There Goes the Bride

Instead, she said, “We thought things would be okay when I became a spokesmodel.”

She could almost feel Rick’s caustic grin.

“Be quiet. It’s a very legitimate line of work,” she said.

“No doubt.”

Silence. She waited for him to ask why she wasn’t still spokesmodeling. Could she tell him that she’d started gaining weight again, and her employer had fired her?

Rick cleared his throat. “How does Peter the Great, the love of your life, come into the picture?”

She shook her head. “Coral and I knew we couldn’t pay him back for his loan. But he said it didn’t matter. That he wanted to marry me. You know, he seemed like a gentleman. He’d helped us in our time of need. Coral encouraged me, told me that maybe I’d return his feelings after a while.”

Rick stayed silent, and she could feel the weight of his judgment.

“I wanted to repay my sister for taking care of me. And I truly thought I would be good for Peter. I’d be his perfect hostess and support his career.” Cold, cold, cold. Had all the hours she’d wasted trying to decide if she could marry Peter come down to this? An ice-cold excuse?

She hadn’t seemed so callous when she’d said yes to him.

She was so lost in thought that she didn’t hear the semitrailer breathing steel behind them. She didn’t hear Rick reminding her to leave the road.

She only felt the shuddering swirl of air suck by them as Rick grabbed her to safety, holding her in his strong arms as they darted into the cornstalks.

In the truck’s aftermath, debris danced, lagging after the massive tires as the stale smell of asphalt and dust lined the night. Daisy and Rick breathed against each other. It wasn’t until he shifted against her that she realized she was still wrapped in his protective embrace.

He was so warm under his jacket. Daisy allowed her fingers to linger on his rib cage just a moment longer, stealing heat, feeling the thud of his heartbeat.

It would feel so good to lay her cheek against his chest, to allow herself to rest and stop running from her problems for just a moment.

He tightened his grip on her waist, and she felt his body go hard. Her skin tingled, leaving her breathless once again.

When she peered up at him, his expression shocked her into a frozen second of fear. He had a bloodred moon reflected in his eyes, his mouth drawn as tight as a battle line. As she shifted against him, his fingertips dug into the small of her back.

She gave a tiny gasp of discomfort, and that seemed to break his spell.

He stumbled backward, as if someone had shot him in the chest.

Then, without another word, Rick Shane faded into the night, leaving Daisy to trail after him into Broken Wing, Illinois.

The road sign indicated that Broken Wing had a population of two hundred and three. From the looks of it, Rick thought that most of them were probably living in the nearest graveyard.

But at least the joint had a decent motel. And all Rick wanted right now was to sleep until the sun came up.

The Tuckaway Inn would do just fine. Located adjacent to a Swiss Chalet–inspired diner, the Alps cottages cuddled into the dream-fuzzed countryside. One car indicated that the Tuckaway had another lone customer. Or maybe the vehicle belonged to the apple-cheeked matron at the front desk.

Either way, it wasn’t every day a man had the benefit of seeing cornstalks and gingerbread trim in the same blink. The past twelve hours were pretty surreal, but—then again—his life was getting more surreal by the minute.

Especially when it came to Daisy.

An hour after checking in, Rick stepped out of the shower, trying to think of something other than the runaway bride in the next cottage. Instead, he concentrated on combing his hair.

He knew his cut was scruffy—too long near the collar—but he didn’t actually give a rat’s hind end. Not that he had anyone to care for about his appearance anyway. That was the advantage of living by yourself in the woods.

But the mirror allowed him the chance to look himself in the eye. What he saw disturbed him.

A man with a basalt-type hardness to his gaze. A man who’d been quick to grin in his youth, now reduced to a line-in-the-sand grimness.

There was a hideous slant to him. He could see it in the dark part of his irises, the part where no one cared to look anymore. It was the type of scar you couldn’t erase, the type of ugliness that turned a decent kid to stone.

He faced away from his image, disgusted. Even Daisy Cox had brushed him off tonight when he’d told her that she didn’t need exercise. That she looked just fine the way she was. She hadn’t responded to his heartfelt compliment, had politely rejected him with her cool golden-curled finesse.

See, even Daisy Cox didn’t want anything to do with him.

Hell, at least she could stand to face him at dinner. As a matter of fact, she’d done the inviting as soon as she’d seen that hilarious Swiss-countrified diner next door. What the hey? he’d thought. He needed food as much as the next man.

So after she’d gone to her own cottage to dry off and freshen up, Rick had done the same. Now, as he donned his bomber jacket, he left his room to wait for her.

As he scuffed his way to her cottage, he froze in his tracks, held captive by a silhouette on the curtains of Daisy’s window.