Runaway Bridesmaid Read Free

enough to do that at dinner tonight. When, he assumed, he would see Sarah, for the first time since his Oscar-worthy performance as the slimeball boyfriend.
    How the Sam Hill had his brother managed to fall for Sarah’s sister? Out of all the girls at Auburn, you’d’ve thought at least one of them might have caught Lance’s eye while he was there getting his degree. But no. Lance had to choose someone who’d lived a half mile down the road almost his entire life.
    A hiss of air escaped Dean’s lips. Wasn’t as if he didn’t understand. He’d done the same fool thing. Only difference was, he’d turned tail and run, instead of marrying Sarah like he should’ve done and let the consequences be damned. No, he sure couldn’t fault his brother for not finding anyone he liked better. Not when Dean, after all this time in Atlanta, kept seeing Sarah’s syrupy eyes and square jaw and long, silky maple-colored hair superimposed on every woman’s face he saw, dated, slept with. Not that there’d been all that many of the latter, he admitted to himself, slinging his right arm across the back of the seat and trying to shift his weight off his numb bottom.
    They say you can’t go home again. Well, he had, but even if all the houses and roads and even most of the damn trees were exactly as he’d left them, he’d be even a bigger fool than he already was if he thought Sarah was. There was nothing left between them but memories. If even that much. He’d hurt her, deliberately and unforgivably. He’d think less of her if she didn’t hate him.
    He’d lost the best thing that’d ever happened to him, a fact he’d regret for the rest of his life. And one which made him wonder how he was going to get through the next week.
    Hell. He’d be going some just to get through the next few hours.
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    Sarah actually closed the clinic on time, which gave her maybe a few minutes to sort out her very muddled thoughtsabout this turn of events. Jennifer had rescued poor Katey right after lunch, to Sarah’s immense relief—she didn’t think she could’ve stood an afternoon of bored sighs and moans and groans.
    Almost of its own volition, the Bronco steered toward home. Her hands were seized, however, with an almost uncontrollable urge to veer south toward some secluded Mexican beach. Just for, say, the next week or so?
    Oh, geez…why on earth was Dean coming for a full week? What was this, some resurgence of family devotion? Or, she thought with a sickening thud just below her sternum, a deliberate move to torture her? Her hands gripped the steering wheel as she passed the little turnoff that would, could, loop her around and send her in the opposite direction.
    She watched the loop fade in her rearview mirror. And sighed.
    Oh, come on. This was not like her. Sarah Whitehouse did not run from problems. Sarah Whitehouse faced them, dealt with them, solved them. No matter what. So…so…she would go home, change out of these hot jeans, run a comb through what there was of her hair, and simply ignore Dean Parrish.
    One hand clamped around the steering wheel, the other found its way to her mouth, where she started to chew on a hangnail. Wrecked was the only word to describe how she’d felt after Dean’s abrupt departure, the night before her senior prom. After a while, though, she’d forced the unhappiness into a tiny cubicle in the farthest recesses of her brain, like an unwanted Christmas present you don’t know what to do with but you can’t return, so you stuff it up in the attic, forgotten, until some fool goes up there and unearths the damn thing and then brings it downstairs, setting it on the coffee table like it’s some great find.
    Thank you, Jennifer, Sarah thought on a sigh as she pulled into her driveway and caught sight of the unfamiliar pickup parked in front of the house. Thank you so much for