Counterfeit Bride by Sara Craven Page A

on the other side of the bar, and guessed he had taken advantage of her absence to further his acquaintance with the pretty waitress. His cap and gloves lay on the table, awaiting his return. And—Nicola took a shaky breath—so did the keys to the car. Almost before she knew what she was doing, she leaned across and took them, dropping them into her bag. The die was cast, it seemed.
    Biting her lip, she got up and crossed to the back door again. There was on one in sight. The truck basked in the heat of the afternoon. Nicola looked round, her heart thudding uncomfortably, then crossed and looked into the driver's cab. The keys were there, she registered incredulously. But then why shouldn't they be? This was a remote corner of nowhere, not a busy urban street. The door squealed nastily as she opened it, and she froze for a moment expecting the sound of running feet, raised voices, but there was nothing.
    She climbed up into the cab, wincing as the heat from the torn and shabby upholstery penetrated her thin dress. She drew a deep breath and made herself sit calmly for a moment while she briefly studied the controls. She needed to make a clean getaway, not fumbling and stalling. Nor would she take the road they'd just come on. She would head across country for the distant sierras, and hope that somewhere she would encounter the highway or at least a town of reasonable size.
    With a silent prayer on her lips, she turned on the ignition. The engine didn't fire at the first attempt, but it did at the second, and she eased down the clutch, swallowing nervously. Bumping and lurching over the rough ground, the rickety vehicle took off with a speed which belied its battered exterior.
    Behind her, Nicola heard a shout, and then another. She risked a look over her shoulder. The truck driver was standing with Lopez, like a frozen tableau depicting horror, then they both moved, running forward in a futile effort to catch the truck before it was too late. Nicola smiled grimly, and put her foot down hard. A glance in the mirror showed that Lopez had thrown his cap down and was jumping on it, and a giggle of sheer hysteria welled up inside her. She didn't look back again. This was practically desert she was driving over, and she needed all her wits about her.
    She drove for over an hour, and then stopped the truck in the shade of a large rock and took stock of her position. So far she hadn't seen as much as a sign of a road, and although she knew she was bound to come across one sooner or later, there was a niggle of anxiety deep in the pit of her stomach. She remembered hearing that drivers were not advised to turn off main roads in the northern regions without qualified guides. Tourists had been known to be lost, and worse. She wasn't a tourist, of course, she was a fugitive, and that made it no better.
    There were no maps in the truck, she discovered, after a perfunctory search. There was a service manual for some other vehicle entirely, a dilapidated torch, and a few tools, as well as an oil-stained jacket. No food or drink—not even as much as a slab of chocolate.
    Nicola took off the wig and ran her hands luxuriously through her hair. Never again, she thought, and pitched it through the open window. Some desert bird was welcome to use it as a nest. She unzipped her bag and took out the long-suffering blue dress, giving it a critical shake, then found the simple leather sandals she wore with it. When she had changed, she rolled the orchid pink dress and the elegant shoes into a bundle and left them under the rock.
    As she re-started the engine, she thought thankfully, 'It's over.'
    Another two hours had passed, and Nicola had just realised that she was hopelessly lost, when the truck ran out of fuel. Alerted by the sputtering of the reluctant engine, she searched among the dials on the dashboard for the petrol gauge, and realised with a sinking heart that the needle was vacillating nervously in the red section.
    She groaned aloud,