Page 28 of Runaway Bride’s Husband

CHAPTER 12

MAGGIE

With Ryan gone, the whir of the chainsaw silent, and the storm passed, it hadn’t taken long for the silence in the cottage to become deafening. It’d pressed against my ears and made my chest feel tight, so I’d finally set the letters aside, grabbed a shower, and gotten dressed into my last change of clean clothes.

My taxi driver back in California had kindly stopped on the way to the airport and run into a store for me to buy an outfit I could change into before the flight. I’d picked up a few more things just after I’d arrived in Deerfield, but later today, I was going to have to figure out if the old washer in the scullery still worked.

For now, however, I’d turned off my phone and I swept a rake through the grass, gathering yet another pile of leaves. After the storm, the property was blanketed in those, fallen branches, sticks, and a few other odds and ends that must’ve gotten blown in.

I wouldn’t pretend to know much about yard work, but so far, I was enjoying it. Morning sunshine warmed the back of my neck and the lightest breeze kept me from overheating, but mercifully, it wasn’t strong enough to undo my hard work.

Over the next few hours, I cleaned up the garden and the porch, but my mind kept drifting back to that photograph Ryan had found. For a while, I’d thought maybe my grandfather had simply been attending the wedding and that the bride had merely been a friend he’d gotten a picture with, but the way his hand was curled around her hip while she leaned into him didn’t exactly seem friendly.

Also, even after all these years, the way they’d looked at each other the moment that picture had been taken still spoke volumes. Unless the word friends had had a different definition back then, I doubted that was all they’d been.

Sighing as I bent over, I wrapped my fingers around the rough bark of a fallen branch and dragged it to the edge of the property. It was heavier than it’d looked, the muscles in my arms burning by the time I got it to the fence, but I still grinned when I finally got it to the others I’d already piled there.

Hell, yes. Who says I’m just a weak heiress who can’t do anything for herself?

I straightened up, flexing my fingers a few times to get the feeling back into the parts that were numb. As I looked out at the wide, agricultural valley beyond the fence and the river in the distance with the backdrop of a bright blue sky, I suddenly understood why my grandfather would’ve bought a place out here.

It was beautiful. Peaceful. Quiet.

Maybe a little too quiet for someone like me who’d grown up in the city, but I was sure I could get used to it. Unfortunately, a moment later, the sound of an engine cut through that quiet and I sighed, knowing before I even turned that Ryan had come back.

Without looking at his car, I crunched back to the house over the leaves remaining on the grass and picked up the rake again, holding it in my hand as his car rolled to a stop. As soon as I heard the door open, I propped my free hand on my hip and looked over at him.

“Get off my property or I’m calling the state troopers.”

Ryan emerged from the car as gracefully as if he’d never once accidentally stepped in a hole. It was like he simply expected the dirt to scramble to create the perfect surface for him to stand on. Wayfarer sunglasses covered his eyes, but the rest of his face suggested he hadn’t even winced at my threat as he slammed the driver’s door.

“Great. Do it.” He started walking toward the house, obviously having taken the morning to refresh his own wardrobe since he was now in jeans and a fresh, sky-blue button-down shirt. “It’s likely the police are already looking for you, so if you call them, you’d be saving some detective an unnecessary search.”

I narrowed my eyes and slowly lowered the rake. “What are you talking about? Why would they be looking for me?”

“Your family is this close,” he held two fingers a fraction of an inch apart, “to reporting you as a missing person.”

“They wouldn’t.” I leaned the rake against the wall and folded my arms. “They know I’m safe. I told my father I was fine.”

“And yet, his patience is running out.”

My teeth ground, but I knew he probably had a point. My dad would stop at nothing to get me back so I could play my part just like I always had. If that meant launching a nation-wide womanhunt, I was suddenly sure he’d do it.

“What do you want?” I asked as Ryan stepped onto the porch, then turned to survey the yard.

“That’s easy.” He pulled off his sunglasses and held them loosely in one hand as he glanced at me. “I want you to come back to New York. I’m sure we could find you a garden to clean there, too. You’re not doing a bad job of it, by the way.”

I snorted. “Thanks, but it’s still a hard no from me.”

He sighed, moving a step closer to the railing before hooking his sunglasses into the collar of his shirt and then bracing both palms against the wood. Facing the view, he looked out at the same valley and river I’d been admiring when he’d so rudely interrupted me, but I didn’t think it made him feel the same way I had.

Even in jeans, Ryan still looked too polished to be here, his sharp jaw clean shaven and his fancy watch, shirt, and sunglasses way out of place on a porch still mostly covered in leaves and debris. He might’ve complimented me on doing a good job, but I was slowly realizing there was still a long way to go.

Who knew cleaning up after a storm could take that long?

“If you don’t want to go home, you can stay at my apartment?”

My eyebrows shot up, my thoughts about the clean-up stopped on a dime. “You want me to come stay with you? I don’t even know where you live.”