Page 53 of Good at Being Bad (Rock Canyon, Idaho 8)

“Ouch, shit!” The guy jerked away from her and stumbled back into a roughneck-looking couple. The woman screamed and the man grabbed the guy by his shirt, throwing a hard right that sent him flying into a table of cowboys.

And then all hell broke loose.

The music died and yelling and cursing were coming at her from all angles. Punches were thrown, the sickening crack of bone and flesh and shouts of pain. She ducked behind two women who were pulling each other’s hair, and ran as fast as her high-heeled boots would take her.

“Hey, you!” Someone spun her around from behind, and an angry bull of a man with a black beard shouted in her face. “You starting shit in my bar?”

“That guy grabbed me—”

She started to explain, but someone tapped the man on the shoulder. He turned and she saw Mike standing there, a head shorter and half his breadth.

“Hey, man, I need you to let her go.”

“Fuck you, you little—”

In three swift moves Ellie couldn’t follow, Mike had the big man lying in the fetal position on the floor, yowling like a scalded cat.

Ellie stared at him wide-eyed. “How did you…?”

“No time to explain.” He grabbed her hand and leaned over the table to pick her jacket off the chair. “Let’s go.”

Ellie laughed as he dragged her out the door and down the steps to his bike. Sirens wailed in the distance and Ellie saw dozens of people pour out of the bar and run for their vehicles.

It took them less than two minutes to get their helmets on and burn out of the parking lot, taking the long way home through Buhl. They couldn’t talk with the wind and the engine roaring, but Ellie wasn’t sure her heart would ever stop racing. Watching Mike take down a guy to protect her was, well, hot—for lack of a better word. Why was it that her life seemed to hitch into high gear every time she was with him?

He pulled off down a dirt road and parked in the brush. Ellie lifted her helmet off, looking around the brushy area.

“Where are we?”

He set his helmet on the bike, and pulled a flashlight from his pouch on the side of his bike.

“Have you ever been to Rock Canyon’s secret garden?” he asked.

“What secret garden?”

Mike grinned in the dusky light. “Follow me and I’ll show you.”

Mike led Ellie through the hole in the fence and down the trail. He’d worked at the Jameson’s farm for a while when he was fourteen, and was among the few people who knew about the beautiful garden on the back side of their property. They held family weddings there, but it was closed to the general public because the late Mrs. Jameson had been afraid that people would destroy it.

It was a special place. He’d never shared it with anyone before.

He couldn’t keep the pleased-as-shit grin off his face, not after he’d seen the looks Ellie had been shooting him as he’d flirted with Stacy. Their conversation had been innocent enough, but Ellie didn’t know that.

Of course, he hadn’t exactly enjoyed watching her get pawed, and then when he’d lost her in the chaos of the fight, his heart had stopped.

“How did you drop the big guy in the bar?” Ellie hissed behind him.

“Shh, hang on.” They were almost past the grove of trees. The moon added nice mood lighting, and when the brush thinned out Mike exhaled softly.

“Well?” she prodded.

“Hang on.” Mike used the flashlight to find the power box, which was on the side of the yellow garden shed the last time he’d been there.

“Seriously, you were like Jackie Chan.”

“I’ve been taking one form of martial arts or another since I was eleven. I guess it j

ust kicked in.” He took her hand and led her over to the box. As he turned on the lights, he prayed that the Jamesons were already in bed and wouldn’t see the light.

---