Kidnapping His Bride. Hayley Gardner
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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 wedding guests, and gave a regal sweep of her arm “—I’ll let you know the rescheduled date as soon as possible.”
“I’ll bet you five dollars they never make it to the altar,” Jasper said to the man next to him. Reba, his wife, walked over and shushed him.
Tessa loved the community and almost all the townspeople and, normally, would have been grinning ear to ear at the old men’s antics, but all she could think about now was that Griff was following her every movement with his eyes, and how much she needed to get out of there before she began to like it.
Tessa was almost to the door when the bells rang again, and a six-year-old boy with a Huckleberry Finn smile entered and grinned up at her. “Hey, Tessa, where’s my Dad?”
Grinning back, Tessa felt the stress of the day wane a little. Being around Jeb Ledoux, Clay’s son and the real reason she was marrying Clay, now that his wife, Lindy, her good friend, had passed on, always had that effect on her.
“Around the corner, Jeb.” She pointed. “Who brought you?”
“Grandma and Grandpa,” he said, referring to Clay and Griff’s parents. “They’re looking for a parking space.” He didn’t move. “How come you didn’t marry Dad?”
“That’s the question of the hour.” Sadie sniffed.
“Grandma,” Tessa scolded gently, then turned back to the boy she so badly wanted to be a mother to. Jeb looked confused.
“There was a temporary problem.” Well, at least part of that was very true. Griff was a problem, but Tessa could only hope he was a temporary one. “Your dad and I will be having the wedding as soon as we figure out how to fix it.”
“Okay.” Jeb darted off around the corner to where Clay was still sitting. Tessa lingered and watched as the child stopped when he saw Griff.
“Uncle Griff! You’re back! We going fishing?”
“Come along, Tessa.” Sadie nudged her arm.
She didn’t have to be asked twice. Outside, Tessa hurried to Griff’s truck and got her veil and gloves. With a wave at Griff’s parents at the other end of the parking lot, she came back to her grandmother’s car just in time to see Sadie fish her keys out of her dress purse.
Tessa reached for them, and Sadie frowned and slapped at her hand, the way only the person who raised you could get away with. Sighing, Tessa let Sadie drive, but made sure the passenger side air bag was turned on and her seat belt snug. Seconds after the elderly woman started the engine, she started in on Tessa, just as expected.
“Darling girl, how on earth could you let yourself be thrown over someone’s shoulder and carted away?”
“It wasn’t like that, Grandma,” she said, gripping the armrest as her grandmother turned onto the highway and gunned the engine. Actually, now that her irritation had worn off a bit, Tessa realized that it had been exciting—which was Griff’s way. Romantic, even…With her eyes closed, she could see Griff’s image clearly in her mind. He was smiling, and touching her shoulder, and pulling her into his arms, and then he was—
“He didn’t kiss you, did he?”
Tessa’s eyes flew open. “No, nothing like that. He wouldn’t.” And she didn’t want him to. She swore she didn’t.
But her grandmother’s astute question pulled her back to reality. She definitely shouldn’t be fantasizing about Griff Ledoux. “It’s been over between us for years.”
“Hmm. Sounds like you’re protesting too much. Why on earth did he tote you off?”
“It was a joke on his brother,” she said softly, staring straight ahead. Her grandmother seemed to accept that and fell silent, giving Tessa all too much time to think on the ride home about Griff, and what he was really doing back in Claiborne Landing for more than a day’s visit.
One thing she did know for sure. As soon as Griff figured out he wasn’t going to stop her from marrying Clay—couldn’t stop her—he would be returning to the Air Force. He’d told her while they’d dated in high school that ever since he was a small child, the only thing he’d ever wanted to do was to fly planes, and the second he’d learned he could earn a free education at the Air Force Academy in Colorado and they would train him to fly, he’d worked all during high school toward that goal. Four years in the Academy and six years mandatory commission. Ten years of his life promised away meant nothing to him.
And everything to her, since she’d had such different goals for her life.
“Don’t let his return mess up your life, honey,” Sadie said unexpectedly. Startled, Tessa gazed over at her. “Make sure you reschedule the wedding with Clay. He’s a good man, and he can give you what you want.”
A perfect family, and a home in what she thought of—after a childhood on the road with parents who made dysfunctional sound fun—as paradise. Claiborne Landing. A place she never wanted to leave again—and where Griff usually never stayed long enough to hang up his hat.
“I know he can.”
“And you’ve already got a lot between you. Don’t mess up your chances like your mother did.”
“You never talk about Mom,” Tessa said,