“What’s this all about, Nick?”

Merry asked. “Have you changed your mind about moving? Is that it?”

He should have shrugged off her questions, but dammit, she had him cornered, and he was tired of hiding his feelings. If Merry wanted answers, then by God he’d give them to her!

“And what if I have?” Nick tossed back at her. “What do you think would keep me here? Or maybe I should ask who, dammit! Think about it, Merry. Who could possibly be keeping me in Liberty Hill?”

Caught off guard, Merry just stood there, sure she must have heard wrong. But there was something in his eyes, a frustrated hurt directed solely at her, that set her heart slamming against her ribs and the ground dissolving beneath her feet. Stunned, she shook her head. No. This couldn’t be happening. He couldn’t be saying what she thought he was saying. There had to be some kind of mistake.

He couldn’t mean…

Dear Reader,

Once again, Silhouette Intimate Moments has rounded up six top-notch romances for your reading pleasure, starting with the finale of Ruth Langan’s fabulous new trilogy. The Wildes of Wyoming—Ace takes the last of the Wilde men and matches him with a pool-playing spitfire who turns out to be just the right woman to fill his bed—and his heart.

Linda Turner, a perennial reader favorite, continues THOSE MARRYING MCBRIDES! with The Best Man, the story of sister Merry McBride’s discovery that love is not always found where you expect it. Award-winning Ruth Wind’s Beautiful Stranger features a heroine who was once an ugly duckling but is now the swan who wins the heart of a rugged “prince.” Readers have been enjoying Sally Tyler Hayes’ suspenseful tales of the men and women of DIVISION ONE, and Her Secret Guardian will not disappoint in its complex plot and emotional power. Christine Michels takes readers Undercover with the Enemy, and Vickie Taylor presents The Lawman’s Last Stand, to round out this month’s wonderful reading choices.

And don’t miss a single Intimate Moments novel for the next three months, when the line takes center stage as part of the Silhouette 20th Anniversary celebration. Sharon Sala leads off A YEAR OF LOVING DANGEROUSLY, a new in-line continuity, in July; August brings the long-awaited reappearance of Linda Howard—and hero Chance Mackenzie—in A Game of Chance; and in September we reprise 36 HOURS, our successful freestanding continuity, in the Intimate Moments line. And that’s only a small taste of what lies ahead, so be here this month and every month, when Silhouette Intimate Moments proves that love and excitement go best when they’re hand in hand.

Leslie J. Wainger

Executive Senior Editor

The Best Man
Linda Turner

www.millsandboon.co.uk

LINDA TURNER

began reading romances in high school and began writing them one night when she had nothing else to read. She’s been writing ever since. Single and living in Texas, she travels every chance she gets, scouting locales for her books.

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 1

The church dressing room was in chaos. Street clothes were tossed aside and lavender bridesmaid dresses pulled on as the clock on the wall steadily marked off the time. The wedding should have started fifteen minutes ago, but no one was worried about that. They just all wanted to look their best when they finally got the chance to walk down the aisle.

“Has anyone seen my makeup bag? I would have sworn I put it right here with my dress.”

“It’s on the table with the purses. Lord, these shoes are tight! I knew I should have broken them in but I never could find the time. Now I’m going to have blisters. How am I going to dance? Has anyone got any Band-Aids?”

“Oh, God, I can’t believe this! I’ve got a run in my hose! I’ve got to get to the store!”

“You’ll never make it,” Janey McBride told her sister’s old school friend, Rose. “The second Thomas gets here, the minister said we could start the ceremony.”

“Can you believe Thomas had a flat on his wedding day?” her too-talkative cousin, Stella, said unthinkingly. “Talk about bad timing! It’s almost as if fate was trying to tell him something.”

Wincing, Janey shot her a reproving look and hoped her words didn’t carry to the adjoining room, where her mother and sisters-in-law were helping her sister, Merry, dress. “Since it was fate that brought Thomas back to town in the first place, I don’t think we have to look for any hidden messages,” she told her cousin quietly, frowning at her before turning back to Rose, who was staring in dismay at her ruined hose. “We can’t take a chance on holding things up a second time. You’ll just have to wear what you’ve got.”

“But—”

From across the room, a package of hose came sailing right at Rose, who caught it with a laugh. “If you ruin those, I’ve got six other pairs,” Merry said with a grin, her sapphire eyes dancing with happiness as she and her mother and two sisters-in-law, Lizzie and Angel, joined the crowd of bridesmaids. “Plus aspirin, Midol tablets, hive medicine, and every shade of lipstick known to man—and woman.”

Already dressed in her wedding dress, her dark hair swept up off her neck to reveal their grandmother’s pearls, she was beautiful. With her oval face, fine, delicate features, and elegant looks, everyone had always said she was the prettiest girl in town, but as a bride, she was absolutely breathtaking.

Just looking at her brought the sting of tears to Janey’s eyes. Quickly, she blinked them away, but not before Merry saw and frowned in concern. “I’m okay,” she assured her thickly, a crooked smile tilting her mouth. “I’m just getting sentimental. You look so pretty, and I don’t want anything to ruin this day for you.”

Understanding, Merry smiled and hugged her. “It’s not. It’s going to be perfect. You’ll see.”

Confident, she wasn’t the least bit nervous. After all, what was there to be nervous about? She’d been a bridesmaid so many times, she’d lost count of the number of weddings she’d been in. But at every one, she’d watched and learned the ins and outs, what not to do, how to avoid a disaster. Today was her day. She’d been waiting for it for years, and she had everything planned right down to the smallest detail. Nothing was going to go wrong. She wouldn’t let it. Not now that she had found Thomas again.

She and Thomas Cooper had been friends in grade school, sweethearts in high school, then drifted apart when she’d gone to college and veterinary school in Texas and he’d headed east to Harvard for his undergraduate and law degrees. When she’d eventually returned to the family ranch in Liberty Hill, Colorado, to open her own clinic, she’d thought she’d never see Thomas again. He’d settled in Chicago and joined an old, established law firm there, which was just what he’d always wanted. She’d been happy for him, but deep inside, a part of her had longed to see him. Then, unexpectedly, his mother fell and broke her hip. His father had died years before, and he had no brothers or sisters, so it had been left to Thomas to come home to take care of her.

Merry hadn’t even known he was back until she ran into him in town. A slow smile curled the corners of her mouth at the memory. It had been just like old times—only better. They’d gone to Ed’s Diner for coffee and had Ed’s famous chocolate cream pie, and they’d ended up talking and laughing for hours. Just that easily, she’d fallen in love with him all over again, and it had been the same for him.

Still, she hadn’t dare let herself even think of a future with him. Her life, her family, her business—everything that was dear to her was in Liberty Hill. And Thomas had only come back to town to see after his mother. It was understood that as soon as she was well and back on her feet, he would return to his law firm in Chicago.

But a month passed, and then another, and even after his mother recovered, Thomas showed no signs of leaving. Then one day, he surprised Merry with the announcement that he didn’t intend to return to Chicago. He’d made arrangements with his partners there to resign from the firm. He wanted to set up practice in Liberty Hill and spend the rest of his life with her. He proposed and gave her six months to plan a wedding.

Just thinking about it made her want to laugh, to dance, to sing with happiness. Thomas had wanted a big wedding to show off his new bride, and it had taken six months to get everything ready, but all the work was about to pay off. The big day had arrived, and in less than an hour, she would be Mrs. Thomas Cooper. Finally!

“It’s going to be fantastic,” Rose chimed in. “The sun’s shining, the birds are singing, and there isn’t a rain cloud in sight. What could go wrong? The church is full to the rafters, and Thomas is nuts about Merry. If I could find a man who’d look at me the way he looks at her, I’d be walking down the aisle myself. You’re very lucky, Mer.”

Touched, Merry found her own eyes welling with tears. “I know,” she choked. “Sometimes, I have to pinch myself just to make sure I’m not dreaming.”

“And this is just the beginning,” Angel said, grinning at her. Newly married herself to Merry and Janey’s brother, Joe, she knew from personal experience just how wonderful it could be. “You’ll settle in together, become a family, have babies—”

“Diapers, colic—”

At her sister-in-law, Lizzie’s, droll comment, they all laughed and the tears that threatened to ruin their makeup disappeared. “I can hardly wait,” Merry said with a chuckle. “It’s going to be wonderful!”

The others had to agree, and as they finished dressing and the clock ticked toward five o’clock, the rescheduled time of the wedding, they talked about Merry’s future with the man of her dreams. Some things were just meant to be, and they all agreed that she and Thomas were one of those things. You only had to see them together to know that they were totally devoted to each other.

Lost in the talk of babies and the nursery she planned to start as soon as possible, Merry didn’t notice the passage of time until she suddenly glanced at her watch and gasped. “It’s nearly five! Thomas should be here by now.”

“He was coming straight to the church as soon as he changed the flat, wasn’t he?” Stella asked. “He does know how to work a jack, doesn’t he?”

She hadn’t thought of that and blanched at the idea of setting back the wedding again. Everyone knew Thomas wasn’t mechanically inclined. She should have insisted that one of her brothers go pick him up, but he’d assured her he had everything under control.

“Maybe I’d better call him,” she said, stepping over to the phone. “Something must have happened.”

She punched in the number of his cell phone, only to get his voice mail when he didn’t answer. Surprised, she told herself there had to be a logical explanation. If his cell phone was in the car and he was outside loading the flat tire into the trunk, he wouldn’t even hear the phone ringing. Or he’d left the phone on the side of the road and driven off without it. He’d been so absentminded lately that she wouldn’t have put that past him.

Or right this minute, he could be lying on the side of the road, sick from the same bug that had upset his stomach last night at the rehearsal dinner.

She went pale at the thought. Worried, she turned to her sister. “Janey, what if he’s sick? You saw how he was last night. He was green as a gourd. He said it was nothing, but what if he’s got one of those nasty stomach viruses that won’t go away? He wouldn’t have told me because he wouldn’t have wanted to upset me, but he could be in trouble. Maybe the guys should go look for him.”

Somber, Janey had to agree that her concern was legitimate. They’d all seen how uncomfortable Thomas was last night, and he was just the type to keep his illness to himself so he wouldn’t ruin their wedding day. “I’m sure there’s nothing to worry about,” she assured her, “but I’ll go talk to the guys. Who knows? He may have called Nick so he wouldn’t have to worry you. I’ll find out and be right back.”

“Thank you! If something has happened to him—”

“Don’t look for trouble,” her mother advised her calmly. Always the voice of reason when everyone else was falling apart, Sara McBride was as calm and self-possessed as a saint as she quietly took charge. “Everything will be fine. You’ll see. While we’re waiting, Lizzie and Angel and I will talk to the guests and assure them everything’s okay. You just stay here and relax and think of how wonderful your life with Thomas is going to be. I know you’ll be very happy together.”

On the verge of panic, that was just what Merry needed to hear. Tears glistening in her eyes, she took her mother’s hand and squeezed it in appreciation. “Thanks, Mom. How did you know I needed to hear that?”

“Because I know my children. Don’t have a meltdown, dear. Everything’s going to work out just fine. You’ll see.”

The room reserved for Thomas and his groomsmen to dress was off the choir room and much smaller than that allotted to the women. Knocking on the door, Janey wouldn’t have been surprised to find Thomas inside, scrambling into his tux and cursing the flat tire that had delayed him.

But when her brother, Joe, answered the door and she looked past him into the room, all she saw was their younger brother, Zeke, and the rest of the groomsmen. Already decked out in their wedding finery and standing around with their hands in their pockets, there was something about their somber expressions that had her heart jumping in alarm. “What’s wrong? Where’s Thomas? He is here, isn’t he?”

“Not exactly,” Zeke replied grimly.

“What?!”

“He’s having trouble getting here,” Joe told her tersely. “Nick’s on the phone with him in the church office right now.”

Confused, Janey frowned. Nick Kincaid was not only the local sheriff, but Thomas’s best man. “I don’t understand. If he’s still having car trouble, why doesn’t Nick just send one of his deputies to pick him up?”

“Because Thomas won’t tell any of us where he is.”

The color drained out of Janey’s face at Zeke’s curt announcement, and suddenly she understood why her brothers looked so serious. “He’s backing out of the wedding?”

“I don’t know, but I’m tired of cooling my heels in here,” Joe retorted. “C’mon. Let’s go see what’s going on.”

Jerking open the door, he ushered Janey and Zeke out into the hall, only to discover that a number of the guests had grown restless and escaped to the foyer of the church, where they stood in groups of twos and threes, gossiping. At the sight of the three McBrides, they immediately stiffened and nearly choked on what they were saying. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that they were whispering about the delay in the ceremony and the fact that no one had seen the groom all day.

Joe couldn’t say he blamed them for speculating among themselves. Thomas’s behavior was damned odd, and he intended to tell him that the second he finally showed his face. For now, however, he and the rest of the family would, for Merry’s sake, act as if everything were fine.

Nodding to the guests, he forced a smile and said, “Sorry about the delay, folks. There’ve been a few glitches, but we’re getting them straightened out and should start the ceremony any minute.”

Not giving anyone time to ask what the glitches were, he led the way to the church office and shut the door as soon as Janey and Zeke followed him inside. Nick, Thomas’s closest friend for most of his life, was on the phone and prowling the length of the phone cord. Joe took one look at his scowling face and swore. Whatever breakdown Thomas was going through, Nick had obviously made little progress with him.

Furious, Nick, in fact, wanted to string him up by his thumbs. “Dammit, man, this is just prewedding jitters!” he growled into the phone. “Calm down and think about what you’re doing. Think about Merry. I know you love her. You always have. And she loves you. The two of you belong together. Give yourself a chance and talk to her—”

“There’s nothing to talk about,” Thomas retorted. “I thought I could do this, but I can’t. I can’t marry her. It would be the biggest mistake of my life.”

“You don’t mean that. Talk to her—”

“You talk to her. Tell her whatever you like. Tell her I’m sorry. I never meant to hurt her. But I can’t marry her. I can’t make her happy. I can’t be the person she needs me to be. So I’m going back to Chicago where I belong.”

“No!”

“Goodbye, Nick.”

The phone went dead in his hands, and with a muttered curse, Nick quickly punched in the number to Thomas’s cell phone, but he’d turned it off and the call couldn’t be completed. Swearing, he slammed the receiver down on its base, and completely forgot he was in church. “Damn him, I can’t believe he’s doing this!”

Her brown eyes wide in her pale face, Janey was the first to break the ominous silence that had fallen. “What exactly is he doing?”

Nick hesitated, wondering how the hell he was supposed to tell Merry’s family that the man she loved with all her heart was going to leave her standing at the altar. What could he say that would possibly make sense of this? Nothing, dammit. Nothing at all.

“He’s jilting her, isn’t he?” Zeke snarled as Nick struggled to find the words. “And he’s too much of a coward to come here and tell her to her face.”

Nick winced. Like it or not, that pretty much summed it up. “He’s got it in his head that he can’t be the man Merry needs him to be, and getting married now would be nothing but a mistake. He’s going back to Chicago.”

“The hell he is!” Joe growled, and headed for the door. “C’mon, Zeke. You and I are going to have a talk with Mr. Cooper about the proper way a man treats the woman he claims to love.”

Nick wouldn’t have blamed them if they’d wanted to do a hell of a lot more than talk to Thomas. If it hadn’t been his responsibility as sheriff to enforce the law, he wouldn’t have minded popping his old friend a few times himself. It was no more than he deserved. But beating the tar out of him wouldn’t change anything, and at the moment, they had a much more serious problem to deal with. Merry still didn’t know she wasn’t getting married today.

Quickly stepping in front of the door, he blocked Joe’s path and didn’t so much as blink when the oldest McBride gave him a look that could have blistered paint. “You’re forgetting Merry,” he said quietly. “Somebody has to tell her.”

That stopped both brothers in their tracks. Swearing, Zeke tugged off the tie that threatened to choke him and threw it across the room. “This is going to kill her, Nick. She’s nuts about the bastard.”

No one knew that better than Nick. Best friends with both Merry and Thomas since first grade, he’d watched them fall in love in high school, then again, just last November when Thomas came back to town to take care of his ailing mother. For as long as Nick could remember, Merry had never had eyes for anyone else but Thomas.

“I’ll tell her,” Joe said grimly. “Something like this needs to come from family.”

Nick knew he was probably right. When a woman heard this kind of news, she needed her loved ones around her to cushion the blow. But he loved her, too, dammit! And he’d never been so frustrated in his life. He’d have given his right arm to protect her from this kind of hurt, but it was too late for that. All he could do for her now was break the news as gently as possible and be there for her when she needed a friend.

“I’d like to do it, if you don’t mind,” he said huskily. “I was the only one who talked to Thomas, and as the best man, I feel like it’s my responsibility. I should have seen this coming. I knew something was troubling him, but I thought it was something to do with work and having to reschedule everything so he and Merry could have a month for their honeymoon. If I’d just cornered him and made him talk to me, all of this could have been prevented.”

Her brown eyes kind, Janey patted his arm in sympathy. “This isn’t your fault, Nick. None of us could have predicted this, so don’t beat yourself up over it.”

“We all know who the bad guy is here,” Zeke added, “and it isn’t you.”

“I’d still like to be the one to tell her,” he insisted. “She’s going to blame herself, and she’s not the one who did anything wrong. Thomas is the one with the hang-up, not her. I don’t know how I’m going to make her understand that, but I’d like all of you to be there. And your mother, too, of course. She’s going to take this hard.”

The three McBrides exchanged glances and came to a decision without saying a word. “All right,” Joe said. “We’ll do it your way. Janey, where’s Mom?”

“She and Angel and Lizzie were helping everyone get dressed, but Mom said something about talking to some of the guests. They’re getting restless.”

“I don’t blame them,” he muttered, pulling open the door. “I’m a little testy myself. C’mon. Let’s go find everyone.”

Pacing nervously, Merry glanced at her watch for the third time in a single minute, worry eating her stomach. What was taking Janey so long? She’d promised she’d be right back ten minutes ago, and she was nowhere in sight. Something was wrong with Thomas, she thought, swallowing a sob. He’d collapsed somewhere and was in the hospital and nobody wanted to tell her. That had to be it. Nothing else but some kind of horrible illness would keep him from her at a time like this. Dear God, what if instead of a stomach virus, he had appendicitis and his appendix had burst? Right this minute, he could be lying on the side of the road somewhere, dying. She had to go to him!

Horrified, she whirled and headed for the door, determined to find her brothers and Nick and make one of them take her to Thomas. But she’d only taken two steps when there was a perfunctory knock at the dressing room door and Nick and her entire family walked in.

At the sight of their somber faces, she paled, her worst fears realized. “Something’s happened, hasn’t it? He’s in the hospital, isn’t he?” When no one answered, tears welled in her eyes. “Oh, God! He’s not—”

“He’s not dead,” Janey said quickly, reading her mind. “So don’t worry about that. He’s perfectly fine.”

“Then he’s here? Thank God! I’ve been worried sick.”

In spite of the fact that it went against tradition, she would have rushed to the men’s dressing room to see for herself that he was really all right, but the grim look that remained on everyone’s faces held her motionless where she was. “What is it?” she demanded when her heart started to pound in alarm. “What’s wrong?”

For a moment, she didn’t think anyone was going to tell her. Then Nick stepped forward and took her hand. “He’s not here, Merry,” he told her gruffly. “He’s gone back to Chicago.”

“He has not,” she retorted, chuckling in relief. For a second there, she’d thought something was seriously wrong! “We’re getting married, silly. Cut the joking. Where is he, really? The minister must be getting impatient. We’ve got to get this show on the road.”

Her hand still in his, Nick tightened his fingers around hers. “I’m not joking, Mer. There isn’t going to be a wedding. Thomas had a panic attack and freaked out at the idea of getting married. I tried to talk him out of it, but there was no reasoning with him. He left for Chicago ten minutes ago.”

Stella gasped, and somewhere behind her, Rose murmured, “Oh, God!” but Merry never so much as flinched. No! She stared up at Nick with large, unblinking eyes, denial echoing over and over again in her head. There had to be a mistake. Thomas wouldn’t do this to her. Nick must have misunderstood. This was all just some ridiculous misunderstanding. It had to be!

But there was nothing but sympathy in his eyes, nothing but regret and sorrow in the murmured words of her brothers and sister and sisters-in-law as they gathered around her to hug her and reassure her that everything was going to be fine. Clinging to denial, she submitted to their hugs, wondering all the while when someone was going to spill the punchline to this awful joke. Then her mother came to her, tears glistening in her beloved eyes as she slipped her arms around her and folded her close against her heart, and Merry’s defenses began to crumble.

“Mom?”

“I’m so sorry, dear. I know how much you love him. I can’t imagine what’s going on in his head right now, but I’m sure he never meant to hurt you.”

So it was true. Practically the whole town had gathered to see her marry Thomas, and it wasn’t going to happen. Without a word of explanation, he’d literally left her standing at the altar.

The pain hit then, sharp and excruciating, right in the heart. She wanted to cry out, to scream No! but her throat closed like a vice. Tears flooded her eyes, and she couldn’t seem to blink them away fast enough. Numb, all she could do was hug herself and rock back and fourth as hurt swamped her, threatening to drag her down into the dark void that suddenly yawned at the edge of her consciousness.

Lost in her misery, she suffered the hugs of Rose and Stella and hardly heard the words of condolences that swirled around her. It was like a funeral, she thought dazedly as she sank into the nearest chair and her wedding dress billowed around her. A death, only no one had died. Except her. She should have been wearing black.

Zeke squatted down in front of her, concern lining his face as he took her cold hand. “You don’t have to worry about anything, Sis. Do you hear me? Joe and I will talk to the guests and tell them the wedding and reception have been cancelled. Lizzie and Angel are going to go back to the house and help the caterers pack everything up while we wait for everyone to clear out of here. You don’t have to see or talk to anyone until you’re ready. Okay?”

“As soon as we get the all clear from Angel and Lizzie, we’ll take you home,” Joe added huskily. “To Mom’s house, not yours. There’s no reason for you to face Thomas’s things tonight. Tomorrow, Zeke and Nick and I will load his stuff into my truck and take it over to his mother’s.”

Enveloped in misery, Merry just barely held back a sob. She had such a wonderful family. They all had busy lives and didn’t always agree on things, but in times of trouble, they closed ranks. And she loved them for it. Unlike Thomas, she could count on them to be there for her through thick and thin and to protect her when she was hurting.

And right now, she was battered and bruised and more hurt than she’d ever been in her life. Like a wounded animal, she wanted to just crawl in a hole somewhere and hide from the world. But she couldn’t. Thomas had publicly humiliated her in front of the whole town, and if she didn’t face her friends and family now, she didn’t think she’d ever be able to look them in the eye again.

The decision made, she blinked away her tears and lifted her chin proudly. “No, I’ll talk to the guests. They were invited to my wedding, and I should be the one who talks to them.”

“Says who?”

“You don’t owe anyone anything.”

“Are you sure you want to do this, dear? It won’t be easy.”

Even as her mother cautioned her, Merry knew she understood this was something she had to do. Thomas was the bad guy here, and she wasn’t going to hide away like she had something to be ashamed of. The light of battle glinting in her sapphire eyes, she rose purposefully to her feet. “I’m sure. And I’m not cancelling the reception, either. It’s already been paid for, and everyone’s expecting a party. They’re going to have one.”

“What?!”

“You can’t be serious!”

“Maybe somebody should call a doctor. I don’t think she’s in any condition to be making these kind of decisions.”

Joe scowled at Stella, shutting her up with a single hard glare, and turned to Merry. Struggling to hang on to his patience, he was frustrated and furious with Thomas, and his control snapped. “Dammit, Merry, no one will expect you to go through with the damn reception. It’s crazy. So just hush and let us take care of things!”

At any other time, she would have snapped back. This wasn’t the Dark Ages and she didn’t have to hush and go meekly along with whatever the men in the family wanted. But he was upset and concerned and, like everyone else, more than a little emotional. And for that, she could forgive him. But she was still going through with the reception.

Love squeezing her heart, she pulled him close for a fierce hug, then quickly stepped free before she dissolved in tears. “I know you’re just trying to protect me, and I appreciate it,” she said with a smile that wasn’t quite steady. “But I’ve made up my mind and I’m not going to change it. Tell Lizzie and Angel the reception’s a go.” And not giving anyone a chance to argue further, she turned and sailed out of the dressing room with the train of her wedding dress trailing behind her.

Muttering among themselves about the McBride stubbornness that they all had more than their fair share of, there was nothing Joe and the rest of the family could do but follow.

She’d thought it would be easy. Caught up in her determination to do what she considered the right thing, she would march down the aisle, give a no-nonsense explanation to the overflowing crowd, and invite everyone back to the ranch for the reception. But as she started down the center aisle alone in her wedding dress, she could almost feel the shocked surprise that rippled through the crowd. Row by row, silence fell like a stone as people caught sight of her. By the time she reached the spot where she and Thomas were to have stood to take their vows, the church was so quiet, the very air itself seemed to hum. And every eye was on her.

Her heart pounding, she would have liked nothing more than to turn tail and run. But these were her friends and relatives, people she’d known all her life, and she’d kept them waiting long enough.

Gathering her courage, she faced them squarely, with a forced smile that didn’t come easily. “I imagine you’ve all been wondering what the holdup is, and I can’t say I blame you. We had a few unexpected delays, and now Thomas has decided he doesn’t want to get married today, after all.”

A collective gasp went up from the crowd, along with more than a few less than complimentary comments about Thomas. But it was the sympathy she saw in people’s eyes that almost shattered Merry. Touched, she struggled to hold back tears, but it wasn’t easy. Her throat was tight, her heart hurting, and it was several long moments before she could manage to even talk. And even then, her voice was betrayingly husky with emotion.

“I apologize for keeping you waiting, but I was just as surprised by the turn of events as you are. Needless to say, there won’t be a wedding, but that doesn’t mean you’ll have to miss out on a good party. I’ll meet you back at the ranch in a few moments, and the reception will continue as planned.”

For a moment, there was nothing but stunned silence, then everyone began to whisper. Suddenly, from the back of the church, one of the cowboys who worked at the ranch jumped to his feet and let out a holler that rattled the church’s stained-glass windows. “Does this mean you’re available again, Merry, honey? All right! Can I have the first dance?”

Caught off guard, she had to laugh—she couldn’t help it. A wide grin splitting his face and his blue eyes dancing with excitement, he looked like he’d just discovered there was a Santa Claus after all. “You certainly can, Slim,” she said with a chuckle. “I’d be honored.”

“I want second,” another cowboy called out.

“Hey, I was going to ask her!”

“So what took you so long?”

Flattered, Merry found herself blinking back tears again. “Don’t fight, boys. I’ll be happy to dance with all of you. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to get out of these shoes—they’re killing me! I’ll see all of you back at the ranch.”

She hurried up the aisle before the tears could fall and found her entire family waiting for her at the back of the church. Her sisters-in-law, Elizabeth and Angel, had joined the group, along with Zeke and Elizabeth’s daughter, Casey, and although they didn’t all agree with her decision, they were totally supportive.

Tears glistening in her mother’s eyes, her smile tender with love, she said, “Your father would be so proud of you, dear. I know that wasn’t easy for you.”

“It was the right thing to do,” she said simply. “I’m not going to hide away like I did something I should be ashamed of.”

“If anyone should be ashamed, it should be Cooper,” Zeke said tersely as they all retreated to the dressing room again to wait for the crowd to thin out. “Damn, I’d like to give him a piece of my mind!”

“Don’t worry,” Joe retorted in a low-pitched voice. “He’s going to pay. He’ll have to live with this the rest of his life, and he probably doesn’t even realize it.”

Still furious with his old friend, Nick had to agree. “No, he doesn’t. He’s not thinking at all—he’s panicking. Once he calms down, he’s going to regret this, but by then, it’ll be too late. It’s already too late.”

Nick had to only look at Merry’s pale, drawn face to know just how badly she was hurting. And there was nothing he or anyone else could do to help her. That, more than anything else, frustrated the hell out of him. Tonight should have been her wedding night, the night she’d planned to spend in some secluded, romantic setting with her new husband. Instead, she would dance the evening away with a bunch of drunk cowboys, then spend what was left of the night alone with dreams of what might have been.

Nick didn’t know how she would bear it. No woman deserved that, especially one as kind and caring and beautiful as Merry. She could have graced the cover of any fashion magazine in the world—she was that gorgeous—and Thomas had walked away from her. He must have been out of his mind.

Wishing he could get his old friend alone for just five minutes, he tore at his tie. “I don’t know about the rest of you, but I think I’m going to go change out of this monkey suit. This damn tie’s choking me to death.”

Quickly seconding the suggestion, Janey said, “I think that’s an excellent idea. Merry, don’t you want to change? With all that bead work, your dress must weigh a ton. Your suitcase is still in my car. Why don’t you let one of the guys get it for you so you can put on something more comfortable?”

Merry was tempted. Janey was right—the dress was incredibly heavy—and the most beautiful wedding dress she’d ever seen. She’d fallen in love with it at first sight and hadn’t needed to look at any others to know that this was The Dress, the one she’d dreamed of wearing when she walked down the aisle to Thomas. But that dream had turned into a nightmare. And the dress no longer represented her hopes for the future with the man she loved, but his betrayal.

And that was why she wasn’t taking it off. Not yet. With every step, the weight of it tugging at her would remind her of Thomas and just how close she’d come to making the biggest mistake of her life. God, what a fool she was! She’d loved him, trusted him with her heart and soul. And what had he done? Kicked her in the teeth in front of the whole town.

Numb, she still couldn’t believe it. They’d been friends their entire lives—she’d loved him for longer than she could remember. She’d thought she knew him inside and out, better than she knew herself. If someone had told her he was capable of hurting her this way, she would have called them a liar. She would have been wrong.

“No, thanks,” she told Janey. “I’ll just wear this for now. It can’t be returned, so I might as well get some use out of it while I can.”

Her eyes sad, her sister said quietly, “You don’t have to torture yourself this way, Mer. Why don’t you let me take the dress and get rid of it?”

Just that easily, the tears she’d thought she had under control were back, filling her eyes and silently spilling over her leashes. “Maybe later,” she said thickly. “For now, I have to wear it. I have my reasons.”

Afraid she was going to shatter if she didn’t get her emotions under control, she quickly changed the subject and forced a bright smile. “Enough of this. The church has cleared out, so let’s get out of here. We’ve got a party to go to!”

The reception was held at her mother’s house, the large, sprawling family homestead that had been added on to by generations of McBrides over the last century. With porches stretching across the front and back of the house and a huge patio under the trees out back, there was more than enough room to accommodate half the county.

Which was a good thing, Merry thought as she, Janey, and her mother approached the house in the limo that had been rented to drive her and Thomas to the reception. Cars lined the drive for a quarter of a mile, and still others spilled onto nearby pastures. Everyone in town appeared to be there, and Merry couldn’t say she was surprised. This was a party that no one in their right mind was going to miss.

She’d wanted a wedding that people would talk about for years to come, and it looked like she’d gotten it. But Lord, she hadn’t expected it to be under these conditions! Thomas should be at her side, damn him, with his ring on her finger and hers on his! Instead, he was on his way back to Chicago with his tail between his legs, and she was the one left to deal with the consequences of his cowardice.

Too late, she realized she should have cancelled the reception. She must have been out of her mind to think she could carry such a thing off. People would expect her to smile prettily and graciously accept their hugs and kisses and words of condolences, and she just wasn’t in the mood. She appreciated their support, but what she really needed was some time to herself.

Reading her thoughts, her mother said quietly, “You don’t have to do this, you know. No one would think badly of you if you thanked everyone for coming, then slipped away by yourself.”

“We can handle the party,” Janey assured her. “Why don’t you go back to your place and have a good cry? You’d feel better.”

For all of two seconds, she actually considered it. Then she remembered Thomas’s things. His clothes hung beside hers in her closet; his pillow lay beside hers on her bed. Not wanting to have to move into her house after they returned from their honeymoon, when they would both immediately return to work, he’d spent the last week transferring his things from his apartment to Merry’s house. Just thinking about facing that now, when she felt like she would shatter at any moment, had her shaking her head in panic. “No, I can handle it. I’m sure I’ll be fine.”

The limo pulled up before the homestead then, and any time she had to compose herself was gone. Guests started swarming toward the car, and she was left with no choice but to paste on a smile and step out to greet them when the driver opened the door for her. Immediately enveloped in hugs and sympathy, she was passed from one person to the next, then the next, and carried along with the crowd to the back patio, where tables had been set up for the reception. There, even more people were waiting for their chance to talk to her.

Overwhelmed, she felt tears sting her eyes, and in spite of her best resolve not to cry, she couldn’t help herself. Horrified that she was going to fall apart right there in front of everyone, she looked around for an escape route, but she was cut off by the crowd at every turn. Then, just when she thought she was going to thoroughly embarrass herself, a drumroll sounded from the band that was set up at the opposite end of the patio.

“Ladies and gentlemen, if I may have your attention, please,” the lead singer called out loudly. “The guest of honor has arrived and the band would like to salute her with a song. Merry, this one’s for you.”

Giving her a thumb’s up signal, he turned to the band. With a nod of his head, he and his musicians swept into a rousing rendition of “I Will Survive.”

Chapter 2

With one song, the band did what no one else had—they made her laugh. And for the first time in what felt like hours, Merry was her old self, confident and fun loving, the life of the party. One cowboy after another asked her to dance, and she said yes to them all, hoping she could lose herself in the music. And for a while, she did. She two-stepped and waltzed and jitterbugged with the best of them and refused to let herself think. But it couldn’t last, not when she was hurting so badly. There was only one man she wanted to dance with, one man she wanted to hold her, and he wasn’t there. Try though she might, she couldn’t stop missing him.

And she hated herself for it. He’d dumped her, publicly humiliated her, then ran away like an irresponsible jerk. He wasn’t worth another tear, let alone a second thought. She knew that, but still, she couldn’t get him out of her head. In desperation, she smiled more, laughed harder, and to anyone who didn’t know her well, she appeared to actually be having fun. She had, in fact, never been more miserable in her life.

And her family knew it. Standing on the sidelines watching her on the dance floor, they could only watch in pained silence and sympathize. “Somebody needs to do something,” Angel said huskily. “Look at her out there, honey. She’s got to be hurting.”

“Maybe she just needs to get it out of her system,” Joe replied, his brown eyes dark with concern as he watched every move Merry made. “At least she’s not bawling her eyes out.”

“That’ll come later,” his mother predicted softly. “When everyone’s gone home and the letdown hits her. Then she’ll cry herself to sleep.”

His jaw rock-hard and his eyes narrowed on the cowboy that was holding Merry just a little too close, Zeke growled. “That jackass better watch where he’s putting his hands or he’s going to find himself picking himself up off the ground.”

“Maybe it’s time I cut in and gave that clown his walking papers,” Nick said tersely. “Excuse me.”

The song was just ending as Nick reached Merry and her partner, and with a single hard glare, he sent the other man packing. Merry never even noticed. Giving him a smile that had been known to knock lesser men out of their boots, she walked right into his arms. “There you are, Nick. I haven’t seen you in ages. Let’s dance.”

She melted in his arms as the band swung into the next number, and it wasn’t until then that Nick realized she was well on her way to being snockered. Over the years, they’d danced together more times than either of them could remember, and not once all those times had she ever draped herself around him like a limp dishrag. Nick didn’t even think he’d seen her dance that way with Thomas. She wasn’t into public displays and just didn’t do that kind of thing. Or at least, she hadn’t before tonight. But then again, she’d never been jilted before, either.

And like it or not, she felt too damn good against him. With no conscious effort on his part, he tightened his arms around her, cradling her close against him before he suddenly realized what he was doing. Biting off a curse, he quickly dropped his hands to her waist and put some breathing space between them.

“Somebody’s had a little too much to drink, and it isn’t me,” he said, frowning down at her when she murmured a protest. “You’re going to regret that tomorrow.”

Her smile faded, leaving her looking lost and lonely. “I’m going to regret a lot of things tomorrow. What’s one more?”

She had a point, but still, it broke Nick’s heart to see her this way. Damn Thomas! he thought furiously. Whatever doubts he’d had about getting married, he could have found a hell of a better way to break things off. He must have known weeks ago that he wasn’t going to be able to go through with the ceremony, so why hadn’t he told Merry then? Why had he waited and jilted her in front of the whole damn town?

“You don’t have anything to regret, Mer,” he said quietly. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

Lifting stark eyes to his, she made no attempt to hide her pain. “I’m not so sure about that,” she whispered. “It wasn’t just anyone that Thomas didn’t want to marry. It was me. So I have to ask myself…what did I do to drive him away?”

“Nothing! My God, you can’t believe you’re responsible for this!”

But she did—he could see it in her eyes, in the tears that welled there and started to spill over her lashes. Up until then, she’d been a tower of strength, facing her friends and family with a grace that he couldn’t help but admire. But even she had her breaking point, and he had a feeling she’d just reached it. She started to cry, and there didn’t seem to be anything she could do to stop it.

Alarmed, Nick knew the last thing she wanted to do was break down with the whole world watching. “C’mon,” he murmured, hustling her off the dance floor before anyone noticed there was anything wrong. “I’m getting you out of here.”

The crowd closed around them the second they stepped off the floor, and for a second, Nick didn’t think he was going to be able to make his way through. But something in his face must have told people to back off because they parted like the Red Sea. Within seconds, he was leading Merry away from the patio and around the side of the house to where the cars were parked out front.

He intended to take her home to her house so she could be alone and cry in private, but she had other ideas. The minute he helped her into the passenger seat of his car, then came around to join her behind the wheel, she sniffed, “I don’t want to go home.”

In spite of the tears still streaming down her beautiful face, she had that stubborn set to her jaw, the same one he’d seen for the first time when they were both six years old. Over the years, he’d learned all too well that there was no budging her once she stuck out her chin. Still, he had to try.

“C’mon, Merry, don’t be that way,” he pleaded as he carefully made his way through the parked cars. “It’s been a hell of a day and you’ve had too much to drink. You need to go home and get out of that dress and get some rest.”

“This was supposed to be my wedding night,” she whispered brokenly, wrapping her arms around herself as if she was suddenly chilled. “Don’t make me go home. I don’t think I could bear it.”

His teeth clenched on an oath, Nick wanted to kick himself. He hadn’t thought of that, hadn’t considered what it would be like for her when she went home to her lonely house and the empty bed that she’d expected to share with her new husband. She’d have to face the night alone, with nothing but what-ifs for company.

Damn Thomas! He didn’t have a clue what he’d done to her, and there was nothing Nick could do to ease her pain…except be there for her as long as she wanted company so the night wouldn’t be so lonely. “All right,” he said gruffly. “Forget going home. It’s early yet anyway. So where would you like to go? Just name it and we’re there.”

She considered the possibilities for all of five seconds. “I don’t know. Someplace quiet, where I don’t have to deal with people. Someplace like…the lake! We can watch the moon come up over the water.”

It wasn’t the place he would have picked—what she really needed was a strong cup of coffee at Ed’s Diner—but this was her night to be indulged. “The lake it is,” he said easily, and turned north once they reached the highway and left the ranch behind.

Bear Lake was really little more than a large pond, but it was a popular recreational spot for the locals all year round. Ice fishermen claimed it in the winter, and the water-skiers and kids took over the place in the summer. It was the teenagers who came there at night to neck, however, that earned the place its reputation as a lover’s lane. Not a night went by, summer and winter, that Nick didn’t have to drive out there, clear the young lovers out, and send them home.

And tonight was no different. The kids were there in droves, which wasn’t surprising. It was a warm June night, the moon was full, and most of the parents in town were at the McBride place for Merry’s wedding reception. And while the cat was away, the mice would play.

Noting the cars that were discreetly parked under trees all around the lake, he couldn’t help but grin as he remembered the nights he, too, had sneaked off to the lake with one of the girls from school. Old man Hubbard had been the sheriff back then, and he, too, had made his own nightly trips around the lake looking for errant teenagers. Years from now, Nick imagined, another sheriff would continue the tradition, just as he had. Some things never changed.

“I’ve got a little official business to take care of,” he told Merry, then switched on the spotlight on his car. Reaching for the mike of his radio, he began to slowly drive around the lake. “It’s time to go home, boys and girls,” he said over his loudspeaker. “The lake is for day use only and closes at nine.”

It was the same speech he gave every night, and as usual, the result was the same. There were a few squeals of feminine dismay as his spotlight lit up the interior of several cars, then engines roared to life, and a mass exodus began. Within minutes, the last taillight disappeared down the road, and they were alone.

Satisfied, Nick turned to Merry. “Now that we have the place to ourselves, where would you like to park?”

Her smile flashed in the darkness. “I thought the lake was closed.”

Unabashed, he grinned. “It is. And to make sure it stays that way, we’re going to stick around for a while. So where would you like to park?”

“Out on the point,” she said without hesitation. “Then we can see the moon rise.”

It had been their favorite spot when they were teenagers, the place where she and Thomas and he had met to swim and fish and just hang out together. There, they’d talked about their hopes and dreams and how they were all going to one day change the world. It was there that Merry had first kissed Thomas, there that Thomas had given her his letter jacket and asked her to go steady, there that Nick played peacemaker whenever they had a fight.

Driving out onto the point, he parked and cut the engine, then got out of his patrol car to join her at the picnic table the three of them had always called “theirs.” It had weathered over the years, but it still bore the initials they’d carved into it the first day of their senior year in high school.

Dropping down to a bench, her wedding dress pooling around her, Merry found the rough letters in the dark and traced them with her index finger. “We had some good times back then, didn’t we?” she said with a melancholy smile. “Remember when Thomas smuggled his pet duck into church and it started quacking right in the middle of Reverend Johnson’s sermon? I thought he was going to have a stroke right there in front of the entire congregation.”

Nick chuckled, his brown eyes dancing at the memory. “He got so upset he pulled his toupee off and the organist fell off her bench! God, I’d forgotten about that.”

“And the time Thomas climbed the tree outside my bedroom window and you distracted my mother by pretending you had appendicitis?” she laughed.

“How could I forget,” he retorted, grinning. “Joe came home early and caught Thomas hanging from the tree, and I thought we were all three toast.”

“What do you mean all three? The only punishment you and Thomas got was a stern lecture from my mother. I was put on restriction and didn’t get to see Thomas anywhere but at school for a month. It was the longest month of my life.”

Dear Lord, how she’d missed him! And she’d still gotten to see him every day at school. Now she wouldn’t be seeing him at all. He was gone, out of her life, and he wouldn’t be coming back. Just thinking about it made her want to lay her head down on the table and cry her eyes out.

But she couldn’t. Because if she did, she didn’t think she’d ever be able to stop. Not this time. The hurt was too raw, too strong, and what little control she’d had earlier was all used up.

Her eyes burning from the tears she wouldn’t allow to fall, she jumped to her feet, in desperate need of distraction. “I’m hot,” she announced. “I think I’ll go swimming.”

Surprised, Nick just blinked at her. “You can’t. The lake’s closed.”

Undaunted, she just cocked her head and mockingly arched a brow at him. “Then I guess you’ll just have to arrest me, won’t you, Sheriff?”

When she stepped out of her shoes, then reached under the full skirt of he wedding dress to shimmy out of her panty hose, Nick told himself she wouldn’t actually strip right there in front of him. She was just playing with him, pushing his buttons—and, he silently added, doing a damn good job of it. But she wouldn’t really go through with it. Not Merry. She liked to tease, but that was as far as it went. The second he called her bluff, she’d back down in a hurry.

Satisfied he had everything under control, he crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back against the picnic table to watch the show, daring her with his own arched brow. A split second later, she reached behind her for the zipper to her dress.

He stiffened, his gaze narrowing dangerously. “Don’t go there, Mer—”

For an answer, the raspy whisper of her zipper growled like a tiger in the night.

Shocked, he jumped toward her. “Dammit, Merry, don’t you dare!”

He was too late. Lightning quick, she pulled her zipper down the rest of the way, and with a silent sigh of satin, her wedding dress dropped to the ground. Between one heartbeat and the next, she stole the air right out of his lungs.

He tried to tell himself that the lacy panties and bra she wore revealed little more than a bathing suit, and they’d gone swimming enough in the past that he shouldn’t have been impressed. But the last time he’d been to the lake with her, they’d both been seniors in high school. And the woman who stood before him looked nothing like the girl from back then.

Lord, she was beautiful! He’d always known that, but seeing her now in the glow of the moon rising on the eastern horizon, she was breathtaking—there was no other way to describe her. Tall and willowy, with her dark hair swept up off her shoulders and her eyes deep, mysterious pools of sapphire, she looked like a wood nymph there in the darkness.

He wanted to reach for her, to touch, to run his hands over her to see if her skin was as soft as it looked in the moonlight, but he didn’t dare move for fear she would vanish right before his eyes. His heart slamming against his ribs, he couldn’t get over her total lack of awareness of her own beauty. He’d known other pretty women who used their looks as leverage to get what they wanted out of life, but Merry wasn’t like that. Intelligent and loyal, she had a kind, generous heart and, thanks to her mother’s teachings, was much more interested in the kind of person you were than what you looked like. And that made her even more beautiful—and even more impossible to resist.

Which was why every single man he knew, including himself, was in love with her.

“Put your dress back on right this minute,” he ordered sternly, “before somebody drives in and sees you.”

“No,” she said obstinately. “I’m going swimming.”

“Don’t even think about it,” he warned.

He might as well have saved his breath. Ignoring him, she turned and headed for the water.

He should have just let her go. It would have been the wise thing to do. It wasn’t like she was in any danger. True, she’d had too much to drink, but she wasn’t so tipsy that he had to worry about her drowning. She’d be just fine.

But even as he tried to convince himself of that, he found himself turning to follow her. It wasn’t until he felt the water lap around the legs of his pants that he realized he was still wearing his tux!

“Damn you, Mer, now you’ve done it! You owe me for this tux!”

Not the least bit perturbed, she only laughed…and splashed him. Within seconds, they were both playing in the water like a couple of kids.

Later, Nick couldn’t have said how long they stayed in the water. Merry was laughing and teasing and seemed to have forgotten, for the moment, at least, what had brought them to the lake at that hour of the night. And Nick had no intention of reminding her. If she wanted to forget, he was certainly giving her the chance to do so. But it couldn’t last, and all too quickly, her smile began to fade, her laughter to wane. Just that easily, her tears were back.

It was a warm night, but a gentle breeze against wet skin soon had Merry shivering. Huddling with her shoulders under the water, she hugged herself and announced through chattering teeth, “I’m cold.”

“Hang on,” Nick said. “I’ll get you a blanket out of the trunk of my car.”

He always kept one or two blankets for an emergency, and when Merry rose out of the water like Aphrodite a few minutes later and started toward him, there was no question in his mind that this was an emergency. Silently groaning at the sight of her lacy underclothes plastered to her body, it was all he could do to keep his hands steady and his expression closed as he wrapped the blanket around her slender form.

He could have been a monk for all the emotion he displayed. Then he spoke and gave himself away. “Better?” he asked huskily.

Chilled and caught up in her misery, she didn’t, thankfully, notice. “Y-yes. Just give me a minute and I’ll be fine.”

But five minutes later, she was still trembling. Seated at their picnic table, the blanket wrapped tight around her and her hair dripping on her bare shoulders, she looked absolutely miserable. Nick knew he should have insisted on taking her home then, but he couldn’t forget the pain in her voice when she’d told him she didn’t want to spend her wedding night alone. And that just gave him one more reason to despise his old friend Thomas. Damn him! How could he have done this to her?

“I’m going to light a fire,” he said gruffly. “Maybe that’ll help. Sit tight and let me collect some wood.”

Within minutes, he had a fire crackling in the fire pit by the table. Sighing in relief as the heat seeped into her, Merry stared into the flames and tried not to think of the cabin she and Thomas had rented for their honeymoon. They’d wanted someplace private and secluded, where they could completely escape from the world, and the cabin had seemed perfect. A hundred miles away and located high in the mountains on a private alpine lake, it had come equipped with everything they could possibly want, from a hot tub to a fireplace, not to mention enough food to feed an army.

They would have been there by now, Merry thought as she hugged the blanket around her. Thomas would have carried her over the threshold, then built a fire in the fireplace and opened a bottle of champagne. After a toast, they would have spent the rest of the night making love.

But there was no cabin in the mountains, no honeymoon, no lovemaking in front of the fireplace. And no husband.

Emotions pulled at her, tying her in knots. She wanted to rage, to scream, to cry. Then her gaze fell on her wedding dress, which still lay in a heap on the ground where she had stepped out of it. Without a thought, she scooped it up and turned toward the fire.

“Whoa, girl!” Nick cried, startled. “What the hell are you doing?”

“Burning it,” she retorted, and dropped it on the flames.

With a muttered oath, Nick made a grab for it, but he was too late. The delicate lace and satin caught fire, and within moments, it had gone up in flames.

“Dammit, Merry, why’d you do that? I know you couldn’t have taken it back and got your money back, but you might have been able to sell it. Now it’s a total loss.”

“Nobody wants a used wedding dress,” she said flatly, watching it burn. “And I’ll never use it again. It’s bad karma.”

The dress went up in smoke, and within moments, there was nothing left but a pile of ashes. Just like all her hopes and dreams, Merry thought numbly, staring at the glowing embers. There was nothing left of her and Thomas and what might have been.

Pain squeezed her heart like a fist, and just that easily, the tears that she’d been fighting all evening were back. Only this time, she was too tired, too defeated, to fight them. They welled over her lashes and spilled down her cheeks to drip silently onto the blanket she still clutched around her.

She never made a sound, didn’t so much as lift a finger to wipe them away, but Nick must have caught the glint of them in the firelight. With a murmur, he reached for her. “Awh, Merry, don’t. I hate to see you hurting.”

“I c-can’t h-h-help it,” she sniffed, burying her face against his wet shirt. “I d-don’t understand h-how he c-could do this t-to me. I—I thought he l-loved m-me!” What was left of her control shattered then, and with a mournful wail, she collapsed against him, sobbing.

His heart breaking for her, Nick wrapped his arms around her and just let her cry, wishing there was something he could say to explain Thomas’s behavior. But he didn’t understand it himself. He was best friends to both of them and had watched them fall in love in high school, then all over again when Thomas came back to Liberty Hill when his mother became ill. He would have sworn that Thomas loved her with all of his heart. But if that was the case, how could he have humiliated her this way?

“He does love you,” he assured her, and hoped for her sake that it was true. “He’s confused right now, but it’s only a temporary condition. He’d never risk losing you forever. He just needs some space to get his head on straight and realize what he walked away from. Then he’ll be back. You’ll see. The two of you will make up; and the next time you walk down the aisle, he’ll be waiting for you. Then fifty years from now, when we get together to celebrate your anniversary, we’ll all laugh over this.”

Merry knew he meant well, but she couldn’t think about the next fifty years when she still didn’t know how she was going to get through tonight. And as for laughing, she didn’t think she would ever smile again, let alone laugh. Especially over today.

Exhausted, her tears spent, she leaned against Nick and didn’t know what she would have done if he hadn’t been there to take her weight. “I’m so tired,” she said huskily. “Could we leave now? I don’t feel much like swimming anymore.”

“Let me put out the fire,” he said gruffly, “then we’ll get out of here.”

He took her home with him because he didn’t know where else to take her. She’d already made it quite clear that she didn’t want to go to her own house, and he was fairly positive that she wouldn’t want to arrive at her mother’s wearing nothing but her bra and panties. So he took her home, gave her one of his T-shirts to sleep in and showed her to the guest room. When he checked on her fifteen minutes later, she was asleep, but her cheeks were still wet with tears.

Grabbing a beer from the refrigerator, Nick retreated to his favorite chair in front of the TV in the den and didn’t even think about going to bed himself. He knew there was little point—he would never be able to sleep. Not when the woman he loved was asleep in one of his beds wearing nothing but his T-shirt.

Staring morosely at the TV screen, he didn’t even see the old John Wayne movie that played on one of the cable channels. All he could see was Merry, in a thousand different ways. She was all he’d ever been able to see from the time he was first old enough to appreciate her as a female. And she hadn’t known he was alive except as a friend.

Because of Thomas. He’d captured her heart from the very beginning.

Nick ruefully acknowledged that he’d never stood a chance. She was a one-man woman. Accepting that hadn’t always been easy, but he’d done it because he needed her in his life any way he could get her, even if it was only as a friend.

Another man might have seen what happened today as an opportunity to further his own relationship with her, but Nick knew he could never take advantage of her when she was hurting so. And it wouldn’t do any good anyway. To her, he was just Nick, her old buddy, and that wasn’t going to change. Thomas was the one she loved, the only one she’d ever loved. Once he came to his senses and got over his attack of nerves, he’d come running back to her and charm her with roses and heartfelt words of apology. Because she loved him, she’d find a way to forgive him.

And once again, Nick would be on the sidelines.

Which was why, he told himself as he finished his beer, he wasn’t going to do anything to try to change the status quo. He didn’t want to get hurt, and unlike Thomas, he was smart enough to value the relationship he did have with her. It might not be what he really wanted, but it was better than nothing. So he’d just be her friend. Even if it killed him.

When there was a knock at the door fifteen minutes after Merry went to sleep, Nick didn’t have to check the peephole to know it was Joe. Not wanting the McBrides to worry, he’d called the homestead shortly after he put Merry to bed so that her family would know where she was. He’d explained to Joe that she was fine, but exhausted, and would be home tomorrow, but Joe had insisted on seeing her immediately. Nick couldn’t say he blamed him. If he hadn’t known where she was, he’d have been worried sick about her himself. Resigned, he went to let him in.

“She’s all right,” he said the second he opened the door to the oldest McBride. “You didn’t need to come rushing over.”

His rugged face set in grim lines, Joe held up an overnight bag. “Mom thought she might need some things. Where is she?”

“In the guest room. Asleep,” he added as Joe strode past him into the living room. “She was pretty wrung out after we left the lake—”

“The lake? You took my sister to the lake? At night? After what that jackass did to her?”

“Hey, it was her idea, not mine,” Nick defended himself. “You know how headstrong she can be. She didn’t want to go home. And it’s because of what that jackass did to her that I agreed to go there in the first place. I thought it was better to humor her. Of course, I didn’t know then that she was going to burn her wedding dress.”

“What?!” Sounding like a parrot, Joe gaped at him. “She burned her wedding dress?”

“I don’t think she wanted any reminders of what happened,” he retorted. “Can you blame her?”

After giving it some thought, Joe couldn’t say that he did. “No. I probably would have done the same thing.” Picturing her tossing the dress into the flames, he had to grin. “God, I wish I could have seen that! I guess she was pretty steamed, huh? Good! The quicker she gets mad, the quicker she gets over the jerk.”

Hating to disillusion him, Nick knew it wasn’t going to be that easy. “She’s hurting, Joe,” he warned. “She had a pretty hard cry at the lake before we left, then cried herself to sleep when we got here. You need to warn the family she’s not going to get over this overnight.”

“Are you saying she still loves the bastard?”

“Would you have stopped loving Angel overnight if she’d stood you up at the altar?”

Put that way, Joe had to admit he had a point. He couldn’t imagine a time when he would ever stop loving Angel, regardless of what she did to him. He’d given her his heart, and that was forever. “No, of course not,” he retorted. “But I would have been forced to admit that we had a serious problem. Whatever trust there was between us would have been destroyed. And without trust, what have you got?”

“Not much,” Nick agreed, “but Merry’s not thinking about that right now. She’s hurting and just trying to understand what went wrong.”

“What went wrong is that he’s the wrong man for her and always has been,” Joe replied impatiently. “You’d think she could see that. She’s an intelligent woman. She’s always been pretty sharp when it comes to people. Except where you and Thomas are concerned.”

Nodding in agreement with everything he said up until that point, Nick stiffened abruptly, his dark brows snapping together in a frown. “What do you mean…where I’m concerned? What’s any of this got to do with me?”

“Nothing, unfortunately,” Joe said with a grimace. “And that’s what makes it so frustrating. If she’d just open her eyes, she could see that the best man for her, the one who really loves her, has been right by her side all along.”

The surprise that flared across Nick’s angular face was almost painful to watch. His expression suddenly as wary as a cornered wolf scenting danger, he didn’t so much as blink as his gaze locked with Joe’s. “And just who might that be?”

Too late, Joe realized he should have kept his damn mouth shut, but he’d already put his foot in it. Angel was going to kill him for interfering, but personally, he thought it was about time someone said something. If somebody had stepped forward years ago and pointed out to Merry that someone else besides Thomas was interested in her, she might have at least given Nick a chance. Who knew what might have happened then? As it was, they’d never know.

“Look, man, I know this is none of my business, and if you want to tell me to butt out, go ahead. That’s your right. I know you love her—”

Shooting a sharp glance toward the hall that led to the bedrooms, Nick hissed, “Who the hell told you that?”

“Nobody. I’ve known it for years. But, hey, it’s nothing to be ashamed of!” he added quickly when Nick started to swear. “I think it’s great! The two of you are perfect for each other. I just wish she could see it, then maybe she’d tell Thomas to take a hike—”

“Who else knows?” Nick demanded. “Dammit, Joe, how many other people know about this?”

Joe almost told him it had been common knowledge around Liberty Hill for years that there was only one woman Nick Kincaid would ever love and that was Merry McBride. But Nick was already shaken enough as it was, and Joe just didn’t have the heart to tell him the truth. A man was entitled to his pride. If Nick realized that the whole town knew and sympathized with him, he’d feel like he was the town laughingstock or something.

Nothing, however, could have been further from the truth. He was well liked and respected, not only for the job he did as sheriff, but for the fact that over the years, he could have tried to come between Merry and Thomas, and he hadn’t. He loved Merry enough to want her to be happy, even if it wasn’t with him, and Joe didn’t know many people who loved that unselfishly.

“No one knows, as far as I know,” he fibbed. “But even if they did, they wouldn’t fault you for loving her, Nick. Granted, she was a pain in the ass when she was growing up,” he added with a grin, “but she outgrew that quite awhile back. Thanks to Zeke and me keeping her and Janey in line, they both turned out all right.”

He was teasing and they both knew it, but Nick couldn’t manage even a halfhearted smile. God, he’d thought he’d hidden it so well! He’d always been careful to treat Merry just as he did any other friend. He didn’t touch her like he longed to or even flirt with her. They were just buddies, pals, their relationship always strictly platonic so that no one would suspect a thing. And all this time, Joe had known.

And if he’d seen through his act, others must have, too. He couldn’t help but wonder who. Sara McBride? Janey? Merry?

His stomach knotted at the thought. He wouldn’t, couldn’t, lose her friendship! Not Merry. She was the other half of his soul, dammit, and he wasn’t losing her!

“Merry doesn’t know, does she? She can’t! She doesn’t feel the same way, and that would only make her uncomfortable around me.”

Personally, Joe thought shaking Merry up a little might be just what she needed, but he kept that information to himself. “As far as I know, the thought’s never crossed her mind,” he assured Nick. “Anyway, you know Merry. She doesn’t hesitate to speak her mind. If she suspected you were in love with her, she’d come right out and ask you.”

He had a point, but still, Nick didn’t like it. His feelings were private, dammit, and the less people who knew about them, the better. “I don’t want her to know. I mean it, Joe,” he said firmly when he opened his mouth to argue. “It wouldn’t serve any purpose except to embarrass her. Merry loves Thomas, and that’s not going to change just because he got cold feet today. So this stays strictly between the two of us. Understand?”

Joe wanted to argue—Merry had a right to know another man loved her!—but Nick gave him that hard look of his, the one that kept everyone from disorderly drunks to macho cowboys to teenagers bent on mischief in line, and he knew better than to waste his breath.

His own granite jaw as unyielding as Nick’s, he grudgingly gave in. “All right, have it your way. But if you don’t want her or anyone else to know you’re in love with her, then you’d better learn to hide your feelings better. Every time you look at her, it’s written all over your face.”

Chapter 3

It was Merry’s favorite part of the day, right after dawn, when the sun was just peaking over the horizon and most of the rest of the world was still sleeping. The dew was heavy on the ground, the scent of pine sweet and fresh on the morning air, and the sky washed clear of clouds. It was then that she loved to sit on her back porch with a steaming cup of coffee and watch the ranch slowly come awake.

But she wasn’t at the ranch this morning, and she found no joy in the sunlight that streamed in through the open window of Nick’s guest room. Outside, a robin sang merrily in a nearby tree, but all Merry could think of was last night…when she’d stripped off her wedding dress in front of Nick and waded into the lake.

Groaning, she rolled over and buried her face in the pillow. It was all just a horrible dream, she tried to tell herself, but the memories that marched relentlessly through her throbbing head were all too real. Thomas had stood her up, and she’d had too much to drink at the wake of her reception. She’d danced with every cowboy who’d asked her, flirted shamelessly, then completely fallen apart on poor Nick.

Images flashed before her closed eyes, horrifying her in the bright light of day. Standing before Nick in her bra and panties, burning her wedding dress, crying her heart out in her old friend’s arms. She was sure she must have thoroughly embarrassed him, and she regretted that. But she didn’t know what she would have done if he hadn’t been there. All she’d wanted to do was die.

She still did, but life wasn’t that easy. Like it or not, she was the talk of the town through no fault of her own, and starting today, she had to face that. But first, she had to face Nick, and just the thought of doing that dressed in nothing but his T-shirt made her cringe. Whatever possessed her to burn her dress? she wondered wildly. She must have been out of her mind.

Left with no choice, she climbed out of bed and only just then spied her overnight bag sitting just inside the room by the door. Relieved, she didn’t have to ask how it had gotten there—she knew Nick well enough to know that he’d called her family to let them know where she was and someone had brought her some clothes. He was that kind of man, caring and considerate, and she was lucky to have him for a friend. He’d been kinder to her than the man who had spent most of the last year telling her how much he loved her.

Her emotions all out of kilter, she felt her eyes start to fill with tears and stiffened. No! she told herself fiercely. She would not cry! Not again. Thomas was gone, without a word of apology or explanation to her, and she had to find a way to get past that, to get past the hurt that burned like an open wound where her heart had once been. And she couldn’t do it by crying. That only made the pain worse.

She needed to focus on today, just today, and what it would take to get her through it, she decided. She had to get dressed, then face Nick. Then tomorrow, she’d go back to work and she could push everything else from her mind. If she was lucky, she’d forget that she’d ever had the misfortune to even meet Thomas Cooper, let alone fall in love with him.

The woman who stepped out of the bedroom twenty minutes later bore little resemblance to the one who’d suffered a serious meltdown the previous evening. Dressed casually in a mint green cotton shift and flat sandals, she’d swept her dark hair up off her neck in a simple twist and kept her makeup to the bare necessities—mascara, blush and lip gloss.

Satisfied that she would do, she had no idea what the sight of her did to Nick. In the process of taking a sip of his coffee when she found him in the kitchen, he very nearly choked.

She was, he thought, shaken, the most amazing woman! He’d known her forever, seen her at her best and her worst as both a child and a woman, and she could still steal his breath just by walking into a room. And it had nothing to do with what she wore or how she had her hair fixed. It was just Merry, the way she moved, breathed, smiled. She had a glow to her, an inherent beauty, that came straight from the heart and a sparkle that a woman either had or she didn’t. Even when she was slightly hungover and had every right to be in the depths of depression, Merry had it in spades.

He wanted to tell her that Thomas was a fool, that nothing short of an army would have been able to drag him away from the church if she’d been waiting there to marry him, but he couldn’t bring himself to take the chance. Not when that would put her in the position of defending Thomas—and irrevocably change the way she looked at him.

Resigned, he swallowed the coffee that seemed to stick in his throat and greeted her gruffly. “Good morning, sleepyhead. How’d you sleep?”

“Much better than I expected,” she admitted honestly as he handed her a mug of coffee. “Especially after the way I acted at the lake.” Heat climbing in her cheeks, she resisted the urge to stare down into her mug and met his gaze head on, instead. “What should I apologize first for? Stripping in front of you or crying all over you?”

She looked so miserable that Nick had to laugh. “If I remember correctly, you had a bathing suit when you were sixteen that showed a heck of a lot more skin than your bra and panties, so I wouldn’t worry about that if I were you. And what’s a few tears among friends? After what you’d just been through, I figured you were entitled.”

He meant to set her at ease, but the words were hardly out of his mouth when her eyes flooded. “Well, damn!” he swore. “I’ve gone and made you cry again. I’m sorry, Mer. I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“It’s not you,” she choked, swiping at her tears before they could ruin her mascara. “It’s me. I swore I wasn’t going to do this. I hate crying!”

In all the years that he’d known her, Nick could only remember her crying a handful of times—once, when she broke her arm when she was eight, then again when her dog was run over by one of the ranch hands when she was twelve. That was when she’d decided to become a veterinarian when she grew up. But it was when her father died that she’d been nearly inconsolable. Nick hoped he never saw her cry like that again, but last night, she’d come awfully close.

“There’s nothing wrong with crying, Merry,” he said quietly. “It’s only natural. You’re grieving.”

She hadn’t thought of it that way, but he was right. She was grieving for something that had died—her relationship with the man she loved—and she hadn’t even known there was a problem. “I feel so stupid,” she sniffed. “This didn’t just happen. There had to be signs along the way that something was wrong, and I didn’t see them.”

“Neither did I, and I’m his best friend,” he replied. Pulling out a chair for her at the kitchen table, he sat across from her and confided, “I thought we were as close as brothers, but he never said anything about having any doubts about getting married. In fact, I thought he couldn’t wait. These last few months were the happiest I’ve ever seen him.”

“Then what happened? If he was so happy, why did he run out on me?”

He shrugged and could only guess. “I still think he had a bad case of jitters and just bolted in pure panic. You know how he jumps to conclusions—he gets a headache and he thinks he’s got a brain tumor. Yesterday, all it would have taken was one little doubt and he’d have convinced himself that the two of you were headed for disaster and he had to do something to stop it. So he gave into blind fear and ran. That doesn’t mean he won’t come back. He just needs to work some things out and put them in perspective.”

She wanted to believe him, but she just couldn’t. Not yet. “And how long is it going to take him to do that? A week? A month? Six years?”

That was a question Nick didn’t have any answers for. He just wanted Merry to be happy, even if he was nowhere in the picture. If that meant she waited a lifetime for Thomas to come to his senses, then so be it. “I don’t know,” he said with a shrug. “That’s something the two of you will have to come to terms with. Why don’t you let me call him for you?” he suggested. “You need to talk, the sooner the better. I can make a few phone calls, track him down—”

“No!”

“But it’s the only way you’re going to work this out.”

With her chin set at that stubborn angle that meant she wasn’t going to budge come hell or high water, she shook her head. “If Thomas comes back to me, it has to be because that’s what he wants, not because you or I or anyone else talked him into it.”

Nick could understand her reasoning—her wounded pride wouldn’t let her accept anything else—but that didn’t mean he had to like it. Still, it was her decision to make. “Whatever you say,” he said with a sigh of defeat. “It’s your call.”

Considering how vehement she’d been, Nick had every intention of respecting her wishes. She was the one who’d been left standing at the altar in front of the whole town, and if Thomas wanted to make peace with her, she had every right to demand that he be the one to make the first move. Nick would have done the same thing if he’d been in her position.

But when he took her home a little later, hanging on to that resolve wasn’t as simple as he’d have liked. The minute she stepped into her house and looked around, she stiffened, her blue eyes dark with distress. Thomas’s things were spread about her living room and the rest of the house—everywhere she looked, she was reminded of him.

She’d known they were there, of course, but that didn’t make the situation any less painful for her. Swearing, Nick remembered too late that he and Joe and Zeke had promised to take all of Thomas’s things over to his mother’s so she could store them for him until he made arrangements to have everything shipped back to Chicago. They should have done that before Merry went home, dammit, but with everything that had happened last night, he’d completely forgotten about it. And now Merry was the one having to pay the price for that.

He only had to take one look at the rigid set of her jaw to know that she was hurting.

“Look, there’s no reason that you have to deal with this,” he said gruffly, moving to step in front of her and block her view of the rest of the house. “Go to your mother’s for the rest of the day, and I’ll call your brothers to help me pack up Thomas’s stuff and get it out of here. You don’t even have to see it.”

He was giving her an easy way out—all she had to do was politely thank him and turn around and walk out. But she’d never taken the easy way out and she wasn’t about to start now. This was her house—and her mess to clean up.

Straightening her shoulders, she lifted her chin. “There’s no reason to drag my brothers into this. If you’ll help me, the two of us can have everything packed and out of here within an hour.”

“You know I’ll help,” he replied, scowling, “but you don’t have to punish yourself this way.”

She didn’t consider it punishment. “I’m putting my house back in order and reclaiming it for myself. I’ll feel better about myself if I have a hand in that.”

Put that way, he had no choice but to admit she was right, so they spent the rest of the morning repacking Thomas’s possessions in the boxes that were still in Merry’s garage. If it had been left to him, Nick would have dumped everything in garbage sacks and hauled it out that way, but Merry would have none of it. She meticulously folded every piece of clothing before putting it away in a box, then wrapped any breakable personal items in newspaper to protect them in transit. And with every box that was taped shut and hauled out to her truck, Merry became quieter and quieter. She was packing away her hopes and dreams and what might have been, and it hurt.

She didn’t cry, but the pain in her eyes was impossible to hide, and just watching her made Nick want to throw something. Damn Thomas’s miserable hide! He wasn’t going to get away with this! The bastard needed to know that the pain he’d caused her hadn’t stopped when she’d left the church.

“You’re not going with me to Mrs. Cooper’s,” he said flatly when the last box was carried out of the house and loaded into her truck.

“But you’ll need help unloading everything.”

“I can handle it.”

Not giving her a chance to argue further, he took the keys from her and climbed behind the wheel of her truck. When he drove off a few seconds later and glanced in the rearview mirror, she was still standing where he’d left her in the drive, her shoulders drooping, looking lost and forlorn and so damn lonely that it hurt just to look at her.

It was then that he decided that he was taking matters into his own hands and calling Thomas.

Merry would, of course, be furious with him when she found out what he’d done, but that couldn’t be helped. He couldn’t stand seeing her so unhappy. If that meant he had to track down Thomas and drag him back to her, then by God, that’s what he was going to do. Merry might resent it at first, but that was a chance he was just going to have to take. Once she and Thomas made up, she’d forgive him quick enough.

His mind made up, he drove straight to Mrs. Cooper’s. He’d never cared for her himself—she had a sharp tongue and little sympathy for other people—but when she opened the door to him and saw Merry’s truck in her drive, her first concern was for Merry. “Oh, Nick, how is she? I wanted to call her, but she was so upset yesterday, and I thought it might be better if I kept my distance.”

“She’s coming to grips with everything,” he said, “but I don’t think she feels like talking to anyone yet.”

“Of course not. I understand.” Looking past him to the truck in the drive, she didn’t have to ask what was in all the boxes in the back. “I suppose you’ve brought Thomas’s things.”

He nodded solemnly. “Since he gave up his apartment last week, I didn’t know what else to do. I was hoping you’d heard from him.”

“No,” she said regrettably. “I left a message with his old law firm in Chicago in case he went back there, but he hasn’t called. I think he’s too embarrassed.”

After what he’d done, he should have felt a hell of a lot more than just embarrassment, Nick thought irritably, but that wasn’t something he felt comfortable telling Maxine Cooper. She was his mother—she had to defend him even when there was no excuse for what he’d done. “If he does call, I’d appreciate it if you’d tell him I need to talk to him. Now, where would you like me to put his things?”

At her direction, he stored the boxes in her garage and worked up a sweat doing it. And with every box, every piece of furniture he lifted, the more his resentment grew. When he’d first realized that Thomas was actually going to jilt Merry, he’d been stunned, but now he had to wonder why he’d been so surprised. An only child born late in life to parents who’d long since given up hope that they would ever have children, Thomas had been spoiled and pampered and indulged from the moment he realized he only had to cry to get what he wanted. And anytime he got into trouble, his mother had always been there to bail him out and make everything all right. This time, however, she couldn’t do that. Thomas had to clean up his own mess, and by God, Nick was going to see that he did it!

His jaw set, Nick unloaded the last box, accepted Maxine’s thanks, and headed for his office. He’d expected it to take more than a few phone calls to track Thomas down, but he hit pay dirt when he called the manager of the apartment complex where Thomas was living in Chicago when his mother had fallen and broken her hip. Thomas had claimed he’d given the place up once he decided to move back to Liberty Hill months ago, but that, apparently, had been a lie. He still had the apartment.

The son of a bitch! Nick thought furiously. Even then, he’d had doubts. He’d kept a place to go back to in Chicago in case his new life with Merry didn’t work out, and he’d never said a word to anyone. All this time, he’d let Merry think he loved her without reservation when nothing could have been further from the truth.

If he could have gotten his hands on him at that moment, Nick wasn’t sure what he would have done, but it wouldn’t have been pretty. Fortunately for Thomas, he was a thousand miles away, but that didn’t mean Nick couldn’t tell him what he thought of him. In a matter of minutes, he had his new, restricted phone number.

“You son of a bitch!”

To his credit, Thomas didn’t pretend not to recognize his voice. “How’d you find me?”

“It wasn’t difficult once I realized you never gave up your old apartment,” Nick said coldly. “Do you have any idea what this would do to Merry if she found out about it?”

“You’re not going to tell her, are you?”

Infuriated that Thomas even had to ask that, he snarled, “What do you care? You ran off and left her. At the church, for God’s sake!”

“I told you why—” he began.

“But you didn’t tell her,” Nick retorted. “And she’s the one who’s entitled to an explanation. Dammit, man, call her! She loves you, and I know if you just talked to her, the two of you could work this out.”

For a moment, he thought he’d finally talked some sense into him. Thomas hesitated, obviously considering the suggestion, but then just when Nick thought he had convinced him to do the right thing, he said quickly, “No! I can’t handle talking to her right now. It’s too soon. I’m sorry, Nick. Maybe later.”

“Dammit, I’m not the one you should be apologizing to!”

That was as far as he got. Without another word, Thomas hung up. Swearing, Nick slammed down the phone. Jackass!

Miserable, Merry never knew how she got through the next week. Friends made a point of calling her and asking her out so she wouldn’t have so much time to herself, but it didn’t help. Even surrounded by a crowd of friends, she’d never been so lonely in her life.

But it was the nights—and the silence of her own thoughts—that nearly drove her over the edge. There was no one to talk to, no one to distract her from the hurt that wouldn’t go away. She would lie for hours, staring at the ceiling, her eyes burning from the tears she wouldn’t allow herself to shed. And when she finally did fall asleep, she dreamed again and again of a nightmare wedding at a gothic church, where the guests were all corpses and the groom was a skeleton that turned to dust and blew away before her very eyes.

If she hadn’t had her work to throw herself into, she didn’t know what she would have done. Her clinic was located just next door to her house, which made it easy for her to go in early and stay late. Ruby, her receptionist, warned her she was going to collapse if she didn’t quit pushing herself so hard, but the only peace she found was at the clinic. When she worked, she could forget her own pain and concentrate instead on that of the sick and injured animals she treated and nursed back to health.

Most days, she didn’t even take a lunch break, but just grabbed bites of a salad in between patients. Frowning in disapproval, Ruby, who never ate anything the color of grass, could only shake her head. “If all you’re going to eat are those weeds, at least sit down for a few minutes and give yourself time to digest them. You haven’t stopped moving since I got here this morning.”

“Can’t,” she said as she swallowed a quick bite, then started mopping up the puddles left in examining room one by the litter of puppies she’d just examined. “Tawny James will be here any minute with Tiger and Sammy, and this time I plan to be ready for them.”

The last time Tawny had brought her cat in for fur balls, her three-year-old son, Sammy, had opened every drawer and cabinet in the examining room and practically destroyed the place. Merry didn’t intend to let that happen again. Grabbing the keys, she started locking every cabinet and drawer in sight. “There,” she said in relief just as the bell on the front door jingled merrily. “Just in time!”

But the new arrival wasn’t Tawny and her little terror but Nick. For the last week, he’d made it a practice to stop by whenever he was in the area. He’d claimed he was just taking a break and wanted to visit, but Merry knew better. He was keeping an eye on her, making sure she was all right, and she appreciated that. But when he walked in with a large cardboard box in his hands and a grim look on his angular face, she knew this wasn’t a social visit.

“Whatever it is, bring it in here,” she said quickly, pushing open the door to the second examining room. “What happened?”

“Harvey was on call out at Virginia Sawyer’s place when he was bit by a fox,” he said as he set the box on the examining table. “He had to kill it, but I thought you should take a look at it. He said it ran right at him.”

In the process of pulling on gloves, Merry looked up at him sharply. That wasn’t normal behavior at all for usually shy foxes, and they both knew. But Nick’s deputy, Harvey, wasn’t the kind to embellish a story. “You think it’s rabid?”

His expression somber, he shrugged. “I don’t know. Harvey said it wasn’t foaming at the mouth, but it was definitely aggressive. Apparently, it’s been hanging around Virginia’s place for a couple of days, and that poodle of hers—Boo-Boo—kept running it off. When she heard a noise in her garage, she called the office because she thought it was an intruder. When Harvey saw it was a fox, he gave it plenty of room and thought it would run into the woods, but it came right at him and the dog.”

Merry didn’t like the sound of that at all. “If it had a den nearby—which it shouldn’t have—it might have taken on the dog, but not Harvey, too. Where did it bite him?”

“On the hand. He tried to scare it off, but it just kept coming back at him. He didn’t have any choice but to shoot it. He said it was the craziest thing he’d ever seen in his life.”

“What about Boo-Boo? Did he get bit, too?”

He nodded. “He gave as good as he got, but the fox tore up his front leg pretty good. Harvey told Virginia she needed to bring him in so you could take a look at him, but she thought she could do it herself. She didn’t seem too concerned about rabies. Has Boo-Boo had his shots?”

Merry swore softly. “No.”

Every year, she pushed the local citizens to get their pets vaccinated, but since there hadn’t been a case of rabies in the county in years, most people didn’t see the need. She hadn’t been able to convince them that that could change in a heartbeat. If her hunch was right, Virginia Sawyer was about to find that out the hard way.

“I hope he doesn’t have to be put down,” she said, “but it doesn’t look good. He’ll have to be quarantined, of course. You told her that, didn’t you?”

Nick nodded. “You know how stubborn she is. I tried to convince her that it would be easier on her if she let you take care of that, but she insisted that Boo-Boo would be much more comfortable right there in his own home.”

There was no question that the dog would be happier at home, but watching any pet develop signs of rabies was not something Merry would wish on anyone. “I can’t force her to bring him in, but I’ll call her and explain what she could be facing. In the meantime, I’ll send the fox to the state lab this afternoon. Harvey knows he can’t wait for the test results to come back to get shots, doesn’t he?”

“He’s over at the hospital right now,” he replied. “The nurses are probably getting a earful. He doesn’t like needles.”

The situation wasn’t funny, but Merry couldn’t help but smile at the thought of big, six-foot-four Harvey cringing at the sight of a little needle. “Has he asked for sick leave yet?”

“A week,” Nick said with a chuckle. “You know Harvey—he never misses a chance to skip work and go fishing. He probably loaded his fishing gear into his camper before he went to the doctor.”

His smile fading as he watched her fill out paperwork for the state lab, he frowned at the dark shadows under her eyes. “So how are you? Sleeping any better?”

He asked her that just about every time he saw her, and her answer was always the same. “Some. And no, I haven’t heard from Thomas,” she added before he could ask. “I don’t expect to.”

“You need to get out more. I heard Stella was having a psychic from Colorado Springs at her place tonight and inviting a bunch of women over. You’re going, aren’t you?”

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