Read Online A Bride Worth Fighting For by Sara Daniel - Free Book Online Page A

to run more than a dozen steps, but she straightened and turned from the class. By living footstep to footstep, heartbeat to heartbeat, she could escape the endless parade of questions she had no answers for.
    She’d barely left the lodge behind before her feet become boulders at the ends of her legs and her lungs labored over each breath. Instead of wilting her confidence, the physical discomfort freed her. She couldn’t worry about the things she couldn’t remember if every breath required all her concentration.
    With no direction in mind, she ran down a path, retaining just enough outside awareness to retrace her steps for the return trip. But she didn’t want to return. She wanted to keep running, basking in the glorious freedom.
    For the first time, no one hovered over her. The blocked sections of her mind didn’t cripple her. Jogging freed her from the past she couldn’t remember and from the future that made no sense without a past to ground her.
    So she ran. And ran. Through the woods. Along trails. Onto sand. Until her body refused to take another step. With a final wheeze, she collapsed onto the sand. Her blurred vision created a mirage of water in front of her.
    She gasped for breath through the fire in her lungs and squeezed her eyes closed. When she lifted her lids, the water remained, placid waves lapping the sand in front of her. She raised her head slowly.
    A lake stretched before her, the sun sparkling off the water, the brightness too intense for her eyes to tolerate. She’d never seen this lake before. She was sure of it. Yet, at the same time, something about it felt familiar.
    She untied her shoes, pulled them off, and stuffed her socks inside. Then she wandered to the water’s edge, letting the sand seep between her toes and the waves lap her ankles. The lake bottom was too gritty and less slimy than she expected. She preferred mud and muck to squish between her toes as it did when she walked barefoot along the edge of her lake.
    She had a lake? How could that be possible? She and her mother had lived in an apartment in the city with a concrete balcony instead of a yard. But her certainty didn’t waver. A lake was part of her present and figured into her future.
    She sat on an oversized rock at the edge of the water, letting her feet dangle in the refreshing coolness. Staring at the sand and pebbles below the surface, she allowed the rhythmic motion and calm natural beauty to entrance her.
    She was a runner. With a lake. The pieces didn’t tell the whole story, but they gave her more than she’d known this morning.
    If only she could uncover what part Tucker played in her present and future, she might understand enough to begin to move forward and live again.
     
    ***
     
    “Where’s Gwen?” Tucker asked as Sage approached him in the lobby, holding out a glass of thick lavender liquid.
    “She’s fine. She’s doing what she needs to do.” Sage pressed the glass into his hand. “I made this just for you.”
    He grimaced. “Thanks, but I’m not thirsty.” Especially for something that looked like liquid cotton candy.
    She frowned. “Why are you so against indulging in anything that could help you heal?”
    Maybe because he had nothing to heal from. Obviously, the staff wasn’t accustomed to guests who merely accompanied someone else. “Tell you what, I’ll drink the shake if you tell me where to find Gwen?”
    “If you stay here, you’ll run into her,” the wispy blonde promised.
    He gritted his teeth, ignored the unnatural purple drink, glared through the window, and paced the floor. Yesterday, in the orchard, he’d been angry with Gwen, but now his anger and frustration focused inward. He hated the idea of her recovering her memory and turning back into the type of woman who’d manipulate a man into marriage and strike deals with Darlene. That wasn’t the woman he knew, and he couldn’t mesh the two personalities in his brain.
    Two long hours later, Gwen strode up the path,