Honorable Rancher

He chuckled. “That sounds like her. Well, Sam’s little girl had a good time dropping those petals in the church aisle. I heard you made her dress. And yours. Nice.”

Damn him for using the compliment, but it gave him a reason to touch her lacy pink sleeve.

She shied like a filly come eye to eye with a rattler.

He clasped his hands together and stared down at them.

When he looked at her profile again, he found her gazing into the distance, unblinking. The moonlight showed her lips pressed together in a straight line, the way he’d noted much too often lately. Her cheekbones had never looked sharp before now.

Nothing could make her less beautiful to him, but it shocked him to realize she had lost weight.

She’d driven herself after losing Paul. Trying to handle everything alone had to be too much for her. He needed to stop thinking about himself—about what he wanted and could never have—and figure out some way to be of help to her.

He’d already bought the building where she rented office space so he could give her a break on the rent. There had to be something else he could do.

Right now, he just needed to get her talking. He cleared his dry throat. “Caleb’s fired up about his new property. I’ve got to hand it to you for that one. Nobody could’ve done a better job of selling that ranch, especially considering it’s bigger than every spread around here.”

She waved her hand as if to brush his words away. “That was Tess’s effort, mostly. I just stepped in to handle the paperwork when we knew she’d become half owner. Besides, she had to focus on getting married.”

“Whatever the reason, I know she was happy to have you help wrap everything up in time for the wedding.”

He knew Dana accepted help in return from Tess, too, when she needed it. Why wouldn’t she take it from him? They’d all been friends forever, through high school and beyond. Not Caleb, who at some point had fallen a year behind. But he and Tess and Dana. Sam Robertson. Paul Wright.

He thought of his best buddy often, recalling him as young and full of life. As part of almost every memory he’d forged since the day he started school. He tried not to think about Paul’s death a year and a half ago. Impossible to avoid that thought at the moment, with the man’s widow sitting on the cold stone bench beside him.

In all the years since grade school, nothing had ever come between Paul and Dana. He had always honored that. Now he had to make doubly sure not to cross the line. “Today 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.