Kidnapping His Bride

For a few long seconds, as Griff kissed her and she kissed him back, Tessa forgot everything.

She felt what she’d always felt around Griff, right down through her body—delightful, sensual desire. And she basked in the feeling of being close to a man she had once loved more than anyone else in the whole world.

Loved. Past tense.

The thought brought her back to reality, and she jerked away from him, stiffening.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” she said, staring at him.

“Why?” he asked quietly. “Because you liked it so much it’s giving you second thoughts about what you’re getting into? Because you’re worried that the yearning you just felt is the way you’re supposed to feel about the man you’re marrying—plus a whole lot more?”

Dear Reader,

Summer’s finally here! Whether you’ll be lounging poolside, at the beach, or simply in your home this season, we have great reads packed with everything you enjoy from Silhouette Romance—tenderness, emotion, fun and, of course, heart-pounding romance—plus some very special surprises.

First, don’t miss the exciting conclusion to the thrilling ROYALLY WED: THE MISSING HEIR miniseries with Cathie Linz’s A Prince at Last! Then be swept off your feet—just like the heroine herself!—in Hayley Gardner’s Kidnapping His Bride.

Romance favorite Raye Morgan is back with A Little Moonlighting, about a tycoon set way off track by his beguiling associate who wants a family to call her own. And in Debrah Morris’s That Maddening Man, can a traffic-stopping smile convince a career woman—and single mom—to slow down…?

Then laugh, cry and fall in love all over again with two incredibly tender love stories. Vivienne Wallington’s Kindergarten Cupids is a very different, highly emotional story about scandal, survival and second chances. Then dive right into Jackie Braun’s True Love, Inc., about a professional matchmaker who’s challenged to find her very sexy, very cynical client his perfect woman. Can she convince him that she already has?

Here’s to a wonderful, relaxing summer filled with happiness and romance. See you next month with more fun-in-the-sun selections.

Happy reading!

Mary-Theresa Hussey

Senior Editor

Kidnapping His Bride
Hayley Gardner

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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And to Tina, Mary-Theresa, Miss Jeri Buckner and Sheriff Kenneth Volentine: my heartfelt thanks for your help and/or expertise.

To all the people in Claiborne Parish who have gone out of their way to accept us, help us and make us feel like family: because of you, living in Athens is like living in Paradise. Thank you.

Books by Hayley Gardner

Silhouette Romance

A Baby in His Stocking #1341

Kidnapping His Bride #1598

Silhouette Yours Truly

Holiday Husband

The One-Week Wife

The One-Week Baby

HAYLEY GARDNER

used to sit in high school history class while the teachers lectured and write romances in her notebook instead of notes. That turned out just fine, because she could always study the textbooks, and the teachers always thought she was their most conscientious student who took down every word they said!

Now, years later, she is thrilled to be following her dream of full-time writing—when she isn’t homeschooling her son, that is. Any free time Hayley has is spent with her husband or researching methods of teaching children with autism or collecting dolls or knitting or taking long, deep breaths…and hoping her readers enjoy her efforts to make them smile and feel good about love.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Epilogue

Chapter One

She was doing the right thing, Tessa Blake reassured herself as she paced in the foyer of one of Claiborne Landing’s only two churches. In her white satin, pearl-studded, wedding dress, she was the bride-to-be she’d dreamed of being for almost all of her twenty-seven years—so what if she was marrying the wrong groom? There was nothing wrong with Clay Ledoux. Nothing at all. Had she been anyone but who she was, with any other past than the one she had, and had he been anyone else but who he was, she might have fallen hard for Clay. Even though she hadn’t, this marriage was what she wanted, and nothing was going to stand in her way.

Through the closed door to the sanctuary, she could hear her grandmother, Sadie, who had taken her in when she’d been more or less orphaned at age twelve, playing the opening notes of the next to the last song before the “Wedding March.” Focus. She needed to focus. So she concentrated on the music, and how happy she would be—

“Was leaving me off the invitation list my brother’s idea—or yours?”

Not having heard the front door to the church brush open over the carpet behind her, Tessa jumped at the voice. Realizing whom it belonged to, she whirled around with a little gasp, her petticoats and satin skirt rustling back into place as she met the gaze of the man who had once played the leading role in all her dreams of being a bride. Griff. Clay’s brother. Her former fiancé. She’d ended their engagement years before when she’d finally figured out that he’d be happier flying planes in the Air Force than stuck here in Claiborne Landing with her. To see him here, now, was totally unexpected, as was the physical attraction that slammed right into her stomach and edged down to her knees, making them weak. Exasperated that she could still feel anything for him, even physically, after having gone on with her life, she mustered up some gumption.

“For years on end you don’t come home, and you expected an invitation?” she asked, purposely keeping her voice low so no one would come see whom she was talking to. “We figured you’d send your regrets. That you’d already be busy climbing in some pyramid. Or maybe flying off to see an ancient Greek ruin or some French art museum. Don’t tell me you’re calling a halt to your traveling before seeing all the Seven Wonders of the World?”

“Maybe,” he drawled out, “I figured seeing Tessa Blake getting married without love, and to my brother, might qualify as the Eighth. At least, you got me wondering.”

“How did you know that?” As soon as the sentence was out of her mouth, she realized she’d just about verified the “marrying without love” part. It figured. She could never hide anything from Griff. That’s why she tried to avoid him whenever he was in town for a visit. Mostly it had worked, except for that one time two years ago when she’d run into him, and spoken up when she shouldn’t have. But she didn’t want to dwell on the past.

“Someone told you about the wedding and that I wasn’t in love?” she asked.

“And more, via e-mail.”

More? She gulped. Already panicked, she was now feeling almost light-headed. “What more?”

He shrugged his broad shoulders. “Not important.”

Not important to him maybe. Tessa took a slow, deep breath and tried to relax. If Griff knew the worst, he would not be that nonchalant.

“Who was this e-mail from?”

“I honestly don’t know. The address was Please-Come@freebies.com.” The muscle in his jaw throbbed. “You didn’t send it, did you?”

“No!”

He believed her; she could tell by his solemn look.

“None of that is important right now,” he said. “What is, is that you don’t make the mistake of your life by walking down that aisle.” He took a step closer to her, and Tessa backed up until she was almost at the still-closed door to the sanctuary. The last thing she wanted on the day she was getting married was to be this close to Griff. Even though her brain had written him a goodbye letter after he’d made her heart freeze up, it was like she’d forgotten to send a copy to the rest of her body. They hadn’t been this close for years.

So many years.

“You have to leave,” she said with as much authority as she could muster, not about to get into what kind of mistake she was about to make—or not. “I’m going to be getting married in about two minutes.”

“So you say.” Griff stared solemnly around the foyer, at the small, antique bookcase to one side and at the steep stairwell leading up to the classroom where they’d had Sunday School classes as children. “There’s no one here to walk you down the aisle and give you away. Want me to?”

“No, Griff. You’re the past. My future is on the other side of this door, and that’s where I’m going. Alone.”

He lifted his fingertips, brushed back a ringlet at her temple and then slid them slowly down the curve of her cheek, sending a shiver through her. “You swore to me a couple of years back you were going to have your dream, Tessa,” he reminded her, his voice getting under her skin and reaching into her heart. “I’m here to make sure you don’t give up on it.”

Her dream? Then she remembered. The last time they’d really talked, during one of his rare visits “home,” Griff had asked her why she’d never gotten married. She’d told him she wouldn’t, not unless she fell in love, and that hadn’t happened yet. That just as Griff had given up everything, including her, to pursue his dream, she was determined to have hers of a loving husband and children. The perfect family she’d never had, in the perfect home and hometown she hadn’t had until her father had abandoned her, her mother had died, and the authorities had finally found Sadie. Griff was here to make sure she didn’t give up on that dream. But how could he do that? They were through.

“You walked away years ago, remember?” she asked. Her heart, already beating swiftly, pounded at his nearness. The woodsy scent he was wearing began to penetrate her defenses and cloud her thoughts. “You shouldn’t care at this point.”

“I shouldn’t care,” he agreed, his eyes never leaving her, “but I know how much pain a loveless marriage can cause—for both sides. I don’t want you, or my brother, to have to go through that. And then there’s—” Suddenly he shook his head. “No, there isn’t time to get into that. Just postpone the wedding, and let’s go talk.”

“I can’t,” she said, shaking her head, wanting to ask him what there was no time to get into, but doing so would be pointless. “I’m marrying your brother, now. We can talk later.”

“We need to talk now.”

Of all the nerve… Behind her, “The Wedding March” started. Ready to enter the sanctuary and walk down the aisle, Tessa purposefully slid to Griff’s side and began to turn toward the door. But before she could so much as put her hand on the golden knob, Griff swept her off her feet and hoisted her onto his shoulder. Pivoting, he headed through the still-open front door and down the brick steps of the church.

“Are you crazy?” Tessa asked breathlessly, batting his chest. He didn’t respond. She swung her head from side to side, looking for help, but then she remembered the entire population of Claiborne Landing, all one hundred fifty-five of them, were stuffed into the church, courtesy of her grandmother. There wasn’t so much as one old man idling his time away on the bench in front of the car repair shop across the road. Through the closed windows, with the noisy wall unit air conditioners humming and “The Wedding March” being played loudly, Tessa doubted anyone could hear her if she yelled for help. At least, she thought wryly, she didn’t have to worry about the embarrassment of it all.

In the seconds it took to reach his shiny, silver-blue truck parked on the edge of the road, she was beyond the shock she’d experienced in the church, past the physical attraction, and all the way up to irritated. Very. He plopped her onto the driver’s side seat, and she caught the breath that being thrown over his shoulder and bouncing the dozen yards had knocked loose from her. “What in the world do you think you are doing?”

“We’re fixing to have a talk.”

“You always did insist on having everything your way, didn’t you?”

“If I had, darlin’, you’d have married me when I graduated the Academy and come with me all over the world, and I’d have been toting you off to celebrate our wedding anniversary this month. But that’s water under the bridge, isn’t it?”

“Definitely.” She gave her head an emphatic nod. “In fact, as far as I’m concerned, that bridge just crosses a dusty, dried out, old creek bottom now.”

Griff’s mouth twisted, and his ink-blue eyes scolded her. “All I’m trying to do is keep you—and my brother—from making a mistake.”

“Like you and I made?”

“A mistake? Yeah, sure.” He gave her another long look. “I’m good at making those.” Then, to her embarrassment, he put one hand on her bottom and started to push her toward the passenger side. He didn’t have to expend a lot of effort; the second his hand touched her, Tessa bolted right as though she’d been zapped with electricity.

Griff slid in beside her and shut the door.

“The sheriff is probably investigating right now why I’m not walking down the aisle. Kidnapping me is not a good idea, Griff. I could have you arrested.”

The grin that was uniquely Griff’s appeared as the truck roared to life, and they pulled out onto the narrow country road. She hadn’t seen that grin for years, not since before the two of them had broken up. It was half-curved and kind of devilishly appealing, and it still had the power to melt her heart.

“Yeah,” he agreed, “you could. But you won’t. Getting me arrested would keep me in town a long time, wouldn’t it? I’d be around to interfere in your plans.”

He had a point. Griff, in town, was something she definitely did not desire.

“Besides, you don’t want your wedding day to be a scandal the whole town talks about for years, do you?”

No, she didn’t. It was already half-ruined, of course, and if Griff got his way, it would be totally shot, but it wasn’t a scandal—not yet. She could still keep her personal business from becoming a tasty morsel for the town to munch on.

He rounded a corner carefully, heading away from the church down Highway 518 toward Athens, away from Claiborne Landing. Leaving town was something he was really good at, she thought bitterly, and then she wondered why she was giving him that much energy. She was over him.

“You’re making a mistake, Tessa.”

“The mistake being marrying your brother?” Tessa asked, her chin matching his for stubbornness. With great care, she kept herself from examining every inch of him with hungry eyes. She was marrying Clay as soon as she could get loose from Griff, and it wouldn’t be right looking at another man.

He shook his head. “The mistake being not marrying for love. Did you really think for one minute that I wouldn’t try to stop you from doing that?”

“Did you really think for one second that you’d have anything at all to say about it?”

“No,” he admitted quietly. “But I’d like to. I’m an expert on why you shouldn’t marry without love.”

She remained silent, which was not what Griff had expected, because before, she’d always had a comment or opinion about everything. And so, being careful to check the roller coaster hills for oncoming traffic first, he ventured another look at her to see if he could tell what she was thinking.

When he’d thrown her over his shoulder and carried her out of the church, apparently he’d caused her veil to tilt. Her topknot was tipped, and curls from her long, ash-blond hair were now tumbling down around her temples. Even a little bedraggled, she was still the prettiest thing he’d ever laid eyes on, and still the most desirable woman he’d ever met. The years of being without her hadn’t changed that.

Tessa took a deep breath, which got his attention. “So tell me about this e-mail.”

“It came three days ago and mentioned all the particulars of the wedding—when, where, and whom—and then asked me to come stop it so you didn’t end up marrying someone you didn’t love.” The other thing it had said, he didn’t want to get into with her yet. Maybe not even ever.

“And you came, even though it’s been over between us a long time?” Tessa didn’t want to think about what that might mean.

“Like I said, I know what it is to marry someone you don’t love, and go through the agony of a divorce. I’m sure you heard Janie and I—”

“Yes, I heard.” She didn’t want to discuss his former marriage with him. Talk about pain.

“I wasn’t only thinking of you, you know, when I pulled you out of there. My brother’s mixed up in this mess.”

“With how little you’ve been back to see your family since you left home, I’m surprised you’re that worried about Clay. You needn’t be. His heart is safe with me.”

“Mine wasn’t.”

“The broken heart worked both ways, Griff.” She worked her teeth over her bottom lip, her slim shoulders stiffening with the memories under satin sleeves. “But Clay and I won’t divorce. I’m positive of that.”

“You were positive we would get married when I got my commission, too, and look at what happened.”

The situations were totally different, but Tessa wasn’t about to get into that. There was nothing else she could say without telling him a whole lot more than she was willing to.

“This is getting us nowhere.” Removing her lacy gloves, she reached up and started to pull out the hairpins that were now, thanks to him, tangling up her carefully done hair. “We need to get whatever your problem is settled and me back to the wedding. So tell me what you want.”

There was a long silence in the truck, and the air was heavy between them. “I want you to reconsider marrying Clay. I want you to find a man who will make you happy.”

“I had one of those once, and he left town,” she pointed out.

He winced. She didn’t want him hurt, Tessa thought, but really, why was he here? She couldn’t believe he had come home merely to “rescue” her—what was the point? He didn’t want her. And how had he been able to get off on short notice anyway? Then she remembered. Six years he’d promised the Air Force for sending him to college. And those six years were up this month. June.

Her breath caught. “Are you home to stay, or planning to reenlist?” She was afraid to hear the answer; afraid to hear he’d changed his mind about the excitement he could experience “out there.” If he stayed in Claiborne Landing, what on earth was she going to do, because she was still marrying Clay.

She had to.

“At this point, reenlist. I had vacation days coming, so I took them.”

Relieved, Tessa kept her eyes averted and didn’t answer, too afraid that if she looked at him or spoke, he would sense the fear she felt that he would stay…and the worry she felt that if he did go, she would never see him again. Never have that thrill course through her that she got whenever she looked at him, never—

But she would be married to someone else, so maybe it would be better if she never.

He steered skillfully around a curve as the roller coaster road turned into more of a snake, and she braced one white pump against the floor to keep from sliding toward the middle and touching him. She caught the movement of his head and looked at him, and that jolt came one more time, the one that said that somehow, she had to get him to leave town as fast as possible, or she could very well say or do something that could ruin the precarious happiness she’d fought so hard for in the years since he’d left.

With a long sigh, she put her hairpins she’d been gripping in the cup holder on his dashboard and took her veil off, carefully folding and smoothing it out on her lap. “Where are we going?”

“Someplace to talk. Not your house. That’s the first place people would think of to look. Casey’s Kitchen still open this time of day?”

She nodded. Casey’s Kitchen was a cozy restaurant underneath a bunch of shady oaks on a well traveled highway that bisected Claiborne Landing. Its owner, Doc Casey, was a retired doctor in his sixties who had always claimed to love cooking more than doctoring, even though he’d been tremendously successful at medicine. He was also Tessa and her grandmother’s best customer at the bakery they owned, buying sweets for his customers, which included lunch and dinner crowds of mostly truck drivers, farmers, ranchers and an occasional mom and small children out for a break. By two any afternoon, the place was usually deserted, and Tessa was happy to see from the empty parking lot that today was no different.

Before she got out of the truck, she laid her gloves and the veil on the console between the seats, and then fixed her hair and makeup as best she could in the tiny mirror on the visor. By the time she finished, Griff had come around and opened the truck door on her side, and was waiting there to help her down.

As his hands touched her waist, an involuntary wave of desire went through her, as well as a glimpse back into the past when she’d loved his touching her. But whatever she’d felt then wasn’t important now. Griff didn’t say a word, but by the impenetrable look on his face, she would guess he wasn’t affected at all by touching her. That was all right. She didn’t want to have to deal with Griff wanting her.

Doc Casey himself was behind the counter when she walked in, and Tessa nodded at him as though nothing at all were out of the ordinary and she wasn’t attired in a white satin wedding dress. Trusting Griff would follow her, she went into the larger side room and settled at a small, relatively private table far to the rear of the place, hoping she was less noticeable back there. Griff sat down, too, close enough that their shoulders touched. She gave him a pursed mouth, questioning stare.

“If I sit on the other side of the table, I’ll have to talk louder,” he said, his voice low. She realized he was right and let him stay where he was, wishing she didn’t feel like a quivering mass of emotions just because he was home.

Back, she corrected silently. Griff didn’t want this to be home. He’d made that clear a long time ago.

Within seconds, Doc Casey came to take their order, his mirth-filled, green eyes gazing down at her from his round Irish face. “Griff. Welcome home. Welcome. Tessa, aren’t you a little too fancied up for this place?”

“You have a dress down code?” Tessa lifted both hands into the air in a plea for him to spare her.

“It’s my fault,” Griff said, leaning back in his chair to look up at the former doctor. “I kidnapped her from her wedding.”

“That so?” Doc Casey gazed down at Tessa with the same concerned, yet detached, expression he’d always used whenever she’d described her sneezes and sniffles.

“Plopped her right over my shoulder and carried her out kicking and screaming. Wanted to play a trick on my brother.”

Although he was exaggerating, his excuse for her being here, having a private meal with her fiancé’s brother when she was supposed to be at her wedding, was as good as any Tessa could make up. She glanced at Griff, and he winked, making her realize that saving her from having to give any explanation to Casey herself was exactly what he’d intended. His thoughtfulness caught her off balance.

“You haven’t changed a mite,” Doc Casey said, looking as if he wanted to laugh. “It was always you who did the hell-raising, and your brother who calmed everyone down.”

“Oh, I think Clay will probably do some hell-raising when he gets here,” Griff told him affably, as though he wasn’t worried a bit.

Casey let out a loud chuckle. “Ain’t that the truth, you taking his bride and all. Okay, what all you having?”

“Two burgers with everything and home fries. Also, two ice teas, sweet,” Griff said.

Casey scribbled down the order and set off. As soon as he rounded the corner out of sight, Tessa heard him chuckle again. Since the doctor seldom reacted outright to anything, she wondered what his doing so now meant.

It didn’t matter; she had more important things to deal with right now. She pointed toward the kitchen. “You’re eating every bite you ordered,” she told Griff. “I’m not going to cancel the wedding because I burst out of my gown.”

“No, you’ll cancel it because you don’t really want to marry Clay.”

“Who said I don’t?” She watched Griff’s blue eyes narrow, but then she thought of something and looked back to the doorway through which the older man had disappeared. “You know, Doc Casey has e-mail, and he seemed uncommonly glad to see you.”

“Whoever wanted me down here to stop the wedding would have had to know what my e-mail address was. I never gave it to Doc Casey.”

“Well, who did you give it to?”

He shrugged. “My parents, Clay, Sadie—”

“Shoot, if you gave it to Gran, the whole town could have it.” Suddenly Tessa sat up straight and frowned. “My grandmother never told me she was staying in touch with you.”

“She didn’t stay in touch with me, apart from an electronic Christmas card or two. I just wanted her to have my address in case she ever needed me.” Or if you did, Griff added silently.

Relieved that her grandmother was not reporting her every move to Griffin Ledoux, Tessa found her thoughts wandering to the enticing way the muscles in his shoulders had moved when he’d shrugged seconds ago. And that made her think more unwanted thoughts, like how good it had felt to be held by him ten years ago, when her dreams centered around having the perfect family with Griff, someday, when they were both ready—but there was no sense thinking about that. It was too late, too much had happened.

Someone came through the front door, making the bells on it jingle. The arrival reminded her that, at any minute, she and Griff could be joined by Clay and a whole bunch of her friends, and her grandmother Sadie. They would part without anything resolved between them, and there would still be someone out there, this mysterious e-mailer, who had already known, or guessed, too much about her life, and was maybe itching to tell Griff more.

“Okay,” she said, “let’s get this conversation wrapped up. I need to call Clay so he can bring me back to the wedding.”

Griff leaned back in his chair and met her stare for stare. “Since you aren’t in love with him, why exactly are you marrying Clay?”

“That’s none of your business.” Tessa’s heart picked up its rhythm, and she took a deep breath to try to keep calm. “We aren’t that close that I would tell you my secrets.” They could never be that close again, she thought sadly. “I never cross-examined you about your marriage to Janie, did I?”

“My life’s an open book,” Griff said. Tessa couldn’t believe he was as nonchalant as he sounded. “What do you want to know?”

“Nothing!” That was true. She didn’t want to know the personal, intimate details of any facet of Griff’s life, or risk an emotional involvement with him ever again. She’d learned her lesson the first time. Besides, it would ruin everything. She had to remain determined to do what was right.

“I caused my ex a great deal of heartache by marrying her for the wrong reasons, and that’s why I’m trying so hard to get you to walk away today. I don’t want the same thing to happen to you and my brother.”

“You keep saying that. How do you know I would bring Clay heartache? You’ve been living elsewhere almost ten years, Griff. The Air Force Academy, then all that military service. None of us are the same people as when you left. Maybe marrying me would make your brother happy. Did you ever consider that?”

“Is that why you’re marrying him? He’s fallen in love with you, and you think one of you being in love is enough to hold you together? Because it isn’t. I know this from experience. It won’t give you your dream of a loving husband and a family forever after, Tessa.”

“I’m not discussing this with you.”

“Fine. Call Clay. He’ll tell me what I want to know.”

No, Tessa thought, Clay wouldn’t tell him. Clay, like she, would do anything to keep their secret, as would the only other person who knew—Sadie, her grandmother. Which made her wonder how this mysterious e-mailer could have possibly found out what he had, and what else whoever it was might know that he could tell Griff.

She couldn’t chance Griff finding out anything else about her marriage to his brother. She had to get him to leave town.

But how? Sitting back in her chair, Tessa lifted her gaze to meet Griff’s. If she pushed him too much to leave, would he begin to suspect there was something else behind her not wanting him there? Something that could change his life—and others’—forever?