The Marriage Charm (Bliss County 2) (2 page)

This time, though, they’d all stood by and watched, the whole bunch of them, male
and
female, while Hadleigh was being, as she’d put it, “abducted, damn it!”

After all, the collective reasoning went, it wasn’t as if Tripp was some stranger with dubious intentions. Like the indignant bride slung over his shoulder, he was one of their own, a hard worker, decent to the core—even if he
had
been a little wild in his youth and not much of a churchgoer.

He’d served his country, honorably and in a time of war, too, when the stakes were high. In places like Mustang Creek, things like that mattered.

Oakley, on the other hand, hometown boy though he was and from a prominent family into the bargain, barely registered a blip on the public-opinion meter, one way or the other. Still more kid than man, he’d never exhibited signs of even modest ambition, partied all through college and, most damning of all, forged himself a reputation for always taking the easy route.

He wasn’t hated, but he wasn’t liked, either.

When the locals thought about Oakley at all, it was usually to wonder what in creation the Stevens girl, an otherwise intelligent and exceptionally pretty one at that, saw in the guy. She was nice, in addition to her other favorable qualities and, in the town’s opinion, could’ve had just about any eligible man she took a liking to.

At that point in his mental wanderings, Junie snapped Spence back to the here and now with a soft, wistful “Isn’t it romantic? How Tripp and Hadleigh finally ended up together, even after everything that happened way back when?”

Spence adjusted his hat, frowning. “Romantic?” Just hearing the word, let alone saying it aloud, made him a little nervous, although he wouldn’t have admitted as much. Sure, okay, he was glad for the newlyweds—Tripp and Hadleigh
wanted
to spend the rest of their lives together, and they were obviously meant for each other. They’d traveled separate trails, long and lonely ones mostly, before their paths finally crossed again and, after some fuss and fury, decided to buckle down and forge the kind of relationship that can ride out practically anything.

And if anybody, anywhere, deserved happily-ever-after, it was those two.

Still, as far as Spence was concerned, Tripp and Hadleigh were the exception, not the rule. He felt what he always did when a buddy got married—a certain bittersweet relief that
he
hadn’t been the groom, standing up in front of God and everybody, vowing to hang in there, for better or for worse and all the rest of it.

In the event that things wound up on the “for better” side of the equation, great. Bring on the house with the picket fence, the regular sex and the crop of kids that usually followed.

But what if “for worse” was the name of the game? And let’s face it, the statistics definitely indicated that the odds of success were somewhere around 50/50. For Spence’s money, a man might as well make advance reservations at the Heartbreak Hotel—at least that way, he’d have someplace to go when the glow wore off and the crap hit the fan.

Room for one, please, and no definite checkout date.

He liked women and made no bones about it, but his reputation had gotten out of control because he didn’t typically stick around after a date or two. There were reasons—one reason, actually, and she had a name—but whose business was that, anyway?

Clearly no optimist when it came to matters of the heart, Spence didn’t make commitments if he could avoid it. He was considered a ladies’ man, even a womanizer, and if that perception wasn’t entirely accurate, so be it. Nobody needed to know about the side of himself he went to great lengths to hide—or that he was essentially incapable of breaking a promise, no matter how stupid that promise might be farther down the road. Come hell or high water, he wouldn’t—
couldn’t
—be the one to call it quits.

His own father had bailed on the family early on, when things got rocky, and the last thing Spence wanted was to follow in the old man’s footsteps. He couldn’t help sharing Judd Hogan’s DNA, obviously, but the rest of it was a matter of choice.

If the woman he’d married ever wanted a divorce, he wouldn’t try to stop her, wouldn’t harass her or anything like that. But he knew this much about himself: he’d be half again as stubborn to make the first move. Not only that, but he’d know, deep down, that forcing somebody’s hand was bound to leave him feeling like a coward.

He was almost grateful when Junie brought him up short again. She touched his arm, and there was an impish sparkle in her eyes and a got-your-number slant to her mouth.

“What?” Spence asked, looking and sounding more irritated than he really felt and taking care to keep his voice down. On the other side of the room, Estes and Radner sat with their thick noggins bent over their keyboards, fingers tapping industriously away. Spence figured they were probably playing shoot-’em-up video games or updating their profiles on some social-media website rather than checking law-enforcement sites for all-points bulletins and other information of interest to dedicated cops everywhere, as they no doubt wanted him to believe.

Neither scenario, of course, meant their ears weren’t pitched in his and Junie’s direction, in case a tidbit of gossip drifted their way, something they could take home to their young and talkative wives. Although there was no truth to the rumor that he and Junie had been having an on-again, off-again love affair for years, it was out there and circulating, just the same.

Junie’s smile turned downright mischievous. They’d been friends, the two of them, long before they’d become coworkers, and she could read him like a road sign. She liked to remind him of this often.

They’d buddied up, he and Junie, way back when Spence’s mother had dumped him on her sister-in-law’s doorstep when he was nine, loudly declaring that enough was enough, by God, and she was through being a parent, through being the responsible one, through making all the decisions and all the sacrifices. Done, kaput, over it, fed up,
finished.

Kathy Hogan was never the same after Spence’s dad ditched her for another woman—younger and thinner, of course—though the truth was, she hadn’t exactly been the nurturing type even before the divorce. To her credit, Kathy had made a few halfhearted attempts at parenting after that initial drop-off at his aunt Libby’s place, reappearing periodically to gather up her young son and haul him, over Libby’s protests and his own, “home” to Virginia. But she’d never really gotten the hang of mothering, for all her fretful efforts, and sooner rather than later, Spence always ended up back in Mustang Creek.

When Judd and the new wife were killed in a boating accident three years after they got married, something in Spence’s mom had evidently died right along with them. At Libby’s insistence, she’d stopped hauling him from one place to another, the only bright spot in an otherwise dark time.

With a sigh, he pushed away the memories of that initial parting, although he knew they’d be back, soon and with a vengeance. Just when he thought he had it handled, squared it all away in his mind, the whole sad scenario would ambush him again.

If it hadn’t been for Libby, his father’s oldest sister, and for Junie, who’d lived down the block and appointed herself Spence’s new best friend, he might have run off in his teens. It wasn’t like it hadn’t crossed his mind.

End result: he didn’t have a whole lot of faith in marriage. He liked women, no question, but maybe his trust in them was more than a little compromised.

Ya think, Einstein?

He set his jaw briefly before meeting Junie’s silent challenge with a glare. “I’m out of here,” he told her gruffly. “If you need me—do your best not to—I’ll be over at the Moose Jaw. After that I plan to go straight home, do the chores, rustle up some grub and then sleep until I damn well feel like waking up.” He turned, adjusting his hat again as he moved, and stopped long enough to fling a narrow-eyed glance at the pair of deputies. “There’s a town out there,” he reminded them, indicating its presence with a motion of one hand. “If you two can work a little patrol time into your busy schedules, I would appreciate the effort and so would the taxpayers. We’ve had those robberies lately. I think some visibility would not hurt this department.”

Instantly flustered, Radner and Estes clattered and jingled into action, grabbing keys and gear and beating feet for the exit. Chorusing a hurried “yes, sir,” they nearly collided with each other in the rush to get out there and protect truth, justice and the American way.

Presto, they were invisible, which was how Spence preferred them to be, at least most of the time.

“You
enjoy
watching those poor guys scramble like a pair of idiots,” Junie observed, amused, from her post behind the desk.

Spence smiled, looked back at his friend. “Yeah,” he agreed affably. “I do. Guess all this power goes to my head.” A pause. “See you around.”

Junie’s stock response was
not if I see you first,
but the phone rang just then, so her reply was a distracted, “See you,” instead, followed by a business-like, “Mustang Creek Police Department. How can I help you?”

Spence didn’t wait for a rundown, since anything he really needed to know could be relayed to him in nanoseconds via his cell phone or the state-of-the-art communications system wired into his truck. Anyhow, genuine emergencies were blessedly rare in this neck of the woods; most incoming calls had to do with stranded cats, scary noises coming from an attic or a basement, routine fender benders, inconsiderate neighbors blocking somebody else’s driveway or playing their music too loudly, sometimes parents fretting about teenagers who should’ve been home hours before and weren’t. The duty officers ought to be up to handling any of the normal problems.

But the robberies had him mightily bothered. They were definitely not business as usual in this quiet town. It disturbed him that the thieves seemed to know exactly where to go. When he reached the police station parking lot, said deputies were already pulling out in their spiffy city-owned SUVs, one headed east, one west.

Spence grinned. He’d handpicked both Radner and Estes from a whole passel of fresh-from-the-academy applicants, six months before, when the mayor and the town council increased his budget. They were good cops, he reflected, arriving at his blue extended-cab pickup, and they’d be even better ones in time, when they’d logged in more hours on the job. They certainly had potential.

He got into his truck, flipped on the headlights, started the engine, glanced ruefully at the glowing blue screen of the computer affixed to the dashboard and then rolled toward the Moose Jaw Tavern, out on the edge of town. Yep, he would have preferred to go straight home, do what needed doing, and crash for the night. After all, he was officially off duty for the rest of the weekend, and he’d earned some downtime.

Still, as best man, he’d be expected to put in an appearance, however brief, at the after-wedding party. Spence knew Tripp wouldn’t have cared if he skipped the festivities—by now, the brand-new husband would be making red-hot love to his red-hot wife, the lucky SOB. Mustang Creek’s long-standing post-nuptial traditions had to be the furthest thing from the man’s mind right now, and who could blame him?

Spence felt a nebulous pang of—whatever—in the pit of his stomach, but he didn’t explore it.

Passing the Moose Jaw without stopping wasn’t an option, he decided glumly. If he didn’t show up, some of the gossips might invent a few fanciful reasons to explain his absence. That he, Spence, had been in love with Hadleigh, for instance, his friendship with Tripp notwithstanding. That he’d kept it together during the ceremony, and put up a good front at the reception afterward, too, but now that the deed was done, he’d made himself scarce. Gone home to lick his wounds.

All bullshit, of course. He liked Hadleigh, liked her a lot. And she was certainly easy on the eyes, no denying that.

There’d never been any kind of spark between them, though. Not on either side. When that rumor had emerged, he’d been extremely annoyed. It was even more ridiculous than the one about Junie. At one time, he’d played fast and loose with the ladies, but if anyone looked closely, maybe they’d realize that the reason there’d been so many was that he hadn’t really been
involved
with any of them. Even his friendship with Trudy Reinholt was exactly that, a friendship. Until she’d begun to expect more than he was willing to offer. More than he
could
offer...

So yes, he’d show his face at the Moose Jaw, make it clear that he wasn’t pining for a lost love.

Besides, he
was
the chief of police, off duty or not. It was his job to keep the peace, and to do that, he needed to get a read on the crowd. The wedding guests, well, they were sensible people for the most part, all of them friends of the bride or groom or both. But this was Saturday night, so the regulars were sure to be around, along with a few tourists. In Spence’s experience, emotions ran higher on sentimental occasions like weddings or holidays or funerals—any event with a lot of symbolism attached. Throw in a little alcohol and just about anything could happen.

Soon enough, the Moose Jaw was in sight, and it was definitely jumping. Cars, pickups, motorcycles, ten-speed bikes, any rig with wheels, short of little red wagons and skateboards, crowded the gravel lot. There was no evident method to the madness, either—the vehicles were parked at odd angles, as though drivers and passengers alike had abandoned them in a sudden panic. The overall effect was chaotic, like a mess of dominoes dumped out of the box.

If the patrons inside had been in that much of a rush to start swilling beer, Spence speculated wearily, what kind of shape would they be in by closing time?

He sighed as he got out of the truck, locking it behind him. By now, he’d been up just shy of twenty-four hours, having put in a double shift on Friday, before attending Tripp’s bachelor party. He was bone-weary and ravenous, too, since he’d had nothing but wedding food since last night’s pizza—a slice of cake, a handful of those dainty pastel mints, and a smoked salmon “sandwich” about the size of a silver dollar.