The Bride Wore Blue Jeans

June stopped. Turning, she leaned in to him. Her hair, worn loose tonight even though she hadn’t changed her clothes from earlier today, brushed against his face. “What’s your pleasure?” she repeated.

You.

The silent response caught Kevin completely by surprise. Where the hell had that come from? He didn’t think about her in those terms. In comparison to him, she was a child, for heaven’s sakes. Why had he even thought that?

Simultaneously clearing his mind and his throat, Kevin said, “Scotch and soda,” a tad too loudly.

She nodded. Her hair seemed to shimmy as it flowed about her shoulders. Kevin stifled the urge to thread his fingers through the strands and push them away from her face.

June was still holding on to his hand. He shoved the other one into his pocket to stay on the safe side.

“Sounds simple enough,” she acknowledged.

Reaching the bar, she elbowed her way in and met with resistance. The man to her right wasn’t budging. Tall and muscular, he was taking up more than his allotted share and laughed when she tried to get him to move. June frowned, annoyed.

“Hey, Haggerty, leave a little room for the guest of honor,” she told him.

The man grinned down at her. “I’d rather leave just enough room for you, June. Say, about this much?” Holding his hands apart, he indicated the tiny pocket of area right before his torso.

Taking a step forward, Kevin found his way impeded by her hand as she waved him back. He saw June’s profile become rigid. “Only if you want to sing soprano, Haggerty.”

The man’s grin only broadened as he struck a cocky stance. “Oh, a few minutes with me, June, and I could have you singing another tune.”

All the protective instincts he’d developed over the years galvanized in a single movement. “The lady asked you to move.” Ignoring the glare June tossed his way, Kevin stepped in front of her. “I suggest you do that while you’re still able to do so on your own power.”

Haggerty’s grin hardened a little. The man’s eyes swept over him, looking him up and down. Kevin had no idea what conclusion was reached, only that he wasn’t about to back down.

And then Haggerty snorted. “Bad luck to punch out the guest of honor on his first night in Hades.” He drained his mug, then set it down on the counter with a slam. “Guess I’ll have to wait on that.”

Kevin didn’t look away. “Guess so.”

And suddenly Ike was on the other side of the counter, breaking up the tension with his easy voice. “On the house, Haggerty.” He placed a tall glass of stout beer before the miner. “As long as you drink it over there.” He pointed to a pocket of space at the far end of the saloon.

Haggerty’s eyes lowered to the drink. When he raised them again, his expression could almost be called amiable. He picked up the glass. “I never said no to anything free.”

Ike watched him until Haggerty was well out of earshot, then turned his attention to the two people directly before him. He wiped away a smudge on the bar. “What’ll it be?”

“Scotch and soda,” Kevin told him.

Reaching under the bar, Ike brought out the good stuff and began to pour. “Goes without saying that yours is free, too, Kevin.” He pushed the glass toward his guest. “And a bit of advice to go with it. Next time, pick on someone your own size,” he cautioned, “not a gorilla.”

Kevin lifted the chunky glass in his hand. “He was bothering June.”

June squared her shoulders. At five-one, she was the shortest in her family, as well as the youngest, and took offense easily because of both. “I can handle myself.”

He wasn’t about to argue with her. “Always nice to have backup.”

Ike grinned and leaned over the bar, as if to impart some deep wisdom.

“Listen to the man, darlin’. There’s strength in numbers.” He glanced over to the man who was standing nursing his beer, watching them even as he was talking to someone at his side. “To my recollection, Ben Haggerty’s not a mean drunk, but there’s always a first time.”

She shrugged, picking up the tall, foamy mug that Ike placed before her. “Worse comes to worst, I can have Max arrest him.”

“Won’t do you much good if it’s after the fact, darlin’,” Ike commented. Someone at the far end of the bar raised his hand and called his name, though the latter melted into the din before it reached him. “Well, I’m off.” He paused to nod at the glass in Kevin’s hand. “Let me know when you need another.” With that he moved to the other end of the bar.

Taking a long sip, Kevin looked over toward where Haggerty had gone. The man was no longer looking at them. “He give you trouble before?” Kevin wanted to know.

June took a long swig of her beer, then wiped away the foam from her upper lip. “Haggerty?” Kevin nodded in response and she shrugged. “No more than some of the others.”

“The others?” Just how many men came on to Max’s sister?

She hadn’t given it much thought. She did now as she considered his question. “The other men.” Despite the sparse lighting in the saloon, she could almost see the thoughts as they formed in Kevin’s eyes. She wasn’t sure if she should be insulted or touched. She settled for giving him an explanation. “Kevin, the men outnumber the women in Hades about seven to one and the winter nights out here do get lonely.” She shrugged again. “Sometimes the men get a little pushy, but we’ve never had anyone assaulting a woman if that’s what you’re thinking. It’s not that kind of a place.”

She was young and innocent, he thought. Too bad the world wasn’t that way. “Every place is that kind of a place.”

She shook her head, amused, as she took another long sip. “Spoken like a man from the big city.”

“No, spoken like a man who’s been around, who knows that human nature isn’t always as kind as we’d like it to be.”

There was more, but it wasn’t his place to tell her about Alison, about the way a trusted family friend had, under the guise of comforting her over her father’s death, gone too far and scarred her so much as a young woman that it became almost impossible for her to ever be intimate with a man. That had it not been for Luc and his overwhelming gentleness, his sister might still be alone and hurting. It would have proved his point, but he had no intentions of revealing Alison’s personal business to do it.

Finishing her beer, she set her glass down on the bar and then looked at him. A slight frown played on her lips. “Why do you do that?”

He didn’t follow her. “Do what?”

Her brow furrowed with impatience. “Why do you talk as if you’re an old man?”

He wasn’t aware that was what he was doing, only that he was trying to make her a little less trusting. Better safe than sorry. “Well—”

“You’re not, remember? I thought we settled that on the plane.” She cut him off before he could offer an explanation. She didn’t want one, all she wanted was for him to realize that he was still in the prime of his life.

He looked around. It was hard to judge how old most of the men in the area were. But he felt it safe to venture that they were closer to his age than to hers. “Maybe not if you consider the men in the bar.” And then he looked pointedly at her. Funny, she made him feel old and young at the same time. But chronology was chronology. “But I am, in comparison to you.”

She was very, very tired of being thought of as the baby in the bunch. She’d already run her own business and sold it at a profit and was now engaged in a second career. What did it take to get through to these people that she was a grown woman?

“I’m not a child.”

He smiled at her. “I didn’t say that.”

She didn’t care for the indulgence she saw in his eyes. She didn’t like being humored or patronized, only acknowledged. “And I can take care of myself.”

He nodded. “You already said that.”

Annoyed, she blew out a breath, trying not to lose her temper. “So, what is there left to say?”

She reminded him a great deal of his sisters when they were being particularly stubborn. “Anything you want.”

Somehow, through the ebbing and flowing of the crowd, they’d managed to be moved toward the door again. She took a deep breath of the outside air that had found its way into the establishment and calmed down a little. “All right, why are you so sad?”