Almost A Bride (Montana Born Brides) Read Online Free Page B

ago. He moved around too much to do anything other than casual with women. And Tara was not casual. Not by a long shot.
    The bottom line was that he was her friend, and that was all she needed him to be right now.
    And so that was what he would be.
     

Chapter Three

     
     
    Tara knew that Grant had spilled the beans the moment she entered the patrol bay the next morning. One second her fellow patrol officers were lounging around the open-plan workspace, leaning against desks, sucking in coffee and shooting the breeze before the morning briefing, the next they were stiff and self-conscious, their conversations stilted.
    Half of them couldn ’t look her in the eye. The other half watched her with what she could only describe as fascinated pity.
    Freaking awesome.
    Reid pushed himself to his feet when he saw her, a frown on his face.
    “ Morning,” she said tightly.
    A few of the guys returned her greeting. Reid followed her into the briefing room as she made a beeline for the coffee machine.
    “I didn’t think you’d be in today,” he said.
    She could feel him watching her as she poured coffee into a mug. She was ridiculously proud of the fact that her hands remained steady.
    “Life goes on, right?” she said, shrugging.
    “ Yeah, but it’s not going to grind to a halt if you take a couple of days to get on top of things.”
    “ What’s to get on top of? He’s gone, I had the locks changed. A few phone calls this afternoon and the wedding will be history.”
    She shrugged again, even though her shoulders felt stiff and unnatural.
    “Tara. Come on. This is me,” he said quietly.
    She risked eye contact for the briefest of seconds. “Don’t be nice to me, today, okay? Don’t pussyfoot around or speak in hushed tones or worry I’m going to lose it. I’m fine. Today is just a day, like any other day.”
    She almost believed her own words. Almost.
    She’d had to put eyedrops in this morning to take the redness from her eyes, and her back was sore from sleeping on the couch because even after changing the sheets she hadn’t been able to lie down on the bed that had once been theirs.
    But she was here, and she was going to do her job, and somehow she was going to get through this.
    “Okay. If that’s what you want,” Reid said.
    “ It is.”
    “ All right, people, let’s get this show started.” Sergeant Crawford’s voice boomed around the room as he entered, the rest of the crew trailing in after him. The Sergeant’s pale blue eyes lingered on Tara for a few seconds longer than strictly necessary and he gave her the smallest of nods.
    Great, he knew as well. Was there a single person in the whole of the Bozeman PD who didn ’t know her private business?
    Wrapping her hands around her coffee, she moved to the nearest chair and sat. Reid didn ’t follow her, but she was aware of him in her peripheral vision anyway, a tall, dark shape that she took great pains not to look at directly. She wouldn’t be able to avoid him once they were on patrol, however. Hard to pretend someone wasn’t there when they were just a few feet away.
    Not for the first time she wished it had been someone else —anyone else, really—who had seen Simon and Paige leaving the motel yesterday. For some reason she couldn’t explain, the fact that it was Reid, that he was the one who’d had to break the news to her, added an extra layer of humiliation to the whole situation.
    She didn ’t want to appear pathetic in his eyes.
    She forced herself to listen to the Sergeant ’s rundown of overnight incidents, but there was nothing ongoing for them to worry about and it wasn’t long before the briefing was over.
    Sergeant Crawford lingered, reading over some paperwork as everyone filed out. Reid waited for her near the door while she dumped her coffee down the sink. Her stomach wasn’t particularly food-friendly at the moment; she’d poured the coffee more to have something warm to hang onto than anything else.
    “ Officer