A/N: If anyone's seen the movie The Women, Jordan's dress in this chapter is based on the one Norma Shearer is trying on in the dressing room scene. I neglected to describe it because, after all, it's Woody's point of view, and I don't see him as a man that's all that interested in women's fashion.

Chapter 2 - Outside Looking In

1939

His first sighting of her had not been auspicious. A newly-made detective, he had been moonlighting as part of the security detail for some senator's ball or other, hoping to pick up a bit of cash to supplement his meager income. Max Cavanaugh, then the Chief of Police, was always especially concerned with security whenever his daughter was involved in any event, and he had ensured that Woody would be in attendance, along with several other hand-picked members of the finest men Boston's police department had to offer.

He remembered catching a glimpse of her when he entered the room to relieve some policeman whose name he had long forgotten, awkward in the evening wear he had been forced to don in order to "blend in" with his surroundings, and not fooling anyone for a moment that he actually belonged there. She had stood, surrounded by a crowd of men and women of similar age and social standing, talking and laughing with them and seeming not terribly different from any of them, although the form-fitting black gown she had chosen to wear set her apart somewhat from the sea of pastel gauze the girls surrounding her were swimming in.

But then, she had happened to glance up and catch his eye, and he knew that she was different; because she did something he had never seen any of the other "important" young women of the town do. She had looked at him, really looked, not given him a cursory glance before relegating him to the dark recesses of her mind reserved for unmentionables such as himself. She had looked at him, and then she smiled, a wry, knowing smile, that seemed to let him in on some private joke shared between the two of them. He knew in that instant that hers was a face he would never forget.

As the evening wore on, he found himself unable to take his eyes off her as she maneuvered her way gracefully around the room, ostensibly a part of everything going on around her, but still somehow aloof, as if she, too, didn't truly belong there. On more than one occasion, he found himself thanking whatever god it was that had decided his duty for the evening would be to watch her, enabling him to drink her in without calling too much suspicion to himself, although his lack of attention to his surroundings could have caused serious problems had any sort of security threat been posed. He was enjoying himself more than he had ever had reason to before at one of these dull parties, when he noticed with a start that Jordan Cavanaugh wasn't just walking in his general direction, she was actually walking straight up to him.

As if talking to her security detail were an everyday occurrence, Jordan leaned herself casually against a pillar facing him and asked without preamble, "So, what did you do to get landed with this job?"

Woody started at being addressed directly by the woman who haunted his thoughts all evening, and cursed himself for the childhood stammer that would make forming an intelligent answer for this paragon next to impossible. "Well, I…I…I, ummm…I had…" he stuttered, words tripping over themselves in his mind, but none able to finish the journey to his tongue

Noticing his discomfort, Jordan decided to take pity on the man and answer for him. "You've either done something very good, to be one of my father's favorites, or you've done something very bad, and have been demoted to making sure nothing untoward pops up out of Maddie Price's birthday cake."

"Oh, well, uh, your father picked me to be here, so, I guess, the…former?"

She laughed then, a rich, throaty laugh that seemed out of place among the sycophantic simpers of the other guests, muttered a quick, "You'll do," and before he could comprehend what was going on, she had wrapped five long, slender fingers around his wrist and was dragging him out onto a deserted balcony.

She laughed again at his frantic splutterings, glossing over his concern for his job and his post, reasoning that, as he had been hired to watch her, what better way could he fulfill his duty than by following her when she wandered out alone onto this dangerous and unprotected balcony. Resigned to and delighted by the fact that he wouldn't be escaping from Jordan Cavanaugh's headily unsettling company, Woody allowed himself to relax, waiting for her to resume the thread of the conversation, which she did with good-natured insolence.

"And what brings a farm boy like yourself to the big city?" she asked, again without any form of lead-in, wrapping bare arms around herself in defiance of the cold. He considered offering her his jacket, but decided that such an act of chivalry wouldn't do him any favors in her book.

"Farm boy?"

"Aren't you?"

"I'm…yes, I guess you could say that. I'm, uh, from a little town in Wisconsin," he said, as if he felt his past needed no other explanation.

"Ah, so you're a cheese farmer."

"Something like that."

"And how did a cheese farmer from Wisconsin wind up working for the Boston police department?" she asked, holding onto her line of questioning with the tenacity of a pit bull. It occurred to Woody that she would probably make a better detective than he did.

"I don't know. I just felt like a change."

"Really? So, you picked up and left everything you had ever known because of an undefined sense of wanderlust?" He should have known she wouldn't be dissuaded by his simple non-answers.

"No, I…" He was finding evasiveness increasingly difficult under her penetrating stare. "I guess I left because of a girl."

"What happened?"

"The usual. I was in love. She was in love. Her family objected."

"Why would someone object to you?"

He smiled at the back-handed compliment.

"Why wouldn't they? An orphaned sheriff's deputy in Keuwanee, Wisconsin doesn't have a lot of prospects," he noted wryly, amused at his openness with this woman who didn't even know his name.

"So you turned tail and fled? I wouldn't have pegged you for a coward."

"No. It wasn't like that. I knew they were right. I didn't have any prospects as long as I stayed there, so I moved somewhere where I could make something of myself."

"So it was more of an 'I'll show them' impulse."

"I guess you could call it that."

"And when you've been elected Mayor or Chief of Police, do you plan on going back to laugh in their faces or just to win back the girl?" she teased.

"Neither. I don't think I want to go back."

"Enjoying the excitement of our fair city too much?"

"I am now," he answered, boldly for him. She shivered, and he wondered if the night air had finally penetrated her defenses. Giving in to the chivalry that had been nagging at him since their escape, he offered her his coat, which she took with an amused expression.

"What's so funny?"

"You don't realize what you've done?" she asked, feigning incredulousness.

"What have I done?"

"Well, by not wearing a coat, I was ensuring that you would have an excuse for forcing me back inside if you felt the need. By giving me your coat, you're saying that you'd rather be out here with me than inside doing your job."

"I thought staying with you was my job. You've just made it easier for me."

"How did I do that?"

"It's a lot harder to lose track of you when you're standing right in front of me."

"Do I need to tell my father that you're being overpaid?"

"That depends on how much you think I deserve for putting up with you," he teased, happy at being able to match her light-hearted tone.

"But if putting up with me were so difficult, you could have led me back into the ballroom instead of giving me your coat," she rejoined, foregoing the offence most girls would have taken at such a comment. "No, you're making things easier for yourself, and I'll have to tell my father to lower your salary."

"It would be worth it," he answered with feigned gallantry, eliciting another of her intoxicating laughs.

"Why, Detective Hoyt, are you flirting with me?"

He blushed, unsure of how to respond, until he noted her manner of addressing him.

"How did you know my name?"

"Oh, that's easy. I saw the guard of honor list in my father's office last week. Detective Woodrow Hoyt was the only name I didn't recognize, and as yours was the only face I didn't recognize, I leapt to the most logical conclusion."

"Impressive detective work."

"Why, thank you. I learned from the best. Now, if you're out here, and I'm out here, and there's a band playing and a full moon, don't you think that we should…" The sound of a throat being cleared behind them interrupted them, leaving the promise in her words hanging in the air like a heavily perfumed fog. They turned around to see Max Cavanaugh glaring at them, a wry expression turning up the corners of his mouth. Woody blushed furiously, having been caught enjoying the atmosphere with his boss's daughter while he was supposedly on the job, but Jordan merely smiled enigmatically at them, giving her father a look of obviously insincere innocence.

"Jordan," Max greeted her, a warning in his voice.

"Yes, Daddy?" she asked, with the same air of innocence.

"I believe someone promised me a dance earlier this evening."

"Only one person? You're really going to have to work on your social skills, Dad."

"Enough of that, Jordan. You know I hate to break up a good time, but the party's almost over, so come inside and dance with your father. Sorry to drag her away, Hoyt."

Shocked at being directly and not reprimandingly addressed, it was several seconds before Woody could reply with, "That's all right, sir. I was just about to insist that we go back inside."

If she was affronted at being treated like spun glass, Jordan chose not to acknowledge it. She merely shrugged out of Woody's massive jacket and handed it back to him, before sauntering languorously back into the ballroom, leaving the two men to follow in her wake.

The party broke up soon after that, and Woody and Jordan's paths crossed only once more that evening, as she walked past him to her waiting automobile. They had no opportunity to speak, and it wasn't until he was undressing in the solitude of his cold apartment that he found the end to their conversation: a slip of paper, torn from what looked like someone's dance card, with the words, "Thanks for putting up with me. Let's do it again sometime. – J," etched in glistening black ink atop the list of unknown names and dances.