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?
“You know,” Kane said, slapping Hunter on the back, “I really shouldn’t even be speaking to you, all things considered.”
“Huh? Why’s that?”
“Because ever since Margie told Donna and some of the other wives about that honeymoon you two had in Bali…” Kane’s eyebrows lifted and he huffed out a breath. “Well, let’s just say, those stories made the rest of the husbands in town come in a sad second place to you in the romance department.”
Bali, huh? So Margie was making up stories about honeymoons on tropical islands. And, painting him in a very romantic light, apparently. He smiled to himself and wondered just how detailed those stories had been.
“What can I say, Kane?” Hunter said with a slow smile. “I’ve always been good.”
“That you have, Hunt.” Kane slapped him on the shoulder again and walked past him. “You’re missed around here, you know. It’s good to have you back, man.”
“Good to be back,” he said automatically, but for the first time he realized he actually meant the words.
Margie felt Hunter’s gaze on her as surely as she would a touch. Was he still angry about the things she’d said to him the day before? Not that he hadn’t deserved it, she reminded herself while Jenna Carter babbled about the dessert tray. Margie nodded absentmindedly and remembered the way Hunter had looked at her when she’d called him a coward.
Even now, she cringed and wished that she’d found a better way to say what she’d meant. Yes, she thought he’d deserted Simon and the town that needed him, but she also knew he wasn’t a coward. He was strong and sure of himself and brave and-arrogant, bossy and irritating, her mind added quickly before she became just a little bit too understanding.
After all, he hadn’t exactly been kind to her. He was still convinced she was trying to scam Simon, for heaven’s sake. At the thought of the older man, she shifted a quick look at him and spotted him sitting with his friends, laughing and whispering together. And men thought women gossiped.