Runaway Groom by Virginia Nelson Read Free Book Online Page A

hours searching online, but Bob okayed all that he came up with so Abigail was stuck with him.
    Meeting him at the town hall, he could tell she planned to keep everything extremely business-like. She’d agreed to his casual offer to drive since they were headed out to the middle of nowhere to talk to Pauline Sabatina, one of the oldest residents in the county and former student and teacher to one of the first schools in the area. He didn’t turn on the radio, instead rolling the windows down on his truck, content with silence. Abigail turned her face into the wind, ignoring the grit his wheels churned up off the gravel road, her hair flying around her face. With her in the passenger side of his truck, memories of her hand in his tripped through his mind, and he couldn’t quite wipe the smile from his face.
    Her presence was like a strobe—impossible to tune out since his every nerve ending seemed aware of her. Navigating the overgrown weeds and pits in the driveway, Braxton parked once he reached the tiny, rundown shack of a house. He made it to her side of the vehicle before she’d managed to get out, rummaging around for her tablet and cell phone before she turned to see him. He opened the door and offered her a hand, which she ignored and alighted of her own steam.
    Her foot landed in the muck and sank to midcalf. Her gasp got drowned out by his chuckle. “I was going to help you…” He covered his smile with his hand and turned away from her, but she punched his arm and he glanced back. “Hey, if the shoe was on the other foot, you’d laugh.”
    “Shut up,” she grumbled, but her lips twitched, and a bit of the uncomfortable tension she wore like a cloak vanished.
    “Braxton Dean? That you?” The voice from the porch was as battered as the faded wood of the house.  
    Reaching back, Braxton helped Abigail step free of the mud while he answered. “Yes, Mrs. Sabatina, it’s me. I’ve got Abigail with me and we’ll be up in a second.”
    “I made some tea. Come on in.”  
    Testing the steps a little cautiously, Braxton was pleased to find they held his weight, even if they groaned in protest. Following the path the wiry old woman used, he opened the door only to pause when Abigail groaned.
    “I can’t go in.” She gestured to her foot. “Mrs. Sabatina! I stepped in the mud and if I come in, I’m going to track dirt in with me.”
    “I said come on in, children.” The woman called the words from somewhere in the house.
    “I’m not sure she can hear so good.” Nudging Abby’s arm, Braxton motioned inside with his head. “I’ll go let her know. Maybe she’ll talk to us out here.”
    Abby nodded, so he found Mrs. Sabatina and passed on the information. Within moments of talking to her, Braxton realized she couldn’t hear half of what he said, which made sense when she explained, “Lost my hearing aide. You’ll have to speak up, boy.”
    Running his tongue across his teeth, he pondered the opportunity and decided to have a little fun with it. “Yes, ma’am,” he yelled.
    Once the tea jug, frosted glasses and old woman were transferred safely back out to the porch, Braxton reclined back on his elbows from his perch too close to Abby on the steps. “Mrs. Sabatina, tell us a bit what it was like back in the early days of the school.”
    The old woman began to rattle off stories about her first teacher and the skirt her mother sewed her for school, and he occupied himself fiddling with a stray lock of Abby’s hair. Every so often she’d swat his hand away…but he wasn’t deterred. After a few moments of her scribbling on the screen with her stylus, he leaned close to whisper, “You know there’s a duck blind, ‘bout thirty feet into the woods to the left. We could sneak off, you and me, get reacquainted. No one would ever know.”
    Flaming red colored Abigail’s cheeks and her mouth gaped open. Her gaze shot from him to the old woman twice before she managed to focus on the interview