Page 4 of Light My Fire

“Back off, Nate.”

The tone, more than the volume, made him look over again. Stevie stood her ground, but despite her tone, her warning, Nate wasn’t moving. If anything, he took another step toward the woman, and Tucker looked back at Vic.

“She can take care of herself,” Vic said, her mouth tight, as if expecting exactly that trouble she’d predicted.

Huh. Stevie put her hand on Nate’s shoulder, as if to push him away, and when Nate didn’t move, Tucker slid off his stool.

Because he’d nearly had a woman die in his arms once, at the hands of a man who thought he could bully a woman into submission. And frankly, he didn’t care how capable a woman was.

There were lines a guy shouldn’t cross.

“Ease back there, bro. Give her some room.” Tucker kept his voice easy, but the song on the juke had just ended, and his words came out loud, a warning.

He could nearly feel the eyes in the room on him, burning right through him.

Nate the aggressor took a step back and frankly, that’s all Tucker wanted. A chance for Stevie to get her ground back. He nodded, then glanced down at Stevie.

He might have imagined it, but a tiny spur of fear, or surprise, even relief, flickered in her eyes one second before it vanished, replaced with a cool shade of grit.

A crack in her tough-girl demeanor.

It was enough to make him hesitate.

Nate wasn’t stepping back. He turned to Tucker. “Mind your own business, hotshot. This isn’t your fight.” The man stood a good two inches over him, but Tucker had the girth and hard body of a man who swung a Pulaski, who toted 110 pounds of gear on his back for miles, who breathed smoke and stood his ground when fire wanted to chase him down a hill.

But oh, he didn’t want trouble. “Hey man, just…give the woman some respect.” He held up his hands, a gesture of peace more than surrender.

Still, he could almost hear the spark ignite as chairs scooted across wooden floors. Tucker didn’t have to look to see his tired, edgy, and not a little jacked-up team of rookies assembling behind him.

What he didn’t expect was for Nate to size him up and glance over to a table of locals.

Who’d risen to join him.

“Nate—” Stevie started.

“Don’t—” Tucker said at nearly the same time.

“Too late,” Nate snapped, fire in his eyes.

Shoot, but Tucker felt it too. The hot rush of adrenaline lighting inside him.

No. He wouldn’t let a brawl cut short his—or his team’s—night off. He glanced at Stevie. “I just want to make sure—”

The punch hit him across the jaw, an explosion of heat and pain and fury that spun him into the bar.

Screaming, a roar, and by the time he turned back, the bar had erupted.

His teammates launched themselves at whatever local seemed in on the fight, hopefully one their size, although even as he grabbed Nate around the waist to tackle him back, away from the brawl, he spied Riley jumping on a guy with the girth of a moose.

Tucker hit the floor on top of Nate, and instinct took hold. He grabbed Nate’s arm and rolled, pinning his head with his legs. Then he twisted Nate’s arm and shoved his fist under his elbow, wrenching it down into an arm bar. Submission, hot and fast, and the fight burned through bones. “Stay down!”

Nate kicked but Tucker held on. Around him, shouts rose, furniture crashed, and men growled, all behind the fierce anger of Vic who had come around the bar gripping a baseball bat, thick in it, like a bear roused.

Nate howled, shot off his mouth, and Tucker didn’t dare let him up.

Riley landed beside Tucker on top of one of the flannels, heat in his eyes.

Shoot, he’d been left in charge for all of five minutes, and the entire night had flashed over.

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