Chapter Five

Strong hands lifted Ava back on to her feet. She was still trying to sort out what had just happened. One minute, she was dancing up a storm and the next she was on her ass under a pile of people. Her hair stuck to her face and she couldn’t see. She drew in a shaky breath and tried to get her bearings.

With her feet planted on the floor, she blinked behind the curtain of her hair, the flashing lights confusing her at first. The red-and-blue blinking looked like emergency vehicles and she wondered who’d called an ambulance or the cops. Then Ava remembered she was in the bar and the lights were from the show on the stage.

His strong hands didn’t let her go, which was a good thing, since her knees were wobbling a bit. She reached out to steady herself and found a pair of very hard, muscled arms under her fingertips. The man said something. She tilted her head back and shook it to get her hair out of her face so she could see better. When she could, her heart nearly stopped.

Ava looked up into the most gorgeous set of chocolatey-brown eyes she’d ever seen. She drew in a soft gasp, her lips parted, but they were feeling so dry, so she licked them. His gaze dropped to her mouth, making her belly tumble with a sweet tightness. She’d never felt such an instant attraction to a man before.

“Steady.” His deep voice was magical and his hands continued to keep her upright.

Ava gazed at him, noticing how his beard and mustache were sun-streaked, as was his long hair, which curled around the base of his neck from underneath his cowboy hat.

He was huge, broad, tall, muscled, and Ava felt all trembly, like a tiny little butterfly, next to him. She stared at him, captivated, and tried to think of something to say.

“I am…who…w–what happened?” she murmured, close to being lost for words and unable to pull her gaze away from his hypnotizing eyes.

The grin behind his mustache and beard reached his eyes and they sparkled with humor. Ava was utterly and completely entranced. “Well, I think we had a crash,” he said in a low, intimate tone that gave her the shivers.

She swallowed and looked at him. “A crash? We weren’t in cars.” Ava inwardly cringed at how stupid she sounded. He was throwing her world off-kilter. She focused, not wanting to look like a complete idiot in front of this drop-dead-gorgeous sexy man.

The fast-paced song ended and now a slow ballad was playing. The line dancing broke up as couples gravitated together and began to sway on the dance floor. If this was a movie, Ava mused, this would be the initial precipitating incident. Of course, then there would be a script and she could sound impossibly witty instead of an idiot who stated the obvious.

“A dance floor can be just as dangerous as a highway.” His fingers lingered under her arms and then he gently released her. With their connection broken, the loss of his touch and the strength of his hand made her feel bereft. How silly was that? To feel like suddenly something was missing when he stepped away from her. Involuntarily, she moved closer to him in an effort to keep the resonance of his presence near. He smiled down at her and his teeth were even and white, his lips oh so kissable.

Yup, that was it, he had sealed his fate. Ava was determined that, before the night was out, kissing him was exactly what she’d be doing.

She flipped her hair over her shoulder as she lightly rubbed his arm, having to conceal a shiver of desire at the feel of his bicep. “Oh yes, obviously. Both can be full of traffic.” Ava turned to look at the cluttered dance floor and saw her friends huddled like inquisitive Babushkas watching the interaction going on between her and this man. She gave them a stern look and they all raised their shoulders and shook their heads with the best innocent expressions they could muster. Ava turned her back to them and focused on her white knight.

“Well, thank you. Even if we did crash, I appreciate you helping me up,” she said, looking up at him through her eyelashes.

He was all gentleman, with a true southern charm. She didn’t really hear any accent in his voice and wondered if he was from around here or just visiting, like they were.

“It’s my pleasure, miss. I’m just glad you weren’t hurt. Are you sure you’re okay? You didn’t bump your head?” he questioned, concern in his voice, leaning forward as if to look for a wound.

Ava angled her body a little closer. Gliding her hand up his arm, she then knocked her knuckles against her skull lightly. “No, I’m pretty sure I’m fine. My friends are always complaining about my hard head. And you don’t need to call me miss. Makes me sound like I’m a child, and I can assure you, I’m all grown up. My name is Ava, Ava Trent.” She held her hand out and he looked at her with a shocked expression.

He placed his hand in hers and the warmth of his fingers gave her back that lovely, tingly feeling she had had when he held her only moments before. “Well, we were destined to meet. Although I didn’t quite expect it this way. I was actually worried about being able to find you in here.”

Ava was perplexed and wrinkled her forehead. “I’m sorry? I don’t follow. We were destined to meet? You mean, like, cosmically?”

“Chase Hudson,” was all he said.

Ava’s mouth rounded into a surprised O as the reality of his name sunk in. They were cosmically fated. Okay, so, yes, she had arranged to meet Chase here, but instead of an impersonal hand-off at the bar, they had an epic meet-cute!

“Well, isn’t this my lucky day? I’m glad to meet you, Chase. This certainly was a very interesting way to find each other.” Ava grinned, and he returned it.

“What’s going on here?” Celia budged in, disrupting the illusion that Ava and Chase were the only people in the room. Music roared back in an astounding rush, and Ava blinked as if awakening from a dream, springing back from Chase. She had completely forgotten about her friends.

“Come now, Celia. Clearly, Ava’s getting to know her knight in shining armor,” Fredi drawled as Bonni stood back, assessing the situation. You could take the woman out of uniform but you couldn’t take the cop out of the woman.

“Ladies, this is the man I was supposed to meet,” Ava said, but blushed when she realized how it sounded. “I mean, this is Chase Hudson. He has the extra tickets for CMA Fest. It’s why we’re here, so he could give it—them, I mean, them—to me. Out of everyone in here, he’s the one who swept—knocked—me off my feet. We just sort of collided together, I mean.”

“Well, then. Isn’t this super-interesting.” Celia was looking between them and Ava could tell she was already thinking about matchmaking. She looked at Chase as he made charming small talk with her friends and they fluttered around him like busy little hens. But what she did notice is the way that they seemed to herd him closer to her.

“Well, come on, girls. Let Ava do her business with Mr. Hudson and we’ll go off and get us some drinks.” Bonni gave Ava an exaggerated wink, her elbows hooked in her two friends’ as she dragged them away. Ava saw the reluctance on both Celia’s and Fredi’s faces. They wanted to see what would transpire between her and Chase. Ava wasn’t sure exactly what she was feeling now that reality had shattered their little bubble, so she was glad she didn’t have an audience while she figured it out

“Chase, who’s this?” Ava turned to look at the redhead who came up to stand just behind him. The expression on the woman’s face wasn’t exactly friendly or welcoming. Were they a couple? She looked at Chase, but he didn’t appear to be overly concerned about the woman’s obvious jealousy. It fairly seeped off her, in thick, sticky, green waves.