Eliza and Gwen both shot their eyes to the rugged cowboy who had made it to their side in less than two minutes.

Gwen's cheeks grew instantly red, and her eyes opened wide.

"Thanks for the drinks," Eliza said, trying to remove the attention from Gwen's outburst.

"My name is Rick. This here is Jimmy." Jimmy was an inch or so shorter than Rick and a good twenty pounds thinner. Both were easy on the eyes.

"Eliza," she said, "And my non-virginal friend Gwen."

Gwen elbowed her in the side and Eliza laughed.

Rick and Jimmy were kind enough not to keep the joke going. "Mind if we join you?"

Eliza nodded to the empty seat on her right. Rick sat and Jimmy said, "I'll keep an eye out for an open table."

Gwen moved a little closer to Eliza when Jimmy stepped closer to her. This was going to get awkward in a heartbeat. "Why don't I hold this," Eliza reached for Gwen's beer, removed it from her fingers. "And you two dance."

Gwen leaned over and tried to whisper. "I don't even know him."

Eliza smiled and nudged her out of her chair. "Go. We're here to have fun."

Jimmy was already reaching for Gwen's elbow.

"But I don't know how to dance like that."

Jimmy helped her to her feet. "Where are you from?"

"Outside of London." Gwen sat her purse on the barstool.

Jimmy winked. "Well, English, I learned the two-step when I was five. I'm sure I can show you."

"You sure?"

"C'mon."

Eliza followed Gwen as she stepped on the dance floor. She stiffened when Jimmy wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her close to his frame. After only a couple of missteps, Jimmy successfully had Gwen swinging to the music in what appeared to be complicated dance moves.

"Do you always watch your friend so closely?" Rick asked.

"It's in the handbook of girls. We go to the bathroom in pairs, tuck each other's tags in, and we watch out for each other."

"She doesn't seem to be watching you."

Eliza let her gaze drift to the cowboy on her right and smiled. "She's just trying to keep from breaking your friend's feet. Hard to do that and watch me at the same time." Rick was cute. His accent adding to his smooth demeanor, but he wasn't doing a thing for her libido. Chemistry was a bitch that way. On the outside, two people might seem to be right for one another, but on the inside, they simply didn't fit. Or they exploded much like her and Carter.

Rick must not have felt the same. He settled into his chair and kept the conversation going.

Carter elbowed Neil into the back of the bar far away from Eliza and Gwen and did his level best to slip into the shadows.

From the look of Gwen's faltering steps, the women had been in the bar for at least an hour, maybe two. Gwen's hair was falling out of place and on occasion her voice rose above the others. She'd danced with at least three different men in the short span of time he and Neil had been there. If it was any consolation, Eliza dumped some of Gwen's drinks into forgotten glasses on the table.

Neil's white knuckles clutched the beer in his hands as he watched Gwen spin around the dance floor. "She's drunk," he muttered through clenched teeth.

"I'd say you're right." Carter took a pull on his beer, eyes glancing over to Eliza. She was talking with two men sitting at her table where she'd spent most the night. One of them stood and offered her his hand. She hesitated, but then stood and let him lead her to the dance floor.

Her tight little ass wiggled in step with the music as if she were born to country western dancing. Her partner kept his hands on her hip for about thirty seconds, and then they started to slip.

It's hard to hold the glass when my fingers want to crush it. Another couple blocked Carter's view. He shifted in his seat but still couldn't find Eliza in the crowd. When he caught up with her, she'd called the dance short and was sitting at her table again, this time talking with another guy. When cow-dick number two reached over to touch Eliza's shoulder, Carter couldn't take any more. "You watch Gwen."

"Don't worry, I am," Neil said.

The music shifted into something slower by the time he reached Eliza's table. Not too gently, he removed cow-dick's fingers from Eliza's back and grasped her elbow.

Her shocked expression met his and the cowboy took to his feet. "Can I help you?"

A tattoo of a cross sat on the man's hand who was making time with Eliza. It was almost unnoticeable, but Carter knew its meaning. "You owe me a dance," Carter told her while ignoring the man Maybe she was too shocked to deny him, but she stumbled to her feet and let him pull her in his arms. Her heat socked him in the gut as his body grazed hers.

"What the hell are you doing here?"

Carter darted a glare at the men watching them from across the room. "Saving a woman from a bunch of yahoos planning on a night of fun."

He spun her around, she spun him back and glanced at the men. "They're harmless."

"Really?"

"They only look rowdy."

"So they've been buying you ladies drinks all night to test your limit for nothing?"

She stepped on his foot. He quickly recovered and kept them dancing. "How long have you been here...watching?"

Oh boy, he shoved his foot in far this time. "Long enough."

"How long, Carter?"

"Neil was worried about Gwen." Thinking of his best friend's sister, he lifted his gaze around the room to try to find her. He caught a glimpse of her blonde hair and petite frame as someone led her out the door. "Oh, damn."

Carter abruptly ended the dance and tugged Eliza alongside him.

Neil was already ahead of him.

The crush of sweaty bodies made it hard to cut across the bar. Carter knew at least one of the men at Eliza's table followed.

"What are we doing?"

"C'mon," he told her. They finally reached the front door and emptied onto the parking lot just in time to see Neil grab the guy Gwen had been dancing with. Neil pinned him to the hood of a truck and pulled his fist back.

"Stop!" Gwen shrieked Neil hesitated, but only for a second before his fist flew.

The man across the hood of the truck was no match for Neil. The bodyguard let loose two blows and pulled back. "The lady said no."

"Where the hell did you come from?" one of the men from the bar yelled as he shoved his way into the mix.

More people poured out from the bar to watch the drama. Carter was sure at least one cell phone zeroed in on him. A bar fight in a parking lot in Texas was probably not the best way to get votes.

"It's all over, buddy. The big guy here is just protecting an innocent woman," Carter said trying is best to defuse the situation.

"She looked willing to me," the guy yelled before the stranger's fist flew and connected with Carter's face.

He spun around and came up low, tackling his attacker around his waist and shoving him onto the nearest car.

Everything exploded around him. Carter took another blow to his torso before he returned punch for punch. Adrenaline ran through his veins like fire, fueling his swings. Muscle memory took action and within twenty seconds, Carter had the man pinned to the car alongside his buddy. "No, always means no!"

The man under him stopped struggling. Men from the bar broke through the crowd like linebackers at the fifty-yard line.

"Dammit, Jimmy, what are you two doing?" someone called.

Carter pushed away from the man he'd fought and stepped out of swing range. He stared at his enemy, waiting for him to flinch.

He didn't."

"Neil," Carter yelled. "Why don't you take Lady Gwen back to her rooms? I'll ride with Eliza."

Eliza patted Gwen on the back. "I'll see you back at the hotel."

When Carter focused on Eliza, she had her arm looped through Gwen's, both of them stared at the crowed with unease.

Gwen nodded.

He motioned for Eliza to move to her car.

"My purse is in the bar," she told him.

Neil escorted both women away from the drunken men, and Carter went inside after her purse.

He picked up Gwen's designer bag and then Eliza's. Yet when his hand landed on Eliza's bag her felt something hauntingly familiar inside. Unable to stop himself, he opened the purse and found exactly what he thought he'd see.

Why was Eliza carrying a gun in her purse?

Chapter Three.

Eliza grabbed her purse from Carter, removed the keys, and handed them to him.

She'd screwed up. Put Gwen in danger instead of helping her ward off unwanted advances from strange men. Gwen shook as Eliza and Neil lead her to the town car that Neil drove. She said she was okay, but Eliza didn't believe her. She kept glaring at Neil with misguided anger.

Once they returned to the hotel, Eliza would have her answers. Until then she had to deal with Carter.

Why were they in the bar to begin with? She should be happy with his intervention, but all she could think was that if she hadn't been distracted with Carter showing up, she could have handled everything fine.

Carter drove in silence until they hit the interstate. All Eliza could focus on was his hard profile. Strong jaw, and sexy mouth with that slightly swollen lip.

She shuddered, thinking of the pain.

"Why?"

She sucked in a deep breath, let it out slow. There wasn't a need to ask what he was referring to. Why were they in that bar to begin with? Why had she taken Lady Gwen, a sheltered debutant from the ball and to a bar? "We wanted to blow off some steam."

"Doesn't the hotel have a bar?"

"Yes. Perfectly safe and boring," she told him. "Gwen wanted more."

"Gwen doesn't know what she wants. She could have been hurt."

Eliza glanced at her hands in her lap covering her purse. "Gwen was starting to believe that all cowboys were gentlemen because they say ma'am and pull out her chair. If she didn't go to that bar with me, she'd have gone alone."

"And you helped her, how?"

"If you hadn't shown up and distracted me, I'd have kept her from leaving with that guy." Her voice rose and anger bubbled to the surface.

Carter huffed and signaled to leave the freeway.

"Why were you there anyway?" she asked.

"To keep both of you from becoming part of tomorrow's headlines. Looks like Neil and I showed up just in time." Carter's hands clutched the steering wheel as he pulled into the hotel parking lot. He bypassed the valet and opted to self park.

"It wasn't that bad."

"The guy with his hands all over you was a drug dealer. Did you know that?"

She knew about tattoos. Knew of their meaning. "Small town at best." Not that she'd given any attention to the guy when he showed up at their table. In fact when he sat down, Eliza was ordering coffee so she and Gwen could make their way out of there. She suspected the guys around her realized none of them were going to get laid, so tension started to fill the room. She was on the verge of making their excuses when Carter showed up and dragged her onto the dance floor.

"Small town. That's all you have to say on the matter?" Carter pissed wasn't a happy look. His jaw was so tight and his eyes narrowed to slits so small that stickpins would have bounced off him.

Instead of giving him more, Eliza shoved herself out of the car and slammed the door.

She made it two yards from the car when Carter spun her around for the second time that night. "Admit you were wrong and I'll let it go."

The hell!

They stood there facing each other, toe-to-toe, glaring.