rose and got in line behind him, heading out into the parking lot.
Ginny fell in step with them, bringing up the rear. By the time she was out the door, there was no sign of the four men who’d surrounded her car.
But Anson Daughtry lay curled up on the gravel parking lot, bleeding from his nose.
Without anyone to fight, the men from the bar stopped short of the man writhing in pain on the ground as if uncertain how to proceed. Ginny pushed past them with a growl of frustration and crouched beside Anson, pushing his hair away from his face.
He’d taken a few blows to the face, his cheek bruised and swollen, blood still dripping from both nostrils. One of his eyes looked puffy. And his breathing was labored.
“Call 9-1-1,” she ordered the nearest man.
“No,” Anson said, his voice pained. “I’m not that badly hurt. Just give me a second to catch my breath.”
She shot a hard look at the man she’d just addressed. “Don’t be an idiot. He’s injured and probably concussed. Go call 9-1-1 like I asked.”
The man gave a gruff reply. “I don’t have a phone.”
“I do,” another offered, though he didn’t pull it out to start making the call.
She shot him a hard glare. “Call 9-1-1,” she said with the firmness of a mother scolding a child. The man quickly pulled out his phone and started dialing.
“You sounded just like a mom.” Anson’s words came out thick-tongued. “I almost crawled back to the car for my own phone.”
Her soft, involuntary laugh caught her by surprise, because mirth was the last thing she felt at the moment. “Lie still and try not to talk. I need to go check on Danny.”
“Your brother?”
He remembered that much, she thought, relieved. “Yes. He’s...indisposed.”
“Yeah, my dad used to spend a lot of his time indisposed, too.” Anson pushed himself up to a sitting position, groaning. “Those bast—jerks kicked me in the ribs.”
“You can say bastards in front of me,” she said quietly, cupping his chin with her fingers to get a better look at his battered face. “Since I am one—”
His eyes flicked open wider. Well, one of them did. The other was quickly beginning to swell shut.
She couldn’t stop a slight smile at his surprise. She was used to being underestimated. “How’s your breathing?”
“Better now that I don’t have boots hammering my rib cage into my lungs.” He wiped his bloody nose with his shirtsleeve, looking down at the red stain as if surprised to see it. “You should probably check on your brother. I think one of the guys went over to talk to him.”
Right. Her brother.
She pushed to her feet, surprised to feel reluctance as she left his side and headed to her car, keeping an eye on the encroaching woods as she circled to the passenger side. There were plenty of gloomy shadows, but no signs of anyone moving around among the trees.
She squelched a shiver. Who the hell were those guys? And what had they wanted? Was it something to do with Danny?
The car was listing to one side, she noticed as she reached for the door handle. With dismay, she saw that the tires had been slashed on the passenger side. She’d have to call road service for a tow.
“Gigi!” Danny greeted her with a sloppy grin when she opened the passenger door to check on him. He’d attempted to buckle himself in, but he’d fastened the belt just below his breastbone. He had his arms folded over his stomach as if he was cold. Which he probably was. May had finally arrived in the Smoky Mountains, but the chill of spring still clung to the night air. “Are we home yet?”
The urge to cry nearly overwhelmed her. “Not yet.”
“I’ll just sleep a little longer.” His head lolled back against the seat.
She closed the car door and hurried back to Anson Daughtry. He was on his feet, she saw with dismay. Swaying a little, as if buffeted by the brisk night breeze blowing through the trees around them. But upright for now, at least.
She directed a stern look at Jase, who seemed to be the one person the other men looked at with respect. “We should get him inside so he can sit down while we wait for the paramedics.”
“He made us call back and cancel the 9-1-1 emergency,” Jase said quickly. “All his idea.”
“Traitor,” Anson muttered, dabbing his bloody nose with a grimy-looking handkerchief someone had supplied while she was checking on Danny.
“You afraid of doctors?” she asked.
“No.”
“Needles?”
He shook his head.
“Sterile environments?”
He made a skeptical face. “Do you know how many germs there are floating around the average hospital?”
Great. A quick-witted smart-ass. Just her luck.
“I’m okay,” he said, his expression suddenly serious. “Bruises and contusions, but nothing seems to be broken.” He gave a brief nod toward Jase. “Thanks, man, I owe you.”
Jase shrugged. “I’ll let you know when the wife’s laptop goes on the blink.” He nodded to the other men and they all headed back into the bar.
“He seems an odd friend for you,” Ginny said.
Anson managed a lopsided grin. “I’m an odd-friend connoisseur. Kind of a hobby.”
“Thank you for tonight. I don’t know who those guys were or what they were up to, but it clearly wasn’t anything good.”
He glanced toward her car. “Did you ask your brother if he knew them?”
She didn’t miss the implication. “He barely recognizes me when—”
“When he’s indisposed,” he supplied.
She nodded. “I need to call for a tow. They seem to have slashed my tires as they left.”
“Strange.”
“Are you sure you’re okay? Maybe we should call—”
“I’m fine.” He offered another pained smile.
“You should at least stop by the after-hours clinic in town. Let them look you over, make sure you don’t have any internal injuries.”
He nodded but didn’t speak. She could tell he had no intention of taking her advice. She was used to that, as well.
“Really lucky for me you were here,” she added.
Something shifted in his expression. She couldn’t quite read the quicksilver emotion, but it piqued her curiosity. She immediately shoved aside the momentary flicker of interest—she might work at a private investigation and security agency, but the last thing she needed in her life was more intrigue.
Besides, Anson Daughtry was in some sort of trouble at The Gates, wasn’t he? He’d been put on administrative leave for some reason.
“Consider the clinic,” she added as a parting shot, then headed back to the car to check on Danny and call for a tow truck.
Danny’s head rolled toward her as she slid behind the steering wheel and gripped it with her suddenly shaking hands. She’d been as solid as steel through most of the past few minutes, but apparently her adrenaline spike had passed, leaving her feeling shivery and enervated.
“Gigi,” he murmured, sounding distressed.
As she turned to look at him, the dome light that had come on when she opened the driver’s door turned off, and she got only