One
One look at her lovely face, and Hart Sanders knew. Magnolia McCabe was going to run.
It didn’t matter that Maggie’s fiancé, plus her twin sister and her groom, and all their families, had taken the coveted Wedding Train to the very top of Sanders Mountain and were now standing in Nature’s Cathedral.
Nor was it important that the minister had gotten halfway through the ceremony that would join Maggie and her intended husband forevermore.
The only thing that mattered to Maggie in that instant was how trapped she felt.
And Hart knew from his years of military training that cornered people did one of two things.
They either cowered and froze. Or said to heck with the consequences and bolted for freedom. His gut told him that the beautiful brunette was about to choose the latter option.
As if on cue, Maggie McCabe shoved her bouquet at her maid of honor and picked up the hem of her wedding gown. She revealed a pair of fancy white cowgirl boots that sure seemed to be made for running as she dashed past the four hundred startled guests and made her way toward the thick woods surrounding them.
A collective gasp echoed through the flower-strewn clearing. “Maggie!” her fiancé, Gus Radcliffe, yelled as the white-satin-and-lace-clad bride disappeared into the cover of green. “What the—?”
“Go after her!” another guest shouted hysterically.
Not about to see one calamity turn into two, Hart stepped forward and lifted a staying hand. “Everyone, stay put! The last thing we need is anyone getting lost in the woods.” He looked out into the crowd reassuringly. “I’ll find her and escort her to safety.”
Hart turned to Maggie’s twin sister, Callie McCabe, feeling a little sorry for her. This was her wedding, too, that her sister had just disrupted. “If you want to get married today while there is still daylight, you better go on with your part of the double-wedding ceremony,” he advised, kindly.
Callie appeared to waver.
Her parents, Drs. Jackson and Lacey McCabe, seemed to understand the wisdom of limiting the damages as best they could. Jackson leaned down to whisper something in his remaining daughter’s ear.
Realizing enough time had been wasted, Hart left the rest of them to sort it out, and followed the runaway bride’s path.
* * *
MAGGIE COULDN’T BELIEVE IT. She’d barely been gone five minutes and she was already completely lost. Knowing, however, if she stayed where she was and tried to get her bearings, someone would likely come after her, she kept right on plowing through the heavy cover of cedar, oak and pine trees.
The old logging road she’d seen from the train had to be here somewhere, Maggie reassured herself. All she had to do was find it, and—
Caught up short, Maggie bit down on an oath. The hem of her long skirt had snagged on the branches of a thick, thorny bush. Hurriedly, she tried to work it free and stabbed her fingertips in the process. “Ouch!” She pressed the bleeding appendages to her mouth, and when that did almost nothing to abate the sharp pain, another string of very unladylike words escaped her lips.
“Nice.”
At the sound of the deep male voice, she swore again. Louder and more virulently this time. And was rewarded with a chuckle.
“Need some help there?”
Maggie dropped her still-stinging hand, drew a breath and turned.
Of course it was him. Hart Sanders. The just-out-of-the-military son and heir to the Double Knot Wedding Ranch. Temporarily at loose ends, he’d been tapped—unwillingly, it seemed— into service as the official escort for the McCabe double wedding. She had noticed him in the foreground at the rehearsal dinner the evening before. And yet, disinterested as he had appeared to be in the festivities, he could not seem to stop looking at her. Or, if she were honest, she at him.
Embarrassed color heating her face, Maggie lifted her chin. This crazy attraction she seemed to be having for Hart Sanders was nothing but a symptom of the inadvisability of her marriage plans. A symptom she desperately needed to ignore.
Aware he was the only thing between her and escape, she retorted, “No. I do not need any help.” She made a shooing motion. “So you can go on about your business.”
He smiled grimly. “Hate to break it to you, but at the moment you are my business.”
Maggie glared. “Like heck I am! I got myself into this mess, and I can darn well get myself out.”
“Well, this will be fun.” He folded his arms in front of him. Waited.
Determined to do this on her own, she knelt down and gave another, less delicate, tug. This time, to her satisfaction, her skirt did come free of the thorn bush. It also ripped from shin to midthigh, revealing way too much stocking-clad leg, as well as her silk magnolia blossom-studded garter. Although at this point, Maggie thought wearily, what did that matter?
Aware that Hart was still watching her intently, she lifted her skirt in her hands and continued on her way, stumbling along on the uneven ground.
He said nothing more.
Surprised, she turned and found he had been following her. Soundlessly. Effortlessly. To the point they were now just a mere two feet from each other.
She stared up at the six-foot-four Texan, born and bred. He was solid muscle. Combat ready. And gorgeous, head-to-toe, from the top of his short light brown hair and deep sable eyes. She stared at his square jaw and the ruggedly masculine planes of his face, wishing he weren’t so damned confident.
“I said,” she repeated, wearily, “that I did not need your help!”
Hart nodded sagely, about as movable as a two ton boulder. “I heard you.”
Apparently, he just hadn’t believed her.
She swallowed as he stepped even closer, feeling the heat radiating from his body. She drew in another breath, taking in the scent of him, so utterly crisp and male. Like the men in the wedding party, he was wearing a tuxedo and white shirt. Black alligator boots. How he managed to look gallant and disreputable all at once she did not know. She only knew that standing so close to him was making her tingle in a way that was not in the least bit appropriate. “Then why are you still here?”
He stood, legs braced apart, arms folded in front of him. “Because, like most Texas gentlemen, I was brought up to never, ever, leave a lady in distress.”
Ignoring the tension headache that had been dogging her all day, Maggie balled her fists at her sides and blurted out angrily, “Look, I can see you mean well, but I really can handle this.”
His gaze moved over her in another long, thoughtful survey. “You sure seem to be doing a bang-up job so far.”
No one had to tell her she’d made a terrible mess of things by once again allowing herself to be caught up and swept along by events that were oh-so-exciting at the time and oh-so-wrong for her later. But she was not about to tell any of that to the arrogant, infuriating man standing
