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Writer's pictureMaggie Shayne

SNEAK PEEK


A beautiful woman with long red curls sitting in a field of texas bluebonnets wearing denim

HARRISON HYDE AND THE RUNAWAY BRIDE

by

MAGGIE SHAYNE

COPYRIGHT 2024 MS LEWIS - ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Releasing October 8th - eBook exclusively on Amazon - Paperback everywhere eBook pre-order available now - Paperback pre-order coming soon

CHAPTER ONE


Bookcover with redhead in field, smiling

My life’s work is done,” said Harrison Hyde. He was driving his reliable ten-year-old Volvo westward across Texas, on his way to New Mexico. He’d started out in Florida.


He glanced at the oval photo charm that dangled from his mirror. “I don’t know how I can keep my promise, Mom. You said to keep the family together, and I couldn’t even do it for a year. Dad wants to move to that retirement community in Florida where a bunch of your old friends are. It’s a nice place. His asthma’s getting worse all the time. He shouldn’t be alone, but he says they have caregivers there.”


He sighed and looked at the horizon. There was a church steeple way off in the distance, and as he drew nearer, he spotted the other rooftops of a dusty West Texas town.


“Lily passed the NCLEX, got her pin and put in applications at every hospital within driving distance of Ithaca, based on the assumption I’d still be at Cornell. But what do I do about Dad, if he wants to move?”


He was speaking toward the passenger seat, as if his mother were riding with him. He pictured the window rolled down and her long platinum hair blowing in the breeze, and he tried to imagine what she would say.


The words that floated into his mind in his mother’s voice were, “What do you want, Harrison?”


What did he want? Well, that was the question, wasn’t it? And that was why he was driving to the demo site in New Mexico instead of flying out like the rest of the team. To give himself time to think about what he wanted, and what came next. He’d been devoted to his research for seven years. And now it was done. The result was sitting in a padded black box that looked like it ought to hold a large piece of jewelry, in the passenger seat, with his mother’s ghost.


She’d been gone a year. She hadn’t lived to see his life’s work accomplished. And while Harrison believed in science, not ghosts, he found comfort in talking to her and imagining her replies. They’d been so close, he could pull up an accurate approximation to what she might say in any given situation, based on all the years they’d spent together. He often worked through problems that way.


Returning his attention to the road, he saw a brown and yellow trailhead sign beside a green metal highway sign that said, “Quinn: 1 mile.”


“What I want,” he said with a burst of clarity, “is to take a break from driving and stretch my legs. I haven’t moved in too many hours.”


The pull-off was small and surrounded in scrubby brush. A little stream ran through it, which surprised him, as close as he was to the desert.


He got out, closed the door, and stretched his arms way up over his head, arching his back until it cracked. He was wearing light khakis, a blue, short-sleeved, button-down shirt, and a pair of canvas slip-ons. Everything lightweight and easy. Perfect for a short walk.


It felt good to move. The air was warm and dry as he hiked out along the trail. It would be hot later in the day, it being June in Southwest Texas. But it was only ten a.m., and not yet unbearable.


It was weird, not having work to think about or problems to solve. He’d solved them all. Well, he and his team: Carrie, Solomon, and Robert.


The dry air carried the scent of some flower that must be in blossom nearby. He started up the trail, over red-brown dirt and fine red pebbles that hadn’t quite made it to dirt yet. He felt them shifting under the soles of his flimsy canvas shoes. Not exactly hiking shoes. He’d brought hiking shoes, but he hadn’t thought to change, and he was already too far from the car to warrant going back. Besides, the terrain didn’t look too rough. It wound slightly uphill amid squatty trees, and stands of aromatic brush that gave off a scent like pepper and spice. There were boulders every kid ever born would want to climb. He’d climbed boulders just like them as a kid on family camping trips to places like this.


Around the next curve in the trail, he spotted a lean gray jackrabbit. The rabbit froze, motionless except for his twitching nose.


“Yeah, that’s right, buddy. You’re invisible.” To cut the nervous little guy a break, he turned away, looking elsewhere. As soon as he did, the rabbit scampered off, throwing up dirt in his wake. Harrison laughed.


It was nice, not thinking. Just being. He focused on the moment, something he hadn’t done since work on the solar tile had begun. There was nothing left to do but the big demonstration in New Mexico for an audience of potential investors; in private, he’d been referring to the demo as the “Silver City Shark Tank.” That was what it felt like.


He had to be there by noon on Wednesday. By the time it was over, he might be a wealthy man. It was only Saturday. He was going to take his sweet time. He’d never thought about what he would do after the solar tile. But he intended to figure it out on this road trip. He had hours of quiet time, driving across Texas with nothing to do but think.


The steady thud of his footsteps in the dry red substrate were like a drumbeat, and they brought a memory. Horse hooves on similar ground. His mom had found a trail-riding outfit not far from their Ithaca home when he was very young and Lily was just a toddler. From that year on, every autumn when the foliage peaked, they’d take a family trail ride amid the vivid colors of New York State. The clip-clop of hooves would eventually soften, cushioned by a lemon-yellow, pumpkin-orange, and scarlet-red carpet of fallen leaves.


He topped a low rise and stopped walking to take in the view. Off in the distance, the white steeple was closer than he’d seen it from the road. He turned to resume his walk just in time to see a speeding, red-headed missile in tattered white satin right before she hit him.


His breath gusted, and he went over backwards, feet up. His back hit the ground hard, his keys and water bottle flying in opposite directions. The woman who’d crashed into him was down, too. He could see white lace portions of her in his peripheral, but his view was mostly of the sky. It took him a second to get a breath, and that second was filled with the woman not-quite-cussing a blue streak.


“Golddern, mother lovin’ tourists!”


He sat up. She got upright, and he took note of her torn wedding dress, the twigs in her wild red hair, and the anger in her doe-brown eyes. She looked right back at him so intently it made him wonder what he looked like through her eyes. Then she looked away from him, snatched up the duffel bag she’d dropped when they’d collided. She continued looking around the ground, so he did, too. All he saw were her cute bare toes, peeking out from the shredded hem of the gown.


She saw something else, though, because she crouch-lunged, snatched his dropped car keys, then raced back down the trail in the direction of his car.


He blinked as reality hit him. The bedraggled bride was about to steal his car!


“Hey!” He sprinted after her. “Hey, what do you think you’re doing with my keys?”


“Gettin’ away from my family for a few hours,” she shouted. “Keep up, or I’ll leave without you.” Her bare feet pounded over the trail, making him wince in pain on her behalf, but she didn’t even seem to notice. The trail spilled into the parking spot, and the woman threw her duffel into the back of his car and dove behind the wheel.

“No,” he shouted. “Just wait a minute now, come on!” He ran up to the Volvo and grabbed the driver’s door before she could close it.


She shrugged and started the engine. “I’ll drive away with the car and your arm. Don’t think I won’t. I’m not a fan of your gender, right now.”


“Just… fine, I’ll take you wherever you want, but you have to let me drive.”


She looked in the direction of that little town then back up the trail, and he realized she was afraid someone was coming after her. Then she said, “Okay, just, hurry it up.” She gathered the white fabric all the way up around her waist and climbed over the console into the passenger seat. On the way, she picked up the black box— his life’s work— and tossed it into the back while he reached for it, making noises that weren’t quite words.


Nah-bah-gah—” The box landed safely near his dad’s tackle box, and he lowered his hand and sighed in relief.


“Come on!” she twanged. She turned around, providing a glimpse of lacy underpants before lowering her skirts and sitting in the passenger seat.


He got in, closed the door, reached for his seatbelt—


She reached over and pulled the shift lever into reverse, and the car jerked, startling him so much he let the seatbelt go and grabbed the wheel.


“Go!” she shouted.


“Going!” He went.


 


Jessi Brand left her front row pew and walked back down the aisle and around a corner toward the dressing room where her only daughter was getting ready to get married. Her heart was torn right down the middle. On the one hand, she wanted Maria Michele to have the perfect wedding day. On the other hand, if she was having second thoughts about marrying Billy Bob Cantrell, that was probably a good thing. Jessi’d never felt he was good enough for her girl, and she’d had a feeling since sunup that Maria had realized it, too.


Her notion was confirmed when she saw her two nieces, who were serving as bridesmaids, outside the dressing room door, wringing their hands and looking worried in their flouncy red dresses and cowboy boots. Her nephew Bubba was standing in front of the door like an unofficial country-church bouncer. Bubba was as big as his dad, Jessi’s big brother Garrett, even though he was adopted. She figured it had to be the food.


“Sorry, Aunt Jess,” Bubba said. “Maria Michele wanted a few minutes alone, and I promised I’d give ’em to her.”


“She needs us and you’re a dick for keepin’ us out here,” Drew said. She was as golden-blond as her parents, Ben and Penny, and only twenty-two.


Willow put a calming hand on her youngest cousin’s shoulder. “It’s probably just pre-weddin’ jitters. If she needs a few minutes alone, we leave her alone.” But when she shifted her dark brown gaze to Jessi’s, it said more. Something was wrong.


Willow would know. She and Maria were more like sisters than cousins. It was good that Willow still lived with her parents Wes and Taylor out at Sky Dancer Ranch. If she ever moved away from Quinn, it would break Maria’s heart.


But she was firmly planted now that she’d been hired as her Uncle Garrett’s newest deputy.

Jessi acknowledged Willow’s dark look with a nod then refocused on Bubba, who was far too tall to be her nephew. “You’re not fixin’ to try and keep me from goin’ in there, are you, Bubba?”


“It’s Ethan,” he replied. “You know I go by Ethan.”


Jessi rolled her eyes. “It might be Ethan to the honky tonk honeys at your shows, rockstar, but when you’re home— no matter how seldom— it’s Bubba. It’s always been Bubba and it’ll always be Bubba. Now get the hell outta my way before I have to move you.” She added a smile to soften her words.


Bubba, all six feet and four inches of him, stepped aside. He even leaned across to open the door for his little aunt. The door swung wide, revealing an empty dressing room. The rear exit stood wide open, a rectangular view of blue Texas sky over a grassy lawn, a scrubby lot, and a stand of woods. There was no sign of the bride.


“Holy smokes, she’s run off!” Drew said, shouldering past her aunt and into the small room.


“Thank God,” Willow whispered, and maybe no one else heard her, but Jessi did.


“Bubba, go get your uncle Lash.” Jessi turned as she said it, but Bubba was already gone.

Jessi lowered her head and walked back into the main part of the church, where the whole clan and half the town had gathered, dressed to the nines for the first wedding of the Brand clan’s youngest generation. Everyone looked worried, and they leaned into each other, talking in loud whispers, wondering what the heck had happened.


Jessi walked up the aisle, her strides strong and deliberate, and met the right Reverend Wayland Wheeler’s bespectacled eyes with a little head shake to tell him it was off. Then she took the groom by one arm, and leaning close enough to smell the cigarette smoke and cologne blend of him, spoke near his ear. “I’m real sorry, Billy Bob. Jessi’s gone, and we don’t know where. I think we have to call this off.”


He pulled back a little to stare into her eyes. His were blue and bloodshot from the bachelor party. She wouldn’t know, since none of the Brand men had been invited. Then again, it seemed Billy Bob had been drinking more than he ought to for at least a month. Maybe he’d been having second thoughts, too.


His eyes showed shock first, and just when she started to feel pity for the guy, it turned to anger. Then he pushed past her, almost knocking her down. Would have, except that Lash had appeared beside her without a sound, and caught her shoulders before she could fall.


Billy Bob stormed down the aisle and out the church’s front doors. After making sure she was okay, her husband strode after him. Lash elbowed Garrett on the way by, and then he and her big brother left the church right behind Billy Bob.

As the red double doors swung closed behind them, Jessi stepped up beside the minister, facing the crowd, and cleared her throat. “There’s not gon’ be a weddin’ today, folks. I’m real sorry.”


Then she headed for the exit herself, but kept getting waylaid by one person after another, either saying they were sorry or asking if there was a way to help. Quinn was that kind of a town. They filled the pews, and there would be twice as many at the reception. Or would’ve been. Lord, what would they do with all the food?


Still, she had no time to worry about that, nor to chitchat. She gave short answers, that flash of anger in Billy Bob’s face just before he’d taken off giving her rocket fuel. She got to the doors, threw them open, and ran outside just as Billy Bob’s pickup roared away, leaving rubber on the road.


Jessi ran over to join her whipcord-lean husband, Lash, and bear-sized big brother Garrett. “He’d best not get anywhere near Maria Michele when he’s that teed off,” she said.


From behind her, Willow said, “I think we’d better get to her first, to make sure.”


Jessi turned to see six out of seven of the youngest generation of Brands standing together. Wes and Taylor’s daughter Willow was three quarters Comanche, and looked it. Beside her, blond, blue-eyed Drew and her older brother Orrin stood close together, looking like younger versions of their parents, Ben and Penny. Elliot and Esmeralda’s son Trevor had his father’s wiry build and his Mexican mother’s brown skin and ebony eyes. His dark-brown hair had hints of his dad’s auburn. Second cousin Baxter, the oldest of them all at thirty, with his shaggy golden hair and black-framed glasses, stood alone until Bubba came up beside him and clapped his shoulder. They were all looking down the road in the direction taken by the angry groom.


An old blue import with New York plates passed, heading the same way as Billy Bob’s truck.

Then the six youngsters— as the elder Brands called them— piled into Bubba’s oversized pickup, some of them in the bed, and they headed off in the same direction, windows down. Willow shouted out the passenger side, “Don’t worry, Aunt Jess. We’ll find her!” And from the back, Trevor gave a whoop.


“Well, shoot. This isn’t gonna go well, is it?” Jessi asked as the rest of her family gathered around.


“If he lays one finger on my girl—” Lash began. His five brothers-in-law made growly comments of agreement.


“I think the youngsters are takin’ this one,” Jessi said. “Dang, things sure do change.”

Lash put his arm around her shoulders. “And yet, they stay the same,” he said.


 

Maria Michele said, “You’re drivin’ me right past the church where I was s’posed to marry Billy Bob freakin’ Cantrell!” They rounded a curve in the road, and she saw her whole family gathered outside in the churchyard. “Jeeze-Louise!” She ducked way down low in the seat. “You had to go this way?”


He slowed down even more. “Sorry. Should I turn around?”


“Just go! Stomp it!”


He did not stomp it. He did speed up a little, though.


“You said you didn’t care which way I went,” he reminded her in what she thought was a calm tone for a guy who’d been sort of car-jacked by a tattered bride in smeared makeup. “You said just keep going whichever way I was going.”


“I didn’t mean this way!” She crouched lower.


“But there were only two ways.”


“Are we past them yet?”


He adjusted the rearview mirror with his long fingers. An artist’s hands, she thought, or a musician’s. He hadn’t answered, so she looked up at his face. He was still looking into the mirror, and his sky-blue eyes were worried.


“What?” she asked.


“I think they’re coming after us,” he said.


What?” She rose up out of her seat. Her cousin Bubba’s pickup was behind them and gaining. “Go faster!”


The little blue car picked up speed, and the driver’s hand landed on top of her head and nudged her gently. “Maybe stay down,” he suggested. Then he asked, “What should I do? Should I just pull over?”


“No, don’t pull over! Can’t you outrun them?”


“Their engine is three times the size of mine.” He took a deep, noisy breath, then said, “There’s no way they could know you’re in this car. I have New York plates; they’d never imagine you in here with me. It doesn’t make sense.” He let off the gas a little more, which made her want to slam her foot over his on the pedal. “Maybe they’re after that guy,” he said, pointing ahead.


“What guy?” She popped her head up again, face-front this time.


“That guy.” He nodded toward a black pickup ahead of them.


“Shoot, that’s Billy Bob!” She ducked again.


“The jilted groom?” The driver looked down at her with his eyebrows bent into worried S-shapes. He had nice eyebrows, she noticed. Full and dark. His sable hair was close-cropped and curlier than her own, which was saying a lot.


“Yeah,” she said. “Might say we’re in between a rock and a hard place. And the hard place has a temper way worse than I ever knew.”


He looked at her quickly, a flash of temper she hadn’t expected in his eyes. “Did he hit you?”


“If he’d hit me, he wouldn’t be capable of drivin’,” she said.


He smiled at her when she said that. Hoo-boy. He was handsome, for a yank. He let off the gas a little more. She didn’t gripe about it this time.


“Is that why you left him at the altar?” He asked the question softly, like he was tiptoeing over a minefield.


She met his eyes. Hemsworth blue was what they were, she decided. “You really want to know why I left?”


“I do,” he said.


She rolled her eyes. “You just said ‘I do’ to a gal in a weddin’ gown.”


He looked alarmed. Then he glanced into the rearview and looked even more alarmed. “They’re coming on fast.”


“Tell you what,” Maria said. “You get me out of this spot I’m in without havin’ to deal with either pickup full of rednecks, and I’ll tell you why I left Billy Bob at the altar and  buy you the best taco in Texas. Deal?”


He glanced at her, at the rearview, and then he kind of winced and crouched lower in the seat, like he was ducking, and he let off the gas even more.


Bubba’s big pickup truck grew louder, then sped by them, passing the little Volvo like it was standing still.


For Maria Michele, the world shifted into ultra-slow motion as the jacked up, bright-red F-250 rolled by. She was still crouched low in the seat but looking up. And that truck was up high with a clear line of sight down. The truck’s passenger-side window was open, and long jet-black hair she’d braided a hundred times was whipping in the wind. And then that head turned, and Willow looked right down at her, and her eyes widened.


Maria pressed a finger to her lips and tried to make her eyes urgent. Willow looked from Maria to the driver, and crooked one eyebrow, and then the world shifted back to its normal speed, and the truck blasted by.


“I thought they were going to run us off the road,” the driver said. He sounded relieved.


“They wouldn’t do that. Although, they might do it to Billy Bob, if he got outta line at the church once he realized I was gone.”


He looked her way again. “You have to tell me about that temper now. A deal’s a deal.”

Then he tipped his head to one side. “And maybe you could throw in your name.”


She looked at him in surprise then shook her head. “We did kinda skip that part. I’m Maria Michele Brand Monroe-almost-Cantrell. But you can call me Maria.”


“My mother’s middle name was Maria,” he said, glancing at the photo hanging from the mirror. She looked at it, too. Beautiful woman, brilliant smile, platinum hair, and those same blue, blue eyes. There was a flash of hurt in the son’s set, but he blinked it away and said, “Harrison Hyde.”


“Nice to meet you, Harry.”


“Harrison.”


“That’s what I said. Now, Billy Bob’s most likely headin’ for my favorite spot, so he’ll stay on the main road for another few miles, then take a right onto Bluebonnet Lane.”


“Your favorite spot’s on Bluebonnet Lane?”


“Pretty, right? My house is right on top. Well, it was gonna be my house. It’s everything you could want in a house, really. We were gonna buy it right after the weddin’. Wasn’t time before. I just finished vet school in May.”


“You’re a veterinarian?”


“Like my mamma before me,” she said. “If we take the next left, we can hopscotch dirt roads all the way to the highway and be in Mad Bull’s Bend eatin’ Manny’s tacos before Billy Bob and my cousins finish checkin’ all my usual haunts.”


“Heading west? Because I need to be going west.”


“Yes, we’ll be headin’ west.” She plucked at her white skirts. “I’m gon’ change clothes. Don’t look at me.”


“I won’t.” He tipped the rearview mirror upward.


Maria climbed between the seats into the back and unzipped her duffel bag. She’d packed it for a honeymoon at a resort in Silver City, New Mexico that Billy Bob had chosen because there was a rodeo nearby that he wanted to see.


She dug out a pair of jeans, and pulled them on underneath her tattered gown. Such a shame about the dress. It had been pretty, sweetheart neckline, nipped in at the waist, with a skirt that puffed out thanks to crinoline slips. The tiny buttons up the back were false, with a delicate zipper tucked cleverly underneath. She tried to unzip it herself and darn near pulled her shoulder out of the socket.


She looked up front at Harry again. He was rigid, staring straight ahead. A gentleman, huh? Well, she’d lucked out then, hadn’t she? “I need your hand back here. Don’t look. Just reach back.”


“I have no idea what to expect right now,” he said, but reached his arm back, hand open.


She noticed his hands again. They were attractive to her. She’d never been attracted to a fella’s hands before.


“I can’t get my zipper. I’m gon’ push my back up against your hand. You can feel around enough to find the zipper and not one bit more, you hear?”


“I hear.”


“Okay.” She angled her back toward him, while he drove with one hand. She tried to aim the zipper, which she’d lowered partway, toward his hand, but her aim was off, and his palm pressed flat to her back, just above the low-slung zipper.


His hand was warm, and it rested against her bare skin for a heartbeat longer than it ought to, but before she could smack him, he moved it, sliding it lower. Oh, Lord, that was worse. It sent a tingle all the way down her spine. The naughty kind.

“Sorry,” he said, even though he hadn’t done anything. His nimble fingers found the zipper and got hold of it. He tried to pull. She reached behind her to hold the fabric together, to give him something to pull against, and the zipper slid down easy as apple pie. His knuckles brushed over the small of her back, all the way down to the crease of her butt, and then he gasped and pulled his hand away like he’d been bee-stung. The car veered. He righted it.

“Sorry,” he said again. “Is that… good?”


“Real good,” she said. Maybe teasing him just a little bit. “Thanks.” Then she pulled the dress over her head. Quickly, she put on her top, a baby-blue tank with a shelf bra built in. Then she added a thin flannel button down, brown plaid. Finally, she put on some socks and her favorite boots, and climbed into the front seat.


“He punched a stripper,” she said without preamble.


Harry looked at her so suddenly and so sharply that he jerked the wheel with the motion. She put her hand over his to straighten it back out. He blinked, and refocused on the road. “Take this left, right here?” he asked.


“Yeah.” So, he turned the car, and she clarified. “Billy Bob had a bachelor party last night, to which none of my relatives were invited.”


“That doesn’t seem very friendly.”


“No. But he has his own friends, and it was his big night, so I figured, let him do it his way. He barely knows my cousins, anyway. But he drank too much, which he’s been doing a lot lately, and he got all handsy with the stripper his boys hired for him. When she objected, he laid her out.”


“Holy…” He kept sending her quick looks. “How did you find out?”


“I knew her in college. When she got the gig, she recognized Billy Bob’s name and texted me to ask if I was okay with her dancing at his stag party. I mean, I knew that’s how she was working her way through school, no judgement here. A gal’s gotta do what a gal’s gotta do, you know?”


“I do.” He closed his eyes. “Shoot, I did it again.”


“You did. Anyway, I knew she didn’t go in for extra-curricular stuff, so I told her to go for it and let me know if he didn’t tip her enough. Well, then, this mornin' while I’m fixin’ to marry that son of a sidewinder, I get another text from her.” She located the text with the photo on her phone and showed him. She knew the image by heart. Her friend Serena with a black eye that covered half her face was burned into Maria’s mind. The video that she’d sent with it was considerably worse. But Harry didn’t need to see that.


Harry looked away from the road at the phone. “My God.” He glanced her way again and said, “I’m really sorry.”


“I’m not,” she said. “That’s the weird part. Soon as I ran out the back door of that church, I felt like a hen freed from the coop. Kinda like I’d just woke up from a long-ass dream.”


“A long-ass dream,” he repeated.


“Yeah. Next right.”


He made the turn. The little blue car threw a cloud of dust behind it on the dirt road. Things got quiet until she said, “You have to tell me your story now. Why were you walkin’ around in the middle of nowhere? You have luggage in the back. You on some kind of road trip?”


“Yeah. I’m heading for Silver City, New Mexico.”


Well, that was a coincidence, she thought. Her honeymoon was supposed to be in Silver City. She and Billy Bob were going to see the Wild West Rodeo that was in town every June. Yippy ki yay, she thought. She looked Harry up and down. Khaki pants, no belt. A shirt with buttons, not snaps. Canvas shoes, not boots. And there wasn’t a hat in sight. “You don’t look like a rodeo cowboy to me.”


Harry’s smile came out like a beam of sunlight. “I’m not any kind of a cowboy. I’m a scientist. I’m going to Silver City to demonstrate my project to a bunch of potential investors.”


“Oh. Like a Silver City Shark Tank,” she said. He looked at her in surprise, and she shrugged. “Sorry. Go on. What did you invent?”


“It’s uh— in that box you tossed out of your seat, earlier.”


She frowned, spotting the box in the back, just lying there loose. She reached back, leaning up over the seat to do so, and brought it up front. “Jeeze, I didn’t hurt it, did I?”


“It’s pretty well-cushioned in there.”


“Can I look?”


“Sure.”


She opened the box, and he said, “It’s a solar tile. It can process as much energy as a four-by-four-foot panel.”


She looked at him, then back at the inch-square glass object nestled in foam inside the box. Its frame and backing were bright yellow, its glass center black. She said, “Wait. What?”


“It’s a—”


“I heard you. I understand, I just— I mean, that’s pretty huge, isn’t it?”


“It is.”


"I don’t know much about renewables,” she said. “But I do know solar doesn’t have a very efficient space-to-power ratio.” She didn’t miss the quick flash of surprise in his eyes. “It’s a hot topic down here. Oil country, you know.”


“Ah. Well, yeah. You’re right. It’s been a major issue. A ten-acre lot full of solar panels can only power about a hundred homes with today’s technology.”


“Right.”


“So, it’s controversial down here? Solar power?”


“A fifty-acre solar farm in our county was sabotaged a few weeks ago,” she said.


“Really?”


She nodded. “Explosives. A fire. And two weeks before that, a wind farm, about thirty miles north, same thing.”


“That’s awful.”


“My dad and uncle will get to the bottom of it,” she said. “Uncle Garrett’s the sheriff, and Dad’s his chief deputy. Willow’s even a deputy now. My cousin.”


“That’s a lot of family in law enforcement.”


“It’s a blessin’ and a curse,” she said. “Sounds to me like there’s a far better thing to replace that solar farm with, though, or soon will be.” She replaced the box’s lid. “I’m gonna put this somewhere safe.” She looked around the back of the car.


“You can tuck it into my dad’s old tackle box, for luck,” Harry suggested.


She climbed back and opened the tackle box, admired a few of the lures, then tucked the black box into the bottom. “Fits like a glove.” She closed it up and returned to her spot in the front. “That’s pretty amazing, Harry. I didn’t know I’d carjacked a genius.”


“I don’t deserve all the credit,” he said. She thought it was cute that he blushed. “I worked with three other scientists at Cornell.”


“They goin’ to the Shark Tank, too?”


“Yeah. They’re flying out. I’m meeting them there. I had to travel to Florida with my father, to look at a retirement community he’s considering. And I thought driving out would give me some time to… well, it doesn’t matter.” He glanced her way quickly then turned on the radio.


She reached up and snapped it off again. “You drove because you wanted a long, solitary journey.”


He looked at her sideways. “Yeah.”


“Sorry I ruined it,” she said.


“That’s okay. I can just drop you off in the next town and resume my—”


“Drop me off? You’re gonna drop me off? What am I, a stray dog? You’re just fixin’ to dump me someplace to fend for myself in my torn-up weddin’ dress on my destroyed weddin’ day?”


“I— you changed clothes.”


“I don’t want to be dropped off. I want to go to Silver City.”


“To the demo site?”


“No, not to the demo site. To my honeymoon destination, the Silver Springs Resort and Spa. I have the tickets right in my bag. I’m not fixin’ to let ’em go to waste. And you’re headin’ right there anyway! Now quit gawkin’ at me. You’re fixin’ to miss the turn.”

He looked at the road again and made the turn in time.


“We hit the highway in five miles,” she said. “Then, tacos, as promised. I’m starved.”


“Okay.”


“Okay.” She reached up and turned the radio back on. An old country song was playing, and she nodded. “At least you have good taste in music.”


“That’s the only station I’ve been able to pull in for the past forty miles.”


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