Running to the Mountain Man (The Runaway Brides of Darling Creek #3)

Chapter 1

Chapter One

Goldie

“Stay close to water. You’ll have tree cover.”

My advice is laughably inadequate, but this is the best I can come up with on such short notice for Louisa.

“But what about camping in the mountains?”

I look at my friend with helplessness. “Let’s face it, pumpkin,” I say. “You’re not cut out for roughing it.”

We hug each other tight, and she lets herself cry for just a moment. Me? I’m not crying; I’m internally screaming.

Seconds later, Louisa leaves me forever.

I watch my friend get smaller and smaller as she trudges away over the rugged pasture, her oversized boots squelching in the mud. She hugs her chocolate-brown cardigan close around her thin frame. The skirt of her wedding dress floats in the cold breeze like a ghost.

I could go with her.

But I need to stay and let the elders focus their energies on punishing me instead of looking for the women who flee. Any logical cult leader would simply let people leave instead of causing a ruckus. The way Prophet Orlyn and Elder Nevyn drew attention to us by trespassing, threatening, and shooting at our neighbors was truly not in the church’s best interest. It’s all about male ego.

“I’m gonna kill ’em. One of these days. With my bare hands, if that’s what it takes.”

I sound insane. I know.

There’s never been anything logical about the Celestial Order of Covenant Kinship, though.

Since Orlyn rose to power and gave our little band of weirdos that name, and instituted all kinds of stupid laws, everything’s gone to hell.

And things are getting worse and worse. They’re marrying us off faster and faster, at an alarming rate.

We used to have choices.

Now, with the Prophet in exile, everything has become more strict.

The flat valley leaves me wide open to suspicion. I’ll be spotted by some snitch soon enough.

A sane person would be worried, but I’m happy to stay here and get caught, so I can throw sand in the works. I’ll do whatever I need to do to buy my indoor girl some time to get to safety.

I can tough it out. And I’m sure Olivia is fine. That one can ride a horse, shoot a gun, and take life by the balls. Louisa is tender and bookish, but she’s smart, and I’m confident she’ll make it by sheer force of stubborn optimism. My plan is to head to the mountains. My brother, Theo, was working as a custodian at one of the fancier lodges up there, last I heard. I’d like to track him down and make sure he’s okay.

Too many brothers have been shunned from the compound. We have too many men and not enough women, according to The Prophet. The younger men are seen as competition and are often cast out simply for being younger and more attractive to the young women of the church. It’s despicable.

Louisa’s wedding dress billows one last time before she disappears into the dormant thicket along Darling Creek. And then, she’s gone.

First Olivia, now Louisa. Both of my best friends are gone, and I’m alone.

I feel as though something huge has been ripped away. It feels like a death. It feels like I’ve lost both my legs.

At least she won’t be too cold for long. The trees have not yet started to bud along the water that snakes through the valley, but the sun is shining, and at least the ice has melted now. Still, I hope she gets to town soon; there’s no way Louisa can live off the land.

Me, on the other hand? It won’t be easy, but I can do that.

Once Windgrave Mountain is green again, I know where I’m going. With my knowledge of foraging and survival skills, I can hide in the bush for weeks until the elders give up and stop looking for me.

I know what mushrooms to eat and what to avoid. I know what side of the mountain the bears live and where the best berries grow.

I turn my face down and wipe my eyes. When I clear away the stupid tears, a sign of spring greets me right below my feet. A friendly bit of green peeks through the mud.

Curious, I lean down and run my hand over the pale green leaves of the largest cluster. I recognize this. Snow-on-the-mountain. Once I notice that one, I see a dozen more.

The blooms won’t be here until late summer, but the topmost, varied leaves are already so pretty.

“Well, maybe I won’t have to kill them with my hands, necessarily,” I joke to myself. I’ll have to grab my assistant, Georgie, and teach her about this. She has all my notebooks, but this is one recipe I purposely do not have written on paper for her to find.

“I don’t think Georgie would snitch, would she?” I ask, curling my fingers around the tender stems. I smile, temporarily forgetting why I’m out here.

“What are you doing?”

The gruff female voice startles me. In panic, I clasp my hand around a cluster of the stems. “I was just, um, gathering some greenery for Louisa. For the bouquet!”

Is that the best I can come up with? Yep. Especially when Floydene Blatch’s rough hand drags me upright by the hair. A patch of soil erupts as the plants are ripped out, roots and all.

“I know you were out here with Louisa. Don’t lie to me, witch!”

I stifle the urge to cry out as Floydene clamps her hand around my jaw roughly. Her pale eyes are cold and full of contempt. It was only a couple of years ago that she was my school principal, when I tortured her by putting garden snakes in the pockets of her fancy coats. The woman absolutely hated me since the day I set foot in her school.

The battle-ax must have seen me through her office window.

“Louisa went to her house to get a comb for her hair. I was waiting to finish her bridal braid, so I sneaked out to pick something pretty for her.”

Floydene won’t buy this. But my story is plausible. I am the girl who makes tinctures from healing plants. The girl who presses weeds and flowers into textbooks.

I am also the one who sews the bridal dresses and braids hair. What can I say? I’m a sentimental girl at heart. Even if these women no longer get to choose who they marry or when they have children, I like for them to feel a little bit human. I like for them to feel special.

“Louisa’s missing, and I know you had something to do with it.”

I try to act surprised. That’s the one skill I haven’t mastered. “What are you talking about, Blatch?”

The way I say her name telegraphs it loud and clear that I mean it as “bitch.”

Her nostrils flare like an angry bull, and her thin lips stretch out in a grimace.

“You always were a terrible liar, Loch Ness Monster.”

Imagine choosing that as my nickname and thinking it’s an insult. I wear it with pride. My family, the Locks, were in the first polygamist wagon train that settled in the West. Floydene, on the other hand? Her mom was a mistress who got absorbed into the church to protect the image of a cheating elder and his scorned wives. Floydene is not the shit she thinks she is.

“Did you ever stop to think that maybe that’s because I’m a better person than you?” I say, batting my lashes.

The woman snorts like a warthog, and I let her drag me back to the compound.

“Let’s go, Nessie. And pick up those size 11 feet of yours. I don’t have all day.”

Floydene dreamed up that “clever” nickname for me the day I started primary school because I tracked in muddy water through the classroom with my supposedly big feet. That was day one. On day two, she pulled my yellow-blonde braid so hard she left a bruise.

The woman still loves to pull hair, apparently.

Truth be told, I can take this woman. I’ve got forty pounds of muscle on her, I’m twenty years younger, and this chick has never lifted a finger since she got married at 18. But here’s the thing. Ol’ Floydene is a brainwashed sister wife just like almost every other woman on this compound, and I’m not about to do her harm.

That’s not to say I make it easy for her as she marches me toward the temple.

Wait a minute. The temple? Why would we be headed to the temple if the elder has no bride to marry?

Unless…

But no. They wouldn’t.

“You’ll be lucky if Peter decides to punish you himself. With him, the consequences will be swift.”

Swift indeed.

The wedding happens so fast, I don’t remember saying my vows.

“By the authority of our heavenly father and by his anointed Prophet, I declare you husband and wife.”

That’s all that Elder Nevyn says about it.

Three ugly old sharks hover over me while I stand in front of the altar, the paperwork laid out before us. I look at the man who’s just been declared my husband. Elder Peter Blatch leers at me with liquid green eyes. He licks his lips, and his yellow teeth make my skin crawl.

His six other wives stare back at me when I peek around his shoulder. Ashlyn, JoNeal, Margaret, Nicole, Tabby, and goddamn Floydean herself. They all have murder in their eyes.

The second their husband turns around to look at them, they’ll be as sweet as strawberry pie. A bunch of toddlers.

I don’t know what’s worse about this arrangement: being forced to act like a wife to a disgusting old pervert or being left alone to fight over scraps with my horrible sister wives.

It’s simply not happening. I choose none of it.

My chances of happiness are further limited by the fact that I’ve got a lot fewer people left on my side these days. Olivia’s gone. Louisa’s gone. My brother Theo was cast out a long time ago. My mother and grandmother are too deeply entrenched. So are all my sisters and most of my brothers—at least all those who haven’t been shunned.

Turning to my right, I send a pleading gaze to the men overseeing this ceremony. Elder Nevyn smiles, then rests a hand on his belt. By doing this, he pushes his suit jacket backward to make sure that I notice his holstered gun.

He’s sending a chilling message.

“What are you waiting for, little one? The head of your household is eager for the wedding night,” Nevyn says.

Sweet baby Jesus on a motorcycle, rescue me, please.

I close my eyes and wait for my prayer to be answered.

But it’s not answered. No one is coming to help me. I have to rescue my own damn self. We all have to rescue our own damn selves, and that’s just the way of things.

First, it was Olivia. Then I helped Louisa run away.

My hand shaking, I sign the document.

Did I really just do that?

What have I done?

I’ve just made running away from this horrible place even more difficult for myself. Now that I’m somebody’s wife, my status as property is locked in.

The stroll through the maze of hallways in the temple feels more like a death march. I know what is expected of me tonight, which makes the bile rise in my throat.

There’s no way God is real if he’s letting this happen to me.

Elder Peter Blatch leads me outside, across a field, to an unimpressive hideaway. He opens the door with zero pomp or circumstance.

I scan my surroundings once we’re inside. So this is the honeymoon cottage, where we are expected to spend a week in seclusion, undisturbed by outsiders.

I try not to think of what that is supposed to entail.

My secondhand luggage is propped up against the foot of the worryingly sagging bed. I’m told my sister wives packed the bags for me. Without my input, obviously.

The only other thing I have to hold on to are the crushed greens in my hand that served as a brave little wedding bouquet.

Abruptly, Elder Peter jerks away from me and hits the bathroom. Before he slams the door, he announces he’s hungry and expects me to cook him a hearty dinner so he can keep up his stamina.

Stamina, he said. I want to die.

I look down at the plants in my hand, trying to think.

No, Goldie. You don’t want to die, I think to myself. Him first.

Snow-on-the-mountain.

It’s definitely too late to go to my greenhouse to work on making a powder from the roots.

But still. It might work.

It has to.