Paula Graves - Fugitive Bride

What was left of her wedding dress was a liability, she realized with dismay. The white fabric stood out in the dark woods like a beacon. At least Owen’s tux was black. He blended into the trees much better than she could hope to do.

“You go without me,” she said as they took temporary cover behind the wide trunk of an oak tree. “I’m the one they’re after. I stick out like a hooker in a church in this dress. You could find help and send the police after the van. You could tell Robert what happened.”

Owen looked at her as if she’d lost her mind. “I am not leaving you,” he growled.

The sudden urge to wrap her arms around his neck and kiss him caught her off guard. She’d set aside those nascent feelings of attraction to Owen a long time ago, valuing his loyal friendship far more than she valued any sort of sexual attraction she might feel toward him. To have it come back now, in this awful situation, was confounding.

“Now!” Owen growled, and he tugged her with him through the underbrush to their next bit of cover.

Behind them, the sound of their pursuers was close enough to spur their forward movement. But the men following them weren’t any closer, Tara realized. So far, she and Owen seemed to be staying ahead of the danger pursuing them.

But what would happen if they ran out of woods?

A brisk breeze had picked up as they ran, rustling the leaves overhead. Thank heaven for spring growth; two months ago, these woods would have been winter bare and couldn’t have provided them with nearly enough cover. But even here in the Kentucky mountains, the woods couldn’t go on forever, which could be a good thing or a bad thing. If they managed to find a well-populated town around the next copse, they’d be safe.

But if they ran into a clearing with neither cover nor the safety of numbers to protect them...

“How long do you think they’ll keep chasing us?” she asked breathlessly as they crouched behind another tree.

“I don’t know,” Owen admitted. “I don’t suppose you know why they grabbed you. Did they give you any indication?”

“No, it’s like I told you—one of the men came to get me and the other put the pillowcase over my head before I could even get a good look at his face. Although he definitely asked for me by name. Ms. Bentley.” She risked a peek around the side of the tree providing them with cover. “I don’t see them anymore.”

“I don’t think we should move anytime soon. They may be hunkered down, waiting to flush us out.”

Tara frowned. “How long are we talking?”

“I don’t know. A couple of hours?”

She grimaced. “I suppose it’s a bad time to mention that I desperately need to pee.”

Owen gave a soft huff of laughter. “Can you hold it awhile?”

“Do I have any choice?”

“No.”

“Well, there you go.”

Owen gave her a look that made her insides melt a little. She might have decided years ago that she’d rather be his friend forever than risk losing him by taking their relationship to a more sexual place, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t aware that he found her just as attractive as she found him.

And right now he was looking at her as if he wanted to strip her naked and slake his thirst for her up against the rough trunk of this big oak tree.

Oh, God, Tara, you’re hiding from crazy kidnappers and you choose now to conjure up that visual?

“I think I know where we are,” Owen murmured a few minutes later.

Moving only her eyes, Tara scanned the woods around them, seeing only trees, trees and more trees. “How on earth is that possible?” she whispered.

“Because while you went to cheerleading camp, I went to Boy Scout camp.”

“And what, got a badge in telling one gol dang leafy tree from another?” Staying still was starting to get to her already. She wasn’t the kind of woman who stayed still. Ever. And the urge to look behind them to see if their captors were sneaking up on them was almost more than she could bear.

“No,” Owen said with more patience than she deserved. “It’s because I stayed in a rickety little cabin with five other boys about two hundred yards to our east.”

She slanted a look at him. “How can you possibly know that?”

“See that big tree right ahead? The one with the large moon-shaped scar on the trunk about five feet up?”

She peered through the trees. “No.”

“Well, trust me, it’s there. And that moon shape is there because Billy Turley and I carved it in the trunk on a dare. Our camp counselor didn’t buy that we were trying out our trailblazing skills like Daniel Boone before us.”

There had never been a time in her life when she’d felt less like smiling, but the image conjured up by Owen’s words made her lips curve despite herself. She and Owen had met around the time they were both in sixth grade. In fact, she could remember Owen taking that trip to the woods because she’d been over-the-moon excited about being invited to cheerleading camp, since only girls who went to the camp in middle school ever made the varsity squad in high school.

Oh, for the days when life was so simple that her biggest worry was crash-landing a herkie jump in front of twenty other judgmental preteen girls.

“I know you’re about ready to squirm out of your skin,” Owen said quietly, slipping his hand into hers, “but I have a plan.”

She curled her fingers around his. “Okay. What is it?”

“As soon as I’m pretty sure our kidnappers have retreated, we’ll head for the cabin.”

She looked up at him, narrowing her eyes. “The one you stayed in twenty years ago when you were eleven?”

“I think it’s still there.”

“Maybe, but in what kind of condition?”

His lips flattened with exasperation. She felt his grip on her hand loosen. “Must you always be so negative?”

She tightened her fingers around his again. “Yes. But sorry.”

He gave her fingers a light squeeze. “I suppose it’s part of your charm.”

“Sweet talker,” she muttered.

“So we’re agreed? We head for the cabin?”

“If it’s still there.” She looked up. “Sorry. Negativity.”

“If it’s still there,” he agreed. “And we’d better hope it is.”

The dark tone of his growly voice made her stomach turn a flip. “Why’s that?”

“You know how the wind has picked up?”

“Yeah?”

“I think the rain may be getting here a little earlier than expected tonight.”

Owen was right. Within a few minutes, the brisk wind began to carry needles of rain from which the spring growth overhead provided only partial shelter. Owen tried to tuck Tara under his coat, but the rain became relentless as daylight waned, darkness falling prematurely because of the lowering sky.

Tara wiped the beading water from her watch face. Nearly six. The wedding would have long been over by now, if she’d gone through with it. Robert must be going crazy, wondering what happened to her. Her car would still be in the parking lot, her purse in the bride’s room. The only thing missing was the bride and her puffy white dress.

Would everyone realize something had gone very wrong? Or would they assume that Tara had succumbed to cold feet and bolted without letting anyone know?

Was Robert thinking he’d just made a narrow escape from a lifetime with a lunatic?

Stop it, Tara. This is not your fault.

Owen was right. She was way too negative. She added it to her mental list of things she needed to work on, right behind cellulite on her thighs and—oh, yeah—running away from dangerous, crazy kidnappers.

“You’re thinking, aren’t you?” Owen asked. “I always worry when you’re thinking.”

“I’m thinking I haven’t heard anything from the kidnappers back there recently. I’m also thinking that there may be ants crawling up my legs. And I’m thinking if I have to hide behind this tree for a minute longer, getting soaked to the skin, I’m going to run crazy through the trees, screaming I give up! Come get me! at the top of my lungs.”