Kidnapping His Bride (Silhouette Romance)

by Hayley Gardner

  He took the bowl and spoon from her and put it aside on the worktable. “You might not have sent the e-mail, but I think there’s something you’re afraid of me finding out.” He paused. “You don’t ever have to be afraid of me, Tessa. Even if I’m not the marrying kind, there’s a part of me where you’re concerned that still wishes I was.”

  Hot tears threatened to fill her eyes. His warm hand cupped her cheek tenderly, and she blinked, hard. If she cried, he would know she was hiding something. And she couldn’t risk his finding out, and maybe Clay’s losing Jeb, or even herself losing Jeb, if Griff decided to raise a ruckus and take her to court for never telling him he was a father.

  Griff was waiting for her answer, so she had to give him one. “I’m worried because there is someone out there who apparently wanted to come between Clay and me. And I don’t want that to happen.”

  Griff’s hand dropped to his side, and he took a step backward, his eyes registering hurt for about as long as it took him to shrug and say cynically, “Yeah. You and Clay together is probably for the best at that.”

  “It is,” she insisted.

  “Probably it would be for the best, too, if I just left and ignored any other e-mails I might get,” he said, taking off his apron.

  She nodded quickly. “Probably.”

  “Too bad, then. Because I’m not ready to go.”

  Later that evening, with Jeb safely in bed, Griff spent an hour dialing the phone numbers of familiar names in his brother’s small black book, which held not one woman’s name and number. Not even Tessa’s. Probably Clay had her number memorized, but maybe not. Something was definitely wrong in the relationship. The two of them hadn’t spent a minute together that they didn’t have to.

  There’s something between them… The words in that e-mail were haunting him. Unfortunately all the old friends and acquaintances he’d called claimed to know nothing about e-mails. Most of them had nothing to do with the Internet. The way he figured it, they would have no reason not to tell him they were the mysterious e-mail sender.

  His brother? Could his brother have sent it, wanting to get out of the marriage? If he had, why the sudden turn in the total opposite direction? Why not agree with Griff that it was all a bad idea and tell Tessa?

  The front door opened, and Clay stepped through alone, giving Griff as good an opportunity as any to ask. He waited until his brother had changed out of his uniform, checked on Jeb and then joined him in the living room with a beer and a sack of microwave popcorn. But before he could mention the e-mail, Clay spoke.

  “You want to know what else I was meaning to get done this week?”

  “I couldn’t imagine,” Griff said, trying very hard not to think of all the possibilities. The thought of Tessa and Clay doing anything together was rubbing him like skin against cement, abrasive and shredding. He had to get them to call this wedding off. For a second, he wondered if it was jealousy he was really feeling, but it couldn’t be. He wasn’t about to let himself think he was in love with her. It was just the same old sexual attraction that had always been between them. Not love.

  “I need you to go help Dad put the roof on his barn.”

  Griff pushed himself off the sofa. “No, I don’t think so. That would be too much like the old days, with Dad lecturing and Mom hovering.”

  He turned and started into the kitchen for a beer of his own. Clay followed.

  “It would give you a chance to ask Mom and Dad if they sent you that e-mail.”

  Clay was really pushing this. Pausing by the door of the refrigerator, he regarded his brother carefully. “You think they had something to do with that?”

  Clay shrugged. “Mom was saying how much she missed you a couple weeks ago. Dad’s pretty crafty. He might have come up with the idea.”

  “Yeah, if they quit arguing long enough.”

  Clay’s eyebrows lifted. “Arguing?” He shook his head. “They’re like two peas in a pod. Haven’t heard them raise their voices around each other in years.”

  “What happened? Mom finally conk Dad over the head like she was always threatening?”

  Clay gave a slight shake of his head. He stared at him. “I really think you should go pay them a long visit tomorrow, Griff. Dad could use the help. He’s getting older now.”

  “I’ll think about it.”

  “Yeah, you do that. But don’t spend a long time at it. Tessa will be here at 8:00 a.m. to pick you and Jeb up. Pack his bathing suit, y’hear? Jeb likes to go swimming there.” Flipping his bottle into the trash, he gave Griff a short wave of his hand. “Lock up. I’m going to bed.”

  “Lock up? In downtown Athens?”

  Clay shrugged. “Things have changed around here in ten years, Griff. Lots of things. And people, too. You should open up your eyes, and maybe you would see. A trip to Dad and Mom’s might be like a new set of glasses.”

  “I have twenty-twenty vision.”

  Clay shook his head. “You only think you do, little brother. But you can’t see what’s right before your eyes.” With that, he disappeared into the other room, and seconds later, Griff heard his bedroom door shut down the hall.

  Clay was right about at least one thing changing. Everyone in the area was getting real good at not saying things flat out. Had his brother meant that there was no real reason for him to stay there, or that there was something in plain sight that he just wasn’t getting?

  Damn. He guessed maybe a trip to his parents was in order to see what Clay was talking about. He supposed that he hadn’t come back with any desire other than to make sure his brother and Tessa ended up happy, and he guessed he could do worse than to add a few other people to his list before he left. He’d already started with Sadie, and he did owe his parents a visit.

  And an apology for not visiting more often.

  It was only then he remembered that he’d been about to accuse Clay of bringing him back here. But after their conversation, he kind of doubted Clay would have been the one who e-mailed him. His brother just didn’t seem all that pleased to see him.

  But who, then? His parents? He doubted it, but it certainly wouldn’t hurt to ask.

  The next day, from atop his father’s barn in the midday sun, Griff could see Jeb swimming and Tessa and his mom lounging by the aboveground pool in back of the farmhouse he’d grown up in. Five minutes more of ripping up shingles, and the hand holding his roofing ax went to his side as he found himself looking down there again, watching the way the sunlight seemed to glint off Tessa’s ash-blond hair, and the way she laughed at something his mother said, and the way her gaze never seem to leave Jeb.

  Jeb seemed just as attached to Tessa. When the boy got out of the pool, he came running to her instead of his grandmother to be toweled off, and then the three of them disappeared into the house for a few minutes.

  It felt as if Tessa and Jeb belonged together. Maybe he was looking at this marriage the wrong way. Maybe the point wasn’t whether Tessa would be happy with Clay, but whether Jeb needed Tessa in his life. Suddenly he didn’t know. Another surge of guilt went through him. He was supposed to be breaking up his brother and Tess so both would be happy, but Tessa already looked exactly that when she was around Jeb—happy. Damn. Maybe she should be his nephew’s mother.

  Maybe he was doing the wrong thing.

  “Staring ain’t gonna get them back out of the house. Why don’t you just take a break? Go inside and see what they’re doing?”

  His dad’s voice startled him, and Griff almost dropped his ax. Twisted around, he half grinned at his father, Jacques. “I wasn’t staring.”

  “You weren’t ripping, either. So just what are you doing up here with me?” Jacques grinned back at him. “Besides sweating?”

  His father’s grin gave Griff reason to pause. Jacques had always intimidated him when he’d been a teenager, but he seemed so different now, after all these years. Mellowed, Griff guessed. “I’m here because I figured it would be a good way to let you know I’m sorry I haven’t been m
uch of a son in the past few years.”

  Jacques gave him a long, searching look. “So your brother didn’t force you into coming today to help me?”

  A hint of a grin came back to Griff. “Could Clay ever force me to do anything?”

  They chuckled together, and then Jacques half stepped carefully over to him, gave him a hug with one arm and then nodded.

  “Apology accepted. Your mom will be pleased. You should know that despite the fact that we were sorry you left to begin with we are damned proud of you, son. If anything, we’re guilty, too, of not saying that to you.”

  Griff’s throat felt thick with something he hadn’t felt in a long time. His parents were proud of what he’d accomplished. Damn, but knowing that felt good.

  “We were disappointed that we didn’t see you much over the last few years, but we always understood. You were different, Griff. Your dreams always made you think there was something more and better than what you had here.”

  “Can’t disagree with that,” Griff said. “That’s exactly what I thought.”

  “My question is, was there?”

  Griff didn’t want to answer. His heart soared every time he got into a plane and flew it into the blue sky. He couldn’t deny that pleasure was worth leaving for. Still…

  “More, yes. But better?” He shook his head. “I haven’t found better yet, Dad.”

  “Probably, son, you won’t.” Jacques gave a long, pointed look down toward the poolside where Tessa once again had appeared with Jeb and his wife. “I think your ‘better’ is right down there, and, from the rumors I’ve been hearing, I think you came home because you knew that and wanted her back.”

  Griff followed his gaze. Tessa had changed into a one-piece, body skimming, apple-green swimsuit with a zipper down the front. Oh, man. His imagination went wild, his body jumped into gear and he wiped the sweat off his forehead. She hopped into the pool with Jeb, who gleefully began splashing her. Droplets of water ran all over her body, reminding him of the one time they’d spent together, down by the pond.

  He’d been the one splashing water on her then, and the one whose arms had been around her, and now…well, now, he could only think about how much he envied Jeb.

  Jacques started walking back to where he’d been yanking up the roof, piece by piece, and pulled his arm across his forehead to wipe off the sweat.

  “So are you fixing to claim what’s been yours all these years while you’re home, son?”

  Griff shook his head and wiped beads of his own sweat off that he wasn’t sure were so much from the heat, after staring at Tessa. “It wouldn’t work for us. Nothing’s changed since we broke up.”

  “Are you sure about that?”

  “Why? You know something about Tessa that I don’t?” His gaze traveled to his dad at the same time his gut tightened. Jacques was getting at something, but what? Didn’t any of his family speak plain English anymore?

  “Your mother said it seems kind of obvious that Tessa is settling for second best in her life.” Jacques paused to pull up a shingle and then throw it off the side of the roof onto the large hauler behind his tractor. “It’s not Clay she wants to marry, it’s the ready-made family.”

  “How do we know that?”

  Jacques stared at him. “We know that? Sounds like you agree, you just don’t know why.”

  “I do agree. So tell me the why.”

  Bending down, Jacques started working again. “First and foremost, you broke up that wedding pretty danged easy, and she didn’t come running back to Clay the second you put her down on her feet after you carried her off. I don’t think that marriage could have been stopped if Tessa hadn’t subconsciously had her doubts.”

  His father had a point. She could have run back to the church at any time, she could have opened that door to the sanctuary the second she saw him and run to Clay, she could have calmly walked over to the phone in Casey’s Kitchen and called Clay when they’d arrived. Instead she had focused in on him.

  “Then, here today, Tessa touched you on the shoulder when she passed by you, and she’s been glancing up here about as much as you’ve been staring down there. Whenever she comes here with Clay, she doesn’t pay him a lick of attention. Her eyes are all for Jeb.”

  “I noticed that.”

  “Do you still have romantic feelings for her?”

  Griff stared at his father, surprised Jacques would ask such a personal question. His father did seem a little embarrassed, staring down at his work instead of meeting Griff’s eyes. But Griff liked it. The concern showed his father cared, really cared. Probably he always had, but now he was showing it. A pleasant sense of belonging, of love of family, flooded through Griff.

  It felt great.

  “It doesn’t matter what feelings either of us have, Dad,” he said with a long whoosh of breath from his lungs. “We weren’t meant for each other. She needs to stay here, and I need…” He paused, searching for words that could express what he needed.

  “The more we just finished talking about?”

  “I guess.” Truthfully Griff wasn’t sure what he needed. He set about working on the roof again with a vengeance, as though hard work would point him in the right direction.

  “The only advice I can give you about Tessa is not to put blinders on where she’s concerned.”

  Griff carefully put his ax on the roof, starting to feel a little exasperated. “Clay said the same thing to me last night about my trip home in general. I wish I knew what you all were talking about.”

  “She’s a grown woman now. Maybe she can see more clearly what she wants—if you’re still willing to give it to her.”

  “You’re saying you think she would come with me?”

  Jacques put down his own tool and stood. “I’m only saying to take a good look at what the ‘more’ is that you could have, that you don’t have now.” He gestured toward the ladder. “Let’s go down and take a break, and you can mull it over a piece.”

  He joined his father by the ladder, but then stopped to ask him something.

  “Did you and Mom send me an e-mail with the wedding particulars on it to get me home?”

  “I heard you were asking that around town.” Jacques shook his head. “Not us, son. But if you find out who did it, let me know. I want to shake the hand of whoever got you back in our lives again.”

  All the way down the ladder and over to the pool, out of which Tessa was climbing, Griff thought about what his father had said. About the “more” he could have. Could he and Tessa make a relationship between them work now? There was still attraction between the two of them—strong, spellbinding attraction. But did he love her as she was now, or was his wanting her in his life a desire based only on memories of the way things had been? He couldn’t answer that. There was also still the fact that his life on the road and the flying, with the excitement that entailed, he still needed, and she claimed to hate. So what the hell did he have to offer her anyway?

  A child. The thought came like a crystal clear bolt of lightning, and he stopped where he was near the pool. He could offer her a baby of her own. Nothing in his mind could accept that she loved Clay—he had seen Tessa in love, and she wasn’t acting like it now. So Jeb had to be the attraction in this marriage. If all she wanted was to be a mother—would that be enough for her? Would she go with him if he told her he wanted a child?

  Did he want a child?

  Tessa seemed to appear before him like a vision. “Griff, I asked you if you wanted—”

  He froze.

  “Water?” She held out a glass.

  Oh, yeah, he wanted water. He took the tumbler she offered, leaned over and poured the cold water over his head, drowning his unruly thoughts in it. A baby. He had to be crazy. Crazy with lust.

  Shaking his head and then straightening, he palmed the water out of his short, military style cut and handed the glass back to her. “Thanks.”

  “That’s one way to get the water in you,” Tessa said, her mouth lifting si
deways in a smile. “Let it soak in through your head.”

  “Griff never took the easy road,” his mother, Mary, said, showing up at Tessa’s side with a pitcher of ice tea.

  Griff couldn’t seem to move. His dad had said to take the blinders off, and it was like he was looking at Tessa through new eyes. She stood in sleek blondness, having pulled on one of those calf-length, bathing suit cover-up skirts that was slit up the side and slinking down over her hips. He wanted to touch her, pull her close and get her alone, and it was the last thing either of them needed.

  “Your father said you had a water jug up on the roof.” Mary took the glass, filled it with tea, and smiled. “When I heard you were coming, I had Jeb get one of Clay’s swim trunks and bring it along. Why don’t you take a dip in the pool with Tessa and Jeb before lunch?”

  Jeb nodded enthusiastically. “I’ll let you play with my boat, Uncle Griff.”

  “Can’t turn down an offer like that.” He turned to Tessa. “How about you, Tessa?”

  “You’re welcome to join us, but I’ve got nothing for you to play with,” she said wryly, almost to warn him. She scooted over to the ladder, where she hurriedly pulled off the skirt she wore and tossed it over the back of a nearby chair.

  Truth be told, she didn’t really want to go back in the water; she wanted to flee home to the safety of her upstairs apartment, away from Griff. Something had changed for him up on the roof. There had been a new level of tension between them when their eyes had met seconds ago. He’d seemed to be searching her face for some sign, what of, she didn’t know. It couldn’t be about Jeb because his parents didn’t know the truth and couldn’t have told him, but still—something had to have been said up there.

  And something was going to happen between them before he left again; she could feel it all the way to her toes. She wanted him. She wanted him with a depth of passion that she couldn’t remember ever feeling.

  Climbing onto a plastic raft, she floated and watched her secret son playing with a yellow, toy snorkel. He surfaced with a sunshiny smile. She started to smile back, but then realized he wasn’t looking at her.