Page 2 of Working for the Mob

The line moved up and I finally stepped up to the cart. The kid serving coffee barely looked old enough to handle hot drinks.

“Good morning. I’d like your biggest coffee,” I said. “If you want to serve it in a soup bowl, that’d be fine with me.”

“Only one size, ma’am,” the kid said, and poured my coffee. “That’ll be five cents.”

“Sure thing.” I reached into my coat pocket to pull out my clutch, and my heart stopped. It wasn’t there. I always kept it in my left pocket. I tried the other pocket, but it wasn’t there either. “Hang on.”

I reached into other pockets of my coat, ones that were too small to hold a clutch and ones that were decorative only, but it wasn’t in any of them.

No clutch lay on the patchy grass at my feet. I scanned everyone else’s feet behind me but I didn’t see a clutch anywhere. Did I leave it at the bench with Lucy?

I couldn’t lose that clutch! I would be ruined if I lost that clutch.

“It’s five cents, ma’am,” the kid said again.

“I know. I have it somewhere,” I said. Maybe if I could fish a nickel out of one of my pockets, I could look for my clutch in a minute. My fingers groped wildly for anything I could use, but I only found a button and a throat lozenge wrapper.Schnitzel!

“If you’re not going to pay, can you get out of line?” a voice behind me growled.

Blood pounded in my ears. The nerve of that man. I turned to face him. “Listen. I am not having the best––”

My words caught in my throat. It was the suited man I cut off in line, glaring down at me.

Yikes.

They didn’t make men like this in the city.

I suddenly wanted him more than I wanted the cup of coffee.

He stood tall enough that I’d have to get a step stool just to kiss him on the lips, which apparently just made its way to the top of my to-do list.

He kept his charcoal-black hair cut short on the sides, with the top combed to the side.

His suit could have matched any of the stooges’ on Wall Street. But unlike those stooges, he filled his out. His jacket clung tightly to his biceps and shoulders, allowing me to imagine the taut muscles within.

Both his height and hairstyle left me gaping at him, but his beard cracked my mouth open another notch. Men in the city didn’t have beards, but his beard with the suit blended a professional and rugged look I didn’t think was possible. Suddenly, professional-and-rugged was my new type.

I finally found his dark brown eyes –– that made me think of fall. And heaven.

A shiver ran down my spine that had nothing to do with my caffeine withdrawal and my mouth let out a silent, ‘Whoa.’

“Get out of line,” he growled. “Some of us have places to be.”

“Hang on. I have the money,” I said. “It’s in my clutch. I just misplaced it.”

I stuck my head around Sex Suit. “Has anyone seen a clutch on the ground? It’s purple. Around seven inches long and three inches tall.”

No one spoke up. Instead, everyone in line averted their eyes. It was like I was the crazed woman on the street predicting the world’s demise.

“Can you just get out of line so the rest of us can get out of here?” the suited man asked. He stepped in close enough that I smelled his pomade. “Either pay, or out of the way.”

“I heard you the first time, Mother Goose,” I said.

With the way he was glaring at me, you would think I had just insulted his entire family. That made me want to know what hid under that immaculate suit even more.

But the time for nice Genevieve was over. It was time for my New Yorker side to come out. “And look! I amnothaving the best morning so I would appreciate it if you could back up, and let me find my damn clutch!”

I drove my finger against his hard chest, but he barely moved.

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