Page 2 of Stealing the Runaway Bride

The truck lurches forward, the powerful engine roaring as he pulls away from the pump. I look back just in time to see a sleek, silver SUV—my father’s lead security detail—screech into the gas station. A man in a dark suit jumps out, looking frantically toward the highway.

Cag doesn't head for the highway. He hangs a sharp right, tires spitting gravel as he guns it toward a rutted dirt track that looks like it leads straight into the heart of the mountains.

"Where are we going?" I demand, gripping the seat as we bounce over a pothole.

"Away," he grunts.

The silence that follows is heavy, filled only with the sound of the wind whistling through the slightly cracked windows and the rhythmic ticking of the whittled bird hitting the dash as we climb. I should be terrified. I’ve just jumped into a vehicle with a massive, scarred stranger who smells like he could break me in half.

But as I watch his large, steady hands on the steering wheel, I don't feel fear. I feel a strange, terrifying sense of arrival.

My father always told me that every person has a price, and every object has a purpose. He’d looked at me across his mahogany desk two weeks ago, tossing a folder onto the blotter.

“The merger is contingent on stability, Juliette. A wedding provides that. You’ll marry the boy, you’ll produce an heir within two years, and your studio will receive another ten million in funding. It’s a simple transaction.”

A transaction. Not a life. Not a choice. Just a line item on a balance sheet.

I’d bitten the inside of my cheek until I tasted copper, nodding like the dutiful daughter he’d raised. I’d spent the next fourteen days planning my destruction. I’d sewn a secret pocket into the lining of this very dress, stuffed with the cash I’d skimmed from my business accounts over the last year. I’d made the calls. I’d staged the escape.

But I hadn't planned for Cag.

I look at him out of the corner of my eye. He’s staring straight ahead, his jaw set in a hard line. He’s a once-burned man; I can see it in the way he carries himself, like he’s waiting for the other shoe to drop. There’s a weariness in the set of his shoulders that matches the hollow ache in my own chest.

"You're shaking," he says. It’s not soft. It’s a command to stop.

"Adrenaline is a hell of a drug," I snap back, though he’s right. My knees are knocking together under the layers of silk. "I’ve just ruined a multi-million dollar merger and probably gave my father a minor heart attack. Forgive me if I’m not as stoic as a mountain."

"Your father," Cag repeats, the name sounding like a curse in his mouth. "Conrad Marchand."

My blood runs cold. "How do you know who I am?"

He doesn't answer immediately. He wheels the truck onto an even narrower path, the pine trees closing in around us like a green curtain. The scent of needles and damp earth fills the cab, replacing the dust of the gas station.

"Everyone in the valley knows the Marchands," he finally says, his voice dropping an octave. "They're the ones trying to buy the soul out of this place. Black Aspen Holdings. Your old man is the bankroll behind the snakes."

I flinch. The trauma of the last few months—the realization that my father was using me as a pawn to destroy the very land I’ve always found peace in—washes over me. I’d seen the maps in his office. Red lines drawn through ranches that had been in families for generations. Names like Pine Ridge circled in black ink.

"I’m not him," I whisper, and for the first time today, the sass is gone. "I didn't know. Not until it was too late."

Cag’s hand leaves the steering wheel for a split second, hovering over my knee before he pulls it back, his knuckles white. He looks like he wants to touch me, or maybe shove me out of the truck. The conflict on his face is raw, a battle between a deep-seated hatred for my name and something hungrier that’s reacting to my presence.

"Doesn't matter who you are," he growls, his gaze fixed on the road. "You’re in my truck now. And I don’t give back what’s mine."

The word mine hangs in the air, thick and heavy as the mountain humidity. It should sound like a threat. It should make me want to jump out of the moving vehicle. But as I look at the jagged scar on his jaw and the fierce, protective set of his brow, I realize I’ve never heard a more beautiful word in my life.

We continue to climb, the truck laboring against the incline. I watch the needle on the dash, the fuel gauge hovering near half. I think about the girl who woke up this morning and put on a veil. I think about the designer who spent hundreds of hours on a dress that’s now a pile of rags on the floor of a stranger’s truck.

She’s dead.

The woman sitting here, smelling the pine and the saddle oil, is someone new. Someone who doesn't mind the dirt under her fingernails or the fact that she has no idea where she’s going to sleep tonight.

We round a bend, and the trees thin out, revealing a sprawling valley below. It’s breathtaking—a patchwork of gold and green, bisected by a silver ribbon of a river. In the distance, I can see the outbuildings of a massive ranch.

"Pine Ridge?" I ask softly.

"Home," Cag says.

The way he says it—with such quiet, unyielding pride—makes a lump form in my throat. I’ve lived in penthouses and villas. I’ve slept in five-star hotels across three continents. But I’ve never had a home. Not the way he means it.