Taken by Tuesday (Weekday Brides Series) by Catherine Bybee

of them as they shoved through the bumping and grinding crowd on the dance floor.
    A bouncer stood between them and what looked like a hall to the back of the building.
    “Hey!” Meg smiled at the overly large man and gestured behind the four of them. “We need a discreet exit.”
    The bouncer looked over them as a flash from a following camera blinded them. He leaned to the side and the four of them ran down the hall laughing. They burst out the back door and kept running toward the street. They slowed when they reached the pool hall.
    “You guys are crazy!” Dan caught his side as he leaned against Judy’s car.
    Judy opened the passenger side since Meg was driving and tossed her small purse inside. “This was fun. We’ll have to hang out again.” They’d already put their phone numbers in their cell phones earlier.
    Meg hugged Lucas right as the photographer from the dance club found them.
    Judy jumped in the car with a wave. “See you guys next weekend?”
    “Sounds good.”
    Meg sped out of the parking lot while Lucas and Dan scrambled to their car. The photographer didn’t give chase.
    Judy met Meg’s eyes and they both burst out laughing.

Chapter Five

    The sound of a crying baby met Rick’s ears as he stepped into Neil and Gwen’s home. Neil was all about security and seclusion, so he knew Rick had arrived long before he entered the house. A must when your best friend topped two hundred and fifty pounds of pure muscle and had a Marine background that would hold no issue with taking out a trespasser entering his home uninvited.
    Neil was fiercely in love with his lady wife and had nearly lost her over two years ago. The experience had changed the man. Now he smiled more than Rick ever remembered while they were on active duty, and he talked more. Oh, he was as silent as ever when he was working on something in his head, but Gwen had made the man open up since he’d married her.
    “Neil?” Rick called out as he walked through the large home to the source of the sound. “Gwen?”
    The crying grew louder as Rick walked up the back stairs to the nursery.
    The explosion of pink and purple always made Rick smile. The room resembled a tower in a castle, complete with a mural of a turret behind the crib.
    The smell hit Rick before he realized what his friend was dealing with.
    Neil stood over his infant daughter, his back to Rick. “Not sure what you’re crying about. I have to deal with the mess.”
    Emma cried harder.
    Rick leaned against the doorframe and folded his arms across his chest.
    After a few attempts at using those wet wipe things, Neil abandoned the traditional diaper-changing route, picked Emma up at arm’s length, and turned toward the adjoining bathroom. “Are you going to stand there and watch or are you going to help?”
    Rick chuckled. “Didn’t think you saw me here.”
    “I knew you’d follow the noise. Or the smell.”
    Emma’s tiny cry grew silent as the two men worked their way into the bathroom. “Where’s Gwen?”
    “Helping Sam with a new employee. Turn on the water,” Neil instructed Rick while holding his daughter over the tub.
    “Isn’t she a little young for a bath in a full-size tub, Dad?” Rick opened the flow of water.
    Emma’s wide eyes blinked several times and a tiny smile lifted one side of her lips. At only seven months old, the girl had her daddy wrapped around her itty-bitty finger. Truth was, Rick was pretty wrapped himself. Blonde hair had barely started to fill her once-bald head, and her blue eyes always seemed to take in everything around her. She watched, just like her father, appeared to assess the world around her, then reacted to have her needs met.
    “Grab that.” Neil nodded toward the removable wand that doubled as a shower head.
    “I take it you’ve done this before,” Rick said as he pointed the spray away from all of them and checked the temperature of the water.
    “How so much comes out of such a tiny thing is beyond