Lana's Lawman Read Online Free Page B

reception. At least the rain had let up. Wedding guests poured out of the church into the parking lot.
    Sloan retrieved his hat and slicker, intending to resume his traffic duties, when he noticed Lana standing alone in the vestibule, looking a bit lost.
    â€œLana,” he said before he could think about it, “you need a ride to the reception, right?”
    â€œOh, no—that is, Millicent can take me.” She looked on either side of her. “Now, where’d she go?”
    â€œThe other bridesmaid with the four kids hanging on to her?” Sloan remembered Millicent from high school. She’d been shy, studious, a bit of an outcast, like him. In an art class she’d helped him draw a bowl of fruit, he recalled. “She left about five minutes ago. I believe your Rob was one of the kids.”
    â€œOh. Well, I’m sure someone will—”
    â€œI’ll give you a ride. If you can wait a few minutes while I get these cars out of the parking lot.”
    â€œI should hurry,” she argued, looking around her worriedly as the church cleared out. “They want to take pictures.”
    â€œThey’ll wait five minutes.” He strained his facial muscles into a smile, all the while wondering why he was making this effort. It wasn’t like he owed her anything.
    He fully expected a cool rebuff. Instead, she smiled back, and his heart did a little somersault. “All right,” she said, her teeth worrying her lower lip in an uncalculated gesture of nerves. “I’ll wait for you here.”
    Sloan paced nervously as he directed traffic, feeling alternately anxious and foolish for making anything out of Lana’s need for a ride. What was he, a masochist? He’d sworn he would never let his hormones override his common sense again, and so far he’d managed to keep that promise. But his hormones were sneaky bastards. He’d forgotten just how willful they could be.

    Lana sat in the front seat this time. She wasn’t quite sure what to make of the man sitting next to her. He hadn’t seemed any too friendly on their trip to the church. Kind of bristly, actually. Then why had he gone out of his way to offer her another ride? And should she have accepted?
    The past year she’d fought hard for her independence. When she’d first announced to Bart that she was leaving, she’d been seized with second thoughts every hour or so. She’d never supported herself, much less herself and a little boy. What skills did she have? Every time an appliance went on the fritz or her car needed work, she’d longed for a man to help her with all those little things.
    But Callie and Millicent assisted her through her crises large and small. Somewhere along the line she learned that she could do things for herself—argue about car repairs, juggle the bills, make decisions about her son’s discipline. She got skillful at budgeting, stretching her paycheck to cover church camp and an occasional new outfit for herself. And somewhere along the line she stopped yearning for a man to rely on for support and companionship. She stopped calling Bart and enduring his belittling comments about her inadequacies just to find out how to flip a breaker switch or change an A/C filter.
    She learned to value her own company above anyone else’s.
    The last thing she needed was a new man in herlife. She would do well to remember that, no matter how her body was reacting to the virile male sitting beside her, his powerful-looking muscles straining the sleeves of the crisp blue policeman’s uniform, his dark hair curled into unruliness by the damp weather.
    â€œSo, how’d you end up as a cop?” Lana asked, genuinely curious. Sloan Bennett would have been voted Most Likely to End Up in the Pen by their senior class if there had been such a category.
    Sloan visibly tensed, and she wondered if she’d somehow managed to offend him once again. But then he