One Night in Weaver... by Allison Leigh Page A

anything about what went on in her sessions. Not intentionally.
    He muttered an oath that inside the church would probably have had the roof caving in on him and turned around to head back to his truck. He’d had to park down the street because the small lot alongside the church was already overflowing. He yanked the tie loose as he went.
    By the time he was driving away, the church doors had been pulled shut. He figured that probably meant that the ceremony was about to begin. Hayley would be occupied. It wasn’t likely that she’d even notice his absence among that crowd, crammed inside and breaking every occupancy limit law there was.
    Because Casey was related to practically half the town’s law keepers, Seth doubted there’d be any complaints lodged on that particular score.
    He would have stopped at Colbys for a beer, except the place was closed up tight so Jane’s employees could go to the wedding and reception. Ruby’s was closed, too. Not that they served alcohol over there anyway. There were a handful of other places in town he could have gone, but he passed them all by, too, and finally found himself back at Cee-Vid.
    Nobody was working at that hour on a Saturday. He made his way unimpeded through the cubicles of the game design floor and back to the security office, where he entered his security code, which allowed entrance to Control through a well-hidden door in the wall. Once inside the communications center, he encountered other Hollins-Winword personnel.
    Clay family wedding or not, guardians would always be on watch over Hollins-Winword’s best in the field. He grunted acknowledgment of the handful of preoccupied greetings he received and sat down in his usual seat in front of a bank of computer screens spread across the wall. But he didn’t log into the system. There was no point because, like it or not, his head was still back at the church, imagining Hayley inside.
    It was a helluva thing to face the fact that when he was with her, he couldn’t get rid of the thought of work. And when he was at work, he couldn’t get rid of thoughts of her. Maybe the two areas of his life could have coexisted just fine if not for one thing: McGregor’s so-called amnesia.
    He pinched the knot in his brow, pushed his chair back and propped his heels on the edge of the console in front of him.
    And there, despite the occasional, curious comments he got from the others, he stayed for the next several hours. Until he was certain that there’d be no chance of having that dance he’d told Hayley to save.
    * * *
    “I haven’t seen pretty boy here.” Sam plopped down on the chair next to Hayley with a flutter of taupe-colored tulle and silk charmeuse and handed her one of the champagne flutes she was carrying. “Weren’t you expecting him?”
    Hayley shrugged, trying not to let her disappointment show. “He probably had to work or something.” She sipped the champagne and watched the dancers on the portable floor that had been set up beneath the huge white tent. It didn’t matter that the dinner had been served, the cake cut, the toasts made. Even though the bride and groom had already left the party—as had a good number of guests, including Jane’s sister, who’d been the third bridesmaid—the entire place was still crowded with people celebrating.
    There weren’t many locations in Weaver equipped to handle such a sizeable wedding reception, so Jane and Casey had created their own venue on the expansive property just outside of town that was owned by Casey’s sister and brother-in-law. In deference to the evening chill, propane heaters burned in several locations, and they, along with the heat from the guests themselves, were doing an admirable job of keeping the tented area cozy. So cozy that neither Sam nor Hayley had had to use the wraps that Isabella had created to go with their tea-length gowns.
    “Sorry,” Sam murmured quietly. “I know you were looking forward to seeing him, Hay.”
    “I