The Cowboy's Bride

Chapter Two

Will Hardesty watched his runaway bride in the rearview mirror as he pulled out onto the I-635W for lack of a better direction. She’d been staring disconsolately out the window since they’d left, trying not to cry. She was not succeeding. It was pitiful, really. He didn’t know what to say.

So, he asked, “Where to?”

“I don’t know.” She honked into a tissue. “Just keep driving. Please.”

“I could take you home. To a hotel? Just say where.”

“Just… just give me a minute,” she said sharply, ripping off the veil that had covered her hair and tossing it to the seat. Then more softly added, “I’m not going home. I can’t go home.”

“Understood.” If her mother—he assumed it was her mother—was any indication of what awaited her there, he understood. He adjusted the rearview mirror so he could see her face. “Listen, there’s some… champagne back there. It’s cold. There’s a glass. And even if it’s clearly not for celebrating, it’s on ice and it’s alcoholic. Feel free. It’s all for you.”

“Thank you.” She choked back a sob but reached for the champagne.

He listened to her wrestling with the cork and after a small struggle, he heard it pop and the sound of the bubbly splashing into one of the two crystal glasses he supplied for occasions like this. Well, not like this exactly.

Nothing like this, actually. This would be a first.

That guy. What an ass. He’d met a lot of guys like him in his life, in the NFL particularly, but Theodore Margate, son of the great Dallas basketball team owner, Raphael Margate, might actually take the cake.

The kid isn’t even mine, he’d said. Probably not mine.

Wow.

In the rear view, he watched the runaway bride down the flute in a couple of gulps, then pour herself some more. Maybe that hadn’t been such a good idea. He had to get this woman somewhere safe and soon but getting her schnockered would certainly not help the situation.

“Excuse me,” she asked suddenly from the far back seat. “Do you have a phone?”

“I do.” He’d silenced the ringer in response to at least three calls from the ass she’d left behind.

“Can I borrow it?”

He never let people borrow his phone. Too risky. But today called for an exception to his rules. “Okay.” He unlocked it and passed it back to her.

Unsteadily, she made her way to the front and took it from him. “Can you… raise up this window thingy please? I-I’d like some privacy.”

Not a freakin’ thing private at this point, but he obligingly pushed a button to raise up the privacy window thingy, which divided the limo into distinct thirds. His third and her two thirds. Though he couldn’t hear her conversation, he could hear her crying into the phone. What a mess she was about to face.

Will concentrated on the drive. He headed toward DFW airport on the off chance she wanted to fly somewhere, which made sense, considering she wanted nothing to do with anyone behind her right now. Traffic was bad and in Dallas at this hour, it was officially the Wild, Wild West with few to no rules that he could discern. No cops patrolled the highways here. It was every man for himself. After coming from LA, where traffic was notoriously bad but at least had a set standard of passing and merging, Dallas freeways were another animal altogether.

He actually hadn’t personally driven a job in months since Isaiah Fordham had joined Will’s team and they’d expanded the fleet to ten cars, hiring as many drivers. The former all-star tackle from the Raiders—a good friend since college ball—had become his partner in the business, and it might be the best move Will had made since he’d started it four years ago. But Margate’s old man, Raphael, had insisted Will drive the happy couple himself, and who was he to refuse Raphael Margate? One hand washed the other in this business, and it was honestly how he’d gotten the limo company off the ground in the first place with players he’d shared a field with helping him out.

Whenever she gave him his phone back, he needed to call Isaiah and update him on the situation. And refund Margate’s downpayment. After that little scene at the church, it was a foregone conclusion that he wouldn’t be charging anyone in the Margate clan for this ride.

There was another phone call he should return as well. His brother, Liam, had already left him two messages. But he’d think about that after he dropped her off.

A few minutes later, a knock at the privacy window pulled him from his thoughts. He rolled it down and she handed him his phone.

“Thank you,” she said, returning to the back of the limo, staring out the window. He watched her for a moment. “And you can ignore all those calls from Theo. Please don’t answer him.”

He glanced at his phone. In fact, there were four calls from him now. “Okay. Hey, I’m Will. Will Hardesty. You’re Isabella, right?”

Surprised, she blinked up at him and nodded. Her eyes were a deep violet color. Not blue, exactly, but some rare color he’d only seen in gemstones. Of course, they were limned with red, and her makeup was a mess. But that did little to distract from her beauty. She had a girl-next-door look, but the kind of girl who would have once-upon-a-time had teenage boys climbing in second-story windows.

Not that he ever did that. Okay, maybe first-story windows. But only because there weren’t any second-story windows nearby when he was a teenager. His place and anyone else’s were miles apart.

Damn, that was all a long time ago.

“I suppose we should be on a first name basis,” she said, “considering what I just put you through. Thank you, by the way. I really should have said that before.” She lifted her glass in salute. How many times had she refilled her glass?

“No problem at all. Just doing my job.”

“Oh, no. I believe your only job was to drive the happy couple to the reception that was apparently canceled. Due to the”—she blinked hard, considering the word—“misogynistic, two-timing, unforgivable behavior of the groom.”

Amen to that.That guy. He didn’t deserve the woman occupying his back seat. “My job is to protect and take care of my passengers. That’s all I did.”

“Well,” she said, “thank you. You’re very kind to help me. You didn’t have to.” She clanked the champagne flute with the bottle and poured herself another glass, slugging it down. “Mmmm. That’s really good, by the way. That champagne.”

At two hundred and fifty dollars a bottle, it ought to be. The groom had put that on his tab, but now, Will decided it would just be a write-off. “Maybe go easy on it until you’ve had something to eat. Are you hungry?”

She shook her head with a humorless laugh.

“Do you have somewhere to go? A friend maybe?” he asked.

She slid a look his way and their eyes met in the mirror. “I’ll be honest with you, Mr.—”

“Will.”

“Will. I left that church with nothing. Not my cell, not my wallet, not a dime. But I’m good for the ride. I promise. I’ll pay you.”

“I’m not worried.” He wasn’t. Not really. Someone in her family would pay. He was sure of that.

“Maybe you won’t say that when I tell you where I want you to take me.”

He flicked a look at her, not liking the sound of that. “We’re not far from DFW airport. I mean, if you want to fly somewhere.”

“No ID.” She lifted her glass to him again. Or maybe just to the effed-up situation. “No ID,” she clarified, “no flight.”

“Right,” he said. “We could turn around. You could stop and pick up your things from your—”

“I don’t think you understand, Will. I’ll never go back. I won’t.” She busied herself looking at the buttons on the side of her door, testing them all. He wondered if he should lock the door for her own protection. No telling her state of mind.

She poured herself another flute of champagne and gulped it down. “I don’t even have the tickets to our honeymoon in Europe. Believe me, I’d use them if I had ’em. All by myself.” She hiccupped back a sob.

She found the sunroof button and slid it open and closed a few times.

“For the record,” he said gently, “I’m sorry about what happened. Nobody deserves that.”

“Maybe I did,” she said, slurring her words now. “For being s-such an idiot. That’s what you get when you pay zero attention to your intruish—intoritio—to your… gut.” She shook her head miserably. “Did I know something was off? Yeeessss. Yes, I did. Did I listen to myself? Noooo. Because Eliza Stanton’s daughter is not a quitter!”

“There’s some crackers and a tin of caviar back there. Maybe you should eat a little something to soak up all of that—”

“I need some air.” She opened the skylight fully and stood up, her head disappearing from sight out the rooftop. With one hand, she gripped the opening and with the other, she held her discarded veil like a weapon.

He could see what was coming. Merging to his right, he got past the thicker traffic and headed toward the nearest exit. He couldn’t hear what she was shouting into the wind above his car, but he was pretty sure it was directed at the misogynistic, two-timer she’d left behind. Or God. Or maybe both. The veil went up and out the sunroof and he caught sight of it floating behind the limo, caught in the updraft of air currents, heading toward the cars behind him. Oh, boy.

“Isabella?” he shouted. “Miss Stanton, please sit down. That’s not safe.”

A moment later, she ducked her head back into the limo and sprawled back down on the long seat at the back.

As he closed the sunroof his phone rang. It was the two-timing misogynist again. He was seriously regretting giving Theo his phone number now. Obviously, if things had gone as planned, that would be protocol. But things were very much not protocol today. So, he refused the call once again and set the phone down on the seat beside him as he took the off ramp with a bevy of fast-food places in sight.

After ordering her a burger and fries at the drive-thru, he pulled into a parking place in the lot, walked around to her door and handed her the food.

“I couldn’t,” she protested.

He got in and closed the door, sitting in a seat opposite her. “You’d better soak up some of that champagne with this food or you’re going to have a wicked headache tomorrow.”

“That ship’s sailed I greatly fear. Will.” She smiled at him. “That’s such a nice name. Will. William. Billy.”

“It’s just Will.” He leaned forward, hands clasped between his knees. “Listen, Miss Stanton—”

She waved her hand at him. “Isabella. Don’t. Mind me. Will. I don’t usually drink like this. In fact, I don’t think I ever have before. But do you want to know a secret?”

He didn’t. “Sure,” he said, unwrapping the burger and handing it to her.

“This?” She swirled a finger around the abject sadness on her face. “I’m not sure but I think it’s more mad than sad. She can have him. All the long worknights and excuses.” She took a bite of the burger and rambled on around it. “All of the broken promises and lies. I don’t want your pity. At all.” Her lips trembled as she chewed. “God, this is good.” Pressing two fingers against her lips, she studied him through a sweep of dark lashes. “But… I do need a ride to Seattle.”

He lurched back in his seat. “To—excuse me?”

“Carrie—that’s who I called on your phone—she’s my oldest and dearest friend. She’s very preggers, you know, so she couldn’t be my maid of honor. Which is just as well, because what a waste of a flight that would have been. She’s so amazing. She offered me a place to stay while I sort out my life. Isn’t that the sweetest thing?”

“Yeah, but… Seattle? Really, I don’t think—”

“B’fore you say no, think about it. It’s only a couple of days. I will pay you five-thousand dollars to drive me there.”

“Five—” He leaned his forehead against his palm. “Listen I—”

“Six. Six thousand dollars. You couldn’t make that much here.” She took another bite of burger and offered him a fry.

“No. Thanks.”

“No on the drive or the fry?”

He grinned and shook his head. “Seattle is—”

“Two thousand, one-hundred and eighty-something miles away. Thirty hours. I checked. Give or take. Six-thousand dollars. In your pocket. Will.”

Not that he was exactly driven by money, but… “How are you planning to do that, exactly? Given you have no wallet, no credit cards…”

She flashed her engagement ring at him. Her very expensive-looking diamond engagement ring. “I think he deserves that, don’t you? We’ll find a jeweler along the way who will pay me a fair price. And then I’ll get Lucille to FedEx me my things.”

“Who’s Lucille?”

She took another bite of burger. “The only person I actually trust.”

Seattle.He leaned back in his seat. Not a one-day or even maybe a two-day drive. But a trip with overnights and plenty of stops for gas and food. With this woman who seemed at the same time fragile and surprisingly resilient. All of that could go terribly wrong and he felt ill-equipped to deal with the emotional aftermath of what had just happened to her. Maybe right now she was more mad than sad, but once reality fully settled, he had no idea what to expect from her. He really didn’t know her at all. But if all that champagne was any indication—

“I swear, I’ll be no trouble,” she hurried on, as if reading his mind. “I’ll just sit quietly back here and let you drive. I won’t even cry. I really won’t. Anyway,” she said, slowly eating the tip off a fry. “He’s not worth all those tears.”

“You’re right about that.” He folded his arms across his chest. “You sure you’re not just drunk dialing a ride to Seattle from me? How do I know tomorrow when you sober up you won’t change your mind and want to come back?”

“I am a little bit drunk, but I’m not that drunk, sir. You’ll get your six thousand dollars—no matter what occurs.” She grinned. “As… Daniel Day Lewis famously said in The Last of the Mohicans under that waterfall. Right before he jumped.”

“Never saw that movie.”

She gave a little gasp. “Really? Well, that’s just… just tragic. My grandmother and I used to watch that movie together—a lot of old movies actually—every weekend when she’d take care of me.” At his side-eye look at her, she added, “Maybe I’m a movie freak, okay? But you have to watch it sometime.” She took another sip of champagne. “Promise me you will.”

“Sure,” he said, just to appease her.

She ran a knuckled fist across her mascara-smeared cheek then stuck her hand out for him to shake on it. “Just get me to Seattle. Okay?”

He didn’t take her hand. “Give me a minute.”

“Oh, okay. Will.” She tucked her hand back around the half-empty champagne bottle as he walked outside with his phone to call Isaiah.

Isaiah sounded unhappy. “It’s about time you checked in. All hell is breaking loose over here over that Stanton-Margate wedding. What the heck? Where are you?”

“Off the 635W, trying to figure out my destination.” The smell of burgers frying and freeway fumes merged in his already muddled senses. Above him, cars whizzed by in a noisy stream.

“Well, get your pretty-boy butt back here and talk to those Margates who are ready to take my head off over you kidnapping their might-have-been daughter-in-law—”

“Kidnapping?”

“And that’s not even mentioning the mother of the bride, Representative Eliza Stanton, who is threatening legal action if you don’t deliver her home. And don’t forget the psycho groom who called to say he’s left you seven messages already.”

“She’s not going home.” Will could picture Isaiah throwing back his shiny, bald head in frustration.

“Oh, maaaan, don’t tell me that now.”

“Listen. Refund the charges for the limo to the Margates and tell them there’s no fee due. And if you must, remind them that their son is baby daddy to another woman, and they haven’t got a leg to stand on. And then tell the Stantons their daughter is a grown-ass woman who can decide for herself if she wants to come home. And that she’s gone of her own free will.”

Isaiah sighed. “A three-hundred-pound Miami Dolphin right tackle comin’ straight for me is lookin’ pret-ty good to me right about now. Remind me again why I retired?”

“She wants me to drive her to Seattle.”

“She what?”

“Six K. Five days, max. I think I’m gonna do it.”

“You crazy, man?”

“Probably. Most definitely. But she’s in my car, drinking like there’s no tomorrow, with nowhere to go and no one to help her.”

Isaiah sighed. “Poor little rich girl, you mean?”

“Maybe,” he allowed, glancing back at the car.

“She’s pretty, right?”

“That doesn’t matter to me. Can you hold down the fort?”

“Yeah. You know I can. But… Will. Why you getting yourself all involved in this?”

“I’m not. Involved. It’s just for the money, man. That’s all it is. Six thousand dollars. I’ll be home in five days.”

“Aw, it ain’t about the money. We got money. We’re doin’ good, Will.”

“Still. She needs help. I’m gonna help her. Consider this my mitzvah for the year.”

“Oh, now—” He laughed. “Good deeds are one thing, but… oh, hell, you already made up your mind ain’t you?”

Will grinned. Isaiah had converted to Judaism for the love of his life, Emma, four years ago, and if Will had to play that card, he had no compunction against using it. “Yup.”

Isaiah gave a long-suffering sigh. “Five days. Can I hold you to that?”

Will traced the toe of his shoe along the broken asphalt of the parking lot as an ambulance flew past on the freeway, sirens blaring.

He squeezed his eyes shut. “Five days. For sure. Anyway, I could use the break from all that paperwork. C’mon. It’s just a drive. What could go wrong?”

“Heh-heh-heh.” Isaiah chuckled. “You keep in touch, you hear? And don’t you go messin’ with no female broken, bleedin’ hearts, understand? That’s just askin’ for trouble.”

Will laughed at the absurdity of that, said goodbye, and clicked off the call. He was about as far from messing with any hearts, broken or unbroken, as he was from the west coast of the US right now. And Isaiah knew that all too well.

The sound of the ambulance faded in the distance only to be replaced by the whooshing, heartbeat of traffic from the road above. It would be something to be out of the city for a while. On the road. With a destination… instead of chasing his own tail every day.

No matter what occurred.

When he got back, she was sound asleep, curled up on his back seat, the half-eaten cheeseburger still resting in her lax hand. Will relieved her of it, watching her sleep for a long moment before taking off his jacket and putting it over her.

Without all that sadness on her face, she looked different. For just a second, she reminded him of—

He winced, forcing that thought away, climbing back into the driver’s seat. Let her sleep. He’d make decent time between now and when they’d have to stop for the night. He’d deal with everything else later.

Whatever that meant.