There Goes the Bride

But at least the joint had a decent motel. And all Rick wanted right now was to sleep until the sun came up.

The Tuckaway Inn would do just fine. Located adjacent to a Swiss Chalet–inspired diner, the Alps cottages cuddled into the dream-fuzzed countryside. One car indicated that the Tuckaway had another lone customer. Or maybe the vehicle belonged to the apple-cheeked matron at the front desk.

Either way, it wasn’t every day a man had the benefit of seeing cornstalks and gingerbread trim in the same blink. The past twelve hours were pretty surreal, but—then again—his life was getting more surreal by the minute.

Especially when it came to Daisy.

An hour after checking in, Rick stepped out of the shower, trying to think of something other than the runaway bride in the next cottage. Instead, he concentrated on combing his hair.

He knew his cut was scruffy—too long near the collar—but he didn’t actually give a rat’s hind end. Not that he had anyone to care for about his appearance anyway. That was the advantage of living by yourself in the woods.

But the mirror allowed him the chance to look himself in the eye. What he saw disturbed him.

A man with a basalt-type hardness to his gaze. A man who’d been quick to grin in his youth, now reduced to a line-in-the-sand grimness.

There was a hideous slant to him. He could see it in the dark part of his irises, the part where no one cared to look anymore. It was the type of scar you couldn’t erase, the type of ugliness that turned a decent kid to stone.

He faced away from his image, disgusted. Even Daisy Cox had brushed him off tonight when he’d told her that she didn’t need exercise. That she looked just fine the way she was. She hadn’t responded to his heartfelt compliment, had politely rejected him with her cool golden-curled finesse.

See, even Daisy Cox didn’t want anything to do with him.

Hell, at least she could stand to face him at dinner. As a matter of fact, she’d done the inviting as soon as she’d seen that hilarious Swiss-countrified diner next door. What the hey? he’d thought. He needed food as much as the next man.

So after she’d gone to her own cottage to dry off and freshen up, Rick had done the same. Now, as he donned his bomber jacket, he left his room to wait for her.

As he scuffed his way to her cottage, he froze in his tracks, held captive by a silhouette on the curtains of Daisy’s window.

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