by Linda Turner
"But I'm still your best friend," he pointed out huskily, "and you're still in love with Thomas."
"But Thomas isn't in love with me," she stressed as tears welled in her eyes.
And that, Nick silently acknowledged, made all the difference in the world. Because he'd spent most of his life silently loving her, and he knew what it felt like not to have that love returned. It was a hurt that never went away.
Still, he loved her enough that he wanted her to be happy, even if it was with someone else, and he had to help her if he could. "Thomas never said he didn't love you. In fact, I'm not sure that any of this has anything to do with love, at all. I think it has more to do with maturity. His entire life, Maxine was always there to clean up his messes and take care of him, and he never really grew up. He didn't have to. Then, suddenly, he finds himself on the verge of getting married, of being a husband and one day, a father. And I think it scared the hell out of him."
She wanted to believe it—he could see the hope in her eyes. "You think that's the real problem? He's afraid of responsibility?"
"He wouldn't be the first man to bolt at the thought of a ring around his finger," he said dryly. "Marriage is a rite of passage. You can't be a kid anymore."
"And he always was a spoiled brat." A half smile curled one corner of her mouth as memories from the past came streaming back. "Remember the time we both got new bicycles for Christmas and he'd gotten one the year before? He went crying to Maxine that everyone but him got a new bike from Santa, so she went and bought him another one!"
"Maxine always made sure he had the best and the newest," he said dryly, "even when he didn't need it."
"Yeah, like that time she bought him that fancy little sports car when he was sixteen and he almost killed himself when he wrapped it around a telephone pole a week later. My mother was so disgusted with her, she didn't speak to her for a month. But you know, he was always generous with what he had," she added. "Remember the time…"
Lost in the past, she reminded him of times with Thomas when they were six and ten and seventeen, times that Nick had, in some instances, forgotten about completely. And with every anecdote she told, he couldn't help but hear her pain and loneliness and love for another man. The moon rose high in the night sky as she poured out her heart to him, and she never knew that Nick would have given everything he owned to hear her talk about him just once with that kind of longing in her voice.
* * *
It wasn't often that Nick came into work with a chip on his shoulder, but on the rare occasions when he did, his deputies knew him well enough to cut him a wide berth or risk getting their heads bitten off. Normally, they only had to take one look at the rigid set of his jaw and they'd duck their heads and scatter. But not the next morning when he stomped into the office like a bear with a sore tooth. He'd barely settled at his desk with the thickest, blackest cup of coffee he could manage to rustle up when not one, but two of his deputies came knocking at his door.
Not even looking up from the budget proposal he had to draw up for the city council, he growled, "This isn't a good time."
"I'm sorry, Nick, but this can't wait," Dean said stiffly. "I need to talk to you privately."
His expression somber, George said, "So do I. It's important."
Important or not, Nick didn't like the sound of it. But he wasn't the type of man who made a habit of letting his private life interfere with his job. With a muttered curse, he tossed down his pencil and sat back in his chair. "Then I guess we might as well get this over with. You first, Ziggler. Come in and shut the door."
He didn't have to tell Dean twice. Five seconds later, he sat in the chair across from Nick's desk and announced, "I've been offered a job in Denver. I've got to take it, Nick. The pay's nearly twice what I'm getting here, and Vicky has family there. She'd kill me if I turned it down."
Stunned, Nick couldn't find fault with that. A man had to do what was best for him and his family. "I'm going to hate to lose you," he said quietly. "I wish I could match the offer, but there's just no room in the budget. When do you leave?"
"Two weeks."
It was the usual notice, but Nick had been hoping for more time. Dean was a good deputy, and finding someone to replace him at the limited salary the county could afford to pay wasn't going to be easy. But that wasn't Dean's problem. Rising to his feet, Nick offered him his hand in congratulations. "Denver's lucky to get you. We'll miss you around here."
Relieved, Dean thanked him for being so understanding and walked out with a broad smile on his face. Two minutes later, George took his place in the chair across from Nick's desk and stunned Nick by announcing that he, too, was giving his notice.
Narrowing his eyes at him, he growled, "Is this a joke?"
"No! Why would you think that?"
"Because Dean just told me the same thing. What the hell's going on?"
Shocked, George swore. "Oh, man, I'm sorry! Talk about bad timing. I had no idea, Nick. He didn't tell me."
"He got a better offer in Denver," he said with a shrug. "It happens. So what about you? Where are you going?"
"Back to school," he replied simply. "You know how much I've always wanted to finish my degree and go on to law school. I would have done it years ago, but I just couldn't afford it with the kids and all. Then I found out my grandmother left me some money when she died last month. Jan and I discussed it and agreed that if I was ever going to do anything, I had to do it now, before the kids got older and we needed the money for their education."
As much as Nick hated to lose him, he had to admit that some opportunities only came along once in a lifetime and you had to grab them when you could. "You'll make a damn good lawyer," he told him. "I hope you're going to come back here to practice."
"Of course. This is our home. But I hate to leave you in the lurch like this, with both me and Dean leaving. What are you going to do?"
Nick was wondering the same thing—in a back-country town like Liberty Hill, good deputies didn't come along every day of the week—but that wasn't George's problem. "I'll think of something—don't worry about it. Right now, you've got more important things to worry about. Like where you want to go to school and moving your family."
George had already given that considerable thought, and as he rattled on with his plans, Nick couldn't help but think that everyone was going on with their life except him. And with no warning whatsoever, he found himself in the middle of a midlife crisis.
What the hell was he still doing in Liberty Hill? he wondered as he listened with half an ear to George. There was nothing for him here and never would be. Merry loved Thomas, not him, and in spite of the fact that Thomas had left her standing at the altar last Saturday, she could no more change her feelings for Thomas than Nick could change his feelings for her. And when Thomas finally calmed down and worked up the courage to return to town, Merry would find a way to forgive him. Nick didn't want to be there when that happened. He didn't think he'd be able to stand it.
It was time he left, he decided, and got on with the rest of his life. He had a friend with the FBI who'd been pushing him for years to apply with the Bureau. Maybe he'd give him a call.
* * *
Chapter 5
«^»
Later, Nick couldn't have said how things snowballed so fast. One minute he'd been talking to Howard Quinn, telling him he was considering applying for a job with the Bureau, and the next, not only was Quinn overnighting an application to him, but Nick had decided there was no use putting things off. As soon as he'd hung up with Howard, he'd advertised for deputies in the Denver, Colorado Springs and Tucson papers. Even if he didn't get the job with the Bureau, he still needed two men to replace Dean and George. Then, before he'd let himself question the wisdom of what he was doing, he'd called Tina Adams, one of the two realtors in the area, to get her advice on selling his house.
What's the hurry? a voice inside his head demanded. You don't have to do this now!
But he did. He'd alrea
dy spent years waiting for Merry to open her eyes and realize that Thomas wasn't the only man in the world for her. Now that he'd actually accepted the fact that that was never going to happen, he couldn't wait another day to get on with the rest of his life. Because if he gave himself time to think about what he was doing, he knew he probably wouldn't be able to leave her.
Convinced he was doing the right thing, he met Tina at his house and watched her go over the place with a fine-tooth comb, examining everything from its street appeal to how big the pantry was in the kitchen. With the help of friends, he'd built the homemade log cabin seven years ago, and he knew every nook and cranny of it better than the lines of his hand. And he loved it. He always had. He never stepped through the front door without feeling a sense of peace and accomplishment.
But now, studying it through Tina's eyes and trying to imagine how a prospective buyer would see it, he couldn't help but be concerned. In spite of the fact that he'd built it from the ground up, he wasn't blind to its faults. There were places where the window trim didn't quite meet and closet doors that had a tendency to stick on humid days. He liked the primitive look of the place, the rough-hewn cut of the bare log walls and plank floors, but he readily admitted that not everyone wanted to live like Daniel Boone in the middle of the forest … especially women. And Tina was probably one of them. Her face expressionless, he couldn't tell if she loved or hated the place.
"Maybe I should Sheetrock some of the walls so it doesn't look so much like a log cabin," he said when she frowned at the wall that separated the kitchen from the great room.
Lost in thought, she blinked, then realized what he said. "Oh, no! That's what's going to sell it. What's the point of living in a log cabin if it doesn't look like one?"
"That's why I left the logs exposed," he said. "But some people might have a problem with that."
Unconcerned, she shrugged. "There's a market for everything. People who don't like exposed logs won't look at log cabins to begin with, so that's not a problem. What we have to worry about are some loose boards on the back porch, a leaky faucet in the downstairs bathroom, and some general cosmetic work. You take care of those things, trim up the yard and put some geraniums in the flower beds and curtains at the windows, and I think you'll have a buyer by the end of the summer."
Stunned, Nick couldn't believe he'd heard her correctly. "You're kidding! That soon? But I thought the market had slowed down because of the rise in interest rates."
"It has," she agreed, then qualified, "some. But people will always find a way to buy a good piece of property, even when rates are high. And what you've got here is going to appeal to a lot of buyers."
She was one of the most successful realtors in southwestern Colorado and sharp as a tack. That's why Nick had called her. She couldn't make any promises, of course, but if she said the cabin would sell quickly, it was pretty much a given that he'd be looking for someplace else to live by the end of the summer. If he decided to sell.
Reading his mind, she arched a brow at him. "So what's it going to be? It's your call. You want to list it or not?"
He should have told her he'd think about it overnight and get back to her in the morning, but his life had been on hold for too long as it was. If he was ever going to get out of this limbo he was in and find happiness for himself, he had to do it now! Making a snap decision, he nodded. "List it. I'll start making the repairs immediately."
Pleased, she snapped open her briefcase and pulled out a contract. "Then let's sign the paperwork, and you'll be all set. An ad will come out in tomorrow's paper."
* * *
Checking the traps she'd set in the woods, Merry didn't know whether to be relieved or worried when she found them empty. There'd been no more new cases of rabies in the county or reports of any kind of aggressive behavior in foxes or any other normally timid wild animals, but she didn't fool herself into thinking that the crisis had passed. Rabies was a silent killer, especially in the wild. It would spread from foxes to coyote to wolves, and there was no way to know just how dangerous the situation was until the rabid animals turned on humans and pets.
Which was why she was determined to see that every dog and cat in the county had its shots, she reminded herself as she climbed back into her Explorer. If she could just convince people to act responsibly and protect their pets, half the battle would be won right there. The problem was that educating people about the disease wasn't that easy. Not everyone understood what all the fuss was about. Some of the good old boys who lived back in the woods didn't see why they had to vaccinate their dogs when they could just shoot all the foxes and coyotes they came across and eliminate the problem that way.
Rolling her eyes at the ignorance of such thinking, she'd spent the last few days going door to door in the more remote areas of the county, talking to people and trying to make them understand why killing innocent animals in the wild wasn't the solution, but she hadn't gotten very far. And she didn't doubt for a minute that it was because she was a woman. Male chauvinism, unfortunately, was still alive and well and thriving in Liberty Hill, Colorado, and there didn't seem to be a damn thing she could do about it. Pets were going to die and people suffer through the agony of rabies shots in the stomach just because men like Junior Reynolds and Dirk Smith couldn't handle the fact that she, a lowly woman in their eyes, knew more than they did.
If they wouldn't listen to her, maybe Nick could get through to them, she thought in growing frustration as she turned onto the county road that wound through the hills north of town and led to his house. He'd told her yesterday that he was working the late shift today. She'd just stop by and see if he could make a few calls while he was out on patrol later. Junior and Dirk might be idiots, but their families had a lot of influence in the area. If Nick could convince them to do the right thing, the other holdouts just might fall in line, too.
Her thoughts still on the vaccination campaign, she didn't notice the For Sale sign in Nick's front yard until she pulled into his drive and cut the engine. Reaching for her door handle, she stiffened, unable to believe she was seeing correctly. There had to be a mistake. Nick wasn't selling his house. He couldn't be. He'd never said a word.
He came around the side of the house then, just as she stepped from her car, his arms loaded down with an array of carpentry tools. "Hey, I wasn't expecting to see you today," he said by way of a greeting, a pleased smile breaking across his face. "What's going on?"
"I was about to ask you the same thing," she said with a frown as she crossed the yard to join him. "What's with the For Sale sign? I thought you loved this place."
Swearing silently, Nick set his tools on the porch and wanted to kick himself for not anticipating that this could happen. He and Merry dropped by each other's houses unannounced all the time. She'd been so busy trying to head off the rabies epidemic, though, that he really hadn't expected her to come by today. Not that he was trying to keep anything from her, he silently assured himself. He wasn't. He'd fully intended to tell her he'd decided to make a career move that would mean leaving Liberty Hill, but only after he'd had time to come up with an explanation that wouldn't lead her to suspect why he was really leaving—because of her.
"I do," he replied, "but I've been thinking about making some changes in my life, and the timing just seemed right."
Her eyes wide in her suddenly pale face, she looked up at him searchingly. "What kind of changes?"
He hesitated, then motioned to one of the two willow rockers on the front porch. "Sit down, Mer. We need to talk."
He hadn't meant to sound so grim, but suddenly, her eyes were swimming in tears. Ignoring the chair he wanted her to take, she reached for him instead. "Oh, God, something's wrong, isn't it? That's why you've looked so sad over the last couple of days. What is it? What's wrong? Are you sick? I'll talk to Janey. We'll get you a better doctor—"
The feel of her hand on his cheek, the worry in her eyes, was nearly his undoing. Dear God, couldn't she see what she was doing to him?
How he ached just to hold her, just once, the way a man holds the woman he loves. Didn't she realize…
But she didn't and never would. Convinced more than ever that he was doing the right thing, he took her hand from his cheek and squeezed it before releasing it. "I'm not dying," he assured her with a wry smile. "I just feel like I've been stuck in a rut and I need a complete change of scene. So I'm going to apply with the FBI—"
"What?!"
"You remember Howard Quinn? My college roommate? I talked to him this morning in D.C., and he's pretty sure he can get me into Quantico as an agent. He's overnighting me an application."
Stunned, Merry felt as if he'd just cut her off at the knees. She'd never met Howard, but she'd heard Nick talk about him enough to know that he was a senior agent with a lot of pull. If he'd told Nick he could get him into Quantico, submitting an application was just a formality.
No, I can't lose you, too! Not on top of everything else. I don't think I could bear it.
The words rose in her throat like a cry of pain, but she caught them back just in time. No, she thought, struggling for control. She couldn't be selfish about this. Throughout their lives, Nick had always been there for her, totally supportive of whatever she wanted to do. She didn't know what had brought on this sudden decision of his, if he was going through some kind of midlife crisis or what, but after all the times she'd cried on his shoulder, the least she could do was be there for him now.
"That's wonderful!" she said, and tried to mean it. "When do you think you'll be leaving?"
"It's too early to say. I'll send the application back as soon as I get it, but the background check takes at least six weeks. And I can't go anywhere until I find a replacement for George and Dean."
Shocked, she blinked. "They're quitting, too?"
"Yeah. Which is why I won't be going anywhere soon. Good help is hard to find, and I can't leave the county in the lurch with only Harvey to handle everything."