Kitabı oku: «The Bride, The Trucker And The Great Escape»

Chapter One

She had to escape!

Andrea Conroy hitched up the cathedral-length train of her satin wedding gown to her hips and peered out through the narrowly opened dressing room door. The hallway outside stood blessedly empty.

Ears straining, Andie caught the sound of hushed voices from the church vestibule. She had to hurry.

They’d be back—soon—to check on her again. To make sure nothing went wrong with what had been called, by at least one Washington, D.C., society columnist, the wedding of the year.

Her pulse pounding, Andie blinked back the tears that threatened. The wedding of the year was a sham. A horrible, painful sham.

But she didn’t have time to cry now. She swallowed over the thick lump in her throat and swiped at her eyes with a trembling hand.

There was no way on God’s green earth she could go through with the marriage her domineering father had maneuvered her into with Phillip Masterson, an up-and-coming, power hungry capital city lawyer. She’d end up just like her mother—nothing more than a decorative ornament at her husband’s high-powered dinner parties.

A sound from the end of the hall sent Andie ducking backward, pulling the door shut again. She leaned with her ear pressed against the wood, listening.

The click-click of high-heeled shoes came toward her. The footsteps stopped outside her door and a light tap followed.

“Andrea, dear? May I come in?”

Her mother’s expensive perfume filtered into the dressing room. It was only the finest for Lillian Conroy—in cosmetics, fashions, automobiles. She was chic and refined and perfect at all times, a flawless complement to her husband, the esteemed Maryland senator William Conroy IV.

It was a cruel trick of fate that unconventional Andie had been born to such parents. She straightened, and her nervous thoughts found verification in the gilt-framed mirror covering one entire wall of the plush dressing room. Her dark, defiant, curly locks were already breaking free of the restraining lace headband with its attached tulle veil. No amount of makeup could hide her pixie freckles.

The gown felt like a straitjacket, the expensive high-heeled shoes like torture devices. She’d already snagged the delicate hosiery when she’d broken one of her fingernails.

She couldn’t go through with this.

“No, Mother!” Andie cried. Then she realized how she must have sounded, and she hastened to repair the damage. “I mean, not right now. I—I just need a few moments to myself.”

Enough time to run.

“Are you all right, Andrea?”

“I’m fine, Mother. Really.” Andie said what her mother wanted to hear. Her mother liked things to go as planned. Meaning, as William Conroy planned.

Andie looked at her slim gold watch. She was to be wed in ten minutes! “Please, just give me five minutes,” she begged. Her voice cracked. Nerves jitterbugged in her stomach.

Why had she let things go this far?

She knew the answer to her own question. Nobody said no to William Conroy. Who knew that better than Andie? She’d been saying no to her father for twenty-five years, and he never listened. She might as well have been mute her entire life for all the attention he’d ever paid to her wants, her desires, her needs.

She’d tried to conform. She’d even tried going to law school, when teaching art to kids was all she’d ever wanted to do.

She’d tried to be the dutiful, model daughter her father wanted. She’d tried—

Andie squeezed her eyelids tight, emotion stinging them. She’d tried to make him love her.

She swallowed thickly, and her eyes flashed open. She shook her head.

She’d tried—and she was through trying. She’d been censured and scolded and pushed for the last time. This was too much. She couldn’t marry Phillip Masterson! Here, in the church, in her dress, the stark reality of what she was about to do had hit her.

Every inch of her slender five-foot-five body recoiled from this marriage. She didn’t love Phillip. Not in the least. And he didn’t love her. He loved her father’s power and position. Not her.

“Are you sure, dear?” Her mother sounded worried.

Andie almost broke down and started bawling. She imagined her mother sitting in the front row of the church sanctuary with hundreds of attendees behind her, waiting for her little girl to walk down the aisle—

“You know how many of your father’s friends and colleagues are here,” Lillian went on. “These are important people. You don’t want to keep them waiting.”

Andie blew out a disgusted breath. Of course. Her mother wasn’t worried about her. Her mother was concerned that she might inconvenience her father’s stuffy society connections.

“I’m fine, Mother,” Andie repeated. Familiar hurt swallowed her whole.

“All right, dear. I’m going to sit down now. Your father will be here to get you in five minutes. Next time I see you, you’ll be Mrs. Phillip Masterson!” she said, making the title sound like a privilege beyond compare. Then she clicked away in her high-heeled shoes, leaving her heavy, luxurious scent behind her.

Silence. With shaking hands, Andie ripped off the ostentatious engagement ring with which Phillip had presented her, and set it on the dressing table.

She cracked the door. The hallway was empty again. Nervous fear all but closed up her throat. She could barely breathe.

She ran a dry tongue over her lips.

Now!

Quickly, she took the first small step out of the dressing room. Reaching around, she turned the lock in the door and pulled it shut behind her. Hopefully, it would take them a few minutes to get in and figure out she’d disappeared.

She heard her father’s deep voice boom out from the vestibule. Five minutes! He was supposed to give her five minutes!

No surprise that he wasn’t going to pay attention to her request.

Andie scooped up the gown’s long train and dashed down the hall, in the opposite direction from her father’s voice. At the end of the hall was an exterior side door. She pushed through, looking over her shoulder. No one was in the hall.

No one saw her leave!

With her heart lurching and her breaths coming in quick hitches of panic, Andie ran from the huge, downtown church into the June heat. Into freedom.

Tall oaks dotted the grounds. Parked cars filled the lot to the side of the building. Unfortunately, Andie didn’t have the key to a single one. She and her parents had arrived at the majestic Washington, D.C., church by limo.

How could she possibly get away? What had she been thinking?

In another minute, they were going to discover she was missing. They’d come looking for her...and find her. Her father would be furious.

Another of Andie’s silly scrapes!

Andie’s gaze darted all around, searching for hope. The light Saturday afternoon traffic—shoppers and tourists—flew up and down the broad avenue. As she watched, a mammoth, midnight-blue tractor-trailer rig pulled over to the curb in front of several parked cars.

A man, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, emerged from the cab, a black dog at his heels. The man strolled onto the manicured grass while the dog ambled over to a tree to do its business.

Andie’s gaze continued its hungry scan. Beyond the eighteen-wheeler, in the distance, she saw a taxi heading in her direction. It was like a gift from God.

She sped over the grass toward the street. Her veil flew out behind her. Her dress flapped wildly. She ignored the confused glance the man shot her.

The dog barked and started to follow her. She heard the man call him back.

The taxi approached in the middle lane. Andie sprinted through two parked cars and into the street.

“Taxi!” She extended her arm as she shouted, desperately willing it to pull over.

She had no idea where she was going. And she didn’t care. She just wanted to get as far away from Phillip Masterson and William Conroy as she possibly could.

The taxi zoomed past.

Andie stopped dead in her tracks, immediate, desperate tears clogging her vision. Despair washed over her.

A low-slung black sports car suddenly rose before her eyes, coming out of nowhere at a high rate of speed, in the very lane in which she stood. Andie stayed rooted to the spot, frozen, shocked, as the car bore down on her.

She screamed.

Troy Armstrong took in the woman as she shrieked in terror, the car racing too fast toward her. Adrenaline bulleted through him.

He rushed at her. Throwing his arms around her tiny waist, he swept her out of danger. She felt light, like a flower. He stumbled backward and they crashed together onto the hard pavement between two parked cars, the woman collapsing atop him.

The black sports car whizzed past.

His dog, named Dog—part Lab, part mystery—barked excitedly.

Troy lay still for a few seconds, dazed by the impact, feeling more than a little off balance. Usually, he wasn’t out driving his own trucks. His time was consumed with the day-to-day operations of the fledgling Armstrong Independent Trucking business he’d started in partnership with his brother only the year before. But with one of their drivers out because of a family crisis—and Troy’s brother’s wife near the due date for their first baby—Troy had had no choice but to take the trip himself.

He was on the first day of a tough ten-day haul, first to L.A., then down to San Diego and back to the East Coast. Not two miles into their trip, Dog had begun scratching and clawing at the door of the truck’s roomy sleeper cab, a sure sign he wanted to attend to nature’s call. Then the woman, in full bridal regalia, had appeared out of nowhere, running headlong into traffic—

The young woman scrambled off him then and knelt by his side, seemingly heedless of the fancy gown she wore. Beautiful, heavily lashed dark eyes, shocked and worried, met his.

“Are you all right?” she gasped. Her voice was soft, musical, lilting. Like an angel’s. Only, the thoughts she inspired weren’t exactly pious. In fact, they were just the opposite.

Troy blinked, swallowed, blinked again. Curly dark tendrils escaped the lacy headdress she wore, framing an oval-shaped face with a rosebud mouth and a pert little nose scattered with light freckles. Diamonds decorated the lobes of her small ears, and her slender neck led his eyes down to smooth skin and a tempting display of cleavage above her lace and satin bodice.

Speechless for a second, Troy realized he couldn’t be too badly hurt. The quickening in his groin told him that much.

“You saved my life!” The woman leaned over him. She smelled as sweet and wholesome as blueberries and cream. All he could think was how he wanted to taste her lips right there and then—

“Are you hurt?” she cried when he didn’t respond.

“No, no, I’m fine. Just a little stunned, that’s all.” Troy pulled himself together and sat up, finding everything apparently worked—except his common sense. He didn’t remember hitting his head, but he must have. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be having these irrational thoughts.

He was putting his new business first these days, not his personal life. He didn’t need any unnecessary distractions. And the woman in front of him was def-initely a distraction.

More than that, with those big eyes of hers, she could be a heartbreaker. And Troy had been down that road, all too recently.

“What about you?” he demanded more abruptly than he meant to. “You almost got yourself run down! Why didn’t you get out of the way?”

Dog kept circling and barking.

Andie stared at the man. Now he sounded as if he was about to start chastising her. That’s what her father would do.

“I wanted to get run down,” she snapped sarcastically. She jerked to a stand, bristling.

The man’s eyes widened, then narrowed. He drew himself up, one hand shooting to his back. She wondered if he’d injured himself rescuing her.

“Pardon me for getting in the way,” Troy grumbled.

Andie immediately felt guilty for lashing out at him. He’d just saved her life, for pity’s sake.

“I’m sorry,” she apologized quickly. “You didn’t deserve that.” She chewed her lip. “Thank you for pulling me out of the way. I guess I just froze when I saw that car coming. Are you sure you’re not hurt?”

The man was of average height, compactly built, and in her high heels, Andie didn’t have to look too far up to meet his gaze. With a quick, sweeping study, she noted the plain white T-shirt stretched over a broad chest, the slim waist, the lean legs encased in worn jeans. But what captured her, what sucked her in and wouldn’t let her go, were his eyes. They were light, hazel, perfectly complementing his dark blond hair, and her stomach pitched in a seesaw reaction that confused her and left her feeling oddly vulnerable.

“I’m just a bit sore, that’s all.” Troy frowned. “What about you? You’re the one running around in traffic in a wedding dress. Are you in some kind of trouble?”

“No.” Andie suddenly remembered what the near accident had temporarily knocked from her mind.

Phillip. Her father. The wedding. Her troubled gaze flicked to the church.

“So you always run around in the street in a wedding dress?”

“Huh?” Andie licked her lips, trying to focus on what the man was saying and casting about for some means of escape at the same time.

She still had the same problem she’d had five minutes ago—only now she’d lost valuable time.

A movement from the front of the church caught her attention.

It was her father! And Phillip!

“Oh, no!” Andie ducked back down between the cars.

She crept forward, hiding behind the parked vehicle.

Ahead lay the truck. Making a split-second decision, she dashed for it, leaping into the cab, dragging along the heavy train of her dress. Keeping low, she dived across the driver’s seat to the passenger side, sweeping a neatly stacked newspaper and a clipboard off the seat she intended to occupy. The newspaper and clipboard whooshed to the floor as she scrunched into the corner by the window.

The trucker followed her into the cab, his dog jumping in behind him and scrambling onto the floorboard between the seats. The animal stared at her and barked. The trucker brought the cab door shut with a bang.

“You want to tell me what’s going on?” He picked up his clipboard and slapped it onto the dash. He left the newspaper where it was.

Andie sank lower, watching her father and Phillip. More guests spilled out from the church, and they began fanning over the church grounds. The search was on!

She looked at the dog. He growled.

She had to think for a minute to decide who she was more scared of—Phillip and her father, or the dog.

“Drive,” she begged in a tiny, desperate voice, making up her mind.

“What?”

“Drive.”

“Not until you tell me what’s going on here. Are you running from somebody?” Troy watched her. She’d gone pale beneath her light makeup. Her eyes were huge, darting restlessly toward the church. He saw people spreading out, shouting.

“Yes,” she answered.

It wasn’t a big leap to figure they were looking for her, that she was fleeing her own wedding—no doubt breaking some poor slob’s heart. A dull thud echoed inside him.

“Who? And why?” He peppered the questions at her abruptly.

“Are you going to ask questions or are you going to drive?”

Troy arched an eyebrow. The dog growled again.

“I’m sorry. That was rude. I’m desperate.” Her voice cracked. “Please, I have to get away from here. Before they find me!”

Her plea arrowed straight to his heart. He was suddenly torn, and that made him angry. She’d just stomped all over some guy. He didn’t want to feel sorry for her, didn’t want to help her.

But he’d saved her life, and that made him feel responsible for her, whether he liked it or not. And he didn’t like it. Not one bit.

Irritated with the position he was in—and with her for putting him in it—he glanced out his rearview mirror, then whipped into traffic. The huge vehicle barreled down the avenue ten miles over the speed limit.

Neither one of them spoke for several minutes, then she rose and twisted around to peer at the church vanishing into the distance. Then she turned back around and smoothed her dress.

He didn’t know anything about fashion, but he’d bet the dress was a designer original. Something about it just dripped money.

“What’s your name?” he demanded. If he was going to figure out what to do with her, he had to start somewhere. A name seemed a good place.

Andie fastened her gaze on the man beside her.

“What’s yours?” She replayed his question.

He couldn’t believe she had the gall to be difficult when he was right in the middle of rescuing her. She was still smoothing her dress, and he saw that her hands trembled.

Was she scared of him? The thought bothered him.

He wasn’t going to harm her. He just wanted to get her out of his truck.

He decided not to waste time quibbling. “Troy Armstrong.” He stopped the truck at a red light. “And yours?” he asked again, impatient.

Andie chewed her lip, waffling over whether or not it was safe to share even as little as her name with the man beside her. She worked not to flinch under his stare.

She noticed the green-brown of his eyes, eyes that were hard—yet not cruel. He was a total stranger, but she sensed somehow that she had nothing to fear. Not physically, at least.

He sparked alarm on a different level, in a place more visceral, mysterious, hidden. A place Andie didn’t altogether understand, and didn’t want to go.

She was tired of being hurt. She was tired of nobody ever loving her for her. From now on, she was keeping her distance. If she didn’t expect love, or ask for love, she wouldn’t be disappointed when she didn’t get it.

But there was something she was asking for right now—a ride. And all he was asking for in return, so far, was her name. She could give him that.

“Andie. My name is Andie.”

He kept right on staring at her, relentless.

“For Andrea,” she elaborated.

Troy wondered if his roomy truck cab had shrunk while he’d been out of it. Andie’s big, frightened eyes seemed to fill it up.

He really had to get hold of himself. He was going to take her wherever she wanted to go, and that would be it. Had to be it. It didn’t make a lick of sense, but there was a part of him that was attracted to this rebellious bride, and nothing good could come of that.

Whatever her troubles were, he wasn’t going to get involved.

He had a business to run, a load to haul.

“Andie what?” he asked.

Andie wrapped her arms over her chest.

“Just Andie.”

She was tired of watching people get impressed when they found out who her father was.

The light turned green, and Troy flicked his attention back to the road.

“Well, Just Andie,” he said, manuevering through traffic, “where am I taking you?”

Andie considered her options. Where could she go that her family wouldn’t swoop down to pressure and reproach her within hours?

She didn’t want to see them. Or Phillip. Or anybody. She needed to think, away from all of them.

She needed time to gather her courage. Time to figure out what she was going to do with the rest of her life.

She looked at Troy, an idea bursting onto her consciousness, taking shape, growing. It was crazy. Completely crazy. She didn’t need to spend any more time with Troy Armstrong—and she was almost positive he didn’t want to spend any more time with her.

But still, in spite of that, she knew one place no one would find her...

“Where are you headed?” she asked him.

“California.”

Taking a leap from the frying pan to the fire, Andie said, “I want to go with you.”