conversation was over.
Apparently, he didn’t understand body language.
“Okay, so it’s complicated. I’m listening,” he prodded.
Andie gave up and swiveled her gaze back to him. He had incredible eyes, she admitted to herself. Large, intense, with darts of green-gold heat in their brown depths. He’d said he’d try to help her. But did he mean it?
She was tempted to tell him everything. She chewed her lip, wavering.
In the end, she settled for only part of everything.
“I need some time to think.” She sighed. “I need to get away, that’s all.”
“There has to be somewhere else you could think besides my truck,” Troy said. “Let me take you somewhere—”
“No!” Andie knew good and well there wasn’t one single place she could go where her parents wouldn’t find her and turn on the pressure. “Look, I need to get away.” She had to convince him she meant business. “If you won’t take me with you—”
“What? What are you going to do if I don’t take you with me?” Troy waited.
Andie looked out toward the highway, her thoughts tumbling atop one another, desperately searching for an answer. Trucks and cars zoomed along in the distance.
“I’ll get someone else to help me,” she bluffed. She lifted her chin. “I’m sure somebody will pick me up.”
The idea of hitchhiking terrified her. She knew she’d never be able to do it.
The question was, would the man beside her—the man who looked as if he’d gladly throw her under the wheels—believe that she might do it?
Troy’s gut tightened. He imagined pretty Andie standing on the side of the road in her wedding dress with her thumb out.
And some stranger stopping and taking her in. She could end up attacked, or worse.
He pulled the truck back into gear and headed for the highway, cursing under his breath all the way. Dog growled, sensing his mood. Glancing at Andie, Troy saw she was scrunched up in the corner, as if uncertain of either man or beast in that moment.
Troy hit the highway at full speed, blending into the weekend traffic heading west. He pulled the truck’s huge visor down against the bright, late-afternoon sun. The highway lay like a ribbon of black heat in front of them, surrounded by green, grassy shoulders and low, rolling, wooded hills.
He was behind schedule already. He was irritated. His dog was irritated. And he was stuck with a sexpot in a bridal gown who wouldn’t even tell him her last name, for Pete’s sake.
It was going to be a long trip.
“Tell me this,” Troy demanded after a few minutes. “Have you done something wrong, committed some kind of crime?”
Every possibility lay open for why she would be fleeing a wedding. She could have been involved in some sort of scam for all he knew.
He didn’t need that kind of trouble.
“No!” Andie said immediately. “I haven’t broken the law, I promise.”
Troy’s mind chugged along to other options. “No one’s going to be looking for you? I’m not going to be arrested for kidnapping you or anything, right?”
What if her family panicked over her disappearance? All Troy needed was for a posse of private eyes to come hunt her down. What kind of mess had he stepped into the middle of?
“No—well, I don’t know what they might do.” How were her parents going to react to her absence? Andie wondered suddenly. It hadn’t occurred to her that anyone might think she’d been the victim of foul play.
She hadn’t thought about a lot of things. It struck her abruptly that she hadn’t even brought her purse with her from the dressing room. She wouldn’t have been able to pay that taxi if it had stopped. And she had no way of supporting herself on this cross-country trip.
She was totally dependent on the man beside her. The man who was looking at her as if he wanted to wring her neck.
On impulse, she pulled out the diamond studs in her ears and slapped them down on the dash. “Here. I’ll pay you back for my expenses. In the meantime, you can hold on to those for collateral.”
The expensive earrings were worth far more than he would spend on her during the next ten days, she was sure. But she didn’t want to be any more beholden to him than necessary.
The studs bobbed in rhythm to the truck’s purr. Troy guessed they were at least two carats each. “What do you mean, you don’t know what they might do?” He was still stuck on the little matter of whether or not some mad daddy was going to come gunning for him, thinking he’d made off with his daughter.
“I mean, I don’t know.” Andie twisted her hands in her lap. “I guess they might call the police,” she finally admitted.
“Great! Exactly who are they, anyway?” Troy’s knuckles tightened as he gripped the steering wheel.
“My family. My fiancé.” Andie scrunched farther into the corner. “Of course, they might not do anything at all,” she offered.
“They might not do anything at all,” Troy repeated tightly. “Now, how likely is that?”
Andie swallowed. “Um, not very, I guess,” she said finally. Despite all the problems she’d had with her parents, she didn’t really believe they would rest if they thought she’d been abducted. Thinking of them worrying about that scenario washed her with guilt. She’d just wanted to get away. She’d never meant to make anyone think something terrible might have happened to her.
Troy regarded her in irritation. “Wonderful! So, let’s just recap, okay? My truck was parked in full view of the world, smack-dab in front of the church right when you disappeared. And with all the people who came pouring out of the building, what are the chances none of them took note of this?”
Andie paled. He had a point. If her parents did think she’d been kidnapped, if they hired a private investigator or brought in the authorities, there was a slim possibility they might eventually track Troy down—
“Maybe I should, uh, make a phone call,” Andie suggested in a small voice. “I don’t want to make any trouble for you.” Troy’s eyebrows practically lifted right off his face, but Andie ignored his incredulous expression. “And I don’t want to cause my family a lot of unnecessary stress.”
“Sure. Fine. No problem,” Troy grumbled darkly. He nodded toward a billboard advertising a truck stop ahead. “It’ll just be my third stop and I haven’t even gone thirty miles, but don’t worry.”
Andie was afraid to say anything for fear he’d change his mind.
Troy went on. “You’re calling whoever you have to call, and you’re telling them you’ve gone off of your own free will.” He cut out each word precisely. “I don’t want anyone coming after you and getting in the way of my keeping my schedule.”
Andie
