The Hero's Sin

Sara rolled her eyes. Weddings, like no other events, seemed to bring out the matchmakers. “I’m starting a career, not looking for a man.”

Penelope grinned. “Then I’ll look for you. Only not today. I’m a little busy.”

Sara moved down the receiving line, but before she got to the best man, who was indeed handsome, a redhead in a tight green dress pulled him aside. The redhead complained loudly that he wasn’t paying her enough attention.

The poor guy was trying so hard to get her to lower her voice that Sara pretended not to notice and stepped into the reception hall.

She was used to elegant weddings with sit-down dinners and soft music, perhaps from a classically trained pianist or a string ensemble. A quartet of middle-aged men, including a saxophonist and an accordionist, were setting up what Sara guessed was a polka band near a spacious dance floor. Waitstaff arranged steaming platters of food on a bountiful buffet table.

The VFW hall was loud and crowded, with wedding guests filling up long, skinny tables. Artificial flower arrangements added color to the tables, which were covered in white cloth like the chairs. As a finishing touch, oversized pastel bows had been tied to the backs of each seat. Sara skirted the periphery of the room, searching for a place to sit.

“Over here, Sara!” Marie Dombrowski beckoned her to a nearby spot, where she sat with her silent husband. “Come join me and Frank.”

Sara smiled, grateful for the invitation. Before she took a step, something made her look in the direction of the receiving line, which had started to break up as the wedding party made its way to the bridal table. Only Penelope, Johnny and his father remained.

Johnny grinned hugely before embracing a tall man with short dark hair who seemed vaguely familiar. Johnny held on to the other man for long seconds, patting him repeatedly and enthusiastically on the back.

“Are you coming, Sara?” Marie Dombrowski called.

“In a minute.” Sara held up a finger, her attention still riveted by the groom and the stranger.

The two men drew apart. Sara had judged Johnny to be five ten or eleven when she’d stood next to him. The stranger topped him by a good three or four inches. His posture was proud, almost defiant, and he wore a gray suit a few shades lighter than Johnny’s tuxedo that looked good on his athletic frame.

Johnny’s father came forward, embracing the stranger just as enthusiastically as his son had before somebody called him away. Then Johnny grabbed Penelope’s hand and pulled her close, no doubt to introduce her. The angle of the stranger’s head changed, and Sara got a good look at his hard, handsome face.

She inhaled sharply. If she hadn’t been sure of the man’s identity, the bruise on his forehead would have been a dead giveaway.

It was the hero from the river.

“Y OU’RE AS pretty as Johnny said you were.” Michael extended a hand to Johnny’s bride, a slender brunette with her hair piled high on her head, wisps of it falling charmingly about her face.

“Thank you.” Her eyes flew to his forehead, and she winced. “I see why you didn’t come to the rehearsal dinner. What happened?”

“Nothing worth repeating,” Michael said. Until she mentioned it, he’d almost forgotten he’d used the injury as an excuse. “Just glad I could be here to see my old buddy get married.”

“That’s right. You grew up with Johnny. He told me all about you.” Her smile seemed genuine, which meant Johnny hadn’t told her everything about him. “Will you be in town long?”

“I’m just here for the wedding.”

“That’s too bad. I don’t understand why anybody would ever want to leave Indigo Springs. I absolutely adore it here.”

Michael felt the muscles holding up his smile tighten. That confirmed it. Johnny hadn’t filled Penelope in on the whole story. “I hope you’ll be happy here.”

“I’ll make sure of that,” Johnny hugged her to his side.

“Okay, lovebirds, you’re needed at the main table.” A woman in a flowing floral-print dress called as she bustled toward them. She stopped short, gaping at Michael as though his suit jacket was stained with blood. He mentally subtracted the woman’s pounds and the gray in her hair and recognized Johnny’s aunt Ida. Before Michael could greet her, she looked past him to Johnny and Penelope. “Everybody’s waiting on you so the best man can give the toast and people can eat.”

She turned away without acknowledging Michael, not that he expected her to, not when he remembered her as one of Chrissy’s mother’s closest friends. Ida had pledged her allegiance years ago, and it hadn’t been to him.

A warm hand clasped his shoulder. “Don’t worry about Aunt Ida,” Johnny reassured him. “I’m glad you’re here. Maybe we can catch up later.”

Michael nodded, although there was little chance of that happening at a reception of more than a hundred people. Johnny knew it, too. He slapped Michael on the shoulder. “Good seeing you, man.”

“Always,” Michael said.

Dropping his hand, Johnny escorted his bride into the main part of the hall to a bridal table decorated with tall candles, fresh flowers and draped garlands.

Michael surveyed the wedding guests chatting happily to one another and knew what it felt like to be alone in a crowd. Most were strangers, but he recognized some of them, none of whom he felt comfortable approaching.

He waited a few beats, then headed for the exit and the parking lot, pretending he wasn’t in a hurry. He’d considered himself lucky to find a parking space, but a now a white van blocked his escape route. The scripted red letters on the side of the vehicle read Catering Solutions: We cook so you don’t have to. The driver’s seat was empty.

“Damn.” There was no getting around it. He needed to re-enter the hall and locate the caterers, no matter how much it might send tongues wagging.

Even as he lectured himself on the cold reality of his situation, he wished things were different. Wished, for instance, that the woman with the red highlights in her long brown hair was headed for him instead of the parking lot.

He’d noticed her at the church, partly because she wore a ridiculously feminine dress with high-heeled sandals that added inches to her tall frame and showed off a killer set of legs. With a slightly long nose and a wide mouth, she wasn’t classically beautiful as much as she was damn attractive. But it wasn’t only her looks that captured his attention. It was the poise with which she moved, the intelligence in her expression that told him he’d enjoy getting to know her.

Not that there was a chance in hell of that happening.

Then she smiled.

He checked behind him, but the parking lot and front sidewalk were deserted except for him. It wasn’t yet dusk so he’d clearly seen her welcoming expression.

He expected her to keep on walking, for her smile to vanish. But it widened, reaching large eyes the same light brown as the cream soda Aunt Felicia used to buy when he was a teenager.

When she stopped before him, there could be no mistaking it—the smile was for him.

“You’re my hero,” she said.

He felt the corners of his mouth drop. Was she someone from his past playing a sick joke? She was about his age. About the age Chrissy would have been had she lived. But, no. He didn’t know her. This was a woman he wouldn’t have forgotten.

“Excuse me?” he asked.

Admiration gleamed in her eyes, as easy to read as the red block letters on the white sign in front of the VFW hall. The members of the Veterans of Foreign Wars were heroes, not him.

“I saw you,” she said. “At the river. When you saved that boy.”

She didn’t know him. Didn’t know about the sin in his past. The tension slowly left him as he put together the pieces. She must have been along on the raft trip when the boy had fallen overboard into the white water.

“You were wonderful,” she added.

He frowned. “I didn’t do anything anyone else wouldn’t have done.”

“Are you joking?” Her cream-soda eyes widened, disbelief touching her lips. “You rode that rapid without a raft. You could have drowned along with that boy.”

He shifted from one foot to the other, uncomfortable with her exaggeration. He knew enough about the Lehigh to go feet-first down a rapid, which had substantially lessened the danger. “Yeah, well, both of us made it through okay.”

She reached up and traced her fingers lightly against his temple, the gesture kindling a warmth inside him even though her touch was as soft as the brush of a feather. “Except for this nasty bump.”