Honorable Rancher

No safety for her tonight, anywhere.

Forcing a smile, she hurried toward the table halfway around the dance floor. Anything to keep from standing near the door. If Ben found her there, he would assume she had waited for him.

For the past year and more, she had done just the opposite—tried her best to keep out of his way. A ridiculous goal in a town the size of Flagman’s Folly, where you couldn’t step out your front door without meeting someone you knew.

Then he’d bought the building that housed her office, and she’d had to work twice as hard to avoid him. Ten times as hard to ignore her feelings. Because it wasn’t only anger and irritation that made her insist she was fine. And that had sent her running from him now.

Reaching the table, she smiled down at Tess’s aunt Ellamae. “Everything okay?” she asked. “Did you need something?”

“Everything’s fine,” the older woman said.

Fine. That word again. She resisted the urge to steal a backward glance at the French doors. To look for Ben.

They’d been friends forever, yet she couldn’t risk being near him anymore. Talking with him meant she had to raise her guard. Trying to make him understand how she felt made her frustrated, in more ways than she wanted to think about. Every time they spoke to each other, she left more shaken than before.

Even tonight, when she fled outside for a few minutes alone, she’d found no escape from him. Worse, sitting beside him in the moonlight, she’d had trouble catching her breath. And that had nothing to do with the formfitting bodice of her gown.

“We were wondering what you’d gotten up to,” Ellamae said.

She jumped. “Up to? Nothing. I’m the matron of honor, that’s all. It’s a busy job.”

“Yeah. So, it’s funny you found time to run off like that.”

Ellamae’s weatherworn face and gruff tone made most kids in town antsy around her. Her job as court clerk only increased their anxiety. But like a prickly pear cactus, her rough exterior covered the softness beneath.

Years of spending time around Tess’s family had taught Dana that. She could handle Ellamae. “I just went out for a quick breath of fresh air.”

“Not so quick, was it?”

She blinked. On the other hand, the woman’s tendency to see all and want to know all made her a bit antsy, too.

Especially when she had so much to hide.

The man on Ellamae’s other side broke in. “Glad you’re back, anyhow,” Judge Baylor said. “Wouldn’t want to miss Tess throwing out her bouquet.”

“Oh, I think I’ll pass.”

The judge’s bright blue eyes met hers. “Well, now. Can’t have you doing that, can we? It’s tradition.”

As Ellamae nodded vigorously, the bandleader made the announcement. At the tables around them, women jumped up from their seats.

Knowing enough not to protest, Dana swallowed a sigh. Everyone had respected her year and more of mourning, but with the folks of Flagman’s Folly, tradition was practically the law. And between them, Ellamae and the judge were the law in town.

“Time you got back into the swing of things,” Ellamae said.

Trust her to speak her mind. She now shooed Dana into the crowd with as much enthusiasm as little Becky Robertson shooed her chickens into their new coop.

Giving up, Dana joined the women surging toward the dance floor. Laughter broke out from behind her, and she looked back.

Ellamae stood waving a well-used baseball catcher’s mitt. She hurried to Dana’s side. “C’mon, girl, let’s move it. I got done out of catching the bouquet at Sam Robertson’s wedding, but I’m not missing a chance at this one.”

Almost the same words Dana had used to escape from Ben. Time to make good on her excuse. Refusing to look for him, she took her spot with the women. From the middle of the crowd, Lissa and Nate turned, grinning, to wave at her. She waved back.

Ellamae nudged her, making elbow room.

Dana laughed and edged a few steps away. Though she stayed on the fringes, she held her hands up as everyone else did and matched their wide smiles.

The bride listened to her guests, all telling her how and when and where to toss her bouquet. Dana knew each woman in the group hoped to become the lucky winner—especially Ellamae, who stood waving her mitt-clad hand above her head.

Good luck to her. And to anyone else on that dance floor.

As long as she stayed behind all the other women, the bouquet shouldn’t come anywhere near her. Just the idea that she might win the toss made her heart thud painfully.

Unable to stop herself, she glanced across the room. Ben stood near the French doors, gazing at her, and she hurriedly turned away. Knowing he watched only made things worse.

The sigh she swallowed bordered on a sob. Of all the folks in town who worried her, good old Ben topped the list. Not only because he kept offering to help her.

But because he would be the person most hurt by the secrets she kept.

“Everybody set?” Tess called.

The crowd murmured in anticipation, and Dana forced herself to focus. If she didn’t, it would be just her luck not to realize the bouquet had come right at her until too late—after her reflexes had kicked in and she had caught it.

Tess swung her arm as if winding up for a baseball pitch, then let the flower arrangement fly. It skimmed the fingertips of one woman after another, bouncing its way across the crowd.

To the amusement of everyone in the hall, Ellamae made a valiant effort to snag the bouquet in midair. The cumbersome baseball mitt let her down. The flowers slipped from her grasp, tumbled in Dana’s direction, bounced off her shoulder, and landed in the arms of five-year-old Becky Robertson, who squealed. Jaw dropped and eyes wide, she looked up at Dana.

Sam’s little girl was deaf. Glad his wife had taught folks some sign language, Dana fluttered her hands in the air, using the gesture for applause. Hearing Becky’s high-pitched laugh made her smile. Dana held her right hand palm turned inward a couple of inches from her own face. Tilting her hand, she pulled all her fingertips together. “Pretty.”

Clutching the bouquet, Becky nodded energetically, then ran toward her daddy, who waited at the edge of the dance floor.

“There goes one happy young’un,” Ellamae said, shaking her head. “Well, after seeing that smile, guess I can’t begrudge the girl. Better luck next time for the rest of us.”

Not for me, Dana thought with relief as the other women drifted away and Ellamae stomped off in a pretend sulk. Her good fortune had come from not getting stuck with that bouquet.

Then she made the mistake of looking at Ben. No smiles there. No luck for her, either. He had started across the room toward her.

Chapter Two

Had Ben read her thoughts in her face from all the way across the room? Had everyone in the entire banquet hall noticed her relief at not catching the bouquet?

Casually, she hoped, Dana glanced away from Ben at the tables clustered around the dance floor. No one seemed to pay any special attention to her—except the bride, who marched up, shaking her head. “What in the world do you call that attempt? You didn’t even try to catch it.”

“I most certainly did. Ellamae made me nervous.”

“Yeah, I’ll bet.” Tess frowned. “Are you having a good time?”

“Of course.”