Kidnapping His Bride. Hayley Gardner

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      “The way I figure it, he owes me a meal after the worry he caused me. I thought you’d changed your mind, Tessa.”

      “Never!”

      Her reply came so swiftly, Griff’s eyebrows rose in question. She lifted her chin. “One broken engagement in a lifetime was enough.”

      And they all knew what that referred to. As she and Griff did battle with their eyes, Tessa was wondering if there wasn’t something to what he’d said earlier about war. Oh, no, he’d meant with divorce. The two of them weren’t even close, let alone married. It beat her why she would have purposely struck out at him with words, wanting to get a reaction out of him.

      “Yeah, well…” Clay removed his tie and placed it on the table in a heap, as Griff continued to watch Tessa. “It’s really too crowded to talk privately here, and the food’s served. No sense wasting it.”

      “No sense,” Tessa echoed, feeling stunned. Griff broke eye contact and ate another fry. Men! How could they be so peaceable about the whole thing? Her insides felt topsy-turvy, and her emotions were in an uproar with Griff so near.

      Making a decision, Tessa rose. “Griff, I’m sure Clay can straighten you out a lot better than I ever could. He’s had years more practice.” She didn’t have anything more she wanted to say to Griff, anyway. She’d said it all years before, when she’d broken it off with him. “I’m thinking that you’ll reconsider and be leaving town just as soon as you have a chance to talk to Clay privately, so goodbye, and take care of yourself.”

      Griff rose swiftly and came around the table to take hold of her arm. Tessa didn’t wish to be reminded of how warm his hands could be on her body, or how gently he could caress her skin, but she could feel his heat through the satin as his thumb stroked her forearm, and was powerless to break away, even with Clay and everyone else there, witnessing everything. They silently looked at each other, neither moving, until a voice sliced through whatever it was holding them together.

      “You get your hand off my granddaughter, Griffin Ledoux. She’s been spoken for.” Like a bolt of lightning, seventy-year-old Sadie Newsom herself appeared in the space between the rooms, still decked out with the pink rose corsage, burgundy silk dress and matching hat she’d worn to the wedding.

      Griff dropped his hands to his side. “Yes, ma’am.” Almost immediately, Tessa felt her cheeks flush. Now she’d done it. The only thing she could think of to do was to play innocent.

      “Grandma, I’m glad you’re here. I need a ride home.”

      The cowbells started ringing steadily as Sadie was swiftly joined by two other ladies around Sadie’s age, her closest friends, sisters Claudette and Reba, and by an assortment of ten or so other guests, all in their Sunday best, and all looking rather perturbed. Tessa couldn’t blame them. She was feeling that way herself.

      “Not so fast, Tessa.” Peeling off one of her white gloves, Sadie marched right up to the three of them. “You put that tie right back on and get out of that chair, Clay.”

      “Yes, ma’am.” Clay agreed and rose to his feet out of respect for Sadie, but made no move toward his tie. “Why?”

      “Because we’re all fixin’ to return to that church and wait for Brother Jonas to finish over in Ruston. I got to him before he left, and he said he could be back at the church after five. Are you three ready to go?”

      “Yes,” Tessa said, hoping the problem of Griff would go away if she were married.

      “No,’ Griff and Clay said simultaneously.

      Tessa’s mouth fell open. Griff would say no, but Clay? “Why not?” she asked him.

      “Yes, why not?” Sadie repeated, her mouth pursing.

      “My brother and I have something to discuss, and besides, quite a few of our guests have probably gone home.” He gave Sadie a smile of genuine fondness. “Since I know you want the wedding to be a memory you’ll cherish forever, let’s reschedule so the church is filled.”

      “Is that what this wedding is going to be, Tessa?” she heard Griff ask, his voice low. “A wedding you’ll cherish forever?”

      To a man she didn’t love. With Griff’s eyes on her, never wavering, Tessa felt the room grow close.

      Sadie was not fooled. “You want to postpone your wedding so you can discuss something with your brother?” Sadie gazed at them all, one by one, her eyes lingering on Griff and then coming back to Tessa. A lightbulb seemed to click on, and Sadie nodded. “I guess you’re right, Clay. No sense in rushing these things.”

      “It’s not what you’re thinking, Grandma,” Tessa hastened to say. Sadie turned to her.

      “Then what is it? What on earth pulled you away from your own wedding which I waited your lifetime for?”

      “She wasn’t pulled, Sadie,” one of the elderly men informed her gleefully from behind them. “She was carried! Kidnapped right out of the church! When Doc Casey called, he said Griff had slung her over his shoulder like a sack of meal.”

      Tessa groaned.

      Sadie moaned.

      The elderly ladies tittered.

      Sadie’s eyes focused on Griff, blinked, then focused again. “Good grief. Is that how your mother raised you? No, I know the answer to that. That is not how your mother raised you.”

      “I’ll say,” Clay interjected.

      The side of Griff’s mouth turned downward, and Tessa realized she was in trouble. Sure enough, he had something to say.

      “I guess your grandmother wasn’t the one who emailed me to come and stop the nuptials, huh?”

      In reflection, Tessa thought, maybe she should have told Griff to take her into the woods to talk and let him drive until he ran out of gas somewhere. They would both have been a lot better off.

      “Stop the nuptials?” Sadie asked, looking from Tessa back to Griff in bewilderment. “Why on earth would I want to do that?” She slapped him with her glove. “Or anyone else, for that matter?”

      Griff looked as if he was going to laugh, and that would have been the end of him as far as Sadie was concerned—she demanded respect from anyone under forty, and quite a few over, too. Even though Tessa was annoyed with Griff and wouldn’t have minded seeing Sadie unleash her irritation on him with Griff powerless to stop her, Tessa took her grandmother’s arm.

      “I have no idea why anyone would want to stop my wedding, Grandma,” Tessa told her. “But you don’t have to challenge Griff to a duel over it. I’ll forgive him—someday—and Clay’s going to talk to him. Let’s go home, and we can talk about rescheduling this wedding for a later date.”

      “Later? How much later?”

      With all the eyes staring at them, Tessa did not want to pursue this subject. “We can talk at home,” she told her.

      “Yes, let’s. Clayton, Griffin, we’ll get this ironed out there, and everyone—” she turned to the crowd, most of whom were now displaced СКАЧАТЬ