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“What?” Spence asked, looking and sounding more irritated than he really felt and taking care to keep his voice down. On the other side of the room, Estes and Radner sat with their thick noggins bent over their keyboards, fingers tapping industriously away. Spence figured they were probably playing shoot-’em-up video games or updating their profiles on some social-media website rather than checking law-enforcement sites for all-points bulletins and other information of interest to dedicated cops everywhere, as they no doubt wanted him to believe.
Neither scenario, of course, meant their ears weren’t pitched in his and Junie’s direction, in case a tidbit of gossip drifted their way, something they could take home to their young and talkative wives. Although there was no truth to the rumor that he and Junie had been having an on-again, off-again love affair for years, it was out there and circulating, just the same.
Junie’s smile turned downright mischievous. They’d been friends, the two of them, long before they’d become coworkers, and she could read him like a road sign. She liked to remind him of this often.
They’d buddied up, he and Junie, way back when Spence’s mother had dumped him on her sister-in-law’s doorstep when he was nine, loudly declaring that enough was enough, by God, and she was through being a parent, through being the responsible one, through making all the decisions and all the sacrifices. Done, kaput, over it, fed up, finished.
Kathy Hogan was never the same after Spence’s dad ditched her for another woman—younger and thinner, of course—though the truth was, she hadn’t exactly been the nurturing type even before the divorce. To her credit, Kathy had made a few half-hearted attempts at parenting after that initial drop-off at his aunt Libby’s place, reappearing periodically to gather up her young son and haul him, over Libby’s protests and his own, “home” to Virginia. But she’d never really gotten the hang of mothering, for all her fretful efforts, and sooner rather than later, Spence always ended up back in Mustang Creek.
When Judd and the new wife were killed in a boating accident three years after they got married, something in Spence’s mom had evidently died right along with them. At Libby’s insistence, she’d stopped hauling him from one place to another, the only bright spot in an otherwise dark time.
With a sigh, he pushed away the memories of that initial parting, although he knew they’d be back, soon and with a vengeance. Just when he thought he had it handled, squared it all away in his mind, the whole sad scenario would ambush him again.
If it hadn’t been for Libby, his father’s oldest sister, and for Junie, who’d lived down the block and appointed herself Spence’s new best friend, he might have run off in his teens. It wasn’t like it hadn’t crossed his mind.
End result: he didn’t have a whole lot of faith in marriage. He liked women, no question, but maybe his trust in them was more than a little compromised.
Ya think, Einstein?
He set his jaw briefly before meeting Junie’s silent challenge with a glare. “I’m out of here,” he told her gruffly. “If you need me—do your best not to—I’ll be over at the Moose Jaw. After that I plan to go straight home, do the chores, rustle up some grub and then sleep until I damn well feel like waking up.” He turned, adjusting his hat again as he moved, and stopped long enough to fling a narrow-eyed glance at the pair of deputies. “There’s a town out there,” he reminded them, indicating its presence with a motion of one hand. “If you two can work a little patrol time into your busy schedules, I would appreciate the effort and so would the taxpayers. We’ve had those robberies lately. I think some visibility would not hurt this department.”
Instantly flustered, Radner and Estes clattered and jingled into action, grabbing keys and gear and beating feet for the exit. Chorusing a hurried “yes, sir,” they nearly collided with each other in the rush to get out there and protect truth, justice and the American way.
Presto, they were invisible, which was how Spence preferred them to be, at least most of the time.
“You enjoy watching those poor guys scramble like a pair of idiots,” Junie observed, amused, from her post behind the desk.
Spence smiled, looked back at his friend. “Yeah,” he agreed affably. “I do. Guess all this power goes to my head.” A pause. “See you around.”
Junie’s stock response was not if I see you first, but the phone rang just then, so her reply was a distracted, “See you,” instead, followed by a business-like, “Mustang Creek Police Department. How can I help you?”
Spence didn’t wait for a rundown, since anything he really needed to know could be relayed to him in nanoseconds via his cell phone or the state-of-the-art communications system wired into his truck. Anyhow, genuine emergencies were blessedly rare in this neck of the woods; most incoming calls had to do with stranded cats, scary noises coming from an attic or a basement, routine fender benders, inconsiderate neighbors blocking somebody else’s driveway or playing their music too loudly, sometimes parents fretting about teenagers who should’ve been home hours before and weren’t. The duty officers ought to be up to handling any of the normal problems.
But the robberies had him mightily bothered. They were definitely not business as usual in this quiet town. It disturbed him that the thieves seemed to know exactly where to go. When he reached the police station parking lot, said deputies were already pulling out in their spiffy city-owned SUVs, one headed east, one west.
Spence grinned. He’d handpicked both Radner and Estes from a whole passel of fresh-from-the-academy applicants, six months before, when the mayor and the town council increased his budget. They were good cops, he reflected, arriving at his blue extended-cab pickup, and they’d be even better ones in time, when they’d logged in more hours on the job. They certainly had potential.
He got into his truck, flipped on the headlights, started the engine, glanced ruefully at the glowing blue screen of the computer affixed to the dashboard and then rolled toward the Moose Jaw Tavern, out on the edge of town. Yep, he would have preferred to go straight home, do what needed doing, and crash for the night. After all, he was officially off duty for the rest of the weekend, and he’d earned some downtime.
Still, as best man, he’d be expected to put in an appearance, however brief, at the after-wedding party. Spence knew Tripp wouldn’t have cared if he skipped the festivities—by now, the brand-new husband would be making red-hot love to his red-hot wife, the lucky SOB. Mustang Creek’s long-standing post-nuptial traditions had to be the furthest thing from the man’s mind right now, and who could blame him?
Spence felt a nebulous pang of—whatever—in the pit of his stomach, but he didn’t explore it.
Passing the Moose Jaw without stopping wasn’t an option, he decided glumly. If he didn’t show up, some of the gossips might invent a few fanciful reasons to explain his absence. That he, Spence, had been in love with Hadleigh, for instance, his friendship with Tripp notwithstanding. That he’d kept it together during the ceremony, and put up a good front at the reception afterward, too, but now that the deed was done, he’d made himself scarce. Gone home to lick his wounds.
All bullshit, of course. He liked Hadleigh, liked her a lot. And she was certainly easy on the eyes, no denying that.
There’d never been any kind of spark between them, though. Not on either side. When that rumor had emerged, he’d been extremely annoyed. It was even more ridiculous than the one about Junie. At one time, he’d played fast and loose with the ladies, but if anyone looked closely, maybe they’d realize that the reason there’d been so many was that he hadn’t really been involved with any of them. Even his friendship with Trudy Reinholt was exactly that, a friendship. Until she’d begun to expect more than he was willing to offer. More than he could offer...
So yes, he’d show his face at the Moose Jaw, make it clear that he wasn’t pining for a lost love.
Besides, he was the chief of police, off duty or not. It was his job to keep the peace, and to do that, he needed to get a read on the crowd. The wedding guests, well, they were sensible people for the most part, all of them friends of the bride or groom or both. But this was Saturday night, so the regulars were sure to be around, along with a few tourists. In Spence’s experience, emotions ran higher on sentimental occasions like weddings or holidays or funerals—any event with a lot of symbolism attached. Throw in a little alcohol and just about anything could happen.
Soon enough, the Moose Jaw was in sight, and it was definitely jumping. Cars, pickups, motorcycles, ten-speed bikes, any rig with wheels, short of little red wagons and skateboards, crowded the gravel lot. There was no evident method to the madness, either—the vehicles were parked at odd angles, as though drivers and passengers alike had abandoned them in a sudden panic. The overall effect was chaotic, like a mess of dominoes dumped out of the box.
If the patrons inside had been in that much of a rush to start swilling beer, Spence speculated wearily, what kind of shape would they be in by closing time?
He sighed as he got out of the truck, locking it behind him. By now, he’d been up just shy of twenty-four hours, having put in a double shift on Friday, before attending Tripp’s bachelor party. He was bone-weary and ravenous, too, since he’d had nothing but wedding food since last night’s pizza—a slice of cake, a handful of those dainty pastel mints, and a smoked salmon “sandwich” about the size of a silver dollar.
He needed protein, preferably in the form of a thick steak, medium rare, and after feeding a couple of critters—one horse, one dog—a long, hot shower. After that, God willing, he could fall facedown on his bed and sleep.
Even with a plan in place, such as it was, Spence felt faintly anxious.
His black-and-white mutt, Harley, in whom a number of mysterious breeds converged, would be watching the road for him, perched vulture-style on the back of the living room couch, peering through the picture window and fogging up the glass with dog breath while he kept his vigil.
The stone-gray gelding, called Reb in deference to Spence’s Southern heritage, was content enough, he figured, grazing in the pasture beside the barn, enjoying the pleasures of summer. Still, horses were social creatures by nature, whether they were wild or tame, and all of them needed company.
With these things occupying his mind, Spence was tempted to breeze right out of town, back to his ranch, pretending he’d never planned to stop in at the Moose Jaw in the first place.
Instead, and with considerable resignation, he walked across the parking lot. The bar had been in business since frontier days, when it was a bona fide Old West saloon, and the building listed slightly to one side, like a drunk trying to look sober. The roof sloped, streaks of rust marked the presence of every nail, and the never-painted wall boards had weathered to a grungy gray.
He’d stay for ten minutes, max, Spence told himself, resolute. He’d see and be seen, say howdy where a verbal exchange was required, size things up and, finally, hit the road.
Dutifully, he opened the door.
I’ll stay for ten minutes, he promised himself again. No more.
* * *
THE MUSIC ROARING out of the jukebox was too loud, and the Moose Jaw was too crowded.
In Melody Nolan’s opinion, that is. Everyone else seemed to be having a grand old time, whooping it up, laughing and dancing and consuming plenty of cold beer.
Oh, there was reason to celebrate, all right. Hadleigh and Tripp were finally married, and that was practically a miracle, given how stubborn those two were. And Melody could comfort herself with the knowledge that the marriage pact, a secret plan that she and Hadleigh and Bex had agreed upon and set in motion a few months before was actually working—one wedding down, two to go.
Melody fingered the tiny gold horsehead on her bracelet, a symbol of triumph, not just for Hadleigh, the first bride, but for herself and Bex, as well. She’d personally designed and crafted the sparkling talismans, one for each of the three friends, and this initial charm represented Hadleigh’s relationship with Tripp, a rancher and born cowboy.
So far, so good.
Melody was wildly happy for Hadleigh, BFF extraordinaire. It was probably just fatigue—along with her very sore feet—that made her feel forlorn at the moment, unusually fractious and on the verge of tears.
Physical discomfort exacerbated this sorry state of affairs, but Melody didn’t dare kick off the spiked heels she’d been wearing for six-plus hours as one of Hadleigh’s two bridesmaids.
If she did, regret would soon overshadow relief, because her poor tootsies would puff up to three times their normal size, in which case it would be impossible to get those wretched shoes on again. Furthermore, Melody had no intention of going barefoot for the rest of the evening, since the Moose Jaw’s sawdust floor was filthy and, besides, some overenthusiastic dancer might step on her toes.
So she suffered, though not in silence.
When her other best friend forever, Bex, short for Becca, Stuart came back to their sticky-topped table, laughing and breathless after yet another Texas two-step with yet another cowboy, Melody glowered at her.
Bex, clad in an elegant yellow dress, identical to the one Melody wore, registered the look and made a face in response.
“Why aren’t you dancing?” Bex half shouted in order to be heard over the blare of the music and the general hoot and holler of the crowd packing the seediest watering hole in Mustang Creek, Wyoming.
“Why aren’t you limping?” Melody countered. Bex’s shoes, like her dress, were duplicates of her own. Yellow, pointed at the toes and stilt-like. They were definitely out of place in their surroundings. Cowboy boots were the footwear du jour.
Bex’s sigh was visible rather than audible, because of the din, and the horsehead charm on her bracelet winked in the light when she lifted one hand to push a lock of artfully streaked hair from her forehead. “Honestly, Mel,” she said. Melody was reading her lips. “Do you have to be such a party pooper?”
Mildly chagrined, Melody once again touched the charm on her own bracelet. “I’m happy,” she retorted unhappily. “Okay?”
Bex merely shook her head. The woman was a fitness guru, for heaven’s sake, and she lived in athletic shoes, not three-inch heels. So why wasn’t she in pain? Those toned calves, no doubt, gained from giving classes at one of her fitness centers. “That’s not exactly convincing.”
Just let me welter in my self-pity. In the midst of that unbecoming thought, Melody felt an odd, heated charge tingle between the tips of her fingers and shoot up her arm, as if from the charm itself. Startled, she released it quickly, forgetting all about the exchange with Bex, sitting up a little straighter and glancing instinctively toward the bar’s entrance.
And there he was. Spence Hogan, the only man who had ever broken her heart.
Not just hers, of course. Pretty much any attractive female he came into contact with fell into that category. He should have a sign around his neck—Ol’ Love ʼem and Leave ʼem. Apparently you weren’t breathing if you were female and lived in this town and didn’t want to snag a date with him. By all accounts, many had. But she tried hard to plug her gossip ears when it came to him.
Spence was crossing the threshold, hat in one hand, standing so tall he almost had to duck to keep from bumping his head on the door frame.
It shouldn’t have been possible, but he looked even better in regular clothes than he had in the elegantly fitted tux he’d worn to the wedding. The guy gave a new meaning to the term “best man,” Melody thought peevishly. Her rising irritation was due to being constantly thrown into his company for the past two days. Hell, she’d had to sit next to him at the rehearsal dinner! If Tripp’s father, Jim, and his new wife hadn’t arranged that particular event, she might’ve been really annoyed at that seating snafu, but Jim was a sweetheart, and his wife probably didn’t realize she and Spence had a past. Besides, it was logical, since she was a bridesmaid and he was the best man.
Best man.
Best at what?Looking good? Making love? Shattering dreams?
Melody was thrown by the mere sight of Spence, which was weird because not only had they been forced into close proximity by the wedding ceremony, they’d also lived in the same small community for most of their lives. Inevitably, they ran into each other fairly often, despite her efforts to steer clear.
Nonetheless, her nerves shorted out, like an electrical circuit on overload.
Why, she wondered, silently frantic, couldn’t she just look away, render Spencer Hogan invisible, pretend he didn’t exist, as she usually managed to do?
No answer came to mind—and this development alone was maddening, since Melody always had a ready supply of answers. Except when it concerned Spence. Spence, with that easy, confident cowboy’s stride of his, and the vivid, new-denim blue of his eyes; if she hadn’t known better, she would’ve sworn he wore tinted contacts. The color was striking even from the far side of a crowded bar. So were his dark hair and his broad shoulders, the way his jeans fit his lean hips and long legs... Somehow, these familiar elements never failed to take her by surprise.
Spence had been about thirteen years old that memorable summer, when he first appeared on Melody’s personal radar, although he’d been around for a while. She’d been just six at the time, already thick as thieves with Bex and Hadleigh, all of them due to enter first grade in the fall.
Friends with Hadleigh’s big brother, Will, and Tripp Galloway, Spence hung around the Stevenses’ house a lot in those days, shooting hoops in the driveway with other boys from the neighborhood, playing rhythm guitar in Will and Tripp’s garage band.
One day that summer, though, he’d definitely caught her attention, which started a serious case of hero worship.
It wasn’t anything more complicated than the chain coming off her bicycle, causing her to wipe out in the street. He happened to be arriving at Will’s just then and jumped off his own battered bike. He dashed over, helping her up and examining her scraped knee and elbow, not one teasing word about the tears rolling down her face. Instead, he used the edge of his T-shirt to wipe them away. Then he brought her inside and delivered her into the caring hands of Hadleigh’s grandmother. When Melody came back out, the damage duly cleaned and bandaged, her bike was fixed and sitting by the garage.
“Hey, you okay?” he’d asked, as if he actually cared about the answer.
When she nodded, Tripp said, “I adjusted your chain. It was really loose.”
Will added, “The last time I wrecked like that, I’m pretty sure I cried, too. Don’t feel like a baby or anything.”
Then they went back to their basketball game.
That was it.
But both Hadleigh and Bex were impressed. Normally, in their experience, the boys didn’t even notice their existence.
Outwardly, nothing had changed after that day. Will and Tripp tolerated Hadleigh and her two sidekicks with benign indifference, and Spence followed their lead.
Hadleigh, Bex and Melody, on the other hand, shared a secret new awareness that nothing would ever be quite the same. They giggled and whispered among themselves, trying to unravel the mystery of this new fascination, but years passed before they finally succeeded.
Now, after all these years, Hadleigh and Tripp were deeply in love, the forever kind, and as of that very afternoon, joined in holy wedlock.
Coincidence? Probably not, Melody mused with a sense of philosophical awareness—undoubtedly brought on by the events of the day—as she took a sip of the beer some cowboy had bought her. She really believed this wedding was the culmination of something that had started when they were just kids.
The fairy-tale aspects of their shared history might have fostered legends if Bex and Will had grown up and fallen for each other, like Hadleigh and Tripp, but Will had been killed in Afghanistan and, while Bex had dated a lot, especially in college, she’d never met The One.
As for Melody and Spence, they’d had a summer fling once upon a time before she realized he wasn’t interested in permanence, and she’d been starry-eyed with dreams of a future together—a cozy house, children and all the rest. In the end, though, she’d made a complete fool of herself by blurting out a marriage proposal, one perfect night in July, with the last of the Independence Day fireworks still dribbling from the sky. And she would never forget—God knew, she’d tried—the expression on Spence’s face as he prepared his answer.
Instead of flashing that patented grin of his, instead of saying “yes, let’s do it,” the way Melody had expected him to, Spence had given her a figurative pat on the head and then, very gently, explained that he wasn’t ready to make that kind of commitment, and neither was she. She wasn’t even through college yet, Spence had reminded her, wounding her with kindness.
It had taken her years to recover. She took another sip of tepid beer as she grimly remembered that night.
Yes, he’d claimed, when she’d tearfully demanded whether he loved her, he did care for her, very much as a matter of fact. And that was one more reason he wasn’t going to be the one to derail her career, maybe even her whole life, before she’d had a chance to go places, figure things out, decide what she really wanted.
Before Melody’s personal universe disappeared into a black hole, she and Spence had spent virtually every spare moment together. Gradually, they’d grown closer and then closer still, until they’d finally made love, sweet and slow, under a star-spangled sky the first time, and in every private place they could find after that.
Oh, yes. Melody had loved Spencer Hogan with all that she had and all that she was.
Silly girl. She’d actually believed he loved her right back.
Until the breakup, of course. Spence had immediately consoled himself with Junie McFarlane, and Melody had moped around the house until it was time to go back to college in late August. There she was like a sleepwalker, distracted and depressed. Aware that things had to change, she’d switched her major from pre-law to fine arts, since she’d always loved shape and texture and color, and when that didn’t help, she hid out in the dorm, skipping classes and meals, rarely sleeping through the night.
Melody’s mother was beside herself with worry. After years of widowhood, she’d just remarried and was planning a move to Casper. Realizing she was causing distress to someone she loved—even knowing that she was keeping her mother from enjoying her newfound happiness—couldn’t cure the blues, apparently.
Left to her own devices, she would surely have crashed and burned.
Fortunately for her, however, Bex and Hadleigh had refused to let her self-destruct. They’d improvised an amateur intervention, the two of them, confronting Melody in the cramped little room the three of them shared all through college. Melody had balked at first, demanding that they leave her alone, but they were as stubborn as she was and simply wouldn’t give up.
They’d badgered her all one Saturday, until she would’ve agreed to practically anything just to get five minutes of peace and quiet. Knowing they’d finally cracked her armor, they’d pestered her to get out of the pajamas she’d been wearing for days on end, take a hot shower and put on her favorite outfit.
After that, Hadleigh and Bex had dragged Melody out of the dorm and off campus, winding up at the nearest mall, in one of those snip-and-dash salons, where a very gay guy with a pink Mohawk and a disturbing number of body piercings ordered her into a chair and proceeded to trim and fluff and spray her unkempt hair until she looked almost like her old self again.
Miraculous as it seemed, that was only the beginning of the Save Melody from Herself campaign.
Next, Hadleigh and Bex had declared that they were starving, and all three of them trooped over to the food court, with its plethora of unhealthy dining choices, and agreed, after some discussion, to share orders of yakisoba, chicken teriyaki and egg rolls.
Then, since the multiscreen theater was right there, and they’d all been fortified by a hot meal, they decided to take in a movie or two.
In the end, the total was three—two chick flicks and an apocalyptic action film.
The next day, she’d gone back to class, and for weeks afterward, Bex and Hadleigh had helped her catch up on the work she’d let slide.
