Boots and Leather: Ugly Stick Saloon, Book 2 (13 page)

Mark backed against the wall and tried to breathe past the constriction in his throat. “She can’t.”

“I got her to promise to stay until after the masquerade ball. I don’t want her to go. She’s the best bartender I’ve ever had and besides that, she’s been a good friend. A girl doesn’t come by those too often.”

“You have to make her change her mind.” Luke stepped forward. “We need more time with her.”

Audrey slipped an arm around Jackson’s waist. “You think I haven’t tried? She’s pretty determined. If I could make her change her mind, I’d have done it by now. I was hoping you two could convince her.”

Mark stared across at Luke. “How?”

“Oh, come on, boys.” Jackson gave them his best disappointed-big-brother look. “You got Audrey and me together. Surely between the two of you, you’ll come up with a way.”

Luke hung his head, looking as much like a kicked puppy as a grown man could. “We can’t make her stay if she doesn’t want to.”

Mark realized the truth of his twin’s statement. Everything about Libby had pointed to her love of freedom—from her biker-babe, free-riding ways to the joy she’d shown at the open, light and airy feel of their home site. Making love on the deck, in the pool, on a horse, under the stars, had all been done in the open where the wind or sun caressed her naked beautiful skin. “We have to convince her.”

“She’s been adamant about no commitment,” Luke reminded him.

Mark’s fists clenched. “I thought she was giving herself an out.”

“She did, and now she’s taking it.” Luke sighed.

“Do I detect the stench of defeat?” Jackson stood straight, his shoulders back, his head held high and proud like a Kiowa warrior. “My brothers, you shame me with your lack of courage. If you want the woman, go after her. Win her with your bravery, your chivalry and…”

Audrey laid a hand on Jackson’s arm. “Win her with your heart. Libby doesn’t like to be hemmed in. I think she’s running from something. She wouldn’t tell me what, but whatever it is keeps her on the move. Find out what her dragon is, slay it and you just might convince her to stay.”

Luke nodded. “Yes and no. We need to find out what makes her think she has to leave and clear that up, but we can’t convince her to stay, we have to convince her that she can go anytime she likes.”

“What?” Mark stared at his brother as if he had lost his mind.

“She needs to know that staying with us isn’t caging her, it’s her choice and she’s free to leave anytime. We won’t hold her back.”

Audrey smiled. “Luke, I think you have it right. I’ll see what I can do to get you three alone, but no guarantees. It’s a madhouse tonight, and it doesn’t look like it will slack up anytime soon.”

“Thanks, Audrey.” Mark touched her arm. “We’ll do our best to make Libby happy.”

“That’s all that matters.” Audrey hugged Jackson around the middle. “I’m glad I have you, dear.”

“And me, you.” Jackson dropped a kiss on her head. “Finding you and wooing you was way too much drama. I wouldn’t want to go through that again.”

When her brows rose into the hair hanging over her forehead, Jackson held up his hands. “But I would, if I had to. You’re worth it.” He pulled her into his arms and kissed her soundly.

Mark and Luke left the couple in a deep lip-lock and hurried back into the saloon’s main room.

The band had taken a break and someone had put a bump-and-grind song on the stereo system.

A loud whoop went up from the entire room full of people as all eyes turned toward the bar.

Kendall, Lacey and Bella were being lifted up to the polished surface, where they joined Libby. The red corsets and skirts had every man in the place whistling and catcalling so loud, the music faded into the background.

When they lifted Charli up onto bar, she carried a microphone and leaned against one of the brace posts, one leg sliding up the other as she sang a dirty, sexy song while Kendall, Lacey, Bella and Libby danced in unison.

The crowd clapped in time, swaying to the sound, laughing and shouting, reaching out to touch the girls on the bar. One drunk cowboy made a grab for Libby’s ankle and almost pulled it out from under her.

Mark lunged forward, ready to slam a fist into every one of the men who tried to grope Libby.

Luke’s backhand across his chest stopped him before he’d gone two steps. “You can’t. It’s part of her job with the saloon.”

“But I want to rip that guy a new asshole,” Mark said through clenched teeth.

Libby pressed her stiletto to the man’s forehead and pushed him back hard enough the crowd had to catch him.

Luke laughed. “The woman can hold her own.”

The other men around him shoved the drunk to the rear, refusing to let him back up to the bar.

“Come on, we need to get to the front of that crowd. I want to talk to Libby.” Mark nudged and pushed through the wall of men, all hollering for the dancers as they strutted, turned and ground their hips to the song Charli sang.

Luke followed right behind Mark as they made slow progress through the throng.

One man raised his fists, his face blotchy with anger and alcohol. “Hey, don’t push me.”

“Not trying to start a fight.” Mark backed off, unwilling to get into brawl, when all he wanted was to get to Libby.

Luke slammed into Mark, and Mark bumped the man with the raised fists, shoving him against another guy.

Fist Man swung at Mark’s face.

Mark shouted, “Duck!” He leaned right.

The fist whiffed past his ear and hit Luke in the jaw.

Luke staggered backward, stepping on the cowboy behind him and knocking him across a table.

Mark faced off with Fist Man and landed a punch in his breadbasket.

The man didn’t even flinch, but his face reddened to a mottled patchwork and he let out a roar. He ducked his head and rammed into Mark’s gut, railroading him through the crowd until he hit a table, slid across it and landed on his back on the floor, stunned and with the wind knocked out of his lungs.

Others who’d been flung or pushed aside leaped into the fray and fists flew unchecked.

Greta Sue muscled her way toward Mark, lifting him up off the floor. “You all right?”

Mark nodded, just beginning to breathe again. When he stood, he swayed, scanning the melee for his twin.

Luke faced off with Fist Man and another guy, holding his own in a two-to-one fist fight.

“I gotta make a call.” Greta Sue let go of Mark and hurried toward the back of the bar and the telephone.

Charli had stopped singing, joining the girls on the bar in the fight to keep the groping hands from toppling them into the crowd.

Everyone was shouting and no one could hear anything, even the sound of sirens. Until the sheriff and five of his deputies pushed through the door. One raised a megaphone to his lips and announced, “Party’s over.”

Behind the deputies, one of the news reporters who’d come for the rodeo had his camera up, floodlights on, blinding the drunks and sober patrons alike.

Fist Man laid in one last punch, sending Luke flying backward into a chair that immediately tipped over backward.

Mark lunged for the cowboy, but never made it there.

A deputy grabbed him from behind and twisted his arm up behind him.

The noise died down and a voice could be heard booming over the others. “Give me that.”

The megaphone gave a shrill whine and a voice blasted through the room. “Elizabeth Stratton, get down off that bar, immediately.”

All eyes turned toward the sound. Mark glanced over his shoulder to see what they were staring at.

A man in a business suit fiddled with the megaphone and it blasted the room with another shrill squeal. He was flanked by two hulks also dressed in business suits looking more like giant apes playing dress-up. The man with the megaphone pointed at the bar and repeated, “Elizabeth Stratton, get down off that bar.”

Luke picked himself off the floor and stood beside Mark. “Which one is Elizabeth Stratton?”

The deputy jerked Mark toward the door. “Come on, Lone Ranger, it’s a night in the pokey for you.”

“Wait.” Mark jerked free of the deputy. He gazed toward the bar as Libby’s face turned as white as a sheet and she fell forward into the crowd. “Libby!” Mark lunged forward, only to be stopped by a hand twisting his arm up between his shoulder blades. “Let me go. She could be hurt.”

“The others caught her. There’s a medic outside.” The deputy grunted, holding tight to Mark. “You have more worries.”

“I haven’t done anything wrong,” Mark insisted.

“I’d say disturbing the peace and disorderly conduct classify as wrongdoing. Now are you coming with me or do we add resisting arrest?”

Mark glanced at the man holding him. “Cramer, now is not the time to pay me back for stealing your date at prom six years ago.”

Deputy Cramer smiled. “I’d say payback is long overdue. Keep moving.”

Mark shouted over his shoulder. “Luke. Take care of Libby.”

“I’ll do what I can.” Luke was already muscling his way through the crowd to where Libby had landed.

Mark glanced back as the deputy pushed him through the door and out into the clear Texas night sky.

Lights swirled on top of no less than five law enforcement vehicles and two ambulances that had come from both Temptation and Hole in the Wall to converge on the county line at the Ugly Stick Saloon.

As Deputy Cramer crammed him into the backseat of his SUV next to a passed-out drunk, reeking of puke and alcohol, Mark ground his teeth.

What had just happened in there? Why had Libby fainted? And what did it have to do with that man who’d called out for Elizabeth Stratton?

Chapter Nine

Libby perched on the side of a bed in the Emergency Room of the small hospital in Temptation, wishing there was a drug that would make her disappear. The white walls and sterile environment seemed to close in around her and she couldn’t get out. She was waiting for the doctor to release her after her dramatic faint on the bar at the saloon.

“Where’s my daughter?” a deep male voice echoed in the corridor.

“I’m sorry, sir. Who is your daughter?” a nurse’s voice asked, patiently.

“Elizabeth Stratton.”

Libby cringed and pulled the sheet up around her face, wishing she could hide.

A pause and then the nurse stated, “We don’t have an Elizabeth Stratton listed. Perhaps she was taken to Amarillo?”

“She was brought here, I tell you,” the man said.

“Perhaps you could describe her.”

“Five feet six, red hair, green eyes. Twenty-five years old.”

“The only woman we have by that description was brought here tonight from the Ugly Stick Saloon fight.”

“Which room?” the man demanded.

Libby cringed, gathering the sheet and pushing it aside.

“I’m sorry, sir, unless you have proof you’re family, visiting hours start at nine in the morning. You’ll have to come back then.”

“The hell I will.” Footsteps pounded on the tiles and doors slammed against the walls as they were flung open one at a time down the hallway. “Elizabeth!”

Libby held her breath and waited for the door to fly open and all hell to break loose. If she’d thought it was bad in the saloon, it would be nothing compared to what was about to go down when her father finally caught up to her.

She slid out of the bed and raced for the window, but it was one of those kinds that never opened. Her gaze darted to the bathroom door, but before she could get there, her door slammed open and her father stood there, his towering frame filling the void, trapping her in the room.

Her heart fluttered in her chest and butterflies filled her belly as her life came full circle to when she was a prisoner in her own home, surrounded by wealth, duty and bodyguards. She sighed. “Hello, Daddy.”

For a long moment, John Stratton stood there, his gaze raking over her.

Part of Libby rejoiced at seeing her father for the first time in two years. The other knew what it meant and rebelled at the loss of freedom.

“Where the hell have you been for the past two years, girl?” he demanded, his face flushing a deep, ruddy red.

She ignored his question and glanced beyond him, her brows rising. “Where are your bodyguards, Daddy? You never go anywhere without them.”

“They’re on their way to the jail in some town called Hole In The Wall, damn it.” He poked a finger toward her. “No thanks to you. That’ll be our next stop once I get you out of this place.”

Libby’s fists tightened. Standing barefoot in her hospital gown, she knew she didn’t look like a force to be reckoned with, but she hadn’t lived two years on her own without growing a backbone.

“Sir, you really cannot disturb the patients at this hour.” A nurse stood behind her father, holding a clipboard chart in both hands, evidently ready to use it if the man got violent. “I’ve called the police. If you don’t leave, they’ll arrest you for disturbing the peace.”

“I don’t give a rat’s ass what the police do. This is my goddamn daughter and she’s coming with me, now.”