Page 6 of Keeping Guard
Peyton panicked when her father and Dalton appeared. How had they found her? They were going to take her back to a wedding she refused to participate in, and she did the first thing that came to mind. She kissed Noah.
How that was going to keep them from taking her, she wasn’t sure, but...okay, wow! If Dalton had ever kissed her back like Noah was doing, she would be married right now and not a runaway bride.
“Peyton Sutton, you have a lot of explaining to do,” her father said.
Didn’t she always? And you know what? She was so tired of it. She’d proven herself over and over, and yet, instead of recognizing that she knew beers and had so much to offer, he would never give her the same respect as he would have if she’d been a boy.
“Why the devil are you kissing that man?” her father yelled. “Why are you wearing his shirt?”
Because you’d really be freaking out if I wasn’t.She pulled away from Noah’s lips—although she wouldn’t mind kissing him a lot longer—and put her mouth next to his ear. “Please don’t let them take me.”
He looked at her with deer-in-the-headlights eyes, like he was trying to compute how he’d gotten from discovering a runaway bride to kissing that bride.
“Please,” she said again.
“Copy that,” he said too softly for her father and Dalton to hear. He put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her next to him.
Her father glared at Noah. “Whoever you are, you need to step away from my daughter.”
“I can’t do that, sir, unless she wants me to.” Noah tilted his head and peered down at her. “Do you want me to?”
“We haven’t finished drinking all the champagne, so no.”
When he laughed, it sounded rusty, like he wasn’t used to that particular emotion. “She doesn’t want me to step away, so I guess I’m not going to, sir.”
“That’s my daughter, and I’m taking her with me. She has a wedding to attend.”
“I’m not getting married today.” Why wasn’t Dalton fighting for her? If he loved her, he would, right? Instead, he stood behind her father, letting the man who wanted a son more than a daughter fight his battle.
Her father’s expression was one of disappointment. What else was new? “You’ve embarrassed me in front of three hundred guests, Peyton. Let’s go. We can explain your behavior away.”
So, he was disappointed in her. Story of her life. “I don’t care about any guests, but you’re my father. Shouldn’t you care about my happiness?”
“Of course I do. Which is why I’m going to fix this mess for you.”
And still Dalton hadn’t said a word. Did he even care that he’d seen her kissing a stranger? When her father headed for her, she knew he meant to grab her and take her back to the venue he’d picked for her wedding. She moved behind Noah.
“He’s going to force me to go back with him and get married,” she said.
Noah glanced back at her, his eyes softening in a way that made her want to melt at his feet. “Not on my watch, he’s not.” He picked her up and tossed her over his shoulder, causing her to screech.
The screech was only because he’d surprised her. Her body draped over him and her face about eye-level with his butt—the best butt she’d ever had the pleasure of having her eyes on—wasn’t such a bad place to be.
Noah patted her leg. “You sure about this?”
“Roger dodger,” she said, then giggled at the ridiculousness of her day. “Don’t forget my champagne.”
He leaned over and hooked his fingers around the necks of the two bottles. “Got ’em.”
As Noah marched past her father and her no-longer groom, she said, “You know, Dalton, if you’d ever gone caveman like this on me, I might not be your runaway bride. Too bad, so sad for you.”
Noah’s laugh vibrated through her girly parts, the ones that just happened to be pressed against his chest. She was very pleased with herself over that because she had the impression that he didn’t laugh much.
He carried her up the mountain as if he were out for a morning stroll without the weight of her body decorating him. How could he do that without gasping for air?
Go ahead, girl, and swoon. Just get it over with.
She had no idea who he was, but she did know that he had stepped up and protected her when he had no reason to. If he was a local, she should probably tell him that her father could cause him all kinds of trouble, and she would do that...as soon as she removed herself from his superpower. Because he did have one, and it was the power to make her go all tingly. She’d always wondered how it felt to tingle because of a man. Now she knew.
