The Best Man

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?”