Kidnapping His Bride (Silhouette Romance)

by Hayley Gardner

  All too soon, he pulled away from her lips, and gave her that lopsided smile that was distinctly Griff’s. “Are you witless yet?”

  “Extremely,” she said, wondering when she had last felt this totally relaxed.

  “Any doubts that we’re doing the right thing?”

  Her eyes met his dark blue ones, and she shook her head. “None. Why?”

  “While we’ve been packing, cleaning, all the other stuff—I’ve been catching you just staring sometimes, with a sad look on your face. I want to make sure you’re not having second thoughts about leaving.”

  “I’m not,” she assured him. Any doubts she had, she was ignoring for the sake of her sanity. “I want to marry you, Griff. I think I always have. I just never thought it could work before.”

  “You do now?”

  She nodded. “You’ve changed.”

  “Can someone really change in a week?” he asked. “I still want to fly.”

  “I think the years you were away changed you and that’s why you came here to begin with. You knew the life you had wasn’t working for you anymore and you were looking for a life that would.”

  “I was looking for you,” Griff said, brushing a couple of long locks of her ash-blond hair back behind her ear with his fingertips. She covered his hand with her own and tilted her cheek into his palm.

  “And you?” he asked. “If you’re ready to leave, why the long, sad looks I’ve been catching?”

  “Sadie,” she said, amazed at how easily the evasion of truth slipped off her lips. “I’ve been worried about her not answering my messages. Even if she has a good reason for that, I’ve been worried she wouldn’t get back here in time for the wedding. I don’t know if she has a computer available, but I sent her an e-mail this morning just in case her cell phone is messed up.” Or lost, or broken.

  “We could postpone the wedding,” he suggested.

  “No!” She pushed him backward and slid off the island onto her feet. “Nothing is going to stop this wedding.”

  “Good. Now that you’ve said that I want to give you something.” He took a small, velvet box the same color as her eyes out of his jeans’ pocket, and presented it to her. For a long moment, all she could do was stare at him.

  “A fiancée needs an engagement ring, right?”

  She nodded, biting her lips together to hold back her emotion. Flipping open the lid, she stared down at a single diamond on a delicate gold band.

  “It’s perfect.” It was so different than the one she’d already returned to Clay, because she knew as she lifted her gaze to meet Griff’s, this ring meant love, promises and everything wonderful that she’d always wanted.

  He slipped it onto her finger while she held her breath. It fit as if it had been meant to be. She hugged Griff for dear life, vowing that whatever happened in their future, she would never, never hurt this man. She, Griff and Jeb were all going to live happily ever after, even if it meant being miles apart. She’d see to it. Griff wanted her, she wanted him and this was the best solution for everyone—including their son.

  But as soon as those thoughts filled her head, she remembered telling Clay that her and Griff’s leaving as soon as possible was the best thing, so they didn’t chance having anything else happen and Clay’s skepticism about the chances of Griff’s not finding out. Griff was still sensing that something was between them—she wasn’t hiding it well enough. The same old feeling of impending trouble came over her again, and she tried to shake it off. Everything was settled. Nothing was going to happen. She wouldn’t let it.

  As Griff watched Tessa go to the door to greet the realtor, he could still feel that wall between them. It was broken down in some places, but not in others, like when he tried to talk about the years after their breakup, or about having children. Then she would grow remote, and the light would leave her eyes, and the wall would come up.

  He wasn’t sure why talking about her past would be so difficult for her, as from what he’d gleaned from his parents, she’d lived a pretty quiet life. About kids, she would only say she wanted a couple, but they could talk about that later after they had been married a while. He got the impression she didn’t want to discuss it at all, which he found strange, considering motherhood was her reason for wanting to marry Clay in the first place.

  But Griff believed she honestly loved him, and he knew he loved her, and so he figured the wall would someday crumble down. He was counting on it, because the fact that the wall existed worried him where their future happiness was concerned.

  It worried him a lot.

  Chapter Nine

  “It was the strangest thing,” Tessa told Griff as they turned onto the driveway on her grandmother’s property. “All through the wedding rehearsal, I felt like your eyes were on me.”

  “They were,” he told her, pulling far over to the left next to the house to give Clay, Jeb, Jacques and Mary, who were following in two separate vehicles, plenty of room to park. “I didn’t want anyone to kidnap you away from me.”

  “Like that is going to happen,” she said, pausing with her fingers on the door handle. Her eyes met his, twinkling with mirth. “Your mother and father were each guarding a door. No one’s going to stop this wedding. Or the honeymoon. Especially not the honeymoon.”

  “Promise?” Griff asked her, reaching out with one hand to touch the flowing locks of her hair tumbling over her shoulders. She leaned forward and kissed him, her hands clutching his shoulders, her insides aching for what she knew was coming after the wedding.

  “I promise.” She pulled back and wrinkled her nose teasingly at him. “Though there is that unknown factor, I guess.”

  “Which would be?”

  “One of the other beaus from my past showing up to kidnap me tomorrow.”

  “That’s a possibility, huh?”

  She grinned. “You came, didn’t you?”

  “True. I guess I’ll just have to borrow Clay’s handcuffs and latch you to me, starting tonight.”

  “You wouldn’t dare!” she said, her laughter filling the truck. It felt so good to tease and be teased. Like the old days before Griff had gone off and everything had changed. For one precious evening, Tessa had been allowing herself to forget the past had ever happened, and basking in Griff’s love.

  He pushed open the door, and got out, calling out Clay’s name. His brother, walking up from where he had parked, Jeb by his side, raised his eyebrows in question.

  “I need to borrow your handcuffs,” Griff said as Tessa joined him.

  “For what, Uncle Griff?” Jeb interjected.

  “You don’t want to know,” Clay told him and shot a pleading look at Tessa.

  “Uncle Griff’s just teasing, Jeb.” Tessa handed the child her door key. “Run on up and unlock my door for me. I have a cake waiting for us as a treat.”

  “All right!”

  With Jeb out of the way, Griff smirked at her. “That’s okay. The handcuffs can wait until later.”

  “What handcuffs?” Mary asked as she approached, hand in hand with Jacques.

  “The ones I’m going to use to handcuff Griff to the lamppost out here,” Clay retorted. “At least then we’ll make sure this wedding happens.”

  “Oh, this wedding’s going to happen,” Mary warned, looking at Griff, “if I have to personally escort you and Tessa to a justice of the peace at the point of my knitting needles. And you boys quit that fighting. This is supposed to be a happy time.”

  “He started it,” Griff and Clay both said at once. They all laughed, even, Griff was pleased to see, his brother.

  The entire day, Tessa had been almost carefree, and Griff was starting to feel as if maybe the wall had finally come down. He slipped his arm around her waist and guided her toward the stairs leading up to her second floor apartment right behind Clay, who had followed Jeb up.

  Griff had already told her she’d never looked more beautiful, and as he pulled her tightly to him, he almost told her again. Her dress was a deep rose tha
t brought out the color in her cheeks, and had some sort of sheer stuff layered over it that flowed when she walked and made him crazy with desire whenever he touched her. As did the low V neckline that stopped, in a tantalizing way, right before her cleavage began, and the row of tiny buttons that seemed to go on forever down the rest of the front. The urge to unbutton them, one by one, to refresh what were only gossamer memories of her body threatened to overwhelm him. It was only hearing Jeb’s soft laughter at the top of the stairs as he finally found the right key and worked it into the lock, and his mother’s voice behind them, that kept Griff from suggesting to Tessa, then and there, that they forget about their promises of celibacy until tomorrow.

  “Could you wear that dress to the wedding?” he asked instead.

  “No, silly.”

  “How about on our wedding night?” he whispered in her ear.

  “We’ll see,” she promised, happiness warming her like a quilt on a chilly winter night. Everything had gone the exact way she’d hoped at the rehearsal, and this time around, she actually felt like a bride. A shaky one, maybe, but a bride—not the fake one she’d felt like when she’d attended the last rehearsal with Clay. And it was a wonderful feeling, knowing she was actually going to marry the man she loved.

  Griff stepped to one side so she could enter her apartment first, then waited for his mom to pass, also. Mary beamed her approval. Inside, he joined Tessa, standing in back of her and slipping his arms around her. Tessa leaned backward into him.

  “Tessa, you’ve got messages,” Jeb told her, pointing to the rapidly blinking red light on her answering machine.

  “Go ahead, hit the button,” Tessa said.

  Just as she thought, the first two messages were friends calling to wish her happiness and to say they would be at the church for the wedding the next day, teasing her about the short notice. A third message was a wrong number, and Jeb, looking bored, stepped back and around to sit down on the plush sofa that was Tessa’s pride and joy, her first real purchase of furniture back when she and Sadie had divided up the house so she could have her own place. Tessa pushed aside wondering how she was going to ship it east—or even what she was going to do about the house—when she heard a familiar voice ring out over the answering machine.

  “Hello? Hello? I hate these danged things! I couldn’t find my recharger for that dratted cell phone, and then we were out of range or something.”

  Sadie. Tessa felt a rush of gladness go through her.

  “I got your e-mail message, though. We’re heading back as we speak for the wedding, darlin’, don’t you worry about that, and I’ll take care of the house and the bakery and all for you. I’m so happy that you finally worked up the nerve to tell Griff about Jeb’s really being your and his son and worked everything out between you, so we don’t have to hide the truth any longer. I don’t mind saying—”

  Anything else that Sadie might have said was lost to Tessa as her world began to fall apart. Griff’s whole body stiffened and his arms unlocked her; Jeb’s small face looked first at her, and then to Clay, and then to Griff. Mary and Jacques looked astonished, and then everyone seemed to freeze into place.

  It was Jeb who started everything into motion. He took off running out her door and down the steps. Unable to bear looking at Griff, Tessa began to follow Jeb, her heart breaking for her baby, but she got only as far as the top of the stairwell when Clay’s hand caught her arm.

  “Trust me to deal with my son,” he told her. “You need to talk to Griff.”

  Slowly she turned and walked back inside the familiarity of her apartment, where Jacques and Mary were standing by Griff. She was glad he had his parents, but seeing them together only made her realize that, once more, she was totally alone.

  “Griff, maybe you should spend the night with us,” Mary said to him, tugging gently on his sleeve. “Jeb is certain to be really upset.”

  Griff wasn’t paying attention. His eyes were focused on her. They were spitting anger and hurt, emotions Tessa had fully expected to see. What she hadn’t expected was to also see sadness in his dark gaze.

  “Your parents didn’t know Clay and Lindy adopted Jeb, Griff,” she said gently, just in case they hadn’t already reassured him.

  “I never thought they did. No matter how bad a son I was, I know they wouldn’t keep that kind of thing from me.”

  The way she had. Even if true, his words stung. The wall between them was back up, thickening with every passing second so much she doubted that it could ever come down again.

  “I guess you two have a lot to talk about,” Mary said faintly.

  “I’ll be by later,” Griff told his parents in a stiff voice. Jacques, looking troubled, patted his shoulder and left the room without a word. After a sorrowful glance at Tessa, Mary followed her husband out. Griff walked over and shut the door behind them, then folded his hands over his chest and just stared at her.

  “To think,” he said finally, “I tried to bribe you away from marrying Clay by offering to give you what he couldn’t—our child. And he could.” He gave a mock laugh. “You must have found that amusing.”

  “I’m so sorry, Griff.” Her whisper sounded really loud in the otherwise silent room. Her knees shaky, she moved to her overstuffed, russet recliner, a gift from her grandmother, and sank down. Griff still didn’t move from where he stood.

  “So talk, Tessa,” he said, anguish edging his voice. “Finally, please, talk to me.”

  She did. She told him everything about how, after breaking their engagement, she’d found out she was pregnant; about how she hadn’t wanted to give up their baby, but knew from experience how important it was Jeb have two parents in a loving, stable home who would always stay together.

  “So you went to Dallas and convinced Lindy and Clay to adopt our baby?” Griff’s voice sounded hoarse. “I can’t believe Clay agreed.”

  “Lindy couldn’t have children—ever—and she begged Clay, and he caved in. They agreed to move back here so Jeb could be raised around Sadie and your parents—” her voice fell to a whisper “—and me.”

  And that, Griff thought, hurt worst of all. “You could give Jeb to them, but you couldn’t call me?”

  Tessa rose and began to pace the far side of the room. She told herself not to cry, but she hurt for Griff, and because she’d made a big mistake. She could see that so plainly—now. Wiping away each tear as it fell, she said, “All you’ve ever wanted was to see the world and fly planes, Griff. I knew you might come home and marry me, but I was afraid if you did you would resent me and the baby both for getting in the way of your dream.”

  “You could have called me. Maybe we could have worked something out.”

  She met his accusatory gaze with an unfaltering one. “Like what, Griff? Marrying you and raising the baby wherever you were stationed? Never having one place to call home? Having to make new friends at the whim of someone else?” She shook her head slowly. “That’s no life for a child.”

  His arms came down to his sides and his eyes narrowed. She took a deep, shaky breath as she paused in back of the recliner and watched him, knowing that no matter how this ended, it wouldn’t be the happily ever after she’d thought she had when she woke up that morning.

  “So you figured you had no reason to tell me about Jeb. But why not tell me about him when I came and stopped the wedding? I asked you over and over why you were marrying Clay.”

  “It was a marriage of convenience,” she said, her fingers gripping the upholstery for dear life. “I needed to finally be Jeb’s mother again. Badly. And Clay reluctantly agreed because Lindy had made him promise not to let Jeb be without a mother for too long and he didn’t think he would ever fall in love again. So it seemed best for everyone concerned.”

  “Until I showed up and wrecked everything.”

  “No, until you came home and proved to me how much you care about family—both yours and mine—and I realized that I’d fallen in love with you all over again.” If she’d ever real
ly fallen out of love with him. “But I didn’t want to drive a wedge between you and Clay by telling you about Jeb, or have Jeb’s world torn apart in any sort of custody battle. I still don’t want that.”

  “Oh man, Tessa.” Griff came around and sat down on the chair farthest from her. His body slumped slightly forward until his forearms rested on his thighs, and his gaze raked her over. “He’s my son. You should have told me. Maybe I wouldn’t have made a good father back then, but then again, maybe I would have.”

  “That’s a pretty big maybe when it comes to a child’s whole life, Griff,” she said, holding her chin up.

  “Especially if I’d made the right choices, Tessa,” he said evenly, and her gaze dropped away from him. He was right, and she knew it. Damn, but she’d made a mess of everything.

  “Regardless,” he added, “I should have been given the opportunity to be in Jeb’s life from the start, like you were.”

  She couldn’t deny that either.

  “I don’t know what to do about Jeb,” he continued. “I’ll have to talk to him, find out what he thinks of all this, so I can figure out what’s best for my son.” He straightened up, and took a breath. “My son,” he repeated quietly, and then shook his head. “This is a disaster.”

  Tessa wanted to beg him not to try to take Jeb away from Clay, but she didn’t. Enough damage had been done for one night, and she was afraid to make matters worse.

  He stood, but stayed where he was. “You don’t want to leave Jeb, do you?”

  “No.” She’d never been so sure of anything in her life. “But I do want to be your wife, Griff. It’s been tearing me up all week, wanting both you and Jeb in my life.”

  “I don’t know how that could work.” His gaze never wavered. “Tess, this changes everything between us. I don’t know how I feel now.”