back was to him, so he doubted she knew he was standing behind her like some kind of bodyguard, but he stayed where he was. She didn’t want to be touched by that guy. The way she’d jerked out of his reach made that obvious. She didn’t even want to talk to the guy, but she was being too polite about it.
Women were too polite too often, something Graham had realized after playing wingman to an endless number of Marine buddies over the years. The awkward chuckle, the gentle no, thank you, the drink or the dance they ended up accepting although they didn’t really want it at all—these were common ways women dealt with unwanted attention.
They shouldn’t have to. How old did a woman have to be before she skipped right to telling a persistent creep to go to hell?
“Go to hell,” said the woman in ruffles.
Graham looked at the back of her head and almost smiled.
The college guy looked surprised. “Don’t be like that, Em. You’ve gotten all uptight, haven’t you, without getting any—”
“Go to hell.” She didn’t raise her voice. “We’re through. We’ve been through. We’re always going to be through. I don’t want to drink, and I don’t want to dance. Leave me alone.”
She turned her back on the guy, but since she hadn’t known Graham was so close behind her, she nearly collided with him, her cheek grazing past his chin.
“Oh, sorry.” Her apology was automatic, a reflex.
He put a hand out to steady her, also reflexively. But over her head, he locked gazes with the other guy deliberately.
“I heard her,” Graham said. “Didn’t you?”
The guy glanced at the way Graham kept his hand on her arm, and he hesitated—his first smart move. For all the guy’s youth, he was still a grown man, only an inch shorter than Graham, but there was nothing he could do that Graham could not counter, bad shoulder or not. That wasn’t cockiness; that was confidence, earned the hard way, year after year in the Marine Corps.
Think about it, pal, before you put another finger on her.
Graham waited, hand lightly resting on her soft skin so he could get her out of the way if push came to shove.
Another opening of the door, another burst of light. The woman called Em nodded politely at Graham and stepped around him, her ruffles and soft hair whispering past his shoulder. Then she was gone inside, disappearing along with the light as the door slammed shut.
The woman who’d exited the ladies’ room drawled an approving hello in the dark as she rubbed her way past Graham to head back into the crowd. His night vision was shot, but he didn’t need it to know the college guy had made the smart choice and beat a retreat.
Which left Graham alone. Again.
He was next in the men’s line, but when the door opened, he almost turned to let the next man have his place. Graham didn’t want to miss her when she came back out.
Her. Em.
Just as quickly as he recognized that anticipation, that almost hopeful desire to see her again, he pounded it down. Hopeful. Who did he think he was?
She was self-possessed, confident—intriguing to him. But she was still young, a woman who’d calmly set her boundaries while wrapped in youthful blue ruffles.
He was nothing more than a jarhead who’d left the Marine Corps, who’d spent a year after that burning a few bridges in the corporate world, who’d returned to grad school only to drop out weeks ago. He was on his way to take the only job offer he had left, one from his uncle, one that would barely pay minimum wage, but one that would require little to no human contact in the rural part of Texas. He’d given up on fitting in with the world, and he had no business forgetting that tonight, not even for a minute.
Let the beauty live her beautiful life.
He stalked toward the blinding light, straight into the toilet stall, and slammed the door.
* * *
Oh, my gosh. Ohmigosh, ohmigosh—who was that man?
Emily washed her hands quickly, thoughts racing.
Heart racing.
She wasn’t sure what had just happened. She’d taken one look at him and bam! Her heart had started pounding. Then when she’d turned around and brushed against his body, she’d practically melted at his feet. He was hot. Hot in a way that the other men in her world weren’t.
She had the impression he could be dangerous, but she couldn’t say why. He’d just stood there, really. Just said one sentence to her idiot ex and nothing to her at all. But there was an aura about him that left her in no doubt that he was a man with whom one did not mess. An aura and a hard body.
She shivered as her soapy fingers slid together, but it was a delicious shiver. None of that danger had been directed her way, but she’d felt it. And it had triggered just about every primitive response she was capable of. More than she’d known she was capable of. She’d never met a man like that, not on her college campus, not even among the cowboys on her family’s ranch. She’d grown up here in cattle country, so she knew plenty of men who were plenty masculine, but none had ever been so...dangerous.
No, he wasn’t dangerous to her. What was the word she was looking for?
Sexual.
Maybe it was just sexy to have a man step in to defend her.
Him, Tarzan. Me...Jane?
No way. As long as Emily could remember, she’d always been able to rope and ride and keep up with the boys in her life. Unlike poor helpless Jane, Emily would never stand still in a frilly dress and scream uselessly, waiting for a man to swoop out of the jungle to save her.
Maybe that’s why no man ever has before.
She hadn’t known she could feel like Jane, body set all aflutter because a physically powerful man had brushed against her dress. Emily barely dried her hands before using the paper towel to yank the door open.
Too eagerly.
Slow down.
Had she learned nothing in her twenty-two years? Had her sisters’ dramatic love lives taught her nothing? Her mother’s three marriages?
Slow down.
She, Emily Dawn Davis, was not going to have her life derailed by a man. She was no Victorian miss, no helpless paragon of femininity waiting for a man to complete her. In fact, she’d prefer not to have a man in her life at all right now. She had plans. Things to do. Places to be. Goals to accomplish.
But not tonight.
She was going to have to obey her family and return to Oklahoma Tech University in three days whether she stayed at this bar another three minutes or three hours. She’d intended to leave when she’d realized her ex was here at Keller’s and her friends were not, but now...
A dangerous man had appointed himself her bodyguard. For once, she understood the appeal in having a man take care of everything. What would life be like as Jane, not having to stand up for herself as long as Tarzan was around? She could just look pretty in her new blue dress and—and—
And not be in charge of my own life.
Her mother was controlling enough. Her older sisters, too. This entire winter break had been one frustration after another as they put roadblocks in her path. The last thing she needed was a man to give her his opinions on where to go and how to live.
It was time to leave. There was nothing she needed from a man, not even from a bodyguard.
The men’s room door opened, and Tarzan stepped out in a blaze of light.
Sex.
Well. There was that.
She took in all the vivid details as the door slowly swung shut behind him. He wore a navy blue