Malone's Vow

Some people were made for fairy tales.

Liam looked at the speedometer and eased his foot off the gas. He was driving too fast, and he could just imagine trying to explain this to a cop.

“Well, you see, Officer, I came on to my best friend’s bride maybe ten minutes before the ceremony, and she ran away.”

Oh, yeah. That would go over big.

Dammit, where had she gone? Forget the change of clothes. She was upset, probably close to hysterics by now. Her first priority would be a hotel room, but without money…

A horn blared as Liam shot across two lanes of traffic and made for the exit ramp. He looked in the mirror, saw the guy he’d cut off tell him what he thought with a universal gesture, and fought back the urge to respond. The guy was right. There was no need to be angry at him. Jessie, dammit, she was the one who’d made him lose control, made a mountain out of a molehill, ruined what should have been the best day of Bill’s life, and for what?

“For a kiss,” Liam said, with a snort of disbelief. Just a kiss. Just a moment torn out of time, when he’d held her in his arms and never wanted to let her go….

There she was!

He stood on the brakes, made a hard turn into a lot dominated by a huge Kmart, and brought the car to a jolting stop. A slender figure in ivory satin, little pink roses braided into her honey-gold hair, was marching—there was no other word for it—straight toward the store entrance, her satin train sweeping behind her.

Liam eased the car forward a safe distance, pulled into a space, shut off the engine and watched. Someplace between her car and the door, she’d picked up a gaggle of followers. Kids, a few housewives, a guy in coveralls, all of them shuffling after her, grinning at each other, peering around as if they suspected they might be on Candid Camera. Well, he couldn’t blame them. A bride in full regalia, going into a store that sold everything from aspirin to zippers, was definitely not an everyday sight, even in a city as sophisticated as Seattle.

Jessie had to know she was drawing a crowd, but her chin was up and her spine was as straight as it had been when she’d faced him down in the garden.

He got out of the car, pocketed his keys and started after her. He knew he’d have to approach her with caution. She might bolt or even scream. Given the insanity of the world, he’d probably end up trying to convince the crowd and then the cops that he wasn’t a mugger or worse. So he followed her into the store at a discreet distance and asked himself what a bride on the run could possibly want in a Kmart?

Everything, it turned out.

Jessie grabbed a shopping cart and sailed down the aisles. Her cheeks glowed with color, so he knew she wasn’t as oblivious to the gawkers as she tried to appear. She moved from counter to rack, snatching things only when there was a sale sign on view and dumping them into her cart. Jeans. A T-shirt. A desperately ugly lime-green nylon jacket whose claim to fame had to be the big sign that said not just Sa

le but Fifty Percent Off. She added a pair of sneakers to the stack, a tote bag, a toothbrush and things he’d always thought of as female survival gear.

Finally she headed for the register.

Liam hung back, observing her from behind a display that advertised a Blue Light Special on dinnerware. The clerk rang the items up, Jessie handed over a bill and got back only a couple of coins. Goodbye cheap motel room. He started forward as she scooped her packages from the cart, but she reversed direction so fast he almost stumbled as he scooted back behind the dinnerware.

When it was safe, he followed.

She led him straight to the rest rooms and disappeared into the ladies’ lounge. He leaned against a counter a couple of aisles over, folded his arms, crossed his ankles, looked down at his feet like any other guy, bored as he waited for the missus. Obviously, she was going to change her clothes, but then what? Maybe Carrie was wrong, and she had more than fifty bucks.

The minutes dragged by. Jessie’s followers wandered off. Liam shifted his weight, unfolded his arms, tucked his hands into the pockets of his jeans and planned his next move….

And then the door to the ladies’ room opened, and all coherent thought flew away.

Bill Thornton’s bride was gone. Proper, elegant Jessica had been replaced by Jessie, a woman ready to try anything, the quicksilver woman Liam had sensed was inside her from the beginning.

She’d stripped the roses from her hair and brushed it out so that it hung in honey-colored waves down her back. She was wearing the clothing he’d watched her buy, even the ugly lime-green jacket. But it didn’t seem ugly now. As Liam looked at her, at that face scrubbed clean of makeup and artifice, he knew, with gut-wrenching certainty, that everything he’d been telling himself was a lie.

He wanted Jessie still, wanted her in a way that frightened him. When she lifted her head and saw him, she suddenly stiffened. But what he read in her eyes in that single, unguarded moment told him that she wanted him in exactly the same way.

She turned and ran.

Liam went after her, let her keep her lead through the store, through the parking lot, picking up his pace only when she neared her car. Then he caught her by the elbow and swung her toward him.

She swatted at him with both hands. “Let me go,” she panted. “Damn you, Liam—”

“Jessie.” He clasped her wrists, gripped them tightly, held her hands captive against his chest. “Jessie, listen to me.”

“What for? Haven’t you done enough?”

He hadn’t. He’d only kissed her once, held her once, but that wasn’t why he was here. He’d come after her for Bill. She belonged to Bill.