Page 2 of Keeping Guard
The rat bastard. She’d only overheard the conversation because she’d gotten last-minute cold feet and wanted to talk to Dalton, needed him to assure her that they were both ready for a lifelong commitment. Turned out he was more committed to her father than to her.
After she graduated from college, her father had dangled a carrot in front of her. Do this and a share in the company will be yours one day. Do that and the entire company will be yours one day. She’d jumped through hoops doing this and that, trying to please him. Like saying yes when Dalton asked her to marry him. Dalton was Elk Antler Brewery’s chief financial officer, the son her father had always wanted, and marrying Dalton would make Gerald Sutton happy with her.
Well, to hell with both of them.
She gathered up the skirts of the princess wedding gown she’d grown to hate. She was done with trying to please her father.
From the time he’d let her hang out at Elk Antler Brewery, she’d been fascinated by the process of making beer. She’d been thirteen the first time he’d brought her there, pointing at the corner where she could do her homework. It was supposed to be punishment for not getting a perfect score on her math test.
That day had been far from punishment and set the course of her life. She spent her afternoons at the downtown brewery, supposedly doing her homework, but anytime her father was in a meeting or out of the building, she was learning how to make beer instead. Her father’s brewmaster had taken a liking to her, and over the years he’d shared his knowledge, his love of brewing, and his recipes. She could step into his shoes and no one would notice.
She’d returned home with degrees in business and marketing and went to work for her father. Pleasing him was impossible—even with bringing in more business with tours and events—but she’d kept trying anyway.
Until today.
She was over it. He’d made her a promise that he obviously had no intention of keeping. The long hours she’d put in, the heart she put into the brewery, the jumping through hoops for him apparently meant nothing.
“Where is she?”
Peyton stilled at hearing her father’s voice. If he found her, he’d convince her to go through with the wedding.
With the voluminous skirts of the gown gathered up, she headed in the opposite direction. She didn’t have a plan since it hadn’t for a minute occurred to her that she’d sneak out on her own wedding.
Three hundred and twenty-nine guests were seated in the country club ballroom waiting for her to walk down the aisle in a matter of minutes. They were sure going to be in for a surprise when the bride didn’t appear. Avoiding the ballroom, she scooted into the banquet hall. The staff setting up for the reception all stopped what they were doing to stare at her. She nodded at the bartender, snatched two bottles of champagne, and almost laughed at his wide eyes.
“You never saw me,” she tossed over her shoulder as she headed for the door leading to the parking lot. She should be in tears, crushed, heartbroken...blah, blah, blah. Weirdly, what she felt was free.
Outside, she paused for a moment, and as she breathed in the pine-scented mountain air, the heavy weight that had settled on her shoulders ever since Dalton had put an engagement ring on her finger lifted, carried away by the breeze. As much as she wanted to luxuriate in the feeling of freedom, she needed to go before someone found her. But where to?
Her car wasn’t here since she’d arrived with her father in the limo he’d rented. She spied Dalton’s silver Mercedes parked near the main entrance and headed for it. Wasn’t her fault he’d once shown her where he’d hidden a spare key remote.
She cringed at the Just Married someone had written on the rear window with white shoe polish. Couldn’t be helped. She needed a getaway car, and Dalton’s was her only choice. After retrieving the key, she unlocked the door, got in, put the champagne bottles on the passenger seat, and then spent minutes she didn’t have getting the skirts of the stupid gown inside so she could close the door.
The next time she planned to get married, she was wearing one of those slip wedding dresses. Much easier to escape in if need be. She glanced in the rearview mirror, saw her father and Dalton walk out of the building, and hauled ass.
With no direction in mind, she drove around, and at the entrance to the Blue Ridge Parkway, turned on her blinker. What she really wanted to do was go home, get out of this ridiculous dress, put on her jammies, and then plow her way through the champagne.
Or go to the brewery and make beer. Getting lost in recipes, that was her peace place. Where all her troubles floated away. But she couldn’t do either of those things. Home and the brewery were the first places her father and Dalton would look.
She needed to find somewhere she could think, make a plan for where she’d go from here. After her stunt today, she doubted her father would welcome her back to the place she loved above all else. Oh, he probably would if she went back and married Dalton, but that was so not happening.
Peyton blinked away the tears that threatened at the thought of never setting food in Elk Antler Brewery again, tears from losing something she loved...and that was not Dalton. Not good to bawl her eyes out while driving. Along with a place to consider her future, she needed somewhere she could have a good cry in private.
After driving along the Parkway for a while, she saw a sign announcing a waterfall. No other cars were in sight in the parking lot, and she decided it was the perfect place.
She parked in the lot, grabbed the two bottles of champagne, then headed for the trail. She stopped and eyed the steep path down. No way was she going to manage that wearing white satin heels without falling and breaking her neck. She kicked them off. The sheer white stockings the bridal shop consultant said she had to wear soon followed. They were her first ever stockings, and she hated them as much as the dress.
Even barefoot, going down was tricky in a gown consisting of more material than all the clothes in her closet put together. A squirrel clinging upside down to a tall pine tree chattered at her as she passed. “Yeah, yeah, I’m not having a good day, either.”
She almost slipped when she stepped on a mossy rock, and, forgetting she had a champagne bottle in her hand, she grabbed hold of a rhododendron branch. The bottle rolled and bounced down the trail. Thankfully, it didn’t break. She needed that champagne.
“Well, that wasn’t a piece of cake,” she muttered after finally making it to the waterfall with both bottles intact. Speaking of cake, she should have snatched some of her wedding cake while she was at it since she hadn’t eaten anything all day because her stomach had been in knots.
The dress her father had paid a small fortune for was torn and dirt streaked. He wasn’t going to be happy about that, but she wasn’t happy with him, either, so they were even. She headed for a boulder with a flat surface. She tried to climb up it, but that proved impossible when wearing a million yards of...whatever the dress was made of. Fashion and fabrics weren’t her thing. Clothes were a necessity, something she had to put on before she could appear in public. And right now, there was no public, and she wanted on top of that boulder. She deserved to be up there after knowing her actions would cost her the only thing that mattered to her.
So...it was a struggle, but she finally got the hated gown off. Irritated with the stupid thing, she tossed it to the side with more force than she’d intended.
It tumbled down the embankment, landing in the waterfall pool.
