Honorable Rancher. Barbara Daille White
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has to be hard for you,” he said, keeping his voice low.
“Seeing Tess and Caleb so happy? Why should that cause me any trouble? I’m glad they’re finally together.”
She meant it, he knew, though her words sounded as brittle as the chipped ice in the banquet hall’s champagne buckets. In the moonlight, her eyes glittered. Had she tried for a lighter tone to fight back tears? Or to prove how comfortable she felt around him?
Why did she have to prove anything? Why the heck couldn’t she enjoy his company, the way she always used to? If she’d just give him that, he’d feel satisfied.
Sure, he would.
She’d grown quiet again, and he gestured toward the fountain. “What brought you out here? Wanting to make a wish?”
She shook her head. “No. Those are for people who aren’t willing to work hard to get what they want.”
“I can’t argue with you there.” Still, he felt tempted to toss a coin into the water for a wish of his own—that for once, she’d let him make things easier for her. “But there’s such a thing as working too hard, you know.”
“Ben, please.” She gathered up her dress and stood. “You called the truce yourself, remember? I know you only want to help. For Paul. And because we’re friends.” Her voice shook from her stress on the word. “We’ve had this conversation before. Now, once and for all, I’m doing fine.” As if to prove her point, she smiled. “And I have to go inside. Tess will be tossing her bouquet soon. I wouldn’t want to lose out on that.”
A tear sparkled at the corner of her eye.
Missing the chance to catch a handful of flowers couldn’t upset her that much. He knew what she really missed—having a husband by her side. Her husband.
His best friend.
But neither of them would have Paul back in their lives.
Before he could get to his feet, she left, running away like that princess in the fairy tale his niece asked him to read to her over and over again.
No, not a princess. The one who took off without her glass slipper—Cinderella.
Dana was no Cinderella. She hadn’t left a shoe behind. Hadn’t even dropped a button from that pink dress as something for him to remember her by. As if he could ever forget her.
She’d been the heroine of a story he’d once created long ago, a story he’d had to write in his head because he hadn’t yet known how to spell all the words.
How did it go? Like in his niece’s storybook...
Once upon a time, that was it.
Once upon a time, in the Land of Enchantment—otherwise known as the state of New Mexico—Benjamin Franklin Sawyer had high hopes and a huge crush on the girl who sat one desk over from him in their classroom every day.
No other girl in town, Ben felt sure, could beat Dana Smith, and most likely no other woman in the world could compare to her, either. In any case, without a doubt, she was the cutest of all his female friends in their kindergarten classroom.
Unfortunately, when the teacher moved his best friend, Paul Wright, to the desk on the other side of Dana’s, Ben saw his hopes dashed.
The crush, however, continued. For a good long while.
As for Benjamin Franklin Sawyer’s hopes...
Well, not every story had a happy ending.
Not even Dana’s.
Since Paul’s death, they had seen less and less of each other. By her choice, not his.
She needed time, he had told himself. Needed space. So he’d waited. He’d talked himself down. He’d exercised every horse in his stable enough to cover every inch of the land he owned. When none of that worked, he’d bought the danged office building. And even that hadn’t brought him peace.
Seeing her now had.
He never could stand to watch her cry, but tonight, he welcomed those tears in her eyes and the way she’d hurried away from him. Doing fine, she’d said. Like hell. Her actions revealed more than she would willingly tell him. More than she’d ever want him to know.
She needed his help, though she refused to accept it.
The help he had promised Paul he would give her.
No matter how firmly she dug her heels in and how often she turned him down, he was damned well going to keep that promise.
* * *
AFTER ONE LAST BREATH of fresh air to calm herself, Dana slipped back into the banquet hall and sought safety at one of the tables.
“Hey, Dana, over here!”
Even above the music, she heard the familiar voice and fought to hide her cringe of dismay.
No safety for her tonight, anywhere.
Forcing a smile, she hurried toward the table halfway around the dance floor. Anything to keep from standing near the door. If Ben found her there, he would assume she had waited for him.
For the past year and more, she had done just the opposite—tried her best to keep out of his way. A ridiculous goal in a town the size of Flagman’s Folly, where you couldn’t step out your front door without meeting someone you knew.
Then he’d bought the building that housed her office, and she’d had to work twice as hard to avoid him. Ten times as hard to ignore her feelings. Because it wasn’t only anger and irritation that made her insist she was fine. And that had sent her running from him now.
Reaching the table, she smiled down at Tess’s aunt Ellamae. “Everything okay?” she asked. “Did you need something?”
“Everything’s fine,” the older woman said.
Fine. That word again. She resisted the urge to steal a backward glance at the French doors. To look for Ben.
They’d been friends forever, yet she couldn’t risk being near him anymore. Talking with him meant she had to raise her guard. Trying to make him understand how she felt made her frustrated, in more ways than she wanted to think about. Every time they spoke to each other, she left more shaken than before.
Even tonight, when she fled outside for a few minutes alone, she’d found no escape from him. Worse, sitting beside him in the moonlight, she’d had trouble catching her breath. And that had nothing to do with the formfitting bodice of her gown.
“We were wondering what you’d gotten up to,” Ellamae said.
She jumped. “Up to? Nothing. I’m the matron of honor, that’s all. It’s a busy job.”
“Yeah. So, it’s funny you found time to run off like that.”
Ellamae’s weatherworn face and gruff tone made most kids in town antsy around her. Her job as court clerk only increased their anxiety. But like a prickly pear cactus, her rough exterior covered the softness beneath.
Years of spending time around Tess’s family had taught Dana that. She could handle Ellamae. “I just went out for a quick breath of fresh air.”
“Not so quick, was it?”
She blinked. On the other hand, the woman’s tendency to see all and want to know all made her a bit antsy, too.
Especially when she had so much to hide.
The man on Ellamae’s other side broke in. “Glad you’re back, anyhow,” Judge Baylor said. “Wouldn’t want to miss Tess throwing out her bouquet.”
“Oh, I think I’ll pass.”
The judge’s bright blue eyes met hers. “Well, now. Can’t have you doing that, can we? It’s tradition.”
As Ellamae nodded vigorously, the bandleader