Truly Madly Yours

Chapter Two

The morning after the funeral, Delaney slept late and narrowly escaped a meeting of the Charitable Society of Truly, the small town’s equivalent of the Junior League. She’d hoped to lie around the house all afternoon and spend some time with her mother before leaving that evening to meet her best friend from high school, Lisa Collins. The two had plans to meet at Mort’s Bar for a night of margaritas and gossip.

But Gwen had different plans for Delaney. “I’d like you to stay for the meeting,” Gwen said as soon as she walked into the kitchen, looking like a catalog model dressed in powder blue silk. A slight wrinkle furrowed her brow as she glanced at Delaney’s shoes. “We’re hoping to buy new playground equipment for Larkspur Park, and I think you could help us come up with creative ways to raise money.”

Delaney would rather chew on tinfoil than get sucked into attending one of her mother’s boring meetings. “I have plans,” she lied, and spread strawberry preserves onto a toasted bagel. She was twenty-nine but still couldn’t bring herself to purposely disappoint her mother.

“What plans?”

“I’m meeting a friend for lunch.” She leaned her behind against the cherrywood island and bit into her bagel.

Tiny creases settled in the corners of Gwen’s blue eyes. “You’re going into town looking like that?”

Delaney glanced down at her white sleeveless sweater, her black jean shorts, and the thin patent leather straps of her Hercules sandals with the rubber wedgie soles. She’d dressed conservatively, but maybe her shoes were slightly different by small-town standards. She didn’t care; she loved them. “I like what I’m wearing,” she said, feeling like a nine-year-old again. She didn’t like the feeling, but it reminded her of the biggest reason why she planned to leave Truly quickly the following afternoon after Henry’s will was read.

“I’ll take you shopping next week. We’ll drive down to Boise and spend the day at the mall.” Gwen smiled with genuine pleasure. “Now that you’re home again, we can go at least once a month.”

There it was. Gwen’s assumption that Delaney would be moving back to Truly now that Henry was dead. But Henry Shaw hadn’t been the only reason Delaney kept at least an entire state between herself and Idaho.

“I don’t need anything, Mother,” she said and polished off her breakfast. If she stayed more than a few days, there wasn’t a doubt in her mind that Gwen would have her in Liz Claiborne and turn her into a respectable member of the Charitable Society. She’d grown up wearing clothes she didn’t like and pretending to be someone she wasn’t just to please her parents. She’d killed herself to make honor roll in school, and she’d never so much as received a fine on a library book. She’d grown up the mayor’s daughter. That meant she’d had to be perfect.

“Aren’t those shoes uncomfortable?”

Delaney shook her head. “Tell me about the fire,” she said, purposely changing the subject. Since she’d arrived in Truly, she’d learned very little of what had actually happened the night of Henry’s death. Her mother was reluctant to talk about it, but now that the funeral was over, Delaney pressed for information.

Gwen sighed and reached for the butter knife Delaney had used to spread preserves. The heels of her blue pumps clicked on the red brick tiles as she moved toward the kitchen sink. “I don’t know anything more now than I did when I called you last Monday.” She set down the knife then gazed out the big window above the sink. “Henry was in his tack shed and it caught on fire. Sheriff Crow told me they think it started in a pile of linseed rags he’d left by an old space heater.” Gwen’s voice wavered as she spoke.

Delaney moved toward her mother and put her arm around Gwen’s shoulders. She looked out at the backyard, at the boat dock swaying on gentle waves, and asked the question she’d been afraid to voice, “Do you know if he suffered very much?”

“I don’t think so, but I don’t want to know if he did. I don’t know how long he lived or if God was merciful and he died before the flames got to him. I didn’t ask. Everything that has happened this past week has been hard enough.” She paused to clear her throat. “I’ve had so much to do, and I don’t like to think about it.”

Delaney turned her gaze to her mother, and for the first time in a very long time, she felt a connection to the woman who’d given her life. They were so different, but in this, they were the same. Despite his faults, they had both loved Henry Shaw.

“I’m sure your friends would understand if you canceled your meeting today. If you’d like, I’ll call them for you.”

Gwen turned her attention to Delaney and shook her head. “I have responsibilities, Laney. I can’t put my life on hold forever.”

Forever? Henry had been dead less than a week, buried less than twenty-four hours. She dropped her hand from her mother’s shoulders, feeling the connection snap. “I’m going outside for a bit,” she said, and walked out the back door before she could give in to the disappointment. A late morning breeze rustled the quaking aspen, filling the pine-scented air with the whisper of leaves. She took a deep breath and moved across the back patio.

Disappointment seemed the best word to describe her family. They’d lived a facade, and as a result, they’d been doomed to disappoint one another. A long time ago she’d come to terms with the fact that her mother was superficial, far more concerned with appearance than substance. And Delaney had accepted that Henry was an over-the-top control freak. When she’d behaved as Henry expected, he’d been a wonderful father. He’d given her his time and attention, taken her and her friends boating or camping in the Sawtooths, but the Shaws had lived a life of reprimand and reward, and she’d always felt disappointed that everything, even love, had been conditional.

Delaney walked past a towering Ponderosa to the large dog run on the edge of the back lawn. Two brass name plates tacked above the door of the kennel declared the Weimaraners inside were Duke and Dolores.

“Aren’t you pretty babies?” she cooed, touching their smooth noses through the chain link and talking to them as if they were lap dogs. Delaney loved dogs, having been raised with Dolores and Duke’s predecessors, Clark and Clara. But these days, she moved too often to have a goldfish, let alone a real pet. “Poor pretty babies all penned up.” The Weimaraners licked her fingers, and she lowered to one knee. The dogs were well-groomed, and since they’d belonged to Henry, no doubt well-trained. Their long brown faces and sad blue eyes silently begged her to set them free. “I know how you feel,” she said. “I used to be trapped here, too.” Duke let loose with a pitiful whine that tugged at Delaney’s sympathetic heart. “Okay, but don’t go out of the yard,” she said as she stood.

The kennel door swung open and Duke and Dolores threw themselves forward, shooting past Delaney like two streaks of lightening. “Damn it, get back here!” she yelled, turning just in time to see their stubby tails disappear into the forest. She thought about letting them go with the hope they’d return on their own. Then she thought of the highway less than a mile from the house.

She grabbed two leather leashes from inside the kennel and took off after them. She didn’t feel any attachment toward the dogs, but she didn’t want them to end up as roadkill either. “Duke! Dolores!” she called, running as fast as she could, carefully balancing her weight over a pair of wedgie sandals. “Dinnertime. Steak. Kibbles and Bits.” She chased them into the forest and on old trails she’d roamed as a child. Towering pines enclosed her in shadows and shrubbery slapped at her shins and ankles. She caught up with the dogs at the old treehouse Henry had built for her as a child, but they took off just as she made a grab for their collars. “Milk-Bones,” she called out as she pursued them past Elephant Rock and through Huckleberry Creek. She might have given up if the two animals hadn’t stayed within spitting distance, teasing her, taunting her with their closeness. She chased them under low-hanging aspen branches and scraped her hand as she hoisted herself over a fallen pine.

“Damn it!” she cursed as she inspected her scratches. Duke and Dolores sat on their haunches, wagging their stubby tails and waiting for her to finish. “Come!” she commanded. They lowered their heads in submission, but as soon as she took a step, they jumped up and took off. “Get back here!” She considered letting them go, but then she remembered the Truly Charitable Society meeting at her mother’s house. Chasing stupid dogs through the forest suddenly sounded like a good time.

She followed them up a small hill and paused beneath a pine tree to catch her breath. Her brows lowered as she gazed at the meadow in front of her, subdivided and cleared of trees. A bulldozer and a front-end loader sat idle next to a huge dump truck. Neon orange paint marked the ground in several spots beside big sewer trenches, and Nick Allegrezza stood in the midst of the chaos next to a black Jeep Wrangler, Duke and Dolores at his feet.

Delaney’s heart jumped to her throat. Nick was the one person she’d hoped to avoid during her short visit. He was the source of the single most humiliating experience of her life. She fought to suppress the urge to turn and go back the way she’d come. Nick had seen her and there was no way she was going to run. She had to force herself to walk calmly down the incline toward him.

He was dressed the same as he had been yesterday at Henry’s funeral. White T-shirt, worn Levi’s, gold earring, but he’d shaved today and his hair was pulled back in a ponytail. He looked like he belonged on a billboard wearing nothing but his Calvin’s.

“Hello,” she called out. He didn’t say anything, just stood there, one of his big hands leisurely scratching the top of Duke’s head as his gray eyes watched her. She fought the apprehension weighing the pit of her stomach as she came to stand several feet before him. “I’m walking Henry’s dogs,” she said, and was again treated with silence and his steady, unfathomable gaze. He was taller than she remembered. The top of her head barely reached his shoulder. His chest was broader. His muscles bigger. The last time she’d stood this close, he’d turned her life inside out and changed it forever. She’d thought he was a knight in shining armor, driving a slightly battered Mustang. But she’d been wrong.

He’d been forbidden to her all her life, and she’d been drawn to him like an insect to a bug light. She’d been a good girl longing to be set free, and all he’d had to do was crook his finger at her and utter four words. Four provocative words from his bad-boy lips. “Come here, wild thing,” he’d said, and her soul had responded with a resounding yes. It had been as if he’d looked deep inside her, past the facade, to the real Delaney. She’d been eighteen and horribly naive. She’d never been allowed to spread her wings, to breathe on her own, and Nick had been like pure oxygen that went straight to her head. But she’d paid for it.

“They’re not as well behaved as Clark and Clara were,” she continued, refusing to feel intimidated by his silence.

When he finally did speak, it wasn’t what she expected. “What did you do to your hair?” he asked.

She touched her fingers to the soft red curls. “I like it.”

“You look better as a blond.”

Delaney’s hand fell to her side, and she lowered her gaze to the dogs at Nick’s feet. “I didn’t ask for your opinion.”

“You should sue.”

She really did like her hair, but even if she didn’t, she couldn’t very well sue herself. “What are you doing up here?” she asked as she leaned forward and snapped the leash on Duke’s collar. “Looting?”

“No.” He rocked back on his heels. “I never plunder on the Lord’s day. You’re safe.”

She looked into his dark face. “But funerals are fair game, right?”

A frown creased his forehead. “What are you talking about?”

“That blond yesterday. You treated Henry’s funeral like a pick-up bar. That was disrespectful and gauche, Nick. Even for you.”

The frown disappeared, chased away by a licentious smile. “Jealous?”

“Don’t flatter yourself.”

“Want the details?”

She rolled her eyes. “Spare me.”

“You sure? It’s pretty juicy stuff?”

“I think I’ll live.” She pushed one side of her hair behind her ear, then reached for Dolores.

Before she touched the dog, Nick reached out and grabbed her wrist. “What happened here?” he asked and cupped the back of her hand. His palm was big and warm and callused, and he lightly brushed his thumb across the scratch on her own palm. A surprising little tingle tickled her fingertips, then swept up her arm.

“It’s nothing.” She pulled away. “I scraped it climbing over a blowdown.”

He looked into her face. “You climbed over a blowdown in those shoes?”

For the second time in less than an hour, her favorite shoes were being maligned. “There’s nothing wrong with them.”

“Not if you’re a dominatrix.” His gaze slid down her body, then slowly climbed back up. “Are you?”

“Dream on.” She reached for Dolores again, and this time successfully clipped the leash on the dog’s collar. “Whips and chains aren’t my idea of a good time.”

“That’s a shame.” He folded his arms across his chest and leaned his butt against the tire well of the Jeep. “The closest thing Truly has to an experienced dominatrix is Wendy Weston, 1990 state champion calf roper and barrel racer.”

“Can you afford two women spanking your bum?”

“You could steal me away,” he said through a grin. “You’re better looking than Wendy, and you have the right shoes.”

“Gee thanks. Too bad I’m leaving tomorrow afternoon.”

He looked a little surprised by her answer. “Short trip.”

Delaney shrugged and pulled the dogs toward her. “I never intended to stay long.” She would probably never see him again, and she let her gaze roam the sensual line of his dark face. He was too handsome for his own good, but maybe he wasn’t as bad as she remembered. He would never pass for a nice guy, but at least he hadn’t reminded her of the night she’d sat on the hood of his Mustang. It had been ten years; maybe he’d mellowed. “Good-bye, Nick,” she said and took a step backward.

He touched two fingers to his brow in a mock salute, and she turned and headed back the way she’d come, dragging the dogs along with her.

At the top of the small hill, she glanced over her shoulder one last time. Nick stood just as she’d left him beside his Jeep, arms folded across his chest, watching her. As she stepped into the shifting forest shadows, she remembered the blond he’d picked up at Henry’s funeral. Maybe he’d mellowed, but she’d bet pure testosterone, not blood, ran through his veins.

Duke and Dolores tugged at their leashes and Delaney tightened her grasp. She thought about Henry and about Nick and wondered once again if Henry had included his son in his will. She wondered if they’d ever tried to reconcile, and she wondered what Henry had bequeathed her. For a few brief moments, she let herself imagine a gift of money. She let herself imagine what she could do with a chunk of cash. First, she’d pay off her car, then she’d buy a pair of shoes from some place like Bergdorf Goodman. She’d never owned an eight-hundred-dollar pair of shoes, but she wanted to.

And if Henry had left her a huge chunk a cash?

She’d open her own salon. Without a doubt. A modern salon with lots of mirrors, and marble, and stainless steel. She’d dreamed of her own business for quite a while now, but two things stood in her way. One, she hadn’t found a city where she wanted live for more than a couple of years. And two, she didn’t have the capital or the collateral to get the capital.

Delaney stopped in front of the fallen tree she’d climbed over earlier. When Duke and Dolores began to crawl beneath, she pulled on their leashes and took the long way around. Her wedgies teetered on rocks, and her toes were covered with dirt. As she trudged through a crop of buckbrush, she thought of bug bites and blood-sucking ticks. A shiver ran up her spine, and she pushed aside the thought of contracting Rocky Mountain spotted fever and replaced it with designing the perfect upscale salon in her head. She’d start out with five chairs, and stylists would lease space from her for a change. Since she didn’t like to give manicures and hated pedicures, she’d hire someone else to do it. She’d stick to what she loved: cutting hair, schmoozing, and serving her customers lattes. She’d start out charging her customers seventy-five dollars for a cut and blow-dry. A bargain for her services, and once she had a steady client base, she’d raise her prices on them gradually.

God bless America and a free market system where everyone had the right to charge whatever she wanted. That thought brought her full circle to Henry and his will. As much as she liked to dream about her own salon, she seriously doubted he’d left her money. Probably her gift was something he would know she didn’t want.

As Delaney carefully picked her way across Huckleberry Creek, the two dogs jumped in and splashed her with icy water. Henry had probably left her a gag gift. Something to torture her for a long time. Something like two unruly Weimaraners.

Downtown Truly boasted two grocery stores, three restaurants, four bars, and one recently installed traffic light. The Valley View Drive-In had been closed for five years due to lack of business, and one of only two beauty salons, Gloria’s: A Cut Above, had closed the month before due to Gloria’s unexpected demise. The three-hundred-pound woman had suffered a massive heart attack while giving Mrs. Hillard a shampoo and set. Poor Mrs. Hillard still had nightmares.

The old courthouse was located next to the police station and forestry service building. Three churches competed for souls, Mormon, Catholic, and born-again Christian. The new hospital had been built next to the combination elementary and middle school, but the most celebrated establishment in town, Mort’s Bar, was in the older section of Truly, on Main between Value Hardware and the Panda Restaurant.

Mort’s was more than a place to get tanked. It was an institution, famous for its cold Coors and array of antlers. Deer, elk, antelope, and moose decorated the wall above the bar, their magnificent racks adorned with bright panties. Bikinis. Briefs. Thongs. All colors, all signed and dated by the donor drunk. A few years back, the owner had nailed a jack-o-lope head next to the moose, but no respectable woman, drunk or sober, wanted her panties hanging from something as goofy-looking as a jack-o-lope. The head had been quickly moved to the back room to hang above the pinball machine.

Delaney had never been in Mort’s. She’d been too young ten years ago. Now as she sipped margaritas in a booth toward the back, she wondered at the attraction. Except for the wall above the bar, Mort’s was like a hundred other bars in a hundred other small towns. The lights were dim, the jukebox was constant, and the smell of tobacco and beer permeated everything. The dress was casual, and Delaney felt perfectly at home in a pair of jeans and a Mossimo T-shirt.

“Did you ever donate your undies?” she asked Lisa, who sat across the blue vinyl booth. Within minutes of meeting her old friend, the two had fallen into easy conversation, as if they’d never been apart.

“Not that I recall,” she answered, her green eyes alight with humor. Lisa’s easy smile and laughter had been what had drawn the two together in the fourth grade. Lisa had been carefree, her brunette hair always in a scraggly ponytail. Delaney had been uptight, her blond hair perfectly curled. Lisa had been a free spirit. Delaney had been a spirit longing to be free. They’d loved the same music and movies, and they’d loved to argue like sisters for hours. The two had balanced each other out.

After Lisa had graduated from high school, she’d received her degree in interior design. She’d lived in Boise for eight years, employed at a design firm where she’d done all the work and received none of the credit. Two years ago she’d quit and moved back to Truly. Now, thanks to computers and modems, she operated a busy design business from her home.

Delaney’s gaze took in her friend’s pretty face and disheveled ponytail. Lisa was smart and attractive, but Delaney still had the better hair. If she were staying in town longer, she’d grab her friend and cut her hair to accent her eyes, then maybe brush a few light streaks around her face.

“Your mother tells me you’re a makeup artist down in Scottsdale. She said you have celebrity clients.”

Delaney wasn’t surprised by her mother’s embellishment and took a sip of her margarita. Gwen hated Delaney’s career, perhaps because it reminded her mother of their life before Henry-the life Delaney had never been allowed to talk about, when Gwen had styled hair for dancers on the Vegas strip. But Delaney was nothing like her mother. She loved working in a salon. It had taken years to finally discover her niche. She loved the tactile sensations, the smell of Paul Mitchell, and the gratification of a pleased client. And it didn’t hurt that she was extremely good. “I’m a hairstylist in a salon in Scottsdale, but I live in Phoenix,” she said and licked the salt from her top lip. “I love it, but my mother is embarrassed by what I do for a living. You’d think I was a hooker or something.” She shrugged. “I don’t do makeup because of the hours, but I did trim Ed McMahon’s hair once.”

“You’re a beautician?” Lisa laughed. “This is too good. Helen Markham has a salon over on Fireweed Lane.”

“You’re kidding? I saw Helen yesterday. Her hair looked like shit.”

“I didn’t say she was any good at it.”

“Well, I am,” Delaney said, having found something at last that she was a lot better at than her old rival.

A waitress approached and set two more margaritas on the table. “That gentleman over there,” the woman said, pointing toward the bar, “bought you two another round.”

Delaney glanced at the man she recognized as one of Henry’s friends. “Tell him thank you,” she said and watched as the waitress left. She hadn’t bought a drink since she’d stepped foot in Mort’s. Men she vaguely remembered from her youth kept a steady supply of booze coming to her table. She was on her third, and if she weren’t careful, she’d be drunk in no time.

“Remember when you caught Helen and Tommy doing it in the back of his mother’s Vista Cruiser?” Lisa asked, beginning to look a little glassy-eyed.

“Of course I remember. He’d told me he was going to the drive-in with some friends.” She drained one glass and reached for the third. “I decided to surprise him. And I did.”

Lisa laughed and downed her drink. “That was so funny.”

Delaney’s laughter joined her friend’s. “Not at the time though. Having Helen Schnupp, of all girls, steal my first boyfriend sucked.”

“Yeah, but she did you a favor. Tommy has turned into a real bum. He only works long enough to collect unemployment. He has two kids, and Helen supports them most of the time.”

“How does he look?” Delaney asked, cutting to the important stuff.

“Still good-lookin‘.”

“Damn.” She’d hoped for a report of a receding hairline at the very least. “Who was that friend of Tommy’s? Do you remember? He always wore that John Deere baseball cap, and you had a mad crush on him.”

A frown appeared between Lisa’s brows. “Jim Bushyhead.”

Delaney snapped her fingers. “That’s right. You dated him for a while, but he dumped you for that girl with the mustache and big boobs.”

“Tina Uberanga. She was Basque and Italian… poor thing.”

“I remember you were madly in love with him for a long time after he dumped you.”

“No, I wasn’t.”

“Yes, you were. We used to have to drive by his house at least five times a day.”

“No way.”

Two more drinks appeared, provided by another of Henry’s associates. Delaney waved her thanks and turned back to her friend. They resumed their gossip over a steady stream of free margaritas. At nine-thirty Delaney glanced at her watch. She’d lost count of her drinks, and her cheeks were beginning to feel a little numb. “I don’t suppose Truly has a taxi service these days.” If she cut herself off now, she’d have over three hours to sober up before the bar closed and she had to drive home.

“Nope. We finally got a gas station with a mini-mart. But it closes at eleven.” She pointed a finger at Delaney and said, “You don’t know how lucky you are to live in a city with a Circle K. You can’t just grab a box of Ding Dongs or a burrito at two in the morning around here.”

“Are you drunk?”

Lisa leaned forward and confessed, “Yes, and guess what else? I’m getting married.”

“What?” Delaney sputtered. “You’re getting married and you waited all this time to tell me?”

“Well, we’re not telling anyone for a while. He wants to talk to his daughter first, before it’s common knowledge. But she’s in Washington with her mother until next week.”

“Who? Who’s the lucky guy?”

Lisa looked her straight in the eyes and said, “Louie Allegrezza.”

Delaney blinked several times then burst into laughter. “That’s a good one.”

“I’m serious.”

“Crazy Louie.” She continued to laugh as she shook her head. “You’ve got to be pulling my leg.”

“I’m not. We’ve been seeing each other for eight months. Last week he asked me to marry him, and of course I said yes. We’re getting married November fifteenth.”

“Nick’s brother?” Her laughter died. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”

“Very, but we can’t tell anyone until he talks to Sophie.”

“Sophie?”

“His daughter from his first wife. Sophie’s thirteen and a real daddy’s girl. He thinks if he tells her when she gets back, she’ll have almost six months to get used to the idea.”

“Crazy Louie,” Delaney repeated, stunned. “Isn’t he doing time in prison?”

“No. He doesn’t do crazy things anymore.” She paused and shook her head. “Besides, he was never really that crazy.”

Delaney wondered if her friend had fallen on her head in the past ten years and suffered memory loss. “Lisa, he stole a car in the fifth grade.”

“No. We were in the fifth grade. He was in the ninth, and in all fairness, he was on his way to take it back when he hopped the curb and got high-centered on that bench in front of Value Drug.” Lisa shrugged. “He might not have even gotten caught if he hadn’t swerved to miss the Olsens’ dog, Buckey.”

Delaney blinked to clear her head. “Are you blaming Buckey?”

“That dog always did run loose.”

All dogs ran loose in Truly. “I can’t believe you’re blaming poor Buckey? You must be in love.”

Lisa smiled. “I am. Haven’t you ever felt so in love you wanted to crawl inside a man’s skin and stay there?”

“A few times,” Delaney confessed, feeling a little envious of her friend. “But I got over it after a while.”

“Too bad you live so far away, I’d ask you to be in my wedding. Remember how we were always going to be each other’s maid of honor?”

“Yeah.” Delaney sighed. “I was going to marry Jon Cryer and you were going to marry Andrew McCarthy.”

“Pretty in Pink.” Lisa sighed, too. “That was a great movie. How many times do you think we sat there and cried when Andrew McCarthy dumped Molly Ringwald because she was from the wrong side of the tracks?”

“At least a hundred. Remember when-” she began but the bartender’s voice interrupted her.

“Last call,” he bellowed.

Delaney checked her watch again. “Last call? It’s not even ten.”

“It’s Sunday,” Lisa reminded her. “Bars close at ten on Sunday.”

“We’re both too drunk to drive.” Delaney panicked. “How are we going to get home?”

“Louie’s picking me up ‘cause he knows I’m a cheap date and thinks he’s going to get lucky. I’m sure he’ll take you home, too.”

She pictured her mother’s horrified face peering out the front window, crazy Louie Allegrezza careening up the driveway. Delaney smiled at the thought, and she knew she was a few margaritas past sobriety. “If you don’t think he’ll mind.”

But it wasn’t Louie who blew into the bar five minutes later like he owned the place. It was Nick. He’d slipped a plaid flannel shirt over his T-shirt. He’d left the shirt unbuttoned, and the ends hung open at his hips. Delaney sank down in her seat. Drunk or sober, she wasn’t in the mood to face him. He hadn’t mentioned their past when she’d seen him earlier that day, but she still didn’t trust that he wouldn’t.

“Nick!” Lisa waved as she called across the bar. “Where’s Louie?”

He looked toward the booth at Lisa, then his gaze locked on Delaney as he moved toward her. “Sophie called upset about something,” he explained, coming to stand by the table. He paused, then switched his attention to his future sister-in-law. “He asked me to come and get you.”

Lisa scooted across the booth seat and stood. “Would you mind giving Delaney a ride home?”

“That’s okay,” Delaney quickly assured them. She grabbed her crocheted purse and rose to her feet. “I can find my own way.” The room tilted slightly, and she placed a hand on the wall beside her. “I don’t think I’m that drunk.”

The corners of Nick’s mouth pulled into a frown. “You’re wasted.”

“I just stood up a little too fast,” she said and stuck her hand in her peach-colored bag, searching for a quarter. She’d have to call her mother. She really wasn’t looking forward to it, but if she thought her mother would be horrified to see Louie, Nick would send her over the top.

“You can’t drive,” Lisa insisted.

“I wasn’t-heeey!” she called out to Nick’s retreating back as she watched him head across the bar with her purse in his hand. Any other man might have been in danger of looking a little swishy clutching a woman’s peach bag, but not Nick.

She and Lisa followed him out the door and into the black night. She hoped her mother was already in bed asleep. “Damn it’s cold,” she muttered, the mountain chill seeping into her pores. Crossing her arms over her breasts, she practically ran down the sidewalk to keep up with Nick’s long strides. She wasn’t used to summer nights in the mountains of Idaho anymore. In Phoenix temperatures dipped to ninety-four-not fifty-four-and she couldn’t wait to get back.

“It’s not that cold,” Lisa argued as they passed Delaney’s yellow Miata parked by the curb. “You’ve turned into a wimp.”

“You’re a bigger wimp than I am. You always were. Remember when you fell off the monkey bars in sixth grade and cried for three hours?”

“I hurt my tailbone.”

They stopped by Nick’s black Jeep. “It didn’t hurt that much,” she said. “You were just a big wimp.”

“At least I didn’t cry like a baby when I had to dissect a frog in high school.”

“I got frog guts in my hair,” Delaney defended. “Anyone would cry if frog guts flew in their hair.”

“Jesus, Joseph, and Mary.” Nick sighed like a weary priest and opened the car passenger door. “What did I do to deserve this?”

Lisa pushed the seat forward. “Something sinful I’m sure,” she said and climbed into the back.

Nick laughed and flipped the backrest into place for Delaney. Like a perfect gentleman, he held the door for her. She knew she was drunk, her judgment impaired, but maybe he had changed. She looked at him cast in shadows, only the lower half of his face illuminated by a street lamp. She knew he could charm the pants off anyone when he wanted, and there had been a few times in her life when he’d been uncharacteristically nice to her. Like the time in fourth grade when she’d come out of the market with a plenty pack of Trident and discovered a flat tire on her bicycle. Nick had insisted on pushing it all the way home. He’d shared his candy with her, and she’d given him some of her gum. Maybe he’d actually changed and turned into a nice guy. “Thank you for the ride home, Nick.” Or better yet, maybe he’d forgotten about the single worst night of her life. Maybe he’d forgotten that she’d thrown herself at him.

“Any time.” A smile curved his sensuous mouth and he handed the purse to her. “Wild thing.”