He always kept one or two blankets for an emergency, and when Merry rose out of the water like Aphrodite a few minutes later and started toward him, there was no question in his mind that this was an emergency. Silently groaning at the sight of her lacy underclothes plastered to her body, it was all he could do to keep his hands steady and his expression closed as he wrapped the blanket around her slender form.
He could have been a monk for all the emotion he displayed. Then he spoke and gave himself away. “Better?” he asked huskily.
Chilled and caught up in her misery, she didn’t, thankfully, notice. “Y-yes. Just give me a minute and I’ll be fine.”
But five minutes later, she was still trembling. Seated at their picnic table, the blanket wrapped tight around her and her hair dripping on her bare shoulders, she looked absolutely miserable. Nick knew he should have insisted on taking her home then, but he couldn’t forget the pain in her voice when she’d told him she didn’t want to spend her wedding night alone. And that just gave him one more reason to despise his old friend Thomas. Damn him! How could he have done this to her?
“I’m going to light a fire,” he said gruffly. “Maybe that’ll help. Sit tight and let me collect some wood.”
Within minutes, he had a fire crackling in the fire pit by the table. Sighing in relief as the heat seeped into her, Merry stared into the flames and tried not to think of the cabin she and Thomas had rented for their honeymoon. They’d wanted someplace private and secluded, where they could completely escape from the world, and the cabin had seemed perfect. A hundred miles away and located high in the mountains on a private alpine lake, it had come equipped with everything they could possibly want, from a hot tub to a fireplace, not to mention enough food to feed an army.
They would have been there by now, Merry thought as she hugged the blanket around her. Thomas would have carried her over the threshold, then built a fire in the fireplace and opened a bottle of champagne. After a toast, they would have spent the rest of the night making love.
But there was no cabin in the mountains, no honeymoon, no lovemaking in front of the fireplace. And no husband.
Emotions pulled at her, tying her in knots. She wanted to rage, to scream, to cry. Then her gaze fell on her wedding dress, which still lay in a heap on the ground where she had stepped out of it. Without a thought, she scooped it up and turned toward the fire.
“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