The Runaway Bride Read online

  “Intimately.” She tugged off the blond hair.

  A wig. Sable, chin-length hair, as rich as mink, as shiny as silk, as haunting as a bad dream, fell around her heart-shaped face. And recognition slammed into him. The air leaped from his lungs. “Laura?”

  “Hello, Jake,” she said, in a voice that was now distinctly recognizable.

  His chest ached as though he’d been slugged by a heavyweight boxer. This wasn’t how he’d pictured her. He’d seen her so often in white lace with a veil perched atop that glorious hair, pictured himself putting his ring on her finger, pictured them exchanging vows of love.

  But those were just the images of his nightmares.

  Laura Whittaker had broken his heart, had made him Riverdell’s reigning fool. She’d thought so little of him she hadn’t even had the decency to tell him that she’d changed her mind about marrying him—just left him waiting at the church with all their friends and family in attendance, on what was to have been the happiest day of his life.

  What did she want with him now—after twelve months of silence?

  His distress and shock jetted away on a wave of white-hot fury. He tugged the gun from his pocket and waved it at her, only half-conscious that he still held it. “What the hell kind of bad joke is this?”

  She reared back, her smoky eyes widening, shifting from his gaze to his hand. The color dropped from her face. “It’s no joke. You have to help me, Jake.”

  Desperation and terror leapfrogged across her face. Jake tensed. Desperate women were unpredictable. This was over. Right now. “Get out of my car.”

  “Put the gun away first.”

  He frowned. He’d forgotten all about the gun. Without looking away from her, he flipped the safety on and tucked the weapon back into his jacket pocket. “Out. Now.”

  “Please, Jake, just hear me—”

  “You don’t have anything I want to hear. Get out.”

  Her desperation returned, darkening her eyes to a deep pewter. “You have to help me.”

  “‘Have’ to?” He laughed, a sound as bitter as his memories. “Lady, and I use the term only in its broadest meaning, if you were on fire I wouldn’t spit on you. Now, get out of my car.”

  “Okay, but I’m sorry it has to be this way.”

  The words seemed to choke her. Or was she also remembering what she’d done to him? She ran her tongue across her lush red lips. The action drew his gaze even as he struggled not to be affected by it. He missed seeing her hand come out of her purse. She lifted her chin and let out a wobbly breath.

  “But you are going to help me.”

  In a lightning move, Laura jammed a small stun gun against his solar plexus and fired.

  Chapter Two

  “Oh, God, oh, God.” Laura cringed at the surprised look in Jake’s eyes, wilted momentarily as his face went slack and he slumped in the seat beside her. She’d been prepared to use the stun gun, prepared to cope with the effect it would have on him. She hadn’t counted on feeling bad about hurting him. But her heart ached with such pain she nearly buckled. “I’m sorry, Jake. You gave me no choice.”

  She reminded herself that Jake Wilder could well be the enemy. The very one trying to kill her. Adrenaline burst through Laura. She had mere seconds before he revived, before his anger exploded.

  Moving nimbly, she found the car keys, disarmed Jake, dropped his gun into her purse and extracted a length of rope and a roll of duct tape. In her former life as head of product acquisitions for Dell Pharmaceuticals, she’d never imagined herself doing anything this intrepid. This brutal. But survival had forced her to learn and execute skills to counteract those of her pursuer. She lashed Jake’s ankles, then knotted the rope around his wrists. After tearing off a length of tape, she smoothed it over his lips.

  Touching him was her undoing. Her fingers faltered as they contacted his warm, familiar jaw, his wide, sculpted mouth. A wealth of unbidden images, deliciously wicked remembrances of things that mouth had done to her, stole from the secret trove deep within her mind. The memories riveted her. Filled her with bittersweet longing for what might have been. What should have been.

  Her gaze caressed his beloved face, landing on the scar that ran from his temple to his jaw. When, where, had he gotten this? Except for his thick, richly golden hair, Jake had never been male-model handsome. His features were too irregular, his nose too large, his chin too strong, his teal-blue eyes deep set and serious.

  On another man, the scar would have been ugly. On Jake, conversely, it enhanced his looks, said he could be vulnerable. And dangerous. Was he dangerous? To her? The possibility unnerved Laura as she realized the effects of the stun gun were wearing off with the speed of her accelerating pulse.

  Fury danced in Jake’s teal eyes. She snatched the seat belt and rammed the catch home just as he lurched straighter in the seat—as straight as the rope allowed. He railed at her, one long, mumbling vociferation, each indistinguishable word punctuated with a jerk of his head, a yank on his restraints.

  Laura started the engine, left the parking lot of the motel and turned away from town, toward Superstition Mountain. “You think I wanted it this way?”

  He nodded furiously.

  “No. Not at all. If you’d been reasonable this wouldn’t be necessary.”

  He bucked against the seat belt, muttered something that, even through the tape, sounded like a string of curses. Somehow, she had to get him to calm down and listen to her before they reached their destination. She drove faster, grateful that traffic was light, that the windows of his Cherokee were opaque. The last thing she wanted was someone noticing the tape on her hostage’s mouth.

  Beside her, Jake continued mumbling against the tape. He’d stopped wrenching against the ropes, stopped jarring the bench seat, but his chest lifted and fell with the unmistakable beat of a man in the throes of anger.

  “I swear, Jake, I’ll let you go soon. As soon as you agree to help me.”

  His muffled response amplified several decibels. From the hard, cold glint in his eyes, she suspected he’d reiterated his refusal to help her. This wasn’t going as she’d planned. She spotted the dirt road she wanted and slowed, then pulled onto it. It seemed to meander through flat, cactus-dotted desert toward a sweep of low, rolling hills. Jake muttered something that sounded like a question.

  She glanced at him. “We’re going to a cabin I know about out here.”

  A dark frown furrowed his brow, puckered the scar, and she knew his distrust of her grew with every pothole on this godforsaken road. Maybe if she removed the tape he’d be more cooperative. Would listen to reason. Would hear her out.

  Besides, there wasn’t anyone out here who could hear him holler for help. She caught an edge of the tape. Again, the touch of her skin against his jarred Laura. She swallowed hard, ignored the unwanted sensations, gripped tighter and ripped the tape free.

  Cursing, Jake wrenched back against the headrest. “Ahh.”

  “Sorry.” Even to herself, she didn’t sound as though she meant it.

  “Yeah, right. What the hell do you think you’re doing? Where are you taking me?”

  “I told you. It’s a cabin. A place where we can talk without interruption.”

  “I don’t want to talk to you. I don’t want anything to do with you.”

  The remark stung Laura; how badly it hurt surprised her. She pressed her lips together and stared at the road. Had she expected Jake would feel the same about her as he had before she’d run away from their wedding? Hardly. But she supposed a teeny part of her must have hoped for exactly that. Otherwise her heart wouldn’t feel as though he’d just stomped on it.

  Keeping the pain from her face, she glanced at him. “I’d hoped by now you’d realize how important this is to me.”

  He opened his mouth, undoubtedly to tell her how unimportant that fact was to him, but instead, he heaved a sigh, shut his eyes and turned toward the window. An angry red rash surrounded his mouth where the tape had been. A nerve jumpe
d at his temple.

  FURIOUS. Horrified. Humiliated. Jake tried reining in his stampeding temper. He’d thought being left at the church was mortifying, but this…This was crazed. Psychotic. How could he ever have loved this woman? No normal, sane person used a stun gun on another, trussed him up like a wrangled calf, stole his car and kidnapped him.

  He glanced at the barren stretch of land ahead. Uninhabited. Unhabitable. Was she going to leave him out here? Tied up? His mouth dried. He had to think Had to get free. Overpower her.

  He shifted in the seat again and realized with a start that he could no longer feel the weight of the Glock in his pocket. A chill shivered through him. Dear God, was she planning to kill him? No. What possible reason could she have? Then again, what reason did she have for abducting him?

  Ahead, nestled in a stand of bent mesquite trees, he spied a dilapidated shack. The cabin? It might once have been the hangout of some long-gone seeker of the Lost Dutchman Mine, but he suspected the only residents these days were unfriendly desert critters who would just as soon bite or sting trespassers. “You don’t really plan on using this run-down rattler ranch for a ‘chat’?”

  She parked in front of the “cabin,” cut the engine and shifted toward him. Apparently she did.

  She said, “I’m going to come around and help you out of the car, then we’re going to go inside and talk.”

  “Untie me.” His pulse ticked to the beat of the cooling engine.

  “Will you hear me out…with an open mind?”

  His nerves were as unsettled as the dust swirling around the car. His gaze met and held hers, and he recognized in those glorious pewter orbs the same desperation he’d seen there earlier. Desperate women were dangerous. Unpredictable. Laura had just proven that to him in spades. He decided the best thing, the only thing, he could do at the moment was humor her. “Yes.”

  She considered a moment, then reached into her purse and withdrew his gun. He swallowed hard, pressed reflexively against his door. The bright sun stole through the heavily tinted windows, heating his neck, but outside he knew the temperature hovered near freezing. Inside the cabin it would be even colder.

  Laura pulled the keys from the ignition, gathered her purse and exited the car. She came around to the passenger side and yanked open the door. He stared up at her, at the gun she now held to her side. The morning sun glinted off its silver snout. His stomach clenched.

  Laura leaned into the car, her body stretched over his in an exaggerated arch that precluded touching, as she unlatched his seat belt The fragrance of wildflowers filled his nostrils and he realized the scent was new, as different and aberrant as the wig she’d worn earlier.

  Why the change? Then again, what hadn’t changed about her? She caught him by the elbow, their noses inches apart, and he realized to his severe annoyance what hadn’t changed was his ardor to bed this woman. Her thick, silken sable hair danced about her face, imbuing the air with her dizzying wildflower scent. Jagged spears of heartache pierced him. “Untie me.”

  “Inside.”

  “Now.”

  She stood erect and brought the gun up level with his temple. “Why must you make everything so difficult?”

  “Me?” Jake stamped down his returning fury, cautioning himself to keep a cool head. He struggled out of the car and stood hunched forward in the soft sand, his balance precarious. Laura motioned him toward the cabin. Jake stood firm. “I told you I’d listen to you…with an open mind. So start talking.”

  She hugged herself against the chill. She had no coat, had to be even colder than he was. She glared at him. “And I told you I’d untie you when we get inside.”

  He warned himself against losing his temper. She was crazy. She had his gun. But he’d had enough. “I’m not going into that scorpion sand castle.”

  Her eyebrows arched and she waved the gun at him. “But I—I’ll shoot you.”

  “Go ahead. If I’m going to die today, I’d prefer it be swiftly.”

  She grabbed him by the elbow and jerked hard. Jake lost his balance. He toppled toward her. Laura realized it too late. She yelped. He rammed into her. She pitched backward, arms flailing. She hit the ground landing sprawled on her back with her arms flung outward. The gun skittered free.

  Jake crashed on top of her. He heard the breath whoosh from her lungs, felt the rush of air on his face, felt Laura wriggle beneath him, and realized that his tied hands cupped the vee of her legs, that he could feel her firm breasts mounded against his chest. Their lips were centimeters apart Their gazes locked.

  Something electric traveled his veins, heated his senses, and for one heady second he forgot the heartache she’d caused him, her craziness this morning. He wanted to ravish her mouth, her body, make her cry out with release, with desire for only him.

  Then she glared at him and wheezed, “Get…off…me.”

  The charged moment vanished, leaving him shaken and disoriented.

  Laura grunted and pushed at his shoulders. But with his wrists and ankles bound, he couldn’t gain leverage. And every failed attempt to disentangle himself from her only made him more aware of the feel of her. Finally, he bunched his muscles and rolled to his side.

  Panting, Laura sat up. She glared at him. “Damn you. You did that on purpose.”

  Jake laughed. His confidence and anger returned in a rush, twin devils vying for control of him. “Untie me.”

  She scrambled up, brushed herself off and dug around in her purse. She produced a pocketknife and cut the rope at Jake’s wrists, then gathered up the gun again and waved it at him. “You do the rest.”

  He complied, rapidly considering and rejecting ways to disarm her without either of them getting shot. He rubbed his wrists and then his ankles. He rose gingerly, mounted the front bumper of the car and sat on the hood. To his dismay, he could still feel the sensation of her body beneath his. He fought the desire pooling in his groin. Tried not to notice the way the sweater cleaved her full breasts, tried not to remember the feel of those breasts, the taste of them. “Start talking.”

  Laura gazed up at him, keeping her distance. She sighed. “I need the evidence I sent your mother.”

  Jake blinked and shook his head, puzzled. What the hell was she talking about? This made about as much sense as her kidnapping him. “You sent my mother some…evidence?”

  “Yes. As a present.”

  He pressed his elbows to his thighs and buried his head in his hands. Demented. She was demented. His chest squeezed. He glanced at her. “A present?”

  Laura shoved her free hand through her hair, then let it fall like spilled chocolate silk about her shoulders. “I’m not explaining this well. I disguised the evidence—giftwrapped it like one of our wedding presents.”

  Jake blanched at the mention of the wedding. He didn’t want any reminders of that day. “I don’t have anything that you sent my mother.”

  She frowned as though she thought he was lying. His anger sparked anew. Where did she get off not believing him? He wasn’t the liar. The betrayer.

  Laura said, “Are you sure Ruthanne didn’t give it to you?”

  She did think he was lying. Jake glared at her. “Positive. What the hell is this evidence anyway? Evidence of what?”

  “It’s proof that Uncle Murphy and Aunt May were murdered.”

  He just stared at her. He couldn’t believe his ears. Murdered? Her aunt and uncle had raised her, were the only folks she’d known. Had their deaths sent her over the edge, zapped her sanity? “The explosion was an accident, Laura. I thought you had accepted that.”

  “It was not an accident Someone at Dell Pharmaceuticals killed them.”

  “For what reason?”

  “For Uncle Murphy’s new formula.”

  Jake felt like a man wandering in a dense fog. Every time he thought he was stepping clear of it, it grew thicker. His patience waned. “Don and I were the investigating officers on your aunt and uncle’s case. It was tragic, but it was an accident.” She knew all this,
but apparently needed reminding. “The point of origin of the explosion was the basement lab. Your uncle just put the wrong chemicals together.”

  “My uncle wouldn’t be that careless.”

  Jake snickered. “Murphy Whittaker worked on a shoestring budget. His lab was slipshod. You know damned well that he took shortcuts from lack of cash. Reused old containers—”

  “Recycled!” she interrupted, indignation in her voice, in the set of her lovely jaw.

  “Whatever.”

  “If I’m lying, Jake, why has someone been trying to kill me for a year?”

  “What!” This was the most preposterous thing she’d said yet.

  “Since the day of our wedding. Why do you think I left you at the altar?”

  He knew why she’d left She’d run off with another man. How dared she claim that was a lie? That her note to him was a lie? His patience snapped. He jumped down off the car. “I’ve had enough of this. Give me my keys.”

  “Please, Jake. It’s the truth.”

  “No, the truth is that you’re an insensitive witch who never gave a fig about anyone but yourself.” His accusation hung between them like a filthy word. Jake knew it didn’t describe the Laura he’d grown up with, fallen in love with, wanted to spend the rest of his life with.

  It did, however, describe the Laura who’d run off with Cullen Crocker, a man whose handsome face could grace the covers of the world’s best-selling men’s and women’s magazines. Jake’s insides felt clammy. He held his hand out to her. “My keys.”

  Laura stood her ground, squaring her shoulders. The desperate gleam had returned to her eyes, along with a spark of determination. “Jake, I swear I can prove my aunt and uncle were murdered and that someone has been trying to kill me ever since I discovered that truth. I just have to retrieve the package I sent your mother.”

  Jake leveled his gaze on her. “All the wedding presents were returned.”

  “Not this one. Ruthanne didn’t know where to send it.”

  “Then she probably disposed of it.”

  “But you don’t know that for certain. And I can’t return to Riverdell. I don’t dare call her, either. The last time I did, someone tracked me down and killed a woman who looked like me in the parking lot of my motel.”