"There you go." She was cute as a brass button, he thought, sweet as a daisy and looked to be just as easy to pick. Charmed, he leaned in a little closer. "Why don't I buy you a drink, and we'll talk poker strategy."

"The lady's unavailable." Mac dropped a proprietary, and none too gentle hand on Darcy's shoulder.

Her head whipped up, her shoulders tensed. "Mac." He had that frigid look in his eyes again, she noted. Not that he spared her a glance. The ice was all for her new friend from Dallas. "Ah, this is Jake. He was showing me how to play the poker machine."

"So I see. The lady's with me."

Jake ran his tongue around his teeth and, after a brief internal debate, decided he wanted to keep those teeth just where they were. "Sorry, pal. Didn't know I was poaching." He rose, tipped his hat to Darcy. "You hold out for that royal straight flush now."

"Thank you." She held out her hand, confused when Jake's eyes shifted to Mac's before he accepted.

"My pleasure." After a short and silent male exchange, Jake swaggered off.

"I'd been doing it wrong," Darcy began. And that was as far as she got.

"Didn't I tell you not to come down here at night alone?" The fact that he was speaking softly didn't lessen the power and fury behind the words. It only added to them.

"That's ridiculous." She wanted badly to cringe, and had to force herself not to. "You can't expect me to sit in my room all night. I was only—"

"This is exactly why. Ten minutes at a machine and you're getting hit on."

"He wasn't hitting on me. He was helping me."

Mac's opinion of that was short and pithy and put some steel back in Darcy's spine.

"Don't swear at me."

"I was swearing in general." He put a hand under her elbow and hauled her to her feet. "The cowboy wasn't going to buy you a drink to be helpful. He was just priming the pump, and believe me, yours is easily primed."

She started to shake, and realized it was just as much from anger as fear. "Well, if he was, and it is, it's my business."

"My place. My business."

She hissed in a breath, tried to jerk free and failed. "Let go of me. I don't have to stay here. If I'd wanted some overbearing male ordering me around, I'd still be in Kansas."

His smile was as thin and sharp as his name. "You're not in Kansas anymore."

"That's both obvious and unoriginal. Now let go of me. I'm leaving. There are plenty of other places where I can gamble and socialize without being harassed by the management."

"You want to gamble?" To her shock and—God help her—excitement, he backed her up against the machine with something close to murder in his eyes. "You want to socialize?"

"Mac?" Deciding she'd seen quite enough, Serena stepped up, a bright, friendly smile in place. "Aren't you going to introduce me?"