Linda Turner - The Best Man

“Who else knows?” Nick demanded. “Dammit, Joe, how many other people know about this?”

Joe almost told him it had been common knowledge around Liberty Hill for years that there was only one woman Nick Kincaid would ever love and that was Merry McBride. But Nick was already shaken enough as it was, and Joe just didn’t have the heart to tell him the truth. A man was entitled to his pride. If Nick realized that the whole town knew and sympathized with him, he’d feel like he was the town laughingstock or something.

Nothing, however, could have been further from the truth. He was well liked and respected, not only for the job he did as sheriff, but for the fact that over the years, he could have tried to come between Merry and Thomas, and he hadn’t. He loved Merry enough to want her to be happy, even if it wasn’t with him, and Joe didn’t know many people who loved that unselfishly.

“No one knows, as far as I know,” he fibbed. “But even if they did, they wouldn’t fault you for loving her, Nick. Granted, she was a pain in the ass when she was growing up,” he added with a grin, “but she outgrew that quite awhile back. Thanks to Zeke and me keeping her and Janey in line, they both turned out all right.”

He was teasing and they both knew it, but Nick couldn’t manage even a halfhearted smile. God, he’d thought he’d hidden it so well! He’d always been careful to treat Merry just as he did any other friend. He didn’t touch her like he longed to or even flirt with her. They were just buddies, pals, their relationship always strictly platonic so that no one would suspect a thing. And all this time, Joe had known.

And if he’d seen through his act, others must have, too. He couldn’t help but wonder who. Sara McBride? Janey? Merry?

His stomach knotted at the thought. He wouldn’t, couldn’t, lose her friendship! Not Merry. She was the other half of his soul, dammit, and he wasn’t losing her!

“Merry doesn’t know, does she? She can’t! She doesn’t feel the same way, and that would only make her uncomfortable around me.”

Personally, Joe thought shaking Merry up a little might be just what she needed, but he kept that information to himself. “As far as I know, the thought’s never crossed her mind,” he assured Nick. “Anyway, you know Merry. She doesn’t hesitate to speak her mind. If she suspected you were in love with her, she’d come right out and ask you.”

He had a point, but still, Nick didn’t like it. His feelings were private, dammit, and the less people who knew about them, the better. “I don’t want her to know. I mean it, Joe,” he said firmly when he opened his mouth to argue. “It wouldn’t serve any purpose except to embarrass her. Merry loves Thomas, and that’s not going to change just because he got cold feet today. So this stays strictly between the two of us. Understand?”

Joe wanted to argue—Merry had a right to know another man loved her!—but Nick gave him that hard look of his, the one that kept everyone from disorderly drunks to macho cowboys to teenagers bent on mischief in line, and he knew better than to waste his breath.

His own granite jaw as unyielding as Nick’s, he grudgingly gave in. “All right, have it your way. But if you don’t want her or anyone else to know you’re in love with her, then you’d better learn to hide your feelings better. Every time you look at her, it’s written all over your face.”

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