sighed theatrically. “Well, if you won’t take me home, at least let me go to the bathroom.”
“Okay.” He stood. “I’ll take you.”
“Home?”
“No. To the bathroom.”
“I can go by myself. Where is it?”
“Outside.”
Julie wrinkled her nose at the accommodations. At least it wasn’t a little house down a path. The small room, which seemed to have been added as an afterthought to one end of the long back porch, had a shower, a toilet, a sink and…a window without bars.
But when she tried pulling it up she almost got a hernia. Examining it closely, she saw that the blasted thing was nailed shut. Oh, what she wouldn’t give for a claw hammer or a pair of pliers.
Flint banged on the door. “Are you okay in there?”
Her keeper. She couldn’t even go to the bathroom without him standing outside waiting for her. Some way, somehow, she had to escape from this place.
He banged again. “Julie, are you okay?”
Frustrated and furious, she flung open the door. “Can’t I even use the ladies’ room in peace?”
“Sorry.” If she hadn’t known better, she would have thought that he looked contrite.
Hiking up the tail of her torn wedding dress, she brushed past him, then stopped to scout the area, trying to figure out where she was. The cabin was in a heavily wooded tract, built partly on land and partly on beams over the edge of the bank. A pier extended out from the porch steps, but she didn’t see a boat anywhere. All she saw was woods and lake—miles and miles of woods and lake. But there had to be a boat around somewhere.
Boats and water had always made her nervous, but because of the twins, she’d worked hard at overcoming her fears. She still wasn’t thrilled about getting in a boat, but she could manage if it meant freedom.
Julie walked to the porch railing and nonchalantly glanced down at the water lapping at the beams. A red bass boat rode in a slip beneath the porch.
“Where are we?” she asked casually.
“At a friend’s place on Lake Rayburn.”
She shot him an exasperated glare. “I figured as much. But where exactly?”
He grinned. “Uh-uh. I’m not biting that line.” He turned her to him. “Julie, don’t even think about trying to sneak out and take off. Riding the Harley is out, and I know how you feel about boats and water, and you can’t make it out on foot. If you tried, you’d only get lost and endanger yourself. We’re a long way from anywhere.” He stuck his fingers in his back pockets and sniffed the air. “Besides it’s going to rain before long.”
She glanced at the sky over the water. The sun was heading down—which at least gave her a directional clue—and a few clouds streaked its face, but the weather was clear as a bell. Before she could open her mouth to refute his claim, the wind kicked up a chill breeze, and she heard the rumble of distant thunder. Or was that her stomach? Clamping her hand on her tummy, she asked haughtily, “Are you going to starve me, too?”
He chuckled. “Hadn’t planned to. Let’s see what we can rustle up in the kitchen.” He gestured for her to precede him into the cabin.
“You go ahead. I think I’ll stay out here for a while.”
He lifted one black eyebrow in a who-do-you-thinkyou’re-kidding expression.
“Oh, all right!” She stomped indignantly inside—or as indignant a stomp as she could manage in her stocking feet.
If she was going to remain Flint’s prisoner, bedamned if she was going to cook, and she told him so. While he fixed dinner, she tossed the trailing tail of her ragged dress over her arm and wandered around the cabin, looking for a way to escape. She checked every window and rattled every door. She surreptitiously scavenged through cupboards and drawers, trying to find something, anything, that might help her get away. Mostly she found fishing stuff: spools and spools of line, dozens of lures and other paraphernalia, and—voilà!—needle-nose pliers.
Glancing quickly over her shoulder to see if Flint had spotted her find, she stuffed the pliers down the front of her dress, adjusting them inside her bra so that they wouldn’t make a telltale bulge.
Divine smells coming from the stove set her stomach to rumbling again—not surprising since she’d been too nervous to eat lunch, and breakfast had been a banana. She ignored the temptations Flint was concocting and continued her scrutiny of the cabin. With only two rooms and the kitchen alcove, she soon ran out of places to look. There were only so many spots to examine in such small quarters. Before she was reduced to anxious pacing, she told herself to calm down and think. Make a plan.
Picking up a stray stack of cash, she sat down on the sofa and fanned through the banded bunch of hundred dollar bills. Her eyes narrowed as she considered the money that he’d dumped in her lap earlier. The dozens of packets still littered the recliner and the floor.
Where had so much cash come from? Had he become involved in something sinister? Her mind conjured up all sorts of terrible scenarios. Had Flint gotten mixed up in…in drugs? Panicked, she swallowed. Oh, dear heavenly days, for all she knew, he was a dope fiend or a bank robber. Or maybe—
“Julie!”
She yelped and jumped two feet off the couch. “Don’t creep up on me like that.”
“I didn’t creep. I called you twice. Dinner’s ready.”
“Oh. Uh, uh, I need to wash my hands in the bathroom.”
“Wash them at the kitchen sink.”
She patted her disheveled hair. “Well, I’d also like to straighten up a bit. Do you have a brush?”
“Sure, in the bedroom on the dresser. I’ll pour the wine.”
So much for her idea of working on those window nails in the bathroom. When Flint turned his back, she made a face, then snatched up a stack of bills and hurried to the bedroom. The cash might come in handy. She stuck the packet of money in her garter, the blue one that she should have been tossing to prospective grooms about now. Her family must be wild with distress. She only hoped that they didn’t alarm the children.
When she saw her reflection in the mirror, she didn’t even care that she was a mess. Her lipstick was gone, and her mascara was runny and smeared. The circlet of roses and the attached veil had been blown off in the wild ride. Only one limp rose dangled at her temple. She plucked it from her hair and tossed it aside. After removing the pins, she gave her tangled mop a good brushing, then ripped a strip from her dress and tied the scrap around the hair she gathered at the nape of her neck.
She tried to do something with her mascara, but her efforts only made matters worse. Lips pursed, she marched back into the kitchen area and announced, “Flint, I look like a raccoon. I need to wash my face in the bathroom where I can see what I’m doing.”
He grinned. “Okay. Come on. But
