LITMIR.BIZ

       Prologue

      The honor of your presence is requested...

      “You’ve got to be kidding me.” Conor Wildman skimmed over the details of the wedding invitation. Embossed pink hearts and lilac ribbons adorned the paper and the little RSVP card. This had to be a joke. Only it wasn’t.

      It took a lot of gall for his ex to invite him to her wedding.

      It took even more gall for said ex to be marrying his former best friend.

      But he wasn’t bitter. Conor snorted the hot coffee he was drinking up his nose and cursed. Yeah. That was about how good he felt at reading Joe and Lisa’s names linked together—like a hot, black brew scalding his sinuses.

      He should have left yesterday’s mail sitting on the counter and come back to it after work this evening. Better yet, after a drink after work this evening. No. He should have dumped the pale pink envelope in the trash and then skipped straight to the drink after work at the Shamrock Bar where he and his new friends at KCPD often hung out after hours.

      That was why there’d been no return address on the envelope—so he wouldn’t automatically trash it. If it wasn’t pre-coffee time in the morning, he might have thought to check the envelope for the Arlington, Virginia, postmark. But since he’d just come from the shower and poured himself his first cup, he’d been blindsided by the reminder of all he’d lost these past two years.

      It didn’t matter that he logically understood why Lisa had dumped him—too many necessary lies, too many absent nights with his former job at WITSEC. Dumped was dumped. There was no logic that could ease the pain of being told he wasn’t good enough, he wasn’t right enough to make a good husband to her.

      It wasn’t the first time he hadn’t been enough to make someone stay.

      He was no longer with the US Marshals service, no longer in Virginia, no longer brooding over the life that had been denied him. But a wedding invitation?

      There was no one in his life who’d be sending him a Valentine this February. Had he hoped he’d picked up a secret admirer? That his mother had arranged for someone to send him a missive before her death eight months ago? She’d known the breast cancer was winning, that it had metastasized beyond any hope of saving her. She’d spent a lot of those last few weeks getting her affairs in order, trying to get his life shipshape, too, knowing she was the last of his family. Had Marie Wildman been in collusion with his ex’s mother? The two women had been friends for as long as Conor had been alive. Had his mom asked the Karr family to keep an eye on her only child? Make sure he was happy?

      If so, what was the point of inviting him to a weekend wedding extravaganza back home? A torturous weekend trapped in awkward conversations with well-meaning friends and painful memories wasn’t his idea of fun. There was a reason he’d moved halfway across the country to take an assignment in Kansas City, Missouri. A reason why he’d left the Marshals Service to become a cop with the KCPD instead of moving back to Arlington after his assignment in KC had wrapped up.

      Lisa Karr had rejected his ring and said he wasn’t the kind of man a woman who wanted a normal life should marry. Hell, she’d quoted some statistic about how a man with his temperament and job skills would be divorced in a couple of years if they’d gone through with their engagement. He didn’t think either Lisa or Joe Gerhart was the rub-our-noses-in-Conor’s-pain kind of cruel. But he could see them doing a favor for his mom, feeling sorry for him. Poor Conor. We didn’t mean to hurt you. We know it’s been a tough year. We want you to know we will always care about you.

      It didn’t matter that Lisa had officially broken up with him before she’d started dating Joe. It still felt like his friend had stolen his girl. Knowing the two had kept the relationship quiet while he’d been dealing with his mom—seeing them together for the first time at Marie’s funeral—felt like Lisa had cheated on him.

      It made no sense, but that was what he felt. He’d been one raw emotion, keeping it together for so long that he wasn’t sure he knew what he felt anymore. Except pissed that Lisa and Joe had invited him to their wedding. In one week. Like he was a problem they needed to fix.

      Conor considered taking another hit on the hot liquid caffeine he lived on. But he wasn’t that much of a masochist. He carefully set the mug down on the kitchen counter and stepped away to finish dressing.

      Striding into the bedroom, he dropped the towel cinched around his lean hips and pulled on his shorts and slacks. The white shirt with the button-down collar came next. He crossed to the mirror over the dresser and combed his short, wheat-blond hair into place before looping a tie around his neck. He stopped mid-Windsor knot and eyed the brown-and-navy stripes before pulling it off and tossing it onto the bed.

      Lisa had given him that tie.

      He’d settle for the solid blue tie with the tiny food stain on it. That would have driven her nuts. She’d fuss over his incompetence when it came to dressing himself before catching on that it was just a ploy to get her to put her hands on him. Then they’d laugh. And there would undoubtedly be a kiss.

      Conor tugged that tie off, too. Nope. Better opt for the completely neutral, no-history-involved tie he’d picked up at a Christmas party.

      He’d once been amused by Lisa’s tendencies to have the details of her life arranged so that there were no surprises. His inability to guarantee her that home-for-dinner-every-night predictability was one of the reasons she’d broken off their engagement. The possibility that he might not come home at all one day because of the inherent dangers of working in law enforcement had sealed the coffin on their future together.

      But he couldn’t give up his job—couldn’t surrender the gun and the badge and the crazy hours he’d once worked as a US marshal, tracking down fugitives and protecting witnesses. He wouldn’t give up the man he chose to become after the father who hadn’t wanted him or his mother had abandoned them. He couldn’t give up who he was. Not even for the girl he’d loved since college. His promise that she would always come first in his heart hadn’t been good enough for her. She needed a sense of security that his gun and badge couldn’t provide.

      Ironically, now that she was no longer a part of his life, he’d resigned from the Marshal Service. His last case guarding a witness relocated to Kansas City had made him question too many of his supervisor’s decisions. If his boss didn’t have his back, and wouldn’t put the woman he’d been protecting first, then the oath he’d taken—Justice, Integrity, Service—meant nothing. Conor had lost too much for his work and his life not to mean anything.

      He thought Lisa had understood that. That she accepted his job was a big part of who he was as a man. But maybe she’d been in love with a version of him he just couldn’t be.

      He understood Joe and Lisa’s need to mend fences and make the past right, so they could move on with their future—to their new life. But why was their happiness his problem? He slipped his holster and badge onto his belt, grabbed his suit jacket and headed back to the kitchen.

      Conor

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