That's Amore! - Janelle Denison [57]
It was then she realized she couldn't go through with it. As much as she loved Nick, she couldn't go into that church tomorrow and pledge her everlasting devotion to him, without reservations, without doubt. There were too many questions floating around in her mind. Too many things she needed to know. Too far a place for her to get to before the ceremony.
Where that morning she'd been a girl feasting on the dream of a wedding, now she was a mature woman considering the consequences of her actions.
If she let Nick's parents do what they wanted to do to her father, she'd never be able to look them in the face again. And Nick? He hadn't seemed shocked by their requests. In fact, he'd suggested that they allow their parents to hammer everything out.
Efi smoothed her hand down the pretty lace bodice. Is that what the future held? A life as the docile wife chained to home and hearth while her husband dictated the direction of their lives? Was she facing years of holidays and Sunday dinners sitting across from in-laws who saw her as a big price tag instead of appreciating her for the person she was?
A sense of panic so overwhelming ballooned in her chest she thought she might burst with it.
She stepped toward the door, listening to the other side of the wood. She didn't hear anything, but that didn't mean no one was there. She quietly unlocked the door and inched it slightly open to find Kiki, her mother and her sister lying on makeshift beds in the hall outside. Kiki met her gaze and began getting up. Efi quickly closed the door again.
Essentially they were blocking her in. Ironic that she had been the one to initially lock herself in. She had little doubt that if she didn't come out first thing in the morning, they would go in search of a battering ram and crash the door in to gain access. After all, no matter how she felt, or what she was going through, the show must go on.
She rushed toward the front windows and pushed the right one all the way up, staring at the ground below. When she was a teen she used to sneak outside by way of the branches of the old oak. But it had been a number of years since she'd done it.
"Oh, the hell with it."
Bunching up the skirt of her wedding dress, she swung one leg over the ledge, then the other, maintaining a death grip on the window. Her heart beat thickly in her chest as she reached for the nearest branch, fell short and tipped slightly forward.
Oh, God.
She took a deep breath and tried to calm her fear as she reached again. This time she slipped completely from the window and cried out as she frantically grabbed for the tree, catching a branch right before her feet would hit the ground. She swung there for a moment or two, looking around and hoping no one heard her, then let go.
And found herself standing in the familiar cradle of Nick's arms.
"It took you long enough," he said, grinning down at her.
CHAPTER NINE
Very early day seven—W-Day…
THE NUMBNESS EFI HAD FELT permeating her every cell now melted into a dull, throbbing ache. She sat in the car next to Nick, finding it strange that it wasn't all that long ago they were anxious for some alone time so they might fool around. But now that they had it, they couldn't be farther away from each other physically or emotionally.
She didn't know where he was going. Didn't care. All that mattered was that no one was following them, neither of them had their cell phones with them, and time stretched ahead of them like a gaping hole.
"How did you know I was going to climb out the window?"
Again she caught a hint of Nick's grin. But only a hint, because he seemed to be struggling with more than a few demons of his own, given the shadow of concern in his dark eyes.
"I know you," he said quietly. "Or have you forgotten that?"
Yes, she guessed she had forgotten that. She should have expected that he'd be waiting outside for her to drop