The Runaway Bride

by Patricia McLinn

  “I’ll have to fix those.” He started the engine but left the lights out as they bumped along the dark road.

  “Where are we going?”

  “You’ll see.”

  He wouldn’t tell her any more, even when they’d parked atop a high hill that seemed to have nothing but sky around it.

  “Where are we?”

  “Someplace where I can make love to you, and keep on making love to you until you scream.”

  “What if I’m not a screamer?”

  “I’m a patient man.”

  She made a sound of disbelief. Then turned thoughtful. “You know, that’s an incentive for a girl to not scream no matter what. So you’ll keep trying and trying.”

  He smiled. “True. But there are other incentives. Stronger incentives. Wait right there.”

  He got out and went around the back. She heard him open the tailgate, but before she’d turned to see what he was doing, he was at the passenger door.

  “What’s going on?”

  “Have a little patience.”

  He scooped her up, leaving her no option but to put her arms around his neck. In a half-dozen strides he was setting her into the bed of the pickup—truly a bed.

  Sheets covered an air-mattress, surrounded by bolsters and pillows that cushioned the walls of the enclosed space.

  “Scoot on up.”

  She did, and he followed her, pulling the tailgate up behind him, then shifting two bolsters in front of it. With his back to her, he yanked off his boots, setting them in a corner, followed by his hat.

  Then he faced her.

  She drew in a quick deep breath, then another, as he advanced on her, his intent clear and carnal.

  “Oh, Thomas, this is wonderful. I thought when you said to meet you—”

  He kissed her. Wrapping his arms around her like he couldn’t wait another second. And neither could she. She opened her mouth and her arms to him. Reveling in the firm, hungry stroke of his tongue into her mouth.

  The feel of him was so right and true that she thought she could explode just from this solitary second. But time kept adding seconds and each one had its pleasures. She drew his strength and weight with her as she lay back against the cushions. He unbuttoned the four buttons below the waist of her sarong, but when he tried to push aside the material he met a resistance he clearly hadn’t expected.

  “How the hell do you—?”

  “Wait. Let me…”

  “Wait?” he repeated.

  She wanted him to wait? Waiting was the last thing his body had in mind.

  She slid away from him and adjusted the skirt to let her come to her knees beside him. With his full attention on her, and never taking her gaze from his face, she untied the knot at her waist, opened the fabric and let it fall to pool around her. A pair of lacy panties rode low on her hips, a scant triangle of coverage with fragile bands connecting front and back.

  The fullness in his groin took a quantum leap.

  He reached for her, wanting to feel her body stretched out along his.

  “Wait,” she said again.

  Waiting was still not a concept he was eager to embrace. On the other hand, if she rewarded him again like she just had…

  Her hands went behind her neck. In another second the two sides of her top dropped from her shoulders, the descent stopped only by the fullness of her breasts and the tight points of her nipples. She reached lower behind her back this time, and fabric belled loose at her sides.

  She drew in a strong, slow breath, and released it. The fabric slid slowly at first, then fell away in an instant.

  He came up on his knees before her, bending to touch his mouth to one rose-pointed nipple before straightening.

  She didn’t have to tell him to wait this time. He wanted this slow, so slow it never ended.

  “Take your clothes off, Thomas.” The huskiness of her voice was another sensation of pleasure.

  “Yes’m.”

  With the slightest pressure on the top of her shoulders, he urged her to sit back on her heels. He traced the ridge of her collarbone with his thumbs, and kissed the corner of her mouth, his own lifting into a smile as he straightened.

  Then, with her watching him as he had watched her, and echoing her deliberateness, he unbuttoned his shirt, pulled it from the waist of his jeans, then shrugged it off. He opened the belt buckle and slid down the zipper of his jeans. Then hooked the waist of briefs and jeans to pull them over his hips, and saw a flush of desire flow across her moon-pale breasts.

  He sat to pull his clothes the rest of the way off, then returned to his knees. She came up to meet him. Kneeling there before each other, they feathered touches across each other’s skin, stroked and traced. Until they both trembled.

  He laid her back among the cushions. Found the first of the packets he’d brought and sheathed himself.

  He knelt again, between her legs, bending to press his mouth to her heated wetness through the thin fabric. Her hips came up to meet his caress, and there was no more waiting. He started to draw her panties down, but she made a noise of impatience and it fired him like nothing else could. The fabric bands over her hips ripped free with the first tug.

  “Open for me.”

  She did, her hips elevated. He cupped her rounded buttocks in his hands, and stroked into her.

  Thomas had a vague memory of changing an irrigation pipe, but other than that the past two days were foggy at best. But the nights…ah the nights were as clear and warm and changeable as her eyes.

  And here he stood again, waiting for her to slip out of the house to join him for the ride into the hills in their portable bed. He’d done fancy talking to keep Gandy from fixing the “broken” truck. He couldn’t let anybody else use it or they’d discover the bedding under the tarp. So far so good, but he didn’t know how long it could last.

  How long they could last.

  She’d taken the second six weeks, but there was something…

  A figure showed under the porch light, carefully closing the door, then coming down the stairs, and slipping into the shadows.

  But he could still see the one particular shadow he was interested in. His shadow, he thought with a surge of possessiveness. She was coming to him.

  And right now he didn’t give a damn that she was lying.

  “You know why you want to hold the ranch together?”

  Her head was tucked in the crook of his shoulder. Their sweat-slick bodies were cooling fast enough that she was grateful for the blanket he’d pulled up. They’d been lying like this earlier, and he’d started talking about his dreams for the ranch, and there’d been such hope and pride in his voice and his plans that she’d had to kiss him…and then they were lying like this again.

  “Because it could be a financial disaster if I don’t.”

  “That’s your rational reason. But there’s a more important one—the one from the gut.” She stroked his bare belly. “The one that’s making you work so hard. The one that makes you not just worried about the idea of losing a quarter of the ranch, but crazy at the thought.”

  “I’m not craz—”

  “It’s the people.”

  That stopped him. “What?”

  “It’s because this ranch to you is not just land, it’s people. It’s your mother and your father. It’s Gran and Becky. It’s Gandy and Keith and Steve and all the rest. It’s the landscape of your family and all the people you love.”

  “That’s—”

  “Shut up and listen for once. When you talk about the ranch, you don’t tell me how much it’s worth per square foot or what the production is per acre or what kind of grass grows where. Sure you’re worried about money now, because of Maureen and everything. But when you talk about the ranch, you talk about your family, and the hands and your dreams for breeding horses. You could give up this land—”

  “This land is—”

  “Oh, I know, it’s important. But it’s important because it’s what ties together all the peo
ple you’ve cared about in your life. Your mother. Your father. Gran. Becky.”

  Her. Hope slipped that into her thoughts before she could shut it out.

  “The ranch is not just for me,” he said. “It’s what Becky will have. To know where she belongs, to know she’s loved and was wanted.”

  “Why would she ever doubt those things?”

  His expression went blank—almost blank, because she read a bleakness that triggered a memory of his words.

  “‘If Becky knew about her mother, it could be even tougher on her.’ That’s what you said. Is there more than that Maureen wants to sell off her share of the ranch? It has to do with that Thanksgiving, doesn’t it? Listen to me, Thomas, if you and Becky are going to be close again, you have to bring whatever this is out in the open. It can only help—”

  “Not this.”

  She waited. Waited to see if he was done being the lone ranger. Waited to see if he would share this burden with her. Waited to see if he would trust her.

  “Maureen came back that Thanksgiving. Cooked this turkey dinner, made it seem like she was going to stick around forever. Before dinner, she took Dad aside. Came out after an hour, and she’s all smiles as she sets the table and starts putting food out. Dad had given her a wad of money again, and she was leaving in the morning. Dad was a wreck, and I knew Becky would be crying into her pillow for months, and I lost it.

  “I dragged her out on the porch and told her I’d stop Dad’s check if she tried to leave. Told her if she had any decency, she’d stay with her daughter and her husband. She laughed—angry and kind of hysterical, and she said that was just it—Rick Vance wasn’t her husband because she’d still been married when they met. She’d gotten tired of her husband and left him—didn’t even tell him, much less get a divorce. She came out here for something different. But she’d never divorced her first husband and that made Becky a bastard—she said that. If I wanted her to tell Dad and Becky, she’d be only too happy to—and if I stopped the check she’d tell them no matter what. Only time in my life I had to fight like hell to keep from hitting a woman.”

  Under her hand his muscles had tensed to rock.

  “I said the check would clear, but she had to leave right then, no more pretending, no more of her lying. And she was not coming back. Ever. She packed up and left. None of them knew why.”

  Remembering Gran’s concern for Thomas over the turkey, Judi wasn’t so sure, but he continued, “She didn’t even say goodbye to Dad and Becky. They came in expecting dinner and her. And I…I…”

  “Couldn’t stand to have them eat food prepared by that lying witch.”

  He twisted around at her words, as if to see if she was as angry as she’d sounded. She was.

  No wonder his feelings about Maureen were so strong—she not only threatened the ranch, but also threatened his family.

  “I don’t blame you a bit for throwing out the meal she’d fixed. You probably should have fumigated the place. How she could do that to Becky, to your Dad—to all of you… I’d like to get my hands on her—”

  He threw his head back and laughed.

  “What?” She supposed she should be glad she’d broken his grim mood, but really, justice for a woman like that would be a good—

  “You’re a fierce one.” He kissed her, gentle and long. Justice for Maureen was long forgotten when he said, “I’d rather have you get your hands on me.”

  “Ow! Why are we doing this again? Am I being punished for something?”

  She and Becky were picking strawberries from plants nestled against the gooseberry bushes at the back of the garden. At least Judi was picking berries. From the amount and volume of complaining from Becky, she was mostly fighting the prickly bushes.

  “Because these strawberries make great pies, and Gran says Thomas loves her strawberry pie recipe.”

  Becky muttered something that combined a less than flattering adjective with her brother’s name.

  “Are you feeling like you should be punished for something?”

  “No. Thomas just treats me like a criminal even though I haven’t done anything.”

  “Why do you think he does that?”

  “He never lets me go out, and when he does, he practically locks and bars the door if I come home five minutes late—”

  Ignoring the illogic between he never and when he does, Judi interrupted. “I mean why as in what is his motive for doing that?”

  “I dunno.”

  Judi nearly clucked her tongue. But Becky would have to find out on her own that sullen rarely sounded like innocent—even when the speaker truly was innocent.

  Becky’s head was down, her bottom lip caught between her teeth, and her shoulders hunched. She looked miserable and…guilty? Maybe that hadn’t been sullen she’d heard in Becky’s response. Maybe it had been guilty. But what could the girl have to feel guilty about?

  “Oh, I think you do know…” The soft voice and gentle intonation were straight out of her own teen years—when she’d been on the receiving end. Good Lord, there she went channeling her mother again.

  Becky raised her head in a blaze of anger.

  “He hates me because of my mother, all right?”

  “Why would he hate you because of her? She’s not even here.”

  “That’s the point. She left and she ruined everything—for the ranch, for Thomas, for everybody.” Becky squirmed as if poked by thorns, only Judi suspected these pricks were inside. “I’m her kid. She’s not here to hate, so he hates me.”

  “Becky, I don’t think—”

  “Dad said he wanted her to have a share of the ranch so she knew he’d meant it when he’d said this would always be her home. He’d pledged to give her a home when they got married, and her leaving didn’t change that. Dad was such a…so—”

  “In love,” Judi supplied.

  “Not with Maureen.” Becky’s bald reply made Judi blink.

  “But—”

  “Dad always loved Thomas’s mom—Denise.”

  “But the will— And Thomas—”

  She stopped herself just in time from saying that Thomas thought his father had been heartbroken at Maureen’s departure. He and Becky had to talk to each other, not through her.

  “I heard him—Dad—talking to Maureen on the phone about six months before he died. He’d tracked her down, reminding her to call the next day because it was my birthday. I knew he did that—birthdays, Christmas, Thanksgiving. Sometimes he found her and got her to call, sometimes he didn’t. I—” Becky looked up at her through her eyelashes, as if checking for her reaction “—didn’t like to be surprised. I’d listen in on the day-before calls, so I’d know if she was going to call.

  “He told her he was sorry he hadn’t made her feel loved. He said he cared about her, but so much of his heart would always be with Denise that maybe there hadn’t been enough left to make her want to stay and make this her home.”

  Judi kept her eyes open, afraid if she blinked tears would flow over.

  Thomas believed his father had been betrayed by love. But it had been guilt that had pushed Rick Vance to try to make things right with his second wife—guilt that he’d loved his first wife so much that he had short-changed Maureen.

  “But she got the last laugh. As soon as she could, she set it up for her share of the ranch to be sold. Thomas thinks I don’t know, but I’m not an idiot.”

  Becky clearly saw Judi’s impending tears. She thought the girl might give way to tears, too, but Becky stiffened her chin, and a harsher emotion took hold.

  “Don’t feel sorry for her,” Becky ordered. “She never cared that much. She makes a good show of it. Called and said she wanted me to understand. Had this long explanation about selling her share. She said it was for me—the money for her share of the ranch. Though, of course, she’d keep some, just for a nest egg.” Becky’s imitation made Judi wince. “She said she was going to make sure I had money for when I want to leave—college or whenever. I told her I don’t w
ant to leave—not like that, just for college. I told her I don’t want the ranch carved up. She wouldn’t listen. She said someday I’d come to my senses and want to get out.”

  A car horn blared from around the front of the house. Who would—?

  But Becky was going on. “I just wish—what I should’ve asked her is if she thought it was horrible here, how could she have left me? I’m not saying I wish she’d taken me—I don’t! But how could she leave her kid in what she thought was the worst place on earth?”

  “Maybe she thought you’d be better taken care of here, better than if she took you with her,” Judi said.

  Becky raised her head, and Judi saw in the girl’s eyes both sorrow and acceptance. Becky didn’t believe that any more than she did. It seemed the teenager took a giant, painful stride toward maturity in that silent moment.

  “If she cared about me, she’d leave the ranch in one piece and things could go back the way they were, and Thomas wouldn’t have to work so hard, all because…”

  Becky’s voice faded, but Judi mentally filled in the end. All because of a self-centered woman who didn’t understand what she’d been offered by her ex-husband—a way to reclaim her home and daughter.

  The car horn sounded again.

  “I know it’s hard, Becky, but…” Judi put an arm around the girl’s shoulders and leaned down to look at her. “Wait a minute… You don’t—you can’t— You think it’s your fault? You do… You think it’s your fault Thomas is working so hard, and you think he thinks it’s your fault. And that’s what’s making you so prickly around him.”

  “She said it was for me,” Becky muttered.

  “I don’t care if that was one-hundred percent swear-on-the-Bible truth. It still wouldn’t be your fault. And Thomas still wouldn’t blame you.”

  “I…but it’s because of me…”

  “Baloney. It’s not your doing. It’s Maureen’s. You didn’t ask her to—?”

  “No! Of course not.”

  “Then see—how could it be your fault? Just because—”

  “Missy!” Gandy’s shout came from the front of the house.

  “You might think that, but Thomas—”