The Runaway Bride

by Patricia McLinn

  “Missy! Somebody sayin’ they gotta talk to you.” Gandy had come around the corner of the house, and called to them across the garden.

  “Who is it?”

  “Don’t know ’em. Mighty impatient fella. And he parked where any fool could see he’s blocking the ranch truck from getting out if need be.”

  “Probably the man I called about the used car. Tell him I’ll be right there.”

  A frown pursed Gandy’s mouth into a dot inside the whiskers, but he headed back. “Not tellin’ that one anythin’. Tellin’ anybody, it’ll be Thomas.”

  She didn’t want Thomas involved. The chance to tell him that she was going ahead with her car search hadn’t presented itself—and she hadn’t sought it out. But more important than intercepting Thomas right now was making this point to Becky.

  “Listen to me. Your brother does not hold you accountable for his having to work so hard to keep this ranch in one piece. You’ve got to believe that. But even more important than believing me, you’ve got to talk to him about it.”

  “I can’t!”

  Judi took her shoulders and gave them a little shake. “You have to. You—”

  The car horn sounded again. Long and annoying.

  “After I get rid of this guy—whose car I will not buy even if it’s a brand-new Lexus for three figures!—we’re going to work out how and when.” She backed away from Becky, keeping eye contact as long as possible to drive home her point. “But for now I’m just saying tell Thomas. You have to tell him. I’ll be right back.”

  At the corner of the house, she turned and sprinted. First she would blister this bozo’s ears, then get back to Becky before she’d reconstructed her walls. She would make the girl get this straight with Thomas. If she could do that, then maybe she wouldn’t feel guilty about staying here under false pretences. Maybe she and Thomas—

  The thought died in the time it took for her brain to register the scene before her eyes.

  Sterling Carroll stood beside an obviously rented Cadillac parked so it partially blocked both the ranch truck and the barn door. He had his arm in the open driver’s window preparing for another assault on the horn. When he saw her, he crossed both arms across his chest, looking supremely irritated.

  But what turned the scene into a complete nightmare was Thomas striding in from the direction of the pasture, closing fast.

  She hurried toward Sterling, hoping against hope to steer him away before it was too late.

  “My God, Judi, what are you doing in a place like this?” he said in a voice that carried even more in the clear Wyoming air than it used to in crowded Chicago restaurants. “Look at you—you look like you belong on Dukes of Hazard. I could hardly believe it when that idiot P.I.—after all these weeks of demanding to be paid while he reported failure after failure—finally said he’d tracked you down to some two-bit ranch in Wyoming, for God’s sake.”

  “Sterling, what are you doing here? No, I don’t care—just go away.”

  “You wouldn’t believe the place I had to fly into. And the rental cars— My God, you’d think they’d never heard of a BMW, much less a Land Rover.”

  From the corner of her eye she saw Thomas hesitate. If he left this to her, she still might…

  Sterling stepped forward, as if to put a hand on her arm. She avoided the touch. Thomas picked up his pace again and moved between them. Calm, silent and threatening.

  “Who the hell are you?” Sterling’s demand sounded querulous.

  “I’m the owner of some two-bit ranch. Who the hell are you?”

  “I’m Sterling Carroll, Judi’s fiancé.”

  Chapter Nine

  “Fiancé.”

  Thomas’s emotionless repetition of the word, along with the way he drew back from her without even moving, brought her out of her trance.

  “Not anymore. I left him at the altar—no, I didn’t even make it to the altar. I was halfway down the aisle before I turned around and…”

  She saw where that led too late. Saw it in the tensing of his jaw and the chilling of his eyes.

  “What? You turned and ran? You ran away? Looking for something different?”

  Sterling tried to step between them. “Judi, that’s what I’m here to talk to you about. Let’s get out of here and—”

  “It’s not like you think, Thomas. It’s not like Maureen.”

  “No?”

  “I want to talk to you in private. Judi—”

  “Thomas—”

  “Sounds like you’ve got talking to do with your fiancé.”

  “I told you, he’s not—”

  “I don’t know who this guy is, but he’s right. We can talk this out, Judi. There’s no reason we can’t. The engagement was never called off—”

  She turned to Sterling. “I ran out on our wedding, if that doesn’t break an engagement, I don’t know what does.”

  It was a mistake, because the instant she addressed Sterling, Thomas pulled back—translating the growing distance she saw in his eyes into physical space.

  “Thomas—”

  “I’ve got no standing in this.” He turned and strode toward the barn.

  Sterling grabbed her arm. “Let him go—he’s nothing to us. This is between you and me. Believe me, we can put this back together.”

  Judi didn’t follow Thomas, but her reasons had nothing to do with Sterling’s words or his hold, and everything to do with the chill in Thomas’s eyes and voice.

  “I understand, baby. You got scared. Cold feet—that can happen to anybody. And running off and finding this guy—it doesn’t matter. I can get past that. I forgive you. There, it’s all forgotten.”

  Her heart felt like every foot of space between her and Thomas was a ton of weight pressing down on it. But her mind was finally starting to work.

  “I don’t need to be forgiven, and I don’t want it forgotten. I made my decision—my final decision—when I left that church, Sterling.”

  “Now, Judi, think about what I can give you.” He’d slipped from magnanimous to desperate. “What we have together is special. You don’t want to throw that away.”

  Sterling had paid someone to track her down, had come here himself, was practically begging her to still marry him. It wasn’t out of love. She knew that now. Because she’d seen the glimmer of the real thing in Thomas’s eyes. In comparison the extravagant compliments, lavish dates and elaborate promises she’d received from Sterling revealed itself as so much rubbish.

  Sterling’s reason for being here had to be something that benefited him. The scheme Geoff’s ersatz girlfriend had alluded to was the best bet.

  “Think of everything you’d lose,” he said. “I’ll transfer assets to your name on the very day we marry. Lots of assets. You’d be rich in your own right. As soon as you become Mrs. Sterling Carroll.”

  “I don’t want your assets. I don’t want to be rich.”

  He showed no sign of hearing her. “I don’t have to go back to Illinois until Sunday. That’s plenty of time to go to Vegas, get married, have a few days. I’ll get the presidential suite. Then I’ll fly to Chicago on—”

  “Sterling, listen carefully. I am not going to marry you. Not in Vegas. Not in Lake Forest.”

  “Judi—”

  She backed away from his hand and shook her head. “Nowhere. Ever. Not going to happen.”

  “If this has to do with some roll in the hay with this cowboy—” His lips stretched tight over his teeth. “Hey, I’m no prude. If I’d known you wanted action, I could have supplied that— I thought you’d go for that wait-for-the-wedding crap.”

  “That’s just it, Sterling. I was perfectly happy not having any action with you. That should have told us both something.”

  “You—” He reeled off terms that would have made the ladies of Larraine Carroll’s bridge club faint.

  Judi refused to be goaded into losing her temper—and the upper hand. “Since that’s what you think, you’re well rid of me, Sterling. You go your way and
I’ll go mine and we can both hope that never the twain shall meet.”

  “Not so fast. You’ve got something that belongs to me.”

  “You’re right. But we can take care of that.”

  She walked over to the wreck of the junker she’d driven here. Wondering if Thomas was watching from the barn, she flipped open the door that protected the gas cap, pulled away packing tape, and unwound a heavy-duty plastic freezer bag she’d formed into a lumpy coil to wrap around the cap.

  When she opened it, the contents fell to the bottom, mixing driver’s license with credit cards, ID, family snapshots, prepaid calling card. She fished around until she found the hefty engagement ring Sterling had bestowed upon her.

  “Here you go, Sterling.” She put the ring in his hand. “May you wear it in good health.”

  Her humor did not go over big with her former fiancé. He shoved the ring in his pants pocket then stuck his now-empty palm under her nose.

  “Hand over the rest of it. I want all of it. Everything I gave you. Everything!”

  “There’s nothing else—”

  He snatched the bag, yanking it free when she reflexively tightened her hold.

  What was he looking for? The earrings he gave her? Or the narrow gold chains for her throat? They were nice but nowhere near as expensive as the ring, and it wasn’t like they were family heirlooms. The only other item of any value he’d given her was that detested charm bracelet she’d given to Becky.

  Sterling shoved his hand in the bag, stirring the contents like a mixer gone wild. Swearing, he dumped everything onto the hard-packed ground, then dropped to his knees and shoved her few belongings around.

  Still swearing, he got up, not bothering to dust off his Armani slacks.

  “You think you’re going to hide it from me?”

  “I’ve given you the ring. Anything else you gave me was a gift, and there’s no reason I should give it back.”

  She was pretty sure Miss Manners, Emily Post and Ann Landers would agree with her on this one—not that it mattered. The earrings and chains were in the house and the bracelet was in Becky’s possession. With the way Sterling was acting she didn’t want him anywhere near the house, Gran or the teenager.

  Sterling stepped toward her, drawing his arm back as if to slap her. Judi saw the motion, but disbelief threatened to paralyze her. She had to move. Had to—

  Sterling abruptly spun away from her, his expression of mingled fury and astonishment almost comical.

  Thomas had grabbed his arm—his would-be slapping arm—to pull him around, then landed a blow to Sterling’s jaw that continued the rotation, and sent her former fiancé sprawling in the dirt, facedown.

  “Oh, my God. If you hadn’t… Is he all right?”

  Without bending, Thomas looked him over. “He’s breathing.”

  That was about all Sterling deserved at this point. She gave a nod and stepped around her one-time fiancé.

  “Thomas, this isn’t what you think.”

  “Yeah? What do I think?”

  “You’ve got your suspicious mind going a hundred miles a minute and it’s all adding up to me being guilty of every sin in the book.”

  “Like lying? Did you ever lose your memory?”

  “No. I heard something and I needed a place to hide out for a while—”

  He stiffened, his face taut with anger. But he nodded as if everything was clear now. “Someplace to escape to and get away from a mess you’d made in real life. And we looked like likely patsies.”

  “It wasn’t like that. I was just following roads, and I saw the roofs and I was hungry, so I turned in and there you were, on Dickens. And then Becky was saying I must be Helga and have amnesia, and you needed somebody to care for Gran and the house. I thought I could—”

  “Lie to us, and run away again when it suited you.”

  How often she’d thought that the atmosphere changed when the two of them came together, creating thunder and lightning. Now the storm had turned into a tornado. Dark and menacing and unpredictable.

  “I was going to tell you as soon as… I didn’t want to drag you into it. If it’s what she said it was—well, sort of said—”

  “You can’t even remember which lie to tell.” He picked her driver’s license and a credit card out of the dirt. “Judith Marie Monroe of Lake Forest, Illinois. I’d like to say it’s a pleasure to meet you, but that would be a lie. I’ll give you this much—you’re just engaged, not married. You must have gotten a real laugh out of my little story the other night.”

  The winds of the funnel cloud whirled tighter and faster.

  “I wanted to tell—”

  “You better quit while you’re behind.” He extended the cards to her. “Besides, your fiancé’s stirring.”

  She glanced around at Sterling, who groaned, but didn’t move.

  “You can stay out of sight until your fiancé—”

  “He’s not my—”

  “—leaves. Then you can borrow a truck to get out of here, and go back to Lake Forest. On one condition—don’t you be the one to bring the truck back, because I don’t want you around here ever again.”

  “Thomas, you knew I didn’t have amnesia. You knew I was somebody other than Helga. I know you did—you know you did. There were a hundred times I tripped up, and you caught every one of them. And it wasn’t that hard, because I’m a lousy liar. I always have been.”

  “You lied just fine. You said you’d never hurt my family.”

  She sucked in a breath at the pain of that, but she didn’t give up. “I deserve that. But I’ll come back when I can explain, Thomas. And if you would trust me a little longer—”

  “I’d like to oblige a lady,” he said in a cutting voice. “Even one who thinks she’s played me for a fool. But I can’t trust you a little longer, because I’ve never trusted you at all.”

  Thomas had his doubts that a bucket of water over the head could rouse a man from unconsciousness. But pouring it over Sterling Carroll’s head gave him a small measure of satisfaction.

  It might have been a larger measure of satisfaction if it had been over Hel—no, Judi’s head.

  But the sooner he got rid of the frustrated groom, the sooner the bride could come out of hiding in the bunkhouse, pack up and get the hell off the Diamond V.

  Swearing and spluttering against the mud in his mouth, Sterling Carroll scrambled ungracefully to his feet. He sure didn’t look as pretty as when he’d arrived.

  “You!”

  “Yup. Owner of this two-bit ranch, remember?”

  “Where is she? You can’t hide her from me. She has something that belongs to me.”

  “You won’t find whatever it is you’re after here, because she’s gone. While you were sleeping in the dirt, she left with everything she came with.”

  “She’s gone?”

  “Yeah. And you have five minutes to be gone, too.”

  “Where’d she go? How long ago? You have to know where she was headed. I’ll make it worth your while. Fifty bucks.”

  “Four minutes.”

  “Two hundred bucks. At least which direction.”

  “Three minutes.”

  “That bitch has the bracelet and I got to have it. It’s gold. A charm bracelet—you know things hanging off it, like a…a…” He swore. “The only one I care about is the heart. A gold heart hanging off that damned bracelet I gave Judi.”

  “Then you better go after her. One minute.”

  “Listen—”

  “Forty seconds.”

  Muttering about the charm bracelet and a key, the man wasted no more time in leaving. Scuff marks in the dirt and the trail of dust pluming behind the rental car were all that proved this hadn’t been a dream.

  But it was true all right.

  What had been a dream was the rest of it. Letting her fool him into thinking she was something she’d never been—the woman for him.

  Becky rushed into the kitchen. “I can’t find Thomas anywhere.”
r />   Judi’s eyes welled again, so she had to stop writing the note of instructions, updates, warnings and schedules for the people of the Diamond V.

  She’d hoped—a desperate hope she’d known even as she nurtured it—that he might give her a chance to explain before she left.

  From the bunkhouse, she’d heard Sterling’s car peel out. By the time she’d reached the barn, there’d been no sign of Thomas. While Becky had searched for her brother, Judi had packed. The bags she’d arrived with were now in the truck Gandy had filled up at Thomas’s orders before he rode off on Dickens. Thomas, no doubt, would have liked it if she’d cleared out without leaving any evidence that she’d ever been here. Defiantly, she’d left the silk robe on Becky’s bed with a note, and she’d left a lacy bra on the inside handle of the bathroom she’d shared with Thomas. She’d packed the jeans—as if memories of the Diamond V weren’t going to go with her no matter what.

  “He doesn’t want to be found.” A tear fell on the paper under her hand. She blinked hard to hold the rest back. “I wanted to say…goodbye.”

  “He’ll come around.” But Gran didn’t sound certain. “He’s hardheaded, but he’s not an unfair man.”

  “If you just stayed…Thomas would have to—I mean, you made me see he might be a pain, but when he really cares about somebody… If you just stayed, he’d have to—”

  “I can’t.” Even if she hadn’t worried that Sterling might come back and somehow bring his trouble down on the people here, she couldn’t have stayed. Not with the way Thomas felt about her.

  She finished the note, not signing it, because what would she sign? Helga was a lie, and Judi was a stranger to them.

  “I can’t explain it all now. But if that man comes back, you tell him the truth—that I never told you who I am, and now I’ve left and you don’t know where I went. Be angry at me, don’t defend me to him. Don’t let him think you’re on my side. Understand? Becky?”

  The girl nodded, then burst out. “Oh, God, I think it’s my fault! I told Yvonne about you not being Helga, and we were trying to figure out what you could be running from. And she told Mary Beth. And Mary Beth heard this guy asking around at the motel over by the Interstate, and she thinks she let something slip. And—”