She shook her head slightly as she tried to reconcile all that she knew about her cool, perfect sister with the woman who had just fled her wedding on the back of a Harley. As she stared at the crumpled aisle runner and the place where the grass had been trampled down, she realized that she hadn't known her sister at all.

The idea terrified her. She immediately shoved it away and let a clean, pure surge of anger take its place.

Susannah had lied to all of them. She had a secret life, a secret self that none of them had ever suspected. That image of cool perfection had been a sham. How clever her sister was, how deceitful. She had manipulated them so that she remained the favored daughter while her younger sister was the outcast.

Paige nurtured her anger, clasping it to her breast and hugging it close. She let it fill every pore so that there was no room left for fear, so that no place remained inside her where she might hide other lies-lies about herself.

Sounds began to work their way into her consciousness-exclamations, muted conversation. The guests had formed animated groups, and at any moment they would begin to descend on her. They would ply her with questions she couldn't answer and pour buckets full of pity over her head. She couldn't bear it. She had to get away.

Her battered VW was parked in the motorcourt among the Jags and Rollses, and she wove her way along the perimeter of the garden toward it. But before she slipped around the corner of the back wing, she slowed and looked back.

The groups were still huddled together. Heads were moving back and forth as everyone offered an interpretation of what had just happened. She waited for the men to reach for their pens so they could calculate the effect that this might have on the price of FBT stock.

As she watched them, she could feel the blood rushing through her veins like a river on a rampage. Her ears were ringing. This was it! This was what she'd been waiting for. All her life she'd been waiting for this chance.

Hesitantly, she slipped her tawdry boa from her shoulders and let it fall behind an urn of roses. Then, with her heart in her throat, she began moving toward the guests. When she reached the nearest group, she gathered her strength and spoke.

"It seems a shame for all this food to go to waste. Why don't we move toward the reception tent?"

Everyone turned to her, surprised.

"Why, Paige!" one of the women exclaimed. "Poor dear. What an awful thing."

"None of us can believe it," another interjected. "Susannah, of all people."

Paige heard herself replying in a smooth, careful voice that sounded a bit like her sister's. "She's been under a lot of pressure lately. I-We can only hope she gets the professional help she needs."

An hour later, with the small of her back aching from the tension of fielding their questions, she said good-bye to the last of the guests and entered Falcon Hill. The house enveloped her-comforting and suffocating at the same time. She walked through the deserted rooms on the first floor in search of her father and then climbed the stairs. The door to her old bedroom was shut. Nothing was there for her and she felt no temptation to go in.

Susannah's room was neat as always. The suitcases for the honeymoon waited by the door like abandoned children. Paige stepped into the adjoining bath. The marble tub and sink were immaculate. No auburn strands of hair clung to the sides, no smears of makeup spoiled the ebony surface. It was as if her sister never used the room, as if she somehow managed to emerge into the world clean and perfect-without any effort on her part.

Her father's bedroom was as orderly as Susannah's and just as empty. She found him in a small study at the back of the house, which overlooked the gardens. He was standing at the window, staring down on the shambles of his daughter's wedding.

Her stomach pitched. "Daddy?"

He turned his head and gave her a calm inquisitive stare, as if nothing of any import had happened. "Yes, Paige?"

Her fragile self-confidence deserted her. "I-I just-wanted to see if you were-were all right."

"Of course. Why wouldn't I be?"

But as she looked more closely, she could see his pallid complexion and the harsh brackets at the corners of his mouth. His weakness gave her a sudden spurt of strength. "Would you like me to fix you a drink?"

He gazed at her for a moment as if he were making up his mind about something, and then he nodded stiffly. "Yes, why don't you do that?"

She turned to leave, only to have him speak again.

"And Paige. That dress is quite ugly. Would you mind changing it?"

Her first reaction to his criticism was the familiar defen-sive surge of anger, but almost immediately the anger faded. He wasn't sending her away. He wanted her to stay. Now that Susannah was gone, she wasn't an outcast anymore.

It took her only seconds to make her decision. Slipping out into the hallway, she went to Susannah's room and removed the thrift-shop dress. Five minutes later she descended the stairs wearing one of her sister's soft Italian knits.

The world flew past Susannah's eyes like a carousel spinning out of control. The wind tore at her hair, snarling it around her head, whipping it against Sam's cheeks. Her dress had ridden up, and the tops of her legs chafed against the rough denim of his jeans, but she didn't notice. She had moved to a point beyond simple sensation. As she clung to his waist, she prayed the wild ride would never end. The motorcycle was a magic chariot that held time at bay. As long as the machine kept moving, there was no yesterday, no today, no tomorrow.

Sam seemed to understand her need to fly. He did not take them due south, but zigzagged across the peninsula, showing her a familiar world from a different perspective. The San Andreas Reservoir flashed by, and later the bay. They roared through quiet neighborhoods and ran with the wind along the highway. Eighteen-wheelers sped by them, tossing grit and belching blast-furnace gusts of air that stole her breath. Car horns blared at the lace-clad runaway bride perched so incongruously on the back of a Harley-Davidson. She wanted to ride forever. She wanted to race through time into a different dimension-a world where she had no name. A world where actions bore no consequences.

South of Moffet Field, Sam pulled off the highway. Before long, they were passing industrial parks and strip malls. Then he began to slow. She pressed her cheek against the back of his shoulder and closed her eyes. Don't stop, she prayed. Don't ever stop.

But he did. He kicked off the engine, and the bike became still between her thighs. Turning, he pulled her close against him. "Time to get a move on, biker lady," he whispered. "Your man is hungry."

She made a breathless, frightened sound. Was he her man? Oh, God, what had she done? What was going to happen to her?

He let her go as he got off the bike, and then he held out his hand. She grasped it as if his touch could save her.

"It's a new world," he said. "We're walking into a new world."

More accurately, they were walking into a Burger King.

Susannah's eyes flew open as she became aware of where they were. The asphalt of the parking lot was warm beneath her stockinged feet. She was barefoot. Oh, God, she was barefoot in front of a Burger King! A hole had formed in her silk stockings over one knee, and a small circle of skin pushed through like a bubble on bread dough. Sam pulled her forward, and she saw faces gaping at them from the window.

Her frightened reflection stared back at her-rumpled lace wedding dress, auburn hair hanging in rowdy tangles, thin nose red from the wind. Panicked, she grabbed at his arm. "Sam, I can't-"

"You already have."

With a tug on her hand, he thrust her through the door into the burger-scented heart of middle America.

A gaggle of teenage boys interrupted a burping contest to stare at them from an orange booth. She heard laughter at the spectacle she was making of herself. The soles of her stockings clung to a sticky spot on the tiled floor. A group of six-year-olds celebrating a birthday party looked up from beneath crooked cardboard crowns. One of them pointed. Throughout the restaurant, patrons abandoned their french fries and Whoppers to stare at Susannah Faulconer. She stood there and tried not to let the enormity of what was happening sink in.

Good girls didn't get themselves kidnapped. A society bride didn't flee her wedding on the back of a Harley-Davidson. What was wrong with her? What was she going to do? She had humiliated Cal. He'd never forgive her. And her father…

But what she had done was too monstrous, and she couldn't think about her father. Not now. Not yet.

Sam had stopped at the counter. He turned to her and studied her for a moment. "You're not going to cry, are you?"

She shook her head, not able to speak because her throat had closed tight. He didn't know her well enough to know that she never cried, although at that moment she very much wanted to.

"You look great," he whispered, his eyes sweeping over her. "Loose and sexy."

A thrill shot through her, the sensation so intense that she forgot for a moment where she was. No one had ever called her such a thing. She drank in the sight of his face and wondered if she would ever get her fill of looking at him.

He gave her a crooked grin and glanced up at the menu board. "What're you going to have?"

Abruptly, she remembered where she was. She tried to take courage from his complete disinterest in the opinions of the people watching them. He had called her loose and sexy, and with those words she wanted to become a new person, the person he was describing. But words weren't enough to make her into someone else. She was still Susannah Faulconer, and she hated the spectacle she was making.

He ordered and picked up their food. Numbly, she followed him to a table by the window. Her appetite had deserted her, and after a few bites she abandoned any pretense of eating. Sam reached for her hamburger.

As she watched his strong white teeth rip through the bun, she tried to tell herself that no matter how frightened she was, anything was better than dying a slow death of old age at twenty-five.

Susannah had somehow imagined Sam living in a small bachelor apartment, and she wasn't prepared for the fact that he still lived with his mother. The house was one of the small mass-produced ranches that had sprung up in the Valley during the late fifties to house the workers who had flooded to Lockheed following the launching of Sputnik. The front was faced with green aluminum siding, the sides and back with dingy white stucco. Tarpaper topped with fine gravel covered the roof. It sparkled faintly in the fading sunlight.

"The light's not on," Sam said, gesturing toward the garage that sat off to the side along with a ragged palm. "Yank must not be here."

"Does he live here, too?" she asked, growing more nervous by the minute. Why couldn't Sam have lived by himself? What was she going to say to his mother?

"Yank has an apartment on the other side of town. Mom's in Las Vegas with a girlfriend for the next couple of weeks. We have the place to ourselves."

That, at least, was a relief. She walked behind him to the front of the house. Next to the door stretched a long opaque window with vertically ridged glass. The caulking around it had loosened and cracked. Sam unlocked the door and went inside. She followed, stepping across the threshold and directly into the living room. She caught her breath.

The decor was a monument to bad taste. Ugly gold shag carpeting covered the floor. An aquarium filled with iridescent gravel sat next to a Spanish sofa with dark wood trim, brass nail heads, and red velvet upholstery. Sam flipped a wall switch, turning on a lamp made up of a wire bird cage filled with plastic philodendrons. Nearby, occupying what was obviously a place of honor, hung a full-length oil painting of Elvis Presley wearing one of his white-satin Las Vegas outfits and clutching a microphone with ring-encrusted fingers.

Susannah looked over at Sam and waited for him to say something. He returned her stare, his expression belligerent as he waited for her to make a comment. The look of challenge in his eyes and the stubborn set to his jaw touched her. She wanted to go to him and lay her head against his shoulder and tell him she understood. A man with so much passion for elegant design must find it unbearable to live in such a place.

She asked to use the bathroom. Decals of fat fish were stuck to tangerine tiles. She took off her torn stockings and stuffed them into a plastic wastebasket. A smaller painting of Elvis done on black velvet regarded her from the wall behind the toilet, LOVE ME TENDER was written in glitter ill script across the bottom, except some of the letters had worn off so that it read love me ten. Not one, she thought as she washed her hands, avoiding her reflection in the mirror. Don't love me two or three. Love me ten.