Wilde at Heart by Tonya Burrows Page A

distinctive hair. He was holding out hope she hadn’t bounced off to one of the other casinos on the strip. Or, Christ help him, a dance club.
    He scanned the bar area and—
    There. A flash of turquoise headed toward the front door in a hurry.
    Reece ducked and maneuvered through the crowd and opened his mouth to call her name, but stopped. A man was following her—huge, bald, long dark beard, covered in tattoos.
    Shit, that couldn’t be good.
    Outside the hotel, the guy grabbed her arm so hard he spun her around. She teetered on her ridiculously high heels and even from this distance Reece saw the flash of fear in her eyes. Anger sliced through him, startling in its intensity, and he picked up the pace, reaching her just as she twisted out of the man’s grasp and lost her footing. She tumbled to the sidewalk and the man reached inside his lightweight coat.
    Armed.
    The guy had a gun. Was he planning to use the weapon on Shelby?
    Reece didn’t think, just let instinct take over, honed by his near religious devotion to the dojo. He braced himself and sent a kick flying toward the guy’s side, felt a solid connecting blow rattle up his leg. The man howled, and the gun clattered to the sidewalk. Several stares turned in their direction as Baldy scrambled for the weapon.
    Reece stepped in front of Shelby, but the guy had lost interest as more people stopped to gape. He must have decided there were too many witnesses, because he bolted across the street, headed in the opposite direction of their hotel. He’d be long gone before any of the bystanders finished calling 911, and Reece didn’t particularly want to stick around for an encounter with Las Vegas’s finest, either. He pulled Shelby to her feet and hustled her into the teeming crowd gathered to watch the Bellagio’s fountains dance to Frank Sinatra’s Fly Me to the Moon against the glittering palatial backdrop of the hotel.
    As water soared into the air in synchronized bursts, he caged her against the balustrade and used his bigger body to hide her distinctive appearance in the crowd, just in case the guy got any stupid ideas about circling back and trying again.
    She was shaking, little trembles racing through her, and yet she smirked up at him. “Nice roundhouse, Hershey.”
    He backed away just enough to meet her gaze while still keeping her shielded. “What was that all about?”
    “It was…nothing. No big.” She lifted a shoulder and tried to shrug away from him, but he was not letting her get away so easily. He banded his arms around her and lowered his face to hover inches above hers. To anyone nearby, it’d look as if they were lovers stealing a romantic moment in front of the fountains.
    Hah. Couldn’t be any further from the truth.
    “That was not nothing,” he said. “He had a gun. What’s going on, Shelby?”
    She licked her lips. “I…” For a heartbeat, genuine fear showed in her eyes before she dropped her gaze. “I think he wanted something from me.”
    “Like?” When she didn’t respond, he added, “You’re not carrying a purse.”
    “I dunno then.” Her tone was casual, as if a near mugging was something that happened to her every day. “But he’s gone. You scared him off. My hero. So why did you come looking for me anyway?”
    Okay, she wasn’t ready to talk about it. Yet. But he’d get it out of her sooner or later, so for the moment, he let the subject drop. “Besides the fact you left me tied to my bed?”
    Her smile was the picture of innocence. “Besides that.”
    Grumbling, he lifted his head to glance around. Didn’t see Baldy anywhere nearby. Good. He led her away from the crowd, his hand entwined with hers. Just another happy couple taking in the sights and sounds of the Vegas strip together.
    Shelby swung their joined hands and oohed and aahed over all the lights like nothing had happened. Her ability to deflect was astounding. Even better than Cam’s, and that was saying something since Cam was the