HER BODYGUARD

But he was too proud. And too ambitious. And he was drawn to her. And he didn’t want her hurt, either-at least, no more than she had already been hurt by those damn kidnappers.

So he hadn’t spoken up. He hadn’t insisted on another team member handling the job. And he hadn’t taken a different assignment. And now he had left her to turn to her impetuous friend to find a way to escape him.

The town vanished behind him. The dark highway lay ahead, growing darker as clouds crept across the face of the moon and obscured the thick wash of bright stars. He pressed the gas harder, adjusted the Bluetooth device in his ear and kept going.

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On the radio, a lonely cowboy begged his girl to come over. By then, Kimberly had it turned to full volume.

Phoebe turned to her. “Can you cool it a little bit” she said. But she laughed too.

Kimberly turned to her “No I can’t” she said.

A moment later, Rowdy’s Roadhouse appeared up ahead, a wash of lovely, garish light on the dark horizon. “Arriving at your destination in point-two miles,” said the GPS. Kimberly turned it off.

She slowed as she reached the entrance to the great big parking lot lit with bright street lamps on tall poles and chock full of muddy pickups and enormous sport utility vehicles. Rowdy’s itself was a gray shingled square building in the center of the lot, complete with a giant neon sign over the door proclaiming it Rowdy’s Roadhouse and Motor Inn.

The sign had two arrows. One pointed at the door below it, the other straight up-presumably indicating the long, low building at the back of the lot, which had its own neon sign advertising rooms for rent.

Kimberly found a space when a big green quad cab pulled out. She parked and patted her pocket with the permit in it. Bartenders were usually careful to check the age of their patrons.

“We are here” she said to Phoebe.

“Finally,” Phoebe said. “Here are your shoes” She removed Kimberly’s shoes from her bag and watched as Kimberly slipped them on.

“I want you to have fun, Kim” Phoebe said as she climbed down from the pick up. “I want to have fun too. But after a while you have to call Asher and let him know where you are.”

“Fine. Fine” Kimberly said. “I will. You worry too much”

Kimberly removed some money from her bag and put it in her pocket, she didn’t want to go in with her bag and she wasn’t even carrying a lot of money. In her hurry she had simply concentrated on leaving the house. Forgetting that it was going to be difficult to get a beer and a tequila shot without cash or a credit card.

But then she shrugged and climbed down from the pickup, anyway. Even without the tequila, she could still dance with a cowboy if one would only cooperate and ask her. Or maybe she would simply have to be truly bold and do the asking herself.

It was a dirt parking lot. Not good for her shoes. Too bad. She’d come this far and she wasn’t turning back now, not even at the risk of ruining her favorite Manolos. She locked up the pickup and handed the keys to Phoebe. Then they turned toward the music and neon lights.Text property © Nôvel(D)ra/ma.Org.

Overhead, the sky was a solid sheet of darkness now. Clouds had rolled in and obscured the moon and stars. She wrapped her arms around herself, shivering a little because the night was so cold. There were cowboys leaning against the long rail on the wide front porch of the roadhouse. They watched them come toward them.

One of them let out a long whistle. “Oh, darlings. Hot and classy. Just how I like ’em.” He said. He was tall and very lean. He grinned at her and she saw he had a wide space between his front teeth.

A red-haired woman in a rhinestone shirt and studded jeans smacked his big hat off his head. “Mind your manners, Gary David, or I won’t be responsible for what happens next.”

Gary David bent and scooped up his hat. “Be nice, Clara. I was only joking around.”

Clara made a humphing sound and aimed a wide, friendly smile at Kimberly and Phoebe. “Come on in. The music’s great and the company is passable.” she said.

As it turned out, Clara was the head bartender at Rowdy’s. She took Kimberly inside and got her a beer and a shot of tequila on the house. Soon Phoebe was dancing with a very handsome guy and Kimberly was left at the bar with Clara. But not for long.

The band started up again and a cowboy tapped Kimberly on the shoulder. She took a sip of her beer, gave Clara a conspiratorial wink, and off she went to learn a cowboy dance called the two-step.

Twenty minutes later, she’d danced with three more cowboys, each as polite and gentlemanly as the one before. She was having an absolutely perfect time and thinking that maybe later she would skip out and make a call or two, see if she could reach Asher to tell him where she was and not to worry and say she would be staying out until midnight or maybe later. She was kinda beginning to feel sorry for leaving him like that. He must be worried sick. Even if he was a jerk, it didn’t mean what she did was nice.

Also, it would be a chance to make sure that no one was too terribly concerned about her having slipped away. Who knows he might call her dad and the poor man would start to worry. She didn’t want that. She could make it very clear that she was safe and warm and had only had one beer and one tequila shot and would return to the house as soon as Rowdy’s Roadhouse closed its doors for the night.

Having made that decision, Kimberly returned to the bar. Clara was pouring drinks at the other end of the bar. Rowdy’s was a busy place that Saturday night and the customers were thirsty.