The Runaway Bride

by Patricia McLinn

  “Car’s got Nebraska plates,” he muttered.

  “I don’t know. It doesn’t sound familiar.”

  “That’s okay, Helga. Don’t let my brother badger you. That’s how amnesia works sometimes—you might remember bits and pieces at first and some you might never recover. But the job isn’t super technical. Besides, there’re pages and pages of instructions. Thomas and I’ve been doing it, and it’s been okay, hasn’t it, Gran?”

  “You and Thomas have done wonderfully, Becky. And I’m sure Helga will, too, even with amnesia. Thomas can help when there’s real strength required.”

  Thomas turned toward the woman who’d raised him since he was eight. She couldn’t be serious. But she was.

  He tried to inject sanity into the discussion again. “If that bump on her head’s made her lose her memory, we should get her to a doctor, let him look at it.”

  “Any doctor will tell her to rest and her memory will come back in flashes over the next few months,” Becky said. “That’s what the doctors always say for amnesia from bumps on the head. Now with traumatic amnesia—”

  “Soap opera doctors! You’re quoting medical advice from those slick actors on TV? You’ve got to be kidding—”

  “They do a lot of research for those shows and—”

  “Both of you be quiet. I’ve had a good deal of experience with looking after blows to the head in my day, and I’m satisfied that Helga doesn’t need stitches or to see a doctor.” Before he could say what he was thinking, Gran sent him a cool look and added, “Becky, you could help by taking Helga’s things upstairs. I’m sure I heard Gandy bring in her suitcase a while back.”

  But that gave him an idea. Without saying anything, he strode out, down the hall to the kitchen, where Gandy had left one rollable suitcase and a tote—both new—a badly crumpled map of Wyoming, and one empty bag from a fast-food restaurant. That was it. No purse, no wallet. No ID. Gandy wouldn’t have missed it. Gran had said bring everything, so he had—right down to an empty paper sack.

  Thomas returned to the room that had been his until Gran needed it during her recuperation, walked right up to where the stranger sat so she had to tilt her head back to look at him, and talked over Becky’s nonsense about what soap operas had taught her about amnesia.

  “You don’t have a wallet?”

  “No, I—I don’t remember.”

  Bull. She’d started to say something else, then she remembered all right—she remembered she wasn’t supposed to remember.

  “What kind of woman drives around without a purse? You’ve got to have a driver’s license.”

  She opened her eyes wide and gave a shrug that brought the points of her shoulders up nearly to her ears, and sent her long-fingered hands wide.

  “You weren’t demanding her license or that she prove she’s Helga Helgerson when she drove that car like a stunt woman to avoid smearing you and Dickens all over the road. You’re being such a—”

  He talked over his sister and demanded of the woman on the sofa. “What the hell do you remember?”

  She put her hand to her forehead like she was concentrating. “I remember a motel… Long, painted reddish brown with rounded ends…yes…and a special sign. Oh, it’s clear now! It’s the Hot Dog Inn. Yes, I definitely remember the Hot Dog Inn.”

  “What the—”

  “That’s enough, Thomas. You, too, Becky,” Gran added. “Right now what this girl needs is a shower and rest. Becky, take Helga upstairs to the rose room and—”

  “What?” The rose room was next to the one he was using, and shared a bathroom. “Why can’t she bunk with Becky down here?”

  “Because it’s senseless to cram Helga and Becky in one room when we have an empty one upstairs.”

  “Then I’ll swap with Becky.” But that wouldn’t work, either. He slept like a log, and someone downstairs had to respond if Gran called out. “Or put Becky in the rose room and put her down here.”

  “Hey! Just because you moved, which you only did because you had the biggest room in the first place—”

  “We’re not going to move Becky around for no reason.” Gran gave him a look. “Unless you have a reason?”

  Not one he was going to expound on in front of his grandmother, his half sister and the cause of the reason. He shrugged.

  Gran turned to the woman on the loveseat. “Take a shower, but don’t let the water hit your wound. You can dab out the blood with a damp cloth.”

  “You’d think a medical aide would know that,” grumbled Thomas.

  Gran paid him no heed. “Becky, get her clothes to use, help her unpack her things, then get her something to eat.”

  God, she was moving in.

  “Gran—”

  “I know you have a lot of work to get done this afternoon, Thomas, and Helga needs rest. We’ll talk more at supper. Go on now you two.”

  He kept his silence while Becky escorted the woman out. But when their footsteps could be heard heading up the stairs, he couldn’t contain himself.

  “You can’t be buying that bunk of Becky’s about amnesia. Whatever that kid knows about any medical condition is from TV, and I’m not talking Nova. And this…this stranger—” the name Helga wouldn’t come out of his mouth “—and the things she can’t remember, but, gee, she thinks she’s the health aide we hired.”

  “Well, she should know.”

  “Not according to her,” he shot back. “I’m going to contact the agency. They can send a photograph or something. Maybe fingerprints.”

  “That girl is not a criminal. If you can’t tell that, I have no hope for you, Thomas. But what will you do if they say, yes, this is Helga—and you’re liable for her medical care.”

  “That’s what insurance is for,” he said with a confidence he didn’t feel.

  “And what will you do if you find out she’s not Helga?”

  “Throw her out.” He’d get her out of here as fast as humanly possible, so she couldn’t sink her tentacles in any deeper than they already were. How could a woman do that—turning Becky’s head he understood, but Gran’s? She had seen firsthand what came of letting an outsider in.

  “Oh, that would be a fine thing to do to a woman who wrecked her car and risked her life to save that renegade horse, not to mention your sorry neck.”

  “She had no reason to be on our road. Unless she was up to no good.”

  His words sounded certain enough, but they didn’t match what he’d seen in her face in that instant their eyes met—that instant he’d known he couldn’t wheel Dickens fast enough or far enough to avoid horse and rider colliding with some three thousand pounds of automobile. When he’d seen her slumped and bloody in the crumpled car…then those hazel eyes opened. Dazed, yet somehow clear, as if showing her soul. And when he’d felt the warmth of her body, soft and smooth and—

  No. No, dammit. She wasn’t going to pull him in. He knew even better than Gran about the dangers of outsiders. Especially outsiders who looked like this.

  “Putting aside what you might owe her in the way of gratitude,” Gran said, “how long would it take the agency to get somebody else here? We started more than a month ahead to line up Helga. How would you manage if it took that long?”

  He wanted to say he would manage. Damn, he wanted to say it. But it wasn’t true. And Gran knew it.

  With Helga already two days late, there was no getting around that he needed someone to care for Gran. He’d stolen the time from days that needed every second in them, what with running the ranch a couple of hands short, and training Dickens. As for running the house…he’d be satisfied if they didn’t starve and it didn’t fall down.

  Any other time, he’d have looked to Becky to step into Gran’s shoes and run the household. But Becky was already doing nearly as much ranch work as a regular hand to help fill that gap, plus tending Gran during the nights. It wouldn’t be right to expect her to do more.

  Besides, with the way she’d been lately, if she’d been standing with her hee
ls at the edge of a cliff and he told her not to back up, she’d go over the side to spite him.

  They just had to hold on a few more weeks.

  Forty days—that’s what he had left to teach Dickens manners. He’d made progress with the mule-headed horse these first twenty days, but not enough. But he would. Then he’d get that fat training fee and the bonus, and that would put him over the top to make the payment five days later to keep a quarter of the Diamond V from going on the open market. Keeping the ranch intact, that’s what mattered.

  Forty days.

  To get through these forty days, he’d even put up with a stranger telling lies. But that didn’t mean he had to like it.

  “It’s your bones that have to mend,” he said. It didn’t move Gran. “You’ve made up your mind that you want her to stay.”

  “It only makes sense to give her a try.”

  He clamped his hat on his head and turned to go. “I’ve already burned too much daylight with this woman and her wrecked car and her supposedly not remembering things. What I should do is call the sheriff—”

  “You will do no such thing.”

  “Only because I don’t have time for this nonsense.”

  “No,” his grandmother’s voice followed him, “I didn’t think you would have time for it.”

  “Oh, this is beautiful, too.” Becky let the flowered silk of Judi’s never-worn robe slide across her palm as she carried it to the closet.

  At least someone appreciated it. Sterling would never see it, that was for sure. And by the time she was ready to marry anyone else—if she ever reached that point—the silk would probably be in tatters.

  Judi had intended to wear it before revealing a less modest garment for her wedding night. That was the problem with running away from your wedding with barely enough time to grab the bags packed for your Caribbean honeymoon. Your wardrobe was long on sexy and short on practical.

  And some of it was just plain short.

  “Becky!”

  Thomas’s shout came clearly up the stairs, but the teenager gave no sign of hearing it.

  Becky had hung the robe in the closet and now took out a short silk nightshirt, which was positively Victorian compared to some others.

  Judi could imagine Thomas’s reaction if he thought she was corrupting his baby sister. How old was Becky? With her makeup-free face and straightforward manner she might be a mature thirteen or a sheltered nineteen. Judi bundled a thigh-skimming red lace nightie into a drawer while Becky had her back turned.

  “Isn’t that your brother calling?”

  “Half brother,” Becky said, as if that wiped out anything else.

  “Rebecca Jane!”

  “What?” Becky bellowed back.

  Judi counted her blessings that Becky had been facing into the closet at that moment, or her head might have exploded like a glass hit by too many sound waves.

  “Gran needs to get out of bed. Come help her.”

  Becky glared at the door, and Judi could practically hear the rebellious words trembling on the girl’s lips. Do it yourself. You’re not the boss. I don’t have to do what you tell me.

  Or maybe those were echoes of her battles with her older brother Paul.

  Then Judi saw something else flit across Becky’s mobile face, followed closely by a sort of resigned sympathy that Judi guessed was for Gran. But she wondered about that other expression she’d seen so fleetingly. Could it have been guilt? And what on earth could this fresh-faced girl have to be guilty about?

  “I gotta go. The bathroom’s through there.” She nodded to a door across from the bed. “If you need any more help…”

  “Thank you, Becky. I’ll be fine. I’ll take a shower, then rest a bit.”

  The adrenaline that had surged as she fought the steering wheel to avoid hitting Thomas and his horse had long since ebbed, leaving her achy and weary.

  “Okay. If you don’t want to unpack everything right away, I could help you more later.” She cast a covetous eye toward Judi’s open suitcase. Then she grinned. “By the way, I’d already seen the red lace job—you didn’t have to hide it. You know, if my underwear had as many holes in it as yours does, Gran would make me throw it out.”

  “It’s not my usual style, either—uh, I mean, I don’t think it is. Maybe I had something special to buy all this for.”

  Becky studied her a moment. “Maybe you did. And you’ll remember it eventually.”

  Without waiting for an answer the teenager sauntered out.

  Judi heard her hit the bottom of the steps, then say, “You should see the clothes she has. Wow!”

  Thomas made no response she could hear. But clearly Becky didn’t need words. In an entirely different tone, she snapped, “You don’t have to look like that. Pretty clothes aren’t contagious.”

  The sound of feet stomping away, and a distant door slamming was followed by what might have been a masculine sigh.

  She’d had her share of battles with Paul at that age. But there was something in the tension between the brother and sister that she didn’t quite understand. Almost as if Becky saw significance in words and looks, while Thomas had not a clue.

  She took a pair of lacy underwear out of her suitcase— Becky was right, there were a lot of holes—and headed toward the bathroom. Two closet doors confronted her, but she found towels in the first.

  Moist heat on her aching muscles and the satisfaction of washing almost all the blood from her hair by following Gran’s instructions left her skin tingling as she dressed in the underwear and a terry beach coverup, then curled up on the bed.

  Considering how the day had started, with the potential for being caught by that guy at the motel in Torrington, things hadn’t turned out so bad.

  Pretty stupid of him, really, to use a car with Illinois plates. She’d done better than that, and she was a rank amateur.

  Her first move had been a stroke of genius, if she said so herself. She’d run down the church steps and slid into the driver’s seat of the first car parked there, which happened to be the bride and groom’s limo with the keys in the ignition. The limo driver had chased her down the driveway, waving the cigarette he’d been indulging in.

  The good thing about the limo was that her sister-in-law Bette, with her usual organization, had put Judi’s bags for the honeymoon, her purse and the cash and travelers’ checks they planned to use on the honeymoon in the trunk.

  Judi had taken the limo through the drive-in window at a nearby bank to cash the travelers’ checks. Sure the limo was a little conspicuous, especially with a bride complete with white dress and veil driving it, but that couldn’t be helped since she didn’t want to leave a credit card trail.

  She left the limo at the airport, stopping to change clothes, stow the wedding dress in a locker, leave a message on her own answering machine to tell her family she was okay and where to find the limo—the time it would take them to think of checking her machine would give her a head start.

  She took a bus from the airport to a downtown hotel, where she rented a car changing her name and birthdate on the form. She almost fainted when the clerk looked at her driver’s license, but he never compared it against the rental agreement. She reached Detroit, knowing she should be exhausted, but instead feeling exhilarated. She turned in the car, took three taxis to reach the bus station, then caught an overnighter with a ticket for Louisville.

  But she got off in Indianapolis. She found an ancient used car through an ad in the Star. The seller was more than happy to take cash in return for the title and no questions. Then she headed West.

  The Indiana plates began to feel conspicuous as she crossed Iowa. When she got off the Interstate for a late breakfast just after crossing into Nebraska, she had a stroke of luck. She missed the turn to get back onto the Interstate. That’s how she came across the junkyard and the car with Nebraska plates that had three months registration left before they expired.

  She removed the plates with her Swiss Army knife screwdriver
and went another five miles to find a secluded spot to switch the plates, returning to the Interstate as a Nebraskan, and throwing out the Indiana plates at another rest stop. The brilliance of that move had been proved this morning when she’d heard the man asking about a young woman driving alone in a car with Indiana plates.

  She’d considered picking up a hitchhiker to further her disguise, but her mother’s horrified voice in her head wouldn’t allow that. Now, if her mother had had the foresight to give her advice about passing herself off as another woman, she’d be all set.

  Although her performance as Helga the health aide wasn’t her biggest concern, a certain member of the audience was.

  Judi pulled a coverlet over her bare legs and snuggled deeper.

  Gran and Becky seemed perfectly willing to accept her at face value. Even when her face was notoriously easy to read. She would reward their trust—misplaced as it was in this case—by doing her absolute best. She could do the job. She would read the instructions about caring for Gran during her recuperation and do everything they called for—more than everything. She would make life better for them. All of them.

  And then she wouldn’t feel so bad about telling them she was Helga.

  Would that be enough to stop Thomas glowering at her? She could use advice about this guy who made her feel as if a thundercloud formed every time he looked at her…except when he’d touched her and the thunder reverberated through her nerve endings.

  Sudden tears pricked her eyes and slid through her lashes. If she’d been home, she’d have called Bette. Or if the whole gang was in town, she and Bette and Tris and Leslie might have thrashed out how to deal with Thomas, and all the rest.

  For the first time since she’d run out of the church Judi felt very alone.

  Thomas wasn’t particularly proud of himself.

  Those were tears. Definitely tears. Not bawling out loud, sobbing pathetically tears. Not even streaked down her cheeks. But tears sparkling through lowered eyelashes turned into spikes by the moisture. Tears held in check.

  She’d taken a hell of a blow to the head. It had to be aching something fierce. Red marks on her forearms and cheek promised to blossom into bruises.