The Mountain Man's Twice-Runaway Bride (Maple Peak Mountain Men #6)

1. Sophie

Sophie Lane had always believed every woman deserved one spectacular escape from her own wedding.

A single epic moment of cathartic release where she realized the groom was wrong, the dress was wrong, the seating chart was a cry for help, and the only rational response was to flee the occasion at full speed before anyone could legally bind her to a lifetime of monogrammed towels and polite misery.

Unfortunately, Sophie had now used two, and quite honestly, it felt excessive.

“This is fine,” she said aloud, gripping the steering wheel with both hands.

Her beautiful engagement ring glittered accusingly beneath the dashboard lights.

Her elegant wedding dress filled the driver’s seat, the passenger seat, and possibly part of the back seat.

Satin and tulle spilled around her like an avalanche of poor decisions.

Her veil had gotten caught in the seat belt twice.

Her bouquet lay on the floor mat ungracefully, miraculously intact despite being hurled into the car during what could generously be described as a dignified exit.

Fine.

Not dignified.

Fast.

Her phone buzzed in the cupholder for the thirty-seventh time.

MOTHER.

Sophie ignored it.

The phone stopped.

Then started again.

PRESTON.

She ignored that too.

A few seconds later, a text flashed across the screen.

Preston: This is embarrassing for everyone. Come back so we can handle this calmly.

Sophie laughed so hard it almost became a sob.

Calmly.

Of course Preston wanted to handle it calmly.

Preston handled everything calmly. Dinner reservations. Investment portfolios. Her career choices. Her hair length. Whether buttercream or fondant was more “appropriate” for a wedding cake. Everything was handled expertly and calmly without her input.

Preston Whitaker was handsome, polished, wealthy, respectable and exactly the kind of man her mother described as “safe choice.”

However, Sophie had made it all the way to the church doors before realizing safe was not the same as right.

Actually, no. That was not accurate.

She had made it all the way to the aisle music.

The violinist had started playing. Her mother had cried.

Her bridesmaids had turned around with bright encouraging smiles.

Preston had stood at the end of the aisle in his perfect black tuxedo, looking patient and mildly inconvenienced, as if Sophie were a client meeting running three minutes behind schedule.

And suddenly, she saw it.

A revelation.

A glimpse of her whole life right in front of her eyes.

Brunches where Preston ordered for her because he knew what she “actually liked.”

Dinner parties where he corrected her stories to make them shorter.

A house decorated in beige because color was “visually noisy.”

A future where every version of Sophie that felt too bright, too messy, too emotional, too much, would be gently edited out of existence, expertly and calmly.

So she had turned around.

Walked first.

Then jogged.

Then full-on sprinted when her mother yelled, “Sophie Elaine Lane, not again!”

Not again.

That was the part that really stung.

Because exactly three years ago, Sophie had called off her first wedding the night before the ceremony.

That time, there had been no aisle. No guests seated.

No violinist was traumatized by her majestic retreat.

Just Sophie sitting on the bathroom floor at midnight, crying into a monogrammed robe, realizing she was about to marry her college boyfriend because everyone said they were “practically married already.”

Apparently, Sophie’s subconscious had decided to raise the stakes this time.

Instead of canceling the wedding the night before, she had let the flowers arrive, the guests sit down, and the caterer serve tiny crab cakes.

Then she ran.

In a wedding dress.

In borrowed snow boots because her maid of honor, bless her chaotic heart, had tackled Sophie near the coatroom and said, “If you’re doing this, at least don’t die of frostbite.”

So now, Sophie was driving through the mountains for the first time, in a couture gown, white faux-fur cape, and bright purple snow boots decorated with tiny rubber ducks.

Snow swept across the windshield in thick white streaks.

Sophie had leaned forward, squinting through the storm.

“Okay,” she whispered. “This seems like a poor time for weather. The timing seems to be accurate and consistent today.”

The road curved sharply, climbing between dark pine trees. She had no idea where she was. Somewhere outside Maple Peak, according to the last road sign she had passed before her GPS gave up and her phone signal dropped to one useless bar.

Maple Peak had sounded charming when she saw it on the sign.

Rustic.

Peaceful.

Far away from the church where several hundred people were probably discussing whether Sophie Lane had finally lost her mind.

Her phone buzzed again.

MOTHER.

Then another text.

Mother: You cannot keep doing this.

Sophie swallowed hard.

The comedy of the situation dimmed for a moment.

Because that was the fear, wasn’t it?

Maybe she could not keep doing this because something was wrong with her.

Other women got married. Other women chose floral arrangements, smiled at photographers, and walked down aisles without developing a sudden biological or psychological need to flee. Other women seemed able to gracefully accept love when it looked respectable on paper.

Sophie kept running.

Maybe she was broken.

Maybe she had mistaken panic for intuition twice now, which felt statistically concerning.

A gust of wind shoved against the car.

The tires slipped.

Sophie gasped and gripped the wheel tighter.

“No, no, no–”

The car fishtailed.

She tried to correct gently, but the road had turned slick beneath the snow. The headlights flashed across pine trucks, a wooden guardrail, a steep shoulder.

The car slid sideways.

The front end plowed into a snowbank with a soft but decisive crunch.

Then everything went still.

Deathly still.

The engine coughed once and died.

Sophie sat frozen, heart hammering.

“Well,” she whispered.

Looks like I’m fucked.

Snow fell silently around her car.

Her veil slipped over one eye.

She pushed it back.

“This feels symbolic.”

For several seconds, she simply sat there, breathing hard and staring at the snow-packed hood.

Then her phone buzzed again.

Preston: Sophie, enough. Tell me where you are.

“Nope. Not happening.”

She grabbed the phone, opened the glove compartment, and shoved it inside beneath the owner’s manual.

Then she reconsidered, pulled it back out, and checked the signal.

No service.

Of course.

Perfect.

She was a twice-runaway bride stranded in a snowstorm with no cell signal, one purple duck boot, and a bouquet that had somehow survived better than her dignity.

Wait.

One boot?

Sophie looked down.

Her right boot was on her foot.

Her left boot was missing.

She stared.

“When did that happen?”

She remembered now. During the sprint from the church, one of the boots had come loose. Becca had shouted something about “leave it, Cinderella,” and Sophie, being in crisis mode, had obeyed every letter in spirit.

So, to clarify: she was wearing one purple duck boot and one ivory satin bridal heel.

Excellent.

This was definitely the kind of woman a mentally stable man would want to marry. Perhaps Sigmund Freud would have personally approved her as a respectable potential bride to his best friend.

Sophie tried starting the car again.

Nothing.

The engine refused to cooperate.

She looked out the window.

Snow gathered fast along the road. The sky had darkened, and the trees seemed to close in around her.

A flicker of fear moved through her stomach.

Not wedding fear.

This was real fear.

Cold, quiet, practical fear.

She needed help.

She opened the driver’s door and immediately regretted every decision she had ever made.

A blast of icy air hit her face. Snow swirled into the car and her skirt puffed outward like a panicked cloud.

Sophie gathered the dress and stepped out.

Her bridal heel sank directly into the snow.

She pitched forward.

“Absolutely not.”

She grabbed the door to steady herself, but the dress twisted around her legs. The bouquet slid out behind her and landed in the snow with a dramatic little flop.

She stared down at it.

“Traitor.”

The wind whipped her veil across her face.

Sophie wrestled it away and tried to step toward the road.

The duck boot had traction.

The bridal heel had none.

She slipped.

Caught herself.

Slipped again.

Then her dress snagged on something near the car door, yanking her backward.

For one horrible second, she thought the universe had finally decided to physically prevent her from running away from any more weddings. Maybe this was the Universe telling her, like her mother, to STOP DOING IT.

“Let go,” she muttered, tugging the dress. “I have already escaped one binding commitment today.”

The fabric tore with a small, expensive sound.

Sophie froze.

“Oh no.”

She looked down at the rip in the side of the skirt.

Then she started laughing.

Because what else was there to do?

She laughed until tears blurred her vision. She was standing in the snow beside a stuck car, wearing half a practical boot situation and half a bridal shoe, holding a torn wedding dress in both hands.

That was how the truck found her.

Headlights cut through the snowfall.

Sophie stopped laughing.

The truck pulled onto the shoulder behind the car. A large, dark shape moved inside the cab. The driver’s door opened.

A man stepped out.

And not just any man.

A mountain man.

There was no other linguistic term for him.

He was tall and broad-shouldered, wearing a dark winter coat, dark jeans, and heavy boots that looked like they had never betrayed him in snow.

His beard was short and dark, his hair nearly black beneath a knit cap, and his face was rugged in a way that made Sophie’s already unstable day take a sudden turn toward an absurd romantic fantasy.