with a loud crack. His vicious curse sliced through the night as she half walked, half ran, praying that he’d curl up to nurse his pain and forget about her.
The sound of heavy footsteps pounding the sidewalk behind her told her that wasn’t going to happen.
Her heart sank. Nausea rolled through her stomach as she stepped up her pace and, not for the first time in her life, wished she had the backbone and the skill to strike back.
The crowd had thinned to a handful of people when Daniel spotted his ice cream lady about a half a block ahead. Pleasure, unexpected and uncontested, had him forgetting about sleep and unnecessary distractions and heading in her direction.
He was within a few yards of her when he realized she wasn’t alone—whether by choice or by accident, he couldn’t tell. A big man, over six feet and roughly two hundred ten, two hundred twenty pounds, was dogging her like a jet trail.
Daniel sized him up with a practiced eye. He didn’t like what he saw. Bully came immediately to mind. A real bruiser with a nasty attitude. He could only hear snippets of their conversation as they stopped by an older-model gray compact car. He heard enough to grasp that the guy was obnoxious and ugly, though, and about as welcome as a wad of gum on the bottom of her shoe. He picked up on something else, too. She was afraid of him.
Daniel’s stomach bunched into tight knots when the creep grabbed her arm and squeezed hard enough to make her wince. That was as far as he was willing to let this go.
Two
Daniel picked up his pace, then momentarily lost track of her when he got tangled up in a group of rowdy, laughing teenage girls. When he finally broke free of them and spotted her again, she was heading away at a fast walk. The guy was hot on her heels.
Daniel caught up with her at a fast jog.
“Hey, babe.” Moving in close beside her, he physically cut off the other man with his body. “Slow down, would you? I lost you for a while there,” he added, slinging an arm over her shoulders with the easy familiarity of a man claiming his woman.
She stopped so fast he had to steady her to keep her from toppling over. When she looked up at him, the eyes behind her glasses were huge and round and scared. It took a moment but eventually she recognized him from the concession line.
He smiled and reassured her with his eyes. Play along. I’ll get you out of this.
“How was your ice cream?” he asked and nudged her back into a walk.
“F-fine,” she finally managed to say, cueing in to his intentions and falling into a faltering step beside him.
“Who the hell are you?” an angry voice demanded from behind them.
“Just keep walking,” he said, lowering his mouth to her ear. For her sake, he didn’t want to make a scene, and he figured the best shot at avoiding one was to walk away.
A beefy hand clamped on his shoulder and stopped him.
So much for what he’d thought.
“I said who the hell are you?”
Daniel turned, a deceptively neutral smile in place. “I’m the guy who’s taking the lady home. Now, if you’ll excuse us—”
“You threw me over for him?” The stench of alcohol explained the slurred words. “For this pretty boy? I knew it! I knew you were screwin’ around on me!”
“Jason.” Her voice was thin and tight. Embarrassment flooded her chalk-white cheeks with color. “We are over. We’ve been over for two months now. What can I say to make you understand that?”
“Yeah, Jason,” Daniel echoed with false congeniality. “What can she say to make you understand?”
“Stay out of this,” Jason snarled and started in on her again. “We are not over, Mouse. Not till I say so.”
Red ringed the eyes that narrowed into angry slits. Hands the size of small anvils clenched into tight fists at his sides. He wanted to hit something. With a sickening twist in his gut, Daniel realized what—or in this case who—it was.
“Don’t even think about it.” He shoved her behind him and stepped into the line of fire. “And then do yourself a favor. Walk away. Just walk the hell away.”
Jason, who easily outweighed him by twenty or thirty pounds, snorted. “You think you wanna piece of me, pretty boy?”
“Oh, I’d love a piece of you, Clyde.” Daniel smiled pleasantly. “But you’re just not worth my time. Now back off and leave the lady alone or this is gonna come down to you and me and the nice policeman walking toward us. You want to go down for attempted assault with a little drunk and disorderly tacked on for good measure? Make a move and you’ve got it.”
“Problem here, folks?”
“I’m not sure.” Daniel glared at Jason as the uniformed officer approached them. “Is there a problem?”
Jason glowered but finally shook his head.
“Is there a problem?” Daniel repeated, turning his attention to a pair of doe-brown eyes, relaying with his tone that all she had to do was say the word and this bozo was history.
She hesitated then shook her head. “No.”
Daniel watched her face for the length of a deep breath, not knowing what to make of that. What he did know was that it wasn’t his call. It was hers, and since he’d come in at the middle of this particular movie, he wasn’t going to make any snap judgments.
“Guess there’s no problem.” He flashed the officer a tight smile. “Thanks anyway.”
Daniel shot Jason a warning glare. Then he waited to make sure the other man got the hint to move on. When he stalked off, Daniel wrapped his arm around her shoulders again. “Come on. Let’s get out of here.”
She tried for a smile—of relief or gratitude, he couldn’t tell which. Regardless, it didn’t matter, because she didn’t pull it off anyway. She was shaking so hard that he expected her to vibrate right out from under his arm. She surprised him, though, because when he started walking she let out a pent-up breath that seemed to drain her of her tension and fell into step beside him.
He looked down at the top of her head, comfortable with the easy way she fit against him, not so comfortable with the intensity of the protectiveness he felt for her.
True, it wasn’t the first time he’d been ready to take a fall for a woman. As a rule, though, he generally liked to know a whole helluva lot more about her before he got his lights punched out. For starters, he thought with a cheeky grin, he at least tried to make it a point to know her name.
Phoebe figured she was in shock. She couldn’t think of another reason why she was letting a total stranger wrap his arm around her and walk her farther and farther away from her car. She supposed there was the very real likelihood that Jason had scared her witless. And then, there was the fact that the man steering her down the sidewalk was quite possibly the most beautiful man she’d ever seen.
“You okay?” she heard him ask. The way
