Rescue Me

hollered.
    “He’s not mine. He’s—”
    “Luraleen’s nephew, Vince!” Bess answered close to Nelma’s deaf ear.
    “I thought she said she liked women! Bless her heart!”
    Sadie closed her eyes. Just kill me now . There was nothing wrong with being lesbian, but she just happened to be straight, and Nelma yelling that she liked women was as embarrassing as if she’d hollered that she liked men. It made her appear desperate. She opened her eyes and looked up into the dark, handsome face of the stranger in front of her, amusement adding a slight tilt to the corners of his mouth and creases to the corners of his eyes.
    “Rescue me,” she said just above a whisper.

Chapter Six
    H e 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