some action."
She couldn't get her knee up to ram it against what he was so proudly
pushing against her. She couldn't get her hands free to shove or
scratch. Panic started as a tickle in her throat, then spread like a hot
flood when he shot a hand under her skirt.
She was preparing to bite, scream, and spit when he was suddenly
airborne. All she could do was stay pressed against the bar and stare at
Ethan.
"You all right?"
He said it so quietly that her head bobbed up and down in automatic
response. But his eyes weren't quiet. There was rage in them, so primal
and primitive that she shuddered.
"Go on out and wait in the truck."
"I--he--" Then she squealed. It would embarrass her to remember it
later, but it was the only sound that came out of her tight throat when
the man rushed at Ethan like a battering ram, head lowered, fists
clenched.
She watched, staggered as Ethan simply pivoted, jabbed once, twice, and
flicked the man off like a fly. Then he bent, grabbed the man by the
shirtfront, and hauled him up on his rubbery legs.
"You don't want to be here." His voice was steel with dangerously sharp
edges. "Because if I see you here after the next two minutes, I'm going
to kill you. And unless you got family or close personal friends,
nobody's going to give a damn."
He tossed him away, with what seemed to Grace no more than a twist of
the wrist, and the man crashed into a table. Then Ethan turned his back
as if the guy didn't exist. But none of the stony fury had faded from
his face when he looked at Grace.
"I told you to go wait in the truck."
"I have to--I need to--" She pressed a hand between her breasts and
pushed up as if to shove the words clear. Neither of them looked as the
man scrambled up and stumbled out the door. "I have to lock up.
Shiney--"
"Shiney can go to hell." Since it didn't appear that she was going to
move, Ethan grabbed her hand and hauled her to the door. "He ought to be
horsewhipped for letting a lone woman lock up this place at night."
"Steve--he--"
"I saw that sonofabitch go flying out of here like a bomb was ticking."
Ethan intended to have a nice long talk with Steve as well. Soon, he
promised himself grimly as he pushed Grace into the truck.
"Mollie--she called. She's in labor. I told him to go."
"You would. Damn idiot woman."
The statement, delivered with such bubbling fury, stopped the trembling
that had just begun, cut off the babbling gratitude she'd been about to
express. He'd saved her, was all she'd been able to think, like a knight
in a fairy tale. But the thin, romantic mist that had been shimmering
over her still-reeling brain evaporated.
"I'm certainly not an idiot."
"You sure as hell are." He whipped the truck out of the lot, spitting
gravel and knocking Grace back against her seat. His rare but formidable