She was wearing tight jeans, high leather boots, a short, form-fitting jacket, and a smile that made him feel like a teenager again. He hoped she couldn’t see him blush.
    As she approached, he hopped off his bar stool and they hugged hello. He could feel every nerve in his body tingle. He remembered how close they had been as he helped her down the trail after her fall. Now, as brief as this hug was, it seemed to him a little too long and a little too tight to be strictly hello. Then again, maybe his imagination was working overtime.
    As they pulled apart, Sylvie gently reached up toward the bandage on his head and looked directly into his eyes. That was how Max found them when she walked back into the bar.
    Jack didn’t see or hear her come in, but he somehow sensed she was there. Instinctively he pulled back from Sylvie, who dropped her hand. As her eyes questioned his retreat, he turned and faced Max.
    “Max … I’d like you to meet … Sylvie,” he stammered. He felt as if his face were on fire. He took a breath to try to calm down. Then he said, just a bit too fast, “She was the runner I met at Rockdog. You know. She hurt her ankle and I helped her out.”
    With every word he spoke, he felt a wave of guilt wash over him. Even though he hadn’t done anything, he felt like a little kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar.
    Max stared at them for a moment, her eyes hard. Then with ice in her voice she said, “Sylvie. Yes. I’ve heard all about you.”

Other Books by K.D. Mason
    HARBOR ICE (2009)
    It had been a brutally cold winter in the New Hampshire coastal town of Rye Harbor, leaving drifts of sea water frozen solid in the salt marsh. Finally, the weather warms enough for the ice to begin to break up and drift out to sea. That’s when a woman’s body is found under a slab of ice left by the outgoing tide. Max, the feisty redheaded bartender at Ben’s Place, recognizes that the body in the ice is her aunt’s partner. This triggers a series of events that will eventually threaten Max’s life as well. It is up to her best friend, Jack Beale, to unravel the mystery.

    CHANGING TIDES (2010)
    Fate, Chance, Destiny . . . Call it what you will, but sometimes life-changing events begin in the most innocent and unexpected ways. For Jack Beale that moment came on a perfect summer morning as he stood overlooking Rye Harbor when something caught his eye. In that small space between the bow of his boat and the float to which it was tied, a