The Runaway Bride

by Patricia McLinn

  But she could.

  Time collapsed back to normal as Judi pulled her foot off the gas and urgently yanked on the steering wheel. She turned it all the way to the left, using two hands to keep it from returning to a neutral position. The car jolted off the gravel roadway, throwing her sideways. She kept her hold on the wheel, but her foot’s desperate pokes for the brake found only air. The front of the car started down, then pulled up sharply, and in that instant, she saw the tree ahead of her. But there was no time, no room and no brake.

  She heard the crash as if from far away, felt herself moving forward and sideways while the car remained still, felt the seat belt grab onto her, but she was still going sideways. And then nothing.

  “Omigod, omigod, omigod, she’s dead!”

  For the second time in four days, Judi had the strongest feeling that an unfamiliar and disembodied female voice was talking about her. And once again, it was saying something she would rather not be true.

  “She is not dead, Becky.”

  She liked the male voice’s certainty, but why did he sound annoyed at delivering that good news? Despite the pounding throughout her head, Judi decided she better open her eyes out of self-preservation.

  “In fact, it looks like she’s coming around.”

  Judi blinked once, twice, before she could get her eyes all the way open. She looked up directly into a pair of leaf-green eyes. Around those remarkable eyes was the strong face of the rider she’d glimpsed in that frozen moment before the crash.

  “The Lone Ranger,” she muttered. “Is Silver okay?”

  The frown knitting his brows deepened. “What?”

  “She’s delirious,” proclaimed the female voice she’d heard before. Beyond the rider’s shoulder, a blond teenager peered at her from under a straw cowboy hat.

  “Cut the drama, Becky. Delirious is from a fever. You don’t get delirious from a blow to the head,” the rider said, crouching beside Judi’s seat in the narrow wedge left by the partly opened driver’s door. He must have opened it. She was sure she hadn’t. The door’s window bore a star-patterned crack. “Are you okay, Miss?”

  “I…I don’t know.” She reached toward the focus of the throbbing in her head.

  “Don’t. You’re bleeding some.” He caught her left wrist, holding it easily. Either he was strong, or she was a lot weaker than she had been a few minutes ago. Or both.

  “There’s blood all over,” inserted the girl.

  Judi became aware of the warm flow down the left side of her face. The rider pulled a bandanna from his pocket, twisted it loosely, then tied it expertly around her head.

  The rhythm of the pounding shifted, and more voices could be heard approaching.

  “Anybody hurt?”

  The new pounding wasn’t in her head, it was horses arriving.

  “Not sure yet,” the rider said over his shoulder to the newcomers.

  “She’s not making sense, and her head’s bleeding all over.” This girl he’d called Becky definitely had a ghoulish bent.

  “Can she move?”

  “What happened?”

  “Is Dickens okay?”

  “Where’d she come from?”

  “I didn’t think even you could get out of that one, Thomas. How’d you do it?”

  “Better get her out of there. It might blow.”

  Her head? They thought her head might blow up? It felt like it, but could somebody survive having their head—

  “That’s only in movies. Takes a lot to get a vehicle to blow up.”

  “Who is she?”

  “Car’s wrecked to smithereens, ain’t it?”

  “Anything besides your head hurt, Miss?”

  The last question came from the rider, and she focused on his calm voice like a lone buoy in the middle of wind-whipped Lake Michigan.

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Better find out before you try moving too much.”

  She started to nod, thought better of that, and said, “Okay.”

  He looked back over his shoulder toward the group gathered there. “Steve, go bring round the blue truck, and get a clean blanket to put over the straw that’s left in it.”

  “Will do, Boss,” said one of the voices.

  The rider busied himself pulling the driver’s door open wider, with the bent frame groaning at the exertion.

  “She don’t sound delirious to me,” said one of the newer voices.

  “She was asking about silver earlier,” said the girl.

  “Silver,” Judi corrected in a mutter. “But he’s the wrong color.”

  “Maybe she is delirious, Thomas,” said a man with whiskers, apparently addressing the rider, who now had the door open, and was crouched down facing her.

  The rider—Thomas—ignored everyone behind him and met her gaze, and ordered, “You tell me if anything hurts. My name’s Thomas—Thomas Vance.”

  He started at her neck, wrapping his large hands gently around it, and tipping her head slightly forward, then back, left, then right. Then he ran his hands out slowly to her shoulders, watching her face apparently for her reaction. She hoped it didn’t show.

  The warmth and slow friction of his touch was like sliding into a warm bath after a long day. Despite the throbbing in her head, she could have purred.

  She must have made a sound when he moved on, using both hands to skim over the cotton sleeve of her blouse, because his frown dropped lower, and he rapped out, “Something hurt?”

  “A little sore.”

  She gripped her bottom lip with her teeth as he continued to her other arm, then backed up a little to start at midthigh and ease down first one leg than the other. By the time he’d cupped her ankle and rotated her foot to his satisfaction, she felt like a puddle. A flammable puddle.

  Yet there’d been nothing in the way he’d treated her other than Good Samaritanism—not a look, not a deep breath, not an overlong touch. Nothing. It was all her. Probably simply a case of her hormones knowing she would have been on her honeymoon at this moment if everything had gone according to plan, and responding accordingly.

  “Nothing seems to be broken.” He cleared his throat. “I’m going to release the seat belt now, unless you want to…?”

  Automatically, she reached across her body for the latch. The pull on her sore neck muscles stopped her in midmotion and a groan escaped.

  “Help her, Thomas,” ordered Becky.

  He slid his hand between the webbing of the tightened belt and her hip. It was the back of his hand against her, but that didn’t stop her feeling the warm imprint through her shorts, right into her skin and possibly deeper. When he released the catch, and caught the belt before it could retract, she couldn’t stop a sigh. At least it wasn’t a moan.

  “That hurt?”

  “A little.”

  “Might be ribs broke,” suggested Whiskers.

  She caught a flicker of green as Thomas glanced at her. Something about that look made her think of his hands roaming over her ribs—all of her ribs—the way they had over her arms and legs.

  Maybe Becky was right, maybe she was delirious. She sure felt as if she had a sudden fever.

  “She’s breathing well. I don’t think she’s got any broken ribs,” Thomas said. “Becky, ride back to let Gran know we’re coming. Okay, let’s get her up to the house.”

  She saw his intention a split second before he reached down to pick her up. Her battered body was complaining too loudly about pain for her to notice much else. He carried her up the embankment to a parked truck, giving out orders about getting it ready, who would drive, who would ride in back, who would take care of Dickens, who would get her gear out of her car, and who should get back to work—all with an assurance that said he was accustomed to having such orders obeyed.

  The straw bed he placed her on in the back of the pickup was both soft and prickly, even through the blanket was spread atop it. At the same time the truck started moving, she sneezed and her muscles knotted in protest. She c
losed her eyes to concentrate on not passing out. She couldn’t have sworn she succeeded. The next thing she knew, Thomas was picking her up again, and issuing more orders.

  She opened her eyes to a quick impression of a rambling house with a wooden porch, then they were going through a doorway while Becky held the door open.

  “Gran says to bring her into her room.”

  “Her room? I thought she was napping. That’s not—”

  “You bring her in here, Thomas.” The woman’s voice wasn’t loud but it had even more of that assurance of command than Thomas’s had.

  Judi not only heard his sigh, she felt it—as a breath across her face, and in the rise and fall of his chest where she rested against it.

  With Becky, the driver from the truck, Whiskers and a few others following, Thomas carried her across a roomy kitchen, down a short hallway and into a large, sunny room. In a quilt-covered double bed with a gleaming wooden headboard and footboard, a white-haired woman was lying flat with her head angled up on bright colored pillows. A lump under the light blanket of buttercup yellow that covered her indicated a pillow of some sort was between her legs. Other than the bedding, the room’s colors were subdued blues and greens.

  “Set her down on the loveseat there,” the woman instructed. “Gently now.”

  “I’ll get blood on it,” protested Judi.

  “That’s what slipcovers are for. That’s right, Thomas. Now get back, all of you—you’ll smother the poor thing.” Immediately an aisle opened, leaving no one blocking the woman’s view. “Now, what have we got here?”

  “That’s what I want to know, Gran.” Thomas crossed his arms over a chest that started broad at the shoulders and tapered to the waist of his jeans. All the gentleness from when he’d checked her for injuries was gone. His manner as he turned to her wasn’t harsh precisely, but it sure wasn’t cuddly, either. “Who are you? What were you—”

  “Hold on there, Thomas. You and Becky stay, but the rest of you clear on out.” While the onlookers shuffled out, the woman they’d called Gran, clearly never doubting that her orders would be followed, continued, “Becky, get a basin from under the sink, and the cloths from the bottom shelf in the linen closet. And that first-aid kit from under the sink.”

  “But I don’t know how to—”

  “You don’t have to know how yet, you just have to listen.”

  “What’s your name?” Thomas demanded again.

  “Not yet, Thomas,” said Gran. “Let’s take this one step at a time. Becky’ll wipe off that blood so we can see the poor girl. And you, Thomas, tell me what happened.”

  Judi tried to listen to his explanation, which seemed to feature the inexplicability of Judi arriving where she did when she did. But the pounding was getting more insistent, and as Becky’s gently hesitant hands wiped the blood from the side of her face, she let her eyes close and her mind shut down.

  “That’s much better. Good for you, Becky,” said Gran.

  Judi blinked back to the present, to find everyone staring at her, including the man with the whiskers she remembered from the crash site. She hadn’t even been aware of his return. She smiled at Becky, who’d backed up to perch on the chair beside Gran’s bed. “Thanks. I feel almost good as new.”

  “Can’t say the same for that car of yours,” said Whiskers. “Not that it’s been new any time recent. And it sure isn’t any good to anybody now.”

  “Total loss?” Thomas asked from his seat in a side chair near the door.

  “Total. And it’s going to be a doozy to get out of there, the way it’s angled in. But it probably has parts that’d be worth taking off ’er. I know a couple boys trying to keep old Buicks running.”

  “Thanks, Gandy,” said Gran. “We’ll figure what to do with it later. Right now, I’m more concerned about this young lady.”

  As Gandy departed with a nod, Thomas stood up abruptly, arms crossed once more, seeming to tower over Judi as she half reclined against the loveseat’s arm.

  “How’d you come to be on our back road—our private back road?”

  He gave it enough of an edge to make it clear he expected an answer.

  The whole truth was out of the question. She could tell him part of the truth, but she’d never been good at that. She suspected that under the current circumstances, she’d probably be worse than ever. But she had to say something. They were all looking at her, waiting.

  “I don’t know…” She drew in a breath to finish the rest of the extremely lame answer that was the only thing she could think of—I don’t know what to tell you—and to send up a little prayer that inspiration would give her something brilliant to say next.

  But there was no next said, at least not by her.

  “Omigod, omigod!” Becky said in an awed whisper. “She has amnesia!”

  “Amnesia? That’s a bunch of—”

  “Thomas.”

  Gran’s warning stopped the word, but not the sentiment. “She’s been watching too much TV again.”

  “It’s the only logical explanation.” Becky jumped up from her chair, squaring off with Thomas. “We hired an aide to help Gran for these six weeks while she recuperates from the surgery, and she shows up. Who else could she be? It’s not like we’re near the highway where we’d have strangers arriving unexpectedly all the time. Besides, you said just this morning that the agency said Helga should be here any time—obviously she decided to drive here instead of writing or calling first, she got lost, had the accident, hit her head—which she wouldn’t have done if she hadn’t swerved to miss you and Dickens. And now—” Her voice caught. “Now she doesn’t remember who she is. It’s all so obvious!”

  Thomas’s response made it clear he saw nothing obvious in Becky’s scenario, but the girl steadfastly stuck to her explanation. As they squabbled, and between the downbeats of throbbing in Judi’s head, several phrases wove into a pattern.

  Six weeks… Hired… Who else could she be?… Not near the highway…

  She had little money, no car and five weeks to pass before she could surface. What could be better? She not only wouldn’t be spending money, she’d be making it. No car was no problem, because she wouldn’t have to go anywhere. Best of all, no one would ever think to look for her here. A ranch might be the perfect place to sit down and think through how she’d gotten into this mess and what she was going to do with her life when it was over. It wasn’t like she’d be cheating these people—she’d do all the work this Helga was supposed to have done. And Helga had stood them up so Judi felt no guilt about taking her job.

  As for that job, surely she could handle it. She’d been thinking about waitressing in Montana, and she knew she was a lousy waitress. This had to be better.

  “It’s total nonsense, Becky,” Thomas declared, not for the first time.

  “Gran hasn’t said it’s nonsense.”

  Judi noticed that observation stopped Thomas. He turned toward his grandmother. The woman simply looked back at him. His eyes narrowed to green slits.

  “Don’t tell me you’re crazy enough to believe—”

  “I’ll tell you what I believe, Thomas,” she interrupted calmly. “I believe it makes sense to ask the only one of us here who might have an answer.”

  A tip of Gran’s head indicated Judi, and she felt three sets of eyes zero in on her.

  “Well?” Thomas demanded.

  Judi’s heart sped up like someone had hit its accelerator. Could she? Should she? She was famed for being a lousy liar, but these people didn’t know her, so maybe, just maybe she could pull this off.

  “I…I can’t remember, but I think I must be Helga.”

  Chapter Two

  “You think? You can’t remember?”

  “Stop badgering, Thomas. Can’t you see you’re hurting the poor girl’s head?”

  Thomas had seen the stranger’s wince, and it jabbed him with a dose of guilt. But Gran was way off in calling her a girl. The battered, pale and still bloodied stranger sitting on the
little couch under the window in what used to be his room was definitely a woman. He still had the tingling in his hands, alertness in his groin and heat in his blood to attest to that.

  And, as if that wasn’t reason enough to get her on her way—which it was—it was damned sure that there was nothing poor about her. Other than the heap she’d been driving, he could practically hear his one-time stepmother ka-ching-ing a cash register as she totaled up big figures in everything this stranger wore. All new, too.

  How many home aides had money for clothes like that? How many home aides looked like that with gleaming reddish-brown hair and wide eyes, and a mouth that…

  “So, what’s your last name?”

  She hesitated, then shook her head and drooped. “I don’t know.”

  “What’s the name of agency you work for?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “That’s convenient.”

  “I don’t remember because I took a blow to the head.” Her pointed look reminded him how she’d received that blow. “That can cause amnesia, you know.”

  “Oh, that’s great—you’re remembering your medical background!” Becky beamed.

  “Oh, yeah, that’s damn technical,” he said.

  “Thomas.” Gran made his name a reprimand. It was a skill Iris Swift had honed over several decades of teaching. “Don’t swear.”

  “Medical background?” If the stranger got any paler she could pass for a snowbank in sunlight. If she fainted he was going to have to catch her, pick her up again, have her curled up against his chest again…

  “You’re a home health aide,” Becky said solicitously. “We hired you to come take care of Gran while she recovers from hip replacement surgery.”

  The woman put a hand to her head. “Uh, I don’t seem to remember anything about being a health aide.”

  Thomas rolled his eyes and turned away. Maybe that way his body would stop rooting for her to faint.

  “The agency’s in South Dakota? Do you think you’re from South Dakota?” Becky asked.