Undaunted, she just cocked her head and mockingly arched a brow at him. “Then I guess you’ll just have to arrest me, won’t you, Sheriff?”
When she stepped out of her shoes, then reached under the full skirt of he wedding dress to shimmy out of her panty hose, Nick told himself she wouldn’t actually strip right there in front of him. She was just playing with him, pushing his buttons—and, he silently added, doing a damn good job of it. But she wouldn’t really go through with it. Not Merry. She liked to tease, but that was as far as it went. The second he called her bluff, she’d back down in a hurry.
Satisfied he had everything under control, he crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back against the picnic table to watch the show, daring her with his own arched brow. A split second later, she reached behind her for the zipper to her dress.
He stiffened, his gaze narrowing dangerously. “Don’t go there, Mer—”
For an answer, the raspy whisper of her zipper growled like a tiger in the night.
Shocked, he jumped toward her. “Dammit, Merry, don’t you dare!”
He was too late. Lightning quick, she pulled her zipper down the rest of the way, and with a silent sigh of satin, her wedding dress dropped to the ground. Between one heartbeat and the next, she stole the air right out of his lungs.
He tried to tell himself that the lacy panties and bra she wore revealed little more than a bathing suit, and they’d gone swimming enough in the past that he shouldn’t have been impressed. But the last time he’d been to the lake with her, they’d both been seniors in high school. And the woman who stood before him looked nothing like the girl from back then.
Lord, she was beautiful! He’d always known that, but seeing her now in the glow of the moon rising on the eastern horizon, she was breathtaking—there was no other way to describe her. Tall and willowy, with her dark hair swept up off her shoulders and her eyes deep, mysterious pools of sapphire, she looked like a wood nymph there in the darkness.
He wanted to reach for her, to touch, to run his hands over her to see if her skin was as soft as it looked in the moonlight, but he didn’t dare move for fear she would vanish right before his eyes. His heart slamming against his ribs, he couldn’t get over her total lack of awareness of her own beauty. He’d known other pretty women who used their looks as leverage to get what they wanted out of life, but Merry wasn’t like that. Intelligent and loyal, she had a kind, generous heart and, thanks to her mother’s teachings, was much more interested in the kind of person you were than what you looked like. And that made her even more beautiful—and even more impossible to resist.
Which was why every single man he knew, including himself, was in love with her.
“Put your dress back on right this minute,” he ordered sternly, “before somebody drives in and sees you.”
“No,” she said obstinately. “I’m going swimming.”
“Don’t even think about it,” he warned.
He might as well have saved his breath. Ignoring him, she turned and headed for the water.
He should have just let her go. It would have been the wise thing to do. It wasn’t like she was in any danger. True, she’d had too much to drink, but she wasn’t so tipsy that he had to worry about her drowning. She’d be just fine.
But even as he tried to convince himself of that, he found himself turning to follow her. It wasn’t until he felt the water lap around the legs of his pants that he realized he was still wearing his tux!
“Damn you, Mer, now you’ve done it! You owe me for this tux!”
Not the least bit perturbed, she only laughed…and splashed him. Within seconds, they were both playing in the water like a couple of kids.
Later, Nick couldn’t have said how long they stayed in the water. Merry was laughing and teasing and seemed to have forgotten, for the moment, at least, what had brought them to the lake at that hour of the night. And Nick had no intention of reminding her. If she wanted to forget, he was certainly giving her the chance to do so. But it couldn’t last, and all too quickly, her smile began to fade, her laughter to wane. Just that easily, her tears were back.
It was a warm night, but a gentle breeze against wet skin soon had Merry shivering. Huddling with her shoulders under the water, she hugged herself and announced through chattering teeth, “I’m cold.”
“Hang on,” Nick said. “I’ll get you a blanket out of the trunk of my car.”
He always kept one or two blankets for an emergency, and when Merry rose out of the water like Aphrodite a few minutes later and started toward him, there was no question in his mind that this was an emergency. Silently groaning at the sight of her lacy underclothes plastered to her body, it was all he could do to keep his hands steady and his expression closed as he wrapped the blanket around her slender form.
He could have been a monk for all the emotion he displayed. Then he spoke and gave himself away. “Better?” he asked huskily.
Chilled and caught up in her misery, she didn’t, thankfully, notice. “Y-yes. Just give me a minute and I’ll be fine.”
But five minutes later, she was still trembling. Seated at their picnic table, the blanket wrapped tight around her and her hair dripping on her bare shoulders, she looked absolutely miserable. Nick knew he should have insisted on taking her home then, but he couldn’t forget the pain in her voice when she’d told him she didn’t want to spend her wedding night alone. And that just gave him one more reason to despise his old friend Thomas. Damn him! How could he have done this to her?
“I’m going to light a fire,” he said gruffly. “Maybe that’ll help. Sit tight and let me collect some wood.”
Within minutes, he had a fire crackling in the fire pit by the table. Sighing in relief as the heat seeped into her, Merry stared into the flames and tried not to think of the cabin she and Thomas had rented for their honeymoon. They’d wanted someplace private and secluded, where they could completely escape from the world, and the cabin had seemed perfect. A hundred miles away and located high in the mountains on a private alpine lake, it had come equipped with everything they could possibly want, from a hot tub to a fireplace, not to mention enough food to feed an army.
They would have been there by now, Merry thought as she hugged the blanket around her. Thomas would have carried her over the threshold, then built a fire in the fireplace and opened a bottle of champagne. After a toast, they would have spent the rest of the night making love.
But there was no cabin in the mountains, no honeymoon, no lovemaking in front of the fireplace. And no husband.
Emotions pulled at her, tying her in knots. She wanted to rage, to scream, to cry. Then her gaze fell on her wedding dress, which still lay in a heap on the ground where she had stepped out of it. Without a thought, she scooped it up and turned toward the fire.
“Whoa, girl!” Nick cried, startled. “What the hell are you doing?”
“Burning it,” she retorted, and dropped it on the flames.
With a muttered oath, Nick made a grab for it, but he was too late. The delicate lace and satin caught fire, and within moments, it had gone up in flames.
“Dammit,
