Patricia Johns: The Runaway Bride

“What’s my aunt like?” she asked.

Liam was silent for a few beats. “Lucille is kind. A good neighbor. Honest.”

“But you didn’t know she was a Morgan,” she countered. “Are you sure she’s that honest?” The mechanic’s description didn’t match what she’d heard about her aunt.

“I haven’t heard her side of it yet,” Liam replied. “So I’m reserving judgment.”

That was new—who did that these days, reserving judgment on another person’s failings? No one she knew personally. Apparently, Aunt Lucille had some loyal friends.

Runt River’s downtown consisted of a few stores—a ranch supply store, a burger joint, an ice cream shop, a drugstore—and only one stoplight that Bernie could see. Most vehicles seemed to be pickup trucks that parked in the angled spots in front of stores, their tails hanging out into the road. Downtown came and went in the space of two streets, and then they turned on to a street of houses. These were decent-sized, well-maintained, with large yards and mature trees. In New York, they’d be worth a couple million, but out here in Runt River, Ohio, they would probably sell for pocket change.

“Here we are,” he said, pulling into the drive of a large white house. An older woman sat on the porch, a toddler beside her eating crackers out of a box she held in her lap. The little guy was cute—with the biggest brown eyes she’d ever seen.

Was that her aunt?

Bernie couldn’t make out any of the Morgan traits in the older woman. She was gray—what woman let herself go gray in their family?—and she carried some extra weight. She wore a flower-patterned summer dress, and her hair was cut in a chin-length bob—just a touch of fashionableness. The older woman squinted when she spotted Bernie in the front seat, then leaned forward.

Liam got out of the truck, and looked back at Bernie. She slowly pushed the door open and raised a hand in a tentative wave.

“Hi, Lucille,” Liam said. “I’ve got someone here who says she knows you.”

Lucille stood up and fixed Bernie with a shocked expression. “Aren’t you supposed to be getting married?”

Bernie’s hand flew up to the veil still affixed to her hair with clips and pins. The stylist had promised that it would stay put, and that was no lie.

“That was the plan,” Bernie replied, gathering her skirt up into her arms again. Liam had the decency to come over and offer her a hand as she climbed down so that she didn’t land flat on her face.

Lucille came down the steps, the toddler staying on the porch with the box of crackers, and she stopped a couple of feet away from Bernie, looking her over carefully.

“You’re Bernadette, aren’t you?” Lucille asked softly. She’d called her by her full name, and a place in Bernie’s heart warmed at that.

“Yes.”

“Did you marry him?”

Bernie blinked. “No. I...didn’t.”

Lucille nodded twice, then turned and headed back toward the porch.

“Come on in, then,” Lucille called over her shoulder. “I imagine you’ve got lots of questions, and so do I. You, too, Liam. We’d better sort this out.”

* * *

IKE STOOD ON the porch, a cracker in one hand, crumbs all over his fingers. He wore a new outfit—shorts that were long enough to be pants on him, and a too-small T-shirt. Lucille must have dug them up from somewhere. Liam was grateful for Lucille—she’d stepped in when he was fresh out of ideas—but even she didn’t seem to be enough for the little guy. Ike’s eyes were filled with grief, his little mouth pursed into a rosebud. He looked more like a Morgan to Liam. The curls, the eyes...

He misses Leanne.

And Liam couldn’t fix that one. He’d spent the last three years missing her, too, on some level or other. He’d known it was over when she left him, but that didn’t stop him from thinking about her at the strangest times. They’d been married, after all. That had meant something—to him, at least.

Ike trotted over in Liam’s direction and held up a soggy, half-eaten cracker.

“Share,” Ike whispered.

Liam bent down and picked up the toddler, turning his face away from the proffered cracker.

“No, thanks, buddy,” he said. “Maybe later.”

Ike smiled, a tiny uplifting of the corners of his pink mouth. That was the closest thing to a smile Liam had seen from the kid, and he felt gratified. He’d wanted this so badly—to be a dad to someone—that holding Leanne’s son was both painful and a relief at once.

Lucille led the way into the house and Bernie followed, her dress dragging along the carpet behind her. The screen door banged shut behind them. The suitcase, which Liam had retrieved from the trunk of the Rolls, was still in the back of the pickup truck, and he idly wondered when Bernie was going to want to change out of that soiled wedding dress.

“Did you have a nice day?” Liam asked Ike. What would nice even be like for a two-year-old who’d lost his mother and was now with a bunch of strangers? He remembered what that had felt like when he was a kid in the foster system, and it hadn’t been warm and fuzzy.

Ike stared at him mutely, then leaned forward and rested his head against Liam’s shoulder, and the little body deflated in a long sigh.

“That bad, huh?” Liam murmured. He patted the boy’s back and followed Bernie into the kitchen where Lucille was pouring tall glasses of iced tea.

“So you’re my aunt, then?” Bernie asked, accepting a glass.

“I am.” Lucille held up a glass toward Liam, and he shook his head. She put it onto the table, paused, then turned to him. “I didn’t lie... I just didn’t mention my family. They cut me off. I have no access to their fortune or their influence. I had to start fresh. Alone.”

Liam nodded slowly. Except that for the entire time he’d been nursing his heartbreak over Leanne’s affair, she’d never once even hinted that the Senator Morgan who stole his wife was part of her family. She’d acted as cool as anyone else—a distanced stranger from that set of powerful politicos in New York.

“It wasn’t a lie,” she repeated.

“Okay.” What else could he say? She’d certainly not told the whole truth, though.

“And what brings you to Runt River?” Lucille asked her niece. “I mean, besides the obvious run out on your wedding.”

“You.”

Bernie plucked at the veil affixed atop her head, and Lucille stepped closer and began pulling out pins and clips, dropping them onto the tabletop in a small pile.

“I had no idea you even knew I was here.” Lucille dropped another couple of pins onto the table and pulled the last of the veil away from Bernadette’s hair. Bernie ran a hand through her dark tresses as if in relief.

“You’re the only Morgan not at the wedding.” Bernie smiled wanly. “So really, you were my last hope...dressed like this, at least. I was just focused on getting out of there, and I didn’t even want to stop and get changed. Someone would have spotted me. I could have hopped on a plane and gone somewhere sunny, I guess, but not without my passport. And I wanted—”

“Family,” Lucille concluded.

“Yes.”

“And little Ike there had nothing to do with this?” Lucille asked, her expression hardening.

“What?” Bernie shot a confused look between them. “The boy? Why would he? Whose is he?”

“Mine, for the time being,” Liam said. How much did they want to tell this woman about his private business? Ike was looking at Bernie fixedly now, leaning toward her so that Liam had to tighten his grip to keep the kid from dropping out of his arms. He knew what Ike was seeing—a woman about his mother’s age with the same dark hair and flawless complexion. The same things that made Liam wary were comforting to this little guy.