Million-Dollar Bride

by Karen Toller Whittenburg

  “Damn bed,” Mack muttered, but she pressed against him, stealing his protest with a seductive and lengthy kiss. He responded by gathering her close, pulling her with him into a spin of sensation and building passion.

  This was it, Eliza thought. The moment to put aside reservations and to open herself to enjoyment, the time to step past doubts about the future and commit to the emotions of the present. She loved Mack for good or ill; she loved him forever or for a day. She belonged to him, heart and soul, even if he never truly belonged to her in the same way. This was surrender and victory, she thought, as she wrapped her trembling arms about his neck. This was love.

  The knock on the door couldn’t have been more timely or more unwelcome. A minute longer and Sheriff Cooper would have had to stammer out an embarrassed apology when he opened the door and peeked in. As it was, he blushed to the roots of his sandy hair and had to clear his throat twice before he recovered his voice. “Sorry,” he said, keeping his gaze on the floor. “I know this is your honeymoon and all, but if we don’t get moving before Jim gets it into his wooden head that this is takin’ too long, there could be heck to pay. It’d be just like my brother to rush down here with the sirens going and the lights flashing and make a mountain out of a little old molehill.”

  Eliza sat up, breathless and bewildered by her mix of stirred-up emotions. Mack captured her hand in his as he pushed up onto his elbows and frowned at the intruder. “I was, uh, just telling Eliza we’ll have to go back to your office to answer a few questions.” He lifted his shoulders in a shrug. “She needed a little…reassurance.”

  “Yeah.” His head bent, the sheriff looked anywhere except at the bed. “I’ll, uh, just be waitin’ outside.”

  Eliza gathered her wits, slipped her hand from Mack’s protective grasp and groped her way off the mattress. “We’ll be out in a few minutes, Sheriff.” She brushed back her tousled hair and battled the urge to look at Mack again. She had to concentrate, had to keep in touch with her quickly conceived plan and had to keep away from the distracting temptation that was Mack. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to have enough time to comb my hair and freshen up a little before I have to face the inquisition.”

  “Sure. Sure. Take as much time as you need.” Sheriff Tim backed away from the doorway. “I’ll wait for you to say your goodbyes.”

  Goodbyes?

  Mack pushed himself to his feet as the front door closed behind the sheriff. “He didn’t mean that the way it sounded, Eliza. They are not going to separate us, I promise.”

  She smiled and took a couple of steps toward the bathroom and away from the bed. “I know. And I’m not worried. Truly. I’ll just go in the bathroom, and, uh, freshen up a little…before we go. It shouldn’t take more than a minute…or two. If you want to wait outside with the sheriff, I’ll hurry and be out in—in a flash.”

  A glimmer of suspicion came and went in Mack’s dark eyes, and she conjured up all the innocence she could muster. “I’ll be out in a jiffy,” she said. “Why don’t you keep the sheriff company?”

  “I’ll wait here for you.” Mack stood his ground, not moving a half inch toward the front door, standing solidly between her and the open window.

  “You don’t need to do that.”

  “Oh, I don’t mind. And Eliza? I’ll be counting the seconds.”

  She nodded, and her smile remained in place until she closed the bathroom door and leaned against it. She didn’t know why he had to have such a suspicious nature. If he could have just gone outside for a second, she’d have been out the window and he’d have been free of her and this hopeless situation. Except… maybe it wasn’t quite hopeless just yet. With a pensive gaze, she followed the line of Mack’s orange coveralls—hanging across the top of the shower stall, over the sill and through the open window to the back of the cabin. Not as easy an escape as the other window, but not impossible, either. If she could get up there, she could get through that window. And she was just desperate enough to try.

  When Mack opened the door and looked in, she was standing on the toilet seat, leaning across the shower stall, her hands curled over the windowsill. She didn’t even glance back at him as she pushed, levered her weight with her arms and slung one leg across the sill. Tucking her skirt modestly around her thighs, she finally looked up. “Just close the door, Mack, and pretend you didn’t see this. Trust me, I know what I’m doing.”

  “That would be a first. Now get down from there. You’re not going to run off and leave me holding the bag.”

  She straddled the sill. “You’re in the clear, Mack. No one can accuse you of stealing the dress or of anything except being in the wrong place at the wrong time. I, on the other hand, have a lot to answer for, and frankly, without that dress, I don’t think there’s even a remote chance I’ll be believed.”

  “That’s ridiculous. I told you I’d back you up. I’ll just explain everything exactly the way it happened, and they’ll have to believe me.”

  “Because it’s the truth.” God, she loved him. “Look, Mack, no offense, but when you start trying to explain the truth, everything gets very mixed up. Think about it. The reason we got married was because you insisted on telling the truth…and not even Mr. Silk believed you.” She hunched her shoulders and dropped her head, prepared to clear the raised window. “Now, if you’ll just let me get a decent head start…”

  But he grabbed her foot before she could escape. “This is ridiculous. You can’t leave. Not like this. Sheriff Cooper and Deputy Cooper and the entire Kansas City Police Department will come after you! Don’t you realize that? And how you think you can get away without being seen is beyond me. It’s an insane idea, so please, just climb down from that window.”

  She leaned forward and put her hand over his on her shoe. “Mack, I have to get that bridal gown and see that it’s put back in the right hands. Don’t you see? It’s the only shot I have at proving I didn’t steal it in the first place.”

  “And how in hell do you think you can do that? Go around knocking on doors, asking for Chuck?”

  “I’ll think of something. Ten minutes, Mack. That’s all I’m asking. And then you don’t have to feel responsible for me anymore. You can go home to Leanne with a clear conscience. You can tell her I said you were a perfect gentleman and everything I ever wished for in a husband.” She wrinkled her nose in wry wistfulness. “I wish with all my heart that this had been a real marriage and that you hadn’t spent so much of the night sleeping.”

  “Eliza…”

  “On second thought, you probably shouldn’t tell her that last part.” She blew him a kiss. “Goodbye, Mack. Thanks for sharing the best night of my whole life.” Twisting her foot and flipping the pink skirt, she pulled free and slid through the opening.

  The last thing he saw was the dark sole of her saddle shoe disappearing over the window ledge against a patch of jail-house orange. His hands on his hips, he stood in the bathroom, counting his frustrations, considering the unlikely prospect of her getting away from the area unseen, calculating the odds against her finding Chuck and the dress, contemplating the total idiocy of the whole idea, savoring the memory of that passionate kiss. He wondered if there was any way he could squeeze through that little window.

  Now, why would he do something so utterly stupid? He could wait ten minutes, walk out the front door and tell Sheriff Cooper that Eliza was gone. He could get into a comfortable car and be driven home. He could pick up the reins of his life as if this little interruption had never occurred, as if Eliza had never burst in and tangled up his heart.

  Reaching into the stall, he turned on the shower and shut the curtain. He pulled the bathroom door closed behind him and walked across the cabin to the window Eliza had left open. Quietly and quickly, he shut and locked it, then he picked up the phone, noted the number and, using the local prefix, dialed at random. When a man answered, he hung up and tried again.

  “Hello?” This time the answering voice was soft and sweet and womanly.

>   He asked her to hold for Sheriff Cooper, tossed the receiver onto the bed and strode to the doorway, pausing only long enough to grab a biscuit from the tray and stuff it into his shirt pocket. “Sheriff?” Opening the door, he motioned as he stepped outside. “There’s a phone call for you.”

  “In there?” Sheriff Tim gestured to the open doorway.

  “Yes. She didn’t give her name.”

  “She?” Tim passed him with a pleasant nod. “Okay. Thanks, I’ll just go in and answer it.”

  “You do that.” Mack nodded just as pleasantly. The moment the sheriff was inside, he closed the front door, shut the screen and wedged a stick through the metal handle. Then he raced around the corner of Cabin 5 in search of Eliza.

  Chapter 12

  Across the street at a gas pump outside the Tank ‘N Tummy, a man in a blue shirt and red baseball cap finished filling the fuel tank of a battered green truck, then walked toward the store, clapping his hands and talking to someone or something out of Mack’s range of vision. No sooner had the man turned away, than a dark head popped up in the window of the old truck, then bobbed out of sight again.

  Who but Eliza, Mack thought, relieved to have found her so quickly. Crouched at the corner of Cabin 7, he had a good view of the gas pump, the parked truck and the big yellow sunflower painted on a window of the Sunflower Café…which just happened to be adjacent to the convenience store. A rocket scientist might never have figured it out, but he had known right off that Eliza would head back to the café on the chance she could still catch the ride to Topeka. And the lucky little “persuader” had obviously done just that, because if that wasn’t her in the cab of that truck, he would eat his hat. If he had one.

  Adrenaline pumping, he took just enough time to plan his route before he dashed across the street at an angle, dodged behind a car parked at the café and then raced for the truck in a scuffling, duck-and-run waddle. “Eliza?” he said quietly as he crept up beside the pickup. “Eliza!”

  Keeping her head low, she peeped through the open window. “Mack! What are you doing here?”

  “Ssh. I’m looking for you.”

  She started rolling up the window. “I am not going back with you, Mack. I’m going after the dress.”

  “I know. I’m coming with you.”

  The window stopped rising and lowered an inch. “What did you say?”

  He glanced around, feeling the seconds careening past like a fire engine. “I said I’m coming with you. Scoot over.”

  “Get out of here. You’re going to spoil my getaway.”

  “Eliza, let me in.”

  “Not by the hair of my chinny, chin, chin.”

  He shifted his crouched position. “I don’t have enough huff-and-puff to play games, so either open this door and scoot over or get out and we’ll find another way out of town.”

  “Oh, right, like we can just buy a ticket for the bus or hop on the nearest freight train. And I won’t hitch a ride with just anyone, you know. I met Tom at breakfast. He’s Arnetta’s nephew, and he was nice enough to offer to take me as far as Topeka and I’m going. So go away.”

  “Get it through your head, I’m going with you. If he’s nice enough to give you a ride, then he won’t object to giving me one, too.”

  “Well, he might. It’s pretty crowded up here when he and the dog get in.”

  “The dog can ride in back. Dogs love that windblown feeling. Now scoot over.”

  “Not without asking him. That would be plain rude.”

  “Well, it would be downright inconsiderate to leave me behind to rot in the county jail. Open that door and let me in.”

  “We’ve been over this already. You’re in the clear now. Sheriff Cooper has no reason to put you in jail again, much less let you rot there.”

  “He didn’t…until I locked him in the cabin.”

  “You did what?”

  Glancing over his hunched shoulder, he reached for the door handle. “Where is this Tom guy, anyway? If we don’t get going, we’ll get caught without ever making it out of the parking lot.”

  “It’s just like you to horn in on my escape. If you’d just done as I asked, if you’d given me a ten-minute head start like I wanted, no one would even know I was gone.”

  “Yet,” he added pointedly. “And I am trying to help you…at great personal risk, I might add.”

  “By locking the sheriff in our cabin? I hardly think—”

  “This guy botherin’ you, Eliza?”

  The man in the blue plaid shirt and red baseball cap approached the truck in a rambling walk just as Mack smelled a vaguely familiar odor and felt something wet smear across his forearm. Turning his head, he found himself arm to nose with the stupid yellow dog. “What are you doing here, chicken breath?”

  The yellow dog barked and wagged his tail, as if he’d just met up with a long-lost litter mate.

  “Well, looky there. He likes you.”

  Mack gazed up at the husky, muscled and thick-necked Tom and decided there was no way Eliza was going to run amok across Kansas with a man whose only references were an unknown waitress and this hayseed hound. “Is this your dog?” he asked, knowing the answer could well seal his fate.

  “That’s Einstein,” the man said. “Aunt Amelia’s been keeping him for me, but I raised him from a pup.”

  “All right, Eliza.” Mack straightened. “Get out of there right now. You’re not going as far as the stop sign with this guy.”

  Eliza glowered at him. “Don’t be an idiot, Mack. I am going and you’re not.”

  Tom looked puzzled. “He wants to go to Topeka, too?”

  “Yes,” Eliza said. “This is Mack Cortland. Tell him he cannot come with us to Topeka.”

  Tom turned to Mack. “You want to go to Topeka?”

  “No.” He glanced back at the motel, but saw no signs of frantic activity…yet. “I don’t want to go to Topeka. But I’m her husband, Tom, and where she goes, I go. So let’s go.”

  The man shrugged. “Never let it be said that Tom Webster separated a husband and wife against their will. Hop in the back. Come on, Einstein, let’s go.”

  Wagging his tail, the dog stopped sniffing Mack and raced around the truck, barking like an idiot. When Tom opened the driver’s door, Einstein jumped into the cab like a veteran. “I’d prefer to ride in front.” Mack leaned against the door and addressed Tom through the open window and across Eliza. “With my wife.”

  “If the two of you want to be together, then she can get in back with you, but Einstein rides up here with me.” Tom turned on the ignition and put the transmission in gear. “Either way, you better make up your mind, ‘cause we’re rollin’.”

  Eliza looked at Mack, but made no move to get out. The yellow dog announced his impatience with a big, stupid, doggy grin and a series of sharp, what-are-you-waiting-for, let’s-get-going barks.

  The truck lurched forward and Mack took a step back before he decided he was down to his last option. Grabbing hold of the side, he stepped onto the running board and vaulted into the back of the pickup. He hunkered down at an uncomfortable angle as the truck pulled out onto the road and sped past the cabins of the Hay Capitol Motel.

  AN HOUR DOWN THE ROAD, Tom stopped to add a quart of oil to the rattletrap engine. The yellow dog bounded out and raced like a bullet for the nearest wheat field. Eliza got out and stretched, while Mack jealously eyed her seat in the cab.

  “Aren’t you going to get out and stretch?” she asked pleasantly.

  He wanted to, but he was afraid if he got out, his body would never let him get back in. “I’m fine.”

  “You want to trade places?” She came up beside him, propped her arms on the side of the truck, her chin on her hands, and smiled. “I think one of us should be in front with Tom. He talks a lot and doesn’t pay enough attention to stop signs and brake lights and staying on his side of the road. But if you want to sit with him, I wouldn’t mind riding back here. I think I’d like the feel of the wind in my hair.”<
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  He was sorely tempted, but he shook his head. “You’re just jealous of my new windblown hairstyle.”

  Her eyes flirted with his. “I am. My fingers are fairly itching to tangle with it.”

  “That could be dangerous.”

  “Would be, considering the kind of tangles I make.”

  He could only imagine the touch of her hands in his hair…and that was most likely for the best. “You stay in the cab and keep Tom on target. I’m fine. One good thing about riding back here is the dog is up front with you.”

  “Good point.” She glanced toward the open hood and Tom, then lowered her voice. “Just between you and me, Einstein could use a bath and a brain. And not necessarily in that order.”

  And just that easily, Mack recovered his good humor. He might be the first Cortland in history to be on the lam, but inexplicably, the world suddenly made sense. “Eliza? Thanks.”

  “Thanks?” Her laughter was warm and pleasing. “For noticing that the dog is dumb and smells bad?”

  He shook his head. “For offering to trade places.”

  “Einstein! Let’s go, Einstein!” Tom slammed the hood and whistled for the dog. “You two ready to go?” He tossed the empty can into the back, splattering oil droplets across Mack’s borrowed blue jeans.

  Mack factored in the cost of a new pair of jeans for Ken Cooper. “Ready,” he replied.

  “Ready.” Eliza opened the door. “And Mack?”

  His heart caught at the sight of her smile.

  “You’re welcome.” She climbed into the cab and closed the door.

  What a great day to be going to Topeka, he thought.

  “Einstein!” Tom stood beside the truck, waiting for the dog he’d raised from a pup. “Let’s go, buddy!”

  The dog raced from the field at the same speed he’d raced in. He bounded up to the truck, promptly leapt into the back and tried to stick his nose in Mack’s shirt pocket.