There were men old enough to be my father or my grandfather who occasionally asked me to dance.
Crystal Fork was just friendly that way.
None of those older men were ever being pervy.
It was all in good fun to dance with anyone who wasn’t dancing when people were out on the town.
However, I wasn’t getting a single neighborly or friendly vibe from this man, and I really did not want to dance with him.
He shook me a little. “Did you hear me?”
Crap!
I was going to have to do something I’d never done before, even though I didn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings.
Silas had hired a DJ for tonight. He was on break at the moment, but I knew he’d be back momentarily, so I couldn’t use the absence of music as an excuse.
I opened my mouth to tell him I didn’t want to dance, but a pissed-off male voice spoke before I could.
“Take your fucking hand off her right now or I’ll break it just to make sure you never touch her again,” a deep baritone said ominously.
It was a baritone I knew well.
Cole.
The tension suddenly drained from my body.
The expression on Cole’s face was terrifying, but not to me.
I knew he’d just shown up to rescue me.
The man removed his hand from my arm, but he snarled back at Cole, “What in the hell do you care if I touch her?”
“I care,” Cole drawled as he wrapped a protective arm around my waist and pulled me against his warm body.
“You!” the man said in a garbled voice as he swayed on his feet. “You and your brother killed your daddy. Who are you to tellmewhat to do? You’re nothing but a damned murderer.”
Anger suddenly rolled through me at that accusation.
How dare he say that!
I was just done listening to gossip about Cole.
After all he’d been through as a child, he didn’t deserve this as an adult.
My hand was itching to slap him, but Cole tightened his arm around me like he knew exactly what I was tempted to do.
“Don’t,” he said roughly next to my ear. “He’s not worth it.’’
“Time to go, Massey,” Kaleb said angrily from behind the man, grabbing the offender’s arm none too gently.
Devon grabbed his other arm.
Apparently, the two men had been listening in on the discussion.
“You can’t do this,” Massey sputtered.
“Oh, yes, they can,” Silas, the establishment’s owner, said firmly as he approached the situation. “Take him out of here. He’s not welcome here if he’s manhandling the women and spreading stupid rumors that aren’t true about the townspeople.”
