Page 18 of OctoBEARfest

"Youreally do," Gwen squeaked through her fingers. The passel all bore astrongfamily resemblance to Bill himself, although they had more variation in hair color than the Torben brothers did. Every single one of them was attractive, in a cookie-cutter way. "Is there an actual assembly line?"

"My aunts and mother would tell you no," Bill said, still with his head on the table. "But you should have seen the whole gang at Steve's wedding this summer. At least my cousin who met his faa—uh, his girlfriend there had the decency to fall for a tiny blonde. The men in my family tend to go for statuesque amazons, leading to giant children."

A startling sense of crushing disappointment took Gwen's breath away for a moment. She wasn't short by any means. In fact, she was often surprised at how tiny other women were. But she also didn't come anywhere nearstatuesque.

It amazed her how much she wanted to be amazonian enough to catch Bill Torben's attention.

"Tell you what." Bill had lifted his head, although he'd also slid down into the booth as far as he could go, like he was trying not to be noticed. "In about ten seconds here, my idiot brother is going to tell that group of lunatics that I'm over here, but you have time to escape. You wanted to meet myparents, not my entire clan. What are they all doing here!" It wasn't a question, just an exclamation of despair, and Gwen, despite her promise to keep her hands off him, patted his arm reassuringly.

"They're probably here to rescue the weekend." The noise level in the pub had gone up about ten decibels with his family'sarrival, and they seem to have quadrupled the number of people in the pub, just through their sheer size. "If I sneak out, are you going to be able to escape and get to the Harlequin?"

Bill, in the grim tone of a man who knew better, said, "Probably."

Gwen made an executive decision and grabbed his hand. "Get my guitar. Let's make a break for it."

"What? No, they'll see me?—"

"There isdefinitelya door over there that leads out to the beer garden," Gwen said firmly. "We'll take it."

"They'll still see me! I'm six and a half feet tall!"

Gwen dipped a hand into her pocket and came out with a pair of earbuds. "Put these in. They're noise-canceling. You didn't hear them, that's all."

"They'retiny." Bill fumbled them into his ears, although they practically swam in his ear canals, because Gwen did, in fact, have fairly small ears, and used the smallest silicon tips that came with the buds. She was pretty sure Bill would have to buy XXL ones separately for his own purposes, then took a moment to wonder what other things he might have to buy in XXL.

That wasnotimportant right now.

"As long as the buds don't fall out between here and the beer garden door, that's enough excuse to not hear them," she promised, then, her hand still wrapped firmly around Bill's, pulled the big man out of the booth and strode purposefully toward the back door. He grabbed her guitar case and followed, and to her relief, delight and amusement, nobody yelledBill!until the door was almost closed behind them. She said, "Close enough!" and broke into a run. Bill yelped, trying to keep up while not letting the ear buds fall out, and clocked himself in the head with the guitar case. Gwen blurted, "Oh, God, sorry," and took the guitar so he could clap his hands over his ears and hurry along behind her.

"They're going to kill me," he announced a little too loudly.

Gwen flashed a grin over her shoulder at him. "First, not if they can't catch you, and second, nah, you're bigger than all of them, and I bet I'm meaner. She-bear, rawr." She made claws with her hands, swiping, and although she laughed, she swore that Bill Torben actually did heart eyes at her. It was about the cutest thing she'd ever seen, even if 'cute' and 'giant man' didn't usually go together in her expectations. "Come on, into my getaway car." She opened the Chevy's back door and tucked the guitar in with more care than she took slinging herself into the front seat a moment later, and Bill climbed in, suddenly looking particularly enormous in the comparatively small space. "Sorry I can't slide the seat back. My feet won't reach the pedals if I do. That's the problem with bench seats."

"There are worse fates." Bill stretched his legs out as best he could as she pulled out of the parking lot. "I can always ride with the guitar in the back if I have to."

"Ah, yes," Gwen said in her best British accent. "I'm Lord William Torben and I wish to not be disturbed as I'm ferried home, James."

Bill laughed. "Yeah, but if I was upper-class British and my last name was pronounced 'Torben' it would probably look like it was pronounced 'Troughburn' or something."

"Troughstiltenburn," Gwen suggested. "The 'stilten' is silent."

He laughed again. "Yeah. Like that. Or maybe with a 'shire' in there somewhere. Do you actually know where you're going?"

"Yes." After a beat, Gwen added, "I do not, however, know how to get there, so if you could navigate…?"

"Hah! Yeah, turn left up there."

It was a shorter drive to the Harlequin than Gwen expected, probably because they'd gone there via the ice cream and coffee cafe earlier, and she hadn't been paying much attention on theway back. They arrived much earlier than they needed to, and Mike Piccolo met them almost before they came in the door. "Saw you pulling up on the security cameras. You have quite a few fans here already, Gwen. You want me to take you around to the stage entrance?"

"Nah, I can't help set up if I'm hiding backstage. Besides, I've got a giant personal bodyguard if anything gets hairy, which I don't think it will." She knocked her shoulder against Bill's arm. "If that's okay with you?"

"I'll guard your body any time," he promised.

Gwen laughed, and Piccolo looked between them with amusement. "If you say so. Want me to take your guitar backstage, at least?"

"That, yes, please, seems like a good idea. I'm not fragile, but expensive musical instruments can be." As she handed her guitar over, Gwen heard somebody say, "Oh my God, it reallyisher," and then suddenly half a dozen people were ringing her, their expressions full of nervous delight.

She raised her hands and said, "Nope!" firmly, then pointed over their heads at a table near the stage. "You can go there. I'll come to you, but I'm not going to be a fire hazard and block the front doors, all right?"

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