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  Then he asked, “You two know each other?”

  “Yeah, she’s a friend,” Gray answered instantly. “And I take care of my friends. Now, cash machine. Corner. Five hundred dollars. Ten minutes. You should be back in five.”

  Cocky Guy kept up the glare to save face then he stomped away. I let out the breath I was holding. His friends drifted back to the other table. Gray took my elbow in his grip and led me to the opposite end of the platform.

  When we got there, he didn’t let me go and used my elbow to position me in front of him.

  I looked up.

  He was still beautiful and now he looked slightly pissed, definitely impatient and that meant, as close as he was, he was even more beautiful. He was also the perfect height, well taller than me but I knew, just tipping up on my toes, I could round his shoulders with my arms. A slight bend of his neck, he could kiss me.

  My palms started sweating again.

  “Coat, scarf, purse, get them, get them on. Take the money, stow it and get outta here,” he ordered. “Do not delay. Walk fast, get to the hotel, chain and lock the door.”

  That didn’t sound good.

  “This guy trouble?” I asked.

  “You know he is, dollface,” he answered quietly.

  He called me dollface.

  I liked that.

  I swallowed.

  “Okay, is this guy more trouble than I thought he was?”

  “Yeah,” he answered instantly.

  “Right then since I knew he was definitely trouble and not the good kind, how much more is he?”

  “On the trouble scale of one to ten?” Gray asked and I nodded. “A hundred and fifty.”

  That surprised me. I rarely underestimated anybody and especially not trouble.

  I felt my brows go up. “Seriously?”

  His face underlined his one word answer, “Seriously.”

  Wow.

  “You’re not getting your stuff,” he prompted, letting my elbow go.

  I held his eyes then walked to the stool where I put my stuff. I pulled on and buttoned up my jeans jacket, wrapped my scarf around my neck and pulled the strap of my purse over my head.

  Once I’d done this, my eyes went back to Gray who hadn’t moved. The minute they hit him, he lifted a hand, index finger extended and he moved it back and forth, indicating I should go there.

  And when he did that, I knew I was definitely stupid. Not the game of pool with Cocky Guy stupid. Coming to the bar stupid. Coming to the bar to get exactly what I got. Another eyeful (and then some) of Gray.

  And I knew this because him wagging a long, handsome finger at me in that self-assured, manly way of his made things happen to me I’d never felt in my life. Not once. They happened on the inside in a way that I wasn’t certain I could hide on the outside. And I also wasn’t certain if my suddenly trembling legs would keep me standing.

  I went there.

  When I got there, again his hand came to my elbow but this time I felt it, every centimeter. The touch was light, he wasn’t manhandling me, he wasn’t making a point. But I felt every centimeter of his fingers that were touching me.

  Every centimeter.

  “You and your partner didn’t leave town,” he remarked.

  “Uh…he had something he wanted to do. We’re gone first thing in the morning.”

  “He at your hotel room now?”

  I didn’t want to share this.

  I had to share this.

  “Doubtfully.”

  Gray studied me. Then he nodded.

  Then he ordered, “Don’t leave your hotel room unless he’s with you. No visit to the diner for breakfast. Nothing. Yeah?”

  Wow.

  “Is he really that serious of a problem?” I asked.

  “Absolutely,” Gray answered.

  Hells bells.

  I looked away and whispered, “Darn.”

  “Dollface,” he called, my belly shifted in a way that felt really nice and I looked back to him. “I didn’t think you’d make the bet.”

  I stared. Then I asked, “Sorry?”

  “You were blowin’ him off. Then suddenly you made the bet. I didn’t think you’d make the bet.”

  He was saying he would have stepped in if he knew I was going to give in.

  This was nice too.

  He was just nice.

  I liked that.

  Stupid, stupid me.

  I nodded.

  Cocky Guy showed and wasted no time glaring at us and shoving bills at me.

  Gray let me go and took them.

  “Good you’re just passin’ through,” he said to me and his meaning was clear. I wasn’t welcome in his town.

  I didn’t reply.

  I noted out of the corner of my eye that Gray was counting the money.

  Then he said softly, “It’s all there, darlin’.”

  I looked at him, nodded, looked down, took the money, looked to my purse and used both hands to stow it in my wallet without taking my wallet out of my bag.

  Then I looked at Cocky Guy. “Nice to meet you.”

  “Bite me,” he muttered and moved away.

  Well there it was. Rude.

  Then I looked to Gray.

  “Thanks again,” I whispered.

  “Get gone,” he whispered back.

  Not two words I wanted him to say to me but now, essentially, he’d said them twice.

  I wished I was the kind of girl who had the gumption to lean in and kiss him. Even if it was just his cheek to say thanks.

  I wasn’t that kind of girl. I’d never kissed a man, never been kissed.

  So I didn’t.

  I just took in a deep breath and then I got out of there.

  Chapter Five

  Scoop Up All the Pretty Ones

  Eighteen minutes later…

  “Bud, not good.”

  Lying on my back in my bed in my darkened hotel room, I sighed.

  That didn’t take long. I was in my hotel room maybe, at most, fifteen minutes.

  And those words, said by who I knew was Gray, came from outside my closed and locked door.

  “Fuck you, Cody. Go home. You don’t know this bitch. Don’t get involved.”

  That was Cocky Guy.

  I had the lights out. Boots on. Coat on. Baseball bat in my hand.

  Casey had a gun. I didn’t do guns.

  I did baseball bats.

  I lifted up, throwing my legs to the side and twisting my hips. My cowboy boots hit floor silently. My hand gripped the handle of the bat tightly.

  “Not movin’, you know it, you want in there you gotta go through me.”

  That was Gray.

  “Honest to God, you’re one mean fucker but you can’t take four of us.”

  That wasn’t Cocky Guy. That was a sidekick.

  They’d all come.

  Gray was right, not good.

  “Not sure you want to find out.”

  That was Gray.

  I pushed to my feet.

  Then I heard the grunt of pain.

  Hells bells!

  I rushed to the door and looked through the peephole.

  There they were; all four of them on Gray.

  Gray.

  Gray, a man who had seen me three times, looked out for me three times and on the fourth was being beat up in the parking lot of a small town hotel to protect me.

  I shouldn’t get involved. I should call the front office. I should tell them to call the cops. Or I should just call the cops.

  I didn’t.

  I pulled back the chain, turned the lock and charged out.

  I advanced swinging.

  I aimed low and caught one of the sidekicks on the side of the knee. He yowled and scuttled sideways. I left him, swung back and then connected with sidekick two’s back. Another howl, he jerked around and advanced with the other guy I nailed who’d recovered.

  I got another lick in, smashing into sidekick two’s hip. Another grunt of pain but a quick recovery. I jabbe
d the top of the bat in sidekick one’s stomach twice, hard. He went back at the same time trying to snatch the bat away from me.

  I kept hold then swung, also hard, this time higher. He lifted cocked forearms and one of them deflected the blow but he emitted a grunt of pain and fell slightly back.

  My attention turned to sidekick two who I was instinctively shifting from. Sidekick one wasn’t the threat, sidekick two’s eyes were mean. On swing five, moving fast, sidekick two caught the bat. He twisted, I held on. He twisted harder, angry eyes never leaving me. Taller, stronger, I was no match. He wrenched it out of my hands then tossed it aside.

  Not good.

  They advanced. I backed up, caught my heel on the curb up to the walkway outside the hotel rooms and fell right to my ass. Hard. And it hurt. No time to feel the pain, they kept coming and I scampered back on hands and feet.

  Sidekick two grinned.

  Yep. Mean.

  I kept scampering and my head and shoulders hit brick.

  That hurt too.

  I heard the ratchet of a shotgun just as I heard the quick start and stop of a police siren.

  My body froze but my eyes flew to the side and I saw a man in a wife beater, a beat up, dark colored, terrycloth robe, a pair of slacks that led into a pair of bedroom slippers and he was holding a shotgun. My eyes then moved to the entrance of the parking lot where a squad car, no flashing lights, was pulling in. Then my eyes moved, peering around the two sidekicks in front of me. I saw Gray had dispatched one guy. He was groaning and kind of rolling but mostly he seemed to be fighting for consciousness. He had Cocky Guy down on his knees in front of him, bent back, his fist was wrapped in Cocky Guy’s collar and his other arm was cocked back ready to deliver a blow. He had blood streaming down his face from a cut over his left eye but Cocky Guy appeared to be bleeding profusely from his nose, a cut lip and a gash on his cheekbone.

  Jeez, the whole thing lasted maybe five minutes. How could he inflict that much damage in five minutes?

  “Buddy, what the hell?” the guy in the wife beater asked loudly. “Christ, by now, don’t you know better? How many times does Gray gotta teach you this lesson?”

  I found this comment interesting.

  The hotel guy got no further and therefore, alas, didn’t explain this because the cop had stopped the car and was folding out.

  I found this alarming.

  I was not a big fan of being in the presence of cops. At first, long ago, health hazard. Now it was an occupational hazard.

  The cop rested his arms on the top of his open door, leaned into them and demanded of the parking lot as a whole, “Tell me my eyes are deceiving me.”

  My two sidekicks moved cautiously back while one of them muttered, “Uncle Lenny.”

  Uncle Lenny?

  Suddenly, the cop straightened like a shot and he did this when the boy-men had moved out of his line of sight and his eyes hit me.

  “Oh no,” I heard him say softly. “Hell no.” Then he moved out of his door, slammed it viciously and advanced on the sidekick I caught on the knee. He advanced fast, aggressive and very angry until that particular sidekick was pressed against the side of a car with his angry, cop uncle leaning over him threateningly.

  “Convince me not to rip your dick off,” he growled.

  Wow.

  “Uncle Lenny –” the sidekick started, his voice trembling.

  “That a girl I see on her ass?” the cop asked.

  “We were –” the sidekick began again but his uncle leaned even closer and I held my breath.

  “Is that…a girl…I see…on her ass?”

  “She hustled Bud at pool,” the sidekick said quickly.

  “I did not!” I snapped at the same time I heard Gray’s deep voice state. “That’s a fuckin’ lie.”

  I looked to him to see he’d tossed Cocky Guy aside, Cocky Guy was pulling himself up but Gray was walking to me. He got to me, hand extended and I put mine in his. He instantly pulled me up and close, his hand firm in mine and not letting go.

  He was also bleeding from that cut over his eye and he was bleeding a lot. It was running down his temple, cheek and dripping off his jaw onto his leather jacket.

  Through this, the cop didn’t move.

  Instead, he spoke and what he said was, “I don’t care if she hustled him, mugged him, drugged him or bit his dick off givin’ him a blowjob. Bud got fucked in some way, he’s a man; he takes it like a man. He’s got a legal problem; he takes it to the law. Whatever happens to Bud Sharp, you do not get involved. Especially if he’s got a beef with a slip of a girl. And I never drive up in my cruiser seein’ you loomin’ over a slip of a girl who fucked you, who fucked Bud or who fucked the fuckin’ Pope. You get me?”

  “I get you, Uncle Lenny,” the sidekick whispered.

  “Jesus, fuck, it’s like nothing grew between your fuckin’ ears,” the cop muttered, moved away and turned to face the assemblage, his eyes honing in on me. “You makin’ a complaint?”

  “They leave me and Gray alone, no,” I answered instantly and he nodded just as quickly before his eyes cut to the guy in the wife beater. “You makin’ a complaint, Manny?”

  “They leave my customers alone and I don’t got fights in my parkin’ lot for, say, the rest of all eternity, no.”

  I thought Manny was kind of funny.

  I thought this but I sure as heck didn’t laugh.

  The cop’s eyes sliced through Cocky Guy and his sidekicks. “This girl, Gray or Manny got any problems with you boys?”

  “No sir,” his nephew said immediately.

  “No,” sidekick two answered at the same time.

  The third shook his head. He was the one who’d been fighting for consciousness. He was up now and swaying a bit so I wasn’t sure he had words in him.

  Cocky Guy was glaring at Gray.

  “Bud?” the cop called and Cocky Guy tore his eyes from Gray and looked at the cop. When he did, the cop went on in a quiet voice filled with warning. “Don’t mess with me, son. You know you don’t mess with me. You’re smart, you’ll go home, clean up the cuts Gray’s opened up on you and think on those. My count, this is the third time Gray’s drawn your blood. Learn and don’t let there be a fourth.”

  It seemed to me that Gray and Cocky Guy had a long history.

  “She hustled me out of five hundred dollars,” Cocky Guy spat to the cop.

  “Len, I was there and that’s not fuckin’ true,” Gray said low, clearly pissed and the cop looked to him.

  Then he looked to me. Then his eyes moved up and down me.

  I could read people, I had to. Survival.

  Cops could read people too. I knew he sized me up the second he looked at me.

  Not good.

  Gray spoke again.

  “She’s the shit at a table. He and his boys watched her wipe it clean, he knew she had talent. The whole bar did. He offered the bet, she declined. He pushed the bet. She took it. He lost. What he says is bullshit. Ask Janie.”

  The cop held my eyes and I held his. His dropped to my hand which Gray still held firm in his. Then he looked to Gray only briefly. Then he turned back to Cocky Guy.

  “Do you not think I see what this is?” the cop asked Cocky Guy softly and I didn’t get that but I did see in the parking lot lights Cocky Guy’s face go pale even as it went hard. “Go home, Buddy,” he finished on a near to whisper.

  His sidekicks immediately shuffled to exit the scene. With no other choice, Cocky Guy aimed a laser sharp scowl at Gray and me then cleared his throat and hocked a loogie in our direction.

  “Got shitloads of money, not an ounce of class,” Gray muttered, his eyes locked on Cocky Guy as he followed his boys.

  Manny, the cop, Gray and I watched him go.

  Then Manny turned to the cop. “Thanks for bein’ quick, Len.”

  “My job, Man,” he muttered and Manny looked at me.

  “You okay, miss?”

  I nodded then said softly, “Thanks.”

>   He nodded back then looked to Gray.

  “Would say good to see you, son, but be better seein’ you without blood on your face.”

  “Right,” Gray replied and he sounded amused.

  “Catch ya at The Rambler for a drink sometime,” Manny went on.

  “You got it, Man,” Gray muttered.

  Then Manny turned and walked toward the office.

  The cop looked at Gray and me and when he did, his eyes again dropped to our hands, mine still held in Gray’s.

  Then he looked to Gray and grinned. “Bud would probably stop bein’ such a jackass if you didn’t scoop up all the pretty ones.”

  I liked that and I didn’t. I liked it because it was a compliment. I didn’t because that meant Gray had a lot of girlfriends and even though this was by no means a surprise and it made no never mind to me, I didn’t like knowing it.

  “Wrong way around, Len. He wasn’t such a jackass, he might get a shot,” Gray returned.

  This was true.

  Len agreed with me and I knew this because he kept grinning and also nodding. Then his eyes flicked up to Gray’s forehead before going back to his.

  “I got any shot you’ll go to the clinic and get that stitched?”

  “I’ll be all right,” Gray answered.

  That meant no.

  Len looked back down at our hands then to me then to Gray, all quickly.

  Then his grin turned to a smile but he did this right before he looked to his boots and said, “’Spect so.” He looked back to me. “You sure you’ll be all right, miss?”

  I nodded. “I’m just fine. Thank you for intervening.”

  “Like I said. My job,” he replied, jerked up his chin then moved toward his cruiser.

  Gray’s hand around mine squeezed and I looked to him to see him looking down at me.

  “No lie, you all right?” he asked.

  And right then, without me even trying to stop it, I did something stupid. Something unsafe. Something I’d never done and something I never expected I’d do.

  I answered, “I will be, you let me see to that cut.”

  And that was when I got it, probably what I was looking for, definitely what I wanted.

  He smiled at me and I saw his dimple.

  Chapter Six