Page 27 of The Billionaire's Runaway Bride

“Were you serious? When you said she’s never worked a day in her life?”

“Sure was. I’m not shocked that she’s never been employed anywhere.”

Make it make sense. “Why?”

“Lauren Hendrickson?” She huffs. “She’s loaded. She never would have needed to earn an income with her family’s wealth.”

I frown. “Why does that name sound familiar?” I worded it rhetorically, a question for myself, but I spoke it aloud, and she replies.

“Her father was a star. Thriller flicks and I think a show on HBO?”

I widen my eyes and drop my gaze to the ground. Surprise floods me in recognition.

James Hendrickson had already retired from Hollywood by the time I met him. My father was an acquaintance but never wanted to bite on his ideas for vineyards. I have, though. I know the old man—Jamie, as he prefers to be addressed—and I’ve invested in his business endeavors.

He’s Lauren’s father? Now it makes sense why Marian is shocked Lauren is here, cutting her grass and preparing to paint her house. It doesn’t fit. Jamie and his wife are upper-crust Californians, not outdoorsy adventurers who’d jump into a creek in the mountains.

I’m stunned silent, and I snap to attention when I realize Marian’s been talking the whole way toward the shed she’s leading me to.

“She showed up in that hideous wedding dress. It was awful, Caleb. Uglier than anything I’ve ever seen in my long life.”

I roll my eyes. “Long life. What, are you fifty?”

“Oh, save that flirting for her. Anyway. She showed up in that hideous wedding gown.”

“Who?”

She stops in front of the shed’s open door. “Lauren.”

Lauren? In a wedding dress? I open and close my mouth, unable to connect the dots as Marian goes into the shed and returns with an axe.

“She left her fiancé, well, her former fiancé, on the day of the wedding. Just bolted out of there and somehow ended up here. Can you believe it?”

I blink at her and take the axe. “No.” I clear my throat. “Uh, no. I think it sounds farfetched.”

“You and me both.” She tips her chin toward the pile of logs and leads me over there. “If I hadn’t seen her show up like that, I never would have believed it. But I count myself lucky that we’ve found each other, that she’s found this place.” Grinning at me, she sighs. “Funny how fate lines us up like that, huh?”

I glance at the axe in my hands and nod slowly. “Yeah. I guess so.”

Lauren was supposed to be married? As of last week? It’s too out there to believe it all, but I doubt Marian would lie.

“Well, let me see what you got.” She steps back and crosses her arms.

“You aiming to check out a young stud’s body?”

She rolls her eyes. “Get over yourself, Thatcher. I want to make sure you won’t be clumsy and chop your arm off.”

I line up a log and swing the axe. It’s been a long time since I’ve held an axe, in fact several months, when I went to a bar that had axe-throwing games near Brooklyn. It comes to me though, and Marian smiles. “You’ll do.”

I scoff. “Thanks.”

She softens with a bright smile and leaves me to it. As soon as she’s out of sight, I pull out my phone and Google Lauren. Sure enough, there she is. Daughter of James and Lacie Hendrickson. I scroll past images of her with some smug-looking asshole. Jeremy Klein.

“Huh.” I raise my brows at the pictures of the man, wondering how Lauren almost ended up hitched to him, and more than that, how she came to her senses and ran off.

I shake my head and try to burn off the hot energy that courses through me at the idea of Lauren with that guy. It’s jealousy, mixed with confusion. Maybe a little irritation, too, that she was so eager to keep her identity a secret.

Why? What for?

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