A warning chime sounded in the car, and with a wave of worry, she sensed not for the first time. Her gaze flew to the dashboard, where the low fuel sign flashed, and the gauge’s needle pointed toward E. “Oh, no. Oh no, oh no, oh no.”
She’d forgotten she needed gas. Surely she had enough to get back to town. It was mostly downhill, after all.
The car engine sputtered and died.
Gillian wrenched the wheel clockwise, and the Mercedes rolled to a stop on the shoulder of the road. Sighing, she reached for her purse and her phone.
Her phone. She’d left it on the charger. Tucker had gotten her so frazzled that she’d forgotten to grab her phone.
She muttered an unladylike curse. “Okay, stay calm. Remember your lessons.” S: Size up the situation. Okay, that one was pretty easy. The man was going to murder her.
Gillian got out of her car, sat on the hood, and took inventory of the supplies in her overnight bag and purse. Well, she could use her makeup mirror to reflect the sun like a signal mirror. Not that she would need to signal anybody. She was right here in plain sight on the side of the road. Lots of people knew where she’d gone. When she didn’t arrive when expected, someone would come after her.
Someone named Tucker, no doubt, and this time he’d find her a whole lot quicker.
While she sat waiting, she used the opportunity to fix the smudged polish on her left ring finger. She stroked pale pink onto her nail and thought about the red polish she’d worn when Tucker slipped the simple, thin gold band he’d bought at the wedding chapel’s shop onto her finger. When the plane leaving Vegas took off, she’d removed the ring and tucked it into her fairy-tale castle, Judith Leiber purse, which in turn she’d tucked away deep in her bedroom closet.
Like the fact of her marriage. It, too, was in the closet. Now Tucker wanted to drag it all out, make it public, spread it across the road. Like roadkill on the road to Redemption. Or would the road to Ruin be more appropriate?
Actually, he didn’t really want to yank their marriage out of the closet. He wanted her to make room for his stuff. He wanted a dedicated hanging rack and drawers in her dresser.
And she wanted to give them to him.
Her thoughts were getting crazy. Maybe it was altitude sickness. She should drink some water. She did have bottled water in her car. Too bad the engine wouldn’t run on H2O.
She slipped from the hood of the car, grabbed a water bottle from her back seat, and took a sip. Not too much, because the need to pee would present a problem.
Problems. Tucker said he loved her. Could it be real love and not just infatuation and lust? Could these feelings churning inside of her be the real deal too? She wanted to think so. She didn’t know. Maybe she needed to read more magazines.
She needed to learn to trust herself again.
Damn this divorce deadline! She didn’t want him to spend the summer in Death Valley, but she wasn’t ready to tell her mom about Elvis either. For a woman in the wedding business, why did marriage have to be so complicated?
She heard the engine long before she saw the truck coming, and it wasn’t coming from the direction of town, although perhaps the mountains surrounding her distorted the sound. As a safety precaution, she got back into her rental car, locked the doors, and waited to identify the oncoming vehicle. A white pickup. Not a lot of help, since there were a lot of white pickup trucks traveling in the mountains. Once it grew closer, she identified the driver—Jackson—and his passenger.
Tucker sprang from the truck before it rolled to a stop. She exited the Mercedes to meet him.
“What the hell, Gillian?” he demanded.
She gave him a hesitant smile. “I ran out of gas.”
“You ran out of gas,” he repeated, his voice just below a bellow. “So, you didn’t bother to check your gas gauge before taking a drive in the mountains? Without your damned phone? And getting lost?”
“Wait a minute,” she snapped right back. “I am not lost. I drove to the river camp, picked up my suitcase, and I was headed back to Eternity Springs.”
“Eternity Springs is that way!” He pointed behind her.
“Oh. I must have got turned around when I left the camp. Well, it doesn’t matter. I knew you’d find me.”
“You knew I’d find you,” he repeated. He placed his hands on his hips, and temper sparked in his caramel eyes. If her life was a cartoon, he’d have had plumes of steam shooting from his ears. “I guess I’m good at that, aren’t I? Finding you? Finding you and making love. I know you think I’m good at making love. So I’m a finder, but not your love. Not a keeper. You need a keeper.”
Jackson shifted uncomfortably, winced, and shot his cousin a warning look. Gillian folded her arms and lifted her chin, but before she could fire back, Jackson spoke.
“Okay, then,” the groom said, turning toward his truck. “I don’t have a gas can with me, but I’m pretty sure they’ll have one at the river camp. Why don’t I run to get gas?”
Both Tucker and Gillian held their tongues until the truck made a U-turn and headed off in search of fuel.
Then Gillian said, “Did you really have to bring up lovemaking, Tucker? You’ve totally embarrassed me. And, you let the cat out of the bag. Thank you very much.”
“Cat? Or maybe you mean a mountain lion, like the ones who roam these hills? The hills you decided to roam without so much as a cell phone!”
“Maybe I really mean a weasel who doesn’t keep his word about weddings!”
“I didn’t tell Jackson we’re married. I told him we’re sleeping together!” He hesitated a moment and added, “I told Boone we’re married.”
Gillian gasped. “What about what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas?”
“It did stay there. It had a nice long visit.”
“You broke your promise!”
“I hired Boone in the capacity of my attorney. I’m having him rewrite my will to make my wife the beneficiary.”
“Your will!” Shocked, she gaped at him. “Tucker, I don’t want your money.”
“Good. Because I don’t want to die. However, if you go missing again, I think the odds are about even that I’ll have a heart attack and croak before that divorce you want so bad is final. There are dangerous wild animals in these woods—big ones!”
“I know. I’m looking at a cranky one right now.”
Damned if he didn’t roar at her.
Gillian buried her face in her hands and slumped back against her car. “Don’t, Tucker. Let’s not do this again. Please? Not now. Not today. This is Jackson and Caroline’s weekend. Let’s let them have it.”
That took the wind from his sails. He sucked in a deep breath and allowed a full half minute to tick by before he spoke in a calmer tone of voice. “That was certainly my intention, but I’m not the one walking around weeping and raising questions.”
“I didn’t weep. I got teary-eyed, and I can’t help it. I’m an emotional person, and this is an emotional time. Weddings are emotional events.”
“Your eyes have more red lines than an atlas,” he scoffed. “Maisy told me your mother said something that brought on the waterworks this morning. What was that all about?”