The Runaway Bride

“Runt River, Ohio.”

There was silence again, this time complete as if he were holding his breath. Then he exploded. “What?”

“I drove out here after the wedding. I didn’t really mean to—I just hit a highway and kept going. Then I remembered Aunt Lucille was out here, and I figured I could use a bit of family support.”

“From Lucille? After all I’ve told you about her—”

“She’s pretty harmless, Dad.”

“She’s not harmless. She has a vendetta against me, and you’re my daughter. She is not the person to trust with something this volatile—”

“Too late,” Bernie confessed. “I told her what happened. But I’ll be careful. I’ll keep a low profile—wear something unattractive. I’ll blend right in with the locals.”

“This isn’t funny,” her father snapped. “Your face has been on the covers of magazines and newspapers for the past four months because of this wedding. You are not going to blend in.”

“I don’t care!” Her anger was rising again. “Dad, if I get into a bind, you’re my first call. That’s a promise. But give me space, or I will find the nearest reporter and give him an exclusive about Calvin McMann’s cheating ways.”

“Don’t you threaten me.”

“I’m half joking.” She sighed. “Dad. Space. Please.”

“Fine. But don’t believe anything your aunt tells you. She’s a master manipulator.”

Lucille hardly seemed like the manipulative shrew her father made her out to be, but Bernie hardly knew the woman, either. Maybe it would be wise to tread carefully with her aunt.

Except that Liam trusts her.

She hardly knew Liam, either, and the men in her life hadn’t exactly been the most trustworthy lately. Calvin had cheated on her, and her father seemed more concerned with the family political future than he did with his only daughter’s emotional state. At this point, she was wary of everyone.

“I’ll be careful, Dad. I promise. But I’d better hang up. I’m hungry. Tell Mom—” She sighed. Her mother would be furious. Tell her mother what, exactly? “Tell her I’m okay.”

After their goodbyes, she ended the call and got out of bed. She needed to get dressed and face the day. One step at a time.

There was a tap on her door.

“Yes?”

“Everything okay?” her aunt asked.

“Come in.”

The door opened, and Lucille peered at her cautiously, a folded, faded towel in her hands. “Sorry about the thin walls. Was that your father?”

So her aunt had heard that conversation? Bernie was used to more privacy than this.

“Yes.” She ran a hand through her hair. “Aunt Lucille, could you tell me something?”

“Sure.” Lucille deposited the towel on the top of the dresser.

“Why not just give my father the ring?” she asked. “It’s been, what, thirty-five years?”

“Forty,” her aunt countered. “And for the record, he didn’t want the ring to propose to your mother. This was before he met her. He wanted it to propose to one of the kitchen workers in our family’s home. Everyone was against it—even the girl’s family. It’s rather ironic that he had such a problem with Arnie, and he was a lawyer! Just not blue enough blood.”

Her father had wanted to marry the kitchen help? That didn’t sound like the Milhouse Morgan who hardly knew the names of the squadron of people who kept his home immaculate.

“And you were against that engagement, too,” Bernie surmised.

“They were all wrong for each other.” Lucille shrugged. “And she was after the money.”

“Oh.” All this time, she’d imagined that ring belonged on her mother’s finger, but the story was never quite what it seemed. “So why not give it to him now?”

Lucille was silent for a moment, then a small smile tickled the corners of her lips. “Because I don’t want to.”

Bernie stared at her aunt in surprise. That was it? She didn’t want to? A country of politicians pandered for her father’s support, and this one stubborn woman could thwart him with a whim? Laughter bubbled up inside her, and she shook her head.

“Okay, then,” she said.

“The towel is for your shower.” Her aunt turned back toward the hallway again. “The hot and cold are switched, and it takes a few minutes for the water to warm up. Not what you’re used to, I’m sure, but it does the trick.”

None of this was what Bernie was accustomed to, but she couldn’t help but feel mildly envious of the aunt who got to do what she wanted to and felt no obligation to the Morgan family.

But what did Bernadette want? She wanted to get to know this aunt who held odd family secrets, and she wanted to hide from all the fallout of her failed wedding. And now that she’d met Ike, she wanted to get to know this tiny Morgan who had lost his mother too early.

Family had to be about more than influence and politics, didn’t it?

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