Runaway Bride (3 page)

Life wasn't fair.
Deal with it,
a small voice in her head
cried.

With the back of her hand, she wiped
the sweat trickling down her forehead and into her eyes. The sweat
stung. The fact that the dress she wore cost more than she wanted
to contemplate, seemed of little importance. It was ruined and
there wasn't a damned thing she could do about it now. A $5000
dress. A dress she would never wear under normal circumstances. A
dress her mother insisted was perfect for her, first because it was
a bride's dress, and second because it was what any self-respecting
Kingsley would wear.

Savannah hadn't thought much past her
future with Chad until now. She bravely faced having to redirect
her entire life, to rethink her values. But how did one go about
redirecting their lives, when their dreams were suddenly crushed?
Where to start?

There was no use rehashing her well
laid plans of marriage. That was history. Now she had to think
about what to do next. Like today, tomorrow, and maybe next
week.

She hadn't the intelligence to draw
money from her account at the bank, but that would have taken time
and her parents might stop her. All she could do was run for the
moment and hope that somehow everything would work out alright, for
her and for Chad.

She moved the dangling sleeve of her
dress away, so she could get closer to the trunk. By the time she
managed to roll and scoot the tools to the far edge of the trunk
she was breathless and black-smudged. She gasped. The nut and bolt
holding it in place hadn't budged. After breaking a couple more
fake nails, she managed to loosen it and pull the offending
contraption out of the trunk.

"Alright I did it!" she jumped for joy.
"I actually did it!"

But having it in her hands, and knowing
where to put it to use was another thing.

She knew she needed to jack the car up.
But where did one put the jack to jack it up? She'd seen this done
on TV. She’d watched Chad do it, too. It had looked simple enough.
Still, given all that information, she had no idea where to begin.
After several minutes of trying to put the jack together, she
glanced at the car, with a grimace. "Now where do I put
you?"

She turned the jack around several
different directions, placed it under the car behind the bumper.
Nothing happened.

"Oh, you have to pump it up, you igmo,"
she berated herself. It also made sense to her to put it as close
to the flat as possible. When she finally managed to get it
situated under the car, and pumped it, it began pulling the fender
away. She knew from the gosh-awful sound that she wasn't doing this
correctly.

Slowly she glanced up at the protruding
fender.

Stomping her foot, she jerked on the
jack till it fell away. The car immediately slumped, making another
weird sound, and stirring the dust from the side of the road. She
licked at her dry pasty lips. Mad, hot, and disgusted with her own
inabilities; she threw the jack as far as she could, nearly winging
a jackrabbit in the process.

"Sorry little fella," she blew a
tendril of hair away from her face and leaned against the fender.
She mentally recorded the damage she'd done to the car with a
withering sigh. Her father would not be pleased with
her.

She wasn't a man, how was she supposed
to figure this out? If her brother, Jarod could see her now he'd
laugh his head off. She missed Jarod. He'd flown in for her wedding
that same morning and she had all of ten minutes to kiss him and
catch him up on her life.

But all of that was gone and her life
had changed within a few fragile moments.

Now she was faced with stark
reality.

Stubborn to the core, Savannah vowed
nature wasn't going to win with her. She did away with the
offending train and bustle of the wedding gown. In fact one sleeve
was already ripped and she felt compelled to rip off the other to
match. Her veil lay in the backseat, she tossed her extra baggage
back to join it. Nothing of the dress was left but one long piece
of the skirt and the bodice.

She reached in the glove compartment
for a string to tie her hair back, but the sun beat down on her
neck so brazenly, she had to let it fall loose again. To complete
the mess, when she closed the car door, her skirt caught and ripped
again. She screamed aloud, "This can't be happening to me! What
have I done to deserve this?"

Then in a fit of anger, she ripped the
offending silk from her body and threw it in the backseat to join
the rest of the mess. The silk slip was ankle length and thick
enough to pass for a skirt she quickly decided.

She stood there, looking down the long
lonesome road, wondering what might happen next. A slight breeze
played tricks on her imagination and told her she was a little more
comfortable than she had been, just a little. The fact that she had
destroyed a $5,000 wedding dress, and damaged the beautiful new BMW
didn't make her too proud.

Flashbacks of yesterday's disaster made
her feel no better. Spending the night in the car hadn't done much
for her disposition either. Sleeping in a wedding dress just didn't
cut it, and perhaps turning the air on half the night didn't help
the car's problems either. Guilt riddled her.
But
darn it, what was a girl to
do?
She could have lived with the fact that she'd lost
Chad to another woman, but to lose him to man seemed outrageous. It
bordered on hurting the ego and the pride all at the same
time.

"I don't need marriage..." But that
prospect brought no happiness either. Savannah knew deep in her
heart that was one thing, she did need. She wanted the whole nine
yards. She'd dreamed of being knee deep in diapers by this time
next year. Fat chance!

Her two older sisters were married and
had a houseful of children. That's exactly what she had wanted. She
admired them both for making such happy families.

She and Chad had waited until they both
finished college and secured jobs before jumping into the marriage
ring. She'd been sensible, a lot of good it did her.

Savannah mentally tried to shake
herself. Her mouth was dry, her lips chaffing, and the dust was
thick enough to cut. She glanced down the forlorn looking highway
for signs of life. From the looks of it, she and the jackrabbit had
the whole of West Texas to be miserable in.

She glanced up at the clear sky, then
down the long lonely road.

Nothing was in sight for miles. No
service station, no cafes, no bright lights, just the blaring hot
sun and a lonely stretch of highway. Oh why had she decided to look
her long lost aunt up out here in the middle of nowhere?

Yesterday life had looked so wonderful,
today she knew life sucked.

Didn't anyone ever travel out here? Not
that there was that much to look at, but someone must surely live
around here. She hadn't seen two cars since she left
Sweetwater.

"It can be the best day of your life,
or the worst, according to how you make it," she repeated. How many
times had she shoved that quote down everyone's throat? Good
advice, but hard to take, she admitted. That was back when she
thought she was going to be married and happy the rest of her
life.

Then suddenly, she saw something move.
It was a good distance away so she couldn't be sure. She didn't
dare hope. But as it got closer, she was sure she was seeing
things. After all busses didn't appear out of the blue, in the
middle of nowhere, did they? She couldn't be that lucky. Not the
way her life was going.

She leaned against the car and waited,
expecting it to disappear into thin air. It didn't, and Savannah
whispered a prayer of thanks as the big silver mirage came
closer.

"Oh my gosh...it can't be...but—but it
is!"

She kept watching it, making sure it
wasn't a mirage. She'd heard how things seemed to appear out here
in the vast desert. How they could be there one minute and be gone
the next, however, the big silver bus wasn't disappearing to her
relief.

As it got closer she jumped up and down
and flagged the driver down. It didn't seem to be slowing down and
panic set in. Her stomach knotted like a hard rock in a balloon.
Surely the driver wouldn't leave her stranded.

She swallowed hard and stood right in
the middle of the road. Brave or just stupid, she was determined to
stop the bus. The bus swerved and pulled to a reluctant
stop.

As the doors came open, the large
Hispanic driver muttered a few words under his breath. Savannah was
sure she didn't want to hear those words.

She mounted the steps of the bus with
all the dignity of a royal queen, mounting her throne.

"I'm stranded." She announced, as
though that explained everything, as though those two words would
actually mean something to this angry stranger.

No reaction.

"Did you hear what I said? I'm
stranded. I need transportation."

His head turned and his hand tightened
on the door.

"Um...my car won't start, can I have a
lift into the next town, please?"

"Si, forty dollar," he said,
sneering.

"Forty dollars?" she repeated as though
she couldn't believe her ears.

"Si."

"That's highway robbery!" She
exclaimed. "It can't be over twenty miles to the next
town."

"Si, forty dollar." This time his hand
was moving on the door handle. She might have stopped the bus, but
she wouldn't detain it long.

"Well ...wait a minute—" Nothing was
going her way and she might as well expect trouble from now on,
fewer surprises that way.

"Wait…please?"

Firming her lips, she stepped back out
to get her purse from the car and dug through it for several
minutes till she had the amount he requested. Thinking about her
equipment in the trunk she frowned at hauling her camera with her,
but leaving it behind was not an option since she'd paid for it
just a few days ago. Another silly hobby, her parents had grumbled.
And to think she had actually planned on taking shots of her own
wedding!

She needed to forget about the
wedding...somehow. Right now she had to forget about the wedding,
her parents, Chad, and even what she thought was going to be her
future.

Seeing the driver was getting impatient
with her, she tried to think of what she might need to take with
her. She'd left her suitcase full of clothes for the honeymoon on
her bed at home, fully intending to grab it as her and Chad made
their way to the airport for a luxurious honeymoon in the Bahamas.
The only thing that was hers in
this
car was her camera and tripod. She grabbed it, then put it
down and checked the small beaded purse in the back seat of the
car. Glancing at the driver, she hurriedly counted the money that
her dear Uncle Seth had tucked into her hand yesterday morning, two
hundred and fifty dollars!

"In case it doesn't work out...." her
Uncle had said and winked. Had he somehow known she was going to
need it? She looked for other valuables; unfortunately she had
forgotten to put her driver's license, her social security card, or
anything of real value in the purse. But a woman getting married
didn't need all of that...she reasoned.

Good old Uncle Seth, he knew more than
most.

Seeing an old t-shirt of her father's
in the trunk she crammed it in her small bag, it stuck out and
wouldn't close, but that wasn't important, she needed something to
wear to bed tonight. Hopefully she'd be sleeping in her aunt's bed
tonight.

She hiked the tripod under her arm,
then scrambling with part of the equipment to the bus, she
remounted the steps.

Practically throwing the money in the
driver's face she turned to find a seat.

The driver chuckled, and proceeded down
the lonely highway.

The bus hit a chuckhole and the tripod
knocked a passenger in the head and Savannah turned in time to see
the dismay on the man's face.

"Oh I'm terribly sorry."

The man opened his mouth to say
something, and then shut it, and turned away, far away. All the way
back she muttered words not fit for a pig's ear. The tripod kept
hanging up all the way down the aisle and she nearly hit a lady
that tried to help her untangle the mess.

***

Ben Hogg took one look at the illusion
of a woman stumbling toward him and pushed his hat over his eyes,
nearly shutting her out. He squirmed in his seat
uncomfortably.
Here comes trouble!
In the first place, he didn't believe what he saw. In the
second, he wanted to ignore it more than anything else on this ride
from hell.

Of all things to materialize out of the
blue, a woman in a —

What
was
she wearing? Looked like parts of a wedding dress. But only
parts. The bodice was there, but from the waist down, only a white
nylon slip covered her, and that was stretching it since the slip
was practically see-through. A ghostly image of beautifully shaped
legs made him aware in places he didn't want to admit. The sleeves
of the dress were ripped completely off. She was a mess, and yet as
alluring as a baby kitten. Ben always had a weakness for
kittens.