Kidnapping His Bride (Silhouette Romance)

by Hayley Gardner

  “I wanted you to be happy.” She thought back. “The closer we got to getting married, the more I realized how much I needed to have a place to call home, with friends and family there. You have no idea how horrible it was growing up always worrying about where you were going next. Knowing not to make friends, not to get close to anyone, because you’d move, and they’d be left behind. If I left with you, that’s how it would have been, and I wasn’t ready for that.”

  “Then how did you survive Dallas?”

  “I knew that it was temporary. That I was helping Lindy, and that we’d all be going back home to Claiborne Landing—together. I knew they would be there for me, Griff. But with you, moving away wouldn’t be temporary, and I would be alone while you were flying. All alone.”

  “It wouldn’t be as bad as you’re painting it, Tess, and I told you that. I think the problem was more like you didn’t trust me to always be there for you because your parents weren’t. You figured I’d go off one day and never come back, just like your father did, and you’d be left alone again.”

  His blunt statement stopped Tessa cold. He was right. She wouldn’t go away with him then because she hadn’t trusted him and his love.

  “Did you and Sadie ever find out what happened to your father?” Griff asked.

  She nodded, looking down at the pool where Jeb was having fun splashing a couple of his cousins. “He had a friend send a letter apologizing to me after he passed away. I was an afterthought even in his death.”

  “I’m not him, Tessa—you matter to me. You always have.”

  This was so hard to hear. Tessa closed her eyes briefly, but it didn’t make any of the pain go away.

  “You know,” Griff added, shrugging off what seemed to be a heavy weight on his shoulders. “I’ve been trying to figure out exactly what I thought I was doing by running here. I wanted to tell myself it was to save you from a marriage you really didn’t want. I still don’t think you want the marriage—I think you just want to be a mother.”

  Tessa’s gaze flew to meet his, her breath held.

  “Am I right?” he asked. “Is that why you’re marrying Clay—to be a mother? Is that what you really want? What about real love?”

  She walked over to sink down on the bed. The movement sent the fire truck rolling onto the carpet with a thump, but neither of them moved to pick it up. Her gaze was locked on him. What did she really want? She wanted what she’d always wanted, to have Griff and her—and their son—together as one family in Claiborne Landing, her forever home. But that wasn’t a choice.

  “Yes, I want to be Jeb’s mother,” she said softly, dropping her gaze to where her hand was smoothing the dark green ivy pattern on her skirt.

  Regret and hurt settled deep within Griff. A small part of him had hoped she would say she wanted him, but of course, she hadn’t. He was a fool for coming back and getting all involved with her again.

  He had to get out of there. With a sweep of his hand, he indicated the toys. “As far as I’m concerned, feel free to give these all away. I doubt if Jeb would want any of his uncle’s old junk and I don’t see myself ever having any kids, so I don’t see the point of dragging it all with me wherever I go. Besides, it’s easier to forget the past without it staring me in the face reminding me of everything I left behind.” Turning, he walked out of the room.

  Feeling sick with guilt, Tessa stuck his truck, mitt and plane back in the box and moved it into the closet. Griff wasn’t going to have any more children, ever. He would never know the exquisite pleasure of being a daddy to his son. And it was all her doing.

  She swallowed, hard, as she gazed around Griff’s old room. She had to pull herself together, go outside and pretend to be Clay’s happy fiancée. She was doing the right thing keeping Jeb secret. She had to believe that. But she also knew, without a doubt, that the look of resignation on Griff’s face when he’d said what he did about never having children was going to haunt her forever.

  Sitting next to Clay in a neon purple lawn chair someone had brought, Tessa was trying to play at being Clay’s fiancée. Even though her heart wasn’t in it, the multitude of guests who had been invited expected it and she didn’t want rumors to start that might get back to Jeb through playmates via their parents. Also, mindful the person was still out there who had summoned Griff back to town and might know about Jeb, she was keeping an eye on whoever might approach Griff who hadn’t already had a chance to talk to him. She doubted anyone would give him such big news in the middle of a picnic, but nevertheless, the possibility was keeping her edgy.

  “So, Clay, when’s the wedding been rescheduled to?” Jasper asked from his chair near his wife. Reba frowned at him and pinched his arm.

  “What!” Jasper protested, yanking his arm away. “It’s a logical question to ask ’em, considering Sadie ain’t around for you to ask her and tell me.”

  People within earshot snickered, but Tessa sat up straight. She’d been so wrapped up with her own life, she’d totally forgotten to look for Sadie, who was not with her best friend as usual. “Where is Grandma, Miss Reba?”

  Reba, for once without her cat, gave a single wave of her hand. “I’m not telling,” she warbled. “Sadie told me she would call you and that I was not to tell.”

  “Maybe Griff knows,” Clay suggested. “Sadie called him at the house yesterday evening.”

  “She did?” Tessa frowned. Her gaze flew back to Griff, and she examined him as he talked to some old friends of his from high school. Surely he would have mentioned it this morning if something was up with her grandmother. “What about?”

  Clay shrugged. “You’ll probably have to ask Sadie.”

  “I’ll do that. I’m going to call her on her cell phone.” With one more look at the pool to make sure Jeb was okay amid the laughing, splashing youngsters, she rose. “I’ll be back. Watch Jeb?”

  “I never stop,” Clay told her. His gaze on her, he added, “He’s in the pool, with Harry Jr. and Brandy on one side, and the twins on the other, and he’s got his snorkel on. Yellow. Green stripes.”

  She had to look to confirm his details, and then she flashed Clay a little smile right before turning to walk to the house. He was an excellent father. The best. Just like Griff would have been. But she couldn’t think about that anymore, or she’d cry, and how would that look?

  Fishing her phone out of her purse she’d stuck behind the living-room couch, she tapped out the numbers.

  “Hello? Hello?” It was the way Sadie always answered the cell phone, because the mouthpiece didn’t reach all the way down to her mouth, and she didn’t think anyone could hear her.

  “Grandma, you’re late to the Ledoux’s picnic,” Tessa said. “Are you okay?”

  “Of course I am. There’s a good reason I’m late, dear.” Sadie’s voice was cheerful. “It’s my surprise!”

  “Your surprise is that you aren’t coming?”

  “My surprise is that I’m eloping to Vegas with Horace Fortune!”

  Tessa closed her eyes and counted to ten.

  “Hello? Hello?”

  “I’m still here.” In the Twilight Zone. This could not be happening to her. “Grandma, you never talked this over with me.”

  A merry round of laughter rang out. “Sorry. I didn’t read that part in the Bringing up Granddaughter Manual about having to discuss every little decision I made with you.”

  “Marriage is hardly a little decision!”

  “I know it isn’t,” Sadie said. “Look at all the trouble you’ve had with it.”

  “I am not under discussion here.”

  “You should be. You’re about to marry the wrong man, and you won’t even admit it. I knew you always loved Griff and never stopped, but you never want me to interfere—”

  “Grandma, I can’t talk about that right now.” Tessa could feel her face going red with irritation. “Are you driving?”

  “Goodness no. Horace won’t let me. He says I speed.”

  The man had one good q
uality, at least. “I want you and Horace to turn that car around right now and come home.”

  “We’re in his RV. After we get married, we’re going to tour the West.”

  “Without even telling me?”

  “I was going to call,” Sadie said. “Now, I want you to do something for me. Take over my half of the bakery. Goodness knows you deserve it…you’ve worked hard all these years for it. I’ll send you power of attorney.”

  “You can’t give up your livelihood. How are you and Horace going to live?” she said weakly.

  “Horace has old money.”

  “You mean he’s from a long line of wealth?”

  “No, I mean he’s been stashing money in his mattress since 1950. Of course I mean his family’s rich. Oil wells, that sort of thing.”

  “Oh, Grandma.”

  “Young lady, you sound pitiful. Buck up. This is going to work out better for both you and me. I’ve got to admit, I’ve been kind of lonely for a while for male companionship. And you’re all grown up. You have a life to lead and you won’t do it with me around. Now maybe you’ll come to your senses, work things out with Griff, and go wherever will make that poor boy happy.”

  Tessa sat up straight. “I can’t leave.”

  “You only think you can’t. But I notice you didn’t protest about not loving him, which is exactly what I thought. Anyway, we’re about to stop for lunch, so I’m going to turn this thing off. Be sure and tell Griff thank you. If he hadn’t stepped in and encouraged Horace to make his move, I’d still be worshipping him from afar instead of going off to be a bride.”

  She rose to her feet. “Griff did this?”

  “Bye, dear!”

  “Grandma?” She was talking to dead air. Snapping the cell phone closed, she considered redialing her grandmother, but she had a feeling she’d be wasting her time. Her grandmother would not be coming back, and from the sounds of it, it was all Griff’s doing. He’d done nothing but cause havoc in her life since he’d returned.

  It was time, she thought, to put an end to his interference once and for all.

  Chapter Eight

  “Ooooeee, Griff, looks like a fighter approaching at six o’clock, and she’s got guns blazing.” Jasper chortled.

  Tessa paid him no mind. Her focus was on the man in the middle of Jasper and Reba. “You got Sadie married! How could you!” she asked, sticking her finger in his chest.

  He caught her hand in his and held on. “Whoa. I don’t have the power to make weddings happen—”

  “No, just to stop them,” she blurted back, pulling her hand free and resting it on her hip. “So how come you didn’t stop Sadie’s? How come you felt like you could just come back here after all this time, interfere and tear my life apart like this? Isn’t it obvious that I’ve been trying all week to get you bored enough here so that you would just leave and get out of my life? Couldn’t you have just gotten the hint?”

  Griff’s expression lost any easygoingness it had. He would have said something right there to her about hurting his parents’ feelings—they couldn’t have missed hearing every word—but he didn’t figure that should be a party discussion, so he took her arm and spirited her off to the other side of the barn, where they could talk in privacy.

  “So that’s what was behind all these odd jobs. You figured I would remember what it was about Claiborne Landing that made me want to leave to begin with.”

  “The lack of excitement and the boring work,” she said, her jaw setting as she looked up at him.

  “Now I’d call that devious.”

  “Only if it had worked. Which it didn’t. Instead you took the opportunity to find someone to lure my grandmother away and make me lose the only real family I ever had.”

  “That wasn’t the intention I had when I encouraged Horace to ask Sadie out.” Because he could not stand near her without wanting to touch her, he backed up to put a little distance between them and leaned against the barn. “And if you and Clay hadn’t dreamed up this crazy scheme to drive me away, I wouldn’t have been in the bakery shop to arrange anything.”

  “This is all my own fault.” Tessa paced, then stopped, close to tears, her back to Griff. Just like her father, Sadie hadn’t even said goodbye. Hadn’t discussed leaving with her. Just went out the door one morning and never looked back. Didn’t anyone in her life care about keeping family together anymore?

  She felt Griff’s hand cup her shoulder. “As upset as you are, you should know your scheme did do something good. You proved to me how much I care about my family and yours. That’s why I set up your grandmother with someone she could love. I didn’t want her to leave you, Tess. I just wanted her to be happy. Same as I want you to be happy.”

  Tessa slowly turned around and gazed upward. There was sincerity in Griff’s eyes. Had he changed in his short time here? Had he come to realize what was really important?

  “But Griff, she’s risking a lot going off with some man she barely knows.”

  “At least,” he added, “she was willing to take a risk.”

  “Unlike me, you mean.”

  He nodded. “You’re afraid of taking any risks. There’s no risk in marrying Clay. Your marriage can’t ever fail since it wouldn’t be a marriage to begin with.”

  She didn’t want a marriage to Clay—she just wanted Jeb. But she couldn’t tell Griff that. She didn’t know whether to cry or scream with frustration.

  “I made,” she said slowly, “and am making, the best decisions I can and I don’t deserve to have you criticizing me about my choices. You always did exactly what you wanted without a second thought. It didn’t matter if I needed you or not.”

  “When was our relationship a question of need, Tessa? You always said you didn’t need me, just wanted me, remember?”

  That had been true, right up to the point when she’d been pregnant with Jeb. She clamped her lips together for a few seconds, realizing she’d almost gone too far.

  “Since you didn’t want to risk my being there for you, I honestly don’t know what I could have changed on my part,” Griff said. “If we’d stayed together then, we would have made each other miserable. But now…”

  “Now?” she asked warily, her fingers gripping her skirt.

  “Now I understand what you were worried about missing—the feeling of being in the midst of family and community, of belonging. I didn’t realize how important it was until I lived without family—and you—all these years, but I do now. If I had any hope I could make you happy, I would propose and spend the rest of my life putting you first. That’s what I want now. You.”

  She stared at him, numb. “Griff—”

  “No, wait.” He held up his hand. “I think that’s subconsciously why I’ve been trying so hard to get you to change your mind about marrying Clay. I want you back. But there’s that wall between us, Tessa, and I have no idea still why it’s there.”

  The wall was Jeb. Tessa bit her bottom lip. Here, at her feet, was her dream—Griff’s love—back again like a gift more precious than anything. Anything, that was, besides being a mother to her baby.

  But she wanted to take what he was offering her. She wanted it so badly.

  “Tell me what is really going on with you. Let me be a part of your life again. I’ve never stopped loving you, and there’s nothing here for you that I can’t give you—and that includes a child of our own.”

  A child? He was ready to have a child? Good Lord, what should she do? The emotional part of her was urging her to go to him, but the rational part of her was thinking that she was only going to let herself in for more heartache if she got involved with Griff on this level all over again.

  But she wanted to. Lord above, she wanted to.

  He reached out, and she went into his arms, unable to help herself, and he leaned down and kissed her tenderly. Her arms slipped up to circle his neck and she held on to him as if he was her lifeline. For precious seconds while he held her close, she remembered what loving him with all her heart, a
nd no reservations, had been like, and she let herself dream again. She wished it was years ago, before her decision to give Jeb up, before everything had been set to the course it was on. But the laughter from the party reminded her that Jeb was only a few dozen yards away, and calling someone else “Daddy.”

  “We belong together, Tessa. Nothing I’ve seen in the world compares to how I feel every time I walk into a room and you’re there. I’ll never be totally happy without you in my life.”

  Pulling away, she looked up at him with tears in her eyes. “I don’t know what to do. I have to think.”

  He nodded solemnly. “I’ve got some vacation left and I’ll stay until you make up your mind. If what you decide you want is marriage to Clay, then I’ll stop interfering. But if you do choose him, Tessa, I’ll have to know why and I won’t leave until I find out.”

  She didn’t know if the last seemed like a threat, or very fair. “How do we know we aren’t going to make each other miserable?”

  Giving a quick glance around to make sure no one was watching them, he pulled her into his arms and kissed her again, this time a slow, deep kiss that made her forget where she was and what their problems were for long seconds. Just as they parted lips, with her arms still around his neck, he lifted her into his arms and started spinning her around. She felt lighter than air, and laughed, clinging to him and hoping he didn’t land them both in the grass.

  “Put me down!” she said, giggling. “Griff, what are you doing?”

  “Showing you what it’s like to fly.” He slowed and stopped. Still holding her, he gazed into her eyes and kissed her again, until she felt breathless with desire.

  “I see why you like flying so much,” she said.

  “You were worried we’d be miserable together. Do you feel miserable?” he asked, putting her down.

  She shook her head back and forth, sending locks of ash-blond hair over her shoulders.

  “Do you believe I’ve changed?”

  She nodded.

  “Then what do you say? Marry me?”