The Date Next Door. GINA WILKINS

Good intuition, he reminded himself. Nothing more.

      The funny thing was, he thought maybe Nic would understand. One of the few women in the small-town Arkansas police department where she worked, she was well accustomed to trying to meet everyone else’s expectations.

      “Judging from past experience,” he said, trying to choose his words carefully, “if I go, I’ll be greeted with cloying sympathy and treated like some kind of tragic hero. If I don’t go, everyone will be even more convinced that I’m an emotional basket case.”

      “You? A basket case?” Nic’s eyes were wide with surprise beneath her fringe of blond-streaked bangs. “You’re, like, the sanest, most normal guy I know.”

      “Yes, well, I wasn’t in such good shape the last time my class got together, five years ago. My wife, Heather, had died only a few months earlier, and I—Well, I guess I wasn’t ready for a reunion of all my old high school friends.”

      “Heather was in your class?” Aislinn asked, her slightly husky voice warm with compassion.

      He nodded. “We were typical high school sweethearts. We went to the prom together, were voted ‘cutest couple,’ that sort of thing. We attended different universities, but we stayed together despite the odds against long-distance relationships. Then I went to medical school and she to graduate school—again, different schools, different states. We got engaged during Christmas break of our third years but waited until we felt financially ready before we got married.”

      He took a sip of his soda before adding tonelessly, “Six months later, she was killed in a car accident. Broadsided by a semi with bad brakes.”

      Chapter Two

      Nic had known, of course, that Joel was a young widower. He had mentioned once that his wife died in a car accident, but she hadn’t asked for any details, nor had he volunteered any.

      He hadn’t been in any relationships during the months she had known him, and she had wondered if he was still grieving for the wife he’d lost. Now that she knew how long Joel and Heather had been together, she understood exactly how hard that loss must have been for him.

      “I’m sorry,” she said, not knowing what else to say.

      It seemed to be enough. He nodded. “Anyway, I made the mistake of attending the reunion before I’d completely worked through my grieving, and it was a…rough experience. Too many painful reminders, too much emotion and sympathy from my classmates. I was a mess by the time it was over and I didn’t do a very good job of hiding it.”

      “That’s understandable,” she assured him. “It would have been a difficult ordeal for anyone.”

      He searched her face as if trying to tell whether she really did understand. Apparently satisfied with whatever he saw there, he nodded again. “The thing is, that was five years ago. I’ve come a long way since then. I’ve made peace with my past. I’ve made a good life for myself here and I consider myself a generally happy guy.”

      “That’s the impression I’ve always had of you.” Actually, she considered him the most laid-back and easygoing man she knew. She’d often envied him his ability to take things in stride, handling the pressures of his job with apparent ease.

      “It’s not an act,” he assured her. “That’s really the way I feel, for the most part.”

      “That’s good then, right? So your old friends should be pleased to see you doing so well.”

      Joel squirmed a little in his chair. “I’m just not so sure they’ll see it that way. I’m afraid they’ll still view me as the man I was rather than the one I’ve become.”

      “A legitimate concern,” Aislinn agreed.

      Nic shrugged. “So don’t go. Send your best wishes to all your old friends, tell them you’re doing great but you’re too busy with work to join them this time.”

      “That would probably be best, of course…”

      “But it isn’t what you want to do,” Aislinn translated from his expression. “Why not?”

      Looking rather sheepish, he replied, “I think it’s a pride thing.”

      If there was anything Nic could understand, it was a “pride thing.” She had been accused on plenty of occasions of having entirely too much pride for her own good.

      Comprehension clicked in her brain. “You don’t want your old friends to think you can’t handle another reunion. You’re afraid if you don’t go, they’ll think it’s because you’re still too wounded and vulnerable. That’s what you meant by basket case.”

      Wincing a little at her choice of adjectives, he nodded. “I guess that’s it. The only way to convince them that I’m really okay seems to be to show up and prove it. But…well, it still won’t be easy.”

      Aislinn seemed to have a sudden brainstorm. “What you should do,” she said earnestly, “is take someone with you. You know, like a date or something. That way everyone can see that you’re okay, and the attention won’t all be focused on you.”

      “Take someone with me?” The suggestion seemed to startle him. “I hadn’t even thought of that.”

      “What better way to demonstrate that you’ve moved on?” Nic asked, seeing the logic of Aislinn’s idea. She hoped she wasn’t coming across as insensitive to Joel’s loss—but he was the one who had said he’d put the past behind him. And tact had never been her strong point, unfortunately.

      Joel didn’t seem to take offense at her wording. Instead he appeared intrigued by her reasoning. “I wouldn’t want to make any pretense about a relationship that doesn’t exist. No fake romances or anything like that.”

      Nic exchanged a wince with Aislinn before replying, “Oh, agreed. Ick. Just introduce your companion as a friend and leave it at that. The others can make what they want out of it.”

      Still looking thoughtful, Joel toyed with a pizza crust on his plate. “It’s a good idea, but I wouldn’t know who to ask. Unless…is there any way I could talk you into going with me, Nic?”

      Nic could almost feel her jaw drop. “You would want me to go with you?”

      “Well, you would be the logical choice,” he replied. “We’re friends. We have a good time together. If I asked someone else, I’d have to get into sticky explanations, whereas you already know the whole story. I heard you tell Aislinn earlier that you could use a few days away from work. I know attending someone else’s reunion is hardly an ideal vacation, but I’d make sure you have a good time. And I’d owe you big-time.”

      He had spoken so quickly that she’d had a hard time following him. But it all came down to the realization that he was asking her to accompany him to his high school reunion. The fact that she had concurred with Aislinn’s recommended plan didn’t make Joel’s invitation any less startling. “I, uh—”

      Embarrassed now, he lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “Never mind. Bad idea. I can’t blame you for not wanting to have anything to do with this.”

      “Well, it was our idea,” she conceded, motioning toward Aislinn, who was watching them in silence.

      “Yeah, but you weren’t volunteering to be the attention deflector. I understand.”

      “Isn’t there anyone else you can take?”

      “Not really. Like I said, I don’t want to go through a bunch of explanations again, nor do I want to give anyone the wrong idea by asking her to my reunion. It wouldn’t be fair for me to risk using anyone just for the sake of my own pride.”

      There was that word again. Pride. The one argument she understood best.

      Maybe she couldn’t really understand Joel’s dilemma in its entirety, especially since she had never viewed him