She sipped the water, noting it had already been opened and drank from, but it wasn’t like she could be choosy at the moment. Her stomach rolled and threatened to heave again, but the water helped settle it, so she took a few more sips. “Thank you,” she said after long minutes where she leaned her forehead against the wrist and hand she had braced and clamped on the door.
“Better now?” he asked.
With a start she realized he’d shifted on the seat and held her hair in his hand, fisted at her nape. She welcomed the comfort even though he was a virtual stranger.
She inhaled, the breath as deep as she was able to take, the urgency over for the moment at least. “Yes, thank you. Sorry about that.”
“That dress have a zipper or something I can loosen up?”
“Oh, yes please,” she said, angling her back toward him and raising the borrowed shirt. “Zipper’s in the back. Rip it if you have to.”
“You can grab sweats from the duffle once you get this thing off,” he offered.
It took Elias a few tries to find the teeny-tiny zipper fob, and of course it stuck repeatedly as he pulled on it.
“Rip it. Tear it. I don’t care. Just get me out.”
She heard him shift behind her until he was able to grab the top of the dress and hold it tight while his other hand yanked hard at the noncooperating zipper.
Then, like canned biscuits bursting with azzzinstead of apop, the dress gave way and she sucked in a much-needed breath. “Sweet baby Jesus,” she breathed, praising God and all things holy because she could fill her lungs to capacity. “That’s wonderful.”
His low laugh filled her ears and sounded a bit rusty. But a shiver rolled through her when his hot breath teased her skin now that her dress wasn’t wrapped around her like a boa constrictor.
“Why wear something that tight if you’re miserable all day in it?”
“Ask the mothers,” she muttered, shifting on the seat and dropping the shirt so that it covered her bare back and the now-gaping front. She had a sticky bra in place, but the last thing she needed was to add a peep show to the chaos of the day.
There was no way she could pull on a pair of his sweats without yanking the dress all the way down first either, but it would be easier to do while they were stopped and not in a moving vehicle. “Would you mind turning that way?” She pointed her finger toward his window.
Elias frowned but then seemed to understand why she asked and did as requested. She wasted no time, squirming and yanking the torture device down to shimmy the material over her hips like a snake shedding its skin before kicking it off and stomping it into the floorboard with a little more force than necessary.
“I don’t suppose you have any flip-flops in that bag of yours?”
The Carolina Cove T-shirt and sweats weren’t exactly a match for her six-inch glittering heels—another mother-must for her wedding day.
If she ever got married, she promised herself then and there she’d be barefoot or in flats. She was a beach girl after all. Born and bred.
“Yeah, if you dig deep. They’re probably on the bottom.”
That was the thing with true Carolinians. It could be thirty degrees outside, but if the sun was shining, they’d still be wearing their flip-flops.
She felt around the bag, a little fearful of what else she might find, seeing as how he was a single guy heading on vacation, but thankfully her hand landed on sweats and a familiar foamy thickness. She went to work freeing her poor feet next.
Designer heels mercifully off and tossed over her shoulder into the backseat with two solid clunks, she stretched her feet and reveled in the ability to flatten them out of the Barbie pose before she quickly yanked on the sweats, shoved her feet into the flip-flops, and almost felt like an entirely new person.
Almost.
There was still the matter of being a bride on the run, and needing to lay low until she got her head together and figured out her next move. She also had to come up with a statement to make to the media as well as think of what to say to Rhys since she needed to talk to him soon.
Yeah, no problem there, right? Whatcouldshe say after today? “I’m done,” she said. “You can turn around now.”
She glanced up and saw herself reflected in his window thanks to the light from the dash. Had he watched her strip?
“Feel better?”
“Definitely.”
She gathered up the dress next, rolling it and bunching it into a ball, and then it too went sailing toward the backseat even though she was tempted to throwitout the window.
