The Getaway Bride

“You didn’t connect it to the telephone call?”

“Not immediately. Mrs. Dooley came over just then to give us a loaf of her bread. She and I talked for a few minutes, and then the phone rang. I answered it, and she motioned that she had to go. She left just as I realized the caller was the same man who’d called before.”

“What did he say?”

“When I realized who it was, I was going to hang up again, but then he said something about your near-miss at the bakery job. He said it hadn’t been an accident He told me he’d been responsible for that beam falling and that he could just as easily have killed you with it.”

“That beam fell because a piece of equipment broke,” Gabe protested.

She stubbornly shook her head. “He said it was his work. And then he asked me if I’d gotten the photographs. When I said I had, he told me that my friend had two sweet young children. He said something about how vulnerable children are. How easy it is to harm them.”

Gabe felt a cold chill slither through him. He began to understand how horrified Page must have been by the mysterious, cold-blooded threats.

She cleared her throat and twisted her fingers in her lap. “I asked him what he wanted. He said again that he wanted me to be alone, as he was. He said I had to leave you, or you would die. He said if I told you about the call, or tried to stop him, I would pay—by losing you.”

“So you ran.”

She looked him in the eyes. “I ran,” she said simply.

He wanted to shout at her, to demand again to know what right she’d had to make that decision for him. With an effort, he restrained the resentment. “Where did you go?”

“I just started driving. A couple of days later I was sitting in a hotel room in Nashville, Tennessee. I wanted to call you then. I knew you must be upset—”

“Upset,” he murmured tonelessly, wondering if she had any idea how little resemblance the word bore to his actual reaction.

She darted him a nervous glance and continued. “I had my hand on the telephone to call you when it rang. It was him—again. He asked how it felt to be alone. He told me I’d made the right decision—that I’d been within twenty-four hours of becoming a grieving widow. He told me he’d know if I tried to contact you or the police. And that he would make sure someone I loved would pay for my mistake.”

“He followed you from Austin to Nashville?”

“Apparently. I was so frightened by then that I almost believed he knew my every action—my every thought I begged him to tell me why he was doing this, what I’d done to him. Who he was. He only warned me again not to get close to anyone. And then he hung up.”

“And you changed your mind about calling me,” Gabe said with regret.

“I dialed the number,” she whispered. “You answered, sounding so distraught and anxious that it broke my heart But then I pictured you being hurt or...or worse, because of me—and I couldn’t handle it. I hung up.”

“Damn it, Page.” He breathed the words through emotion-clenched teeth. “You should have told me.”

She closed her eyes. “I was too afraid. I loved you so much. There was nothing I wouldn’t do to keep you safe.”

Had she loved him? He couldn’t help but ask himself the painful question. He could accept that she’d felt responsible, frightened, confused...but could she have walked out of his life that way if she’d really loved him?

Unable to respond to her statement, he went on with his gruff interrogation. “You had no idea who the guy was?”

“None,” she answered, spreading her hands. “As far as I knew, I didn’t have an enemy in the world. The only man who’d ever had cause to resent me was dead. I couldn’t think of anyone else who would do this to me.”

“What did you do then?”

“I kept moving. I tried to make sure I wasn’t being followed, but of course I had no experience in that area. I ended up in Bowling Green, Kentucky. I was running out of money, so I found a job as a stockroom clerk, where my public contact was minimal. I used a false name. I thought it would make it harder for him to find me. I found an inexpensive apartment where I wasn’t required to sign a lease. I thought I could hide there until I decided what to do next. I had a telephone with an unlisted number installed so I could call the police if...well, if someone tried to break in. At the time, I thought there was some chance that my own life could be in jeopardy.”

“Go on,” he said when she paused.

She’d gone colorless. “I was so lonely. So desperately unhappy. I found a stray kitten on my way home, from work one evening, and I took him in, craving thecompanionship. He...” Her voice broke.

Gabe leaned automatically closer to her. “What happened?”

She seemed to gather her courage. “I came home one evening, unlocked the front door, and...and found the kitten in my kitchen. Dead.”

She swallowed audibly. “The phone started ringing almost immediately. I knew who it was, of course. I didn’t want to answer, but I was afraid not to. He said I shouldn’t have gotten the kitten. I was to have no companionship in my life. No love. Not even a pet. He added that he could just as easily kill a person as a cat, so I should picture you or Jessie’s children dying like my kitten if I dared disobey him again.”