was asked for.
“What happened?”
“I was on my way to my truck and these two were dusting it up. The guy laid hands on the woman and I told him to stop.”
“Did you threaten either of them?”
“No. I just told him to leave her alone.”
“According to the witnesses,” the deputy said to Trace, “the female suspect struck you without provocation and then the male suspect—” he glanced down at his notes “—took a swing and from that point on you were acting in self-defense.”
“The guy in the black hat pushed her against the truck and she struck her head on the side mirror. She didn’t appear to be hurt, so I thought I’d distract him so she could leave.” His jaw tightened. “She chose not to go.”
The deputy gave a weary nod. “I’ll be dealing with both of them. Her for battery on you. Him for battery against both of you. Do you want to press charges?”
Trace shook his head. He just wanted to forget the evening, and he really wanted Annie to leave.
“Then you need to head on home.” The deputy gave him a long, hard look. “Are you okay to drive?”
“I only had one beer.”
“I’m talking about your injury. Maybe you should go to the ER. Get checked out.”
“It’s an old injury. He didn’t do it.”
“He didn’t do it any good, either,” the deputy said, shaking his head again.
“I’ll take him home.”
They both turned to see Annie standing a few feet away. Trace’s chin jerked up. Yeah, as if he’d let her. He’d had his quota of embarrassment tonight.
“He got his head pounded against the ground at one point,” she told the deputy. “Pretty hard.”
That’d happened early on. She’d seen the whole thing.
“I’m fine.”
Annie merely raised her eyebrows at the deputy, who then nodded. “Yeah. Take him home. Thanks, Annie.”
Thanks, Annie. Trace’s mouth tightened, but there was no good to be had from arguing with the law, so he started for his truck.
“My car is over here,” Annie called.
“Her car is over there,” the deputy echoed. Trace reversed course and by the time he got to Annie, she’d finished saying a few words to her friend and pulled the keys out of her pocket.
“It won’t kill you to accept a ride home,” she murmured. “I’ll help you get your truck in the morning.”
And the only thing that kept him from arguing was the fact that, yeah, he was starting to feel a little light-headed. He knew that feeling. Knew it well, actually. It happened when he got clocked too hard in the arena. It’d pass, but maybe he should be grateful instead of all surly. So after he scrunched himself into the front seat of Annie’s car, he said, “Thank you.”
She snorted a little and started the engine. “Right.”
“No. Really.”
She shot him a look then shook her head.
“What?”
He saw a corner of her mouth tighten. “No wonder Grady asked me to keep an eye on you. You’re here less than a week and you’ve already tangled with Shelly Hensley.”
“What a minute.” Maybe he’d been clocked harder than he thought. “Why would you need to keep an eye on me? Grady asked me to keep an eye on you.”
“Whatever.” She slowed to a stop at an intersection then continued on out of town.
Trace fell silent, irritated, his shoulder throbbing. They rode for several miles and it wasn’t until they got close to his place that Annie said, “Hey,” in a somewhat grudging voice.
He glanced at her, frowning.
“He didn’t tell me to keep an eye on you. He said you might need a contact in the community. You did. It all worked out. And I know that he asked you to keep an eye on me. He told me.”
Trace nodded instead of answering.
Annie pulled into his driveway and then stopped next to the front walk. “Is everything really okay?”
“I just got beat up by a douche bag. What do you think?”
Her expression softened an iota. “If you need anything, will you call?”
“Like what, Annie?” It was the first time he’d said her name out loud and it sounded oddly intimate. She seemed to think so, too, because those blue eyes widened then narrowed.
“I don’t know what your needs are,” she said calmly.
He did and he was beginning to feel a need directed toward her, despite the humiliation of the evening. He had to get out of there. He reached for the door handle. “I’ll figure out a way to get my truck.”
“Or I could pick you up on my way to work at eight.”
She was challenging him. Trace rarely if ever backed down from a challenge. “Thanks.”
“Common sense wins. Cool.” She gave her slim shoulders a shrug and despite the pain beating through him, and the very real concern that he’d set his rehab back by a week or two, Trace found himself wanting to smile.
* * *
ANNIE TOLD HERSELF—firmly—that there was no need for her to feel self-conscious about picking up Trace Delaney and giving him a ride to his truck, which was parked where she parked every day. It was the natural thing to do. The neighborly thing to do.
They were kind of neighbors...several-miles-apart neighbors, but they had the same zip code.
She pulled her car up to the gate at the end of Trace’s walkway. The dogs shot out from behind the house, leaping up and down, their heads appearing and disappearing from behind the fence, and a few seconds later Trace came out of the house, looking dark and withdrawn.
He held his shoulder stiffly and his arm wasn’t in his jacket sleeve, which concerned her, but having grown up a bull rider’s sister, she didn’t say a word about it and pretended not to notice the grimace of pain that flashed across his face as he got into her car.
“Thanks for doing this,” he said politely as he folded himself down into the seat. Apparently he felt self-conscious about being ferried back to his truck. Men.
“Not a problem.”
Once Trace was in the car and the door was shut, Annie couldn’t decide if the car was too small or if he was too big. Only he wasn’t big. He was tall and lean. Wiry, as bull riders tended to be. But the car felt different
