A collective gasp echoed through the flower-strewn clearing. “Maggie!” her fiancé, Gus Radcliffe, yelled as the white-satin-and-lace-clad bride disappeared into the cover of green. “What the—?”
“Go after her!” another guest shouted hysterically.
Not about to see one calamity turn into two, Hart stepped forward and lifted a staying hand. “Everyone, stay put! The last thing we need is anyone getting lost in the woods.” He looked out into the crowd reassuringly. “I’ll find her and escort her to safety.”
Hart turned to Maggie’s twin sister, Callie McCabe, feeling a little sorry for her. This was her wedding, too, that her sister had just disrupted. “If you want to get married today while there is still daylight, you better go on with your part of the double-wedding ceremony,” he advised, kindly.
Callie appeared to waver.
Her parents, Drs. Jackson and Lacey McCabe, seemed to understand the wisdom of limiting the damages as best they could. Jackson leaned down to whisper something in his remaining daughter’s ear.
Realizing enough time had been wasted, Hart left the rest of them to sort it out, and followed the runaway bride’s path.
* * *
MAGGIE COULDN’T BELIEVE IT. She’d barely been gone five minutes and she was already completely lost. Knowing, however, if she stayed where she was and tried to get her bearings, someone would likely come after her, she kept right on plowing through the heavy cover of cedar, oak and pine trees.
The old logging road she’d seen from the train had to be here somewhere, Maggie reassured herself. All she had to do was find it, and—
Caught up short, Maggie bit down on an oath. The hem of her long skirt had snagged on the branches of a thick, thorny bush. Hurriedly, she tried to work it free and stabbed her fingertips in the process. “Ouch!” She pressed the bleeding appendages to her mouth, and when that did almost nothing to abate the sharp pain, another string of very unladylike words escaped her lips.
“Nice.”
At the sound of the deep male voice, she swore again. Louder and more virulently this time. And was rewarded with a chuckle.
“Need some help there?”
Maggie dropped her still-stinging hand, drew a breath and turned.
Of course it was him. Hart Sanders. The just-out-of-the-military son and heir to the Double Knot Wedding Ranch. Temporarily at loose ends, he’d been tapped—unwillingly, it seemed— into service as the official escort for the McCabe double wedding. She had noticed him in the foreground at the rehearsal dinner the evening before. And yet, disinterested as he had appeared to be in the festivities, he could not seem to stop looking at her. Or, if she were honest, she at him.
Embarrassed color heating her face, Maggie lifted her chin. This crazy attraction she seemed to be having for Hart Sanders was nothing but a symptom of the inadvisability of her marriage plans. A symptom she desperately needed to ignore.
Aware he was the only thing between her and escape, she retorted, “No. I do not need any help.” She made a shooing motion. “So you can go on about your business.”
He smiled grimly. “Hate to break it to you, but at the moment you are my business.”
Maggie glared. “Like heck I am! I got myself into this mess, and I can darn well get myself out.”
“Well, this will be fun.” He folded his arms in front of him. Waited.
Determined to do this on her own, she knelt down and gave another, less delicate, tug. This time, to her satisfaction, her skirt did come free of the thorn bush. It also ripped from shin to midthigh, revealing way too much stocking-clad leg, as well as her silk magnolia blossom-studded garter. Although at this point, Maggie thought wearily, what did that matter?
Aware that Hart was still watching her intently, she lifted her skirt in her hands and continued on her way, stumbling along on the uneven ground.
He said nothing more.
Surprised, she turned and found he had been following her. Soundlessly. Effortlessly. To the point they were now just a mere two feet from each other.
She stared up at the six-foot-four Texan, born and bred. He was solid muscle. Combat ready. And gorgeous, head-to-toe, from the top of his short light brown hair and deep sable eyes. She stared at his square jaw and the ruggedly masculine planes of his face, wishing he weren’t so damned confident.
“I said,” she repeated, wearily, “that I did not need your help!”
Hart nodded sagely, about as movable as a two ton boulder. “I heard you.”
Apparently, he just hadn’t believed her.
She swallowed as he stepped even closer, feeling the heat radiating from his body. She drew in another breath, taking in the scent of him, so utterly crisp and male. Like the men in the wedding party, he was wearing a tuxedo and white shirt. Black alligator boots. How he managed to look gallant and disreputable all at once she did not know. She only knew that standing so close to him was making her tingle in a way that was not in the least bit appropriate. “Then why are you still here?”
He stood, legs braced apart, arms folded in front of him. “Because, like most Texas gentlemen, I was brought up to never, ever, leave a lady in distress.”
Ignoring the tension headache that had been dogging her all day, Maggie balled her fists at her sides and blurted out angrily, “Look, I can see you mean well, but I really can handle this.”
His gaze moved over her in another long, thoughtful survey. “You sure seem to be doing a bang-up job so far.”
No one had to tell her she’d made a terrible mess of things by once again allowing herself to be caught up and swept along by events that were oh-so-exciting at the time and oh-so-wrong for her later. But she was not about to tell any of that to the arrogant, infuriating man standing in front of her. Maggie admitted instead, “I just didn’t want to get married, okay?” He shrugged and lifted his brow, seeming to reserve judgment on the workings of her fickle heart. “Nothing wrong with changing your mind,” he said, quietly. Then, as if unable to resist, he added, “Even if your timing did suck.”
Aware that she really was drawn to him, a fact that was as shocking as it was unacceptable, Maggie took another step back. She was not going to fantasize about what it would be like to feel the force of that much masculine confidence and testosterone. She was not going to wonder what it would be like to experience the skill of those big hands and sensual lips, or feel the weight of his body stretched over the top of hers. Not when what she really needed here was to be free.
Jerking in a stabilizing breath, she forced herself to return to the matter at hand. “Look, I know you’re a man on a mission, but I just want to limit my embarrassment and get out of here.”
He extended a hand. “Then come back up the mountain with me.”
Maggie thought about everyone she had let down, the beautiful ceremony she had willfully—and wrongfully—ruined. And all because she didn’t know her own mind. “Thanks, but no. I’m getting out of these woods on my own,” she declared.
Another cool lift of the brow, as he regarded her with those gorgeous dark brown eyes. And then once again, he moved swiftly and patiently toward her.
* * *
HART WOULD HAVE preferred not to have to do this, but given the alternatives, he had no choice. Ignoring the runaway bride’s swift gasp of dismay, he caught her against him, slid a hand under her knees, another behind her back and swung her up into his arms. The five-foot-seven brunette was every bit as supple, slender and feminine as she looked.
He’d carried heavier loads when he was in the army, but trekking back up the mountain with a woman struggling in his arms would be no easy trek.
The