Bride on the Run

  Bride on the Run

  A Runaway Brides Romance

  Catherine Mann

  and

  Joanne Rock

  Bride on the Run

  Copyright © 2015 Catherine Mann and Joanne Rock

  EPUB Edition

  The Tule Publishing Group, LLC

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  ISBN: 978-1-942240-75-4

  Dedication

  “My great hope is to laugh as much as I cry; to get my work done and try to love somebody and have the courage to accept the love in return.”

  —Maya Angelou

  We have laughed so much as we wrote all of the Runaway Brides stories. It is our great hope that we were able to share some laughs and fun with you, too. Thank you for reading and giving us the chance to make you smile.

  —Joanne & Cathy

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Epilogue

  The Runaway Bride Series

  About the Authors

  Prologue

  ‡

  “Could the bride’s dress be any gaudier?”

  “All those ruffles on her anemic little body. Clearly she didn’t have a mama to help her, poor thing—”

  The whispers wrapped around Valerie Dimitri as she walked down the aisle at Saint Theodosius Church on what should be the happiest day of her life. Her hand trembled as she clasped her father’s elbow. Her bouquet was so heavy she feared she needed two fists to hold it. Or that could be her unsteady grip, currently shaking petals loose.

  The whispers continued from all these people here to gawk at the wedding and eat free prime rib at the reception in an exclusive West Palm Beach country club. “Her grandfather went to prison.”

  “Do you think drug money paid for all these flowers?”

  Her father – Anton – rested a hand over hers and squeezed. Her dad had worked so hard to cut ties from his criminal father and start a new life free of the drug-dealing mob family. Easier said than done after her mother died and money was so short, but he’d taught her that the Dimitris weren’t defined by their past, no matter their infamous last name.

  “Her whole family’s been dirty for generations,” an old man informed the people in the pews near him, his voice carrying above the soft hum of the pipe organ music. “I can’t imagine she’s as innocent as she looks.”

  “It’s the freckles with her strawberry blonde hair. Very deceptive.”

  “Gingers. Never did trust them.”

  Valerie rolled her eyes. Really? Now they were judging her by her hair color as well as her heritage? She’d spent her life being tainted by the family name. She should be used to it.

  Should be. But wasn’t.

  She stapled her focus back on her groom.

  Erik stood at the altar in his tuxedo, lean and tall. Handsome. A dependable, stable owner of a chain of dry cleaners around the greater Miami area and beyond. He was a successful, upstanding local businessman. She wanted this. A normal family. A future that wasn’t connected to the dangerous Dimitri legacy.

  If only someone had warned her that wedding jitters were so darn near debilitating.

  Stage fright, perhaps, since this wedding was so huge, so elaborate, paid for by her fiancé whose mother insisted on the works for her only child. Her father’s pride had prickled at not being able to pick up the tab, but he’d relented for his daughter so Erik could have the ceremony close to his family’s expensive West Palm Beach home.

  At the altar, nine bridesmaids waited in Vera Wang dresses. Nine groomsman in Hugo Boss. Flowers filled the church, the arrangements so massive and overpowering the place smelled like a funeral parlor. She focused on the stained glass window, the late day sun shimmering through.

  Finally, after an eternity of running the gauntlet of gawkers and whisperers, she neared the altar. Erik turned to her, his arm extended.

  It was time. She should hug her dad and let go.

  Her gut knotted tight. She looked from her father to the man she’d chosen to spend her life with. As the organ music swelled, she couldn’t figure out what had her so rattled. Why she was so afraid to trust. And then her eyes settled on Erik’s hand reaching for her.

  He wore a pinky ring, studded with diamonds.

  A silly detail. No big deal. But her gut clenched harder at the memory of her crooked grandfather wearing just such a ring. Just a coincidence. Still…

  Oh God, she didn’t think she could do this. She wasn’t even sure she loved Erik, but wondered if she was more infatuated with the idea of a normal life.

  Except marrying someone for the wrong reasons was a recipe for disaster.

  The packed church went silent as she stood still, trying to decide what to do, needing a sign. Then her father reached for her and wrapped her in a burly hug.

  “Valerie,” her dad whispered. “It’s not too late. You can still run, baby. Run.”

  Her breath caught in her throat. His words confirming her every fear. Something wasn’t right about this marriage and her dad knew it. Hadn’t her father tried to tell her there was something off about Erik and his fast rise in the Miami business world? That ring should have tipped her off sooner in their relationship, but she’d never had such a clear look at it as she had just now. Almost as if the sun through the stained glass windows had sent one last stream of bright light to clue her in that Erik was more than a simple dry cleaner.

  But how did a person just bolt from the altar?

  Just as she feared she would have to fake a faint, her father pressed something in the palm of her hand and she felt the familiar cold weight of his key chain. The one she’d played with often as a child. The keys to his vintage Harley.

  “Daddy?” she asked softly.

  He folded his fingers over hers and whispered, “My bike’s out back. Take it, Val. There’s a go-kit locked inside the saddle bag.”

  A go-kit. Words from her childhood as they had to run when influences from her grandfather tried to nudge Dad back into their world. Or when their money ran out and they needed to dodge a landlord.

  Or she needed to dump a groom.

  Her heart beat faster as a restless murmur hummed over the wedding guests. If she was going to pull this off, she had to be brave, like her dad. “Thank you. I love you, Daddy.”

  “Love you too, baby girl. Be happy. Be safe.” He flipped up her veil, removing the barrier between them and leaned in as if to kiss her cheek. “I’ll hold them off here. Now run.”

  He was right. And she knew it with a sudden, startling clarity.

  Letting go of her father, she turned Erik. “I’m so sorry. I can’t do this.”

  Without giving him time to question or argue, she dropped her bouquet and felt like an even heavier weight had been lifted from her shoulders. She clutched bunches of ruffled tulle and took off at a dead sprint past her gaping bridesmaids. Their tangerine gowns were a blur o
f tea-length satin as she made way to the side door leading into the hall. She startled a guitarist waiting to play the Ave Maria.

  “Excuse me. I need to—I’ll be right back.” Not.

  She yanked open a door and—.

  The fire alarm shrieked.

  Damn it.

  The high-pitched alarm system ringing in her ears, she scanned the back parking lot, over rows and rows of high-end cars, gleaming in the late day sun. Finally, the setting rays glinted off the sheen of her father’s Harley. He’d parked it beside a small cornfield.

  She jogged across the lot, her heels click, click, clicking. She would have ditched them altogether but she couldn’t ride barefoot. Already a hubbub had started behind her, the sound of opening doors and a swell of voices. She wouldn’t have long to make her escape.

  She unlocked the saddle bags for a quick look and sure enough. Her dad had left a go-kit with cash, a lot of it. Clothes, all different than her conservative style. An ID in the name of Serena Allen. Diploma in her new name with a Master’s degree in counseling that matched her own.

  And CDs for creating accents?

  Accents. Yeah. Her dad had thought of everything.

  Everything she needed to run.

  Chapter One

  ‡

  One Year Later

  In the top of the ninth inning, during a Sunday afternoon home game, Atlanta Stars’ third baseman Boone Sullivan would normally be thinking about his defense and putting away the game for his team since they had a lead.

  He’d carved out a Gold Glove career with three All-Star game appearances by never letting his focus waver, no matter what his personal life threw at him. Growing up poor, he’d walked to practices. Did odd jobs to pay for his equipment. Just this spring, his reality TV star fiancée had decided to dump him while on a live broadcast, outraging his fans, and creating a sordid tabloid drama that could derail a career. But Boone had refused to let it rattle him, starting the season with the league’s highest batting average for May.

  Now, two months after a radio talk-show host had convinced his former fiancée to ditch him while his fiancée was in the middle of filming her reality TV series—yes, he’d been dumped on both television and radio simultaneously—he allowed himself a moment to be distracted. Not from the stinging pain in his leg from the raw cut he’d had taped up in the locker room a few minutes ago. No, he hardly felt the burn of that injury from a slide into home plate that had padded the Stars’ lead to three runs. The distraction came from the news he’d discovered in a surreptitious glance at his phone while the trainer sterilized and treated the wound.

  After two months of searching for the mysterious Serena Allen, the talk-show host who’d advised his fiancée to walk out on him; Boone’s private detective had located the mysterious radio personality. Up until he’d read the note, Boone hadn’t even known Serena’s last name, let alone her whereabouts.

  But now, as he watched the first baseman field the second out of the inning, Boone could taste another kind of victory. Pounding his fist into his glove the way he’d been doing since he was in little league, Boone shouted out a reminder to the left fielder to play deep. The kid was rookie and would hate being called out, but Boone didn’t care.

  The Atlanta sun burned bright on his back, the fans packed the stadium with a sellout crowd and, for the first time in two months, he was on top of the world. Not because he was on his way to having a career year. But because Serena Allen lived in Savannah, Georgia. Which meant four hours from now, he would be able to face her at last. Ask her who the hell she thought she was to dole out advice on Sex Talk with Serena like her word was some kind of gospel.

  In the batter’s box, the opposing team’s clean-up hitter ripped a line drive so hard that Boone barely had time to react from when he heard the crack of the bat. Reaching across his body with his glove, he knocked the ball out of the air with the tip of the leather, fielded it in a hurry and air-mailed the thing over to first base.

  Third out.

  Game over.

  The crowd went wild over another victory in Atlanta’s recent run of home wins. The left fielder jogged up behind him to tap his shoulder with his glove.

  “Nice play.” The South American rookie flashed a grin that had probably been in braces a year ago.

  “Especially since I got to rob Rodrigo of a hit.” The New York second baseman was cocky as hell for one thing. For another, he’d made a few wisecracks to the media about Boone’s ex-fiancée deciding to break up with him while on Sex Talk with Serena.

  Boone had forgiven Annamae Jessup for jilting him, but he hadn’t come close to forgiving Serena Allen since she’d never spoken out during the media frenzy to quiet things down or say that – just maybe – she’d made a mistake.

  Making jerkoffs like Rodrigo think they could weigh in on Boone’s love life when the tabloids came looking for quotes.

  “A bunch of us are going out to Steely Jack’s after the game. You want to come with?” The rookie’s offer surprised him. Boone didn’t hang much with the younger set and hadn’t for the last few years.

  Back when he and Annamae had been dating, they’d double dated with Grady Hollis, the second baseman, and the guy’s new bride. But ever since Boone had been shuffled aside, he’d kept to himself.

  “Thanks, man, but I can’t tonight.” Boone tapped gloves with the catcher and the pitcher to celebrate the win, the team congregating close to the dugout.

  “Stop by if you change your mind. We’re going to help Bojangles get a date for the Foundation Weekend Black Tie Gala.” The rookie was friends with one of the team’s new trainers, a guy they called Bojangles, after he busted out a harmonica during a stretch session his first week. “It’s gonna be fun.” He headed toward the right field line to sign autographs for the fans, a team obligation the new guys were well suited for.

  Already, a crowd of kids waved programs and baseballs.

  For today, Boone was glad the veteran players had earned some more leeway after a game. He could probably get out of the interviews if he went into one of the treatment rooms to check his shin and make sure he didn’t need stitches. Injuries always bought a player some forgiveness from the press.

  Except Boone knew his shredded skin didn’t hurt so much as his damaged reputation. A reputation Serena Allen was going to repair by telling her listeners she’d made one hell of a mistake by counseling Annamae to walk out on him. Once she did that, he would be able to put the incident behind him. Move on with his life and this season that could net the Stars a long overdue championship. He just needed to make sure the Serena Allens of the world were accountable for tearing through other peoples’ lives without regard to the cost.

  Boone didn’t mind having his professional life scrutinized. But he’d worked too hard to keep his private life protected to have a wannabe therapist with a microphone deciding what was best for him. It was time for Serena to admit to the world that she was a fraud and that her show wasn’t meant to be taken seriously. And he had the perfect venue for her to meet the press. She could be his date for the Foundation Weekend Black Tie Gala.

  Didn’t matter if she was seventy years old and a hunchback. He was making a quick trip to Savannah and bringing her to Atlanta to fix her mistakes.

  *

  “The Sex Talk issues can get tricky – so to speak,” said Valerie Dimitri – aka Serena Allen – to the two women she’d brought on to help her with fielding questions as well as assisting in business aspects. “What do you say to a man who hacks into his girlfriend’s email account to search for evidence of infidelity?” Valerie/Serena poured detergent into the apartment washing machine while she conducted her weekly business meeting in the basement of the converted factory building, overlooking the river, in downtown Savannah.

  A holdover habit from the days when she’d first started the business while still on the hideout from her fiancé who hadn’t taken her rejection at the altar well. She’d been right to run. Erik had only been after h
er as a connection to her grandfather’s world.

  She swiped her arm over the perspiration on her forehead, more from stress of the memories than the humidity pumping out of the laundry room. These unorthodox cellar gatherings had been instrumental for the women who helped her with Sex Talk with Serena – a single mom unable to afford a babysitter, an agoraphobic online shopper, and a lonely widow with limited mobility who was currently absent since the elevator was on the fritz.

  Luckily, her family and her wedding weren’t big enough news outside of the West Palm Beach and greater Miami area for her to be recognizable to the public at large. Thanks to her father’s go-kit and her own penchant for accents, no one suspected the British Serena Allen was actually Valerie Dimitri, granddaughter to an imprisoned mob boss.

  Still, she needed to stay out of the public eye to keep Erik and her Grandpa’s seedy connections from finding her.

  She’d been lucky to find these friends, women who needed her as much as she needed them. They were multitasking experts, agreeing that work should only be conducted when they could simultaneously accomplish necessary chores. Laundry – unfortunately – was one of them. And since they lived in the same building, the laundry room had become their most used meeting place.

  “Depends. Did he find proof of her cheating?” The forty-year-old radio show business partner, Meg Morrison, mildly agoraphobic, asked from behind a half-folded beach towel.

  At the same moment, Desiree Blanchard, their twenty-three year old associate chimed in.

  “I’d tell him he’s a pig-humping loser and that insecurity doesn’t excuse violating his girlfriend’s privacy.” Single mom Desiree folded tiny tank tops and frilly, feminine boxer shorts at lightning speed. “And dopey guys aside for a minute, why on earth do you dump Dreft into the washer week after week, Valerie? It’s got a baby right on the front of the box. Clearly it’s not meant for adults. As much as I love my little munchkin napping in his car seat over there, I look forward to the day my clothes smell like gardenias or jasmine. Something sexy.”