When she left, Simon would have no one again. Springville would slip back into the worry that without the support of the Cabots the town would die. Couldn’t Hunter see that his family, his home, should now be taking precedence over his need for adventure?

He shifted his gaze from hers as if he couldn’t look at her and say, “It isn’t in my nature to stay.”

Margie didn’t believe that. She already knew he was a man who didn’t avoid commitment. Hadn’t he given everything to his country? “Then what is your nature, Hunter?”

“To protect.” He said the words quickly. No hesitation at all. It was instinct. Turning his head, he gave her a hard, warning look, then added, “And I’ll protect Simon from anyone trying to hurt him.”

She knew exactly what he meant. He still believed that she was taking advantage of Simon. That she wanted only his money and whatever prestige came along with the name Cabot. He’d never understand that the love Simon had offered her had been far more valuable to her than dollars.

Suddenly she was tired of trying to make him understand. Tired of the veiled insults and the way he seemed to look at her with hunger one moment and disdain the next. If he was too hardheaded to see the truth, she’d never be able to convince him. And, since this farce would be over in a few weeks, why should she keep trying? Why should she keep beating her head against a stone wall when all she got for her trouble was a headache?

As he stood there watching her, waiting for her to try to defend herself yet again, Margie decided to take an offensive road rather than a defensive one.

“You want to protect Simon from anyone trying to hurt him? Like you did, you mean?” Margie’s voice was quiet, but the words weren’t. They seemed to hang in the air between them like a battle flag. “You left Simon alone, Hunter. You walked off to save the world and left an old man with no one to care about him.”

His cool blue eyes went so cold, so glacial, that Margie wouldn’t have been surprised to see snow start flying in the wind between them. “Didn’t take you long to move in and correct that, though, did it?”

Anger swamped through her and rose like a tide rushing in to shore. Stepping in close, she lifted one hand, pointed her index finger and jabbed it at his chest. “I was his employee.”

He glanced down at her finger, then wrapped his hand around hers and pushed it aside. “So, you were doing it for the money. Still are, aren’t you?”

Margie pulled her hand free of his and shook her head at him sadly. As quickly as her anger had risen, it drained away again. What was the point? She stepped back from him because she needed the physical distance to match the emotional chasm spreading between them.

“It would be easier for you if that were true, wouldn’t it?” she whispered, forcing herself to look into those hard, cold eyes. “Because if I’m staying because I love your grandfather, that makes you leaving him even worse, doesn’t it?”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he muttered.

“Oh, I think I do. You’re a coward, Hunter.”

“Excuse me?”

She waved a hand. “Don’t bother using that military, snap-to-attention tone of voice with me. I’m not afraid of you.”

“Maybe you should be,” he warned. “Nobody calls me a coward.”

“Really? What else would you call a man who turns from the only family he knows because it’s just too hard to stay?”

He didn’t say anything to that, and when the silence became too much to bear, Margie turned and left him standing amid the spring flowers.

And because she didn’t look back, she didn’t see Hunter watching her long after she’d disappeared into the house.

Six

The dance was a success.

But then it would have to be, Hunter thought. His “wife” wouldn’t have settled for anything less.

To please his grandfather, Hunter was wearing his dress whites, and so he stood out in the crowd of dark suits and ties even more than he might have usually. Now, leaning one shoulder against the wall in a corner of the room, he tried to disappear as he watched the crowd assembled in a local church hall.

It was the only room except for the ballroom at the castle that was large enough to accommodate this many people. And from Hunter’s vantage point, it looked as if most of the town had turned out for the event.

There were dozens of small round tables arranged around the room, with a long buffet line along one wall. The dinner had been catered by a restaurant in town, and the tantalizing spices and scents of Mexican food hovered in the noisy air. There were helium-filled balloons trailing colorful ribbon strings bouncing against the ceiling, and Calvin’s flowers decorated either end of the buffet table.

There was music blasting from someone’s stereo at the front of the room, and several couples were on the dance floor swaying to the beat. But mostly, people wandered the room, laughing and talking as if they hadn’t seen each other in years.

Then, there was his “wife,” Hunter thought. His eyes narrowed on the redhead who’d done nothing but plague him for days. Since their conversation in the garden the day before, he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about everything Margie had said to him, and that just irritated the hell out of him.

He didn’t want to feel guilty. He didn’t want her looking at him in disappointment as if he’d somehow let her, personally, down. He didn’t want to remember her words and hear the ring of truth to them.

Oh, not the coward part. That he’d fight until his dying breath. He was no coward. He hadn’t run from responsibility. He’d run to it. He’d wanted something different for his life. He’d wanted to leave a mark, to do something important. And he had. Damned if he’d apologize for that.

He straightened abruptly from the wall and felt a twinge of pain from his still-healing wound. And along with that ache came a whispering voice that asked, Haven’t you had enough of the adventure? Hadn’t you already been thinking that maybe it was time to come home?

Scowling out at the woman who’d made him think too much, remember too much, Hunter tried to brush her and all she stood for aside. But that was harder than he might have expected.

“You ought to be out there dancing with your wife,” a deep voice said from somewhere nearby.

Hunter glanced to his left and smiled. “Kane Hackett.” He shook hands with his old friend and said, “I don’t dance. You should know that.”

Kane grinned and slid a look across the room to where Margie was laughing and talking with a short blond woman. “A married man will do lots of things he didn’t use to do. Take that gorgeous little blonde talking to your Margie…”

Hunter had hardly noticed the other woman. How could he be expected to see anything but how that strapless black dress Margie was wearing defined her lush body? Now, though, he forced himself to look at the blonde. “Cute.”

“Damn sight better than cute,” Kane corrected, taking a sip from the beer bottle he held. “That’s my wife, Donna.”

Staggered, Hunter looked at the man who had gone off to join the Marines at the same time Hunter had enlisted in the Navy. “You? Married?”

Hardly seemed possible. Hunter and Kane had both been keen on adventure, on seeing the world. Experiencing everything life had to offer and then some. Now Kane was married?

“Why sound so surprised?” His old friend chuckled. “You took the plunge, why not me?”

“Yeah, but-” Hunter’s marriage was a fraud. “And you live here in town? Simon didn’t say anything to me.”

Kane shrugged. “Guess he was just waiting for us to bump into each other. And, yeah, I live in Springville. I’m the sheriff.”

Hunter laughed now. “Oh, that’s rich. You’re the sheriff? After all the times we got hauled in for a good talking to, the people in this town elected you?”

Kane gave him a huge grin. “Guess they figured it took a bad boy to catch the bad boys.”

Nodding, Hunter slid his gaze back to his wife as the music changed from classic rock and roll to a slow slide of jazz. “How long have you been back?”

“About a year and a half. Met Donna on my last leave. She knocked me off my feet, Hunt.” He grinned and shook his head as if he still couldn’t believe it himself. “Never saw it coming, but I’m glad it did.” He paused then added, “So when my enlistment was up, I came home, ran for sheriff and married Donna.”

“No more adventures for you, then, huh?” Hunter reached out, took his friend’s beer and had a swallow.

“Are you kidding?” Kane laughed. “Every day with Donna’s an adventure. Best thing that ever happened to me, I swear. But then,” he said, reclaiming his beer, “I guess you’d know all about that.”

“Yeah.” Hunter watched Margie as an old woman stopped to talk to her, and his chest tightened as Margie gave the woman her complete attention along with a brilliant smile.

Briefly, he wondered what it would be like to actually be married. To know Margie was his with the same surety that Kane felt about his Donna. Would he resent staying in Springville? Would he end up one day hating the town and the woman who had snared him?

Hunter frowned at the thought and had to ask himself if maybe Margie hadn’t been more than a little right in everything she’d said to him the day before. Maybe he had been running from responsibility and disguising it with a different kind of duty.

“Well, good to see you,” Kane was saying. “Stop by the station this week-we’ll catch up. For now, I think I’ll go dance with my wife.”

“Right, right.” Hunter nodded but barely heard his friend. He was too busy watching Margie as, one by one, everyone in the hall found the time to stop and talk with her, laugh with her, hug her. Something about that woman made her a magnet for people. Was it a con artist’s gift, he wondered, or was it simply that she was a naturally kind person whom people wanted to be around?