street. Her veil flew out behind her. Her dress flapped wildly. She ignored the confused glance the man shot her.
The dog barked and started to follow her. She heard the man call him back.
The taxi approached in the middle lane. Andie sprinted through two parked cars and into the street.
“Taxi!” She extended her arm as she shouted, desperately willing it to pull over.
She had no idea where she was going. And she didn’t care. She just wanted to get as far away from Phillip Masterson and William Conroy as she possibly could.
The taxi zoomed past.
Andie stopped dead in her tracks, immediate, desperate tears clogging her vision. Despair washed over her.
A low-slung black sports car suddenly rose before her eyes, coming out of nowhere at a high rate of speed, in the very lane in which she stood. Andie stayed rooted to the spot, frozen, shocked, as the car bore down on her.
She screamed.
Troy Armstrong took in the woman as she shrieked in terror, the car racing too fast toward her. Adrenaline bulleted through him.
He rushed at her. Throwing his arms around her tiny waist, he swept her out of danger. She felt light, like a flower. He stumbled backward and they crashed together onto the hard pavement between two parked cars, the woman collapsing atop him.
The black sports car whizzed past.
His dog, named Dog—part Lab, part mystery—barked excitedly.
Troy lay still for a few seconds, dazed by the impact, feeling more than a little off balance. Usually, he wasn’t out driving his own trucks. His time was consumed with the day-to-day operations of the fledgling Armstrong Independent Trucking business he’d started in partnership with his brother only the year before. But with one of their drivers out because of a family crisis—and Troy’s brother’s wife near the due date for their first baby—Troy had had no choice but to take the trip himself.
He was on the first day of a tough ten-day haul, first to L.A., then down to San Diego and back to the East Coast. Not two miles into their trip, Dog had begun scratching and clawing at the door of the truck’s roomy sleeper cab, a sure sign he wanted to attend to nature’s call. Then the woman, in full bridal regalia, had appeared out of nowhere, running headlong into traffic—
The young woman scrambled off him then and knelt by his side, seemingly heedless of the fancy gown she wore. Beautiful, heavily lashed dark eyes, shocked and worried, met his.
“Are you all right?” she gasped. Her voice was soft, musical, lilting. Like an angel’s. Only, the thoughts she inspired weren’t exactly pious. In fact, they were just the opposite.
Troy blinked, swallowed, blinked again. Curly dark tendrils escaped the lacy headdress she wore, framing an oval-shaped face with a rosebud mouth and a pert little nose scattered with light freckles. Diamonds decorated the lobes of her small ears, and her slender neck led his eyes down to smooth skin and a tempting display of cleavage above her lace and satin bodice.
Speechless for a second, Troy realized he couldn’t be too badly hurt. The quickening in his groin told him that much.
“You saved my life!” The woman leaned over him. She smelled as sweet and wholesome as blueberries and cream. All he could think was how he wanted to taste her lips right there and then—
“Are you hurt?” she cried when he didn’t respond.
“No, no, I’m fine. Just a little stunned, that’s all.” Troy pulled himself together and sat up, finding everything apparently worked—except his common sense. He didn’t remember hitting his head, but he must have. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be having these irrational thoughts.
He was putting his new business first these days, not his personal life. He didn’t need any unnecessary distractions. And the woman in front of him was def-initely a distraction.
More than that, with those big eyes of hers, she could be a heartbreaker. And Troy had been down that road, all too recently.
“What about you?” he demanded more abruptly than he meant to. “You almost got yourself run down! Why didn’t you get out of the way?”
Dog kept circling and barking.
Andie stared at the man. Now he sounded as if he was about to start chastising her. That’s what her father would do.
“I wanted to get run down,” she snapped sarcastically. She jerked to a stand, bristling.
The man’s eyes widened, then narrowed. He drew himself up, one hand shooting to his back. She wondered if he’d injured himself rescuing her.
“Pardon me for getting in the way,” Troy grumbled.
Andie immediately felt guilty for lashing out at him. He’d just saved her life, for pity’s sake.
“I’m sorry,” she apologized quickly. “You didn’t deserve that.” She chewed her lip. “Thank you for pulling me out of the way. I guess I just froze when I saw that car coming. Are you sure you’re not hurt?”
The man was of average height, compactly built, and in her high heels, Andie didn’t have to look too far up to meet his gaze. With a quick, sweeping study, she noted the plain white T-shirt stretched over a broad chest, the slim waist, the lean legs encased in worn jeans. But what captured her, what sucked her in and wouldn’t let her go, were his eyes. They were light, hazel, perfectly complementing his dark blond hair, and her stomach pitched in a seesaw reaction that confused her and left her feeling oddly vulnerable.
“I’m just a bit sore, that’s all.” Troy frowned. “What about you? You’re the one running around in traffic in a wedding dress. Are you in some kind of trouble?”
“No.” Andie suddenly remembered what the near accident had temporarily knocked from her mind.
Phillip. Her father. The wedding. Her troubled gaze flicked to the church.
“So you always run around in the street in a wedding dress?”
“Huh?” Andie licked her lips, trying to focus on what the man was saying and casting about for some means of escape at the same time.
She still had the same problem she’d had five minutes ago—only now she’d lost valuable time.
A movement from the front of the church caught her attention.
It was her father! And Phillip!
“Oh, no!” Andie ducked back down between the cars.
She crept forward, hiding behind the parked vehicle.
Ahead lay the truck. Making a split-second decision, she dashed for it, leaping into the cab, dragging along the heavy train of her dress. Keeping low, she dived across the driver’s seat to the passenger side, sweeping a neatly stacked newspaper and a clipboard off the seat she intended to occupy. The newspaper and clipboard whooshed to the floor as she scrunched into the corner by the window.
The
