That was easier said than done. The swarming, shifting crowd constantly forced her to move this way and that, and within five minutes she was quite a distance from where Mitchell had left her. She peered toward the bar, trying to pick him out of the mass of bodies, but she didn’t know him well enough to recognize him in a crowd and, besides, it might take him a long time to get the drinks. The new shoes fit very well, but they were still new, she had danced five dances, and her feet hurt. She wanted to sit down. She rose on tiptoe, trying to spot an empty chair.
“Looking for a place to sit?” a burly guy yelled, and looped a beefy arm around her waist before she could react, hauling her down on his lap.
Alarmed, Daisy immediately tried to jump up. He laughed and tightened his arm, pulling her back, and instinctively she put her hand down to brace herself. Unfortunately, she braced herself on his crotch, all of her weight bearing down on her hand.
He yelped, a high-pitched sound that rose above the din of music and voices. Suddenly aware of where her hand was and what she was feeling, Daisy squeaked and tried to leap up again, and her downward shove brought an even higher sound from the burly guy. Actually, it was now approaching a scream, one that brought heads turning their way.
Her face heated and she began struggling in earnest, but she couldn’t find her balance or purchase, and wherever she put her hand seemed to be wrong. She felt something soft grind under her knuckles, and the burly guy turned purple.
My goodness, it was amazing how things escalated. Distracted by the steam-whistle noise coming from the burly guy, a man accidently walked into a woman and made her spill her drink down her dress. She screamed, and her boyfriend swung at the other man. A chair overturned, a table was shoved, and there was the sound of breaking glass. People scattered. Well, some people scattered; others seemed to leap in their eagerness to join in the fray.
The melee was like a tidal wave, sweeping toward her, and she couldn’t get to her feet to escape it.
An iron clamp suddenly wrapped around her waist and hauled her off the poor guy’s lap. He collapsed on the floor, wheezing and holding his privates with both hands. Daisy squealed and clutched at the clamp, surprised to find it was merely flesh, but there was no way she could wiggle free. Her feet didn’t even touch the floor as she was swiftly carried away from the tangle of heaving bodies and swinging fists. The nightclub’s bouncers were wading in now, cracking heads left and right and roughly restoring order, but Daisy didn’t get to see what happened because the bouncer who carried her waded through the throng as if it were water, moving people out of his way with his free arm, and before she knew it she was bundled out the door and deposited on her feet with a thud.
How humiliating. Her first time in a nightclub, and she was thrown out.
Her face burning, she turned to apologize and found herself staring up at Chief Russo. The apology froze on her tongue.
There was the sound of more breaking glass inside, and a stream of people suddenly erupted out the door as the more prudent decided to leave while the leaving was good. The chief caught Daisy’s wrist and hauled her to the side, out of the way. The yellow neon sign spelling out the club’s name spilled light down on them, not even giving her the protection of darkness. Maybe he wouldn’t recognize her, Daisy thought in panic. Her own mother hadn’t even recognized her—
“Well, if it isn’t Miss Daisy,” he drawled, in a very good imitation of a southern accent, and her hope of not being recognized was blown out of the water. “Do you come here often?”
“No, this is my first time. I can explain,” she blurted, feeling her face turn red.
He stared down at her with narrowed eyes. “I can’t wait to hear it. In the space of thirty seconds you castrated a guy and started a brawl. Not bad for your first time here. Let me know when you’re planning on coming back, and I’ll stay home that night.”
Well, no way was he going to make her the blame for that fiasco inside, she thought indignantly. “It wasn’t my fault. That man grabbed me, and when I put my hand down to brace myself, I... ” Her voice trailed off as she tried to find a delicate way to describe what had happened.
“Grabbed his balls and smashed them flat against the chair seat,” Chief Russo finished for her. “I was about to step in, but when he began hitting those high notes, I figured you had the situation well in hand, so to speak.”
“I didn’t mean to! It was an accident.”
Suddenly he grinned. “Forget about it. He’ll think twice before he grabs a strange woman again. Come on, I’ll walk you to your car.”
She didn’t want to be walked to her car. She didn’t want to go to her car at all. Wistfully she looked at the door. “I don’t suppose I could—”
“No, your dancing is over for the night, twinkle toes. You need to get out of here before the sheriff’s deputies show up.”
She sighed, because she had been having such fun—until she had accidentally castrated the burly guy, of course—but she supposed the chief was right. The deputies might just arrest everyone and sort things out later, and she could just imagine what everyone would say if she got arrested. He took her arm and forcefully turned her toward the parking lot. “Where’s your car?”
She sighed again. “Over there.” She crunched over the gravel to her car, with Chief Russo looming beside her and his hard hand never loosening its grip on her elbow, as if she were a prisoner he expected to bolt. She was glad he hadn’t handcuffed her.
Cars were leaving the parking lot in every direction, and the two of them had to weave their way through the traffic. When they reached her car, he released her arm, and she got her keys out of her bag, then unlocked the car. The chief opened the door for her and Daisy slid behind the wheel. “Have you had anything to drink?” he asked suddenly.