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actually on the clock.
    With a sigh, she shifted her feet and hands under her and pushed herself to a standing position. She blinked against the throb in her cheek. Damn, that was going to leave a mark. She was still riding out the pain as Adam guided her to a stool. Okay, she’d sit, just until her cheek stopped feeling like there was a fist embedded in it.
    Adam stepped away, but only for a few seconds. He extended a plastic bag filled with ice. “Here. This will help to keep it from swelling so much.”
    Her hand brushed his as she took the ice pack. Despite her jaw feeling as if George Foreman hadpunched her, she jolted at the warm contact. She hesitated a little too long in bringing the ice to her cheek, so he guided her hand. She winced when the ice made contact with her skin and tried to pull it away, but Adam’s hand gently held hers in place.
    Instead of making the mistake of looking into his eyes again, she closed her own. “Guess I’m going to have a nice shiner in the morning.”
    “You ever think about getting a different job, one that’s a little less dangerous?”
    She opened her eyes and looked at him, tried to figure out why it even mattered to him what she did for a living. “Believe it or not, this isn’t an everyday occurrence. I don’t think there’s going to be a Law and Order: Horizon Beach any time soon.”
    “Only takes once,” he muttered as he moved away and started righting chairs while Suz swept up the glass.
    Sara’s natural inclination to dig until she found the answers to all her questions flared, but not enough to trump the pounding of her head and the supreme desire to go home. If this was what going out to have fun got her, she’d had enough, thanks.
    “Well, thanks for the ice pack,” she said as she stood.
    “I can give you a ride home,” Adam said as he gripped the back of a chair.
    “I’m fine, really.” She headed for the edge of the building, but he fell into step next to her.
    “I’ll at least walk you to your car.”
    “That’s not necessary.” Him being nice and caringthreatened to give her whiplash. It hinted at another layer of Adam, one that tempted her even more than she already was when she looked at him.
    “Listen, you just took a full-out punch from a dude at least twice your size. I can tell you that if I took a punch from someone twice my size, I’d be a little woozy.”
    “You think I’m going to keel over between here and the parking lot?”
    “Probably not, but falling face-first into the sand and suffocating sure would be a sucky way to go, wouldn’t it?”
    She would have laughed if she didn’t suspect it would hurt. “True.”
    “Plus, it’s not like I’m needed here at the moment.” He gestured toward the nearly empty bar. The fight had sent all of the Beach Bum’s customers fleeing.
    “Looks like you might as well close for the night.”
    Suz walked by with her hands full of broken beer bottles. “Oh, don’t worry, that’s exactly what we’re doing. I don’t get paid enough to put up with that crap.”
    “Be back in a few,” Adam said over his shoulder as he held Sara’s elbow, helping her down to the sandy ground outside the bar.
    Too tired to argue, Sara allowed him to walk her to the parking lot. Trudging through the sand took more effort than normal, and the image Adam hadpainted of her planting her face in that sand felt like a real possibility a couple of times. Her legs went noodley as they climbed the stairs to the wooden walk over the dunes, but she managed to stay upright.
    When they reached her car, she tried to lower the ice pack to thank him.
    He guided it back to her cheek. “You want to keep this on. Trust me.”
    “Had a few punches in your time?” She tried to ignore the warmth, the strength, the manly roughness of his palm cradling her hand.
    “A few.”
    She couldn’t help a laugh at what was obviously an understatement, but as she’d suspected it only hurt her pounding cheek more.
    “You sure