What a Bachelor Needs (Bachelor Auction Book 4)(31)

Adrenaline had been and gone and left her husked out and empty.

She’d been stupid, seen danger when there wasn’t any and her actions had escalated conflict.

Her hands were back to shaking.

“I’m calling someone to come and get you,” said Reese. “Parents, Ella Grace, I’ll even sic Bee on to you if I have to. So give me a name.”

Would Jett even be in Marietta? It was still snowing. Maybe he’d stayed with his brother tonight. And maybe she was stupid for even thinking about calling him, but there was only one person she wanted to be with right now and it was him. “Reese, I’m fine. I don’t need managing.”

“No, but you do need company,” Bee offered gently. “So make a call… or he will.”

Mardie bestowed upon them her fiercest glare and it was like sunlight glinting off steel. Some of it absorbed, some of it reflected. All it did was heat things up.

Mardie didn’t want heat. She wanted cool, calm reason. And sleep.

“Fine.” She’d make a call. But she wasn’t doing it in front of them.

She made her way over towards the noticeboard and chewed on the edge of her lip as she found Jett’s number.

He sounded sleepy when he answered.

“Hey,” she said. “Are you still in town anywhere?”

“I’m at Seth’s. Where are you?”

“Grey’s. Look, I don’t even want to ask but it’s been a rough night, we had bikers in, and there was…friction. It shook me up. I need an escort home and I thought…” she took a deep breath. “I thought of you. You don’t have to. I can ask my father to come and get me. That would be the sensible thing to do. Smart. I’m not very smart sometimes.” She would not cry. Not now.

“I’m on my way,” he said, and hung up.

*

When Jett came through the doors fifteen minutes later, people stared. He was a beautiful man, people probably stared at him a lot.

Not that he seemed to give a damn.

“Pretty,” said Bee wistfully from somewhere beside her. “Why are the pretty ones always taken?”

“That one’s not taken. He’s just…on borrow.”

“No, honey, he’s gone,” Bee said gently. “You just don’t know it yet.”

Jett approached and stood before them, giving her space, examining her face. “Big night?”

“For some,” said Reese and Jett locked glances with him. God knew what they said without saying a word. Maybe they were passing the baton. Maybe they were admiring the cut of each other’s jaw. Whatever it was, it was manspeak.

And then Jett turned his gaze back on her and Mardie felt the warmth of it right down to her soul. “You ready to go?” he asked gently.

She was.

He held out his hand and she took it, and then she was in his arms and his lips were at her temple. “You all right?”

“Yes.” She was safe now. She’d been safe all night. Her imagination had run wild on her, and almost caused a bar fight.

“You want to go and pick up Claire?”

“Yes.” She couldn’t do another night without her daughter. She needed her close.

Mardie pulled away and looked back at the Bee and Reese. “Thanks for the backup.”

“You got it,” said Bee. “Good game.”

“What happened?” said Jett as they reached the door and he opened it for her. Country boy, country manners, through and through.

“I played pool.”

*

It was heading for one a.m. by the time they got back to the house and Mardie had settle Claire into bed. Mardie didn’t normally do nightcaps, but tonight, sitting in her much bigger kitchen and dining area, with the smell of freshly sanded floorboards all around her, and wet plaster on the ceiling where the dividing wall had once been, Mardie made an exception and reached for the bottle of over proof bourbon buried deep in one of the cupboards.

“Want to talk about it?”

“I really don’t,” she said and poured them both a double. “But I should.”

She didn’t even know where to begin. “We had bikers in tonight, drinking hard but otherwise behaving. Reese had called a few of our regular bouncers to come in around closing time. We stopped serving, but the bikers wanted to keep the drinks coming. We needed time for reinforcements to get in so I played pool and won, and then one of the bikers came up behind me and boxed me in between him and the pool table. I froze.” She wouldn’t meet his gaze. “Sawyer boxed me in behind the bar once. There’s no space behind that bar, you’re always up in someone’s grill, and all he did was lean over me to get a bottle of top shelf whisky. I froze then, too.”

“So people learn to give you a little more space than usual. Sounds reasonable.”

“It is reasonable – in most cases. But this time the flow-on effect of my freezing was a little more dramatic. I was a heartbeat away from trying to wrap a pool cue around some biker’s head, and everybody knew it. I wouldn’t have gotten very far with that plan, by the way. For one thing I was surrounded but that wasn’t the point. I was going down swinging. That was the point.”

“So who saved the day?”

“Bee. She’s one of our bouncers. She’s very persuasive.”