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 jabbed 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?”