Page 2 of Blitzing Emily

“It’s pretty dumb to wear spike heels in an icy parking lot.” He sounded angry. She heard the balloons rustle. He must have grabbed one to look at it. “How the hell did she get my name on them?”

Emily opened her eyes to see the evil red bear sitting on her chest, and the puckered brow and concerned blue-green eyes of the most handsome man she’d ever seen.

Amy would kill her when she found out how messed up the delivery was, unless she expired on the spot from sheer embarrassment first.

He studied her. He still knelt beside her. “What’s your name, sugar?”

Any other man would have gotten the full force of her offended feminist sensibilities at that point, but all she could manage to breathe was, “Emily, but not for long.”

She still clutched the balloons. They’d been threaded through a metal weight that looked like an oversized Hershey’s Kiss, but the sheer amount of helium involved threatened to pull her off the ground. Thank God the wind had died down a bit.

Brandon slipped his arm around her shoulders and helped her sit up. “Emily. Let me take those.” He pried her fingers off the tangled, several-inches-thick bundle of ribbon, and put his foot down on it while he spoke. He didn’t have to work very hard. Her fingers went slack at his touch.

“You might need to see a doctor for that cut,” he suggested.

“Looks like it was for you, McKenna,” yelled one of the five guys who’d been watching. They crossed the sidewalk to see what was happening. Emily found herself surrounded by six sweaty and disheveled men, one of whom still checked her for injuries.

“A little help?” A tall guy—hell, they were all tall, but this one had close-cropped black curls—said: “Hey, baby, what’s your name?”

“I’ve got this,” Brandon told them. He still supported her with one arm. “Back off.”

“Ooh, I’m scared of you,” the dark-haired one shot back.

Brandon gave him a look that should have liquefied the parking lot. “You should be.” He shielded her from the other men with his body.

“Emily, I hope you won’t be mad about this, but it’s for the best.”

He stripped the weight off the huge bunch of balloons and let them go. They shot what she imagined to be several hundred feet into the air. The bear on her lap started to spin. Now she was dizzy as well.

“I ... You can’t do that!” she cried and clutched her pounding head. “Do you know how long it took my sister to inflate those balloons? The customer wanted them delivered.”

“I probably should have donated them to Children’s Hospital or something. I wanted them gone. Sick kids don’t need some stupid balloon that reads, ‘I love you, Brandon.”

“The FAA’s scrambling jets as we speak,” one of the guys said. They continued staring at Emily as if they hadn’t seen a woman sprawled on her back in a public parking lot before.

“Hey, pretty lady,” one of the guys said as he stepped forward. Brandon glared at him, and he rapidly stepped back.

“I said, I’ve got this,” Brandon told him. “Show’s over. Get lost.” He picked up the evil red teddy bear and threw it at them. This brought on a chorus of responses from the guys still standing around her.

“McKenna, you cranky bitch,” one of them said. “That’s what happens when you go without.”

“Dawg, I like her better than the last one.”

“At least she’s got curves. Junk in the trunk. Hey, pretty lady, have dinner with me.” The guy with the black curls, eyes like a melted Hershey’s bar, whipped out his smart phone. “I’ll get us a table at Seastar at eight.”

“Go fu— She’s not going anywhere with you, dirtbag,” Brandon snapped. He took her elbow and helped her up.

She swayed toward him, still dizzy. All she had to do was get in her car and drive away. She would put a Band-Aid on whatever was bleeding. Lying in a bubble bath would fix it all. She’d explain to Amy later.

She couldn’t seem to move.

“You’re not okay,” he said. “I broke it, now I have to fix it.” To her amazement, he scooped Emily up in his arms. “Do you feel sleepy? Dizzy? How about double vision, or a headache? Nausea?”

He was walking away with her. She could hear voices as the guys followed them.

“Well, that’s one way to get a date for Valentine’s Day.”

“Me Tarzan, you Jane.”

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