Apparently, he wasn’t the only guy in the room to notice. As Jaron watched, a seedy-looking cowboy with a Skoal ring on the hip pocket of his jeans and a leering grin walked up beside her. She glanced at the man, shook her head and turned back to speak to the bartender. It was crystal clear she wasn’t buying what the good old boy was selling.
Jaron decided he wasn’t going anywhere. At least not while Mariah Stanton was standing there looking for all the world like every man’s midnight fantasy.
But as he watched the cowboy try to get her to pay attention to him, Jaron could tell from the look on the man’s face that there was going to be trouble. The guy wanted her, and she didn’t want any part of him. Unfortunately, the son of a bitch was either too drunk, too stupid or too determined to take no for an answer.
When the jerk reached out and took hold of her upper arm, Mariah recoiled, and that was when Jaron came up out of his chair to cross the room like a bull out of the bucking chute. Without a moment’s hesitation, he planted his right fist along the man’s jaw and watched the bastard hit the floor in an undignified heap.
“Jaron?” Mariah sounded startled when she looked over her shoulder at him. “What are you doing?”
“Saving your pretty little ass from getting into more trouble than you can handle,” he retorted angrily.
“You knocked out Roy Lee!” one of the man’s friends shouted, taking a step toward Jaron.
“Do we have a problem?” Jaron growled through clenched teeth as he quickly moved Mariah behind him out of harm’s way.
A good six inches shorter than Jaron’s six-foot-two-inch height, the man stared at him a moment then hastily shook his head. “I ain’t got no quarrel with you, dude,” he said, hastily taking a couple of steps in the opposite direction.
“Then, I strongly suggest you pick Roy Lee up off the floor and leave me and the lady alone,” Jaron ordered.
As Roy Lee’s friends hauled him to his feet, Jaron turned and, putting his arm around Mariah’s waist, ushered her out of the place. She tried to pull away from him, but he tightened his arm around her and didn’t stop as he guided her out the exit and toward her car in the parking lot.
“Jaron, have you lost your mind?” she asked as he hurried her along.
“What the hell do you think you were doing walking into a cowboy bar looking for all the world as if you’re advertising for a roll in the hay, Mariah?” he demanded when they reached her compact sedan.
“I don’t look like I’m advertising for any such thing,” she said, jerking away from him. “And what’s wrong with the way I’m dressed? I think I look just fine.”
Jaron folded his arms across his chest and let his gaze slide from the top of her dark brown hair to the soles of her impossibly high heels. That was the problem. She did look fine. Too fine.
He ignored her question and asked one of his own. “What in the name of Sam Hill did you think you were doing stopping by the Broken Spoke alone?”
“Not that it’s any of your concern, but I had a dinner meeting in Fort Worth and on my way back home my car started making an odd noise. I managed to get it into this parking lot just before it died completely, and after I discovered that my cell phone needed recharging, I went inside to call a tow truck.”
He watched her emerald eyes narrow as she glared at him. “And even if I had been there for other reasons, it’s none of your business. I can handle situations like what happened in there all by myself.”
“Oh, yeah? Is that why old Roy Lee put his filthy hands on you?” Jaron asked, doing his best to hold on to his temper. “The minute that bastard grabbed hold of your arm he made it my business.”
When he’d seen the man touch her, Jaron had damned near come unglued. Aside from the fact that he took exception to any man forcing his attention on a woman when it was clear she didn’t want it, the woman in question had been Mariah. As long as he had a single breath left in his body, nobody was going to treat her with anything but complete respect.
“Really? It’s your business? You’ve made it perfectly clear all these years that you have absolutely no interest in anything I do.” She shook her head. “You can’t have it both ways, Jaron. Either you are interested or you aren’t.”
“You’re my sister-in-law’s kid sister,” he said stubbornly. “I’m just watching out for you.”
“Oh, good grief! Get over it, Jaron.” She rested her hands on her sexy hips. “In case you haven’t noticed lately, I’m no longer a naive eighteen-year-old girl. I’ve grown up. I’m twenty-five and perfectly capable of taking care of myself.”