Footloose

He shook his head. “No. Come on. Does this have something to do with your ex?” he asked as they walked.

“I don’t want to talk about it. This looks like a good place,” she added and ducked inside another bar.

“Hey, wait,” Jack called after her, but she disappeared into the crowd. Shrugging, Jack figured she needed her space, although he didn’t see how she was going to find any space here. The place was packed.

Leaning against the bar, he ordered a Corona with lime. As he half-watched the baseball game on the television, he glanced around the bar every now and then for Amelia. A couple of beach bunnies approached him and he amused himself by chatting with them for a few minutes.

But he kept checking around for Amelia. Just as he began to wonder if she was sick in the ladies’ room or something, he spotted her on the other side of the bar, cornered by two guys. The guy with a shaved head was touching her hair. The other appeared to be urging her to finish her drink.

When she tried to move away, the two men closed in even tighter. A surprising wave of protectiveness surged through Jack, and he wove through the crowded bar toward her.

“Hey, babe,” he said, “I was afraid I’d lost you. We’d better hit the road soon.”

One of the guys looked at him and shook his head. “You snooze, you lose. We’ve got dibs on this one,” he said in a slurred voice.

The other guy nodded. “Yeah.”

“Actually, I’m with him,” Amelia said and tried to move toward Jack.

The first guy blocked her again. “But, honey, we were just getting started. Bo and I were telling you what a good time we could show you.”

“She’s not interested, Curly and Bo, so leave her alone.”

The bald guy glared at him. “Butt out. If she’d wanted to be with you, then why was she alone?”

Growing impatient with the two, Jack cracked his knuckles behind his back. He’d knocked more than one drunk on his ass and he was pretty sure he could take these two, but he’d learned it was usually better to avoid fights if possible. Almost always less expensive.

“Sweetheart, you aren’t drinking alcohol, are you? You know what the doctor said about that,” he said to Amelia and watched her face turn blank.

The two men looked at him in confusion.

“I know you’re not showing yet, but you will be in a month or two, and you shouldn’t drink alcohol when you’re pregnant,” he continued, silently willing her to play along.

“Pregnant?” Curly echoed, looking slightly ill.

Bo stared at Amelia. “You don’t look pregnant.”

Meeting Jack’s gaze, Amelia put her hand over her stomach. “Twins,” she said. “Aren’t we lucky?”

The bald guy swore under his breath. “Twins,” he said in disgust. “You should wear a warning sign or something. C’mon, Bo.”

The moment the men were swallowed up by the crowd, Jack snagged her wrist and tugged her toward the door. “I think we’d better go before I have to mess up my hands.”

“Pregnant,” she said with a small smile. “My mother would be horrified.”

“Good thing she’s not here,” he said. “How did you get hooked up with those two?”

She shook her head. “All I did was walk out of the ladies’ room and they ambushed me.”

He sighed, stopping in the middle of the street. “It’s the way you look.”

“What do you mean?”

“Sweet, gullible, too polite to say no,” he clarified.

“I said ‘no, I need to go’ repeatedly.”

He shrugged, looking at her pink cheeks, blue eyes and angel blond hair. “You’re gonna have to learn how to put some stink in it or no one will believe you.”

“I shouldn’t have to take up kickboxing in order to make my point,” she said.

“No, but the pregnant scheme may not work all the time. And some guys are just too stupid to understand that a polite no is still a no. Pains me to say this, Magnolia, but one of the things you need to put on your list is learning how to be a little nasty when the occasion calls for it.”

She lifted her nose in distaste. “I realize I’m not as experienced as you are, but politeness has served me very well.”

“Like tonight?” he said.

She frowned at him. “This was an exception.”

“Life’s not a G-rated Disney movie. If anyone should know that, you should. Look at what happened with your Mr. Happily-Never-After. If you’re gonna step out of your little cocoon, you’re going to meet some people you like and some you don’t. It’ll go easier on you if you’re prepared to handle the rough ones.”

Jack stared at her for a long moment, feeling that unwelcome sense of protectiveness swell inside him again. He realized he’d just delivered a lecture. Swearing, he shook his head. “Hey, I’m not your father. Do what you want.” He gave a short laugh. “Maybe I should have left you alone with Curly and Bo.”

“No,” she said and looked away. “I think I could have gotten out of that situation, but it was getting uncomfortable. I appreciate you—helping me.”

“You’re welcome,” he said. “So who’s gonna help you when I make you uncomfortable?”

She gave a soft smile. “Oh, Jack. You’ve given yourself away. You’re a gentleman.”

He shook his head. “No one has ever accused me of that before, so I wouldn’t count on it.”

She just continued to smile, which irritated the hell out of him. “Come on,” he muttered. “You want to go to another bar?”

She shook her head. “Can we go in a few shops? I realize ‘shop’ is a four-letter word for most men—”

“I can handle it,” he said. “If I get lucky, I can watch you get a tattoo in a special place.”

“Not tonight,” she retorted and wandered into a tacky beach shop filled with T-shirts plastered with suggestions for sexual experimentation.

Laughing at her rounded eyes and red cheeks after she’d read a few, Jack followed her as she hot-footed it out of the shop. “Didn’t see anything you like?”

“No, thank you,” she said, carefully studying the window display of the next shop before peeking inside the door.

“It’s safe,” he said, unable to keep a hint of mockery from his voice.

Rolling her eyes at him, she walked inside and looked at the jewelry. Jack had found the previous store much more amusing, so after five minutes, he excused himself and went to the bar across the street where he could catch more of the ballgame. After half an inning, he strolled back to the shop, amazed to find her still studying the jewelry.

“You’re still here? You could have gotten a dozen piercings by now,” he said.