Groom Of Fortune

Something twisted in Link’s gut as he looked down at her. Something he thought he’d lost long ago. The ability to care. “He won’t find you,” he said gruffly, and reached for the door. “Not on this mountain. Nobody could.”

He pushed open the door and caught up her train as he hefted her higher in his arms. As he stepped inside the cabin, he was struck at the irony in that gesture. Link Templeton carrying a bride across a threshold. The man who’d sworn he’d never marry, who’d sworn he’d never be foolish enough to fall in love, was carrying a bride across a threshold.

The only comfort he found in that thought was that the bride wasn’t his.

She was a runaway.

Two

After stripping off his wet shirt and changing into a pair of dry jeans he found in the closet, bare-chested Link pulled fresh linens from the dresser drawer and began making the bed. Anxious to finish the job before Isabelle emerged from the bathroom, he kept an ear cocked to the sounds coming from behind the door she’d closed between them. The soft gurgle of water as it ran from the ancient faucet and splashed into the rust-stained sink. The dull thump of a satin heel striking the old footed tub, or perhaps the side of the toilet. The whisper of satin and lace as it whisked against the scarred plank floor.

He tried not to think about Isabelle unbuttoning that long row of tiny, satin-covered buttons, of slipping the dress from her shoulders and letting it fall to the floor. Of her stepping from the cloud of white, her bare flesh pebbling as the cabin’s cool air struck it…the bobbing of ripe, full breasts, free now from constraints…the feminine curve of her waist…the heart-shaped buttocks he’d already defined earlier when he’d carried her into the cabin.

But the vision was there, filling his mind and making his fingers knot in the quilt he held.

Furious with himself and his wayward thoughts, he sailed the quilt over the freshly made bed, then stretched to tuck one end under the foot of the mattress. He jerked his head up when the hinges on the bathroom door squeaked. His breath locked in his lungs as Isabelle stepped into the opening, dressed in an ankle-length gown and robe of ivory silk. She looked as virginal and nervous as any bride might on her wedding night. Straightening slowly, he let the quilt slip from slack fingers and simply stared, letting his gaze slide from liquid eyes to bare toes that curled self-consciously against the hardwood floor.

Her hair hung past her shoulders, its dark ends curling gently around the swell of each breast, emphasizing their fullness and the twin knots of flesh puckered at their peaks. The silk hugged her body like a second skin, skimming over her flat abdomen, molding her slim hips, rising above the sharp planes of her pelvic bones, then dipping slightly into the juncture of her legs, before tumbling like a moonlit waterfall to her feet. When his gaze reached the gown’s hem, he saw the fabric’s slight quivering and realized it was caused by trembling knees.

Slowly, he moved his gaze back to her face. “My God” was all he could say when his eyes met hers again.

Color flamed in her already flushed cheeks and she hugged one arm at her waist while crossing the other over her breasts. She pressed her fingertips at her throat in a failed attempt to cover herself. “I—I’m sorry,” she said, dropping her gaze from his. “All I have with me is my trousseau, the clothes I packed for my honeymoon.”

Link forced a swallow, then drew in a ragged breath. “No problem,” he murmured, his voice sounding raw even to his own ears. But it was a problem, he knew. A big one. There was no way he’d be able to stay in the cabin with her. Not with her dressed like that. Not and keep his hands off her.

But he had no other choice.

Knowing that, he scowled as he strode to the closet, snatched a flannel shirt from a hanger and tossed it to her. “Put this on,” he ordered gruffly, then pulled another out and shrugged it on to cover his own bare chest. “I found a can of stew in the pantry,” he said, and gestured toward the bedroom doorway and the main room beyond, indicating for her to precede him. “It’s probably hot by now.”

With an uneasy glance his way, Isabelle darted for the door. Link watched her and slowly released the breath he’d held. How he’d ever survive the night without touching her, he didn’t know.

But it was his duty to keep her safe, he reminded himself. And Link Templeton was a man who honored duty above all else. Even his own safety.

His own sanity.

Setting his jaw, he followed her into the kitchen, pulled down heavy mugs from the cupboard and filled them with the thick stew while she hung back, watching, her arms hugging the flannel shirt over her breasts. He gestured with one of the mugs toward the small, crude table, waited until she was seated, then plunked a mug down in front of her and sat down in the chair opposite hers.

Picking up a spoon, he stirred, keeping his gaze on his stew, watching the steam rise from it. “Think you can tell me now what happened at the church?” he asked after a moment.

When she didn’t immediately respond, he glanced up to find her gaze on his hands. Her eyes slid up to his. Their gazes met, held for a moment, his narrowing in steely determination, hers going from shy curiosity to fear in the time it took for his heart to take one more rib-threatening kick at the mere sight of her.

“I’m a cop,” he said gruffly. “You have nothing to fear from me.”

“You arrested my brother.”

Link frowned at the accusation in her tone. “I had no choice. The evidence was there against him.”

She fisted her hands on the tabletop and leaned toward him, her defensive stance taking him by surprise. A lamb turning lioness before his eyes. “Riley didn’t kill Mike,” she said angrily. “You know him better than that. Riley would never harm anyone.”

Yes, Link acknowledged silently. In his gut, he had known that. In his heart, too, if he thought he had one. But gut instincts didn’t hold any weight in a court of law. Evidence did. And the evidence stacked against Riley Fortune had been damning. So, Link had done his duty, arrested a man for a crime he knew he didn’t commit…then busted his ass to uncover the evidence he needed to clear his name. Now all he needed was enough evidence to win a conviction against the real murderer. But Isabelle didn’t know any of that, nor would he tell her.

“Do you know who did?” he asked instead.

He heard her quick inhalation of breath, saw her body stiffen, before she dropped her gaze to the hands she still held fisted on the table. “Yes,” she said, her voice trembling. She slicked her tongue across lips that fear had parched. “I know who killed Mike.”

“Who?” he asked, needing to hear her name the man his gut told him was responsible for the crime, the man the current evidence pointed to. The man she’d planned to marry. The man he despised for no other reason than Isabelle Fortune had agreed to marry him.

Slowly she lifted her face until her eyes met his again. “Brad,” she whispered, then said more strongly. “Brad Rowan.”

The certainty with which she named her fiancé, the venom behind the accusation, took Link by surprise. He’d expected her to defend him, to try to protect the man she loved. “You have proof?”

“No. But Brad killed Mike. I know he did.”

With a snort, Link dropped his spoon into the mug and reared his chair back on two legs, eyeing her sardonically. “I know a lot of guilty men who are walking the streets, but without proof, that’s exactly where they’re going to stay. On the streets. The same as Brad Rowan will.”

Her lips parted on a shocked gasp, her eyes shooting wide. “What! You aren’t going to arrest him?”

He lifted a shoulder. “On what grounds? On the circumstantial evidence I currently have? On your unfounded accusation?”

She yanked her hands to her lap and glared at him across the width of the table. “It isn’t unfounded. I heard two men talking in the vestibule.”

He dropped his chair back to all four legs. “What two men?”

She waved away the question. “I don’t know. Just two men I overheard talking—”

The diamond engagement ring she wore caught the light and shimmered, drawing Link’s gaze to it. She stopped when she realized that he wasn’t listening to her any longer, then followed his gaze to the hand she held aloft. She stared at the ring, as if unaware until that moment that she still wore it. Then, with a whimper, she twisted the ring off and hurled it across the room. It bounced off the far wall, then fell to the floor, rolling a few feet before coming to a stop at the edge of a braided rug spread on the floor before the dark fireplace. The diamond caught the light again, glimmered, seeming to wink at Link, as if teasing him with all it symbolized.

Arching a brow, he slowly shifted his gaze back to hers. “Feel better?”

She scrubbed her fingers over the spot where the ring had rested for the last several months, as if ridding her skin of something vile. “Yes,” she said, her breath hitching. “Much.”

He pursed his lips and gave his chin a jerk. “Good. Now, about those two men…”

She drew in a deep breath, placed her palms over the top of the table as if to steady herself, and then told Link what she’d overheard. When she’d finished, she leaned forward, her eyes unwavering in their conviction as they met Link’s. “He killed him. Brad killed Mike. I know he did.”

“Did you recognize the voices?”

She caught her lip between her teeth as she sank slowly back against her chair. “No,” she said, shaking her head. “Though they were both familiar.”

“How can you be sure?”

“Because they were!” she cried, her frustration returning with a vengeance. “I’ve heard the voices before. Where, I’m not sure. But I’ve heard them.”

Link leaned across the table, convinced that the two unidentified men were the key he needed to put Brad Rowan behind bars where he belonged. And Isabelle held that key. “Think, Isabelle,” he growled. “Think. Without a name, or a place, I have nothing to go on.”

Her eyes filled with tears and she pressed her fingers against her temples, shaking her head. “I’ve tried,” she cried miserably. “While I was driving through the desert, their voices played through my mind over and over again, but I simply can’t place them.”

“Could they be friends of your father’s? Employees of his?”