Runaway Temptation

by Maureen Child

  Before he could say anything, she rolled right on.

  Waving one hand, then grabbing up fabric again with another curse, she said, “I know he’ll be angry and probably hurt today but sooner or later, he’s going to see that I did the right thing and who knows, maybe he’ll even thank me for it at some point.”

  “Don’t hold your breath,” Caleb muttered.

  “What? Never mind.” Shaking her head, she took a deep breath, looked out over the open road and said, “Even if he doesn’t thank me out loud, he’ll be glad. Eventually. This is better. I mean, I don’t know what to do now, but this is definitely better. For both of us.”

  “You sound sure.”

  She looked at him again until he felt compelled to meet those forest green eyes of hers however briefly. “I am,” she said. “So thank you. Again.”

  “You’re welcome.” Caleb didn’t know what the hell he was supposed to do with her, so he was headed home. Back at the ranch, she could call her own family. Or a cab. And then she could be on her way and he could get out of this damn suit.

  With that thought firmly in mind, Caleb focused on the familiar road stretching out ahead of him and did his best to ignore the beautiful woman sitting way too close to him.

  There were wide sweeps of open land dotted with the scrub oaks that grew like weeds in East Texas. Here and there were homes and barns, with horses in paddocks and cattle grazing in the fields. The sky was the kind of clear, deep blue he’d only ever seen in Texas and those few gusting clouds he’d glimpsed earlier had gathered up a few friends.

  Everything was absolutely normal. Except for the bride in his truck.

  “Weird day,” he muttered.

  “It is, isn’t it?” She whipped her hair out of her eyes to look at him. “I never thought I’d be a fugitive from my own wedding. And I know I’ve said this already, but thank you. I kind of threw myself at you and didn’t give you much room to back off, so I really appreciate you riding to the rescue.”

  “I could have said no,” he reminded her.

  She tilted her head to one side and studied him. “No, I don’t think you could have.”

  He snorted. “Is that right?”

  “Yeah. I think so.” She shook her head. “You’ve got the whole ‘responsible’ vibe going on. Anyway, I didn’t know how I was going to get away. Didn’t even think about it. I just ran.”

  “Right into me.” And he had gotten a real good feel of the body beneath that ugly-ass gown. High, firm breasts, narrow waist, nicely rounded hips. He frowned and shifted as his own body suddenly went tight and uncomfortable. Hell. Just what he needed.

  “Yeah, I’m sorry you got dragged into this.”

  He glanced at her. “No, you’re not.”

  She grinned. “No, I guess I’m really not. Hard to be sorry about finding a white knight.”

  He let that one go because he was nobody’s hero.

  “So now what?” he asked. “What are you going to do from here?”

  She sat back and stared at him. “I have no idea.”

  “Well, what was the plan?”

  “Like I said, there wasn’t a plan. I just had to get away.” Shaking her head, she stared out the windshield. “I didn’t even know I was going to run until just before I did.”

  She’d torn down her hair and now it was a tangled mess of dark red curls that flew around her face in the wind whipping through the opened windows. He’d had the AC on, but she’d shut it off and rolled down her window, insisting she needed to feel the wind on her face. Caleb didn’t know what it said about him that he preferred that hair of hers wild and free to the carefully pinned-up style she’d had when she ran from the club.

  She still had the skirt of her wedding dress hiked up to her knees and Caleb took another admiring look at her long slim legs. Then he fixed his gaze on the road again. “Look, I’ll take you out to my ranch—”

  “Your ranch.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Jared said he had a ranch.”

  Caleb snorted. “The Goodmans used to run a ranch, generations ago. Now they rent the land out to other ranchers so they can live in town.”

  “So I discovered.” She held her hair back, narrowed her eyes on him and asked, “Anyway, we know I’m not crazy.”

  “Do we?”

  She ignored that. “Now I have to ask. Are you a crazy person?”

  Both eyebrows lifted and he snorted a laugh. “What kind of question is that?”

  “One I probably should have asked before I hopped into your truck.”

  “Good point.” A reluctant smile tugged at his mouth.

  “Well, I thought I should ask before we go much further down this pretty empty road.”

  Amused in spite of everything, he asked, “What happened to me being a damn hero rescuing you?”

  “Oh, you’re still a hero,” she assured him, “but you could be crazy, too. You aren’t, though, are you?”

  “Would I admit it if I was?”

  “You might.” She shrugged. “There’s no telling with crazy people.”

  “Know a lot of nut jobs, do you?” Caleb shook his head, he couldn’t believe he was having this conversation.

  “A few, but you don’t seem like you’re one of them.” A wide swath of lace lifted into the wind and she snatched it and held it down on her lap. “Have you ever seen so much tulle?”

  “What’s tulle?”

  “This.” She lifted the swath of netting again. “It’s awful.”

  “If you don’t like it, Why’d you buy it?”

  “I didn’t.” She sighed. “Jared’s mother picked it out.”

  Caleb laughed. “Sounds like her.”

  “Okay, you’re not crazy.” She nodded and gave a sigh of satisfaction. “If you don’t like my almost mother-in-law you’re obviously stable.”

  “Thanks.” Still shaking his head, he said, “Like I was saying, I’ll take you to the ranch. You can figure out where to go from there.”

  “I don’t know where I can go,” she said quietly turning her head to stare out the window at the scenery flying past. “I don’t have my purse, my wallet. God, I don’t even have clothes.”

  Caleb didn’t like the sound of the rising hysteria in her voice.

  “I don’t know what I was thinking,” she said, and her words tumbled over each other in their rush to get out. “My God, I don’t have anything with me.”

  “I can take you to an ATM—”

  “No purse,” she interrupted. “No wallet, remember? No clothes except for this giant marshmallow of a dress.” She slapped one hand to her chest as if trying to hold her heart inside her body.

  “You’re starting to panic,” he pointed out.

  “Of course I am.” Her eyes were wild. “Now that I got away, I can think about other things and what I’m thinking is that I’m alone. In a strange place. Don’t know anyone but the people I’m escaping from.”

  He watched from the corner of his eye as she shook her head frantically.

  “I can’t exactly go over to the Goodmans’ house and say please can I have my things? My clothes. My purse. My ID. My phone.” She dropped her head into her hands and now her face was covered by what looked like an acre of tulle. “This is a nightmare,” she muttered.

  “Remember, you wake up from nightmares.”

  She lifted her head to glare at him. “Easy for you to say since I’m assuming you actually have a change of clothing.”

  “Good point.” He nodded. “Yeah, you’re about the same size as my sister-in-law. You can wear some of her stuff.”

  “Great. And what if she doesn’t feel like being generous?”

  “She’s out of town.”

  A short laugh shot from Shelby’s throat. “So I’ve been on my own about fifteen minutes and already I�
�m stealing clothes.”

  “Not stealing. Borrowing.” He paused. “Are you always this dramatic?”

  “Only when my world implodes,” she said and looked at him again. “So basically, I’m homeless and destitute. Well, hasn’t this day turned out all sparkly?”

  He laughed.

  She narrowed her eyes on him, then reluctantly, laughed herself. “This is not how I pictured my life going.”

  “Yeah, not how I saw my day going, either,” he replied, grateful that she seemed to be coming down from that momentary panic.

  “Honestly,” she said with another shake of her head, “I didn’t think beyond moving to Texas to marry Prince Charming who turned out to be a frog.”

  “And you didn’t notice that right off?”

  “No.” She huffed out a breath and turned her face into the wind. “Usually I’m a terrific judge of character.”

  When he didn’t agree, she reminded him, “I picked you to rescue me, didn’t I?”

  Amused again, Caleb laughed. “Yeah, but your choices were limited.”

  “I could have just run screaming down the street,” she pointed out. “Which was first on my to-do list until I saw you.” She paused for breath. “Did you ever notice how appropriate the name Grimm was for an author of fairy tales?”

  “Can’t say I ever thought about it.”

  “Well, I’ve had the time lately. And the motivation. I mean, seriously. Look at this mess. It’s got it all. The feckless fiancé who’d gone from hero to wimp. His vicious mother and creepy father, not to mention his grabby brother.”

  “Grabby?” Caleb scowled at the road ahead and admitted silently that he was really starting to sympathize with his runaway passenger. The Goodman family wasn’t exactly the best Royal had to offer and Shelby Arthur had discovered that the hard way.

  She shuddered. “Justin is not someone a woman should be alone with. The only bright spot in that family was Jared’s sister, Brooke. She must be adopted,” Shelby added under her breath, then continued, “but by now, even she’s probably furious with me.”

  “Do you need me to respond or are you good to talk all on your own?”

  “God this is a mess.”

  “Seems to be.”

  She turned to look at him. “Not going to try to console me?”

  “Would it do any good?”

  “No.”

  “Then it’d be a waste of time, wouldn’t it?”

  “Are you always so chatty?” she asked.

  “Yep.”

  Shelby laughed, and the sound was soft and rich and touched something in Caleb he didn’t want to acknowledge. Still, her laughter was better than the anxiety he’d just been listening to.

  “Look,” he said. “You come out to the house and you can stay there a day or two. Figure out what you want to do.”

  “Stay there. With you.”

  He shot her a look. “Don’t look so damn suspicious. I’m not offering you a spot in my bed.” Damn shame about that, he admitted to himself, since just looking at her made him want to reach out and cover her mouth with his. And a few other things besides. But not the point.

  “You can stay on the other side of the house,” he said. “My mother died a couple years ago. You can have her wing. We won’t even see each other.”

  “Her wing?” Shelby frowned. “How big is this house?”

  “Big enough.”

  * * *

  At the Texas Cattleman’s Club, the reception for the wedding that didn’t happen was in full swing. A band played dance music as a Goodman wedding would never have accepted something so pedestrian as a DJ. The tables were decorated with snowy white cloths and a bud vase on each table held a single pink rose. The soft clink of china and crystal was an undercurrent to the music and, while the crowd gathered in knots to exchange gossip about the runaway bride, Rose Clayton sat alone at a table watching it all.

  At sixty-seven, Rose was an attractive woman with a figure she took care of, stylishly cut dark brown hair with just a hint of gray—thanks to a talented stylist—that swung in a loose fall at her jawline, and her sharp, smoke-colored eyes never missed a thing.

  Conversations rose and fell around her like a continuous wave. She was only half listening, and even at that, she caught plenty of people talking about the upcoming TCC board elections. There had been a time when she wouldn’t have given them a thought. But, now that women were also full-fledged members in the Texas Cattleman’s Club, she was more than a little interested.

  As far as Rose was concerned, their current president, James Harris, was doing a wonderful job and she saw no reason to make a change. It was nice to eavesdrop and hear that most of the other members felt the same way.

  As people passed her table, they nodded or smiled, but kept moving. Rose’s reputation as the uncrowned queen of Royal society kept people at bay even as they treated her with the respect she’d earned through years of a stubborn refusal to surrender to the unhappiness in her own life.

  Rose knew everyone at the reception. She’d watched many of them grow up. Including Margaret Fraser Goodman. The woman, Rose thought, had been born an old stick. She had always been more concerned with appearances than with what really mattered. But even as she mentally chastised Margaret, Rose had to admit that she had done the same. The difference was, she assured herself, that Rose found enjoyment within the parameters that had been forced on her so long ago.

  Her gaze fixed on Margaret Goodman briefly and noted the crazed look in her eyes and the grim slash of a mouth she kept forcing into a hard smile. Rose had already heard bits and pieces of chatter, no doubt started by Margaret, that had turned the situation around. Now, the story went, it was Jared who had changed his mind at the last moment. Told his unfortunate bride to leave.

  And a part of Margaret might even believe it. Rose had never met the now missing bride, but damn if she didn’t admire the woman. She’d taken charge of her own life and done what she’d had to do. Who knew how Rose’s life might have turned out if she’d had the same gumption?

  But times had been different fifty years ago and Rose’s father, Jed, had been a man no one crossed. Her gaze swept the room until she spotted her grandson Daniel. Daniel Clayton was her reward for all of the misery she’d managed to survive over the decades.

  A grown man now, he was handsome, intelligent and damned funny when he wanted to be. He was the light of her life and there wasn’t a thing she wouldn’t do to see him happy. Within reason.

  “Oh, that is simply unacceptable,” Rose murmured to herself as she saw Daniel bend down and gently kiss a pretty woman who looked dazzled by his attention.

  Alexis Slade.

  The granddaughter of Gus Slade.

  Just thinking the man’s name gave Rose’s heart a jolt. Once upon a time, she’d been crazy in love with that old goat and risked her father’s wrath to be with him. Until the night her father made the threat that had ended everything between her and Gus forever.

  She squared her shoulders and lifted her chin. Nodding to people who addressed her, she was a part of the crowd and yet separate from it as her mind raced back through the years.

  For decades now, the Claytons and the Slades had been if not enemies, then at least at odds. They didn’t socialize. Didn’t trust each other. And they surely didn’t look at each other as Daniel and Alexis were right that minute. She wouldn’t have it. And what’s more, Rose was quite sure that on this subject at least, Gus would agree with her.

  Their grandchildren had been sweet on each other years ago, but Rose and Gus had put a stop to it. Gus sent Alexis off to an out-of-state college, while Rose kept Daniel so busy with ranch work, he didn’t have time to miss the girl he couldn’t have.

  “Unacceptable,” she whispered again, tapping her manicured nails against the tablecloth in a muffled staccato. Again, she scanned the roo
m, but this time, she was looking for someone in particular.

  When she found him, Rose stood, crossed the room and stopped at his table. “Gus. We have to talk.”

  Three

  Gus Slade wore a steel-gray suit with a white shirt and a bold red tie. His black cowboy hat rested on the table alongside his arm. His thick hair, once black as midnight, was silver now, and his skin was tanned and leathered from years of working out in the Texas sun. He was leaning back in his chair, one booted foot resting on a knee. At sixty-nine, he was still a powerful, magnetic man.

  Damn it.

  His piercing blue eyes fixed on Rose with neither welcome nor warning. “Talk about what?”

  Ignoring his rudeness, she took a seat near him, glanced over her shoulder toward their grandchildren and said pointedly, “That.”

  He took a look, then frowned. “Nothing to talk about. Keep your boy away from my girl and we have no problem.”

  “Take another look, you old goat,” Rose said in a whispered hush. “It’s Alexis doing the flirting. And she’s got the look of a woman who’s been thoroughly—recently—kissed.”

  Gus’s frown deepened and his gaze shifted to Rose. “A woman flirting doesn’t mean a damn thing. And kisses are fleeting, aren’t they, Rose?”

  She took a gulp of air at the implied insult. Rose had been sixteen years old when she fell head over heels in love with Gus. And if she had to be honest—the man could still give her insides a jump start. But damned if she’d sit there and be insulted.

  “I didn’t come over here to talk about the past.”

  “Then why are you sitting at my table?” he snapped.

  Rose swallowed back her annoyance. Since the death of his wife, Sarah, from cancer a few years before, Gus had become even more unsociable than usual. And another piece of her heart ached. Sarah Slade had once been Rose’s best friend, but Rose had lost them both when she’d rejected Gus. He had turned to Sarah for comfort and soon the two of them had been together, shutting Rose out completely.