by Myla Jackson
“Thanks, Audrey.” Mark touched her arm. “We’ll do our best to make Libby happy.”
“That’s all that matters.” Audrey hugged Jackson around the middle. “I’m glad I have you, dear.”
“And me, you.” Jackson dropped a kiss on her head. “Finding you and wooing you was way too much drama. I wouldn’t want to go through that again.”
When her brows rose into the hair hanging over her forehead, Jackson held up his hands. “But I would, if I had to. You’re worth it.” He pulled her into his arms and kissed her soundly.
Mark and Luke left the couple in a deep lip-lock and hurried back into the saloon’s main room.
The band had taken a break and someone had put a bump-and-grind song on the stereo system.
A loud whoop went up from the entire room full of people as all eyes turned toward the bar.
Kendall, Lacey and Bella were being lifted up to the polished surface, where they joined Libby. The red corsets and skirts had every man in the place whistling and catcalling so loud, the music faded into the background.
When they lifted Charli up onto bar, she carried a microphone and leaned against one of the brace posts, one leg sliding up the other as she sang a dirty, sexy song while Kendall, Lacey, Bella and Libby danced in unison.
The crowd clapped in time, swaying to the sound, laughing and shouting, reaching out to touch the girls on the bar. One drunk cowboy made a grab for Libby’s ankle and almost pulled it out from under her.
Mark lunged forward, ready to slam a fist into every one of the men who tried to grope Libby.
Luke’s backhand across his chest stopped him before he’d gone two steps. “You can’t. It’s part of her job with the saloon.”
“But I want to rip that guy a new asshole,” Mark said through clenched teeth.
Libby pressed her stiletto to the man’s forehead and pushed him back hard enough the crowd had to catch him.
Luke laughed. “The woman can hold her own.”
The other men around him shoved the drunk to the rear, refusing to let him back up to the bar.
“Come on, we need to get to the front of that crowd. I want to talk to Libby.” Mark nudged and pushed through the wall of men, all hollering for the dancers as they strutted, turned and ground their hips to the song Charli sang.
Luke followed right behind Mark as they made slow progress through the throng.
One man raised his fists, his face blotchy with anger and alcohol. “Hey, don’t push me.”
“Not trying to start a fight.” Mark backed off, unwilling to get into brawl, when all he wanted was to get to Libby.
Luke slammed into Mark, and Mark bumped the man with the raised fists, shoving him against another guy.
Fist Man swung at Mark’s face.
Mark shouted, “Duck!” He leaned right.
The fist whiffed past his ear and hit Luke in the jaw.
Luke staggered backward, stepping on the cowboy behind him and knocking him across a table.
Mark faced off with Fist Man and landed a punch in his breadbasket.
The man didn’t even flinch, but his face reddened to a mottled patchwork and he let out a roar. He ducked his head and rammed into Mark’s gut, railroading him through the crowd until he hit a table, slid across it and landed on his back on the floor, stunned and with the wind knocked out of his lungs.
Others who’d been flung or pushed aside leaped into the fray and fists flew unchecked.
Greta Sue muscled her way toward Mark, lifting him up off the floor. “You all right?”
Mark nodded, just beginning to breathe again. When he stood, he swayed, scanning the melee for his twin.
Luke faced off with Fist Man and another guy, holding his own in a two-to-one fist fight.
“I gotta make a call.” Greta Sue let go of Mark and hurried toward the back of the bar and the telephone.
Charli had stopped singing, joining the girls on the bar in the fight to keep the groping hands from toppling them into the crowd.
Everyone was shouting and no one could hear anything, even the sound of sirens. Until the sheriff and five of his deputies pushed through the door. One raised a megaphone to his lips and announced, “Party’s over.”
Behind the deputies, one of the news reporters who’d come for the rodeo had his camera up, floodlights on, blinding the drunks and sober patrons alike.
Fist Man laid in one last punch, sending Luke flying backward into a chair that immediately tipped over backward.
Mark lunged for the cowboy, but never made it there.
A deputy grabbed him from behind and twisted his arm up behind him.
The noise died down and a voice could be heard booming over the others. “Give me that.”
The megaphone gave a shrill whine and a voice blasted through the room. “Elizabeth Stratton, get down off that bar, immediately.”
All eyes turned toward the sound. Mark glanced over his shoulder to see what they were staring at.
A man in a business suit fiddled with the megaphone and it blasted the room with another shrill squeal. He was flanked by two hulks also dressed in business suits looking more like giant apes playing dress-up. The man with the megaphone pointed at the bar and repeated, “Elizabeth Stratton, get down off that bar.”
Luke picked himself off the floor and stood beside Mark. “Which one is Elizabeth Stratton?”
The deputy jerked Mark toward the door. “Come on, Lone Ranger, it’s a night in the pokey for you.”
“Wait.” Mark jerked free of the deputy. He gazed toward the bar as Libby’s face turned as white as a sheet and she fell forward into the crowd. “Libby!” Mark lunged forward, only to be stopped by a hand twisting his arm up between his shoulder blades. “Let me go. She could be hurt.”
“The others caught her. There’s a medic outside.” The deputy grunted, holding tight to Mark. “You have more worries.”
“I haven’t done anything wrong,” Mark insisted.
“I’d say disturbing the peace and disorderly conduct classify as wrongdoing. Now are you coming with me or do we add resisting arrest?”
Mark glanced at the man holding him. “Cramer, now is not the time to pay me back for stealing your date at prom six years ago.”
Deputy Cramer smiled. “I’d say payback is long overdue. Keep moving.”
Mark shouted over his shoulder. “Luke. Take care of Libby.”
“I’ll do what I can.” Luke was already muscling his way through the crowd to where Libby had landed.
Mark glanced back as the deputy pushed him through the door and out into the clear Texas night sky.
Lights swirled on top of no less than five law enforcement vehicles and two ambulances that had come from both Temptation and Hole in the Wall to converge on the county line at the Ugly Stick Saloon.
As Deputy Cramer crammed him into the backseat of his SUV next to a passed-out drunk, reeking of puke and alcohol, Mark ground his teeth.
What had just happened in there? Why had Libby fainted? And what did it have to do with that man who’d called out for Elizabeth Stratton?
Chapter Nine
Libby perched on the side of a bed in the Emergency Room of the small hospital in Temptation, wishing there was a drug that would make her disappear. The white walls and sterile environment seemed to close in around her and she couldn’t get out. She was waiting for the doctor to release her after her dramatic faint on the bar at the saloon.
“Where’s my daughter?” a deep male voice echoed in the corridor.
“I’m sorry, sir. Who is your daughter?” a nurse’s voice asked, patiently.
“Elizabeth Stratton.”
Libby cringed and pulled the sheet up around her face, wishing she could hide.
A pause and then the nurse stated, “We don’t have an Elizabeth Stratton listed. Perhaps she was taken to Amarillo?”
“She was brought here, I tell you,” the man said.
“Perhaps you could describe her.”
&nb
sp; “Five feet six, red hair, green eyes. Twenty-five years old.”
“The only woman we have by that description was brought here tonight from the Ugly Stick Saloon fight.”
“Which room?” the man demanded.
Libby cringed, gathering the sheet and pushing it aside.
“I’m sorry, sir, unless you have proof you’re family, visiting hours start at nine in the morning. You’ll have to come back then.”
“The hell I will.” Footsteps pounded on the tiles and doors slammed against the walls as they were flung open one at a time down the hallway. “Elizabeth!”
Libby held her breath and waited for the door to fly open and all hell to break loose. If she’d thought it was bad in the saloon, it would be nothing compared to what was about to go down when her father finally caught up to her.
She slid out of the bed and raced for the window, but it was one of those kinds that never opened. Her gaze darted to the bathroom door, but before she could get there, her door slammed open and her father stood there, his towering frame filling the void, trapping her in the room.
Her heart fluttered in her chest and butterflies filled her belly as her life came full circle to when she was a prisoner in her own home, surrounded by wealth, duty and bodyguards. She sighed. “Hello, Daddy.”
For a long moment, John Stratton stood there, his gaze raking over her.
Part of Libby rejoiced at seeing her father for the first time in two years. The other knew what it meant and rebelled at the loss of freedom.
“Where the hell have you been for the past two years, girl?” he demanded, his face flushing a deep, ruddy red.
She ignored his question and glanced beyond him, her brows rising. “Where are your bodyguards, Daddy? You never go anywhere without them.”
“They’re on their way to the jail in some town called Hole In The Wall, damn it.” He poked a finger toward her. “No thanks to you. That’ll be our next stop once I get you out of this place.”
Libby’s fists tightened. Standing barefoot in her hospital gown, she knew she didn’t look like a force to be reckoned with, but she hadn’t lived two years on her own without growing a backbone.
“Sir, you really cannot disturb the patients at this hour.” A nurse stood behind her father, holding a clipboard chart in both hands, evidently ready to use it if the man got violent. “I’ve called the police. If you don’t leave, they’ll arrest you for disturbing the peace.”
“I don’t give a rat’s ass what the police do. This is my goddamn daughter and she’s coming with me, now.”
Libby’s chin tipped up. “No, Daddy, I’m not.”
“You damn well better.”
“Or what?” She shook her head. “You’ll cut me off?”
He frowned.
“In case you hadn’t noticed, I haven’t asked for a cent from you in the past two years. Not one.” She stepped forward, her chest pushing out. “I’ve been free of you, your money and bodyguards all that time and nothing bad has happened to me.”
His eyes narrowed. “Now that the media knows you’re here, you’ll be in danger.”
“I don’t care. I wish you would disinherit me so that none of them will care if I’m alive or dead.”
“Damn it, Elizabeth, be reasonable.”
“No, you be reasonable.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “I’m not going back to New York. I like it here.” As she said the words, her heart flooded with a familiar warmth that she’d found only here in Temptation, Texas. A warmth that had more to do with the people than the weather.
“You’ve played long enough. You need to come home and be a part of this family.” He grabbed her arm and dragged her toward the door.
“What family? Ever since Mamma died, it’s been you ruling the world. I never had a say in my life. Well, now I do.” She dug her bare heels into the cool tile and leaned away from the arm holding her. “I’m not going.”
A sheriff’s deputy stepped up behind her father, his hand resting on the nine-millimeter pistol in his holster. “Sir, release the woman and step out into the hallway.” The lawman reached for John Stratton’s arm.
“She’s not a woman, she’s just a girl, dammit.” Libby’s father jerked his arm away from the deputy. “I resent being treated like a criminal.”
“Then let go of the woman, and leave the building immediately.” The deputy stared down his nose at John Stratton, his hand resting on his pistol grip. “Or I’ll be forced to arrest you for disturbing the peace and assault.”
“Daddy, let go,” Libby said in a calm, clear tone.
“Tell them that you’re my daughter and that you’re coming with me,” her father demanded.
“I am your daughter.” She gave a half smile, her chest squeezing at what she had to do. “But I’m not going with you.”
Her father’s face darkened. “It’s that saloon you were working at, isn’t it?”
She snorted softly. “No, it’s not the Ugly Stick.”
“Then it’s some man.”
Her heart fluttered as an image of Mark and Luke rising naked out of the pool filled her mind. Some of her feelings must have shown on her face.
Her father’s eyes narrowed. “I knew it. I’ll have him arrested for—”
“For what, Daddy?” Libby planted her fists on her hips. Standing in her hospital gown, she knew she was no match for her father, but she refused to back down ever again. “For caring about me? For taking the time to get to know me and what I like? For allowing me the freedom to choose?”
“Well, no. For brainwashing you into thinking that living in a backwater town with a bunch of hicks is better than taking your position in society as the daughter of—”
“The multi-billionaire John Stratton?” She shook her head. “I want nothing to do with that life. I left it behind and won’t go back.”
“You have to,” her father argued.
“In case you haven’t noticed, I’m twenty-five years old and can legally make my own decisions. I don’t have to go with you.”
“Sir, for the last time, I’m asking you to leave peacefully.” The deputy’s hands hovered over his utility belt.
“Go, Daddy,” Libby urged her father. “Before you get in trouble.”
He planted his fists on his hips and braced his feet wide on the tiles. “I’m not leaving without you.”
In a flash of movement, the deputy snapped a handcuff onto John Stratton’s wrist and jerked his arm up between his shoulder blades, pushing him against the wall. “Sir, I warned you, now you’ll have to take a ride with me down to the jailhouse.”
“This is an outrage!” Libby’s father shouted, his voice ringing out against the sterile walls of the small hospital.
The few patients that could stand leaned in the doorways of their rooms, peering out at the ruckus going on in the corridor.
Libby shook her head, righteous indignation fading into sadness as the deputy hauled her father away.
“I’ll have your job for this,” her father shouted at the officer as he was manhandled through the hallway and out of the hospital.
Libby couldn’t wait for the doctor to release her, she had to leave now, before her father was freed on bond and before he had the chance to bail out his bodyguards and assign one of them to tail her.
She grabbed the only clothing she had, the floozy skirt and corset and the stilettos, slipped into them quickly and marched herself past the nurse’s desk.
“Where are you going, Miss Jones?” The nurse at the station leaned over the counter. “You need to wait for the doctor to release you.”
“I can’t. I have to get out of here.” Libby left the hospital behind and made her way to a twenty-four-hour convenience store where she asked to borrow the telephone.
Audrey answered on the first ring. “Ugly Stick Saloon. We’re closed.”
“Audrey, I need you to pick me up from the Gas 'N Sip down the street from the hospital.”
“Libby? Are you all right?”
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“I’m fine, I just need a ride back to my bike.”
“I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”
Libby hung up, chest aching, and found a quiet corner of the store to hide in and plan her escape from her father, her former life and the new life and place she’d come to love so much.
Sheriff Thomas guided Luke to the big jail cell where Mark and several other men sat on benches attached to the wall.
As he unlocked the jail cell, the sheriff waved Luke inside. “I wouldn’t have arrested you if I hadn’t witnessed you hitting Reggie Finkle. Finkle has you up on charges of assault.”
“Did you ask him who threw the first punch? At least get the story straight before you lock me up.” Luke balked at stepping through. “I really need to get to the hospital and check on a friend. Please don’t do this.”
“I’m sorry, Luke. The county judge came in special for this mess and set bail on you boys. Until someone comes to post your bail, you’re in for the night.”
Luke entered the cell and the bars swung closed behind him with a final metal clank. He turned and clung to the rails. “Please, Sheriff, I have to get to the hospital. If I don’t, she might be gone when I get out of here.”
The sheriff shook his head. “Should have thought of that before you took that swing.”
A deputy leading a man down the corridor toward the cell where Mark and Luke leaned against the bars pulled his charge to the side to allow the sheriff to pass.
The man was dressed in a wrinkled business suit, shirt untucked, tie askew, his gray hair standing on end, like he’d been in a tussle. “Let me go, or you will regret it.”
“I’ve never had more pleasure than I’m having right now.” The deputy unlocked the cell and shoved the man inside, twisting the key in the lock with a decided flourish. “You need time to cool off, mister.”
“I’ll have your job for this, damn it! You can’t treat John Stratton this way.” The man shook a fist through the bar.
Mark laid a hand on Luke’s shoulder. “Come on, Luke. The sheriff and his deputies aren’t putting up with much tonight. I hear Nelson Bailey is at the emergency room now with a broken nose and two other deputies have fractured ribs.”
