There Goes the Bride. Crystal Green

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СКАЧАТЬ heart was actually pounding, dammit. Just as it had years ago, when he’d had much more dangerous things to worry about. A bead of sweat fixed itself to his upper lip and, with a lack of patience, Rick swept it away with the butt of his cigar.

      Rachel and Matthew escorted Daisy out the back door, her veil and satin covered by a blanket. They helped her into the vehicle, instructing her to get on the floor so no one would see her. After shutting her inside, they turned to Rick.

      Rachel kissed him on the cheek, and Rick tried not to flinch. Instead, he glanced away, tossing his cigar to the ground and driving it into the dirt with a boot heel. He didn’t even bother acknowledging Matthew as he swept around the Jeep’s hood and hopped inside the cab.

      Once he’d started the engine and turned onto the road, he flicked on the radio, only to find a preacher blaring a sermon out of the speakers. He grinned, turning it a little louder, checking to see if the bundle of blanket, satin and Daisy would protest.

      But the only response he got was the bounce of a golden ringlet as it worked its way from the coarse army-green blanket.

      In a burst of mental gunfire, memory blinded him.

      He saw another cowering female, desert sand burying itself in her hair like jewels in a crown.

      Just as quickly, he shook himself back to the present, ignoring the throbbing pulse in his neck. His breath shortened, and he fought to regulate it.

      But he couldn’t steady his hands.

      As he gripped the sweat-dampened steering wheel, he aimed toward home, toward a little cabin in the woods where, once, he’d been able to hide from the rest of the world.

      Daisy wanted to ask Rick to turn off that darned radio.

      No. She wouldn’t push her luck. She’d been fortunate to find a way out of this wedding disaster, and she wasn’t about to blow it by testing Rick Shane’s temper.

      Let him listen to fire and brimstone. Let him smile his cocky smile and try to get a rise out of her.

      Daisy Cox was flying toward freedom, toward St. Louis, and nothing was going to stop her.

      Under the blanket, she could pretend she was safe. Not like when she’d been a young girl, huddled under her comforter when Coral had told her that Mommy and Daddy were never coming home again. No, this time she was going to be reborn, emerging from this dark place with a new purpose, a new identity.

      No more Daisy Cox, has-been beauty queen.

      The Jeep shuddered to a halt, and she heard Rick’s door open, then shut.

      Seconds passed. Was that jerk leaving her here?

      She knew he hadn’t wanted to fly her anywhere. In fact, from the way Rick had protested his involvement in her escape, it was obvious that he’d just as soon strangle her for disrupting his life.

      She felt guilty about it, too. Boy, did she ever. She didn’t enjoy grinding weddings to a halt, inconveniencing her sister for the rest of her life or dragging a man away from his beloved existence in Kane’s Crossing. But if she’d had any other choice, she would have taken it.

      Finally, her door swished open. “Are you that relaxed?” asked Rick.

      She peeked out of the blanket’s dark comfort, squinting as sunlight and Rick’s irritation poured over her. “A gentleman would help me out.”

      “I am helping you out.” He walked a couple of steps away, then paused. Shaking his head, Rick returned, holding out a hand.

      She peered down her nose at it, then made her way out of the Jeep. She could feel her breasts working themselves out of her bodice, but that’s what you got when you power ate before a big wedding. The seamstress had almost slapped Daisy silly when she’d shown up for her final fitting, ten pounds heavier than the last time.

      And it wasn’t as if she’d been a twiggy creature during the first fitting, either.

      When she finally managed to get to her feet without Rick’s help, she grinned at him. He stared right back, his face emotionless.

      “Your crown is crooked,” he said, then turned away to walk toward his cabin.

      As she adjusted her veil and followed him, she couldn’t help widening her smile. Freedom. Rick had it, with this cabin nestled on the fringes of a woodland copse. Pine trees guarded the solemn cabin with its knotholes decorating a cozy porch. All Rick Shane needed to be Davy Crockett was a coonskin cap and buckskins hugging his long legs.

      Daisy sighed. She wasn’t about to think teenaged-girl thoughts about Rick again. That was then, this was now. And now was a whole lot more stressful.

      He opened the unlocked front door and gestured for her to come in. She almost refused, just to be contrary. Just to see him grin at her like he used to in high school.

      But she didn’t know if he’d respond the same way now. As a matter of fact, she wouldn’t be surprised if Rick hated her guts for roping him into her mess of a life.

      As she stepped inside, the smell of pine washed over her senses. It was a man’s abode, all right, with patterned Indian blankets strewn over a spindly-legged couch, with woven mats serving as rugs and with a pillow-tossed, unmade bed resting in the corner. A T-shirt slouched over a chair back, trailing a pair of well-worn jeans that had found pooled sanctuary on the hardwood floor. It looked as if he’d stepped out of the clothing on the way to bed.

      She could almost imagine him without a stitch of material covering his body, could almost imagine shadows playing over his hard chest while a rumpled sheet hid everything below. What if she slid that phantom sheet lower and lower…?

      Stop right there, she told herself.

      When she glanced at him, his brow was cocked, obviously aware that she was aware of the discarded clothes.

      As if the sight of them was enough to unnerve her. All her life, she’d been paraded in front of judges, cheering parents, back-stabbing Miss So-and-so’s. Did he think she was so easily flustered?

      Daisy pasted on her best panel-winning smile. “I want to take this opportunity to thank you for your help, Rick.”

      Hmmm. She shouldn’t have said his name. It seemed far too intimate in light of the tossed-away jeans.

      He must have possessed nerves radar, because just as soon as she thought “Hmmm,” he started moving toward her, shadowing her with his long body.

      “Don’t thank me now. We’ve got a ways to go, darlin’.”

      Daisy swallowed, coating her suddenly dry throat with indifference. “Well, it needed to be said.”

      Well? The word was a time buyer, a dead giveaway to a loss of composure.

      He took a step closer, bringing with him the slight scent of tobacco. Closer, close enough so she could see the outline of his Adam’s apple against a corded throat.

      Close enough so his low voice rained through her with a liquid vibration. “You actually think this hare-brained plan is going to work?”

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