Rescue Me

He stuck out his arm like he was used to rescuing women, and she threaded her hand between his elbow and ribs. Heat seeped through her palm and warmed her pulse. “It was nice to meet you, ladies.”

“A pleasure, Vince.”

“Thanks for coming.”

“He’s as big as Texas!”

Together the two of them moved down the hall to the ballroom, and Sadie said, “My aunts are a little crazy.”

“I know a little something about crazy aunts.”

Yes. He did. “Well, thank you for coming tonight. I appreciate it.”

“Don’t thank me yet. I haven’t danced in so long, I’m not sure I remember how it’s done.”

“We certainly don’t have to dance.” She looked down at her cleavage, then back up into his profile. With his chiseled jaw and swarthy skin and dark hair, what struck her most about Vince was that he was all man. A ridiculously good-looking man. “In fact, I’m afraid to raise my arms.”

“Why?”

“I don’t want to fall out of my dress.”

He smiled and glanced down at her out of the corners of his eyes. “I promise to catch anything that falls out.”

She laughed as his arm bumped hers, the brush of cotton and heat against her skin. “You’d rescue me twice in the same night?”

“It’d be tough, but I’d manage somehow.” They moved into the ballroom and walked into the middle of the crowded dance floor. Beneath the glittering prisms of the crystal chandeliers, he took one of her hands in his and placed his big palm in the curve of her waist. The band played a slow song by Brad Paisley about little memories, and she slowly slid her other hand up his chest, over the hard planes and ridges, to his shoulder. Everything in her dress stayed inside, and he pulled her close, close enough that she felt the heat of his big chest, but not so close that they touched.

“But if you have to rescue me twice in one night, we won’t be square,” she said just above the music, and his gaze slid to her lips. “I’d owe you before I leave town.”

“I’m sure you can think of something.”

How? She didn’t know anything about him. Other than his aunt was crazy Luraleen Jinks, he was from Washington, and he drove a big Ford. “I’m not going to wash your truck.”

He chuckled. “We could probably figure out something more fun for you to wash than my truck.”

She’d set herself up for that one, but hadn’t her mind been running down the same track since the first or second time she’d seen him? On the side of the highway? Her window framing his package? She purposely changed the subject. “How do you like Lovett so far?”

“I haven’t seen that much in the daylight.” He smelled like cool night air and crisp cotton, and his breath brushed the left side of her temple when he spoke. “So it’s hard to say. It seems nice at night.”

“Have you been going out?” There was little to do in Lovett at night but hit the town bars.

“I run at night.”

“On purpose?” She pulled back and looked into his face. “No one is chasing you?”

“Not these days.” His soft laughter touched her forehead. Prisms of sharp, colored light slid across his cheeks and into his mouth when he spoke. “Jogging at night relaxes me.”

She preferred a glass of wine and the entire Housewives franchise to relax her, so who was she to judge? “Before you got stranded on the side of the road Friday, what were you doing with yourself?”

“Traveling.” He looked over the top of her head. “Visiting some buddies.”

There were those in town who assumed she had a trust fund. She did not. Her daddy had wealth. She didn’t. How much wealth, she didn’t know, but she had a fairly good idea. “Are you a trust fund baby?” He didn’t look like a man who lived off a trust fund, but traveling in a big gas-guzzling truck wasn’t free, and looks got a person only so far in life. Even him.

“Pardon?” He returned his gaze to her face and watched her mouth as she spoke, which, she had to admit, she found kind of sexy. When she repeated her question, he laughed. “No. Before I left Seattle a few months ago, I worked as a security consultant at the port of Seattle. Part of my job was to identify holes and weakness in the system and report them to Homeland Security.” His thumb brushed her waist through the smooth silk. “Which meant that I dressed like regular security guards or maintenance workers or truck drivers and looked for security breaches in the container terminals.”

Knowing that someone was looking out for America’s ports made her feel safer, and she told him so.

One corner of his mouth lifted. “Just because I filled out some paperwork doesn’t mean anyone paid attention or anything changed.”

Great.

“Working for the government is a lesson in frustration.” He brushed her waist again, back and forth as if he was testing the smooth fabric against the print of his thumb. “Doesn’t matter the branch. Same shit. Different wrapper.” He folded her hand against his chest and slid his free palm to the small of her back. While the band dug into another slow song by Trace Adkins about every light in the house turned on, the unexpected pleasure of Vince’s touch spread a tingling warmth up and down Sadie’s spine. He brought her a little closer and asked, “When you’re not dressed in a Bubble Yum dress like a prom queen, what do you do for a living?” His warm breath touched the shell of her right ear, and the crease of his khakis brushed her bare thigh.

Maybe it was the wine, or maybe the exhaustion of the day, but she settled into his chest. “Real estate.” She’d had only a few glasses of merlot, so it probably wasn’t the wine. “I’m an agent.” And she wasn’t all that tired. Certainly not tired enough to have to rest against a hard, muscular chest. She should probably take a step back. Yeah, probably, but it felt good to be held in a pair of big arms against a big chest. His hand slid up her zipper, then back down, spreading all the tingling heat across her skin.

He turned his face into her hair. “You smell good, Sadie Jo.”

So did he, and she breathed him in like a tingly drug. “The only people who call me Sadie Jo have Texas accents.” She liked the way he smelled and felt against her and the way he made her heart pound in her chest, making her feel young and alive. With just a touch on her back, he did things to her body that she hadn’t felt in a long time. Things she shouldn’t be feeling for a stranger. “Everyone else on the planet just calls me Sadie.” She slid a hand to the back of his neck and brushed his collar with her fingers.

“Is Sadie Jo short for something?”

“Mercedes Johanna.” The tips of her fingers slipped across the top of his collar and touched his neck. His skin was hot, warming up the tips of his fingers. “No one has called me that since my mama died.”

“How long ago did she die?”

“Twenty-eight years.”

He was silent for a moment. “Long time. How’d she die?”

So long she hardly remembered her. “Heart attack. I don’t remember a lot about it. Just my daddy calling her name and the sound of the ambulance and a white sheet.”

“My mother died almost seven years ago.”

“I’m sorry.” Her knee bumped his. “Your memories are fresher than mine.”

He was quiet for several more heartbeats, then added, “I was in Fallujah at the time. My sister was with her when she died.”

Her fingers on his collar stilled. It had been a while, but she remembered the nightly news reports and pictures of the fighting in Fallujah. “You were a soldier?”

“Sailor,” he corrected. “Navy SEAL.”

She guessed she’d been schooled. “How long did you serve?”

“Ten years.”

“I dated a Ranger once.” For about three weeks. “He was a little crazy. I think he had PTSD.”

“Happens to a lot of good guys.” She was nosy enough to want to ask if it had happened to him, but she was tactful enough not to.

Her fingers slid into the short dark hair at the base of his skull. There was just something about a strong,