The Wedding Promise

Chapter One

It was raining. Again.

Tiffany Bonander tried humming a few bars of White Christmas. It was, after all, December 23. Cheer was called for.

But the incessant beat of fat raindrops on the tangled foliage of the Ecuadorian rainforest and on her pink rain slicker, drowned out her cheer.

Or maybe she was just drowning under the pressure of heavy responsibilities.

Ankle-deep water rushed down the steep, muddy road toward Tiff and her precious cargo–thirty pounds of cocoa beans. She couldn't lose the beans. They were the answer to all her troubles.

Thunder boomed. And boomed again. The downpour increased to a deluge.

Tightening her grip on the wheelbarrow handles, Tiff tried to find purchase with her rain boots, tried to make it to the next rise before the road turned into a river. Tried...and failed. Somewhere above her the river had risen high enough to crest a bank. Water surged toward her.

Tiff's father claimed they'd abandoned this cocoa plantation years ago for drainage reasons. He should have used the F-word: flood.

Tiff stumbled to her knees, and water rushed into her boots–cute, pink-flowered plastic ones which quickly filled with water and felt as heavy as cement shoes. If not for her grip on the wheelbarrow, she might have been swept downhill. Just last week, she'd heard about a woman who'd been carried away by the cresting river and smashed into a tree. Smashed as in: to pieces. Dead.

That would be worse than being broke and the laughing-stock of the civilized world.

This was karma, plain and simple. She shouldn't have jilted Chad at their engagement party or left Malcolm at the altar.

Get a grip, Tiff.

Her father's angry voice crested above the approaching thunder. "You have an idea to save this company? You've had five fiancés in four years, Tiffany – and no marriages! No one takes you seriously, including me. Get a grip."

She'd like to get a handle on things. A do-over for starters. She would've avoided New York's social circus and gossip columns, would've been more careful about how she qualified love, and been less trusting that her father could successfully run their family's chocolate business. If Daddy had made a few more sound management decisions and squandered less money, she wouldn't have had to come to Ecuador at all.

A primal sound escaped Tiff's throat. Had she been in New York, she'd have been mortified. But here? In the remote Ecuadorian wilderness? No one was around to see the Bon-Bon Heiress have a meltdown.

Tiff levered herself to her feet, feeling more like Frankenstein plodding along in her water-filled boots than Christopher Robin skipping on a blustery day.

She inched her wheelbarrow through the sludgefest only to slip into a rut. Her foot came out of her water-logged boot, and the flood water carried it away. The wind whipped off her hood. Rain plastered her hair to her head, and ran down her back. The right handle of the wheelbarrow broke.

Helpless. Bootless. Prince Charming-less.

Tiff would not cry. She hefted the bag of cocoa beans to her shoulders. Her machete swung at her hip as if she was a big, bad jungle babe. As if...

The water continued to rise, funneling down the road, rising above her ankles.

I hate the rain. I hate the rainforest. I hate the jungle.