Knowing all he had on his side were dexterity and speed, he lowered his head and drove his shoulder into Alvin's gut, knocking the larger man off balance.
A sudden shout warned him of Jack Ed's recovery. Spinning around, he barely had time to suck in his midsection before Jack Ed took a swipe at it with his infamous knife. He kicked the extended knife out of Jack Ed's hand, then gave him a quick chop in the Adam's apple with the edge of his hand. The ex-con toppled into a table; it crashed to the floor. Jack Ed sprawled beside it unconscious, lying in a puddle of spilled beer and broken glass.
Lucky came around again to confront Alvin. Looking like the provoked giant in a Grimm's tale, the former linebacker was crouched in an attack stance.
"Stop this!"
The woman was out of the booth. Hands on hips, she was furiously addressing both of them, though Lucky seemed the only one aware of her. Little Alvin's eyes were red with fury. His nostrils were receding and expanding like twin bellows.
"Get out of the way or you'll get hurt!" Lucky shouted to her.
"I want this to stop. You're behaving like—"
Little Alvin, giving her no more regard than he would a pesky housefly, flicked his hand at her, catching her lip and drawing blood. She fell backward.
"You son of a bitch," Lucky snarled. Any brute who would strike a woman didn't deserve a clean fight. Swinging up his booted foot, he viciously caught the other man in the crotch.
Instantly Little Alvin was stunned motionless, seemingly held upright by the gasps that rose from the onlookers. Then he clutched the injured area and dropped to his knees, rattling glassware throughout the building. At last, eyes crossing, he went over face first into the puddle of beer beside Jack Ed.
Lucky gulped in several cleansing breaths and tentatively dabbed at his swelling eye. Stiffly he approached the woman, who was attempting to stanch her bleeding lip with a paper napkin.
"You all right?"
She flung her head up and glared at him with vivid green eyes. Lucky, expecting tears, admiration, and gushing gratitude, was startled to see naked enmity on her face.
"Thanks a lot," she said sarcastically. "You were a big help."
"Wha—"
"Lucky," the bartender called to him, "here comes the sheriff."
Lucky blew out a gust of breath as he surveyed the damage the fight had caused. Overturned tables and chairs made the place look as if it had sustained storm damage. Broken glass, spilled beer, and capsized ashtrays had left a disgusting mess on the floor where two battered bodies still lay.
And the ungrateful tart, whose honor he had stupidly defended, was mad at him. Some days, no matter how hard you tried, nothing went right. Placing his hands on his hips, his head dropping forward, he muttered, "Hell."
* * *
Chapter 2
Sheriff Patrick Bush shook his head in dismay as he observed Little Alvin and Jack Ed. Alvin was rolling from side to side, groaning and clutching his groin; Jack Ed remained blessedly unconscious.
The sheriff maneuvered the matchstick from one corner of his mouth to the other and looked up at Lucky from beneath the wide brim of his Stetson. "Now, how come you went and did that to these boys, huh?"
"Might've known I'd get blamed for it," Lucky grumbled as he plowed his fingers through his thick hair, raking it off his forehead.
The sheriff pointed toward Lucky's middle.
"You hurt?"
Only then did Lucky notice that his shirt had been ripped and was hanging open. Jack Ed's knife had left a thin red arc across his stomach. "It's okay."
"Need an ambulance?"
"Hell, no." He swabbed at the trickle of blood with his tattered shirt.
"Start cleaning up this mess," the sheriff ordered his accompanying deputy. Turning to Lucky, he asked, "What happened?"
"They were coming on to her, and she didn't like it."