Free Rekindling the Spark by Bridget Hollister Page A

knew during finals weekend it meant big trouble.
    Whipping her head around in the direction of the ruckus, she quickly realized the scene was as chaotic as it could have possibly been. Even the band had paused, craning their necks to see what was going on.
    Two men, one with a straw cowboy hat still atop his head and one whose baseball cap had been partially knocked off, were going at it throwing ill-placed punches at each other by the front door. A nearby brunette in a too-short-for-her-age denim miniskirt screamed at them to stop fighting.
    "Hank!" Maggie shouted to her bouncer, hoping desperately to get his attention before the fight escalated to an all-out brawl. "Hank! Get 'em to knock it off!" As he stepped forward to break the two men up, poor Hank took a sucker punch that he wasn't even expecting.
    In two seconds flat, the six-foot-five-inch beast of a man was out cold on the floor.
    "Damn it!" she cried, crawling up on top of the bar to try to get a better view. Standing up, she took in the chaotic situation. Before she could determine whether or not Hank was alright, three more guys had joined in on the altercation. Maggie cringed at the sound of beer bottles crashing to the floor and barstools turning over.
    The crowd would destroy her bar if she didn't do something about it—and soon.
    Closing her eyes, she tried to think about what her father would do in this particular situation. In the two decades she had watched him run the Scarlet Saddle, Jim McClure had endured countless brawls on the premises. 
    Nothing immediately came to mind and it worried her immensely. Counting carefully to three, Maggie opened her lids and looked out to see the chaos had stopped.
    "Oh. My. God!" one of the girls in line next to the bar shouted. "Did you see who that was who broke up the fight?"
    "Who?" her two blonde friends asked in high-pitched unison.
    "Rhett Lucas!" she squealed.
    "No way!" they girls replied, making Maggie wonder with irritation if they were doing it on purpose. " The Rhett Lucas?"
    "Yes! He just stepped right in there, grabbed one of the guys, and pulled him out of the bar. Two of his security guards grabbed the others. It was insane! And so freaking hot!"
    Maggie's heart sank. The last person in the entire universe she wanted saving her during a crisis was Rhett Lucas. 
    Frankly, the last time she had seen Rhett hadn't gone the way she really had wanted it to. They had just gotten a secret quickie marriage at the courthouse in Nashville when her father called, announcing he had terminal cancer. While she had rushed home to tend to her dying dad, Rhett screwed practically every wannabe country-music cowgirl in the city.
    Maggie could still remember the day she picked up the tabloid magazine at the local grocery store, paparazzi photos of her husband making out with his tour mate, Jessa Merritt, on the cover. An hour later, she sat in the office of the only lawyer in Broken Branch, having their divorce documents drawn up.
    They never spoke again and she had never told anyone besides her lawyer about the marriage. Of course, she'd been busy with her bar and he'd been busy being one of country music's hottest bad boys. But, every once in awhile, the nagging feeling of what life would be life if they had stayed together ate away at Maggie's heart and mind.
    Cursing under her breath, she carefully stepped down off the copper countertop and made her way through the crush of people to check on Hank.
    By the time she reached her bouncer, a member of the crowd had already helped him up. "You okay?" she asked, looking him up and down. 
    "Yeah," Hank replied, slightly dazed. "I'm so sorry, Mag. That guy got me out of nowhere."
    "It's okay," Maggie said with a sigh. "I want you to take the rest of the night off and go get yourself checked out. That was a hell of a punch."
    "Are you sure? I mean, it's awfully busy and I'm really okay…" Hank trailed off. 
    "Go!" she demanded, nodding her head. "Nick and I will get this