Fatal Justice (Jack Lamburt #1)(42)
Based on his behavior and how he was dressed, Kevin concluded that it was some kind of gang symbol. Just his luck, Tess had seated him next to a street punk who was now leaning out into the aisle in an aggressive fashion, ogling Beverly’s backside as she leaned over a few rows in front of them to hand a window-seat passenger their beverage.
Kevin leaned away from him to avoid breathing the same air. The young male, oblivious to Kevin and everyone else around him, squirmed in his seat, squeezed his knees together, and placed his hand on the crotch of his oversized jeans and fixed himself multiple times. The dumbass was clueless about how obvious and insulting his sexual attentions were. Or he just didn’t care. Sheesh.
Kevin grabbed his noise-canceling Bose headphones, switched it on, and placed it over his ears but didn’t turn the music on. Instead, he closed his eyes and enjoyed the solitude that the noise-canceling technology delivered. The drone of the turbine engines was barely audible, and the sounds of the excited holiday vacationers as they talked and laughed out loud were reduced to a low murmur of white noise in the background. Ahh, technology.
After a few minutes of peace and quiet, he selected Vivaldi’s Four Seasons in iTunes and hit play. The tranquility of listening to the violin concerti while sipping his whiskey soothed his soul like nothing he’d ever experienced. It made him relax and forget about the chattering fellow passengers who would spend the next five hours seated across from him.
Combined with the wonderfully relaxing effect of the alcohol, the music helped him forget his deeper problems. Gone were thoughts of his ex-wife Patty and how their loving relationship had been destroyed by sickness, torn to shreds by a bacterial organism that had directly turned their three-person family into two, and indirectly into one.
Most important of all, it helped him forget about Kevin Jr., his dead infant son.
Airliner Down Chapter 5
One hour and thirty minutes before the event
Twenty-two rows in front of Kevin, Cheryl Lamburt leaned over and snuggled her nose into the crook of her new husband’s neck. She’d always appreciated the smell of the opposite sex, but the excitement his scent created in her was off the charts. She wrapped her arms around his, squeezed, and kissed him hard on the neck before settling back into her seat.
She thought about how fortunate she was to have finally found someone who did it for her on all levels. She’d be the first to admit that years of bad dates, bad relationships, boring double dates with friends, and awful Internet meetings at the local coffee shop had tainted her feelings toward the men in her world. It had gotten so bad that she’d decided to take a break from dating and focus on her work. Her job as an assistant professor of chemistry at Princeton University had given her a host of options for a career path, and she was determined to make the most of them.
Until she’d met Jack Lamburt. Damn her friend for connecting them. A benign Friday-night dinner at a local Italian eatery had changed her life. As soon as she’d entered the restaurant, her eyes had been drawn to him like magnets to a steel rod. She had to work to close her mouth when she was introduced to him.
Her friend Kathy had told her that he’d be joining them, but she’d downplayed it. “Don’t worry, it’s not a setup. He just got out of a bad breakup, and he doesn’t want to date anyone right now.” Which was fine with Cheryl. She was in no mood to be set up with another friend of a friend.
Kathy’s husband Eric had been Jack’s roommate for two years at Notre Dame. Jack had been one year ahead of Eric, and after Jack had graduated, they’d stayed in touch and remained good friends. Eric had gone the finance route, landing a job on Wall Street soon after graduating, while Jack was a little more civic-minded. Perhaps it was because his father had done well for himself by opening up a chain of McDonald’s across the Northeastern US. He now owned thirteen of them, with no signs of slowing down, and Jacks upbringing never wanted for money.
Like any proud father, he’d wanted to groom his son to take over the business, but health-conscious Jack would rather have bamboo shoots shoved under his fingernails than peddle fast food. So after graduation Jack landed a government job in McLean, Virginia, better known as Langley, where he currently worked as a CIA analyst. He’d decided that he needed a change of scenery after his rough breakup, so he had taken some time off and headed north to Princeton to visit with Eric and Kathy.
Jack was seated at the head of the table when Cheryl arrived, and even sitting down she could tell that he was tall and athletic—she guessed about six foot four or five. He had broad shoulders that filled out his dress shirt, and she could see his biceps flex when he raised his drink to make a toast or gestured with his hands during the conversation. She had a big weakness for tall, athletic men, and she had to work hard to hide her excitement over him throughout the evening. She didn’t even know him, and she had butterflies in her stomach just from observing his demeanor. She wondered if anyone could tell by her subdued presence that she was nervous.
The night had been uneventful, a “nice to meet you” handshake upon departing, and just like that, he was gone and it was over. When she took her German Shepard, London, out for his final walk of the night, she wondered if she would ever see him again.
Unable to get him out of her mind, she’d tossed and turned all night, hardly getting any sleep. His presence in her thoughts had triggered something in her that she hadn’t felt in a long time. A mixture of excitement that only meeting a new special someone for the first time could generate, narcotic and addictive while soothing and comfortable at the same time. The way he looked at her, his easy smile, his sense of humor, his kindness to the servers—it all just meshed with her philosophy on life, and he was everything she wanted in a man. And, God, he was hot.