The Borrowed Bride Read Online Free Page B

ghost,” said the stranger.
    “A bear.” Isabel’s legs felt wobbly. She leaned back against a large rock. The surface was soaking wet, but no wetter than she already was.
    “A bear?” He looked around, his long hair whipping to and fro. “Where?”
    “You,” she said, fully aware that hours of exposure had probably addled her brain. “I thought you were a bear.”
    “Cool.” He pushed back a low-hanging branch. In every respect but one, he appeared a typical American teenager—oversize hiking boots, baggy, low-slung jeans, a plaid shirt with a hood trailing down his back.
    He stood high and dry beneath a broad fiber mat supported by three straight sticks. The design woven into the mat was a tribal bear crest.
    “I’m Isabel Wharton,” she said, “and I guess you could say I’m lost.”
    He grinned—the half shy, half cocky smile of ateenage boy. “Gary Sohappy,” he said, “and I figured you were.”
    “You…” Her pulse was finally returning to its normal rate. “How did you know to come looking for me?”
    “Dan radioed down.” He held out the woven shelter so that it protected her. “He said to keep my eyes peeled for a real good-looking woman with a chip on her shoulder.” Gary took her elbow and started down the slope. “Watch your step here.” He glanced at her, still bashful, still full of mischief. “I don’t see no chip.”
    “I left it with Dan Black Horse,” she said through gritted teeth. “I take it he’s a friend of yours.”
    “Yep.” He continued to lead her down the slope. It was almost dark now, and she could see no discernible path, but the boy seemed to know where he was going. “My uncle and I and a lot of guys from the rez helped him build the lodge. He said you were his first guest.”
    A tiny dart of guilt stung her. She had not paused to look at it that way. Dan had built a virtual woodland paradise, and she had shown little appreciation for his hard work.
    “He caught me at a really bad time,” she said with wry understatement.
    The woods seemed to be thinning. Rain pattered down almost musically on the mat umbrella.
    “Guess so,” Gary said. “I hope the Seahawks like it better than you did.”
    She frowned. “The Seahawks? As in Seattle Seahawks?”
    “Yep. He’s been trying to get a contract to bring the whole team up for R & R. Like a wild-man weekend or something.”
    Realization clicked in Isabel’s mind. Anthony was apromoter for the Seahawks. That was how Dan had come into contact with him and figured out how to find her.
    But if Dan needed the contract, then why would he jeopardize it by dragging her back into his life at this critical moment? Anthony was a tolerant man, but maybe not that tolerant.
    Darkness had fallen by the time they reached a level clearing. Isabel saw a cluster of buildings hunched against the side of a hill. She made out the shapes of an antique tractor and a battered pickup truck.
    “How far are we from the nearest town?” she asked Gary.
    He stopped beneath an awning at the back door of the main house and shook off the umbrella. “Probably ten miles to Thelma. Maybe Dan’ll take you there Monday night. There’s a dance at the fire hall.”
    “Dan’s not taking me anywhere,” she muttered. They entered the house, and the world seemed to tilt on its axis.
    She had never been here, had never seen this place, but she knew it. There was a place like this in her heart. She had been running from it for years.
    She stood on a fiber mat in a small kitchen. The linoleum floor was cracked but swept clean. The yellow countertops had a boomerang design in the Formica, circa 1960. A butane-gas stove held a battered teapot and a large cast-iron dutch oven. A curl of steam, redolent with the fragrance of herbs, seeped from beneath the lid of the pot.
    On the wall was a gas-station calendar with a photo of Mount Rainier. The picture was fading, and the calendar had not been turned since February. In thedoorway stood a small,