was no sound for the next few miles but the steady hum of the truck. She took in her surroundings. She’d never been in an eighteen-wheeler before, and she was amazed at its comfort.
The roomy cab’s big seats were beige leather, contrasting with the tractor-trailer’s dark blue exterior. Overhead was a tape deck and radio, with a CB. Behind her, she noticed a curtained-off area and guessed it contained some sort of sleeping quarters.
Turning her attention to the truck’s driver, Andie watched Troy’s profile, noticing the way the sun glinted in the golden lights of his hair, the way his eyes crinkled against the glare on the road. She noted the tiny bump that kept his nose from being quite straight, the small scar right above his lip. He was a good-looking man. Not perfect. But more sexy than if he had been perfect.
An odd flutter awoke inside her. She remembered the way he’d pulled her away from that speeding car, the way his arms had closed around her waist, the way his embrace had somehow felt right and safe.
She knew he was frustrated with the way she’d upended his day, but he’d saved her life—and he was letting her go with him to California. He had a tender heart that he couldn’t quite hide, though she got the idea he wanted to for some reason.
Some reason that she’d probably never know, she reminded herself. And she didn’t have any business wondering about it.
She finally chanced a comment. “Thanks for letting me ride with you.” She cast him a smile of genuine appreciation.
Troy shrugged. Her smile made him feel soft inside, and he hated that. Why did she have this effect on him? Besides, he didn’t want her thanks. Both of them were liable to live to regret this little alliance.
In fact, he was regretting it already.
“Don’t thank me yet,” he said with forced coolness. “A long haul’s no picnic.”
He pulled off the highway and into the parking lot of a busy, sprawling truck stop. The diamond earrings rolled off the dash and onto the floor as he made the turn.
Andie bent down and scooped them up. “Here,” she insisted, handing them to Troy after he’d parked. “I want you to take these.”
“I don’t want your jewelry.”
“And I don’t want charity. I want to pay my own way. I’ll repay you for my expenses later, and you can give me back the earrings. Deal?”
Troy rolled his eyes. He stuck out his hand and Andie dropped the earrings into his cupped palm. “Fine,” he said. He stuffed them into his pocket.
He shoved open the cab door and jumped out, grabbing Dog’s leash off the dash as he went. Dog bounded out after him. Attaching the leash onto the animal’s collar, Troy looped it around the cab step and secured it with a snap.
After removing her headband with its attached veil—which was starting to pinch her head—Andie deposited it on the seat and pushed open the door on her side. She noticed for the first time how genuinely high off the ground they rode. She’d been so panicky when she’d jumped into the truck in the first place, she’d practically flown up into it, not realizing how awkward it was.
Troy appeared on the asphalt below. He hesitated just long enough before stretching out his arm that she knew he’d rather not help her but was too much of a gentleman not to.
Andie slipped her fingers into his hold. His hand was big and warm and made her feel tingly all over.
She stepped down, clutching at the long train of her gown with one hand while grasping Troy’s hand in the other. Once she found herself secure on terra firma, he released her instantly, and she felt unaccountably disappointed.
Almost as if some part of her had wished he wouldn’t let go....
Troy jerked his head toward a phone booth in front of the truck stop’s gas station. “Go make your call,” he said gruffly. Holding her hand had reminded him why he shouldn’t be touching her at all.
He hadn’t wanted to let go, and that was definitely a bad thing. A real bad thing.
Andie just stood there, staring at him.
“Well?” he prodded.
“I, uh, don’t have any money,” she said.
Troy rolled his eyes. He poked his hand in his pocket and came up with a coin. Andie took it, and he followed her past the rows of big rigs, to the phone booth. Her small hips swung in time to her stride.
By the time they reached the pay phone, Troy’s senses were in a sorry state.
Whoever had decreed that white wedding gowns were maidenly and chaste sure hadn’t seen this one. The way Andie’s concoction of lace and satin melded to her slender form sent his pulse off the Richter scale. The off-the-shoulder gown clung to her back and waist, then slid temptingly off slender hips down to the ground in a froth of material. What that material hid was even more erotic, somehow, than what it revealed. He imagined her legs, long and shapely...soft and touchable...
Troy swallowed hard. He leaned against the phone booth and glared out at the road, deciding that ignoring her for the next ten days might be his best option. If he could do it.
Andie jabbed in the numbers to her parents’ home in Silver Spring, Maryland, a suburb of Washington, D.C. “Gretchen?” she said when the housekeeper answered.
Gretchen immediately began a high-pitched babble. William and Lillian had already phoned the house, looking for their wayward daughter. They wanted to find her, talk sense to her, get her back to the church. Her father was furious, her mother was humiliated. What about his colleagues, their friends, the society columnists, Phillip!
Andie held the phone a few inches away from her ear while Gretchen rattled on with excitement. She noticed that no one seemed concerned about her. Apparently, it hadn’t even occurred to anyone yet that she might have been abducted.
Tears pricked her eyes. She fought them. Her heart felt all pinched.
“Gretchen! Gretchen!” She struggled to break into the housekeeper’s excited conversation. “I’m not coming home today. And I’m not going back to the church! I need some time away, to think. Tell my parents I’m sorry, and that I’m fine. But I can’t—”
Andie glanced surreptitiously at Troy. He was staring out at the highway in the distance, but she sensed he was listening all the same. She twisted around and presented him her back and spoke in a low tone. Emotion lurched close to the surface. “I can’t marry Phillip. I don’t love him. I’ll be—” She had to stop for a second to steady herself. “I’ll be back in—”
She had to look at Troy for help. His eyes met hers.
“Ten days,” he supplied, revealing he was, indeed, following her conversation.
“I’ll be back in ten days,” she told Gretchen as she turned away from Troy once more.
She hung up, and the hurt broke free, despite all her efforts to contain it. A tear slid down one cheek.
“Andie?”
She didn’t turn around. She couldn’t
