The Rancher and the Runaway Bride

As a devastating summer storm hits Grand Springs, Colorado, the next thirty-six hours will change the town and its residents forever….

Randi Howell had already fled her wedding when the lights went out leaving everyone confused. That's when she overheard a murder plot. Now on the run from the ruthless killers and a furious fiancé, she's made it halfway across the country to Texas. Brady Jones's ranch is the perfect safe haven—big sky, horses and no questions.

Brady has taken in enough misfits and strays to know trouble when he sees it, but something about the feisty woman with the raven curls makes him give her a chance. Just as Randi is making him face his fears about love he learns she may have put everyone in danger….

Book 7 of the 36 Hours series. Don’t miss Book 8: An abandoned baby, a marriage of convenience—the storm turns lives upside down in Marriage by Contract by Sandra Steffen.

The Rancher and the Runaway Bride

Susan Mallery

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Contents

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

About the Author

Prologue

Brides were supposed to be beautiful and happy, Randi Howell told herself as she smoothed the front of her white satin wedding gown. Or at least reasonably attractive and content. Panic was not on the list of acceptable emotions. She didn’t want to think about what she must look like, but she had a bad feeling her eyes were wide and filled with a hunted expression. Gee, at least a “deer in the headlights” look would make the wedding photos interesting.

“It’s not so bad,” she said aloud, wishing her voice sounded more confident. “After all, I’m marrying Hal. He won’t be a horrible husband.”

Despite the nerves banging around in her stomach and the alternating urge to throw up or break out in a rash, she had to smile at that one. Hal would be annoyed if he knew she thought of him as “not so horrible.” Hardly praise every groom dreamed about.

Randi paced the length of the room. It was all of eight steps. The small meeting room, one of many at the far end of the Squaw Creek Lodge, had been converted into a temporary “bride’s room” for the wedding. Although the ballroom had been festooned with flowers, candles and beautifully set tables for the reception, the decorations didn’t extend this far back. The tiny room contained only an oval mirror in the corner, a florist’s box with her bouquet, a folding chair piled high with her street clothes and nothing else. At least the room was carpeted. The hallways weren’t. The only bright spot in an otherwise dismal situation was that she was alone.

Her mother had wanted to spend these last few minutes giving Randi instructions and reminding her how socially important the wedding would be, launching Randi into Grand Springs society. Randi grimaced at the thought, pleased she’d insisted on spending this time by herself. The only place she wanted to be launched was to another continent.

“Stop it!” she told herself firmly. “You’re getting married. Hundreds of women do this every day. Love is a difficult concept at best. How do you know you don’t love Hal?”

She stopped in midpace and slowly faced the mirror. The medieval-style gown clung to her from shoulders to hips, then flared out to the floor. The heavy satin swayed in counterpoint to her movements, creating grace from her tomboyish walk.

She raised her gaze higher, past the pearls her mother had given her to wear, to her face. Despite perfect makeup, she was pale, her skin nearly the color of ash.

The realization began slowly, a small kernel of knowledge that sprouted, then grew quickly, like one of those time-lapse images on television. It wasn’t that she didn’t love Hal, she wasn’t sure she even liked him.

She’d fallen into the engagement, as she’d fallen into everything else in her life. Because it was easy. Easier than making her own way.

“I don’t want this,” she whispered, suddenly sure she couldn’t marry Hal. But what was the alternative? How could she get out of this situation? One thing was certain. This time her daddy or her big brother Noah weren’t going to come to her rescue. This time she would have to take care of it herself.

“Mom is gonna kill me,” she muttered as she glanced around the room, trying to figure out what she was going to say to the older woman.

What if her mother tried to talk her into getting married, anyway? After all, everything was paid for, the guests were waiting. She had about three minutes of freedom left.

“I need more time,” Randi said. “I have to think and figure out what I want. Dear Lord, this would be a really great time for a miracle.”

She waited about two heartbeats, then figured God was busy. She was going to have to make her own miracle.

She grabbed her purse and considered writing a note. No time, she thought, hearing the organ music start another song. She’d been over the music list so many times, she had it memorized. The wedding march would begin next.

After slipping off her shoes so she could walk quietly down the linoleum floors, she left the bride’s room and headed for the rear entrance of the ski lodge. At least it was June and she wouldn’t have to worry about freezing. In the winter, she couldn’t have gone outside in just a wedding gown.

The back door of the lodge was in sight when she heard voices heading her way.

“Drat.” She glanced around, looking for a place to hide. There were meeting rooms on both sides of the hall. The first door she tried was locked, but the second gave way. She stepped inside and waited.

Barely breathing, she pressed her ear to the door. The voices got louder as two people walked by. From a snippet she caught of their conversation, she realized they were kitchen employees taking a break.

Randi breathed a sigh of relief. Now to escape.

But before she could open the door, the tiny hairs on the back of her neck prickled. She heard voices again, but these weren’t coming from outside. They came from directly behind her. She wasn’t alone.

Maybe it was the stress from the wedding, or her concentration on the people in the corridor, but when she’d first entered the windowless conference room she hadn’t noticed the lights were on. A quick glance over her shoulder showed a couple of jackets tossed on a long conference table. There was an alcove to the left. She could hear the clink of glass, then noticed the smell of coffee.

Great. There was a meeting going on. She had to get out of here before someone saw her. Bad enough to be running away from her own wedding. Worse to be caught in the act.

“Jo will take care of the old broad,” a strange male voice said. “That’s her specialty.”

Randi paused for a second. The statement didn’t make sense. Then she realized the man must be talking about a nurse. For a while she’d thought about that as a career. After all, her brother was a doctor. Then she bit back a moan. The men having a meeting might be doctors, too. Oh, Lord, she probably knew them.

Get out! she ordered herself.

She swung the door open wide and took a step toward the now-empty hallway and freedom. As she shifted her weight forward, her stocking-clad foot came down on a carpet tack.

Life was not fair, she thought as she yelped involuntarily.

“What the hell?” another man said.

He rounded the corner as Randi hopped in place, trying to balance on one leg while holding her purse and shoes and rubbing the injured foot.

She froze. The man approaching her was not a doctor. She’d never seen him before. But what really got her attention was the deadly looking gun he held in his right hand. The barrel was pointed directly at her.

She raised her gaze to his face. Above a close-clipped beard, dark eyes told an ugly story. This guy was going to kill her.

She waited for her life to pass before her eyes. Or did that only happen while drowning? She couldn’t remember. She couldn’t do anything but stand there, braced for the explosion that would end her life.

Instead, the lights went out.

The darkness was so complete, Randi thought she’d died. Then she realized the men were cursing and there hadn’t been a gunshot.

God had provided a miracle, after all.

“Thank you,” she said aloud as she bolted for the hallway.

Muffled curses followed her. There was a crash, and she assumed one of the men had run into the table.

Randi hit the wall a couple of times herself. In the distance, she saw an eerie red glow. The battery-powered emergency exit sign. She raced forward, slammed down on the bar to open the door and stepped out into the wet, storm-darkened evening.

Not bothering to look back, she headed for the highway. The ground was wet and rough beneath her bare feet; the rain drenched her in minutes. Without lights to guide her, she stumbled on the wet, muddy ground but kept on going. Fear provided an extra burst of speed.

When she reached the highway, she didn’t see any headlights and nearly stamped her foot in frustration. Then a low rumble filled the night and an eighteen-wheeler rounded the curve in the road.

Randi stepped directly in the truck’s path and waved her arms. The driver slowed.

Two minutes later she sat high in the seat, wet and mud-spattered, explaining that she was running away and needed a ride out of town. She didn’t mention the mysterious men with their guns, not sure what to say about them. Why on earth would anyone want to kill her simply for interrupting a meeting?

She tried to get her breathing under control. Terror and the damp made her shiver. What had just happened?

“Where you headin’?” the trucker asked, distracting her.

He was a burly man in his fifties. His kindly smile was comforting. And if not for the tight wad of tobacco between his lip and gum, she would think him perfect grandfather material. “Just about anywhere.”

“I’m going to Phoenix.”

“I’ve never been there. I think I might like it.”

The trucker stared at her oddly. Randi figured she deserved it. After all, she was a runaway bride complete with a wedding gown, flowers in her hair and lacy but torn stockings.

She sighed. Just last week she’d given herself a stern talking-to about facing her problems instead of bolting. Of course, in this case, her problems were bigger than she’d first imagined. Better to run than be shot.

Why had those men pulled guns on her? What was Hal going to say when he found out she was gone? What was her mother going to say?

She stared out the window while the driver tried to make conversation. The rain was stronger now. It felt as if it had been raining for weeks. As they circled around Grand Springs, she noticed there was a lot of mud on the highway and she didn’t see any lights. Looked like there was still a power outage. Maybe it would be enough to distract everyone so they wouldn’t notice she was gone.

If only that were true, she thought as the eighteen-wheeler drove southwest…toward safety.

Chapter One

Brady Jones leaned back in his chair, ignoring the loud creak as worn springs protested his weight. They’d been doing it since his dad had retired five years ago. Like everything on the West Texas ranch, the chair wasn’t new or fancy, but it worked and he figured it would outlast them all.

He glanced from the application he held to the woman perched uneasily on the straight-back wooden chair in front of his scarred desk. When she caught him looking, she gave him a big smile that didn’t make a dent in the worry lurking in her dark blue eyes.

Another hard-luck case, he thought as he dropped the application onto the printouts he’d been going through when she arrived. He’d always been good at spotting them. For one thing, the duffel bag at her feet was too small to contain more than a couple changes of clothing. She’d hitched a ride to the ranch instead of driving. Then there was the matter of her application. Too many lines left blank, too many vague references he wouldn’t be able to check out. No home address. No relatives.

He should kick her out on her shapely butt, because he didn’t need her kind of trouble, or temptation. That particular lesson had been hard won and never forgotten. These days he avoided women with mysterious pasts.

He should get rid of her, but as Tex would be happy to tell him, he was a bleeding-heart sucker for anything or anybody in need. So instead of saying the position had already been filled, he leaned back further, placed his booted feet on the desk and gave the woman an encouraging nod. “Why don’t you tell me about yourself, Ms.—” he glanced at the application “—Ms. Rita Howard.”

“I’m good with horses,” the woman said quickly. “I didn’t grow up on a ranch, but I’ve had lots of experience. I’ve been riding since I was about seven. I started with English and dressage, but one day I used a western saddle and I was hooked.”

This time her smile reached her eyes, brightening them until they gleamed like sun-soaked lake water on a perfect summer day. Brady nearly groaned out loud. He didn’t want to notice that, nor did he want to admit that he was itching to reach across the desk and touch one of the black curls springing free from her braid. She’d obviously combed her hair recently and braided it tightly in an effort to keep the curls in order, but it was a hopeless task. He would bet that by the end of the day, her hair was in complete disarray. Unfortunately, the image enchanted him.

“I worked in a stable all through high school,” she said. “I know my way around horses, Mr. Jones—”

“Brady,” he said, interrupting.

“Okay. Brady. I work cheap, I’m dependable, I don’t make trouble.” She shrugged. “I understand your reservations. You don’t know me from a rock, so you’re going to have to take my word about my good qualities.” She bit her lower lip. “I guess that’s it.”

She had a heart-shaped face and a cupid’s bow mouth. Stupid details to notice, he told himself. He would hire her or not hire her based on her abilities and his gut. His daddy had always taught him to listen to his gut, and so far, it had only let him down once. Of course, that other time had involved a woman, too, but he wasn’t going to think about that now.

Logically he shouldn’t give her a try. There was no reason to trust anything she’d said. Especially the part about not making trouble.

“There’s one thing you left out,” he said, lowering his feet to the floor. “You’ve got nowhere else to go.”

He met her gaze squarely, watching pride wrestle with reality. If only she knew how hard he wished she would claim some other job opportunity or a friend willing to take her in. He didn’t want this to be the end of her line.

She blinked twice, but didn’t speak. He swore silently. She didn’t have to speak; the quiver at the corner of her mouth said it all.

“I’ve gotten by before,” she said, and rose to her feet. “I’ll manage. Thanks for the interview, Mr. Jones.” She picked up her duffel bag and an expensive-looking purse.

Brady waited for the feeling from his gut. There wasn’t one. Only the voice in his head telling him to be damn careful because he’d been down this particular road before and it had a way of flattening a man.

“How about a week’s trial?” he said. “If things work out, you can stay on.”

She’d made it to the office door, where she paused, then turned back. “You’re saying if I don’t like the working conditions or job description, I’m free to move on to something more upwardly mobile?”

He grinned. “Sure thing. A place with a corner office, maybe.”

Another black curl worked its way free and dangled by her cheek. She shifted her purse to her shoulder and brushed the strand away impatiently. “I’d like that. The job, not the corner office.”

“Great,” he said, even as his gut belatedly kicked in. The feeling warned him that the decision he’d just made was going to change his life forever. He could only hope this time it would be for the better.

He rose to his feet and named a salary. “That’s weekly and includes room and board,” he added. “The stables are your responsibility. You’ll be up early. I want the horses fed by five so they’ll have at least an hour to digest their food before the cowboys get them some time around six. After you muck out the stalls, you’ll be responsible for exercising any horses not being used that day.”

Rita nodded. “I’m familiar with the work involved. I know I don’t look very strong, but I’m tough and I’m good. You’ll have to wait and let me prove that.”

Because he was ten different kinds of a fool, Brady actually wanted her to show him she was terrific. He wanted to be dazzled, and not just by her smile. Obviously he needed to get out more.

“You have a week,” he said. “There are a couple of high school boys who work in the afternoon. They take care of the horses when the cowboys are done, so you won’t be responsible for that. Any extra time you have, you tell Tex and he’ll give you chores. You have Saturday and Sunday afternoons off.”

“Sounds great. Is there something you want me to do now?”

“You can start in the morning.” He studied her face, trying to discover her secrets. A pointless exercise. She would tell him or not, in her own time. Maybe it was better if he didn’t know. For both of them.

He crossed the worn wooden floor and stopped next to her. Her left hand hung at her side. He picked it up and turned it over so he could see her palm.

At the base of her middle finger sat a large circle of raw skin. Other blisters—some healed, some still filled with clear fluid—formed an angry pattern across her flesh. He rubbed a couple of thick patches, feeling the calluses formed by hard work.

Rita Howard might know her way around a stable, but she hadn’t been doing the hard work until just recently. What was her story? Had she lied about everything?

He was so deep in thought he barely noticed the burning. When he registered it, he nearly flung her hand away as if it had bit him. Maybe it had.

Heat flared, starting in the center of his palm, going bone deep before boiling up his arm to his chest, then moving lower. Hot, mind-numbing, sexual heat—the kind that made a man behave like an ass, then not have the good sense to regret it in the morning.

He bit back a curse. He didn’t need this woman on his property, and he sure as hell didn’t need to want her in his bed.

His mind obligingly took that image and shifted it until he was lost in a mental tangle of bare arms and legs, burying his need inside her and his hands in her curly dark hair. According to his brain, a bed was not required.

Moving slowly, so she wouldn’t know what he was thinking, he released her hand, then shifted and leaned against the wall. The action did two things. First, it put some distance between them so he could work on developing a little self-control. Second, it allowed him to casually adjust his position, folding his arms over his chest and crossing his ankles in an effort to draw her attention away from that part of him that had instantly and violently reacted to the unwelcome fantasy.

“Judging from your hands, you haven’t been working with horses,” he said, pleased his voice sounded completely in control. “What have you been doing?”

She shrugged, apparently unaware of the battle he fought for control. “A little of everything. I waitressed in Phoenix and found out I’m not much of a people person. I like them one at a time just fine, but the pressures of a lunch crowd are too much for me.” She clutched her duffel bag close to her midsection. “In Albuquerque I worked as a maid in a big hotel. Now I’m here.”

“Are you moving east?”

Her gaze darted away. “I don’t have any specific plans.”

But she was on the run. Had he really been hoping she was just some kid on a summer adventure? Life wasn’t that simple. This particular woman was in trouble, and despite his wayward hormones, Brady was going to do his best to stay clear of her.

There was, however, one thing he had to know. “Rita,” he said, his voice stern. He waited until she looked at him before continuing. “Are you on the run from the law?”

Her blue eyes widened and shock parted her mouth. Even before she spoke, he read his answer. Whatever her troubles, she hadn’t done anything illegal.

“Of course not,” she said. “I swear.”

Conversations like this were not part of her life plan, Randi thought glumly, wishing there was a way to convince the man in front of her she wasn’t a recently paroled felon. She wanted this job. More important, she needed it. Despite her proud words that she would get by, the truth was she was down to her last five dollars and getting pretty desperate.

“Okay,” Brady said. “I had to ask. I hope you understand.”

“No problem.”

“Come on. I’ll show you around.”

He led the way from the office at the back of the barn and through the stables. Randi followed behind. The familiar smell of horses and hay relaxed her. At least she would enjoy working here. She’d hated both waitressing and being a maid, although she’d kept the jobs until she’d felt the need to move on. After all, when one was on the run, one didn’t get a whole lot of choices, employment-wise.

“Report any problems with the horses to me immediately,” Brady was saying. “Even if it’s four in the morning and you don’t think I’m up. We’ve got a vet on call. I’d rather pay for an unnecessary visit than lose one of the animals.”

“I can do that.”

She glanced around at the large, clean barn. Judging from the little she’d seen, the ranch was successful. Maybe it was her imagination, but she had the sense that people had been happy here. At one time she would have laughed at herself and claimed she was being fanciful. In the past few weeks, she’d learned to listen to her senses. Being on her own had taught her to pay attention and trust herself. There was no one else she could depend on.

At the entrance to the barn, Brady paused. “The bunkhouse is over there,” he said, pointing to a long, low one-story building on his right.

Big windows looked out on the lawn and the large shade trees beyond.

Randi settled her duffel bag strap over her right shoulder. “It looks very nice.”

“Yeah.” Brady was lost in thought. “I have a cook. Tex. He prepares three meals a day. The dining room is in front. He rings a bell when the food’s ready. Don’t be late.”

She tried to ignore her growling stomach and the fact that she hadn’t eaten yet that day. “No problem.”

“Actually, there is.” Brady shook his head and turned to his left. Away from the bunkhouse.

She followed his gaze and saw a white two-story house. A wide porch wrapped around the first floor. Late summer roses bloomed by the back porch.

“Well, Rita, we have ourselves a situation.”

She smiled politely as she wondered if she would ever get used to her new name. At least she didn’t stare blankly when someone called her that. When she’d first run away from the wedding and those men with guns, her only thought had been to stay alive. Changing her name had made her feel safer. It was probably unnecessary, but it was too late now. Brady thought of her as Rita Howard and that’s who she was going to continue to be.