The Runaway Bride Read online

  He shook his head. Not for one minute did he believe this story. “If you won’t give me the keys, I’ll just hotwire the car.”

  He started toward the driver’s side. Laura caught up with him. She held out the keys. “Please, Jake, would you call Ruthanne and ask her about the package?”

  He took the keys, then motioned for his gun. She turned it over to him. He made sure the safety was on and slipped it back in his jacket pocket

  Laura had begun to shiver. “Please, Jake. You’re my only hope.”

  He blew out a heavy breath. “Ruthanne’s not living in Riverdell anymore. I moved her to Mesa. Not far from here.” He wasn’t sure about the wisdom of the suggestion he was about to make, but maybe it would get Laura back on track. And out of his life for good. “Would you like to ask her about the package, yourself?”

  Chapter Three

  “I—I suppose if you were going to kill me,” Laura said, her voice shaky with cold and nerves, “you’d have done it a second ago. After all, what better place to leave a body than out here?”

  Jake growled low in his throat. “Let’s get one thing straight—I haven’t been trying to kill you. I don’t believe anyone has. But if you try using that stun gun on me again, I will shoot you. Now, get in the car before you freeze to death.”

  Laura was in the car with her seat belt buckled before he started the engine. The warmth of the heater, along with the bouncing jostle as they traveled the dirt road, stirred her languid circulation, making her painfully aware of how chilled she’d gotten standing out in the desert in only a sweater and leggings. “If you don’t believe me, why are you helping me?”

  Jake glanced at her, his teal eyes icy with loathing. He opened his mouth, then snapped it shut as though he’d been going to lash out at her but had changed his mind. Looking back at the road, he said, “I’m not doing much. But when it’s done, I don’t want to hear from you again. Not ever. Understand?”

  Laura fell silent. They’d once been best friends, once shared their deepest, darkest secrets and desires, but now being civil strained their tempers. If he’d sliced her heart open with a rusty knife it couldn’t have hurt worse. She had loved this man with all her soul. God, help her, she loved him still. But she didn’t like him much. And she hoped she wasn’t making a mistake by asking for his help.

  She gazed away from him. Life had kicked them both hard. She doubted she’d ever truly trust anyone again. Perhaps he was equally disillusioned. But his folks hadn’t been murdered. She hadn’t bungled the investigation into their deaths. The old resentment swirled through her. She’d been forced on the run not because Jake was a dirty cop, just a bad one. She’d tried telling him Uncle Murphy and Aunt May were murdered. He hadn’t believed her then.

  He didn’t believe her now.

  Love and marriage should be based on trust. On belief in each other. For the first time in a year, she was glad she’d missed her own wedding.

  They gained the main road again, merging with the noon-hour traffic. Laura scanned cars in front, beside and behind them, an automatic reflex these days, but as she settled back in her seat, she paid little attention to which roads Jake took. Her thoughts drifted to Ruthanne, to what his mother living in Mesa might mean to her.

  Ruthanne Wilder, a genuine pack rat, never threw out anything. Had she kept the package? Had she brought it with her from Riverdell? Hope heated a small corner of Laura’s ice-encrusted heart. If so, it was the best news she could receive. It meant she wouldn’t have to go back to Riverdell. That she could recover the evidence against her aunt and uncle’s killer without putting herself—or anyone else—in further jeopardy.

  Doubts attacked her seedling hope. Could it really be this easy? This simple? The past year she’d acquired new respect for caution, no longer taking anything or anyone at face value. Had she trusted Jake too readily? Was he really taking her to his mother?

  Or had he lured her into the car so he could drive her to the nearest police station and have her arrested for abducting him? The thought riveted her. Despite his threat, she pushed her hand into her purse and curled her fingers around the stun gun. Its cold metal against her hot palm felt reassuring.

  Jake slowed the car, then turned into a moderately crowded parking lot. Laura’s nerves leaped and her gaze shifted to the low-slung adobe building. A sign above the front entrance identified it as Sunshine Vista Estates. Definitely not a police station. She released a taut breath and eased her hand out of her purse.

  Jake found a parking space.

  Laura unlatched her seat belt. “How does Ruthanne like Mesa?”

  “She manages.” Jake opened his car door.

  Manages? What did that mean? Laura scrambled out of the car and hurried to Jake’s side. She eyed the building critically. “I’d think your mom would have preferred a small bungalow surrounded with mounds of desert flowers, or a mobile home in one of those trailer parks along Main Street where she’d be surrounded by friends.”

  “She’s surrounded by friends here, and she has a tiny garden off her terrace.” He kept his face turned straight ahead.

  “This is an apartment building, then?”

  “Sort of.”

  Sort of? Laura frowned. Curiosity raged through her, but Jake’s brusque retorts discouraged further questioning. With her pulse skittering, she followed him up the entrance walkway and into a wide foyer. The smell of freshly cooked food greeted them. Straight ahead was a large formal room with its doors hanging open. From the people milling in the open doorway and those seated at clothed tables, being served, inside, Laura realized Sunshine Vista Estates was a senior complex.

  Jake passed the dining room without looking in and strode toward a long hallway.

  Laura hurried to catch up to him. “How do you know Ruthanne isn’t in the dining room?”

  “I don’t. But first we’ll check her quarters.”

  They traveled the long hallway, then turned into another. Laura wished Jake would slow down. She’d dipped deep into her well of courage today already, but the toughest undertaking lay ahead. Facing Ruthanne. The last time they’d spoken, she had been cool to Laura. Understandably so, considering Laura had left her son at the altar two weeks earlier. Ruthanne’s disappointment in her still hurt. She’d tried explaining to Ruthanne why she’d run off, but hadn’t wanted to alarm her or put the woman’s life in danger.

  In the end, she’d borne the disappointment in an effort to convince Ruthanne to pass her message and the package along to Jake. But instead of help arriving, someone had shown up at the motel in Idaho intent on murdering her. Until today, she’d harbored a fear that that someone was Jake. She knew now she’d been wrong. He’d have killed her in the desert this morning otherwise. Ended this hell for once and all.

  So, what about the package? Jake seemed truly not to know about it. Had Ruthanne given it to someone else? Had she given it to anyone at all? Ruthanne tended toward forgetfulness, a trait Laura had once thought endearing. Had it proven deadly in this instance?

  On the other hand, if Ruthanne had forgotten to tell anyone about the package or her telephone call, how had she been traced to the Idaho motel? Had someone bugged the Wilder telephone?

  Jake stopped before a door with a red heart taped to it. His mother’s name was written in white across the center of the paper valentine. The butterflies in Laura’s stomach fluttered with new life. This would be easy if Ruthanne had been nothing more to her than a mother-in-law-to-be. But she was so much more. Jake’s mom had given her the only real mothering she’d ever known.

  Laura leaned against the wall as Jake knocked on the door. She shut her eyes, recalling the couple who’d raised her. Murphy Whittaker, who’d been preoccupied with his work, had neglected his wife. Most women in May’s place would have doted on a child. But Aunt May, well meaning but flighty, was intimidated by the young niece who’d come to her grieving over the loss of her parents. She decided immediately that it would be better if she was Laura’s friend instead
of her parent.

  What Laura had needed was a mother. She’d found that in Ruthanne Wilder.

  Jake opened the door. “Mom?”

  Laura’s heart fluttered. She trailed after Jake, the knot in her stomach tightening with every step. But once she was inside, her eyes widened with dismay as she took in the eleven-by-eleven room. Granted the two-story house in Riverdell was getting too large for Ruthanne, but reducing her living quarters to a single room seemed extreme. And wrong.

  Yet all was not unfamiliar. The bedspread and curtains, for as far back as she could recall, had graced the Wilders’ master bedroom. Her heart squeezed. There were other recognized treasures, too: framed photographs and a favorite planter, which now held a Christmas cactus in full bloom.

  She felt Jake’s eyes on her and looked up to catch him staring at her. Something about this alien room, perhaps the few things that identified it as his mother’s, felt too intimate, stirred long-denied memories. Laura took a step toward him. He swallowed and spun away from her, strode toward a patio door.

  Laura spied a tall woman in a housedress and cardigan on the minuscule deck, bent over a window box. Her gunmetal-gray hair was cropped close to her head and flattened into an unflattering nest of tight curls.

  Jake opened the door. “Mom?”

  The woman’s head snapped up. With a start Laura realized it was Ruthanne. In twelve months time the woman had changed so much she would not have known her. Laura froze, her mind reeling.

  Jake’s mother had always prided herself on her appearance, exercised, dieted and dressed younger than her fiftyplus years. For the past ten years, she’d worn her palegolden hair in the same softly flattering pageboy. But this new color, new style aged her dreadfully. She looked nearer eighty than sixty.

  Ruthanne blinked at Jake as though she didn’t know him. Laura saw that her usually warm and lively teal eyes seemed dull. Medication? Was Ruthanne ill?

  But Laura’s concern vanished instantly as a smile spread across Ruthanne’s face and she exclaimed, “J.J., what a nice surprise!”

  Jake said something to her, and Ruthanne’s attention swung to Laura. Laura held her breath, but Ruthanne’s smile widened. She hurried inside, brushing past Jake. “It’s about time you brought Laura to see me. How wonderful.”

  She crossed to Laura and hugged her. Laura wanted to melt in the embrace of this woman whom she considered mother and friend. But Ruthanne stepped back quickly and caught her by the hands. Ruthanne’s hands felt dry, but her eyes were watery. She studied Laura.

  “You’ve done something different with your hair.”

  “Well, ah, it’s a little longer is all.” Actually, it was much longer than it had been last year, and in dire need of a decent cut. But she’d avoided beauty parlors, spending whatever cash she garnered on essentials: rent, food, disguises, devices like the stun gun.

  She smiled tentatively. “You’ve changed your hair, too, I see.”

  “Have I?” Ruthanne touched the hair at her nape and frowned, as though surprised at its shorter length. “Kim says this is easier.”

  Kim, Laura supposed, was Kim Durant, Ruthanne’s brother Larry’s girl. Besides being Jake’s cousin, Kim was also Laura’s friend, a close enough friend that Laura had asked her to be one of her bridesmaids. “How do you like living here…in Arizona?”

  “It’s nice. I miss my house. My garden. But we have tea in the afternoon and I play bridge, you know, with Milly down the hall and…and…Phyllis and…and the others. Goodness, I can’t seem to remember their names.”

  Laura nodded. She saw a flicker of pain cross Jake’s eyes and wondered at it.

  “Sit down, you two.” Ruthanne motioned Jake and Laura into a love seat that hugged the wall beneath the window.

  Jake grimaced, causing the scar to stand out It gave him a menacing mien that so opposed his true nature. Laura’s pulse faltered. God, he could still steal her breath. How was it possible to love a man and detest him at the same time? She swallowed hard over the knot in her throat.

  Jake dropped onto the tiny sofa, his gaze locked with hers, and patted the seat beside him. The space left by his powerful body would barely accommodate her. She balked. She didn’t want to sit within touching distance of Jake. Would have sworn he wanted it that way, too. Then why the sham? What was going on that she was missing?

  Jake said, “Laura didn’t come to talk about bridge and hairdos, Mom.”

  “Well, of course not.” Ruthanne sank onto her bed, opened the top drawer of her nightstand, stuck her hand inside, then pulled it out and began rubbing her hands together, applying lotion. She looked at Laura expectantly. “You’re wound tight as a drum, girl. Sit down and tell me what’s bothering you.”

  Reluctantly, Laura joined Jake on the love seat, but held herself away from him—an impossibility. Their shoulders brushed and her heartbeat skipped.

  She forced her mind to the package, but all hope that Ruthanne had it here had vanished ten minutes ago. If she’d been living in a house…But she wasn’t. This room held nothing but the bare essentials. Ruthanne’s other possessions had either been disposed of or put in storage.

  Why hadn’t Jake just told her that? Because he wanted to torture her, if only a little, she realized. Her resentment of him deepened a notch.

  His mother steadied her gaze on Laura, eyes narrowed. “What are you doing in Mesa, dear?”

  Trying to get my life back, Laura wanted to shout The life that had been snatched from her by her aunt and uncle’s murderer. By Jake not believing her.

  “Dear?” Ruthanne prodded.

  Laura ran her tongue across her dry lips. “Do you still have the package I sent you?”

  “Package?” Ruthanne frowned and her expression grew thoughtful. “They bring all my packages to me. I don’t recall anything from you, Laura, dear.”

  “I sent it to your house in Riverdell. It was wrapped in wedding paper.”

  “Oh, you mean the present.”

  Hope leaped in Laura’s chest. Jake moved closer to the edge of his seat. Another quarter inch and he’d land on the floor. Laura resisted the urge to help him along. “Yes. The one for Jake.”

  “Oh.” Ruthanne clasped her hands together. “So many lovely things have come for you and Jake.”

  Perplexed, Laura said, “What?”

  She felt Jake wince. But Ruthanne nodded and smiled. “You and J.J. are going to start your marriage off with a bang.”

  Laura stiffened. Start their marriage? “Ruthanne, I—”

  “We have to go, Mom.” Jake cut Laura off and lurched to his feet.

  But without missing a beat, Ruthanne said, “I know you’re going to be a beautiful bride. It’s a pity Murphy won’t be there to give you away. I suppose Ralph will have to do.”

  Laura’s mouth dropped open. Ralph had been Jake’s boss in Riverdell, the chief of police. He had been going to give her away. Last year. But Ruthanne sounded as though she believed the wedding was about to take place. Dismay dragged her stomach to her toes.

  She glanced at Jake, seeking reassurance that Ruthanne was well. One hundred percent sane. His face was as hard as granite. But the awful pain in his eyes ripped at her heart He spun on his heel and stalked to the door, then closed it behind him with a firm thud.

  Laura found her feet, and Ruthanne came off the bed with a start “Why, where is J.J. going? You two have a little lovers’ spat? Don’t you worry, darling. He’s a bit hotheaded, but he loves you. You’re going to have a wonderful life together.”

  Apprehension shivered through Laura. How dared Jake run out on her? She deserved an explanation. She needed to know that her suspicions about Ruthanne were unfounded. She kissed Ruthanne goodbye and hurried into the hall. She expected that Jake had abandoned her and that she’d have to chase him down. But he was there. Leaning against the wall. Agony etched in every line of his glorious face.

  Laura couldn’t swallow. “What’s the matter with her Jake? Is—is it Alzheimer’s?”

/>   He nodded, then said in a voice taut with stifled emotion, “It came on fast. Most days she doesn’t know me. Today was a good day.”

  Laura’s chest heaved, her breath coming in huge gasps as though she’d just stopped running at full out speed. “W-why didn’t you tell me?” She wanted to hit him. To slam her fists into his chest and just keep pounding on him until her fear and anger subsided. “I love her, too, you know. Letting me find out this way was cruel. You didn’t used to be cruel, Jake.”

  His gaze narrowed. “I didn’t used to be a lot of things.”

  Tears blurred her vision. Her heart ached as though it had been fileted. She’d lost her birth parents, her adopted parents, Jake and now Ruthanne. She hugged herself, feeling lost and alone in a strange town, a strange building where former loved ones were strangers to her now.

  JAKE DIDN’T WANT to feel anything warm and fuzzy for Laura, but damned if this didn’t hit him where he lived. She looked stunned by the devastation of his mother’s illness. Had his animosity for Laura erased all thought that she’d care this deeply? Or had he shoved it out of his mind, not wanting to face the fact that she cared more for his mother than she ever had for him?

  He shut his eyes, recalling the first time he’d seen Laura. A vision filled his mind of a lost little angel with sable braids and wide gray eyes. A typical third-grade boy, he’d teased her horribly, been a real brat He opened his eyes. He’d made her cry. As she was crying now. But this time the tears were for his mother.

  Ruthanne’s gentle guidance had given Laura confidence and self-respect She’d flourished, grown into a proud and beautiful woman. Laura loved his mother as unselfishly as he’d thought she’d love him. Now he had the overpowering urge to pull her to him. To offer her comfort To accept some in return.

  Laura wiped at her eyes and lifted her chin. Determination dominated her expression. “What became of Ruthanne’s possessions?”