Page 5 of Harrison Hyde and the Runaway Bride

“Yes, we’ll be headin’ west.” She plucked at her white skirts. “I’m gon’ change clothes. Don’t look at me.”

“I won’t.” He tipped the rearview mirror upward.

Maria climbed between the seats into the back and unzipped her duffel bag. She’d packed it for a honeymoon at a resort in Silver City, New Mexico that Billy Bob had chosen because there was a rodeo nearby that he wanted to see.

She dug out a pair of jeans, and pulled them on underneath her tattered gown. Such a shame about the dress. It had been pretty, sweetheart neckline, nipped in at the waist, with a skirt that puffed out thanks to crinoline slips. The tiny buttons up the back were false, with a delicate zipper tucked cleverly underneath. She tried to unzip it herself and darn near pulled her shoulder out of the socket.

She looked up front at Harry again. He was rigid, staring straight ahead. A gentleman, huh? Well, she’d lucked out then, hadn’t she? “I need your hand back here. Don’t look. Just reach back.”

“I have no idea what to expect right now,” he said, but reached his arm back, hand open. She noticed his hands again. They were attractive to her. She’d never been attracted to a fella’s hands before.

“I can’t get my zipper. I’m gon’ push my back up against your hand. You can feel around enough to find the zipper and not one bit more, you hear?”

“I hear.”

“Okay.” She angled her back toward him, while he drove with one hand. She tried to aim the zipper, which she’d lowered partway, toward his hand, but her aim was off, and his palm pressed flat to her back, just above the low-slung zipper.

His hand was warm, and it rested against her bare skin for a heartbeat longer than it ought to, but before she could smackhim, he moved it, sliding it lower. Oh, Lord, that was worse. It sent a tingle all the way down her spine. The naughty kind.

“Sorry,” he said, even though he hadn’t done anything. His nimble fingers found the zipper and got hold of it. He tried to pull. She reached behind her to hold the fabric together, to give him something to pull against, and the zipper slid down easy as apple pie. His knuckles brushed over the small of her back, all the way down to the crease of her butt, and then he gasped and pulled his hand away like he’d been bee-stung. The car veered. He righted it.

“Sorry,” he said again. “Is that… good?”

“Realgood,” she said. Maybe teasing him just a little bit. “Thanks.”

Then she pulled the dress over her head. Quickly, she put on her top, a baby-blue tank with a shelf bra built in. Then she added a thin flannel button down, brown plaid. Finally, she put on some socks and her favorite boots, and climbed into the front seat.

“He punched a stripper,” she said without preamble.

Harry looked at her so suddenly and so sharply that he jerked the wheel with the motion. She put her hand over his to straighten it back out. He blinked, and refocused on the road. “Take this left, right here?” he asked.

“Yeah.” So, he turned the car, and she clarified. “Billy Bob had a bachelor party last night, to which none of my relatives were invited.”

“That doesn’t seem very friendly.”

“No. But he has his own friends, and it was his big night, so I figured, let him do it his way. He barely knows my cousins, anyway. But he drank too much, which he’s been doing a lot lately, and he got all handsy with the stripper his boys hired for him. When she objected, he laid her out.”

“Holy…” He kept sending her quick looks. “How did you find out?”

“I knew her in college. When she got the gig, she recognized Billy Bob’s name and texted me to ask if I was okay with her dancing at his stag party. I mean, I knew that’s how she was workin’ her way through school, no judgement here. A gal’s gotta do what a gal’s gotta do, you know?”

“I do.” He closed his eyes. “Shoot, I did it again.”

“You did. Anyway, I knew she didn’t go in for extra-curricular stuff, so I told her to go for it and let me know if he didn’t tip her enough. Well, then, this mornin' while I’m fixin’ to marry that son of a sidewinder, I get another text from her.” She located the text with the photo on her phone and showed him. She knew the image by heart. Her friend Serena with a black eye that covered half her face was burned into Maria’s mind. The video that she’d sent with it was considerably worse. But Harry didn’t need to see that.

Harry looked away from the road at the phone. “My God.” He glanced her way again and said, “I’m really sorry.”

“I’m not,” she said. “That’s the weird part. Soon as I ran out the back door of that church, I felt like a hen freed from the coop. Kinda like I’d just woke up from a long-ass dream.”

“A long-ass dream,” he repeated.

“Yeah. Next right.”

He made the turn. The little blue car threw a cloud of dust behind it on the dirt road. Things got quiet until she said, “You have to tell me your story now. Why were you walkin’ around in the middle of nowhere? You have luggage in the back. You on some kind of road trip?”

“Yeah. I’m heading for Silver City, New Mexico.”

Well, that was a coincidence, she thought. Her honeymoon was supposed to be in Silver City. She and Billy Bob were going to see the Wild West Rodeo that was in town every June. Yippyki yay, she thought. She looked Harry up and down. Khaki pants, no belt. A shirt with buttons, not snaps. Canvas shoes, not boots. And there wasn’t a hat in sight. “You don’t look like a rodeo cowboy to me.”

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