Two other women bubbled out of the locker room like a pair of yappy dogs, talking a mile a minute, hands waving like tails, the gold chains around their waists bouncing and chiming like tags on a collar. Fortunately, they were all over Jim, but then again, they could have popped skirt and mooned Vin and he wouldn’t have noticed.

“I’m sorry about those guys,” he said to the dark-haired woman.

“It’s okay.”

God, her voice was lovely. “What’s your name?”

The rear door to the club opened and the Trez guy strode over. “Thanks again for taking care of things.”

Conversation sprang up, but Vin wasn’t interested in anyone but the female in front of him. He was waiting for her to answer him. Hoping she would.

“Please,” he said softly, “tell me your name.”

After a moment, the dark-haired woman turned to the owner. “Mind if I clean him up in the locker room?”

“Go right ahead.”

Vin glanced back at his comrade in harm. “You okay to hang out, Jim?”

The guy nodded. “Especially if it means you won’t bleed all over my truck.”

“I won’t take long with him,” the woman said.

Not a problem, Vin thought. As far as he was concerned, she could take forever—he stopped himself. Devina might have stormed off, but she was in his house, in his bed at this very moment. He owed her more than the way he was going on about this other female.

At least, you think you know where Devina is, his inner voice pointed out.

“Come on,” the woman said to him as she opened the locker room door.

Vin looked back at Jim for some reason—and the expression he met was all about the watch-yourself-my-man.

Vin opened his mouth, prepared to be reasonable and get a grip.

“I’ll be right back, Jim,” was all that came out.

Slut. Whore. Prostitute.

He couldn’t believe it. She was whoring herself out. Selling her body to men who used her for sex. The reality was incomprehensible.

At first, he hadn’t been able to fathom what appeared to be going on. Bad enough if she’d been a bartender or a waitress or, God forbid, a caged dancer in a club like this—but then he’d seen her walking around with her breasts on display and her thighs bared to the eyes of other men.

And she got what she deserved for doing what she did: Those two young guys had tracked her like prey, treating her exactly as men treated women like her.

He’d followed along as the pair had trailed her into the hallway, and watched as that fight had erupted. He’d been unable to move, so great was his shock. Of all the things he had pictured her doing, of all the assumptions he had made about what her life here in Caldwell was like, this was not it.