sake.
“No looking back.” Mariah held out her hand, her elbow bent, in ready position for their rebel-girls-forever handshake.
“No looking back,” Nikki echoed. The girls clasped hands, slid to a fingertip grip, twisted palms, then kissed the air beside each other’s cheeks.
Mariah’s heart began to race. Her future was wide open now. She could be anything she wanted. How exciting! She tried to stick with that feeling, and ignore the way she throbbed with pain over losing Nathan, like one giant, all-body toothache.
They raced back the way they’d come, stopping first at Nikki’s so she could throw clothes in a bag. It took only a sec to get Mariah’s stuff, since she was already packed. She tossed out her wad of sexy lingerie, piled in more clothes and shoes, and they were off.
As they drove through town, Nikki caught sight of the church. Dozens of her parents’ friends were waiting inside in hushed anticipation for the wedding to start. Nathan was probably standing at the altar waiting for his pregnant bride to waddle down the aisle. Mariah’s heart clutched. She grabbed her friend’s arm.
“Stop here. I want to look in for a second.” She just wanted to see Nathan’s face once more. Beyond her humiliation was a deep sadness. She would miss him so much—even if he only felt sorry for her.
They stopped on the hill overlooking the church. Mariah scanned the parking lot. Where was Nathan’s gold Volvo? She hitched up her voluminous skirt and hurried down the hill, her satin heels sinking into the soft soil. Reaching the building, she saw through a side window that her mother was talking to the assembled group. To her amazement, she saw there was no groom.
Nathan was not there. She couldn’t believe it. Responsible, mature Nathan Goodman had skated on his own wedding? God. She took a backward step. She still couldn’t believe it. He’d lost his nerve probably. Realized what a flake she was and hightailed it out of there. The coward. The jerk. The ass.
Anger flooded her. Good. Anger was better than sadness or heartache. She owed Nathan nothing. Not one thing. Except maybe hate mail from her apartment when she got one. As she ran back up the hill, one shoe snagged in the ground and she just left it there, like Cinderella, without a prince who cared to find her.
“COULD YOU PLEASE step on it, sir,” Nathan asked the ancient gentleman who’d been the first driver to stop for his frantic wave. “I’m…late…for…my…wedding.” He spoke each word distinctly. It was his bad luck to get the one guy who not only drove like he was on a tractor, but who was nearly deaf.
Damn. Nathan looked at his watch. At this rate he’d be half an hour late. He knew he shouldn’t have let his college buddies talk him into a bachelor party in Tucson last night. They’d plied him with drinks and exotic dancers. He’d ignored the dancers—all he could think about was making love to Mariah—but to appease his friends, he’d had the drinks. It had been weird. He hadn’t been in a bar like that since he’d stopped hanging where his mother’s band performed. He’d had enough of constant travel, new addresses every six months. He couldn’t wait for a normal life in a nice house in a quiet neighborhood with regular mail delivery and the woman he loved.
Too buzzed to drive home, he’d gone to sleep at one of his friends’ houses. When he’d headed home that morning, the rocks his buddies had affectionately loaded into his hubcaps had somehow messed with the axle, and his rear assembly had frozen, leaving him stranded on the highway on a stretch of nothing between Tucson and Copper Corners.
He’d called from a pay phone at a rest stop, but gotten the machine at Mariah’s house and no one on the church phone, so they’d just kept driving.
They finally pulled into town—a half hour late as he’d predicted. Surely all of the guests would still be waiting at the church. Mariah had probably been late anyway. She operated on “whenever” time. That made him smile, thinking of her sweet face under all that fierce eye makeup and wild hair. He couldn’t wait to make her his. She was so amazing. When he was with her he felt stunned with joy at his good fortune.
Doubt flickered through him. She was so young. Maybe too young to know her own mind. Afraid she’d get away somehow, he’d been pretty insistent about getting married. She’d said yes, though—eagerly, too, he reminded himself.
As they passed the 7-Eleven at Cholla and Main, a red convertible bearing a cloud of white caught his eye. He turned to look more closely as it drove away, and saw, to his shock, that it was Mariah in her wedding dress in her friend Nikki’s car. Mariah was leaving town? Wait a minute. She must have thought he’d chickened out. Oh, no.
“I…have…to…drive!” he shouted to the kindly old man.
“Hmm. What’s that?”
“Could…you…turn…around?” He made a circling motion.
“Turn around? Did we miss the turn there?”
The speeding Miata would soon be just a red dot in the distance. “Never mind,” he told the old man. He’d get to the church, explain to the waiting well-wishers, borrow a car and chase her down. The poor girl. She thought she’d been jilted. She was so young, so insecure. She must be devastated. His heart squeezed with the desire to rescue her, tell her it was all a mistake, kiss away the pain….
He was charging up the steps to the church when a stunning thought hit him. Mariah hadn’t looked like a bride who’d been jilted. She’d been laughing, gesturing wildly. Even worse, two suitcases had jutted up from the space behind the seats. She’d packed bags. She was running away.
From him.
He was the one who’d been jilted. Flighty as a butterfly. That’s what Mariah’s mother had told him about her. But she was pregnant, for God’s sake. Terrible as it seemed, he’d thought that was the one thing that would make her want to settle down with someone like him. Someone stable, who would be a good father.
For a moment he considered chasing after her, demanding she give him a chance. But if she was willing to go off on her own pregnant, what hope did he have of stopping her with his love?
“Where have you been?!” Mariah’s mother bustled out of the church, flustered, her whole body vibrating with distress.
“Car trouble,” he said heavily. “I saw Mariah drive off with Nikki.” Laughing…happy…looking free.
“Oh, dear. I was afraid of that,” she said. “I made a boo-boo, Nathan. She’s not pregnant, it turns out. She canceled the wedding in a huff. You go get her. I’ll tell everyone to just talk amongst themselves for a bit.” She turned toward the church.
“What exactly did she say, Meredith? About me.”
“Oh, I don’t know. Something about changing her mind. But that means nothing. Mariah’s one big mind change. Also, she said some nonsense about needing her own life. It’s just jitters.”
He wanted to believe Meredith. With his whole heart. She needed her own life. He couldn’t forget the air of joy surrounding the two girls he’d picked up as he watched them roar away.
She was only seventeen, hadn’t even graduated, wasn’t even pregnant. Why would she want to settle down? She’d probably come to her senses and figured out she didn’t want a dull guy like him. Not now, not ever.
He’d wanted her so much
