Running to the Farmer (The Runaway Brides of Darling Creek #2)

Chapter 10

Chapter Ten

Ellis

If I wasn’t awake and flipping through TV channels, the loud crash outside would have blasted me out of bed in utter terror.

I’m on the front porch without a second thought about my own safety. I don't know if there was a drunk driver outside, or someone hit a deer and drove off the road, or a spaceship landed in the yard. I just react.

A Subaru Outback with dealer plates is stuck between the oak tree and the front hedge along the front of my house. My mind races. A student driver? Teenager? Someone who just moved here from out of state and isn't familiar with these roads?

My legs carry me before my brain can register that there might be danger.

I fling open the driver-side door, and that’s when my heart leaps into my throat.

“Louisa?”

She’s as white as a sheet, and her eyes look at me in horror.

“I’m sorry,” she says, her voice trembling, barely an audible squeak.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m sorry,” she repeats, her hands shaking on the wheel.

I reach past her, press the ignition button, and check her over.

“Louisa. Tell me if you’re hurt.”

She shakes her head no. She can’t stop apologizing.

“Take a deep breath and make sure nothing feels broken before I get you out of the car.”

“I’m fine,” she finally croaks out. “But your house…Olivia’s car…I’m so sorry. I should have asked Curly to drive me…I only drove around the compound and parking lots; I thought I could handle it. I was fine...I was totally fine. Then I saw someone. Or, I thought I saw someone."

Anxiety roils in my stomach. "Who? Who did you think you saw? Where?"

"Up there," she says, pointing toward the road. "I saw a cop car."

I briefly smile, assuming she saw a deputy and simply panicked.

"Someone else was there, standing by the side of the road...and he looked like the Prophet."

The smile disappears from my face, and my blood runs cold.

It's too dark to see anything, but I look at the road along the edge of my property. I don't see any headlights or movements.

"Baby. There's no one out there. And if there is, the sheriff's department is patrolling the area, evidently. You're safe with me," I say calmly, cupping the back of her neck gingerly.

Louisa's teeth chatter as she goes on to describe what happened. "I didn’t see the edge of the driveway and then I pressed the gas instead of the brake.”

Physically, I think she’s fine. It's time to get her indoors. I lift her out of the car, one arm hooked under her bare knees. Her floral and striped baby pink nightshirt is hiked up mid-thigh, and I wonder why she had to drive over here in the middle of the night in her pajamas.

She hooks her arm around my shoulder, and I carry her inside, through the front sitting room and into the small den off the kitchen, where I had been peacefully watching TV just two minutes earlier.

I carefully set her down, then crowd her on the sofa, checking her over for bumps and bruises. She notices my closeness and gasps. “Why are you wearing nothing but boxer briefs?”

“No, ma’am. You first. What the hell are you doing here at 2 a.m. in a negligee?”

Her cheeks redden. “It’s not a negligee!”

“Potato, potahto. Explain yourself.”

Her normally stoic demeanor looks defeated and scared. “I broke your house.”

I wave her off. “Baby, the bushes stopped you before you hit the house. And you didn’t even hit hard enough to deploy the airbags, so no harm done.”

She covers her face with her hands. “Olivia’s car…”

“Scratches. That’s all. They’re on their honeymoon, right? We’ve got two weeks to take care of it. I’ll take it to my body work guy in Darling Creek, and he’ll buff it out. Her little car will be as right as rain. The important thing is, you’re okay.”

“I’m such an idiot.”

“Knock that off right now.”

She sits up a little straighter and fixes me with a glare mixed with incredulity. “Why don’t you yell at me? Get mad? Don’t you ever get upset about anything?”

I shrug. “I tend to internalize my stress instead of taking it out on others.”

Louisa blinks at me, then bursts out laughing.

“What’s so funny?” I ask.

“This is not how I planned for this to go,” she says, shoulders shaking, laughing harder.

“For what to go?”

Dabbing her eyes, she tries to recover. “I was supposed to show up on your doorstep and pour my heart out.”

Pour…her heart out? Does this mean what I think it means?

“About what?”

Louisa throws her hands up in the air. “About…things! I don’t know!”

“Louisa, I’m a little dense, so you’re gonna have to spell it out for me.”

Exasperated at me or at herself, she shifts to face me, her face redder than ever.

“You were supposed to say, ‘Louisa, what are you doing here?’ And I was supposed to say, ‘I’m not sure, Ellis. All I know is I didn’t want to stay at the ranch alone.’ Then you would say, ‘I missed you too.’”

A small smile creeps across my face. I thought she’d be pleased. “Don’t look so smug, it’s annoying.”

“I’m not being smug!” I say, defensive but also amused. “Keep going. What were you going to say next?”

Louisa covers her face, shaking her head. “I was going to say I couldn’t sleep because I wanted to stay with you. It’s not that I don’t trust the people at Sterling Ranch. I just feel safer with you.”

Damn. I lean in toward her. “Then what was I supposed to say next?”

Her chest rises and falls rapidly with her anxious breath. “I don’t know; that’s as far as I got.”

I smile and lean in closer, breathing in her ripe berry scent.

“I think what I say next is this: I didn’t have any expectations, Louisa, but I was hoping you’d come back tonight.”

Her hands drop from her face, and I capture them in mine.

Our kiss is the answer to everything I didn’t know I was missing in my life.

Louisa’s mouth is soft and supple, and she’s surprisingly not shy at all when I run my tongue over her plump bottom lip.

“Louisa,” I murmur, cupping her cheek to angle her just right, deepening the kiss.

She gives a small moan against my mouth.

I run my hands over her jawline and look deep into those two eyes that sparkle like a river. Her hands go to my chest, and the pleasure is almost too much.

“I wanted you the moment I saw you, Louisa.”

Her throat bobs. “You’ll have to show me how everything works. Everything, boss. And I promise I won’t be stubborn this time.”

And I’m about to come apart.