Open Season

by Linda Howard

  The other man, lean and blond, also clad in the de rigueur jeans and T-shirt, grinned. “C’mon, Jeff, don’t be selfish.” Deftly he unhooked Daisy’s hand from Jeff’s and spun her away from him.

  Daisy looked over her shoulder at Jeff, her eyes a little wide as she wondered what would happen. Jeff grinned and shrugged, then motioned to the table where he would be.

  “Are you friends?” she asked the blond man.

  “Yeah, we work together. I’m Denny, by the way.”

  “Daisy,” she said again.

  The love song ended and the band immediately swung into a foot-stomper. Lines formed, and Denny pulled Daisy into position. “Wait!” she protested frantically. “I don’t know how to do this!”

  “It’s easy,” he yelled back. “Just follow my lead.”

  The line dance involved some stomping and whirling, and she managed to stomp and whirl not too far behind the rest of them. She and Denny bumped into each other at one point and she began laughing at herself. She was so out of place here, in her old-money classic clothes, surrounded by jeans and tube tops, but this was fun. She hadn’t been here ten minutes yet, and already two men had come on to her. That was more attention than she’d had in . . . oh, thirty-four years.

  The line dance ended, and the band segued into another slow song, for a breather. Denny had barely gotten his arm around her waist when another guy cut in on him, and he surrendered her to yet another man. This one was older, probably in his fifties, with a close-cropped gray-and-brown beard, and not much taller than she was. He could dance, though. He grinned at her, said, “My name’s Howard,” and expertly twirled her. Daisy laughed, giddy with excitement and joy as their hands caught and he twirled her back into his arms.

  Howard didn’t mind showing off his expertise, so Daisy polished up her rusty skills as fast as possible and did a credible job, she thought. She was nowhere near as good as he was, but at least she didn’t stumble, and she didn’t step on his toes.

  After Howard came Steven, and after Steven was a guy named Mitchell who had big brown eyes and a shy smile. By that time Daisy was breathless and more than a little warm. “I need to sit this one out,” she gasped, fanning herself with her hand.

  Mitchell slipped his hand under her elbow. “I’ll get you something to drink,” he said. “Beer? Wine?”

  “Just water, for now,” she said as she walked off the dance floor and looked around for a place to sit. The tables were just as crowded now as they had been five dances ago.

  “Ah, c’mon, have some wine,” Mitchell cajoled.

  “Maybe later. I’m really thirsty now, and water’s best for that.” Besides, she had to drive home.

  “A Coke, then.”

  His big brown eyes said he wanted to buy her a drink, and she was thwarting him by insisting on water. She relented. “Okay, a Coke.”

  His shy smile bloomed. “Wait right here,” he said, and plunged into the crowd.

  That was easier said than done. The swarming, shifting crowd constantly forced her to move this way and that, and within five minutes she was quite a distance from where Mitchell had left her. She peered toward the bar, trying to pick him out of the mass of bodies, but she didn’t know him well enough to recognize him in a crowd and, besides, it might take him a long time to get the drinks. The new shoes fit very well, but they were still new, she had danced five dances, and her feet hurt. She wanted to sit down. She rose on tiptoe, trying to spot an empty chair.

  “Looking for a place to sit?” a burly guy yelled, and looped a beefy arm around her waist before she could react, hauling her down on his lap.

  Alarmed, Daisy immediately tried to jump up. He laughed and tightened his arm, pulling her back, and instinctively she put her hand down to brace herself. Unfortunately, she braced herself on his crotch, all of her weight bearing down on her hand.

  He yelped, a high-pitched sound that rose above the din of music and voices. Suddenly aware of where her hand was and what she was feeling, Daisy squeaked and tried to leap up again, and her downward shove brought an even higher sound from the burly guy. Actually, it was now approaching a scream, one that brought heads turning their way.

  Her face heated and she began struggling in earnest, but she couldn’t find her balance or purchase, and wherever she put her hand seemed to be wrong. She felt something soft grind under her knuckles, and the burly guy turned purple.

  My goodness, it was amazing how things escalated. Distracted by the steam-whistle noise coming from the burly guy, a man accidently walked into a woman and made her spill her drink down her dress. She screamed, and her boyfriend swung at the other man. A chair overturned, a table was shoved, and there was the sound of breaking glass. People scattered. Well, some people scattered; others seemed to leap in their eagerness to join in the fray.

  The melee was like a tidal wave, sweeping toward her, and she couldn’t get to her feet to escape it.

  An iron clamp suddenly wrapped around her waist and hauled her off the poor guy’s lap. He collapsed on the floor, wheezing and holding his privates with both hands. Daisy squealed and clutched at the clamp, surprised to find it was merely flesh, but there was no way she could wiggle free. Her feet didn’t even touch the floor as she was swiftly carried away from the tangle of heaving bodies and swinging fists. The nightclub’s bouncers were wading in now, cracking heads left and right and roughly restoring order, but Daisy didn’t get to see what happened because the bouncer who carried her waded through the throng as if it were water, moving people out of his way with his free arm, and before she knew it she was bundled out the door and deposited on her feet with a thud.

  How humiliating. Her first time in a nightclub, and she was thrown out.

  Her face burning, she turned to apologize and found herself staring up at Chief Russo. The apology froze on her tongue.

  There was the sound of more breaking glass inside, and a stream of people suddenly erupted out the door as the more prudent decided to leave while the leaving was good. The chief caught Daisy’s wrist and hauled her to the side, out of the way. The yellow neon sign spelling out the club’s name spilled light down on them, not even giving her the protection of darkness. Maybe he wouldn’t recognize her, Daisy thought in panic. Her own mother hadn’t even recognized her—

  “Well, if it isn’t Miss Daisy,” he drawled, in a very good imitation of a southern accent, and her hope of not being recognized was blown out of the water. “Do you come here often?”

  “No, this is my first time. I can explain,” she blurted, feeling her face turn red.

  He stared down at her with narrowed eyes. “I can’t wait to hear it. In the space of thirty seconds you castrated a guy and started a brawl. Not bad for your first time here. Let me know when you’re planning on coming back, and I’ll stay home that night.”

  Well, no way was he going to make her the blame for that fiasco inside, she thought indignantly. “It wasn’t my fault. That man grabbed me, and when I put my hand down to brace myself, I... ” Her voice trailed off as she tried to find a delicate way to describe what had happened.

  “Grabbed his balls and smashed them flat against the chair seat,” Chief Russo finished for her. “I was about to step in, but when he began hitting those high notes, I figured you had the situation well in hand, so to speak.”

  “I didn’t mean to! It was an accident.”

  Suddenly he grinned. “Forget about it. He’ll think twice before he grabs a strange woman again. Come on, I’ll walk you to your car.”

  She didn’t want to be walked to her car. She didn’t want to go to her car at all. Wistfully she looked at the door. “I don’t suppose I could—”

  “No, your dancing is over for the night, twinkle toes. You need to get out of here before the sheriff’s deputies show up.”

  She sighed, because she had been having such fun—until she had accidentally castrated the burly guy, of course—but she supposed the chief was right. The deputies might just arrest everyone and sort
things out later, and she could just imagine what everyone would say if she got arrested. He took her arm and forcefully turned her toward the parking lot. “Where’s your car?”

  She sighed again. “Over there.” She crunched over the gravel to her car, with Chief Russo looming beside her and his hard hand never loosening its grip on her elbow, as if she were a prisoner he expected to bolt. She was glad he hadn’t handcuffed her.

  Cars were leaving the parking lot in every direction, and the two of them had to weave their way through the traffic. When they reached her car, he released her arm, and she got her keys out of her bag, then unlocked the car. The chief opened the door for her and Daisy slid behind the wheel. “Have you had anything to drink?” he asked suddenly.

  “No, not even a Coke,” she said, forlornly remembering the brown-eyed man who hadn’t made it back to her in time. She was so thirsty, starting a brawl was almost as much exertion as dancing.

  He braced one arm on the top of the open door and the other on car’s roof, leaning down to study her in the glare of the dome light. “You’ve been sandbagging,” he finally said, his eyes narrowed again. He seemed to be studying the open collar of her shirt. “Hiding under those god-awful granny clothes you usually wear.”

  Even the chief of police had noticed how unstylish her clothes were, Daisy thought. How humiliating. “I’m turning over a new leaf,” she explained.

  He grunted and straightened, stepping back so she could close the door. She started the car, hesitated, then lowered the window. “Thank you for getting me out of there,” she said.

  “It seemed the smart thing to do. The way you were going, that poor guy was looking at dismemberment.” He lifted his head, listening intently. “I think I hear sirens. Go home before the deputies get here.”

  Still she hesitated. “What about you?”

  “I’ll help them sort things out.”

  That’s right; he didn’t have to worry about being arrested. She started to ask him to keep quiet about her being there, but realized she had just as much right to go to a nightclub as he did. Besides, maybe she wanted people to know she’d been at the Buffalo Club. That would certainly change the way people saw her. She wanted men to think of her as approachable and available, and just improving her appearance wouldn’t accomplish that.

  “Will I have to give a statement?” she asked.

  Exasperated, he snapped, “Not unless you keep hanging around. Now get your ass out of here while you still can.”

  Well! Without another word, Daisy stomped on the gas pedal, slinging gravel and making her tires squall as she fishtailed out of the parking lot. Startled, she fought the steering wheel for a panicked moment before she remembered to take her foot off the gas. The tires stopped squalling as they gripped the road, and much more sedately, she continued down the road. She had never made her tires squall before in her life. Oh, my goodness, what if the chief had been hit by some of the gravel? She started to go back and apologize, but flashing lights appeared in her rearview mirror and she decided it would be best to get her ass out of there, just as he had said.

  NINE

  It wasn’t everyone who could go out for a night of honky-tonking, dance until she was ready to drop, start a brawl, and be home by nine o’clock, Daisy told herself the next morning. So the night hadn’t been an unqualified success; the first part of it had been very successful. What’s more, she’d had fun and she was going to do it again. Not the brawl part—at least, she hoped not—but definitely the dancing and attracting men part.

  After church, where she endured the blatant curiosity of all her fellow churchgoers—people who should have known better than to stare at someone—she ate a quick lunch and changed into one of her new pairs of jeans, intending to drive over to Lassiter Avenue to see how Buck Latham had progressed on painting her house. Now that she was well and truly launched on her new path, she was eager to move out on her own. As she walked out on the porch with her purse and car keys in hand, however, a white Crown Victoria pulled to the curb in front of the house.

  Her heart sank as she watched Chief Russo unfold his big frame from the driver’s seat. She had glossed over the previous night’s episode to her mother, thinking it best not to let on that she’d smashed a man’s testicles. She suspected Chief Russo was here to spill the beans and read her the riot act, as if he had any room to talk, because he certainly hadn’t been at the Buffalo Club in any official capacity. He’d been out trolling, the same as she, but at least her intentions were honorable.

  He was dressed in jeans, too, and a black T-shirt that clung to his broad, sloping shoulders. He looked more like a weight lifter than ever, she thought with a sniff. Remembering how easily, with one arm, he had carried her out of the Buffalo Club last night, she knew she had accurately pegged him.

  “Going somewhere?” he asked, standing on their short, flower-lined sidewalk and looking up at her as she stood on the shady porch.

  “Yes,” she said baldly. Good manners dictated she should say something like, Oh, I was just going to run to the supermarket for a minute, but that can wait. Why don’t you come in and have coffee? She limited her reply to that one word. There was just something about him that made her forget her raising.

  “Aren’t you going to ask me in?” he asked, eyes glinting in a way that said he was more amused than put out.

  “No.”

  He jerked his head toward the car. “Then come for a ride with me. I don’t think you want to have this discussion outside where all your neighbors can listen in.”

  Her heart lurched. “Oh, my God, are you taking me downtown?” She hurried down the steps as a horrible thought occurred to her. “That man last night—he didn’t die, did he? It was an accident! And even if he did, wouldn’t that be justifiable homicide?”

  He scrubbed a hand down his face, and she stared suspiciously at him. It looked as if he’d been hiding a grin. For goodness’ sake, this was nothing to laugh about!

  “As far as I know, your boyfriend is all right; probably sore and walking a little funny, but alive.”

  She blew out a big breath. “Well, that’s a relief. Then why are you taking me downtown?”

  He did that face-rubbing thing again. No doubt about it, this time: he was laughing at her. Well!

  He reached out and took her arm, his grip warm and too firm, as if he were accustomed to handling miscreants who didn’t want to go with him. “Don’t poker up on me, Miss Daisy,” he said, stifling an audible snicker. “It’s just. . . Downtown doesn’t have quite the same ring to it in Hillsboro as it does in New York.”

  Well, that was true, considering they were already practically downtown, only a few blocks from the police station and the business section. He still could have been nicer about it.

  As he opened the front passenger door of his car and put her inside, the front door opened again and Evelyn came out. “Chief Russo! Where are you taking Daisy?”

  “Just for a ride, ma’am. We’ll be back within an hour, I promise.”

  Evelyn hesitated, then smiled. “Y’all have a good time.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” the chief said gravely.

  “Oh, great,” Daisy muttered as he got in the car. “Now she thinks we’re seeing each other.”

  “We can go back and set her straight, tell her what’s really going on,” he offered as he pulled away from the curb, not even waiting for her answer. That was so annoying; of course she didn’t want to do that, but he knew it before he even made the offer. He was just being a smart aleck.

  “I had just as much right to be at that club as you did,” she said, crossing her arms and sticking her nose in the air.

  “Agreed.”

  She lowered her nose down to give him a startled look. “Then why are you interrogating me? I didn’t do anything wrong. The brawl wasn’t my fault, and I truly didn’t mean to smash that man’s testicles.”

  “I know.” He was grinning again, darn him. Just what was so funny?

  “Then w
hat’s wrong?”

  “Nothing’s wrong. And I’m not ‘interrogating’ you. I asked you to come for a ride; that’s a helluva lot different from taking you to an interview room and grilling you for hours.”

  Relieved, she let out a whoosh of air and relaxed in the seat, then immediately sat upright again. “You didn’t ask me, you told me, so what else was I to think? ‘Let’s take a ride.’ Cops say that all the time on television, and it always means they’re taking you downtown to be booked.”

  “So the scriptwriters need to learn some new dialogue.”

  A new thought, an appalling one, occurred to her. My goodness, the chief wasn’t courting her, was he? Their encounters had always been bristly, but last night had shown her what a difference her new appearance made in the way men treated her. Her stomach knotted; she wasn’t at all practiced in telling a man to shove off, she just wasn’t interested. He couldn’t be interested, could he? Maybe she didn’t look as much better as she thought.

  Swiftly she flipped down the sun visor and peered into the mirror attached there, then just as swiftly flipped it back up. Oh, dear.

  “What was that about?” he asked curiously. “You didn’t look long enough even to check your lipstick.”

  She’d forgotten all about her lipstick. Anyway, a quick peek was all it took to tell her that, no, she wasn’t mistaken about the change.

  “I was just wondering if cop cars had visor mirrors, too,” she blurted. “It seems kind of. . . sissy.”

  “Sissy?” He looked as if he were biting the inside of his jaw.

  “Not that I’m questioning your masculinity,” she said hastily. The last thing she wanted was for him to feel he had to prove his masculinity to her. Men, she had read, tended to take such comments personally. Their egos were all tied up with their virility, or something like that.

  He sighed. “No offense, Miss Daisy, but following your train of thought is like trying to catch a jackrabbit hopped up on speed.”

  She didn’t take offense, because she was too thankful he hadn’t been able to follow that particular train. Instead she said, “I wish you wouldn’t call me Miss Daisy. It makes me sound like an—” She started to say old maid, but that description hit too close to home. “—a fuddy-duddy.”