Runaway Groom

Dedication

To Ben and Joyce. Thanks so much for letting us spend so many hot summer days drenching ourselves in your pond.

Chapter One

July 7, 2005

Abby,

I’m sitting in a diner in the desert. The sun peeking over the mountain lights up everything in these reds so bright they almost hurt the eyes. You’ve never felt a hot like this, all dry, nothing like the days that we went swimming over at Watkin’s pond…

I don’t really know why I’m writing you. I don’t have answers and right now you probably want them. I just know I couldn’t do it.

I miss you though.

Love, B

Knuckles white, Abigail put her beat-up Ford Focus in Park, and glanced at her best friend. “I can’t do this.”

“Pussy.” Applying a coat of lipstick to her lush red lips in the mirror, Carnie shot her a glance. “You can do this. It isn’t like you’re about to face a firing squad. It’s just a bonfire.”

Shoving her hand through her short, pixie-cut brown hair, Abigail blew out a frustrated breath. “I would rather face a firing squad. If you ditch me to go running off with the new boyfriend…”

Carnie gave her a dirty look, tucking her red hair behind her shoulder. “I would never do that. I know how bent out of shape you get every time we go anywhere that Braxton might be. Really, though, it will be fine. The crap happened a thousand years ago. You’re adults now.”

Abigail didn’t feel like an adult. She felt like the rejected teenager even thinking of Braxton Dean.

It didn’t help that he’d become sexier with age. Heartbreakingly handsome, Braxton made her thighs clench with just a glance. She needed to remember the pain and humiliation rather than how it felt to be pushed into a bed by him. Better to remember the chest-constricting, blinding terror when he’d ditched her and vanished rather than remember his face a mask of unleashed passion and his green eyes wild with need. The former would keep her knees together.

The terror of that time—it wasn’t something she shared with anyone, not even Carnie.

Remembering gave her the strength she needed to peel her fingers from the wheel. “You’re right, of course. I can do this. No big deal. We’re both more mature now. He probably won’t even say a word to me.” The last came out a bit hopeful, even to her own ears.

“Yeah, at his birthday bonfire, he isn’t going to say a word to the woman he dated for years and ditched at the altar like a loaf of stale bread. Really, Abs, you need to get pissed off rather than feeling pissed on. You’re totally the injured party here.”

“He had his reasons. I’m sure he did.”
Why was she defending his dumb ass?

“What reason could be good enough for that grand act of douchebaggery?” Carnie raised one well-plucked brow at her. “Besides, these are
our
friends. You need to remember why we’re here. He took off. He stayed gone. This is our town. You’re going to walk in there and show him what he is missing. Rub in his face what he can’t have.”

“I don’t know. He really wasn’t a jerk…not most of the time.”

“Let’s just go find Mike and the crew, and have a good time. All of our friends from high school are here and it’ll be good to catch up with them.”

Nodding, stomach still a bit of a knot, Abigail opened her door and stepped out into the muggy Ohio night. Stars hung like tiny lanterns above the recently mowed field and the sound of laughter carried on the breeze. The bonfire, a huge conflagration, was surrounded by what looked like hundreds of folding chairs, coolers and other party miscellany that beckoned Abigail onwards. Who knew? Maybe she would meet someone new and end up being really happy she wasted the extra five minutes to make sure everything was shaved and neat?

Carnie strode with her usual impulsive bravery into the melee. Abigail stuffed her hands in her jeans and resisted casting her head down to avoid any stares that might be coming her way. Instead she held her head high, but refused to meet anyone’s eyes. In small-town Ohio, everyone knew she hadn’t seen Braxton since that fateful day when he left her standing, flowers in hand, waiting for a runaway groom. Everyone knew that instead of marrying her, Braxton—golden boy and football hero—ran off to parts unknown, and she’d neither heard from him nor caught a glimpse of him when he’d come to town until a few weeks ago. He only returned home now to help his father with his tool store after his father’s stroke made it hard for the old man to get around like he used to.

Everyone watched to see how she’d handle it.

She wouldn’t give them a show to chew over for the next decade. She’d act like it was ancient history, like she hadn’t spent years wondering how a man could go from saying he loves her to leaving her to stand alone against a whole swarm of gossips with nothing better to do than tear her to shreds for being moronic enough to think he would stay.

She concentrated so hard on what she wouldn’t do, she slammed to an abrupt halt against a firm chest.
His
firm chest. Braxton. He smelled the same, damn him.

Even over the scent of wood burning, the ripeness of summer and the bitter tang of someone’s spilled beer, she inhaled his soap, familiar cologne and under it all, simply Braxton.

Her stomach clenched. Part of her wanted to smack him and demand answers. Part of her wanted to run away. Part of her wanted to pull his face down and kiss him because she’d missed him so much.

Instead she hid behind an armor of polite civility and gave a short, sharp nod. “Braxton.”

“Abby.” The word came out almost a plea. His eyes held a sad look she quickly identified. He pitied her.

Double damn him. “Happy birthday.”

And even though she promised herself she wasn’t going to give everyone a show, promised herself she wouldn’t feed the rumor mills...

The sound of her slap rang out across the field. Even in the flickering light from the bonfire, her handprint marked his strong jaw and she couldn’t ignore the pleasure it gave her. Silence seemed to spread across the night as he touched his cheek. Her mouth hung open, shock rippling through her as his gaze locked on hers.

“I deserved that.” The timbre of his voice seemed to stroke across her skin, stirring up a potent cocktail of emotions—lust, love, fury and pain. The worst part was disgust at herself for feeling anything.

“You deserve worse.”

Instead of arguing with her, which almost would have made her feel better, like it meant something to him, he simply nodded. “Wanna go somewhere to talk?”

Carnie stepped in, catching Abigail’s arm. “I really think enough has been said. C’mon, Abs, I see Mike. Happy birthday, assmonkey.”

Her best friend dragged her away. Sound returned in a rush as everyone seemed to start talking at once.

“Shit, shit, shit. Carnie, why didn’t you stop me? I’m never going to live this down!” Her throat clogged with tears of humiliation, and she frantically tried to swallow them back.

“Stop you? Shit, girl, the only thing I would have changed about that whole exchange was the fact you slapped him. Don’t you remember all the time I spent teaching you how to throw a decent punch?”

Hysterical laughter bubbled up in her throat and Carnie shoved a beer in her hand. “You think I should have punched him?”

“In for a pound.” Carnie shrugged, lips curled in a smile.

“That felt good,” Abigail admitted. “Like
empowering
good.”

Carnie’s grin widened. “Of course it did. You’ve been hanging on to a whole lot of hurt for a very long time. Now, you’ve had your moment of anger, so suck it up and stick to the plan. Rub his face in what he can’t have. Let’s have a good time so you can show everyone how not fazed you are by all this, shall we?”

Breathing out on a whoosh, Abigail didn’t dare look back to see what Braxton was doing. “Yeah, let’s have fun.”

Chapter Two

December 24, 2005

Abs,

It’s Christmas Eve and I got you something. Stupid, right? But I was in the store and I saw this little charm of a butterfly and I remembered how you told me that butterflies were a sign of your dead relatives visiting or something… I’m gonna be honest, I don’t remember the whole story. But I remembered that it was about a butterfly and this one was so vibrant, like a live butterfly captured in silver and colors, so I had to pick it up for you. Probably it will turn your neck green. I didn’t buy a chain. Hope you like it anyway.

It’s weird spending holidays without your best friend. Sometimes I’m kind of mad at you. I mean, why didn’t you see, you of all people, how much I was freaking out? Why didn’t you say something, anything, to make it okay?

I don’t know.

Guess the point of all this is that I still miss my best friend. Even if you suck.

Love you anyway.

B

Braxton resisted the urge to rub the spot where Abby slapped him. It stung like a bitch. She had an arm on her, and apparently a whole lot of pissed off behind it.

He knew she would be mad. He left her. But still…

He expected more from her. After reaching out for years without response from her, maybe he shouldn’t have. He left her and the life they so carefully planned together for years. He hadn’t explained why, mostly because he didn’t have answers himself, not for a long time. Only recently he’d figured out why he’d done it. The realization was still not a comfortable one.

Looking back, he was a chickenshit and a turd, and he didn’t deserve her forgiveness. How could he explain to her what he didn’t understand himself? Oh, the stupid shit he’d done when he was young…but he wasn’t a kid anymore.

He couldn’t believe she slapped him. It stung, not just physically, and he struggled against his own anger. After all, he was here to get her out of his system, one way or another. He wanted her, had wanted her for as long as he could remember, but perhaps if she stayed angry he could get over it. He doubted it. Ten years and he wasn’t over her. No woman filled the Abby-shaped hole in his life.

A hand clapped down on his shoulder, and Braxton glanced up at his best friend. “Lou.”

“Hey, asshole, looks like you met up with the old flame. Got burned pretty good too. You okay?” Lou was the only person in this one-horse town who knew the truth. He was the only one who’d been there when Braxton’s life became a sucking vortex.

Lou’d also been there the night he made the biggest mistake of his life.

“No and it doesn’t matter.”

Lou shook his head. “You really think you can fix the past now?”

Lou was right. Braxton was attempting the impossible. But he’d do whatever he needed to win her back—even wait. One way or another, he wasn’t running anymore.

He wanted to
talk
to her again. He wanted to see how much of the girl he remembered, so vibrant at eighteen, survived in the woman who looked so confident and sexy, even riled up, moments ago. It was easier to stay away when she was a distant memory. He convinced himself that she couldn’t have been that beautiful, that he didn’t feel as strongly for her as he remembered.

Being faced with her was a whole other ball of wax.

Her eyes, dark and mysterious, still sucked him in. The curve of her cheek, the taste of her mouth…

So much he would do differently now.

He never did her justice, not really. He was young, and touching her was enough to get him hard as a rock. He didn’t understand women or what they wanted or needed when he was barely more than a punk kid.

Knowing that, he spent years learning how to make a woman sigh, how to make a woman beg, how to make a woman come so hard that her legs shook.

But no woman ever made him lose control like Abby did with a tilt of her lips and quirk of her brow. No matter whom he tried to fit into the mold cast by her love, no one fit. Only Abby.

Remembering how he held her did nothing good to his libido, so he took a long pull of his beer and searched for her in the crowd. She laughed at something, head thrown back. Her dark hair shone in the firelight. Carnie, her longtime best pal, played guardian and shot him a dirty look, but she couldn’t stand guard all night.

There would eventually be a moment that Abby was left alone.