“Ma’am?”
I turned my focus back to the gorgeous cowboy and gave him a small smile.
“I’m okay, thanks to y’all coming to my rescue in time. I really appreciate you stepping in.”
I was sure someone in the bar had to have come down to use the bathrooms but instead of interfering or trying to help, they’d backed away and left me to it. People sucked sometimes.
His gaze ran over my face. When he got to my jaw, his every muscle seemed to tense, and an angry glint lit his eyes. When he started to raise a hand toward me, I jerked further down the hallway away from him. It didn’t matter how pretty he was, I didn’t know him and he could be worse than the two he’d helped save me from. He froze and then held up both palms in surrender.
“I won’t hurt you, ma’am. My name’s Boone and I’m trained in first aid. If it’s okay, I’d like to take a look at that bruising on your face and the back of your head. I see you’ve got a little blood back there. I’d like to make sure we don’t need to be calling an ambulance.”
My eyes widened at the thought of ending up at hospital. As far as I knew, Bridgewater was the closest one, which meant basically the entire town would find out about me getting knocked around by morning. I didn’t want to draw that level of attention to myself.
“Please, no ambulance. Honestly, I doubt any of the blood is mine.” I nodded to Bob. “He grabbed me from behind and to get free, I head-butted him.”
Boone’s lips quirked up. “Good on you, honey.”
“Broke my fuckin’ nose!”
Bob’s voice was a lot more nasally than it had been earlier. Boone’s jaw tightened as he glared over at Bob but before he could speak, the cowboy holding Bob’s arm tightened his grip until Bob’s shoulder dropped from the pain.
“Be grateful that’s all the lady broke.”
Boone cleared his throat, and I looked back at him, getting caught in his baby blues again now that his expression had gentled once more.
I responded to his earlier request. “You can take a look.”
He came in close, and I got my first lungful of his scent. Sage and leather… all man. I shivered when he touched his thumb and finger to my chin. His lips twitched, but he didn’t say anything as he proceeded to gently prod at my cheek and jaw.
“Could you turn around, darlin’?”
“Sure.”
I turned my back toward him and tried not to shiver again when his fingers ran up my neck and through my hair before he moved it around to look at my scalp. It didn’t hurt too much when he prodded where I’d hit Bob, so I wasn’t concerned about any real damage. I found myself missing the contact when he dropped his hands away from me.
“All done. You can turn back around if you’d like.”
As I turned, the one holding Billy spoke up. “What’s the verdict, Boone?”
Boone shifted his gaze from me to the other man.
“She’ll be fine, Jack. Got a small lump on her head from where she took that one out, and her face is gonna be bruised up for a while, but nothing’s broken.” He returned his full attention to me. “Ma’am, do you feel lightheaded at all?”
He was back to the ma’ams. I much preferred how he drawled darlin’. Trying to stay focused on the situation at hand, not my inner, hopeless romantic’s ramblings, I shook my head. “I highly doubt his head was hard enough to give me a concussion.”
The cowboys scoffed out low chuckles before Jack said, “Boone, can you go grab some ice for her face? Ma’am, do you want to press charges?”
As much as I was calmer now that the incident was over, I was still mad as hell that those two had attacked me in the first place.
“Hell, yes, I want to press charges. Those two thought I was an easy mark and planned to drag me off and do who knows what to me. I’d hate to think what they would have managed to do if they’d grabbed a woman unable to fight back.”
Billy tried to push Jack off him, forcing Jack to use his whole body to hold the bastard flush against the wall.
“There’s nothin’ to charge us for! She attacked us. You can see Bob’s nose!” Billy managed to twist his head so he could glare at me, his gaze filled with fury. “Just you wait—”
Jack lifted away before slamming himself against Billy hard enough that it knocked the breath out of the bastard, thankfully cutting off his words.
“Just shut the fuck up already.”