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Tavern opened and Ginny Coltrane exited, her arm around the waist of a tall dark-haired man. He leaned heavily on her, clearly not in complete control of his motor skills, as she guided him toward her little blue Ford Focus.
Anson leaned toward the windshield of his own car, trying to get a better look in the blue glow of the streetlamp. What was a sweet little gumdrop like Ginny Coltrane doing hauling a strapping hunk of a drunk out of a notorious mountain honky-tonk?
Boyfriend?
“Daughtry?” Quinn’s voice rose in his ear, and he realized his boss had been repeating his name.
“Yeah, gotta go, Quinn.” He hung up and watched Ginny try to squeeze the slobbering drunk into the passenger seat of the Ford. He wasn’t cooperating much, reaching up to grab her face and grinning like an inebriated ass.
Anson had his hand on the door handle before he stopped himself. He couldn’t exactly rush to her rescue, could he? He certainly didn’t want her knowing he was following her around like some kind of stalker.
Which he wasn’t. Not at all. Lemon icebox pie with whipped cream was entirely too rich and sweet for a guy like him. He had other reasons for tailing her.
He watched as Ginny finished folding her drunk companion into the passenger seat and closed the door behind her. Pushing her mussed hair out of her eyes, she started to go around the car to the driver’s side when four dark shadows emerged from the woods that edged that end of the tavern’s parking lot. The shadows materialized into four large men clad in dark clothing. Before Ginny could react, they surrounded her in a menacing semicircle, trapping her against the side of the car.
Anson muttered a low curse and opened the car door, wishing he’d paid better attention at those company threat-containment training seminars. Quinn was a stickler about training everybody in his agency in self-defense and dealing with crisis situations, even support staff and people like Anson, who never went out into the field.
One thing he knew without a doubt—no way in hell could he take on four burly thugs and win. Just one, and he might have a fighting chance. He might not be some muscle-bound special agent like some of the guys at The Gates, but he was fit, strong and agile. And while he preferred to defuse a tense situation rather than resorting to violence if he could, he’d survived his share of fights over the years.
But not four against one.
Don’t look like a threat, especially if you’re not. Quinn’s words came back to him as he looked across the narrow parking lot at the four men closing in on Ginny Coltrane.
Yeah, got that one handled, he thought, catching a glimpse of himself in the reflection in his car window. Tall, lean, with brown hair falling over his forehead and his Weezer T-shirt about three sizes too large, making him look thinner than he was.
“Hey, Ginny!” he called out, slouching his way across the parking lot toward her and the men.
Ginny’s head swiveled, her big blue eyes meeting his, first with hope, then with dismay. Her brow furrowed, the last bit of hope fading from her expression.
Gee, thanks, sweetness. But he kept moving, ignoring the men. “I’m sorry I’m late—I guess you almost gave up on me,” he continued, pointedly ignoring the four men.
They didn’t ignore him. “Get lost,” one of them growled.
He stopped short, looking straight at the man who’d spoken. His direct gaze seemed to catch the man by surprise. “Oh, am I interrupting? Oh, man, I’m sorry. Go ahead. I’ll wait. Since I was late anyway.”
He pulled his phone from his pocket and pulled up his Twitter account.
If I die today, 4 burly men @ the Whiskey Road Tavern did it. Check security vid. If 1 exists.
“No, you’re not interrupting,” Ginny said. “These fellows were just leaving.”
He glanced at her, surprised by her forceful tone. The Ginny he knew from the office was quiet and unassuming. Pretty as a sunny day but some people missed that about her because they never even really saw her.
“I’m glad you made it,” she added with a bright smile at him, moving slowly around the nearest of the four men and walking toward Anson at a bravely unhurried pace.
He kept his eyes on her, trying not to worry about what the men were doing. As long as she made it to his side and he had a chance to get her out of danger, that was all that mattered. Identifying those men could come later, if at all.
He held out his palm to her. She reached out her small hand and grabbed his. Her fingers were cool. Soft to the touch. But her grip was strong. He felt something warm and unexpected rip its way through his chest. Something he really didn’t want to examine, especially not with four big men bearing down on them.
He bent and kissed her cheek, feeling her tremble beneath that light caress. She smelled soap-and-water clean, the delicate scent filling his lungs and threatening to eclipse everything but the sweet heat of her body curving close to his. “Who’s the guy in the car?” he murmured in her ear.
“My brother,” she answered, brushing her lips against his jawline.
His heart skipped a couple of beats. He wanted to chalk it up to the tense situation, but he wasn’t an idiot.
Ginny Coltrane wasn’t lemon icebox pie, after all. Maybe more of a dark-chocolate truffle.
Wait. Her brother?
He looked up to see the four men moving toward them, faster than he’d hoped. “Go back into the bar,” he murmured to Ginny. “The bartender’s name is Jase. Tell him I need help out here.”
She looked up at him, her brow furrowed. “What’s your name again?”
Well. That was nice, wasn’t it?
“Anson Daughtry.”
She made an apologetic face. “Right. I knew that.”
“Go now.” He walked with her part of the way, acutely aware of the sound of footsteps hurrying across the gravel parking lot toward them. “Go!”
Ginny started running toward the front door of the bar. One of the big men peeled away toward her, giving Anson no choice.
He ran toward the man in high gear, his long legs eating up the distance between them. His move seemed to catch the other men by surprise; he felt the whoosh of air as they grabbed for him and missed. He hit his target hard, pain ratcheting through his chest as his sternum collided with the man’s thick-muscled arm. He wrapped his arms around the man’s body, not stopping the bearded man’s forward movement but slowing it down just enough for Ginny to disappear safely through the bar entrance.
Anson let go and dropped to the gravel in front of the man, tripping him up. He hit Anson on the way to the ground, his knee slamming into Anson’s side, driving the air from his lungs. Rolling into a ball, Anson struggled to breathe, his chest on fire. It seemed to take several long minutes before he finally sucked in a lungful of cool night air.
Just in time to take a steel-toed boot right to the rib cage.
Son of a bitch, that hurt!
* * *
THERE WAS NOBODY tending bar. How could there be nobody tending bar in a tavern?
Ginny skidded to a stop in front of the bar, suddenly aware of the roomful of eyes watching her dash across the sawdust-strewn floor. They didn’t scare her, those hard, suspicious men. She’d grown up among them, knew how they thought.
But those men outside—they were different. Cold-eyed. Purposeful.
And she’d left that poor computer guy from The Gates out there to deal with them.
“Jase!” she yelled. “Jase!”
A man approximately the size of Chimney Rock rose from a crouch behind the bar and gave her a puzzled look. “You’re back.”
“Anson