Runaway Lone Star Bride

Her chin lifted defiantly. “One, you wouldn’t get lost because I’m betting you know this entire mountain like the back of your hand. And two, I’m not scared of Texas wildlife—I grew up with it.” She wiggled restlessly in his arms, prompting an even fiercer rush of blood to his lower body. “So forget trying to scare me into behaving the way you want me to behave...’cause I am not going with you!”

Not without a fight, anyway, he amended silently. Seething with an aggravation paramount to hers, he set her down. Trapping her slender frame between his big body and the broad, rough trunk of a century-old tree. “Okay, then we’ll wait.”

She studied him with glittering sea blue eyes. “For what?”

“You. To calm down.”

Her glare deepened.

“And convince me that indulging in your diva drama is the right thing.” When he was pretty damned sure, even without knowing all the details, that it wasn’t.

She ripped off her tiara and veil. A scattering of pins followed, unleashing a riot of chocolate-brown curls that looked every bit as silky and delectable as the rest of her. “It is not diva drama!”

Aware this would have been amusing under any other circumstances, he took in the erotic disarray of her shoulder-length mane and tried not to think about what it would be like to kiss her. “Then what was it?” he asked, resisting the urge to reach out and restore some order to the unleashed strands.

Her lower lip trembled, and she offered a tight, officious smile. “You wouldn’t understand,” she said, finally.

And suddenly, he wanted to do just that. Which was odd, given he usually had little to no interest in other people’s private business. Warning himself to get it together, Hart turned his attention away from her lusciously soft lips to the gradually slowing pulse in her throat. “I might. We’ll never know unless you try me.”

Another silence fell, this one more fraught with tension than the last.

Maggie pressed her lips together, took another deep breath and folded her arms across her chest. “I just can’t get married,” she confessed with another slow shake of her pretty head. She looked at him again, almost beseechingly this time. “I thought I could...but I can’t.”

Hart had seen that kind of unease before...in his own ex-fiancée. As he recalled, Alicia had been just as confused then as Maggie was now. “Why can’t you?” he prodded, pushing away his own unhappy memories of a breakup he hadn’t seen coming.

“Because I don’t have it in me to promise to do one thing—like marry Gus—for the rest of my life.”

On the surface, her excuse sounded shallow.

Going a little deeper...

Hart thought about the relief he’d eventually felt when his own nuptials had been cancelled. The knowledge that what he had initially interpreted as disaster was really a very good thing in the end. “So what if you don’t?” he countered, not about to judge her for that.

She peered at him curiously. “You’re telling me that you don’t believe in marriage, either...?”

Like her, he’d initially thought he did. Only to be saved by his bride-to-be, who’d had the good sense to call off a relationship that never would have lasted over the long haul, given their very different natures.

“No,” he admitted abruptly, aware his ex had been right about one thing. He was too restless to ever settle down in one place for very long. “I don’t.”

Maggie blinked. She leaned closer in a drift of intoxicating perfume. “But your family owns a wedding business! How can you not believe in happily-ever-afters?”

Good question, Hart thought. And one his parents repeatedly asked him. Aware this wasn’t the time to be discussing his issues, however, he moved the conversation back to her dilemma.

“Look, I don’t know what happened to cause all this craziness. But I do know you can’t keep running. Your family will forgive you...” They were, after all, part of the Texas McCabe clan, a family known for their devotion to one another.

Maggie scoffed “I don’t think so. Don’t forget. I didn’t just ruin my wedding, I ruined my twin sister’s nuptials, too.”

“Not necessarily.” At her astonished look, he continued, “I think Callie and Seth went on with it.” At least he hoped they had. “And you have to go back.”

“I agree,” a low male voice said.

Maggie and Hart turned.

Gus Radcliffe stood at the top of the ravine. He looked the way Hart had felt the moment he got the “I Can’t Do This After All” speech from his fiancée. Like he’d had the stuffing kicked out of him.

The dark-haired groom made his way down to where they were standing. “Come on, Maggie. I know you’re mad at me for what I said after the rehearsal dinner, but you can’t end a seven-year relationship over one difference of opinion.”

They’d been together that long? Hart thought in shock. He tried to imagine it. Couldn’t.

Maggie scowled. “I’m not.”

Gus harrumphed in frustration. “Running out in the middle of the ceremony says you are. So, Magnolia, if your aim was to put me on notice for not being enthusiastic enough about your plans for our future, consider it done.”

Ouch, Hart thought.

Maggie recoiled in shock, but fought back, just as fast. “Contrary to the way you seem to be remembering things, Gus, I never forced you into this. Or anything else, for that matter.”

Her beau regarded Maggie skeptically. “Actually, you and your twin kind of did. Not that I’m protesting.” Gus lifted a hand. “It never hurts to be practical, financially. And the truth is, you and I were destined to get married anyway. Might as well save your parents the cost of yet another wedding—when they still have four more ahead of them. While,” he added importantly, “simultaneously letting you and Callie continue your tradition of doing everything together, as twins. Before that, too, comes to an end.”

Hart watched as Maggie hauled in a deep breath. “Except I no longer want to do this,” she pointed out.

Gus snorted and stood his ground. “I think you do. I think you’re scared about the enormity of the commitment, same as me.” His voice dropped consolingly. “But the thing is, Maggie, even if we disagree about a few of the fundamentals—”

“A few very important fundamentals.”

“—we have to get married if we’re going to start having kids together, the way we planned.”

Maggie’s slender shoulders lifted in another careless shrug. “You and I don’t have to be married for either of us to have kids, Gus.”

“Meaning what?” Gus asked, clearly hurt. “You still want them, just not with me?”

A telltale silence fell. Maggie shivered, despite the heat of the late June day. “All I’m asserting is that it would be a huge error to bring children into an uncertain situation or an ill-fated marriage. Everyone knows that.”

“That’s the thing, Maggie,” Gus returned quietly. “I don’t think—despite our disagreement last night—that the two of us are making a mistake, getting hitched. And I certainly don’t think we should let all the hard work and money we put into our nuptials be for naught. I think we owe everyone, especially our families, more than that.”

There was another beat of silence. Finally, she lifted her hands guiltily. “You’re right. I shouldn’t be letting everyone down. And I should have realized how you felt long before now.” She paused to work off her diamond engagement ring and forced it into Gus’s hand. “Because if I had, I never would have said yes to your proposal. And if you had known how I felt about what our future should look like, you never would have asked me to marry you, either.”

Gus palmed the ring she had given him. Finally, he seemed to recognize the truth of that. He sighed, slid the diamond in the inside pocket of his tuxedo jacket, then paused to look Maggie in the eye. “So you really don’t want to go through with it?”

“I just can’t,” Maggie said softly. “Surely you understand that.”

Even though Hart disagreed with the reckless, hurtful way Maggie McCabe was breaking her engagement, he had to admire her resolve. He had always liked a woman who was strong enough to stand up for what she wanted.

Squaring his shoulders, Gus looked at Maggie in grim resignation. “Then I’ll go tell everyone.” He headed off in the direction of the music from the string quartet.

Maggie turned back to Hart. Her elegant features were taut with a mixture of relief, guilt and grief. But mostly relief, Hart noted.

“Now, will you please take me back to the Double Knot ranch house?” Maggie asked.