by Linda Turner
"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 min
d. 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?"