Kidnapping His Bride. Hayley Gardner

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СКАЧАТЬ that if he did go, she would never see him again. Never have that thrill course through her that she got whenever she looked at him, never—

      But she would be married to someone else, so maybe it would be better if she never.

      He steered skillfully around a curve as the roller coaster road turned into more of a snake, and she braced one white pump against the floor to keep from sliding toward the middle and touching him. She caught the movement of his head and looked at him, and that jolt came one more time, the one that said that somehow, she had to get him to leave town as fast as possible, or she could very well say or do something that could ruin the precarious happiness she’d fought so hard for in the years since he’d left.

      With a long sigh, she put her hairpins she’d been gripping in the cup holder on his dashboard and took her veil off, carefully folding and smoothing it out on her lap. “Where are we going?”

      “Someplace to talk. Not your house. That’s the first place people would think of to look. Casey’s Kitchen still open this time of day?”

      She nodded. Casey’s Kitchen was a cozy restaurant underneath a bunch of shady oaks on a well traveled highway that bisected Claiborne Landing. Its owner, Doc Casey, was a retired doctor in his sixties who had always claimed to love cooking more than doctoring, even though he’d been tremendously successful at medicine. He was also Tessa and her grandmother’s best customer at the bakery they owned, buying sweets for his customers, which included lunch and dinner crowds of mostly truck drivers, farmers, ranchers and an occasional mom and small children out for a break. By two any afternoon, the place was usually deserted, and Tessa was happy to see from the empty parking lot that today was no different.

      Before she got out of the truck, she laid her gloves and the veil on the console between the seats, and then fixed her hair and makeup as best she could in the tiny mirror on the visor. By the time she finished, Griff had come around and opened the truck door on her side, and was waiting there to help her down.

      As his hands touched her waist, an involuntary wave of desire went through her, as well as a glimpse back into the past when she’d loved his touching her. But whatever she’d felt then wasn’t important now. Griff didn’t say a word, but by the impenetrable look on his face, she would guess he wasn’t affected at all by touching her. That was all right. She didn’t want to have to deal with Griff wanting her.

      Doc Casey himself was behind the counter when she walked in, and Tessa nodded at him as though nothing at all were out of the ordinary and she wasn’t attired in a white satin wedding dress. Trusting Griff would follow her, she went into the larger side room and settled at a small, relatively private table far to the rear of the place, hoping she was less noticeable back there. Griff sat down, too, close enough that their shoulders touched. She gave him a pursed mouth, questioning stare.

      “If I sit on the other side of the table, I’ll have to talk louder,” he said, his voice low. She realized he was right and let him stay where he was, wishing she didn’t feel like a quivering mass of emotions just because he was home.

      Back, she corrected silently. Griff didn’t want this to be home. He’d made that clear a long time ago.

      Within seconds, Doc Casey came to take their order, his mirth-filled, green eyes gazing down at her from his round Irish face. “Griff. Welcome home. Welcome. Tessa, aren’t you a little too fancied up for this place?”

      “You have a dress down code?” Tessa lifted both hands into the air in a plea for him to spare her.

      “It’s my fault,” Griff said, leaning back in his chair to look up at the former doctor. “I kidnapped her from her wedding.”

      “That so?” Doc Casey gazed down at Tessa with the same concerned, yet detached, expression he’d always used whenever she’d described her sneezes and sniffles.

      “Plopped her right over my shoulder and carried her out kicking and screaming. Wanted to play a trick on my brother.”

      Although he was exaggerating, his excuse for her being here, having a private meal with her fiancé’s brother when she was supposed to be at her wedding, was as good as any Tessa could make up. She glanced at Griff, and he winked, making her realize that saving her from having to give any explanation to Casey herself was exactly what he’d intended. His thoughtfulness caught her off balance.

      “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 СКАЧАТЬ