Million-Dollar Bride

by Karen Toller Whittenburg

  He grabbed her fluttering hands and forced the left one into position at her waist. “First of all, we pretend that we’re still handcuffed to the dress. Then we play it cool and calm and we wait for the right opportunity. Now, when he opens the door, remember what I said…cool and calm, wait for the right minute….”

  She looked out the back window. “What’s he doing in the trunk, Mack?”

  “Whatever it is, I’m against it.” He thought fast and furiously. “Just follow my lead, okay?”

  “Maybe I’ll say a little prayer.”

  “That couldn’t hurt, either.”

  Chuck opened the door for them. “All right, chickadees, your honeymoon nest awaits.”

  Mack helped Eliza out of the limo, being careful to behave as if the wedding-dress knot still held. “Where?” he asked. “Not that old-”

  “Is that a barn?” Eliza interrupted. “There aren’t going to be any horses in there, are there?”

  “I don’t rightly know, Eliza. Let’s find out.” Chuck moved behind them, and Mack gauged his best opportunity. The moment they started walking, he would wheel and punch. Wheel and punch. Wheel and—

  “If there’s a horse in there, I am not going in.” Eliza spun around to make sure Chuck understood…and blew their cover in a split second of inattention. Mack realized the opportunity was now or never. He lunged for Chuck, who was quicker than he looked, sidestepping the assault before landing a neat uppercut to Mack’s jaw and sending him sprawling on the ground with a loud whuffff!

  Eliza gasped. “Mack! Are you all right?”

  “Well, well, well. We did get ourselves loose, didn’t we? Good work, Eliza.” Chuck dropped to his knees beside Mack. “I’d decided you couldn’t work it out and I’d have to do the trick myself. You didn’t harm the dress any, did you?”

  “No,” she said. “What are you doing to him?”

  Pain shot across Mack’s neck as first one arm and then the other was jerked behind his back. She was in on this, he thought. What a stupid idiot he was to have tried to protect her.

  “I’m tying him up. What does it look like I’m doing?”

  “With jumper cables? You’re tying him up with jumper cables?”

  “That’s right, darlin’. Necessity is the mother of invention, you know.” Chuck pulled the noose tight around Mack’s arms and clipped one set of terminal clamps to his pant legs, right behind each knee, and the other set to the seat of his tuxedo trousers.

  “Son of a—!” Mack gritted his teeth as Chuck jerked him to his feet and the upper set of cables nipped him.

  “Take those off of him right now.” Eliza pulled back and let fly with her fist, clipping Chuck on the tip of his nose.

  “Ow! You little she-devil.” He grabbed her arm and twisted it behind her back with one hand while holding Mack’s elbow with the other. Then he propelled them toward the dark, hulking shape of the barn. “I am here to tell you that neither one of you is my idea of a fun date. Now, we are going into this barn and you, Eliza, are gonna give me that million-dollar dress.”

  “You’ll have to wrestle me to the ground to get it and it will get very dirty. Probably torn and dirty.” Her chin went up. A bad sign, Mack thought, no matter whose side she was on.

  “I’m not going to wrestle you, sweetheart. You’ll give me the dress or I’ll shoot Mr. Cortland.”

  Eliza gasped. “Shoot Mack? You wouldn’t do that.”

  “Yes,” Chuck said. “I would.”

  “But he had nothing to do with this. Really. I’m the one who took the dress. Not Mack.”

  “This is nothing personal. If Mack was wearin’ the dress, I’d shoot you.”

  “But that isn’t fair.”

  “Whoever told you life is fair was a dirty, lyin’ scoundrel.” Chuck shoved Mack through the open door and sent him stumbling into the musty darkness inside.

  Mack managed to keep from falling—barely—and took in what he could of his surroundings before Eliza staggered after him. “No horses,” she said, sighing. “I was worried about that.”

  “I can see where you would have been.” His droll remark was lost on her, though, as she watched Chuck make a quick search of the immediate area.

  She sidled up to Mack, her little chin held high. “I think we can take him,” she whispered. “Let’s rush him on the count of—”

  “Give him the dress, Eliza.” Mack turned his head to fortify the suggestion with a frown, but caught his breath. Moonlight breaking through the clouds streamed through a hole in the barn roof, spotlighting Eliza in a soft, silvery glow. Disheveled and tousled, with the wedding veil in disarray around her dark hair, she was a picture of pristine mischief and tempting simplicity. When she’d first bungled her way into the limo, he had thought in passing that neither she nor her dress was anything special. But now he could see his error.

  Eliza’s charm lay not so much in the tilt of her pert and perfect nose or her wide-eyed look of innocence or the determination in that wicked little chin, but in the character revealed in the way it all fit together. She was a portrait in progress, lovely in ways that changed with the reflections in her expressive eyes. With her wearing it, the dress became something more than just an old-fashioned wedding gown, and he suddenly wished there was some other way to save the day. “You look breathtaking in the dress,” he said. “But it isn’t worth dying for.”

  She turned her attention from Chuck, who was completing his investigative circling of the old barn. “Breathtaking?” she repeated softly, her eyes shining with pleasure. “You think I look breathtaking?”

  “Yes.”

  “All right, Eliza.” Chuck walked up behind her. “Take it off.”

  “I can’t,” she murmured, her eyes on Mack. “I look breathtaking.”

  The report of the gun slammed into Mack’s chest at the simultaneous moment the bullet slammed into the ground next to his feet. The noise resounded in his ears, muting Eliza’s startled scream into a surreal echo. Tension locked his muscles, and he nearly lost his balance as the cables pulled taut at his involuntary movement.

  “You idiot!” Eliza spun toward Chuck. “You could have killed him.”

  “You know, you’re right,” Chuck said, grinning. “Good thing I wasn’t pointing at him, isn’t it? Now, get the dress off.”

  “I—I need…help with the buttons.”

  “I’ll help,” Mack offered.

  “You’re tied up and stayin’ that way,” Chuck said. “I’ll do the buttons. Turn around, Eliza, and no funny business.”

  She looked at Mack questioningly.

  “No funny business,” he answered.

  “No funny business,” she repeated, resolutely pursing her lips and drooping her shoulders as she bent her head and began undoing the row of buttons on her sleeve.

  At that moment, Mack decided that whatever her part in this drama, whatever the wedding gown was or wasn’t worth, she was his ally.

  Keeping his eye on the gun, he hoped that Chuck would put it down or drop it or just take his finger off the trigger. But unfortunately, Chuck proved agile and efficient at doing two things at once. As he worked his way down Eliza’s back, unbuttoning each and every tiny button, he kept the gun barrel pointed at Mack, even when Mack tried to ease out of range.

  There wasn’t time to ease far, however, before the dress was sliding off Eliza’s shoulders and falling into a deep ivory puddle around her knees. And his own priorities puddled into the awareness that she wasn’t wearing anything under the dress but a matched set of very sheer, very sexy lingerie. He had expected, somehow—if he’d thought about it at all—that she would choose plain and serviceable underwear. Certainly not a delicate, see-through pattern of lace that was more provocative than practical.

  “Whoa, babe, sexy undies.” Chuck took her arm and helped her step out of the wedding dress. “But I don’t think women ought to wear bras. Too confining. Take it off.”

  Eliza looked startled, and Mack made an impulsive move to prot
ect her…but Chuck noticed and raised the gun barrel to maintain the status quo. “Don’t be a hero, Mack,” he advised. “Stay put and no one gets hurt.”

  Mack watched helplessly as she unhooked the bra and dropped it onto the frothy pile of wedding gown. Her breasts were large and beautiful, and he was very sorry that she was forced to reveal them in such a way and in such a crude setting. Her embarrassment was a rosy flush that he sensed more than saw before tactfully looking away.

  “I’m surprised at you, Liza,” Chuck continued, “wearing skimpy little drawers like that. Aren’t they uncomfortable? You best let me have those, too.”

  “Wait a minute,” Mack protested. “There’s no need to take this any further. Take the dress and—”

  The gun barrel and Chuck’s gaze leveled on Mack. “Did I ask for your opinion, Cortland?”

  “You don’t have to humiliate her.”

  “She’s got a great bod. Why would she be humiliated? Unless…” Chuck laughed and nodded. “I see your point. It isn’t fair for me to take her clothes and not yours, now is it?”

  “Life isn’t fair,” Mack said a little desperately.

  Chuck shook his head. “Now what idiot told you that?”

  Chapter 5

  “I can’t believe he was such a liar.” Eliza moved her bare shoulders in an experimental wiggle…a wiggle that raced like a static charge through Mack’s already overwrought nerves. They were sitting on the barn floor, naked backside to naked backside, tied together by one overextended set of jumper cables. The cable twisted securely over and around their wrists—her palms against his hips, his against hers—then circled their waists and wrapped back around their hands. The terminal clamps looped over and through to hold the double knots like bull-terrier pups clinging tenaciously to a chew toy. It was not, Mack thought, the way he had planned to spend this night.

  “He had a pair of scissors in the limousine all along,” Eliza continued. “A pair of scissors! Can you believe it?”

  “No, I can’t,” he answered dutifully, even though the bare evidence was exposed to the cool night air. “Until he pulled those scissors out of his pocket and cut my tuxedo to ribbons, I thought Chuck was a real great guy.”

  Her pause was brief, but significant as his sarcasm sank in. “You’re right. I shouldn’t be sitting here all upset because he lied to us about a pair of scissors.”

  “It would make more sense for you to be upset because we’re sitting in a deserted barn somewhere in western Kansas without a stitch of clothes between us.”

  “I thought you didn’t know where we were.”

  “I’m guessing. Does it really make any difference?”

  “There’s no need to raise your voice. I’m right behind you, you know.”

  As if he were apt to forget. The smooth feel of her bare back against his was a constant reminder of just how close she was and just how devious Chuck had been. “I thought maybe the gunshot had affected your hearing.”

  “Sure you did. Just like you thought I was Chuck’s gun moll.”

  “I never called you a gun moll, for Pete’s sake.”

  “But you sure thought I was in on the kidnapping, didn’t you?”

  “That possibility made more sense to me than your explanation that the dress was worth a million dollars.”

  She sniffed. “Well, now you know, don’t you?”

  Arguing was pointless, especially considering the awful predicament they were in. “I know we have to figure a way out of this before Chuck changes his mind and comes back.”

  “He’s halfway to California by now.” Eliza dipped her shoulder, raking Mack’s upper arm with a silky friction. “We won’t see him again. And I will probably never see the Worth gown again, either.”

  “You may never see the outside of this barn if we don’t get our hands untied.”

  “It isn’t like we haven’t tried, Mack, but in this position…”

  “Then we’ll have to try another position and another one, and so on until we get it right.” He clenched his fingers and chafed his wrists against the plastic cable…and quickly managed to pull Eliza even closer against him than before.

  “Congratulations,” she said. “Now I can barely wiggle my fingers.”

  She demonstrated, her fingertips moving like a downy glove over his bare buttocks, her touch adding a whole new dimension to his perception of this dilemma.

  “See what I mean?” she continued. “I bet you can’t wiggle yours, either.”

  Wiggling his would only make matters worse…a lot worse. “Come on, Eliza. Considering how fast you got us twisted up in that dress, surely one set of jumper cables can’t pose too much of a challenge.”

  “As I had nothing at all to do with getting us untwisted from that dress, I don’t see what you think I can do with jumper cables.”

  “Don’t be modest. You worked for hours on that tangle.”

  “To no avail. I’m telling you, the dress just let go.”

  “After you worked on the knot for hours,” he repeated a little more forcefully. “Look, all I’m saying is that we have to keep working on these cables. We can’t stay like this forever, you know.”

  She sighed and leaned her head against his shoulder, her hair fanning across his skin like a soft blanket. “The stars are really bright. Look. You can almost see the whole Cygnus constellation through that hole in the roof. All but the tip of the swan’s wing.”

  He looked up. Constellation? She could recognize a constellation?

  “It must be easier to see out here in the country because there aren’t any streetlights,” she continued. “Or city lights. There isn’t much of anything out here, I guess. Except for you and me and what sky we can see through the hole in the roof.”

  He gave the shadowed rafters a prosaic once-over. “I wonder if anyone uses this barn.”

  “Tamra and Jake meet here sometimes. It’s the only place they can be sure her father won’t find them.”

  He frowned, then turned his head and tried to see Eliza out of the corner of his eye. “Who in the hell are Tamra and Jake?”

  “Star-crossed lovers, I imagine.”

  “You imagine?”

  “Well, look around, Mack. Who else would meet in a deserted old barn like this?”

  “A couple of barn owls? I don’t know what you’re talking about. How do you know Jake and Tamra?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t. You wanted to know if anyone uses the barn, and those names popped into my head and I said them, that’s all.”

  “Are you telling me you’re psychic?”

  He felt her answering smile in the relaxing droop of her shoulders. “No,” she said. “I just made them up.”

  He was tied to a nut case, a real fruitcake. “Don’t you have better things to think about?”

  “Not unless I count how bright the stars are. We may as well face facts, and the fact is this hasn’t been a banner day for blessings. I’d rather imagine some love-struck couple bringing warmth and passion into this barn than worry that no one will find us until we’re dead and all shriveled up like raisins.”

  “Western Kansas isn’t that remote, Eliza.”

  Her laughter was first a sly movement of her skin against his and then a soft sound in the quiet barn. “Imagine the surprise of whoever does find us. We might not be very far from civilization, but I’ll bet walking into a barn and discovering two naked people wrapped in jumper cables will make somebody’s eyes cross.”

  The image made him smile. “Maybe we’ll make local headlines. Adam and Eve Found In Farmer Brown’s Barn.”

  “Fig Leaves Loose in Pasture.”

  “Nude Couple Has Dead Battery.”

  “A Nude Use For Jumper Cables!”

  He laughed with her, his tension easing with the throaty, pleasant sound of her humor. There were bright spots in this whole comedy of errors. He was alive, for one thing. Unharmed, for another. And his companion was not crying, screaming or threatening mayhem. Fruitcake or not, Eliza
was easy to be with. Under similar circumstances, Leanne would have been hysterical.

  Who was he kidding? Under any one of these stressful circumstances, Leanne would have been throwing a full-fledged tantrum. Certainly, she would never have imagined the dilapidated old barn as the rendezvous point for a lovers’ tryst. And in a million years, it would never have occurred to her to look through a hole in the roof and locate the Northern Cross.

  An oddly comfortable quiet settled over him. “Thank you, Eliza.”

  “For what?”

  “For not making a bad situation worse.”

  Her head moved against his shoulder. “Do you think this situation can get any worse?”

  His answering chuckle came more easily this time. “I guess whatever happens next will have to be an improvement.”

  “I agree. But frankly, I’m surprised that you feel that way. I had you pegged as one of those high-maintenance men. You know the kind—shoes polished, every hair in place, leather pocket planner with things like ‘lunch with Mom’ and ‘tennis at club’ penciled in. I would have bet twenty-three dollars and forty-eight cents that you had ‘get married’ written in under today’s date.”

  “Pencil or ink?”

  “Felt-tipped pen.”

  “It was a Mont Blanc ballpoint.” He waited for her protesting laugh, which didn’t come. “I was kidding, Eliza. I don’t have a pocket planner.”

  “Mont Blanc pen?”

  He nodded grudgingly. “Okay, I do have one of those, but I’m not sentimental about it.”

  “What are you sentimental about, Mack?”

  “Now what kind of question is that?”

  “Casual,” she answered. “Just something to pass the time while you grope my hips.”

  “I am not groping. I’m trying to get loose. But I will certainly try harder not to touch you.”

  Eliza sighed. The men she found attractive always seemed to be trying not to touch her. It was very frustrating. “Can I ask you something?” She felt him tense and didn’t wait for an answer. “Do you think I’m attractive? I mean, not to you personally, of course, but just—”