Man of Honor

by Lori Wilde

“Megan,” he whispered in a hushed tone. “Meg.” A few more well placed kisses, then, “Meg, Meg, Meg, Meg.”

  Like a chant.

  A prayer.

  They dissolved into each other, any hint of separation vanishing. They were connected in the same way they’d connected when they stared into each other’s eyes. On the most basic and primal of levels.

  Her heart filled to bursting. Staggered. Overwhelmed. A dam ready to crack, spill over, drown everything.

  He pitched into her and she made a bleat of satisfaction, adhered tightly to his waist, going where he took her. Happy for the ride.

  His fingers tangled in her hair, his verve scorching as savagely as her own. With him inside her and at the controls, she felt like a plane, flying high in the sky. She was the vehicle of their ascent, sailing through the clouds, breathing through to the other side.

  Shattering the sound barrier.

  Shattering warp speed.

  Shattering whatever intentions she’d had to keep this casual and light.

  She was hooked. Snared. In love with the flight they’d taken together and aching to take it again and again and again.

  They shuddered together. Giant rolling thunder crashing around them. They were one and it was the most blissful moment of her life.

  As they lay spent, addled in each other’s arms, struggling to catch their breath and make sense of the precious journey they’d just gone on, there was a knock at the cellar door.

  And a distressed voice called out, “Meg? Shane? Are you in there?”

  Chapter Seven

  Because the battery was out on Shane’s cell phone and the kerosene was gone, they had to dress hurriedly in the dark. Fumbling for garments, exchanging items when they found something that belonged to the other.

  “Meg?” It was Brady’s voice, filled with concern, followed by Ellie’s higher-pitched timbre. “Shane?”

  “Hang on!” Shane called. “We’re coming out.”

  “Hurry, hurry.” Meg jammed her arms through her blouse, did up the buttons as fast as she could.

  “You decent?” Shane whispered.

  “I thought I was pretty good,” she quipped, “but it’s hard to evaluate your own performance.”

  He laughed, touched her in the dark, connected with her shoulder, slid his hand down her arm to find her palm, and squeezed it.

  Brady, however, did not hang on. He yanked opened the cellar door, letting in a flood of afternoon light, and peered down the stairs. Ellie peeped around his shoulder.

  “Hi,” Meg said breathlessly and wriggled her fingers at her best friend and his bride-to-be.

  “Are you all right?” Brady asked, appraising Meg as he descended a couple of steps into the cellar. “We were scared to death you got caught out in the storm.”

  “Fine. We’re fine. Shane got me to the shelter in the nick of time.”

  Brady glared at Shane. With one glance at them, he had already put two and two together. “Is that so?” His tone was firm, challenging.

  “Um . . . we’re coming up if you’ll back off,” Meg said, knowing Brady had nothing but her best interests at heart.

  Brady ducked his head, stepped back.

  Feeling like a teenager who’d gotten caught doing the nasty on her parents’ couch, Meg went up the steps ahead of Shane. She could feel the heat of his gaze on her bottom.

  She climbed out, joined Brady and Ellie, saw chunks of hail melting on the ground littered with leaves, twigs, and broken limbs from nearby trees. “Did we get a tornado?”

  “Formed right over us.” Brady grunted. “But it didn’t touch down. Hail damage, though.”

  “I can see that,” Meg mused, threading a hand through her sex-tousled hair.

  “Your Jeep is beat to hell,” Brady told Shane as he came up behind Meg.

  “How’s Jiggs?” she asked.

  “Fine.” Brady nodded, still sending Meg and Shane disapproving looks.

  “You . . . um . . .” Ellie pointed at Meg’s blouse. “Your buttons aren’t done up right. And you . . .” She swung toward Shane. “Your shirt is on wrong-side out.”

  Simultaneously, Meg and Shane checked their clothing. Sheepishly, Meg hastily redid her buttons, while Shane stripped off his T-shirt and turned it right-side out, giving Meg a heart-stopping glimpse of his bare chest.

  Oh the things she’d missed seeing in the dark. Next time she wanted all the lights blazing.

  Ahem. There won’t be a next time.

  Why not? whined a petulant part of her.

  Why not? Foolish question. This affair was bound to go nowhere. Shane was a military pilot stationed at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio. Long-distance relationships didn’t work. She’d already figured that out with Grant.

  Who’s talking long-term here? What was wrong with enjoying what she had while she had it? Shane was on leave and in Austin until after the wedding. Four more days. They had four more days.

  Four days filled with frantic wedding prep and the main event. There was no time for another rendezvous. She had to be happy with what she’d gotten. A soul-stirring afternoon of splendid sex in a storm shelter. It was a story to tell her granddaughters when they were over eighteen.

  “I’ll call Harrie and the ranch hands and let them know you’re safe and sound,” Brady said, pulling out his cell phone.

  Shane leaned in close to Meg, murmured, “You okay?”

  “Sure.” She smiled bright as fresh-perked coffee. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

  “We didn’t have time to discuss what happened down there.”

  “Nothing to discuss.”

  “You sure you don’t need to talk?” He touched her elbow.

  “If I do, I’ve got Brady.”

  Shane’s jaw dropped. “You’re going to tell him what happened?”

  “Don’t look shocked. Not in graphic detail. He is my best friend. Weren’t you planning to tell Ellie?”

  “I don’t kiss and tell.”

  “Then I won’t either,” she said and turned away before he could start quizzing her again.

  If he kept pushing her, she didn’t know how long she could hold out. How long before she cracked and told him she had strange and wondrous feelings for him. “I need to get back and assess the extent of the storm damage. A rancher’s work is never done.”

  “You really are all right?”

  “Never been better,” she lied. “Never been better.”

  Ducking her head, she hurried around the side of the church, hoping to get away from everyone long enough to catch her breath and make sense of her out-of-control emotions.

  But no such luck.

  Ellie followed her.

  Meg kept up the forced smile, turning the wattage up for good measure. Hoping to convince Ellie everything was hunky-dory. “Can I grab a ride with you and Brady back to the ranch house?”

  “You’re not going back with Shane?”

  “Nope.”

  “Not even after you two . . .”

  “After we what?”

  “Um . . . okay, if that’s how you want to play it.”

  “There’s nothing to play.”

  “I see the way Shane looks at you. The way you look at him. There’s something going on.” Ellie stared pointedly at Meg’s blouse. “Obviously.”

  Was it still buttoned up wrong? She wasn’t going to check, to confirm Ellie’s suspicions.

  “Look,” Ellie said, “what you and Shane do is your own business, but I just wanted to let you know something about him.”

  Meg took the bait. “What’s that?”

  “The guy doesn’t commit easily. It takes a lot to earn his loyalty, but once he does, he’s committed for life.”

  “Is that a warning?”

  Ellie stepped closer, leveled her a cool stare. “I couldn’t love him more if he were my own brother. So don’t . . .” She pointed a finger under Meg’s nose. “Toy with his heart.”

  “Noted,” Meg said and squelched the question on the tip
of her tongue. But what if he’s toying with mine?

  * * *

  With Ellie and Meg out of earshot, Shane braced himself for what Brady was going to say. He didn’t blame the other man for the dark, overprotective, big-brother expression in his eyes. He would have been just as territorial of Ellie if he’d caught her with Brady under similar circumstances before they’d gotten engaged.

  They were standing in front of Shane’s Jeep, and sure enough, it was beat to hell. Pockmarks were everywhere and the windshield was cracked. Shane stuffed his hands into his front pockets, shifted his gaze away from the other man.

  “Sorry about your ride,” Brady said.

  “Worse things have happened.”

  “Harrie told me you came out here to save Meg.”

  Shane nodded, playing it cool. From where he was standing, he could just see the back of one of Meg’s legs and her red boots. He wished they’d had time to talk before Brady and Ellie barged in on them.

  Then again, what would he have said?

  What had happened in the storm cellar had left him speechless. He felt as if he’d been picked up by a cyclone, spun around until he was squeezed inside out, and had not only managed to live through it but had enjoyed the experience immensely.

  Crazy.

  No explanation for it. Other than forced intimacy. Chemistry + danger + proximity = the kind of excitement a fella could mistake for deeper, mushier feelings. Throw in graduated questions designed to increase familiarity and four minutes of eye-gazing, and, well, that same fella might even begin to think he was falling in love.

  But he wasn’t. You couldn’t fall in love in an instant. Not even after great sex. Love took time. How did that Bible verse go? Love is patient, love is kind . . .

  There was nothing patient about what he and Meg had done. It might not even have been kind, seeing as how he was feeling raw and achy and blown wide open.

  “Meg’s been hurt before. I don’t want to see her hurt again,” Brady said.

  “By Grant Portman?”

  “She told you about that?”

  “She did.”

  “She was with him a long time,” Brady said. “More than five years. She’s in a good place now. I’m confident she’s over him, but when Meg loves, she loves hard. She loves with all her heart and soul.”

  “From what I can tell, she does everything that way.”

  “So you can see why I worry.”

  “I can.”

  Brady pushed against Shane’s shoulder with the tip of his finger. Hard. “And you aren’t going to break her heart.”

  “I won’t,” Shane vowed, but he couldn’t help wondering if he already had.

  * * *

  Meg, Shane, Ellie, Brady, Harrie, and the ranch hands worked cleaning up the storm damage until the sun disappeared. By the time Meg rolled into bed, she was tired all the way through the marrow of her bones.

  Tomorrow would be even busier as cleanup from the storm continued amid wedding preparations. They were coming down to the wire. Several members of the wedding party were arriving in the morning, and they would also be busy with departing dude ranch guests. Meg had cleared her calendar of reservations for Wednesday through Saturday to accommodate the wedding guests.

  But even though she was absolutely exhausted, Meg couldn’t sleep. She kept thinking about Shane and what had happened down in that storm cellar.

  She wasn’t imagining it. Something monumental had occurred. But she had no name for it. She only knew how she felt.

  Joyous, melancholy, eager, testy, bold, edgy, expanded, doomed. So many mixed-up emotions.

  What could she do about them?

  What was there to do about them?

  Yes, they’d had spectacular sex, but that was all it had been. The more she tried to make something of it, the more likely she was to get hurt. They’d made a strong but brief connection. It was over. End of story.

  But what if, whispered a small voice in the back of her mind. What if it was more for him, too? Aren’t you even going to try?

  And do what? Profess her undying love?

  Meg flopped over onto her stomach, punching lumps from a pillow that wasn’t lumpy. It wasn’t love. It couldn’t be love. They’d only known each other three weeks and had only met a few times.

  Brady and Ellie fell in love on the day they met.

  They were one in a million. How special for them.

  But what if it was love? What then?

  Well, you know what? She would be seeing more of Shane. A lot more over the years. If something was there, it would stand the test of time. If not, so be it. No reason to fret or grasp or chase.

  Unless he meets someone else because he has no idea how you feel about him.

  But what if he didn’t feel that way about her?

  You never know until you try.

  Ridiculous. Even if he did feel the same way about her, it could never work. Not when Shane was a fighter pilot, deployed for months at a time. Not when he lived in San Antonio and she was dug in, managing the dude ranch. There was no give here. It was the same quandary she’d had with Grant.

  But . . .

  “Shut up,” she scolded the voice that could get her into so much trouble. “Just shut up and let me sleep.”

  But yelling at herself didn’t work. An hour later, the same arguments were still circling around in her head.

  So she got right up and went to work.

  * * *

  Shane hadn’t had the opportunity to corner Meg for a long talk. They were both so busy with wedding preparations, they barely had time to eat or sleep, much less have a heart-to-heart talk about their storm-cellar escapade.

  He hoped to get her alone on Friday evening following the rehearsal dinner. He needed to kiss her again. To see if things between them were just as combustible as before.

  The rehearsal dinner was held in the same place the wedding reception would be. A converted bar decorated in country chic. From the ceiling over the long, family-style chow tables hung a wagon-wheel chandelier with Mason jar light covers. Wildflowers arranged in old cowboy boots served as centerpieces. The backs of the chairs were decorated with lasso ropes. White twinkle lights ran down the main wall, creating a fairy-tale atmosphere.

  “Oh, Shane,” Ellie said when he escorted her inside the building following the wedding rehearsal at the chapel. “I feel like the cowgirl version of Cinderella.”

  “You’re truly happy?” he asked.

  She cupped his chin in her palm, looking him squarely in the eye. “I have never been happier. Do you remember when we were kids and dreamed of having a forever family?”

  He nodded. They’d created elaborate fantasies about the people who would adopt them—billionaires with yachts, famous actors, their favorite sports heroes.

  “Well, I’ve finally found that with Brady.”

  “Yeah,” he said, studying her beaming face. “I can see that.”

  “Don’t worry,” she said. “You’ll always be part of my life. That’s never going to change.”

  Tenderly, he kissed her cheek and wished that were true, but it wasn’t something he could take to the bank. Things changed. Brady was in the picture now and Ellie wouldn’t need him as much.

  And that was as it should be.

  He was happy for her, but yes, a little sad for himself. For so long they had been each other’s soft place to land. Now that was Brady’s job. He would miss spending so much time with Ellie.

  As if on cue, Brady appeared to slip his arm through Ellie’s and spirit her off to their places sitting side by side at the head of the long, wide table. Feeling a little lonely, Shane cast around for Meg, intending to ask her if she was free for a conversation once dinner was over.

  He spied her talking to a man who’d come into the barn on Brady’s heels. A jolt of jealousy shook through him. Confused him. He had nothing to be jealous about. But jealous he was.

  The man looked vaguely familiar. Who was he? Curious, Shane stepped closer. />
  The guy tilted his head, his face earnest in the light as he spoke to Meg in urgent, hushed words Shane couldn’t hear.

  He recognized the guy from TV news.

  Grant Portman.

  Meg’s ex. The guy she’d been with for five years.

  Fresh waves of jealousy washed over Shane. A whole ocean of it.

  And when the guy went down on one knee in front of Meg, a small black jeweler’s box held in his hand, it was all he could do not to yell, No!

  But he had no claim on Meg. None at all. He was in no position to go down on one knee and pour his heart out.

  Primarily because he couldn’t even begin to put words to what was in his heart. For so long he’d avoided romantic entanglements and now he was caught in one he didn’t know how to get out of unscathed.

  Chapter Eight

  Three hours later, Meg’s heart was still in her throat after Grant’s unexpected marriage proposal.

  He’d shown up out of nowhere, told her how desperately he’d missed her, what a terrible mistake he’d made, gone down on one knee, cracked open a jeweler’s box with a marquise-cut diamond ring big enough to choke Jiggs, and asked her to marry him.

  Grand gesture. Grant was full of them.

  And it seemed he was more full of himself than ever. Having the audacity to do this here and now, and expecting her to fall at his feet without any recent contact or preamble. As if she’d just been sitting waiting for him to return.

  People were staring. Shane was staring. She hadn’t known what to do. She’d told Grant it wasn’t the time or place for a marriage proposal. Did the polite thing and invited him to dinner.

  Which, unfortunately, he accepted, promptly taking over the rehearsal dinner, regaling guests with stories of his Middle East adventures, how he’d been embedded in Afghanistan with an elite army team.

  People around the table lauded him as a hero, which Grant soaked up with a boastful grin. Shane stared at him through heavily lidded eyes, his mouth pressed into a grim line.

  It was easy for Meg to see who was the real hero here. The fighter pilot who controlled himself, as opposed to the grandstanding journalist. The one who did his job to protect his country. The one who didn’t brag or romanticize war.

  Being away from Grant for a year had cleared her vision. Given her perspective. Even though he was handsomer than ever, Meg was glad he’d thrown her over for his career. She’d dodged a missile.