Page 5 of Between Two Thorns

Mr. Charming he was squaring up for a fight against the douchebag brigade.

“Hands off, asshole.”Chad flexed his stupid pecs—laughably unmenacing. “I saw her first.”

“I am not some sack of potatoes you can grope and toss over your shoulder.”

“C’mon now, girlie,” Chad ducked his head to taunt, his wing men chuckling like he’d actually said something clever. “We were just working up a sweat.”

Rose bristled, unable to hold her barbed tongue as she stepped towards Chad. “If that’s how you get a girl worked up, your dick’s gonna stay as dry as the Sonoran Desert.”

There was just enough time for the very mature and utterly called for group “OOOOooo!”

When Chad reached behind him and grabbed his friend’s half-drunk pint.

“I’ll show you wet, bitch.”

He upturned the beer over Rose’s head, ruining her curls, soaking her pink tank top to cling revealingly to her bralette, and making her shriek with the cold. And the indignation.

Before the rest of the scene unfolded so fast, she could barely keep up.

Del’s arm suddenly tightened around her middle like a vise. Rose’s feet were off the wooden floor as he lifted and turned her in one fluid motion, hauling her away from Chad and his crew. And his free fist swung to clock Rose’s assailant right in his shit-eating face.

That wall of bodies reacted again. Gasping as one. Hands covering mouths. Stunned silence before a burst of tumultuous noise.

Del carried Rose away from the dance floor.

***

“That was totally fucking awesome!” Rose couldn’t help but cheer, her enthusiasm making her wriggle around in Del’s hold.

He was still bodily hauling her from the fight on the dance floor, where someone had thrown an elbow and hit someone’s girlfriend, causing a domino of idiots threatening to sucker punch each other.

Del took most of her weight on his arm and against his side, like it was easy to carry her right out the door.

Now was not the time to find this feat of strength so incredibly attractive.

“Hold up. Where are we going exactly?” Rose leaned back from him, the door swinging forward and hitting her in the rear.

On her one good foot, that was enough to knock her forward, off of the concrete block and towards the cold parking lot—when steady arms caught her against his chest, and set her back upright.

“Thank you, again, saved my life, twice in one night. My hero.” She grinned, but Del’s green eyes quickly looked away from her. Before she could prompt him further, the man shrugged off his baggy jacket and draped it around her shoulders.

A grunt was the only answer he gave. And a grunt was not enough answer for Rose.

“Not to sound ungrateful or anything, because swooping me up was awesome, but you are dragging me into the parking lot—”

“Does that mouth of yours ever take a break?” Del stopped to ask, at the corner of the bar, where a back alley would be, if the nearest building wasn’t miles and miles away.

Rose kept her arm around those shapely shoulders as she leaned back to look at him, balancing on her one good foot. “Does yours ever start?”

He rolled his eyes, and she smirked.

“Gotta have someone look at yer ankle.” Del had already decided, jerking his head around the corner. “Damn lucky someone I trust is in town.”

Their destination soon became clear—the parked an ambulance out back of the bar. Which, Rose had to admit, was slightly concerning.

It waited neatly in a designated spot, lights off, back doors open. Was this standard procedure for a typical college bar? Rose had to wonder. Or just the ones in the middle of nowhere? Or…just the ones that got too rowdy?

Dead Wood Ranch was remarkably injury free, but the few times ambulances had been called out from the county hospital, they had been mostly white and red vans.

This thing was all blue and gold.And Rose saw why as they came up to the back. “Private EMS” was printed nice and bold and diagonal across one side.

Her ankle wasn’t that bad off, was it? Course, Del wasn’t letting her put any weight on it. Had she actually told him her name?

All of these thoughts bounced around the redhead’s brain until she saw who was sitting between the open ambulance doors. Her suspicions cooled like the rapidly dropping temperatures now that the sun had set the moment Mr. Charming and in Charge looked their way.

“Del?” He lifted his head, and even the harsh light in the back of the vehicle couldn’t do a damn thing to make him look a mite less handsome. And they were going to be the death of her with these accents.“Y’alright?”

His eyes fell on her, and they were this gorgeous dark color, like rich black coffee and just as warm and inviting. Making her wish she was wearing something more worthy of that gaze—or at least something slightly less translucent from a recent beer drenching.

“Are you alright, ma’am?”

Neither Rose nor Del had to answer the EMT, because when the younger man loosened his grip around her hips, the redhead stumbled. Her ankle gave a painful twinge before Del could compensate for her clumsiness and pull her back upright.

“Ah, dance floor-related ankle injury.” Sam deduced, pursing his lips with a tease of a serious tone.

Rose suddenly remembered she had lips and a mouth that had to do things to make words to other human beings.

Before she could get her tongue around a sound, Sam hopped off the end of the ambulance and patted the metal step thingy that jutted off of it.

Rose moved to make the hop up herself, like an independent gal should, but Sam and Del must be psychically linked or just that attuned to each other. Without a word exchanged, the younger gripped Rouse around the middle, lifting her easy but gentle into the back of the medical vehicle. While the older man cradled her leg and kept it straight.

“What’s your name sweetheart, can you tell me the date?”

He was already probing around her ankle with deft fingers, just in case the bone was broken.

“Rose Woods, it’s—well, it was my birthday,” she sighed, puffing out her lips so the hair that wasn’t sticking to her face was blown. She wasn’t having a great night… until two gorgeous men were putting their hands on her. Rose had to admit she was feeling a lot less pain.

Sam flipped his wrist over, looking at his watch. “Technically, it still is.” He offered a smile. “Happy birthday.”

Rose’s heart fluttered somewhere around her stomach when he smiled and said that voice. Though the young woman scowled that she had not outlasted Cinderella on the dance floor.

Her appreciation for the medic’s twang dimmed slightly with the next question he asked. “And how much have ya had to drink tonight, Ms. Woods?”

Rose snapped her lips shut, feeling thorny indignation bristling over her skin.

“Not a damn ounce, despite my best efforts.” Rose folded her arms over her chest with a huff, hiding a shiver as her wet shirt suddenly became cold. Or maybe she just realized it. “Thank you very much.”

Sam snorted and rolled his dark eyes before he looked back at her.

Rose stuck up her chin—defiantly.

The EMT glanced over at Del, who gave a one-shouldered shrug.

“Oh, well, my apologies, ma’am.” Sam ducked his head to her before looking down at her ankle. “No fun having a drink spilled on you…though it looks like someone stuck up for you.” He murmured.

Rose followed Sam’s gaze to Del’s hand—where she noticed for the first time that one of his knuckles was split and bleeding.

The dirty blond lifted his arm, looking at the injury from slugging Chad, and shrugged. “Had worse.”

The EMT made a gesture, offering his hand to examine the younger man’s fingers, but Del just pulled his sleeve up over the cut.

Sam paused, letting it linger, as if giving Del a breath to reconsider—but then the EMT let his hand fall away.

His movements were a little more confident on her leg, holding it like it wasn’t broken and reaching back into the ambulance bay and searching through one of the cabinets.

“Looks like it’s just a bad sprain. I’m gonna wrap it and you should keep it elevated.”

Rose pouted anyway. “Does that mean no more dancing?” Her arms slipped down her chest as her shoulders slumped.

“Just gonna end up fallin’ on your ass again.” Del snorted, but his green gaze betrayed a shimmer of concern and worry that warmed his attempt at icy indifference.

Sam finished wrapping her ankle and looked up between the two of them. “You fell, too? Did you hit your head?”

“No,” Rose answered at once, and she was fighting to keep the pout off of her face. But Sam nodded and seemed to believe her.

“Does your tailbone feel bruised?”

Rose couldn’t help it. The words were out of her lips before she could bite them back. “Are you asking to see my tail or to bone?”

Her heart had one painful beat in the silence that followed her impulse, wondering if she’d stuck her newly wrapped foot in her mouth.

Rose’s heart restarted when Sam tilted his head back and laughed. Loud and rich and happy in a way that warmed her soul against the chill of the night.

Rose grinned, and she thought she even caught the edge of a smirk from Del.

Sam shook his head, setting her leg down to the side.

Rose bit her lip when he caught her eye for a beat too long.

Just long enough.

“Well, since it is your birthday,” he was still grinning as she stared at the way the gray in his beard perfectly accentuated his mouth. “I guess I can let ya get away with that, sweetheart.”

And Rose turned a brilliant red.

Warmed up from her very core, her heart beating in the most fantastic way as the blush rushed to her cheeks. And made her feel all sorts of warm and fuzzy inside.

“Well, if I’m gettin’ away with stuff.” Rose leaned back on her hands, deciding to continue being bold. “You see, there’s this birthday wish I’ve got.”

She saw the guys exchange a glance. And her pulse raced.

“A quest, if you will.”

She could see their reactions—a slight and polite raise of Sam’s eyebrows, and absolute narrowed-eye suspicion on Del’s face.

“Oh relax, it’s nothing like that.” Rose waved her hand to ease them. The sleeve of Del’s jacket was too big for her and flapped when she did. The redhead shoved it back up her arm. “It’s a kiss quest.”

Sam let out a chuckle that seemed to ease the tension in Del’s shoulders. “Lemme guess, sweetheart, you’d like it by midnight?”

Rose grinned up at him. “See, he gets it.”

Del turned his eyes up to Sam then, and she felt once again like a silent electric buzz was passing between them. She held her breath, waiting for them to decide.

Which one...maybe, even both?

Sam’s mouth opened first. “I think...”