The Mountain Man’s Runaway Bride (Whispered Echoes #7)

Chapter 1

ONE

QUINCY

The plane dips, and I clutch the armrest until my knuckles are as white as my wedding dress.

Well… maybe I should call it a dress. Sure, it’s made of lace, satin, and tulle. I spent thousands of dollars on it and the alterations at a bridal boutique.

But is a dress still a wedding dress if the bride bailed on the wedding?

The plane’s wings level out. My pulse steadies, though my stomach doesn’t stop churning. That’s to be expected, I suppose, for someone who skipped breakfast and then bailed on her wedding.

It’s also probably not great that my carry-on contains nothing but waterproof mascara, a bag of Jordan almonds, and two pairs of lacy underwear meant for “married life.”

Across the aisle, a white-haired woman lowers her crocheting hook and gives me a sympathetic smile.

“You look a little nervous, dear.”

“A little,” I admit. “Though it’s probably not what you’re thinking about.”

“Oh, I’m sure I have an inkling.” She clucks her tongue and takes up her crocheting. “I was a bride once upon a time, too. I understand.”

“I’m not nervous about my wedding.” I raise a can of ginger ale that has long gone lukewarm to my lips. Maybe it will settle my stomach.

“That’s not what I meant.” Her gaze meets mine, and the corners of her mouth twitch. “I was talking about your wedding night .”

I cover my mouth before I can spray ginger ale out of it. The pint-sized passenger next to me gapes as I hack up a lung and try to catch my breath. The flight attendant two rows up turns slowly, the kind of turn that says Please don’t be contagious.

Meanwhile, my new friend across the aisle smirks.

“Don’t worry, honey.” She loops a stitch with total calm, seemingly oblivious to the chaos she’s created. “Alaskan men are like wood stoves. They’re cold and can be fussy. But when you light a fire under them, they usually do the trick.” She wiggles her brows at me. “If you know what I mean.”

A man dressed as if he stepped out of an ad for outwear snorts and the bearded man next to him snickers. Both dart looks my way.

I wish I could melt into the cabin floor.

I wipe my mouth with a napkin and push the ginger ale away. “That is… some advice.”

“Advice I learned the old-fashioned way. Through my own experience as a mail-order bride to a mountain man.”

It’s a good thing I gave up on drinking my beverage. The whole cabin would’ve been in the splash zone.

“You were a mail-order bride,” I repeat slowly. “To a mountain man.”

“That’s what I said, young lady. He smelled like cedar, wore flannel like a second skin, and had hands like you wouldn’t believe.” She sighs. “We’ve been married fifty years last summer.”

“That is… something.”

“You don’t know the half of it.” She smiles fondly. “Showing up in a wedding dress was a good idea.”

“Oh.” I glance down at my gown. For a moment, I’d completely forgotten I was still wearing this damn thing. “I don’t know about?—”

“He’s going to love getting you out of that thing tonight before bed.” She gives me a knowing look. “And trust me, you won’t have anything to worry about on your wedding night.”

My eyes widen. “My wedding night?”

“That’s what you’ve been worrying about, right?”

I can feel my cheeks flush bright red as more heads turn. We’ve attracted an even larger audience. And I’m not sure, but the tween next to me might be recording this exchange on their phone.

The wannabe outerwear model scoffs again and leads forward.“You’re not actually marrying someone in Alaska, are you?”

“I’m pretty sure I saw this exact thing happen in a Hallmark movie,” a blonde woman the row in front of me says tugging out her earbuds and turning to face us.

I blink. “No! That’s not what’s happening here.”

“What is going on, then?” the outerwear model asks

“Well…”

“Please,” the blonde clutches her hands together at her chest. “I’ve been sitting here this whole flight coming up with scenario after scenario of how a woman in full bridal wear ended up on a flight to Alaska.”

My tween neighbor with the camera on me nods in silent encouragement. Okay, she’s definitely filming this.

“Yeah, but…”

“You might as well tell us, dear,” the elderly woman urges without skipping a stitch in her afghan. “You look like you could use a friend.”

“You don’t know the half of it.” I give a short laugh. And even though I’m not usually one to unload on a stranger—let alone several of them—the dam inside me breaks.

The words pour out of me like a flood.

“I was supposed to get married this morning.” I shift in my itchy tulle skirt. “Not to a mountain man. But to a man I thought was—safe. Stable. Sincere. You know, the kind of guy who never misses a credit card payment or forgets to dot ‘I’ and cross a ’T’.”

The white-haired woman clucks her tongue in understanding.

“I thought we were happy. I won’t pretend that what we had was perfect. He got annoyed when I didn’t put the cinnamon back in the exact same spot on the shelf. I wished he’d leave a little more room for spontaneity. But he seemed like a good guy. Dependable.”

A few heads nod. The blonde nods, “I get it.”

“But he wasn’t dependable,” the outerwear model says. “Was he?”

“Apparently not.” I clutch my can of ginger ale, gripping on to it like it’s my lifeline. “This morning, I was standing in the hallway outside our hotel suite taking a moment for myself. I’m wearing this”—I gesture at my dress—“and flowers in my hair. Ready to walk down the aisle. Just as I was about to meet up with the rest of the bridal party and head to the ballroom, I hear something that makes me freeze.”

A wave of shame washes over me. I shakily take a sip of my warm ginger ale.

“On the other side of the door, my fiancé was talking to his best man. Laughing, he says that he isn’t even sure he loves me. But that he’s marrying me because we’ve ‘been together forever’ and ‘it’s the right thing to do.’ We’re not ‘getting any younger’ and he might as well ‘lock it down.’ Like I’m some kind of retirement fund or mortgage rate.”

A collective gasp ripples through my corner of the plane.

I barrel on, the flood fully rushing.

“And then, because apparently that wasn’t enough, his best man says at least my fiancé was able to have a few last hurrahs as a bachelor. Including with a woman from his office. Someone they met at his bachelor party.” My grip tightens around the can, leaving a dent. “Someone who was actually my lab partner in biology class back in high school.”

White hair drops her crochet hook.

Blonde clutches her face in horror.

The tween lowers her phone.

Only the outerwear model still has the power of speech. He shakes his head in disgust and mutters, “Trash. All of them.”

I give a tight-lipped smile in appreciation. “I don’t even remember how it happened. One minute, I’m standing outside the hotel room door. The next I’m in an Uber—with an overnight bag—fleeing the venue and asking to be taken to the airport. I traded in the tickets for our honeymoon and changed them to this one.”

“And they let you on?” the tween asks, equal parts impressed and confused.

“It turns out no one argues with a woman in a full-length white dress with streams of mascara running down her face.” I give a shaky laugh. “So that’s it. That’s how I got here. In 28C, headed to Alaska for a solo honeymoon. Because there’s no way in hell I’m ever going back to that man.”

There’s a beat of stunned silence.

And then an eruption of whoops, cheers, and applause. Honest to God applause. And not just from the little audience I’ve assembled. Everyone in our part of the plane has apparently been listening in as I share my sad little story.

My cheeks flush again as I lean back in my seat. I have to admit, it feels good. Not the applause and attention. But to have announced to the world—and myself—that I’m done with Axel once and for all. That I deserve more than to be someone’s standby.

Maybe if I keep thinking that, I’ll start to believe it.

On his way past, the flight attendant hands me a small bottle of bubbly with a wink. “Here’s to new beginnings.”

The plane touches down a few hours later.

Thanks to my new friends, and the glasses of bubbly they insisted on ordering me, I’m feeling much more pleasant about my prospects.

And a smidge tipsy. But only a little.

As we disembark, I catch a glimpse of the snow-capped mountains and my heart hitches. “Beautiful.”

“It sure is,” Margaret—my white-haired crocheting companion—says. “Even after fifty years it still takes my breath away.”

“Just like your mountain man?”

“Indeed he does?” Her smile softens and she rests a comforting hand on my forearm. “You’ll find your love too. I’m just sure of it.”

I thank her, even as I have my own doubts. I’m not even sure I care about romance. Clearly, I can’t be trusted to make smart decisions when it comes to men.

As I near the airport entrance, reality hits me. I know next to nothing about I’m going or how I’m going to get there. Axel had taken care of the honeymoon. It was the only part of the wedding he had. I’d wanted to go to the Bahamas, but he insisted we should go on an outdoor hiking excursion in Alaska.

All he told me was we were going to Alaska and that a man named Knox Callahan was going to be our wilderness guide.

A honeymoon hiking through the mountains with another person. How romantic.

I push the irritation aside to focus on the pressing issue at hand. I need to figure out my next steps. I didn’t come to Alaska to convert my wedding dress into a tent here in the airport.

Taking a deep breath, I pull back my shoulders and scan the lobby for a sign about transportation. I’m so caught up in my search, I walk straight into a flannel-covered wall.

That turns out to be a broad, muscular chest.

“Oof.” I drop my suitcase handle. “I’m so sorry, I?—“

I pull back and my breath catches. There, standing in front of me is a tall, man with a dark beard that seems to have speckles of red in it as it catches the light.

And he’s staring at me with dark piercing eyes.

“Holy shit,” he mutters. “It’s you.”

My eyes widen. “Me?”

I open my mouth to explain, but he’s already sizing me up. The more he studies me, the more horrified he seems.

“Is something wrong?” I ask, frowning as he releases his steady grip on my arms and starts to pace, muttering words I can’t quite make out under his breath.

“No, you’re fine. It’s just…” He looks me over again, from veil to heels.

“Just what?”

“I didn’t think you’d be wearing a wedding dress.”

“Oh.” I look down at myself in all my poofy glory. “About that?—”

“It’s not that I don’t want to go through with it. I mean, I’m not sure. It’s just… Hell.” He takes the cap off his head and runs his fingers through thick, dark hair, leaving it standing upright in places.

It’s oddly endearing. Rugged. Real. Like a lumberjack who reads poetry and doesn’t know he’s hot.

He exhales hard. “I just didn’t expect you to be so… ready to go through with it.”

“Ready to go through what?”

His brow knits together. “The marriage.”

My jaw falls slack. “I’m sorry, what? ”

It’s hard to even comprehend what to think when he says:

“I get that you’re a mail-order bride. I just didn’t realize you’d show up in”—he gestures at my outfit—“ that , already ready to walk down the aisle with me.”