THE BRIDE WORE BLUE JEANS

by Mary Anne Wilson

  She sank back in her seat, but when she started to tell him she would take her chances on her own, he cut her off.

  "And don't think of walking from here. The next town is miles away, and they'll get you before you work up a sweat."

  "Okay, it's your car, your rules. You've got the upper hand, but we can't stop for long."

  "Until it's dark," he said.

  "Just until six o'clock."

  "No, nine. It should be completely dark by then."

  She hesitated. "Seven, and it should be getting dusky by then."

  He shook his head. "No, the earliest we can show ourselves is eight."

  She bit her lip, but ended up agreeing. "Eight."

  "Good," he affirmed.

  "Now," she said as she brushed at her hair, "let's find some place to lay low, as you say. "

  "Exactly," he returned and pulled back out on the road. As they drove in silence, Quint realized he'd just made a deal with Annie. She was in his car, using his gas, putting his tail on the line and she was actually bargaining with him.

  "If we're going to stop," she finally said, "I hardly think we're going to find a motel or hotel around here."

  "Who mentioned a motel or hotel?"

  "I'm not sleeping in this car again," she declared quickly.

  He wasn't at all sure he could do any resting in this car with her close by, not when he remembered all too well the last time he let himself fall asleep near her.

  "We'll find something," he replied when he spotted a side road.

  He slowed, then turned onto it. Trees pressed in on either side and low brush choked the ground. It didn't look as if anyone had been on the road for a long time. Weeds shot up through cracks in the blacktop, and tree branches were so low that any car sitting higher than the Corvette, would have been whipped by them.

  "What's up here?" Annie asked.

  "Nothing but isolation, I hope."

  He followed the road, rounded a corner, and came upon a rusted chain strung across the road from heavy iron posts partially covered by wild brush. A metal sign with rust holes in it was wired to the chain: No Trespassing.

  "I guess that's it," Annie said.

  "We'll see," Quint replied as he got out and crossed to the chain. He checked where it was attached to the posts. Wire held it in place on the one side, and the wire was almost rusted through. Gripping the chain with both hands, he jerked back on it as hard as he could and the wire popped.

  He dropped the chain, went back to the car and got in. When he drove forward over the chain, Annie said quickly, "You can't do that. This is someone's property."

  He cast her a quick look, never used to the way his whole being seemed to come alive just at the sight of her. "I hardly think after evading arrest, we have to worry about a little thing like trespassing."

  "But you can't just—"

  He cut off her words by stopping the car and getting out to head back to the opening. He pulled the chain back across the road, used the rusted wire to hold it in place, then he went back to the car.

  "Don't look a gift horse in the mouth," he muttered as he got back in.

  "How about, necessity is the mother of invention?" she asked.

  He looked at her, the sunlight dappling through the boughs overhead, touching her face with a delicate beauty that all but took his breath away. Humor was the last thing on his mind right then, but he managed, "Crime, like virtue, has its degrees." He put the car in gear. "And this is a very small crime and a necessary one. Trust me, I know."

  * * *

  Chapter 10

  « ^ »

  Quint drove forward, up the winding road until it crested and leveled out into a meadow-like clearing. The road ended right in front of a small, dilapidated cabin in the middle of dry grass and wildflowers. He went as far as he could, then stopped the car, and pressed the horn. The harsh blare echoed around the clearing, then he hit the horn again. No one appeared at the door or from behind the cabin. "It looks deserted. I think we just found a place to stop for a while."

  When he would have gotten out, Annie grabbed him by the arm, and the contact made him freeze. Even as he turned to face her, her connection with him was almost searing. "What now?"

  "You aren't going to break into that house, are you?"

  "I'm going to visit the owner," he muttered and pulled free of her touch so he could think clearly.

  She let him go, but she didn't back down a bit. "Someone might not mind you coming onto his land, but you really can't take over his home."

  "Watch me," he said and got out, needing distance to take a deep breath without the air being touched by the scent of Annie.

  He heard her coming after him, but he didn't hesitate as he took the two steps to the sagging porch in one stride. He crossed, grabbed the latch and thankfully it gave way without much effort. Then the door swung back on creaking hinges and he stepped into the house.

  As his eyes adjusted to the dimness, he could make out a single room with a peaked ceiling, plank flooring and two small windows at the back covered by pieces of red-and-white checked material. The space was no more than twenty-by-twenty feet, and sparsely furnished with an iron-frame bed, stripped, the linen piled on the mattress by the footboard and a small table with a single chair. There was a potbellied stove, a huge cabinet on the back wall next to a free-standing sink and some threadbare throw rugs on the floor.

  It made him feel closed in, almost trapped, but it would do for Annie. He could stay in the car and rest as long as she wasn't too close to him. He needed to move and he crossed to a draped doorway on the right to draw back the gray material. He saw an old-fashioned pull toilet, a shower stall framed by metal and glass, and a sink with rust staining the porcelain.

  As he let the material fall back in place, he turned and found Annie on the porch in the open doorway. "The maid service looks pretty deplorable, but it's got indoor plumbing. Nothing fancy, but it's all there."

  "We can't just come in here like this," she said, not moving.

  He spread his arms at his sides. "Get over it, Annie. We're in here, and we're here until eight o'clock. You can stay in the car or stay in here. It's your choice."

  He couldn't keep looking at her with the sun at her back, her hair rich copper and her long legs bared in the shorts. So he turned and opened the cabinet and found a sparse selection of canned goods, a few dishes and on the bottom shelf, some extra linen. Everything had the odor of being closed for a very long time, a staleness that needed fresh air and sunshine to banish it.

  "If it makes you feel any better, we'll leave some money to cover our time here," he said as he closed the cupboard door.

  He heard her move behind him, and when he turned around, she was a few feet from him. The soft light in the cabin blurred her features slightly, but that didn't stop his instant response to her. Or the small space shrinking even more until he could hear each breath she took.

  "I guess, if you leave money, it wouldn't be like just using the place," she murmured.

  "Good." He moved past her without inhaling and went to the door. "While I get some things out of the car, why don't you check and see if the plumbing works."

  Annie moved to let him pass, feeling the oddest sense of contact with him when none was made. She seemed to just inhale and catch at him, then he was gone and heading out the door and down the steps to the car. She turned back to the room, then crossed to the sink and turned on the spigot. Water ran slowly out of it into the chipped sink, cold and clean.

  "You've got the bed," Quint said from behind her, startling her.

  She fumbled to turn off the spigot then turned. He was by the foot of the bed, and he'd stripped off his T-shirt and discarded it on top of his duffel bag that was sitting on the floor beside her suitcase at his feet. The sight of him bare-chested made her mouth go dry and she felt like a teenager in the throes of a stupid crush. She had to force herself not to look at his bare chest and the suggestive sprinkling of hair that formed an arrow downward.


  And the idea of a bed right now was unsettling. "No," she said as she stared at a spot near his right shoulder. "You can have it. You're the one driving."

  "I'm not used to anything that resembles comfort. And I hate being closed in." He smiled, a rueful expression, almost apologetic. "Tight places just aren't that appealing to me right now. Take the bed, and I'll stretch out on the porch with a couple of the blankets or in the car. Trust me, I won't miss a mattress."

  His words were said with a degree of lightness, but she could hear an underlying uneasiness in them. "Okay, I'll take the bed."

  "Good, a woman who's agreeable. Now, how's the water situation?"

  "It's on, but it's cold."

  "There's a generator in a shed up the side, but I don't think there's any fuel to start it up. If we take showers, they'll have to be cold."

  "Any sort of shower sounds good to me," Annie murmured.

  "Me, too," he said as he crossed to the curtained doorway. "Heads or tails?"

  "Excuse me?"

  "We'll flip for first use of the plumbing facilities," he said as he pushed his hand into the pocket of his jeans and pulled out a quarter.

  "Heads," she murmured, and Quint tossed the quarter in the air, then caught it between the back of his forearm and his palm.

  "Heads," he said as he looked under his hand, then back at Annie. "Luck's with you."

  "I hope so," she whispered and went to pick up her suitcase by the bed.

  When she approached the curtained door, Quint stopped her by saying her name. "Annie?"

  She stopped, but didn't look up at him. "What?"

  "I'm taking you to Taos. I'm not dropping you in some hick town. And that isn't open to discussion."

  She felt the sting of tears behind her eyes, and she knew she couldn't look at Quint right then. She didn't know what to say, so she nodded, then ducked past the gray curtain into the bathroom.

  She quickly put down her suitcase and turned on the water in the small stall. Without giving herself time to think, she stripped off her clothes, then eased in under the cold water. At first she began to shake from the cold, then as the water ran over her, tears came. She had never been one to cry. She just coped and went on, but the tears came the way they had in the rest room at the bus station, without rhyme or reason. And they didn't stop until she was spent and so cold her teeth were chattering.

  * * *

  When Quint came out of the bathroom after his shower an hour later, Annie was nowhere in sight. His last glimpse of her had been when she'd stepped out of the cabin after her shower, with her hair wet and lying close to her head. She'd dressed in white shorts and a navy tank top, and her feet bare when she dropped down on the top step of the porch.

  He walked across the empty cabin, then spotted her through the open door, still sitting where he'd left her. Her hair was drying and curling crazily around her shoulders, turned to fire in the rays of the sun that broke through the trees. She sat very still, her arms wrapped around her bent legs and her chin rested on her knees.

  He'd meant it when he'd told her he'd get her to Taos, even though she didn't say a thing when he made the statement. And he hadn't been prepared for how it made him feel when he heard her crying when the shower hadn't been able to hide the sounds.

  He'd heard people cry, grown men sobbing, but nothing had touched him as deeply as when he heard her cry. First in the men's room when he'd held her and hadn't understood. Then the sounds of sobs coming from the shower. She was scared, and he knew that if Trevor Raines was here right now, he'd be hard put to not kill the guy.

  He raked his fingers through his damp hair, skimming it back from his face, then he padded barefoot to the door. He'd always hated jerks, no matter where he met them, but this was different. He wanted to keep Annie safe, to keep hurt and pain away from her, and that was everything that Trevor seemed to mean to her.

  When he saw her shoulders trembling, he almost turned and walked back into the cabin. But before he could silently escape, she spoke to him.

  "It's so peaceful here, isn't it?" she said softly.

  He felt anything but peaceful right now. "It's quiet, that's for sure," he said from the doorway.

  "No, it's more than that. It gives you the feeling that nothing can intrude, that the ugliness in life just doesn't exist." Her rueful chuckle was very soft. "What a lie. Even a place like this won't make Trevor disappear in a puff of smoke."

  He suddenly wished he had it in his power to give her a place like that, a world where there was no ugliness or pain. The irony of that thought wasn't lost on him. An ex-con on parole couldn't give anyone peace, including himself. "No, it's still part of the world," he said.

  "It wasn't the money with Trevor," she said abruptly. "I want you to know that. It never was the money. It was the things he had that I never had, family, roots, a place that was really home." She shifted and hugged her arms around herself. "I'm so scared."

  "About Trevor?" he asked without moving.

  "Yes, him, but other things even more."

  "What other things?"

  She inhaled, and he saw the unsteadiness in her shoulders. "I owe you an explanation."

  "You've told me everything I need to know."

  "No, I haven't."

  He stood very still, and he knew exactly what she was going to say. And he wasn't sure he wanted to hear it. He'd pushed the name she'd screamed in her nightmare out of his mind. But now he knew it was coming back to haunt him. "What didn't you tell me?"

  "There's someone."

  His being tightened. "Sam?"

  That brought a startled reaction from her. She twisted to look at him over her shoulder. "What did you say?"

  He had to work at not clenching his jaw. "Sam, your friend in Taos."

  "Oh, boy, have you got it all wrong," she said and turned away with a shaky laugh.

  His nerves were stretched to the breaking point, and there was no way he found this amusing. He crossed the small porch and strode past Annie to go down the stairs. Then he turned and he was almost at eye level with her as she sat on the top step. "This isn't funny."

  She shook her head, then stretched out her legs and pressed her hands flat on the wooden floor of the porch at her sides. "No, it's not. But how did you know about Sammi?"

  "When you had your nightmare in the car, you called out to him."

  She closed her eyes and exhaled softly. "Oh, that's how."

  "Annie, what is he to you?"

  "I'd better start at the beginning."

  "Just tell me the truth."

  She sat forward and spread her slender hands on her thighs. "It's true that I was going to marry Trevor, that I heard him talking, that he got ugly when I confronted him, that I left him lying on the ground unconscious and ran. That I'm not going to go back, no matter what he tries. It's probably true that he's not going to give up, even when I get to Taos and disappear."

  He could see the way her hold on her legs tightened with each word she said. "Because of your involvement with this Sam person?"

  "Yes."

  Quint didn't realize until right then how much he'd wanted anything but that answer. Stupidity seemed to be all he did well lately. "I see."

  "No, you don't."

  He looked at her, wishing she was ugly and as undesirable as a fence post. But she wasn't. The sun exposed the delicate beauty of her face, and the intensity in her eyes. "What don't I understand? You had someone else, thought you could go through with a wedding to Trevor so you could be part of the Raines family, then got cold feet. Isn't that about it?"

  "No."

  Bitterness burned his throat. "Then why don't you tell me what's going on with you and use plain English, Annie."

  "Plain English." She hesitated, then said, "Sam is actually Samantha, usually called Sammi."

  "What?"

  "And Trevor's never going to give up, even if I get to Taos, because he wants our daughter."

  The statement sent him reeling. "Sam … Sammi
is your daughter?"

  "Yes."

  "Oh, God," he muttered, no boyfriend, but a child. He turned from Annie, trying to absorb what she'd just said. But as the truth settled into him, he realized something else, something ugly and frightening. He clenched his hands at his sides, then turned back to face her.

  "Let me get this straight. You and Trevor have a child, and you tried to kill him because you've got her hidden someplace?"

  "I didn't try to kill him, but I probably thought about it. But he was getting rough and ugly and I just got out."

  Sir Galahad? A knight in shining armor? Despite two years in hell for charging in where he shouldn't have, he'd done it again. But this time he'd burst into a child custody battle that seemed to be going from ugly to dangerous. "Oh, man."

  "Quint, let me explain."

  "No, let me guess. Trevor's got every cop in this territory gunning for you, because you kidnapped his kid?"

  She spread her hands palms up. "No, she's with my friends. She's safe and that's the way she's going to stay. Trevor only wants Sammi because she's the Raineses' only grandchild, and she gives him a handle on all that money."

  "You've lost me."

  "Trevor doesn't care about Sammi. When he found out I was pregnant, he never even contacted me. He never returned my letters. He wasn't there when she was born, or when she said her first word, or when she took her first step. He didn't even see her until two months ago."

  She bit her lip hard. "He showed up at my doorstep in Taos professing his undying love for both of us. Telling me what a fool he'd been to let me go and to have missed so much of Sammi's life. And I bought into it."

  Her voice was getting more and more unsteady, until she had to stop and take a breath before she could go on. And whatever anger Quint had been harboring was rapidly slipping away from him. "His parents found out about the baby and gave him an ultimatum. Get their grandchild and marry her mother, or get out.