To Protect and Serve by Staci Stallings
Book Excerpt
“More dancing!” Haley announced, jumping to her feet. The other two followed without question, but Lisa slunk back behind the table so they wouldn’t notice her absence. When they were gone, she sat up and coughed again. Peeling her eyes from the back of her eyelids, she shook her head. Work was not going to be fun tomorrow.
“No, no, no,” the arm guy from earlier said, sliding into the other booth as he pushed the other two occupants back out to the floor. “That’s enough for me. You two go. Dance. Have fun.”
Laughing at him, the guy put his arm on the lady’s waist, and they disappeared into the crowd. For one moment Lisa folded the edge of her napkin up and then down, fighting not to look over at him. It was crazy. He was just a guy at a bar. One of thousands, and yet… Without her permission, her gaze chanced across the divide between them, and the jolt from the pools of blue looking back at her sent her diving back to her side.
He was looking at her. That wasn’t good. No, no. That was not good. Her face went hot. Now he was going to think she was looking at him. Well, she was, but not because she wanted to. She really couldn’t help herself. After all, where else are you supposed to look—at the table all night? But still she shouldn’t have been looking. That might be an invitation, and she didn’t want to be sending out any invitations. Not tonight. Not ever.
Slowly, carefully she wound the strand of hair sliding down her face over her ear. One more furtive glance over the divide between them. This time she was thankful to find only his silhouette. Good. At least he wasn’t going to think she was trying to make eye contact or something. Casually she sat up, nodding to herself as she closed her eyes. Her brain coached itself on what to do and what not to do. However, when she opened her eyes, the fact that his arm was again only a foot from her jumped into her consciousness.
Nervously half of her gaze followed the sculptured forearm up past the black sleeve that covered everything from his elbow up to his shoulder. She shut her eyes, trying to block him out, but the second she opened them he was back. However, this time the blue pools were back too. Her gaze locked with his, and she knew he knew she was looking. Quickly she smiled as she wound the errant hair around her ear.
“Nice music,” she said.
“Yeah.” His smile was better than she had remembered.
She wanted to say something else, but her brain was scrambled by the proximity of his arm and the disarming way his gaze fell to the table as if her eyes were too intense to hold on. “You come here a lot?” she asked, wholly reprimanding herself for pursuing when she should be thankful he wasn’t.
“No, not really.” He shook his head and shifted a little, and this time his smile was less sure. “We’re celebrating.”
“Oh, really? Us too.” With her tone she tried to coax his full gaze back to her although she was only mildly successful. “My little sister’s getting married next weekend.”
“Oh.” This smile was stronger. “Lucky her.”
“Yeah, lucky me too.” Lisa shook her head and wrinkled her nose. “Bachelorette party. Woohoo.”
This time he laughed outright. “Sounds terrible.”
“Well, as long as they don’t drag me out there, it’s not so bad.”
He nodded. “I hear you there.”
For a moment she sat, gathering her scattering sanity and trying to get her gaze not to notice the gold cross shining atop the solid black shirt at his neck. “So, what’re you celebrating?”
However, at that moment her attention snapped to the other edge of his table where two of his friends slid into the booth with him without pretense.
“Man, it’s hot out there!” the girl with the nearly-black, wavy hair said, fanning herself with her hand as Lisa self-consciously slunk back into her own world.
“Yeah. I’m sure it’s the dance floor,” elbow guy said with a laugh as he retreated back to his own table.
“Hey, how would you know?” the guy in the skin-hugging, brown-gold pullover shirt asked. “It’s not like you can tell from way over here.” He took a drink. “Man, have you seen Ramsey? That guy’s insane. He’s got like a whole bachelorette party dancing with him.”
Lisa’s ears tried to peel themselves from the conversation as she slid farther down into the booth.
“Yeah, well, dancing isn’t everything,” elbow guy said as he laid his forearm on the booth back, causing the remaining sanity in Lisa’s head to disperse.
Lunacy. It was the far side of it; however, the alcohol or something had a hold of her because Lisa’s brain took a nice little journey to the middle of that hot dance floor with her in his arms, swaying in time with only one another. A low growl of disgust with herself crawled into her gut. Where was her willpower? He was a guy after all. A guy. And that meant only one thing—trouble.
“Lisa-girl! What are you doing sitting over here all by yourself?” Haley asked as she, Bryn, Chandra, and a tall, well-built black man danced up to the table. He had his arms around each of the two girls.
“We found ourselves a fireman!” Bryn said loud enough for the whole bar to hear.
“Hey,” the man said with a glance to the table next to them, “well, look what we have here!”
Not one part of Lisa liked the sound of that statement.
“Man, you ladies must have some seriously good compass directions going for you. These are the friends I was telling you about!”
Occupants from both tables looked across in surprise.
“Ramsey, what did you do?” pullover guy asked as though he was reprimanding a two-year-old.
“Two,” Ramsey mouthed over the top of the girls’ heads as he nodded and smiled.
The darkness under the table was looking very inviting to Lisa at that moment.
Pullover guy waved them over. “Well, what are you standing over there for? Come, join us.”
“What do you say, ladies? Join us?” Ramsey’s clothesline of a grip around Bryn and Chandra made arguing pointless as he led them over to the other table.
Instantly Haley stood to follow them. “Come on, Lis.”
Lisa closed her eyes and exhaled. There was no way this was going to turn out well.
# # #
Staci Stallings, the author of this article, is a Contemporary Christian author and the founder of Grace & Faith Author Connection. Staci has a special surprise for you today and tomorrow only…
FREE ON KINDLE TWO DAYS ONLY!
August 15 & 16
Staci’s “Amazing!” novel:
To Protect & Serve
“Reading To Protect & Serve, I’m taken away to another world, a world I want to be a part of and never leave. Staci’s characters are real with real everyday problems. I love that.
Oh, and the firemen in this story, they’re smokin’ hot! Especially the hero!”
–Debra, Amazon Reviewer
When control freak Lisa Matheson falls for handsome but shy firefighter, Jeff Taylor, it’s possible that life might just be going her way for a change. The only problem is she can’t control of Jeff or the death wish he seems to have…
Available as a free download from Amazon!
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