Play It Safe(11)

“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 f**ker 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.