Cathy Thacker - The Texas Lawman's Woman

He nodded, his impish eyes at odds with the solemn expression on his face. “This way they’d have their fruits and veggies in one cake.”

A notion that went, Shelley acknowledged, right along with Gerry’s wicked sense of humor. It was why he and Colt had been such good friends growing up. When they’d all stopped chuckling, Betty suggested, “How about a toasted almond layer in between the strawberry and the carrot, for aesthetic sake?”

“I could go with that,” Colt demurred.

And on they went. By the time they had finished choosing everything from the exact shade of buttercream frosting, and the bride and groom figurines for the top of the cake, an hour had passed. The order placed, Colt and Shelley walked out of the bakery. They weren’t hand in hand, but by that point, it almost felt as if they were.

“Funny, I always thought if we ever got to this point, it’d be our wedding cake we were picking out,” Colt blurted out.

His surprisingly sentimental words mirrored her wistful feelings. Which was why, Shelley told herself, she had to be practical. Pushing aside her own wish that everything had turned out differently for the two of them, Shelley countered, “If and didn’t happen being the operative words.” She slanted him a warning glance.

He didn’t back down. “If it matters...” he confessed gruffly. “Standing you up on prom night was the single biggest mistake of my life.”

Not forgiving his tardiness and going with him, hours late, had been hers. Knowing she could easily fall for him all over again made her cautious. The urge to slip her hand into his even stronger, she met the intensity of his gaze. “And why is that, Deputy?”

“Because if I’d kept that commitment, you and I might still be together now.”

Nostalgia, regret and longing combined to give her a passionate punch to the gut. She turned away. “You already said you knew we weren’t right for each other then.” Just as she did now.

He put his hands on her shoulders and brought her right back. “Maybe I was wrong about that.” Colt gazed soberly down at her. “Maybe what wasn’t right were the plans we had for that night. The truth is, I didn’t want to take your virginity that way. Even as young as I was, I knew you deserved so much more than a clandestine hookup on an air mattress in a borrowed tent at Lake Laramie campgrounds.”

Like it or not, Shelley knew this stuff had to be said. She took his arm and propelled him into the nearby alley, well out of earshot, so they could have this out in private. She looked deep into his eyes, wishing she didn’t want so badly to kiss and hold him and spend every waking second with him again. Because she well knew giving into temptation would only bring heartache. The two of them were just too different for the outcome to be otherwise.

She leaned up against the warmth of the historic brick building, protected from the passing cars and steady stream of pedestrian traffic on the adjacent Main Street. “First of all, it’s not like we had a lot of options, since concerned parents were staking out local hotels to make sure high school students didn’t end up there. So if we wanted to be together and avoid detection, we had to go with the more rustic Plan B.”

She took a deep, bolstering breath. “Second of all, I was very much on board with what was going down. I knew the risks...yet still wanted the rewards.” Wanted you. “And you did, too.”

His memory clearly jarred, he favored her with a half smile that sent tingles soaring through her.

“What happened back then was mutual,” Shelley continued softly. “You and I both enlisted the help of all our friends to cover for us. We both planned that rendezvous down to the last detail.”

“I remember,” he said thickly.

“Then you should also remember that in the weeks leading up to that night, I didn’t feel in the least bit shortchanged by the rustic setting of the campground. On the contrary, I was certain that making love to each other for the very first time on senior prom night was going to make it all that more special.”

It would have bonded them together for an eternity. Just as the abrupt cancellation of their highly romantic plans had flung them apart for what felt like forever.

Shelley swallowed a lump in her throat. “But for a lot of reasons we chose not to go down that path.” Her heart had been trampled on, and she had been humiliated in front of all their friends. “So you have to quit talking about prom night,” Shelley insisted. “It does neither of us any good.”

“Can’t help it,” Colt returned just as stubbornly. “I’m a guy who likes to rectify his mistakes.”

“Or see what it would have been like on the road not taken?” Shelley retorted.

Colt shook his head, refusing to be dissuaded from his trip down memory lane. “Seeing you again, being with you, has brought it all back.”

For her, too.

He sifted a hand through her hair and continued huskily, “Wishing I had followed through on all my promises to you—”

And made love to me, Shelley guessed.

“—is all I can think about.”

She couldn’t help it: she’d been fantasizing, too. And although they were both single again now, she was also a mom with parental responsibilities to fulfill—and a myriad of personal financial problems to sort out. She could not afford to be an impetuous romantic anymore. Nor could she take the kind of emotional gamble he proposed. Especially knowing he could shut her out again at any time.

“Then think about something different, Colt.” Shelley put her hands on his chest and pushed him away. “Because what we planned for that evening is never going to happen. All we can be from this point forward is friends. Good friends, but...” She stopped in midsentence, blinked, sure her eyes were playing tricks on her.

But there he was at the other end of the alley. The exact person she’d been trying to find.

* * *

“TULLY.”

Shelley’s gasp rang in the alley as her ex-husband, the man Colt had loathed from the first moment he’d set eyes on him, strode toward them.

“I heard you were looking for me,” Tully Laffer said.

Several inches shorter than Colt, clad in plaid shorts, coordinating polo shirt and deck shoes, expensive sunglasses shading his eyes, he looked more ready for a party on his parents’ yacht than an evening in a small West Texas town.

Colt knew the polite thing to do would be to excuse himself and let the two exes talk in private. However, he wasn’t feeling particularly well mannered. He never did when Tully was around.

Fortunately, Colt noted, Shelley was focused totally on her ex—and not his dubious attitude. She stormed toward Tully, hands knotted at her sides. “Did you take out a line of credit against my parents’ house?”

Tully took off his sunglasses and hooked them in the front of his shirt. “I needed collateral to get the loan to start my adventure-tours business.”

Shelley looked as though she wanted to punch him. “Then your business better pay me back. Pronto.”

Tully shoved a hand through his thinning, sun-streaked hair. “I’d like to. Really, I would, Shel.”

“But?” Shelley continued to stare down her ex.

Colt couldn’t say he blamed her. It appeared her ex-husband was just as much an irresponsible party boy now as he had been when she had met him.

Tully gestured impotently. “I never quite got the biz off the ground. I mean, I went to a lot of the places I was going to offer packages on, like Belize, Aruba and Tibet, but it’s a lot more work getting things arranged than I bargained on.”

Shelley stepped backward, her body nudging Colt’s in the process. “You knew what the property settlement was at the time of our divorce, that you had no claim to that house I inherited.”