He also knew that it wasn’t going to be an easy relationship. He wasn’t an easy man and she wasn’t an easy woman. But if they played their cards right; if they stayed true to themselves and were able to accept each other just the way they were, it could become something very special.
But everything changed when Mick excused himself to the restroom and Roz watched him leave. Talk about gorgeous. He was so sexy that she would be a fool not to want him in her life just to have him in her bed. But just as she was smiling at the way other women were giving him a quick peep; just as she was about to sip her drink and prepare to go to the ladies room herself, she saw a man suddenly get up and hurry behind Mick. That caught her attention alone. But as he walked around a table and his suit coat flared open, she saw a gun in his belt. A gun! Her heart began to race. Mick already told her he had enemies. He already told her he had a messy past. Was it coming back to haunt him right here and right now? Right before her very eyes?
She could be completely wrong. That guy could be a cop for all she knew. But she wasn’t going to sit back, let him harm Mick, and then deal with it later. She felt she had to deal with it now. She rose quickly, and hurried toward that bathroom too.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Roz hurried behind him, grabbing one of those reach rods near the restaurants bar counter as she hurried. But her heart hammered when, just before the stranger entered the large restroom, he reached into his suit coat as if he was pulling out his weapon. Then he entered the men’s room.
Roz started running now. She knew if she didn’t get there in time, Mick could be killed. When she ran through the restroom door behind the possible assailant, and saw him walking up behind Mick, who was walking up to the urinal, she yelled Mick’s name, swung that rod, and knocked that man so hard across his back that it caused him to drop to his knees.
“What the fuck?” he cried.
Mick quickly turned around at the sound of his name, and he witnessed the man’s fall. And then he saw Roz, wielding that rod, defending him as if she was defending his honor. He smiled, even as the man was in agony.
But Roz was still in attack mode. “He’s got a gun, Mick,” she said. “Get his gun!”
But Mick laughed instead.
She frowned. “What are you laughing about?” she asked him. “That man was trying to kill you!”
“How was I trying to kill him?” the man asked. “I work for him. I’m his bodyguard!”
Roz was stumped. “His bodyguard?” Then she looked at Mick.
Mick was nodding. “My bodyguard,” he said. “As are they,” he added, looking beyond her.
Roz, confused, turned around. And five men were in that restroom, all with guns trained on her. On her! She dropped the rod.
“Why are they pointing those guns at me, Mick? What are they doing?”
“The same thing you were doing,” Mick said. “They thought you were coming to attack me. They thought you were the real perp.” Mick motioned for them to stand down. They withdrew their weapons.
Roz couldn’t believe it. “Who has this many bodyguards around him?” she asked. “And where did they come from? I didn’t see any of these men in the restaurant.”
“You weren’t supposed to see them,” Mick said. Then he looked at his downed man. “Get up, you’ll live,” he said. Then he ordered them all, including one stunned patron who was just getting out of the stall, to beat it.
When they all left, Mick looked at Roz. She still looked so bewildered that it touched him mightily. And he opened his arms. “Come here,” he said to her.
She came. She was still floored by the entire event, but she came. And he smiled. When she shook her head and smiled back, able to laugh at her own foolishness, he wrapped her in his arms.
“You must think I’m the mother of idiots,” she said.
“Oh, no,” Mick said quickly. And then he lifted her chin and looked at her, all smiles gone. “I think,” he said, his face a mask of seriousness now, “that you are one of the most remarkable ladies I have ever met. You came to my rescue. You didn’t wait for somebody else to do it. You didn’t shit in your pants and cry for help. You became my help. You showed courage when other people would have stayed out of it. So no, Rosalind, no. There’s nothing idiotic about you. In my world, in my heart, nothing is better than to know somebody has your back.”
“But I didn’t even ask questions first,” Roz said.
“You can’t. He might have been a bad man. He might have had a gun. You hit him, but he’ll live. If you would have hesitated, I might not have been so lucky. Don’t you dare think what you did was wrong. You came to my rescue.” He touched the side of her face. “I knew you were somebody special. I knew it all along.”
Then he hugged her again. And his heart was overjoyed. Because Roz had the edge. She could take it. He believed in his soul that she could actually hang with a man like him.