“You’ll have to go out the window,” Mia said, and both turned to look at the window. It was a small window.
Natalie was sure that the window was painted shut and had been for years; she had never seen it open. And it was small, no bigger than any other basement window she had seen in her life. She and her bulky dress were not ever getting out of that window.
“It’s too small,” Natalie whispered in disappointment.
“When I was in confirmation, my entire class climbed out that window, including Stephanie Willis, and she was always as big as she is today,” Mia said of a friendly woman who came into the library a few times a month with her four noisy kids. If she could fit through that window, Natalie was sure she could.
“Do you think I can?” Natalie asked more about leaving than if she could fit.
“Better to leave now than after.”
Natalie smelled the roses in her bouquet; they were fake, but Faith Champ had somehow made them smell real. Faith had spent months working on these for her. She was the art teacher at the high school with her dad, who taught science. They had been friends forever.
Setting down the flowers on the table, she looked at Mia. “I have to get out of here.”
Mia smiled back at her. “Out the window, and then I will stall the wedding for twenty minutes. My Jeep is in the parking lot. The keys are in it.”
Natalie hitched up her beautiful large white dress and climbed onto the table. For some reason, Natalie couldn’t stop smiling. All the weight lifting from her made anything possible right in that moment.
Mia put her hand on her leg and pulled a phone from between her ample breasts, placing it in Natalie’s hand. “You’ll need this. Call when you land.”
Natalie took the phone and stood up on the table, pushed up the window, and easily climbed out of it. Too easily for how small it was. She went out headfirst with Mia pushing her dress out as she went. She was free.
Within an instant, she was completely soaked from the sheets of rain coming from the sky. Jumping to her feet, she blindly ran toward the back of the parking lot, where she saw Mia’s red Jeep waiting for her. All she had to do was run through three large puddles and a torrent of rain. She could do this. She had to. She couldn’t go back now.
She was almost there when someone came out from behind a black pickup truck right into her path. Putting her hands up, she was just going to tackle the person like she had been taught in high school Physical Ed class. Praying it wasn’t an old person because she wasn’t stopping, she put her weight into the tackle like she was taught.
Just as she made contact, she felt herself being lifted off the ground. At that point, she knew she was never getting to Mia’s Jeep.
CHAPTER2
The runaway bridewas in Sam Sullivan’s arms before he even knew what he was doing. What was he doing? It seemed like she had a plan, so just let her go and do her thing. She didn’t need him.
Even with a soaking wet dress, she was easy to sweep into his arms. Too easy.
Sam had been sitting in his truck waiting for the rain to let up a little before he went into the church. The day was here, and he was not excited to attend the wedding. He was actually only here so he could tell Patrick that he had gone. Weddings were not his thing.
Moments before seeing her, he had actually decided that he was not going inside with the rain coming down like it was. There was no way he was sitting through the wedding, miserable and wet. But then he had seen it, a blur of white by the back of the church heading his way. He jumped out of the truck and headed her off as she ran for the back of the parking lot.
“Get me out of here,” she hissed from his arms.
Spinning around, he carried her to his truck and opened the passenger door. After letting her climb in, he rushed around the car to the driver’s side and, without a word, started it and backed out of the spot and then out of the parking lot. Pulling onto Main Street, they sped away from the little white church as fast as he could go. At least he wouldn’t have to go to a wedding anymore.
“Where to?”
“I have no idea.” She was trying to fix the ball of wet hair on her head, but nothing helped.
Natalie Beckett was as beautiful as she had been on the wedding announcement he had placed on his fridge months ago. He looked at that photo every day. Long black hair, wavy and thick, with dark green eyes that sparkled with happiness. Perfect, almost flawless olive skin. This beautiful woman looked nothing like the little troublemaking teen who had made the first few months of his first year of teaching unbearable.
“My place?” It felt odd asking the bride back to his place. Sounded like a come on.
“Where do you live?” Since it was a small town, she would know almost every house in it.
“Behind your dad,” he answered.
“The Jackson or Knutson place?” Of course, she’d know the previous owners; she had grown up in the house her father still lived in. He thought she had moved back in with her dad when she was done with college, but he hadn’t seen her. The subject hadn’t come up, and he hadn’t asked Patrick. It wasn’t for him to know.
“Jackson, I think. The blue one.” He tried to remember what he had been told years before when he had purchased the place. At the time, he hadn’t even realized it was so close to his friend’s house, just across the back yard. Now they didn’t usually get together at home either—they worked together.