“Sir, that’s not fair!”
“Life isn’t fair, Jenkins, but it’s a lot easier if you don’t act like an animal. You’re smart boys underneath all that testosterone, so maybe the extra rugby training will help to reveal it, eh?” He enjoyed being their rugby coach as well as their history teacher for the variety of influence it provided him. They weren’t bad kids. Just teenagers.
Jenkins and his friend screwed up their faces in disdain but were smart enough to keep their mouths shut. Crowley pushed them back to the group as the guide was finishing up her talk.
“No matter what superstitions and stories are told around subjects like these,” she said with a smile, “here at the Natural History Museum we focus as much as we can on facts. But check the information panels by the exhibits as there are some fascinating stories that have been corroborated and are well worth your time.”
“You’ve all got fifteen minutes,” Crowley called out, his strident voice ringing in the large space. “Do not leave this area and we’ll gather by the blue whale at exactly eleven forty-five. Off you go. Try to learn something!”
The students drifted away in their cliques and groups, chattering about anything except the exhibition and what they had just heard. Crowley approached the guide, offered her a warm smile. “Thanks very much. Great talk.” He saw her name badge read Rose Black. She noticed him glancing at her chest and he quickly lifted his eyes, offered his hand to shake. “You’re Rose,” he said lamely, trying to explain why he had been looking down. “I’m Jake Crowley.”
She flashed that subtle half-smile again, and shook his hand. Her touch was soft and warm, a tingle of something quickly passing between them. Or was that just wishful thinking on his part? “Nice to meet you, Jake.” She nodded back toward the milling students. “I’m really never sure how much attention any of them pay.”
Crowley was pleased she had smoothly changed the subject from his embarrassment. “You know what, the ones who are genuinely interested take it all in quietly and the others do tend to absorb more than you might imagine. Either way, this is a particularly interesting special exhibit. I never realized there was such a history to something as simple as birthmarks!”
Rose nodded and glanced around the space. “They’re anything but simple, really, in a historical context. And as part of the greater history of human biology they’ve had some interesting effects on society.”
“You have any birthmarks of your own you’re hiding?” Crowley asked, and instantly felt like a fool. Who was the idiot teenager here really?
A strange expression flitted across her face, partly concern, partly curiosity. Then that soft smile was back. “You know, you should at least buy me dinner before asking a question like that.”
Relief flooded Crowley that she wasn’t offended and he took a deep breath and dove all the way in. Fortune favors the bold and all that. “That’s a tremendous idea,” he said. “It’s a date. Are you free tonight?”
Chapter 3
Rose Black watched Jake Crowley head off across the restaurant floor toward the bar. He cut a tall, strong figure through the crowd as he went. She leaned back on the sumptuous red vinyl couch under arched white ceilings, pleasantly full from a fine dinner. It was strange furniture for a restaurant, one long couch shared by several tables, with curved wooden chairs on the other side. But the place had a great vibe, the food was good, the cocktails excellent. Crowley knew how to pick a place for a first date.
She watched the people eating and talking and laughing. One couple sat deep in a serious conversation that had all the hallmarks of a break-up while another couple, only two tables away, stared into each other’s eyes, lost in the early throes of all-encompassing love. The rich variety of life endlessly fascinated Rose. Crowley returned only a minute later with two drinks and sat in the pale tan chair opposite her.
“Told you it would be quicker than trying to catch the waiter’s eye again,” he said, handing her a tall, condensing glass of caprioska, ice rattling against the rim. “They’ve got really busy all of a sudden.” He raised his bottle of Corona beer in a toast.
She clinked, took a sip, enjoying the sweet sugar and tart lime behind the taste of good vodka. She’d developed a taste for the drink several years ago while dating a Brazilian. These days she drank it long, with soda water. “It is busy. I’m surprised we got a table on such short notice.”
Crowley grinned. “I know people.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, it’s true actually. Nothing very exciting. The head chef is an old army buddy and always gets me in. But I rarely have reason to take him up on the offer.”
Rose could see the military bearing in Crowley’s demeanor; he wore his strength and confidence plainly but without pride or swagger. “Were you in the army long?”
“Long enough. Quit after my second stint in Afghanistan.”
Rose frowned. “You must have seen some pretty terrible stuff.”
“Yeah. Most of it best forgotten, if only that were possible. But it’s okay, you know. A lot of guys really suffer with it, but I’m all right. In many ways I was pretty lucky, in service and out.”
“So why did you decide to leave?”
Crowley pursed his lips, thoughtful for a moment. “The real truth is that I probably shouldn’t have joined in the first place. My dad was a soldier, in the SAS, a real hero. But he was killed in the Falklands War in eighty-two, while my mother was pregnant with me, so I never knew him outside the stories everyone told me.”
That cut somewhere deep in Rose’s heart. “That sucks.”
Crowley shrugged. “Yeah, but it’s all I’ve ever known. The army was great to my mum. Afterwards, I was raised by her and my grandmother, my father’s mother, I was well looked after. I always idolized my dad, had his picture in my room in his uniform, all that stuff. I knew I was going to follow in his footsteps. Quit school first chance I got and signed up, pushed through. I was a good soldier. Started working my way toward the SAS and was about to move into it when I had this… I guess it was a revelation.”
“It wasn’t what you really wanted after all?”
“Exactly. I was doing it all for my dad, which was fine, but I had issues with the government, with the tight discipline, with the things we were being ordered to do. I saw things in Afghanistan that made me realize I was doing the wrong thing. Wrong for me anyway.”
Rose sipped her drink, smiled. “So you became a history teacher.”
Crowley laughed. He had an open, honest smile, no artifice. She liked that. “Not right away. I was in my mid-twenties when I demobbed, young and stupid, full of freedom and irresponsibility. I ran into a few London hoodlums, got into some dodgy stuff. Nothing really terrible, but when I nearly ended up in prison, I stopped and had a hard look at myself. I’ve always loved history. War taught me that people make the same mistakes over and over again because they refuse to learn from what went before. So I went to college, trained up as a teacher, and here I am.”
Rose lifted her glass in another toast. “You’re a smart and driven man, Jake Crowley. Good for you. You’ll have to tell me about your dodgy hoodlum days some time.”
“Let’s save that for another date.” He grinned cheekily.
She flicked her eyebrows up, unable to resist toying with him. “We’ll have to see how this one goes first.”