by Jane Graves
“She couldn’t get out of the damned dress,” Marc snapped. “There was nobody else to help her, so I had to unbutton it. That’s all that happened.”
Gus waved his hand. “What my guests do is none of my concern, long as they don’t tear up the place.” A smile curled the corner of his mouth. “Though if you’d stayed all night, I’d have had to charge you for a double.”
“Gus, for God’s sake. I don’t even know that woman!”
“If I were you,” Gus said, “I’d get to know her.”
“She ran away from her own wedding not five hours ago. That means she’s got a problem. Maybe a lot of problems. I don’t need a woman with problems.”
“You’re pretty darned picky for a man who’s got no woman at all.”
“No woman beats a crazy one.” Marc pulled his other boot on. “Whatever you do, don’t tell Estelle.”
“Are you saying my wife’s a gossip?”
“Are you saying she’s not?”
“Don’t worry,” Gus said. “Your secret is safe with me.”
“There isn’t any secret!”
“Yeah? Then should I go ahead and tell Estelle that thing that’s not a secret?”
“Oh, never mind,” Marc said, standing up. “Tell everybody you can think of. In fact, why don’t you take out an ad in the Rainbow Valley Voice and let the whole town know?”
“Now, I like gossip as much as the next person,” Gus said. “But I don’t generally spend money to spread it around.”
“You don’t have to,” Marc said, putting on his raincoat. “You’re married to Estelle. Good night, Gus.”
Gus smiled. “Good night, Marc.”
Marc opened the door and went back out into the dark, gloomy night, looking forward to the day when he’d be leaving this town and all its dumb gossip behind. He wanted to go to a place where nobody knew him. Where he was a face in the crowd. Where he could misbehave all he wanted to and nobody was around to care.
Wherever that place was, it sounded like heaven on earth.
As for Kari, he had no idea how long she was staying in town, but he vowed to steer clear of her until she left. But just as he was getting into his truck, something occurred to him.
No. Not your problem. You’re done. Go home.
He started the truck, but instead of backing out of the parking space, he froze with his hand on the gearshift. A few seconds later he killed the engine again, blowing out a breath of irritation. Finally he got out of the truck and trotted back inside.
“Gus!”
Gus stuck his head around the doorway.
“She hasn’t eaten much in the past couple of days,” Marc said. “Can you feed her tonight? A sandwich or something? She might not ask you herself.”
“Sure thing. Should I put a rose on the tray and tell her it’s from you?”
Marc frowned. “Good night, Gus.”
“Good night, Marc.”
Marc hopped back into his truck and started for home. There. He was finally free of the whole situation. Kari Worthington had more baggage than a transatlantic airliner, and he wanted nothing more to do with her. He’d call Rick in the morning and get him to haul her car out of that ditch just as he’d told her he would, but that would be the end of it. After tonight, his involvement in other people’s problems was going to be a thing of the past. Then once harvest was over he was leaving Rainbow Valley, and the freedom Nicole had grabbed for herself all those years ago would finally be his, too.
Kari stood in the middle of room 302, her eyes closed and her hand still clutching the bodice of that horrible dress, trying to get her racing heart to slow down. She’d seen that mud on Marc’s shirt. Before she knew it, she was touching it. Then she went from touching it to touching him. And that was when her heart started beating so crazily it took her breath away.
The trouble was that she’d never been known for her restraint and circumspection when it came to anything in her life, and men were no exception. Once something caught her attention, she had a hard time letting it go. And the more ill-advised something was, the more she found herself focusing on it, imagining the possibilities. And the more possibilities she imagined, the more her heart sped up inside her chest until she was in serious danger of fainting dead away.
She’d never been attracted to big, powerful men, but as she was standing there staring at Marc after he’d gotten her out of that dress, a vision had suddenly filled her mind of a hot interlude in an out-of-the-way inn with a sexy stranger while a storm raged outside—a wild, hot, dangerous affair that made her melt from the inside out. In the entire year she’d dated Greg, not once had she felt that deep-down, all-encompassing, prehistoric, gotta-have-him-now sensation that had swept through her when she stood in front of Marc. But he clearly hadn’t felt a thing. He hadn’t even blinked. In fact, as soon as Gus showed up, he acted as if he couldn’t wait to get out of there.
Oh, well. Maybe it was for the best. Should she really be lusting after one man only hours after she’d left another one at the altar?
With a heavy sigh, she stepped out of the dress and kicked it aside. Then she turned and caught her reflection in the dresser mirror. Her hand flew to her mouth, stifling a scream.
Her hair looked as if it had gotten caught in a wind tunnel, then been doused with a bucket of water. She had dirt on her face. Mascara was everywhere except on her eyelashes. The Creature from the Black Lagoon with swampy moss hanging off him would have been more appealing than she was right then.
Well, now she knew at least one reason Marc had run. What man wanted anything to do with a woman who looked like a horror movie monster?
She went into the bathroom and took a long, hot shower. Then she put on her robe and plopped down in the middle of that gorgeous king-sized bed. She grabbed her phone and looked at her text messages. Three were from Greg, telling her he loved her and was worried about her, and he was asking where she was. Four were from Jill, filled with her usual hyperbole. Have you lost your mind??? And there were several phone messages from both of them, too.
There wasn’t a single word from her father.
That made Kari weirdly nervous. She swore she could feel his anger radiating through two hundred miles of atmosphere to light squarely on her shoulders. Thinking about it, though, was it really so surprising he hadn’t contacted her? Once when she was sixteen and stayed out past her curfew, he hadn’t done what the average parent would do and just called her best friend’s house to make her come home. Instead, he’d sent one of his uniformed security guards to pick her up. He understood quite well that teenage humiliation was a stronger deterrent than parental disapproval, and he never hesitated to use it. To this day she was still living off the warning he’d given her when she was only ten years old. There are consequences, Kari. For everything you do—good and bad—there are consequences.
She couldn’t even imagine what consequences he might be considering right now.
For a moment Kari closed her eyes and imagined what this day might have been like if her mother were still alive. She remembered little else about her mother except her smiles, which she’d showered on her eight-year-old daughter even through her last days when cancer had taken its toll. If she’d been at the church today, would she have laughed and told Kari not to worry, that it was normal for a bride to have cold feet? Or would she have taken her in her arms in a loving hug and told her not to worry about the wedding, the expense, the guests, or even her fiancé, that her happiness was more important than any of those things?
Sometimes Kari tried to remember what her parents’ relationship had been like before her mother’s death, but the memories were so frail and wispy that they floated away every time she tried to hold them in her mind. She only remembered the pain and anguish she felt after her mother was gone. Instead of her father filling that void for her, he seemed to distance himself more with every day that passed. Soon he stopped talking about her mother altogether, almost as if she’d never existed. And now Kari wonder
ed: Would he be the man he was today if she had lived?
There was no way to know.
Kari did know one thing, though. Somehow she knew that no matter what she’d done today, her mother would have forgiven her.
If only her father would do the same.
She decided to text Greg back, just something short so at least nobody would think she’d disappeared for good. I’m fine, she told him. Don’t worry. I’ll be in touch.
Please come home, he texted back. I love you.
Kari didn’t know if that was true or not. She only knew she felt strangely nonemotional when she looked at his words. It was as if she’d already detached from him and she was talking to a stranger.
She tossed her phone aside, only to pick it up again. After a moment she decided it might be wise to tell somebody where she was. Not Greg. Not her father.
That left Jill.
She clicked on her friend’s number, and after a moment, Jill came on the line.
“Kari!” she said. “I’ve been worried to death about you!”
“You don’t have to worry. I’m fine.”
“Where the hell are you?”
“If I tell you, you can’t tell anyone else.”
“But Greg—”
“No! Especially not Greg. Or my father. Please, Jill. You have to promise me.”
“No way. You need to come home. You need to—”
“Jill…please.”
Jill sighed. “Okay. I promise.”
“I’m in a town called Rainbow Valley. It’s not far from Austin.”
“Wait a minute. I’m looking you up on Google Maps…oh, my God! You drove that far?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s late. Where are you staying?”
“At a place called Animal House.”
“Huh?”
“It’s a bed-and-breakfast.”
“What kind of name is that for a bed-and-breakfast?”
“A strange one. But it’s a really cute place. We’re always looking for a fun hotel for a girls’ weekend, so maybe we could—”
“Kari! Will you focus? When are you coming home?”
Kari paused. “I don’t know.”
“Greg is worried sick. You have to come home and get married.”
“Jill. Please try to understand. Greg doesn’t love me. And I don’t love him, either. It was wrong from the beginning.”
“No. You should see him. He’s frantic.”
“What did my father say?” Kari asked.
Jill was silent for a moment. “He’s worried about you, too.”
Kari squeezed her eyes closed as guilt crept in again. She’d embarrassed him in front of a church full of his friends, golf buddies, and business associates, and he held grudges like nobody else. Pretty soon Kari would have to face that music, but the last thing she wanted to do in the next few days was start up the band.
“I can’t believe this,” Jill said. “I just can’t believe you ran away from your own wedding. No. Wait a minute. Yes, I can. You’re the person who once dragged me to Cancún for the weekend with an hour’s notice. So why should this surprise me?”
“I know,” Kari said. “I know. It’s weird. But I couldn’t think of anything else to do. If I had stayed, I would have ended up married.”
“You should be married! Greg is perfect for you!”
No. She knew she’d done the right thing. Just because Greg seemed so perfect to Jill didn’t mean he was perfect for her. It had just taken Kari a long time to figure that out.
“Jill? Do you know he makes notes on his phone to remember to clip his toenails once a week?”
“So he’s hygienic. What’s wrong with that?”
“His idea of a good time is to organize the apps on his iPhone.”
“Is that really a problem?”
“He reads the Wall Street Journal while he’s going to the bathroom, Jill. Are you listening to me? Does that sound like a man I’d be compatible with?”
“What can I say? Opposites attract.”
No. That wasn’t true. Kari was starting to realize that her relationship with Greg had been more about pleasing her father than about marrying the man of her dreams, opposite or not. But since she was only just now admitting that to herself, she didn’t go there.
“There’s something else,” Kari said.
“What?”
“Well, I kinda had a little accident.”
“Accident? Are you all right?”
“I swerved to miss a deer, and I ended up in a ditch. I don’t know the condition of my car yet. I might not be able to come home even if I wanted to.”
“Do you want me to come get you?”
“No! No. Please, Jill. Please. I don’t want to go back to Houston yet.”
“Kari—”
“I have to go now. Just promise me you won’t tell anyone where I am.”
“I won’t. But—”
“I’ll call you again soon.”
Kari hung up the phone and took a deep, calming breath. She’d go back soon. Just not now. Probably not tomorrow, even if her car was drivable. Past that, she didn’t know. She knew she shouldn’t be avoiding the issue. Maybe it would take a few days to fix her car, and by that time she’d find the guts to jump into it, head back to Houston, and stand up to all of them.
She hoped so, anyway.
Just then the telephone in the room rang. She picked it up to hear Gus on the other end, who told her he could make her a quick bite to eat if she wanted it. Kari had never said yes so fast in her life. Now that she was out of that awful dress, she was hungrier than a bear coming out of hibernation.
She tossed her robe aside and put on a pair of capri pants, an off-the-shoulder summer top, and sandals. She would have preferred a pair of jeans, a T-shirt, and a pair of flip-flops, but the honeymoon wardrobe in her luggage didn’t include those things.
On her way out the door, she sidestepped the dirty mound of lace and satin, resisting the urge to give it a good, swift kick. She hadn’t liked it in the first place, but Jill and Hilda had talked her into it, telling her she looked like Cinderella. As always, she’d let herself be swayed by what somebody else wanted.
No more.
Tomorrow she intended to find the nearest Dumpster and hurl that thing over the edge. And she vowed the next time she got married and she picked out a dress, hers was the only opinion that was going to matter. And that applied to whatever man she married, too.
She went downstairs and found Gus in the kitchen. He was creating a sandwich piled high with meat, cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, and a whole bunch of other stuff. She climbed onto a barstool at the kitchen island, and when he finally set down the plate in front of her, it was all she could do not to stuff the whole sandwich in her mouth at once.
“This is really good,” Kari said. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
Jasper walked over and sat at her feet, looking up at her longingly.
“I think he wants a bite,” Kari said.
“Up to you.”
Kari pulled a small piece of sliced chicken from her sandwich and tossed it to the dog. He snapped it out of the air and looked for more.
“That’ll do, Jasper,” Gus said, then looked at Kari. “If he doesn’t stop mooching, he’s going to weigh three hundred pounds.”
“So what’s the deal with animals in this town?” Kari asked Gus as she ate. “The street signs. This place. Marc said you could tell me the story.”
“Yup. It begins with the legend of the Rainbow Bridge. Ever heard of it?”
“No.”
Gus leaned over with his elbows on the bar. “It all started back in the 1930s with a lady named Mildred Danforth. At one time, her father owned all of Danforth County. Mildred was a spinster—never got married. She lived with her father until he died. Then she inherited all his land. With no husband, it was just her and every stray animal she could take in—cats, dogs, horses, wild animals, you name it. Later she deeded most of
the land for the town of Rainbow Valley to be built. But there was one thing she insisted on or there was no deal.”
“What’s that?”
“That the valley portion of the land stay untouched forever. Mildred died a few years back, but it’s still against city ordinance to step foot on that part of the property. See, she believed there was something special about that valley.”
“Special?”
Gus lowered his voice dramatically. “She believed it was a spirit world tied to earth where animals go after they pass on.”
Kari smiled. “Seriously?”
“Oh, yeah. And once the animals arrive there, any disease they had is gone. They forget any abuse they might have suffered. Age is erased, too, and they’re young again. And they stay in that little piece of paradise, just playing and eating to their hearts’ content and sleeping in the grassy fields, until…”
Kari leaned forward, feeling like a preschool kid during story time.
“Until their human companions arrive,” Gus said. “And when they do, they run toward each other and have a wonderful reunion.”
For some reason, Kari’s eyes teared up. She realized if the story was true, then someday she’d go to the valley and Boo would be there. He’d see her out of the corner of his eye. His head would pop up, and those tiny legs would carry him as fast as he could run toward her. She’d scoop him up and probably cry all over him.
“Then after they reunite,” Gus said, “the most amazing thing happens.”
“What?”
“A rainbow appears, stretching into the clouds as far as the eye can see. All the animals a person has known and loved gather with him, and together they cross that Rainbow Bridge to heaven.”
Kari tried to swallow the lump in her throat. No such luck. “That is such a cool story. So that’s why there’s so much animal stuff in Rainbow Valley?”
“Yup. Most people don’t believe the legend, of course, but they can’t argue with the money it brings into the town, particularly during the Festival of the Animals we have every fall. Tourists love the animal thing.”
She smiled. “So do I.”
“Got a pet?”
“A cairn terrier. He’s mostly that, anyway. I think he’s a few other things, too.”
