Page 15 of Between Two Thorns

“Oh relax, it’s nothing like that.” Rose waved her hand to ease them. The sleeve of Del’s jacket was too big for her and flapped when she did. The redhead shoved it back up her arm. “It’s a kiss quest.”

Sam let out a chuckle that seemed to ease the tension in Del’s shoulders. “Lemme guess, sweetheart, you’d like it by midnight?”

Rose grinned up at him. “See, he gets it.”

Del turned his eyes up to Sam then, and she felt once again like a silent electric buzz was passing between them. She held her breath, waiting for them to decide.

Which one...maybe, even both?

Sam’s mouth opened first. “I think...”

Baby's First Bar Fight

“There’sthebitchandher guard dog!”

A voice, all too familiar to Rose now, brought her kiss quest spiel to an abrupt end. Her insides churned with unease.

Chad came prowling around the corner, flanked by his posse.

Del had already pivoted and squared up. His stance was wide and defensive. Rose noticed for the first time that his legs looked bowed and his shoulders hunched. He looked intimidating even without his fists clenching at the end of his dark green sleeves.

“Del,” Sam warned in a low voice as he shot a look at the younger man and moved to his side. The EMT had also stepped deftly in front of Rose, who still had her ankle propped up in the back of the ambulance. “Guessin’ this is the guy you slugged?”

The dirty blond barely lifted his chin in acknowledgement. And Rose thought he looked rather smug about it, too.

Chad spit a glob of saliva and blood into the dirty, unpaved parking lot.

“Whoa, hold on, we’re not going to fight here, are we?” the redhead demanded, her question directed at Sam’s half-turned back. Though the tight uniform accentuated the tension in his body.

“No, we’re not,” he said, just barely raising his arm in front of her. As if she was the one who needed to be held back. “Rose, call the cops, just in case.”

She actually thought their odds were pretty good. Del seemed like a rough and tumble kinda guy that you didn’t mess with. And everything about Sam whispered that he was or had been a soldier.

Still... she wasn’t one to take risks—other than coming out here tonight.

Rose wrenched her eyes away from the slowly growing audience behind Chad’s now worryingly broad torso. She shoved her hand into her pocket—and barely got into the first knuckle.

Shit.

Goddamn fashion industry freaking fake pockets!

Rose patted down both of her hips to the hem of her shorts, and down her back for good measure—nothing.

She almost grabbed to see if it was down her bra—before remembering she never put her phone down her shirt before in her life.

Which meant it was still in the truck.

Where the hell was Fred?

“Uh, I don’t have my—holy shit.”

Rose had been so preoccupied looking around herself and the back of the ambulance, she hadn’t noticed the footsteps still streaming out of the bar. And all around them.

They were about to be surrounded. These mature, adult college students were all cheering, “Fight. Fight. Fight!” In drunken discordance.

“You and I got something to settle, methhead.” Chad leered.

Del squared his jaw and curled his fists at his sides. He was standing deceptively still as Chad and his guys attempted to circle him like coyotes. More like jackals. Coyotes were cowards—but Del wasn’t falling for the bait. He stayed dangerously still.

---