I felt like a rag doll.”
“You do your best and take what comes,” he said at her ear. “Anybody can lose a fight.”
“I’ll bet you never lost one,” she muttered tearfully.
“I got the hell beaten out of me in boot camp by a little guy half my size, who was a hapkido master. Taught me a valuable lesson about overconfidence,” he said deliberately.
She took the handkerchief he placed in her hands and wiped her nose and eyes and mouth. “Okay, I get the message,” she said on a broken sigh. “There’s always somebody bigger and you can’t win every time.”
“Nice attitude,” he said, approving.
She wiped away the last trace of tears and looked up at him from her comfortable position across his lap. “Thanks for the hero stuff.”
He shrugged. “Shucks, ma’am, t’weren’t nothin’.”
She laughed, as she was meant to. Her eyes adored him. “They say that if you save a life, it becomes yours.”
His lips pursed and he looked down at where the jacket barely covered her torn blouse. “Do I get that, too?”
“Too?”
He opened the shirt very slowly and looked at the pale flesh under the torn blouse. There was a lot of it on view. Sally didn’t protest, didn’t grab at cover. She lay very still in his arms and let him look at her.
His pale eyes met hers in the faint light coming from the house. “No protest?”
“You saved me,” she said simply. She sighed and smiled with resignation. “I belonged to you, anyway. There’s never been anyone else.”
His long, lean fingers touched her collarbone, his eyes narrow and solemn, his expression serious, intent. “That could have changed, tonight,” he reminded her quietly. “You have to trust me enough to do what I tell you. I don’t want you hurt in this. I’ll do anything I have to, to protect you. That includes having a man follow you around like a visible appendage if you push me to it. Think what your principal would make of that!”
“I won’t make any more stupid mistakes,” she promised.
“What would you call this?” he mused, nodding toward the ripped fabric that left one pretty, taut breast completely bare.
“Cover me up if you don’t like what you see,” she challenged.
He actually laughed. She was constantly surprising him. “I think I’d better,” he murmured dryly, and pulled the shirt back over her, leaving her to button it again. “Dallas is at the window getting an education.”
“And I can tell how much he needs it,” she said with dry humor as Eb helped her back into her own seat.
“That makes two of you,” Eb told her. His eyes were kind, and now full of concern. “Will you be all right?”
“Yes.” She hesitated with her hand on the doorknob. “Eb, is it always like that?”
He frowned. “What?”
She looked up into his eyes. “Physical violence. Do you ever get to the point that it doesn’t make you sick inside?”
“I never have,” he said flatly. “I remember every face, every sound, every sick minute of what I’ve done in my life.” He looked at her, but he seemed to go far away. “You’d better go inside. I’ll take you and Stevie out to the ranch Thursday and Saturday and we’ll put in some more time.”
“For all the good it will do me,” she managed to say nervously.
“Don’t be like that,” he chided. “You got overpowered. People do, even ‘big, strong’ men. There’s no shame in losing a fight when you’ve given it all you’ve got.”
She smiled. “Think so?”
“I know so.” He touched her disheveled French knot. “You wore your hair down that spring afternoon,” he murmured softly. “I remember how it felt on my bare chest, loose and smelling of flowers.”
Her breath seemed to stick in her throat as she recalled the same memory. They had both been bare to the waist. She could close her eyes and feel the hair-roughened muscles of his chest against her own softness as he kissed her and kissed her…
“Sometimes,” he continued, “we get second chances.”
“Do we?” she whispered.
He touched her mouth gently. “Try not to dwell on what happened tonight,” he said. “I won’t let anyone hurt you, Sally.”
That felt nice. She wished she could give him the same guarantee, but it seemed pretty ridiculous after her poor performance.
He seemed to read the thought right in her mind, and he burst out laughing. “Listen, lady, when I get through with you, you’ll be eating bad men raw,” he promised. “You’re just a beginner.”
“You aren’t.”
“That’s true. And not only in self-defense,” he added dryly. “You’d better go in.”
“I suppose so.” She picked at the buttons of the shirt he’d loaned her. “I’ll give it back. Eventually.”
“You look nice in it,” he had to admit. “You can keep it. We’ll try some more of my clothes on you and see how they look.”
She made a face at him as she opened the door. “Eb, do I have to go and see the sheriff?”
“You do. I’ll pick you up after school. Don’t worry,” he said quietly. “He won’t eat you. He’s a nice man. But you must see that we can’t let Lopez’s people get away with this.”
She felt a chill go down her arms as she remembered who Lopez was. “What will he do if I testify against his men?”
“You let me worry about that,” Eb told her, and his eyes were like green steel. “Nobody touches you without going through me.”
Her heart jumped right up into her throat as she stared at him. She was a modern woman, and she probably shouldn’t have enjoyed that passionate remark. But she did. Eb was a strong, assertive man who would want a woman to match him. Sally hadn’t been that woman at seventeen. But she was now. She could stand up to him and meet him on his own ground. It gave her a sense of pride.
“Debating if it’s proper for a modern woman to like being protected?” he chided with a wicked grin.
“You said yourself that none of us are invincible,” she pointed out. “I don’t think it’s a bad thing to admire a man’s strength, especially when it’s just saved my neck.”
He made her feel confident, he gave her joy. It had been years since she’d laughed so much, enjoyed life so much. Odd that a man whose adult years had been imbued with such violence could be so tender.
“Okay now?” he asked.
