Hayley Gardner - Kidnapping His Bride

“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?

Before Tessa could decide what to tell Griff, the small cowbells on the front door jingled again and seconds later, two elderly men in overalls came into the section where she and Griff were, greeted the third man already there and sat down with him at a long table near the front of the room, all facing her. Tessa frowned. Doc Casey came in with her and Griff’s ice teas, then stopped at the other table to take orders, wearing a totally unfamiliar grin on his face. As Doc Casey turned to head back into the kitchen, the bells clanged again, and another elderly patron moseyed in to join the other three.

“Just my luck,” she muttered. “The bakery’s mid-morning coffee club showing up in the afternoon to see the town’s favorite deputy sheriff’s intended bride meeting with his brother. By the time they’re done building this story up, everyone’s going to think I’ll make Clay a terrible wife.”

“They’d be right, but for the wrong reasons.”

Her irritability level rose another notch, like mercury in a thermometer. She leaned in close to him and whispered, “You’re wrong. Unlike you, who had to prove the only way you could be content is to be totally free, your brother liked being married.” He’d loved his deceased wife Lindy tremendously. The whole town knew that. “Clay and I both want the same thing—to stay in Claiborne Landing among family and friends—which is why we will be compatible. That compatibility will bring us happiness.”

Griff didn’t say a word. He didn’t have to. His eyes did his talking for him, and suddenly, Tessa realized how close the two of them were, almost face-to-face, mouth to mouth. She could feel his warm breath against her cheek. Without knowing how it happened, she found herself wanting, desperately, to kiss him.

Her emotions were doing her thinking again, that’s how it had happened. She backed up abruptly. “Just how long are you going to be in town, anyway?”

“Long enough to figure out who made the effort to get me here.”

“Why would that matter?”

“Somebody besides me thought you two getting married was not a great idea. I’m kind of thinking it might be good to stick around long enough to find out who and the why behind it. Stock up ammunition.”

“It’s a wedding, Griff, not a war.”

“Divorce is a war, and I figure that’s where you two will eventually wind up if you don’t think this through all the way.”

Tessa groaned. She was going to have to get Griff out of town, and the sooner, the better. To not do so could only lead to disaster.

“I’m going to call Clay.” She rose and turned as Doc Casey rounded the corner again, this time carrying catsup and mustard bottles to the other table. Then she remembered Sadie had her purse, and she would need a quarter for the pay phone. Rather than ask Griff for anything, she walked up to Doc Casey to ask him to let her use the phone in the back, just in time to catch his last words, “Don’t worry, boys. Things’ll pick up right soon now.”

“Looks like you’re having a sudden surge of business, Doc.” She frowned with disapproval. “Could it be the entertainment?”

Doc Casey’s eyes twinkled. “Naw. There hasn’t really been any.”

“That’s good to hear.”

“But there’s fixin’ to be,” he added gleefully. “Clay just arrived.”

“You called him?”

“Have to stir up the pot for the audience,” he said, without one lick of guilt whatsoever coming from him.

Sure enough, the now grating jangle of the bells announced Clay’s entrance through the front door. He saw Tessa and came to the doorway between the dining rooms, where he stopped and stared from her to his brother with a look that asked them both, What now?

Her heart went out to him. Clay had had enough to deal with being a deputy sheriff and a single father to a six-year-old for the past year after his wife Lindy’s death from cancer; he didn’t need to be in the middle of an argument between his only brother and his soon-to-be second wife, and definitely not in front of the biggest gossips in town.

“Doc, sometimes you go too far,” Tessa said, indicating the elderly men with a nod of her head.

“C’mon, Miss Tessa, don’t spit bullets over this. Deputy sheriff’s fiancée gets carried off from the wedding by his own brother and ends up here? Biggest thing to happen around Claiborne Landing in ages. Usually Athens sees all the action. If this had been happening at your grandma’s doughnut shop, she would have called in her favorite customers, too. Have to be loco not to.” Doc Casey lumbered over to the other table and left her to deal with Clay.

“Tessa, what is going on?” he asked quietly, his face now unreadable.

“Your brother kidnapped her, deputy!” the old man next to Tessa said. “Picked her up, plopped her over his shoulder and carried her right out of the church.” He slapped his knee with his Casey’s Kitchen cap. “Wish I’d a been there.”

Tessa glanced at Griff, who was frowning at both of them. She frowned right back. If he’d only been ten minutes later, she’d be married to Clay and wouldn’t be in this predicament. Speaking of happiness, well, to say the least, she’d been happier. A lot happier.

Like when she’d been in Griff’s arms. She hushed that thought away and turned her attention back to Clay, the one she couldn’t let get away, the same second as Doc Casey reappeared with a tray, headed for Griff. With this anonymous e-mailer loose, she didn’t want to let anyone alone with Griff for long, so she grabbed Clay’s sleeve and led him well away from the table with the elderly customers, to an empty area where she could talk softly to him without being overheard and still keep her eyes on Griff. Even across the room she could feel his eyes on her. Warmth drifted up through her body like the smoke before a fire.

“We’ve got to get Griff out of here. Someone sent him an e-mail telling him we aren’t in love.”

“So he came and kidnapped you from the wedding.” Clay ran his splayed fingers through his wavy black hair, looking, Tessa thought, as disconcerted as he had after his wife’s death over a year before, only without the pain this time. “Who would send him news like that?”