The Bride Wore Blue by Cindy Gerard Read Free Book Online Page A

was taking a hell of a beating against the cedar pilings that were anchored with re-rod stakes and rock.
    J.D. didn’t stop to think. He just reacted. He had to get her out of there or his beloved plane would end up a twisted, scattered mass of mangled metal and shattered glass.
    Quickly slipping into his shoes, he made a mad dash for the end of the dock. In the next instant, he was on his knees, tugging at the ropes securing the plane, struggling with rain-soaked nylon and swearing into the wind when the knots wouldn’t give.
    By the time the first knot grudgingly slipped free, he was soaked to the skin. The icy wind and the force of the rain stung like tiny, piercing needles against his face. Ignoring the pain and cold, he scrambled to the front float. With concentrated effort and fingers rapidly stiffening and growing clumsy due to the cold, he freed the other rope.
    Then and only then, did he allow himself enough time to make a decision. The Cessna was like a crippled bird with her fuel line pulled. He cursed himself for his “brilliant” maneuvering that made it impossible for him to crank her up and drive her to the safety of a sheltered harbor. If he simply let the plane go and the wind took her, she wouldn’t stand much more of a chance of surviving intact than if he’d left her tied to the dock.
    That left only one alternative. A brilliant flash of lightning lit up the night like a strobe, lighting the way to the beach thirty yards away. If he could tow the Cessna around the rocks to the beach, she could weather out the storm there without taking a battering. He could beach her on the sand and she’d sit as tight as a hen mallard on a nest, free from harm.
    Thirty yards. Through a curtain of wind whipped rain, he gauged the angry breakers and the jutting ridge of massiveboulders and jagged rock that lay between the dock and the beach. It might as well be thirty miles. On a deep breath, he considered the distance around the rock pile and the water’s fifteen-foot depth, and the power of both to crush him.
    Thirty yards of black, angry water and the very real probability that even if he survived the rock pile, he’d get sucked under and never come back up.
    The Cessna cracked hard against the dock again, shaking the wood beneath his feet. When she bobbed up like a huge, gangly cork, he saw the damage. The tail end of a re-rod spike securing the cedar dock cribbing had gouged an angry-looking hole in one of the floats. It was then that he realized that if he stood there much longer debating, he’d lose her for good. When water filled the float, there was every possibility that she’d sink like a stone. And he simply couldn’t let that happen.
    Without another thought to his own safety, he peeled off his sweatshirt and toed off his shoes. Clutching the rope attached to the front float tightly in his fist, he sucked in a deep breath and took a running leap off the end of the dock.
    Maggie had fooled herself into thinking she could sleep. Why she thought tonight would be different from any other, she didn’t know. Insomnia had been her companion for several years, her persistent nemesis, always crowding her, always winning the battle of wills.
    Tonight, with Blue Hazzard camped on her doorstep, it was a sure winner hands down.
    She knew she had to concede that battle, but she wouldn’t give up the other one. She would not invite him in. She would not let him and his every-mother-loves-him grin and his sneak-up-on-you sense of humor, or even her own tendency to mother stray dogs and feed alley cats, sway her.
    Or the memory of his kiss.
    A swift, sweet tug of arousal arched through her body, then settled heavy and low. It was bad enough that she’d let him kiss her. Even worse, she’d kissed him back. And she’d enjoyed it. She’d enjoyed the sure and sudden reawakening of desire, the honest ache of passion. She’d welcomed the reminder that she was a woman who could still be ruled by instincts that could