Page 1 of Bolt To Me
The Runaway Bride
The heat was already rising by midmorning, thick and oppressive, curling up from the cracked sidewalks of Willow Creek like a living thing. It pressed in against the windows of the First Baptist Church, wormed its way into the crevices of the sanctuary’s old wooden bones, and wrapped itself around Carli Santana’s body like a shroud. It clung to her skin beneath the weight of her wedding dress. It was satin layered with chiffon, a designer label she couldn’t pronounce and didn’t care to remember. The bodice, sculpted and unforgiving, dug into her ribs with every shallow breath she took, as if punishing her for what she hadn’t yet admitted aloud.
Sweat beaded at her hairline, slid in slow, ticklish trails down the hollow of her back, and pooled at the base of her spine, making the satin stick and the chiffon chafe. But it wasn’t the Texas sun that had her teetering on the edge of collapse. It was the thundering, undeniable truth that had been pacing like acaged animal in the back of her mind for months and had finally begun to howl.
She didn’t want this.
She didn’t want the too froofy wedding dress that was totally not her style and her mother’s idea. She didn’t want the four-tiered cake with sugared hydrangeas and sickly sweet icing over red velvet, carrot, vanilla, and chocolate cake that was so dry Carli was sure the Sahara was wetter. Not the rented ballroom strung with fairy lights, not the string quartet rehearsing Vivaldi, a composer she really abhorred in the first place, for the recessional, and most of all, not the man in the tailored tuxedo waiting with bland anticipation at the altar.
Thomas Whitmore III.
Her fiancé. Her future. Her mistake. Even his name made her shudder in abject horror at the thought of being tied to him for the rest of her life.
The church bells tolled, each chime heavy and deliberate, reverberating through the building like blows from an unseen hammer. The walls shivered with sound. From behind the double doors that separated her from the sanctuary, the buzz of voices grew louder, restless and expectant. Old family friends with feathered hats. Oil men in cowboy boots with polished belt buckles. That woman from the bank with her judgmental eyebrows. The pastor’s gentle baritone murmured final instructions. Her father’s gruff, confident chuckle. A lace handkerchief muffled her mother’s tearful sniffling. And beneath it all, the music rising, soft piano, reverent and sentimental, the kind meant to swell emotion and draw polite tears from ladies in pearls.
Carli stood alone in the narrow hallway outside the chapel, flanked only by a forgotten coat rack and an old emergency fire extinguisher with a faded inspection tag. Her bouquet trembled in her hands. It was the only thing aboutthis whole ordeal she even liked. It was white roses and baby’s breath, bound in a silk ribbon, but even that now felt like a noose around her wrist. Her knuckles were bloodless. Her lungs were tight and constricted, making it difficult to breathe. A low, disorienting hum filled her ears, like bees under glass.
This wasn’t cold feet. This was suffocation in slow motion.
“Carli?” Her cousin Jessa’s voice, soft and bright like a bell, floated from the partially opened door. She slipped her head through the crack, eyes wide and glowing. “They’re ready for you, sugar. You look absolutely gorgeous. I swear, Thomas is gonna cry when he sees you. Ready to be Mrs. Thomas Whitmore the Third?” she asked in that slow Texas drawl she had.
The name landed like a boulder in her stomach.
Carli blinked, and for a heartbeat, the hallway seemed to shift. The walls pressed inward, the air thinned, and the damn wedding dress grew heavier by the second. The pearls at her throat felt like iron.
No. Hell no. “Fuck no,” Carli breathed, her eyes meeting her cousin’s. She took a step back, the hem of her dress brushing against the floor like a whisper of rebellion. Then another. The bouquet wavered, petals trembling like nerves. Her heart jackhammered in her chest.
“Carli?” Jessa’s voice pinched. She stepped fully into the hallway now, catching the edge of the door with one manicured hand. “What are you…?”
“I can’t.” Carli’s voice was raw and low, like gravel scraped over pavement. “I can’t do this.” She started to laugh a bit hysterically. “I cannot marry that man. I’m sorry.”
Jessa’s mouth dropped open, her eyes darting toward the sanctuary as if afraid the words might carry. “Carli, honey, wait, you can’t just…”
“Watch me!” Carli laughed as she hiked up her skirt, gripped the cumbersome folds of satin in both fists, kicked off her ivory stilettos, impractical, stupid, sparkly things that cost more than a month’s rent, and turned on her heel. Her bare feet slapped against the cool tile as she tore down the hallway and shoved through the fire exit.
The heavy door slammed behind her with a thunderous clang that cracked the quiet like gunfire. Sunlight exploded in her face, sharp and blinding after the dimness of the church. The heat outside was feral, merciless. It kissed her cheeks with sunburn and blurred the edges of the manicured world around her. She blinked rapidly, heart racing, breath ragged. And then she ran.
She sprinted across the back lawn, through freshly trimmed grass and between the rows of white folding chairs still awaiting the post-ceremony procession. Voices rose like startled birds, gasps, and half-formed shouts chasing after her. A woman shrieked. The sound of a glass shattering on concrete followed her as someone’s Aunt Linda dropped her mimosa. She didn’t care.
“Carli!” a voice bellowed behind her, deep and unmistakable. Her father. He was furious already. She could feel the anger boiling behind the sound.
She didn’t look back.
Her veil caught in the wind and whipped violently to the side. Something snagged it, a rosebush or a fencepost, and the gauzy fabric ripped free, sent tumbling across the lawn like a ghost relinquishing its tether. She ran faster, her gown flapping around her knees, catching thorns and leaves, dirt streaking the satin. The gravel of the church driveway bit into her soles, sharp little stones lodging themselves in her skin like punishment.
But she kept going.
Past the hedgerows, past the startled wedding photographer still adjusting his lens, past the disapproving stares of neighbors who would be talking about this for years.
She didn’t stop until she reached the edge of the Whitmore estate’s wrought iron fence at the edge of town, a sweeping boundary of black metal and manicured hedges, smug in its grandeur. Beyond it stretched miles of land that didn’t belong to her, never had, never would. Oil money land. Land with a legacy carved into marble headstones and country club deeds.
She bent forward, hands braced on her knees, chest heaving. Her breath burned in her throat, every inhale a scratchy gasp. Her heart thundered like hooves on dry ground, beating against her ribs with a violence that made her vision swim. God. What had she just done?
The sky overhead darkened unexpectedly. Thunder rumbled in the distance, and not the kind of theatrical crack that preceded rainbows and catharsis, but a low, ominous growl that curled along the horizon like a warning. She straightened slowly, lifting her gaze as the first faint gust of wind rustled the dry grasses around her ankles. Her curls had begun to frizz wildly, escaping the pins that had once held them in glossy submission. Her makeup, which was so perfectly plastered to her face, was now smeared in streaks of rebellion down her cheeks.
She didn’t care. She had never liked wearing makeup in the first place. She didn’t care that her eyeliner was smudged, or the hem of her dress was torn, or the fact that her phone was somewhere back in the dressing room, probably buzzing with frantic texts and angry voicemails. And she didn’t care about the man she’d left at the altar, blinking in confusion while the congregation murmured and gossiped around him.
For the first time in what felt like forever, Carli Santana wasn’t choking on someone else’s expectations.
