Courted By The Cowboy. Sasha Summers

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      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.”

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