Run, Run, Runaway Bride

by Diamond, Jacqueline

  Run, Run, Runaway Bride

  by Jacqueline Diamond

  For Kathryn Brockman

  Published by

  K. Loren Wilson

  P.O. Box 1315

  Brea, California

  ISBN 978-1-936505-25-8

  Copyright 1995, 2013 by Jackie Hyman

  First print edition published by Harlequin Books. This edition has been substantially revised.

  Original title: The Runaway Bride

  All rights reserved.

  No portion of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form without permission of the author except short excerpts for review or promotional purposes. Thank you.

  Chapter One

  Samantha Avery couldn't believe her luck in finding the wedding dress.

  She studied herself in the oxidized mirror of the church's changing room. The ivory tint flattered her cinnamon hair and amber eyes, and she loved the high, lace-trimmed collar and sensual low back. The gown fit her slender frame as if tailor-made.

  She'd found it after a search of only two days, which was a good thing, because that was all the time she'd had.

  "It's unheard of," said Alice, the maid of honor, as she examined Samantha's corsage. "I mean, walking into the bridal shop and finding this dress unclaimed and put on sale that very day!"

  "I guess so," Samantha agreed. "But then, I've never bought a wedding dress before."

  "Well, I have. Two of them." Alice touched up Samantha's hair with a styling comb. "What you've done is nothing short of a miracle."

  "Maybe it's a lucky sign," she said.

  "Of course it is." Alice's manner was reassuringly hearty.

  "But it's kind of sad, too, don't you think?” Bridesmaid Mary Anne, their red-haired co-worker, brought over Samantha's ivory hat. “Someone must have called off her wedding at the last minute."

  Alice, whose two marriages had crashed and burned, adjusted the hat atop the bride’s hair. "She probably took a good look at the guy and ran for the border."

  "Thanks." Samantha made a wry face. "You're so encouraging."

  "You'll do fine," said Alice. "And if you don't, you can always get a divorce."

  "I suppose." Samantha appreciated her friends’ support. She’d only known them for three months, since she started working as a clerk at Speed West Airlines here in San Diego, California. But she rarely stayed in one place long enough to feel close to anyone, and these two were an exception.

  “You make a beautiful bride,” Mary Anne added wistfully.

  “Thank you.” Staring into the mirror, Samantha was surprised to find she appeared untroubled, even serene. In reality, she had mixed feelings about marriage in general and this one in particular.

  She glanced around the room. It looked like what it was: a spare office in a small church, equipped with a few folding chairs, a desk, some hooks for clothing, a tarnished mirror and a vase of dusty artificial flowers.

  What on earth was she doing here?

  Since being consigned to a boarding school as a teenager, Samantha had never been comfortable staying in one location long. Nothing invigorated her like getting on an airplane and heading for a country she’d never visited before.

  As a child, she'd believed in happily ever after. As an adult, she found that variety was the spice of life.

  She loved sultry music, foreign languages, steamy climates, suave men who kissed her hand, exotic restaurants and unusual varieties of cheesecake. Throw in some historic sites and offbeat boutiques, and a job so she could afford it all, and Samantha was in heaven.

  So why was she walking down the aisle with Hank Torrance, a man she'd met less than a week ago? Getting hitched hadn't been on Samantha's radar when she returned to the states after the hotel in Costa Rica where she'd handled customer relations had closed unexpectedly.

  Her scant savings had carried her only this far north. She'd been lucky to land the airline job, and had begun saving for another adventure in a land where her dreams might come true. Those dreams involved a beach, a margarita and a darkly brooding man. And, of course, love at first sight.

  Five days ago, she'd treated herself to a weekend at an Acapulco resort. There, on a beach where attendants plied her with margaritas, she'd met darkly brooding Hank, a financial consultant who also lived in San Diego.

  The night after they met, he’d sent dozens of roses to fill Samantha's hotel room. The second night, he hired a guitar player to serenade them while a waiter served a private meal on her balcony.

  From the beginning, Hank had worn a smitten expression that touched her heart. Samantha's previous suitors—she'd survived quite a few—never treated her with such lavish care. Never before had she felt cherished and swept away.

  When he proposed, Samantha accepted on impulse. After all, he was deliciously romantic. Besides, some of the best marriages she'd seen had resulted from brief courtships, while some of the worst followed years of cohabitation.

  A little of her confidence had ebbed since returning to San Diego, but it didn't pay to torture herself with doubts. Taking a plunge into the unknown suited her.

  On the church’s old radio playing in the background, a slow sad melody began. "Isn’t there any cheerful music?" Samantha grumbled. “This feels like a funeral."

  Mary Anne turned the dial until she hit a more upbeat song. "Is that better? I hope this is the happiest day of your life. I only wish I…oh, never mind." A shy, heavyset woman in her early thirties, Mary Anne rarely dated.

  Samantha hugged her, despite the risk of wrinkling her gown. "If men had any brains, you'd have been snapped up long ago. You're a real prize!"

  Mary Anne's delighted smile was her reward. Well, she’d spoken the truth.

  The song on the radio faded, and an announcer launched into the news. "Police claim to have found a key piece of evidence in yesterday's daring daylight robbery of a La Jolla jewelry store. So far, they aren’t revealing what it is.

  "This was the third in a string of robberies by a pair of masked bandits. Although no one has been injured, police say close to a million dollars in jewels are missing."

  Mary Anne clicked the radio off. "Who needs to listen to that?"

  "I hope they catch those jerks." Alice scowled. "They took my neighbor's ring. She was crying last night when she told me about it. It was a family heirloom she was having resized for her daughter.”

  “What kind of ring?” Mary Anne asked.

  “She showed me a picture. There was a tiny circle of diamonds around the most gorgeous emerald. On the inside is the date, 1925, and her great-grandmother's name. Can you imagine handing that down for ninety years and then some creep steals it?"

  "I wonder what evidence they found at the robbery scene?" Samantha mused.

  "With any luck, the idiot dropped his wallet," suggested Mary Anne.

  "Maybe he dropped his pants," said Alice, and they all laughed.

  They could hear guests arriving in the foyer. It wasn't a big wedding by any stretch of the imagination. Samantha had invited her co-workers, but her father and stepmother couldn't come all the way from Germany, where her father worked for an American import company.

  Hank hadn't said who he was inviting, except to mention that he and his parents didn't get along. Too bad. Samantha wished she had met her future in-laws.

  But she'd always trusted her instincts, and so far, they had led to an interesting life. She'd been a chambermaid in Florence, a translator in Berlin, a companion to an elderly British lady in Bombay and a saleslady in Hong Kong.

  Now she was ready for a new experience—marriage. That must be why she hadn’t experienced her usual claustrophobia at being stuck in one place too long. She traced the panic back to her teenage
years when her parents, afraid their globe-hopping would deprive her of an education, had committed Samantha to a boarding school in Switzerland.

  Some girls thrived on the experience, but Samantha had felt the walls closing in. She'd spent the days struggling to stay awake while teachers droned on, and the evenings in her room memorizing dry facts. Her few forbidden forays into a nearby village had been punished with evenings of solitary confinement.

  Since then, she couldn’t tolerate being chained to one place or one person. But this was different. Judging by Hank’s generosity and outgoing nature, marriage to him should be an adventure.

  Mary Anne checked the foyer and tiptoed back. "They're all sitting down." Through the open door, Samantha heard the organist playing "We've Only Just Begun."

  "The wedding march is next!" she said. "Come on, guys."

  Since there was no one to give her away, she and Hank had decided to march down the aisle together. But when she emerged, the entrance hall stood empty.

  Had she been left at the altar? Samantha was surprised to feel a twinge of relief. It’s just nerves. "Alice, peek in and see if you spot him."

  Her friend sneaked over to the sanctuary door. "Oh, my gosh, he's standing by the minister! He must have forgotten your arrangement."

  Samantha let out an exasperated sigh. How annoying.

  "There's something else," Alice muttered as she returned.

  "What is it?” Samantha asked.

  "He's bald."

  "I beg your pardon?"

  "Well, not entirely bald. He's got some hair around his ears. But the top part, well, it must have blown off or something."

  Hank wore a toupee? Samantha wished he’d told her. What other secrets was he keeping?

  So much for her long-cherished image of a beach, a margarita and a man with a thick head of hair. Still, she wasn't marrying his coiffure, for goodness' sake.

  "We've Only Just Begun" ended and the organist segued into the wedding march.

  "Oh, dear," said Mary Anne. "What do we do?"

  Samantha held her head high. "We'll go down the aisle together. Come on!" Linking arms with an amused Alice and an embarrassed Mary Anne, she dragged her friends forward.

  The guests turned to stare as they sauntered down the aisle three abreast. It was a tight squeeze. Mary Anne angled sideways and scissored her way along, while Alice had to keep dodging the flower holders that jutted from the pews.

  Samantha’s cheeks heated. They must resemble a tipsy band of bar hoppers after a long night.

  Plus, there was hardly anyone on the groom's side of the church. A couple of street people had wandered in for a place to sit, and a woman in a peach-colored dress and a veil sat near the back. Not much of a family she was joining, was it?

  Sheer terror hit her halfway down the aisle. A thick lump constricted Samantha's throat and she had to fight to breathe. She could hear the clang of a prison door slamming shut.

  Stop it! She tightened her grip on Alice and Mary Anne. You aren't signing your life away. If things don't work out, you can always leave.

  She sucked in a ragged gulp of air as her throat unclenched. The remnants of panic tingled through her fingertips and bled away.

  Alice clucked to her encouragingly and quickened her step. Samantha struggled to keep pace, while Mary Anne had to break into a skip to avoid playing crack-the-whip.

  Joey, the clerk-trainee from the office, let out a loud guffaw. Samantha couldn’t blame him.

  When they reached the altar, the minister wore a slightly stunned expression, but Hank didn't seem to notice anything amiss. He puffed out his chest and whispered, "Lookin' good, babycakes." Where was the tenderness and respect she'd cherished last weekend? He reminded her of a rooster about to crow.

  A bald rooster, at that.

  "Where's your rug?" she whispered back.

  He patted his smooth pate. "Little accident. Sorry."

  Couldn't a financial adviser afford a spare toupee? she wondered, but the minister had begun speaking.

  The words of the ceremony flew by. If Samantha hadn't heard them a hundred times in old movies, she could never have followed them.

  The climactic moment arrived. "Do you, Samantha, take Hank ..."

  Her heartbeat speeded and her head spun. Every instinct cried out to turn tail and flee. But this was irrational. Surely almost every bride felt this way as she relinquished her freedom. "I do," Samantha said firmly.

  "And do you, Hank ..."

  "You betcha," he said.

  Couldn't he just stick to the traditional “I do”? Every hint of sophistication had vanished. He'd lost his hair and forgotten to meet her in the foyer. She hoped he hadn’t misplaced the ring, too.

  No, there it was, emerging from his pocket. With a showmanlike flourish, Hank slid it onto her finger.

  The ring was heavy and a little too large, which was understandable, since Hank hadn't asked her ring size. Or her preference in stones, either.

  She glanced down, intrigued and then shocked to see a perfect circlet of diamonds around an old-fashioned, square-cut emerald. It was unusual, distinctive…and almost certainly stolen. How could Hank have bought a ring that had been taken in a robbery yesterday?

  Samantha's fears ignited. A financial consultant with no colleagues at the wedding. With no family to introduce her to. Without enough money for a spare toupee.

  She slid off the ring and angled it so the light shone on the inscription inside. Everyone must be puzzling about what she was doing, but Samantha didn't care.

  The engraving read: To Letitia, 1925.

  She stepped back, glowering at Hank. His mouth tightened and his eyes narrowed as if in warning. She'd never seen this expression on his face before. He looked, well, threatening.

  "Liar!" she shouted. "You aren't a financial consultant--you're a jewel thief!"

  She flung the ring at him, picked up her skirt and raced up the aisle. As she ran into the street and flagged a startled motorist, it occurred to her what evidence the police had recovered at the jewelry store.

  It was Hank's toupee.

  Chapter Two

  From the rise where Kieran French stood, the construction site resembled the ruins of an ancient city. Just as in a photo he’d seen of Pompeii, he could trace the outlines of streets and the shapes of buildings defined by their foundations.

  But this was a town of the future, not the past—the culmination of five years' hard work. He had never imagined that now, on the brink of bringing a new community to life, he would face losing it.

  The edges of the fax paper cut into Kieran's callused palm. He refused to give up Hidden Hot Springs, even if he had to bankrupt himself fighting for it.

  "Taking the day off?"

  Startled, he swung around to face Pete Zuniga, the solidly built foreman. "Just daydreaming." Kieran lapsed into a sheepish smile. The responsibility for developing the town and resort weighed heavily on his shoulders, but he had a fond place for Pete, a buddy from their college days at the University of California, San Diego. "What can I do for you?"

  Pete's brown eyes twinkled in his tanned face. "Actually, I'm here as kind of a delegate."

  Up the slope behind him trailed a couple of construction workers named Mack and Ernie. Hanging back, his thin face tinged with scarlet, was Lew Jolson, the project architect.

  "What's this?" Kieran joked. "Palace revolt?"

  "Hell, no." Removing his cap, Pete wiped his forehead. Although it was only June, the temperatures in this inland valley soared into the 90s. "I mean, not exactly."

  "We're lonely," said Mack.

  "Yeah?" Kieran shot him an amused glance. "You guys miss me that much? I've only been up here half an hour."

  Lew chuckled. "He didn't mean for you."

  Kieran had an idea what was coming. The men grumbled that their backbreaking schedule, six days a week, didn't leave time to meet women. Not that they were likely to find any in this remote inland locale.

  A lot of these guys w
ere in their thirties, like Kieran, and had long ago lost interest in the bar scene. Some were divorced; others had suffered through other types of failed relationships. They’d all had reasons for signing onto this project, but the entertainment value of video games and target shooting in the desert was wearing thin after months of isolation. On-line dating didn’t meet their needs, either, not when it required several hours of driving each way just to meet someone for coffee.

  He'd heard them complaining at night in the recreation hall: Where did you meet an old-fashioned girl, the kind you might want to settle down with?

  "I presume you have a proposal?" he said. Better to let them get this off their chests, although he didn't see how they could spare even a few days' vacation if they were to meet their construction schedule.

  "Yeah, well .. . uh." Pete stuck his hands in his pockets like an embarrassed kid. "Some of the guys saw a news item about a bunch of women who went up to Alaska in search of husbands. Like mail-order brides in the old West."

  "You planning to hijack their plane?" Kieran shook his head. "Our airstrip won't be ready for months."

  "Hey!" Ernie objected. "I’m not hijacking no plane."

  "He's kidding," Lew said. "But think about it. Why not post an ad?”

  “For mail-order brides?” Kieran enjoyed a joke as well as the next fellow, but…

  “Only to show we’re serious,” Lew responded.

  “It ought to get their attention,” Pete agreed.

  “Yeah, like rolling on the floor laughing.” Kieran wondered if they’d suffered a mild form of sunstroke.

  “It’s worth a try.” Lew’s earnest expression took the edge off Kieran’s mirth. “We’ll hold a dance at the rec hall and serve cookies and coffee."

  "Beer," said Mack. "Gotta have beer."

  "What kind of lady's going to come out here and drink beer?" snapped Ernie.

  "What kind of lady's going to come out here, period?" Kieran pointed out. "I know how frustrated you all are, but in four months we'll have the hotel built. Some of the shops will open, and there'll be jobs for women."