Loe raamatut: «Wedding Captives»

Chapter One

In the fading mid-afternoon sunlight, Thea Sarazin trudged uphill toward the small stone house where a ski gondola would transport her across an impossibly wide chasm to the Castle in the Clouds.

In addition to her small suitcase, she carried a garment bag containing a floor-length gown. After this weekend, she’d add this brocaded creation in sunrise orange—a color particularly unsuited to Thea’s olive complexion, hazel eyes and dark brown hair—to the other three godawful bridesmaid dresses that hung, swathed in dry cleaner’s plastic, in the back of her closet.

Though she’d sworn never again to be part of a wedding party, she couldn’t refuse when asked by Jenny Trevain, her co-worker at Lloyd Middle School in Denver. Not only was Jenny a good friend but the wedding meant spending a weekend at this fabled mansion where she would finally meet Jenny’s reclusive fiancé, Gregory Rosemont.

The whole event was simply too fanciful and romantic for Thea to resist, especially since Jenny was also thirty-four, and had likewise resigned herself to the odds against ever finding true love. And then, seemingly out of nowhere, Jenny had been swept into every woman’s fantasy romance, a whirlwind courtship by a rich and mysterious captain of industry.

Rosemont was…okay, an eccentric multi-millionaire who had earned his fortune with one of the first online shopping Web sites. Just for this weekend of fancy, Thea preferred to think of it all as exciting and exotic. Jenny’s love affair rekindled the hopes and dreams of every almost-a-spinster like Thea. She sighed.

A dream come true. Thea knew better. She was sure she knew better. But an engagement ring from Tiffany’s! Marriage to the modern-day equivalent of a prince. The guy owned a castle, for goodness’ sake!

On the other hand, Gregory Rosemont also had the reputation of a genuine twenty-four-carat recluse. There were no existing photographs of him. Not even Jenny had one. He never gave interviews. He ruled his business from afar, keeping in touch through the highest of high-tech computer innovations. Privacy was a big deal to this man who chose to live on a mountaintop which could only be reached by a mile-long ride on a ski gondola. No doubt his communications with the outer world required satellites…or something. Computer technology wasn’t her forte.

The extreme cold bit at Thea’s nose. Around her, in the below-freezing chill of the clean, crisp mountain air, rose mountains as old as time. If she hadn’t just driven the wickedly iced-over access road several miles from an interstate highway, she could believe she’d crossed over into some frozen other-world, never to be seen or heard from again.

Where was Jenny’s car? Where was anyone?

Thea’s feet were freezing, her fingers already numb. She told herself to get a grip and keep going. Maybe the stone house for the gondola was heated. Thea was beginning to worry about the cold, the isolation and—most especially—about dear, sweet, naive Jenny who planned to change her fiancé into a marginally sociable human being after the wedding. Thea couldn’t believe it. Jekyll and Hyde belonged in fiction. Hoping for a metamorphosis on that scale was like hoping to transform Colorado’s rugged fourteen-thousand-foot granite peaks into foothills fit for an afternoon hike.

Pretty darned unrealistic.

She’d talked to Jenny, warning her about trying to transform her husband-to-be. Thea had been engaged herself once before and had hoped that her nurturing love would ease an arrogant, ambitious M.D. into a more sensitive human being. Talk about an impossible dream!

But Jenny was in love, and women in love fooled themselves every day. Twice on Sunday.

Why was the parking so dratted far from the only possible destination up here?

As she neared the rough-hewn stone gondola house, Thea noticed the coat of arms, depicting a single blooming rose—probably to represent the rose in Rosemont—two interlocking crowns and four daggers. She thought about what conceit it took for a computer whiz to invent himself a brand-spanking-new coat of arms, then scolded herself. She might get conceited too, if she ever even saw a million dollars.

She should really cut Gregory Rosemont some slack. After all, Jenny loved him. She unlatched the heavy wooden door and pushed it open. No one else was here. And if possible, the stone house was even colder than the outdoors.

Pushing up her parka sleeve, she glanced at her wristwatch. She’d made good time from Denver, considering that she’d driven under ten miles an hour on the scary stretch of snow-packed, winding road without even a guardrail. She’d arrived half an hour early. Still, she’d expected to find someone here to greet her. A butler, perhaps.

She deposited her suitcase and garment bag on the stone benches that lined the dreary granite walls. In one corner was a wood-burning stove, unlit. On the opposite wall were metal lockers and an ornately decorated, old-fashioned combination safe.

The fiberglass gondola car seemed modern enough in spite of giant cog-wheel machinery that, to Thea, smacked of a medieval torture device. She eyed the steel cable from which the gondola car was suspended. Was it strong enough to hold the weight of several people? She was not only not fond of heights, she was a card-carrying acrophobe.

Evil boy cousins had stranded her in the rafters in her Uncle Harry’s barn when Thea was only five, while her brothers had laughed till they hurled—and she’d never, ever gotten over it. She was good at pretending she had—so far as she knew, no one had ever guessed what a chicken she was—but she couldn’t fool herself.

She absolutely expected the gondola ride to be the worst part of her weekend. For Jenny, she would do it.

She left her luggage and went outdoors again, barely making tracks across the crusted, deep-packed snow, angling for the best view of the castle to distract herself from the only possible approach. She hadn’t dared try to get a glimpse of the castle from the road. The driving had consumed her white-knuckled attention.

Above the snowplowed parking area carved out of the surrounding forest, she peered across the deep, wide chasm. Through gathering storm clouds, she saw thick stone towers rising on either end of a large main structure. Gothic battlements strangely complemented the Moorishstyle arched windows and gables from yet another era. The delightfully eclectic, bizarre architecture bespoke a fascinating history. Jenny inevitably went into raptures describing the castle.

Another vehicle finally pulled into the parking lot below the gondola house. From her vantage point, Thea stared curiously at the four-wheel-drive van. The wedding party was supposed to be small, but Jenny had been dropping gleeful hints about some of the other invited guests. Thea even suspected an attempt at matchmaking. She wasn’t really looking for a boyfriend, but a weekend in a castle might be the perfect time and place for a wonderful romantic assignation.

A tryst.

Thea shook her head at herself, careening from pillar to post, dread and certain panic over the gondola to flights of romantic fantasy.

Strangers to her, an attractive couple of about her own age emerged from the van. Then, the rear door slid open, and a third passenger climbed out. A man. A tall, broad-shouldered man.

Spence Cannon.

A shiver gripped her…was it an acute, terrible loneliness? Recognition? Or only the cold?

She hadn’t laid eyes on the man who’d once asked her to marry him in over five years. She clapped her chattering teeth tightly together. He looked good. Fine, really…fine. Annoyingly so, she snapped at herself. His sun-streaked hair fell rakishly across his forehead. From this distance, she couldn’t see his deep-set blue eyes at all, but she knew that his expression would be cool and outrageously condescending. She’d thought, all those eons ago when she still believed she was going to conquer the world herself, that the combination of cool and condescending was sexy, an invitation, a dare.

She’d fooled herself every day she and Spence were together. Twice on Sunday. And that was a conservative estimate.

She turned back toward the Castle and glared. Damn you, Jenny. How could Jenny think Thea ever wanted to see Spence again? Whatever they’d shared, even if she’d called it love, had been cold, dead ashes for a long time, swept under a carpet and ground to infinitesimal dust. Her pride would never allow their relationship to be rekindled, even if her sanity went on holiday.

She tried to tell herself that the memory of their breakup didn’t hurt anymore, but it obviously did. Pain like a bolt of lightning stabbed somewhere near the center of her forehead. Almost blinded, she recoiled, retreating into the shadow of the trees, hiding herself like a scared rabbit.

A momentary urge seized her to leave this desolate mountaintop. To gather up her grotesque bridesmaid dress and run, not walk, back to the safety of her Denver town-house and her two cats.

Coward! She’d been looking forward to this long weekend, and she wouldn’t let Spence ruin it. She could handle him.

She could be strong. She’d done it once. Five years ago, she’d been the one to call off their engagement and return his diamond ring. Very tough, very brave, utterly lonely. She’d sat home alone, night after night, staring at the telephone like one of her boy-smitten middle-schoolers, praying for the boy to call. Futilely waiting on the reconciliation call that never came.

She could be strong.

She peeked out from behind a tree trunk. Damn you, Spence. Why did he have to look so good?

TODAY WOULD BE either the best or the worst day of Spence Cannon’s life. He hated the uncertainty.

“Come on!” his friend Emily called out. “Let’s take a good look at this place.”

Spence really couldn’t have cared less about the so-called castle. His decision to accept Jenny’s wedding invitation was based entirely on the fact that he knew Thea Sarazin would be there. He wanted another chance with her.

“Look at the gondola house! With a coat of arms, no less. That’s fairly pretentious!” Emily charged up the path with the agility of a mountain goat, then she whirled and embraced her new husband, Jordan Shane. “Doesn’t it make you think of knights in shining armor and princesses and jousts?”

“Looks cold,” Jordan said.

“That’s the fun part.” Her voice lowered to a purr. “We’ll share bodily warmth to keep warm.”

Spence joined them. “Give it a rest, Emily. All this newlywed joy is making me hyperglycemic.”

“What’s wrong with you?”

Thea’s car, he thought, glancing back at the only other vehicle in the snowplowed lot. That had to be Thea’s car. He was distracted, all right. He couldn’t explain the combination of excitement and dread he felt about seeing her again. Being with her.

It had been over five years since he’d heard her calm, clear voice. Or reduced calm-and-clear to a throaty cry of pleasure. Or seen her heart-shaped face, or traced its shape with his lips. But he remembered, vividly, the startling depths in her hazel eyes and the silky texture of her chestnut hair falling through his fingers.

So many nights since, he’d wakened with the scent of her musky perfume lingering in the dark around him. In dreams, he knew the indescribable softness of her inner thigh, the sweet fullness of her breasts, the taste of her lush ripe lips. And then, those lips would speak, and she’d tell him she never wanted to see him again. Never.

No compromise.

Not ever.

His friend, Emily, joined him on the path. “You look sad, Spence. Want to talk about it?”

“Thea is the one who broke up with me,” he muttered. “I’m the one who should expect an apology. Right?”

“It depends. Why did she end the relationship?”

He shrugged. “She thought I betrayed her.”

“With another woman?”

“Hell, no. I’d never do anything like that.”

“What was it?” Emily asked. “What did you do?”

“It’s complicated.” He didn’t like talking about relationships, facing the fact that he’d made a mistake and put his career ahead of Thea’s needs. Had he been in the wrong? Possibly. Was he sorry? Definitely. “I want her back.”

He shoved open the door to the gondola house. Would she be inside, waiting for him? Would she forgive him? The interior of the stone house was about as cold and empty as her heart the last time they were together, but there on the stone bench he saw her luggage.

He dropped his overnight bag on the flagstone floor. Nothing about the place boded well, save Thea’s luggage.

Emily and Jordan spilled inside behind him. “Too bad we’re not invited to the wedding. I wonder if we can hitch a ride up to the top, just for a treat,” she said. “I’d love to see the castle.”

“Doubtful.” Her husband Jordan studied the cogs of the gondola machinery. “Gregory Rosemont makes the late Howard Hughes look like a party animal. Even that’s a stretch. Everyone’s heard of Howard Hughes. Rosemont has come out of nowhere.”

“But Jordan, you have something in common,” Emily protested. “He’s a computer guy, like you.”

“All the more reason for him to be secretive,” Jordan said. “Rosemont might think I was here to steal his ideas.”

“Not you, Jordan.”

As she melted into her husband’s arms again, Spence exited the stone house. Of course, he felt glad that Emily and Jordan had found each other and fallen in love. After what they’d been through with Jordan being unjustly accused of murder and on the run, they deserved some happiness. But their bliss underlined his own solitary existence as a general practitioner in the small mountain town of Cascadia, a far less fashionable outpost than nearby Aspen.

After four years, the locals had pretty much given up on finding him a mate. He’d taken on the role of the kindly, bachelor doc who worked weekends with the Cascadia Search-and-Rescue unit. Searching for Thea, only now seeing small footprints in the crusted snow, he looked up toward the top of a snowy ridge. And there he saw her framed in an icy landscape with dark storm clouds rising behind her.

She’d cut her long hair into a straight, chin-length bob. Her burgundy parka matched her boots and gloves. As always, she looked organized and controlled. Only after he’d gotten to know her had Spence discovered the wild woman who lived inside, an impetuous creature who loved laughter and excitement. His body, having a memory of its own, was already responding to the vision of Thea.

Energized, his inhibitions leaking out with each breath he took, he hiked toward her, fully intending to grab hold of her and kiss the frown off her mouth. He was near enough to see a glimmer of vulnerability in her beautiful hazel eyes. She wanted him as much as he wanted her.

And then she spoke. “You look older, Spence.”

His instincts urged him on. Go ahead. Embrace her. Kiss her. “You cut your hair.”

“It’s not the only thing different about me.”

He tried to ignore the warning note in her voice. He wanted to touch her, to trace the line of her chin, to brush his thumb across the surface of her lips. “You’re still beautiful.”

“But older, now. Wiser.”

“Wise enough to forgive?” His hand raised, reaching toward her, needing the contact.

“No.” She clasped his bare hand in her gloved fingers and gave a firm, business-like shake. Quickly, she released and stepped back. “Spence, why did you come here?”

He felt his heart thud. He reminded her that he and Jenny had been friends long before he even met Thea. “And she invited me.”

“Because she thought we’d get back together.” Her voice quavered, but she said, “Jenny was wrong.”

“Was she?”

“Kiss and make up,” Thea said, “is not an option.”

Before he could respond, she stepped around him and proceeded toward the gondola house where she politely introduced herself to Emily and Jordan. Spence stood rooted in the snow, staring after her. In the center of his chest, his heart clenched like an iron fist. His lungs ceased operation. A few words from Thea had driven him to the brink of myocardial infarction.

Breathe, you idiot! He sucked down an ice-cold breath, tasting impending snowfall in the air. This reunion hadn’t begun the way he’d hoped. She’d rejected him. Again.

He exhaled a puff of steam. Kissing is not an option? Like hell! He’d heard the hesitation in Thea’s voice.

Growing warmer inside at the notion of Thea and her sweet, maybe unconscious hesitation, he pretended interest in the isolated castle across the wide chasm. The granite structure appeared to be impregnable, perched above high cliffs. But nothing was unreachable. You can’t hide from me, Thea. They’d be trapped there for two and a half days. It might take that long for him to change her mind. This time, he wouldn’t give her up without a fight.

He turned toward the parking area and watched as a shiny new Ford Explorer swerved across the snow, nearly sideswiping his van. A wild man in a colorful ski outfit and dyed white-blond hair leapt out and gave a loud whoop. “Where’s my big sis?” he yelled.

Obviously, this was Travis Trevain, Jenny’s brother. He was ranked as a world-class freestyle skier, one of those hot-dog show-offs who flip through the air in screaming pirouettes that couldn’t really be considered sport.

Spence took an immediate dislike to Travis. He knew the guy was the only family Jenny had left after her father, a renowned virologist Spence had once worked with, had passed away. Baby brother Travis hadn’t attended the funeral seven years ago. He’d been in drug rehab.

His current manic behavior suggested a relapse. Two and a half days with this jerk? Spence was particularly disgusted with the way Travis grabbed everybody, including Thea, in bear hugs. Especially Thea.

Stalking down the hill, Spence prepared to stake his claim before Travis decided to make her his weekend conquest. But the blond skier bounded halfway up the hill to greet him with arms flung wide. His red and yellow parka matched with skin-tight ski pants made him look, in Spence’s jaded opinion, like a demented snow parrot.

Spence blocked the hug and shook hands instead. “You must be Travis Trevain. I’m Spence Cannon.”

“Wow, yeah? I gotta say it, then.” Travis socked him on the shoulder, shaking his head in admiration. “I owe you, big-time. Thanks, man.”

“For what?”

“You hung in there for Jenny,” Travis said. “At the old man’s funeral. When she needed a friend.”

Spence might have pointed out that what Jenny had really needed was her brother, that Travis’s addictive behavior had broken his father’s heart. That, even then, even after their father died, especially then, Jenny could have used a brother at her side. But there was no point in rebuke. And Spence was in favor of letting the past be over in more ways than the one that mattered most to him right now—getting Thea to let it go. “Jenny keeps me updated on your career. How’s your health?”

“Aces, man.” Travis started to launch into the marvels of his conditioning.

Spence was rescued from that conversation by his friend Jordan, who called up to him. “Hey Spence! Sorry, Travis, but I need Spence to check something in the van.”

“No prob.” He clapped Spence on the back. “We got a whole weekend to be buds.”

Don’t hold your breath, hot dog. Spence strode downhill and then fell into step beside Jordan.

As they reached the parking area, Jordan asked, “How are you doing?”

“Fine.” Spence spat the word. Thea was talking to Emily up near the gondola house. He wanted to know what Emily was saying about him.

“Your jaw’s clenched, my friend. The vein in your forehead is pumping,” Jordan observed. “Emily says it’s hypertension.”

Emily was a nurse, specifically trained in emergency medicine, and Spence respected her ability enough that he planned to leave his practice in her hands during this long weekend. At the moment, however, he didn’t want Emily’s diagnosis.

“I’m fine,” he repeated. He knew where this conversation was headed and he was wishing real hard right now that he had never confided in Jordan and Emily at all. They both knew Spence had a lot of hopes invested in this weekend.

Jordan’s dark, intense gaze focused on the surrounding forest as if he were intent upon counting the trees. Emily’s husband didn’t do a lot of unnecessary chatting. “A while back, you and I had a talk about soulmates. You know the one—for every man, there’s one perfect match.”

Sneaking a look at Emily and Thea chatting away, Spence wondered what force in the universe it was that always sent your words of well-intentioned advice boomeranging right back at you. “Nothing’s perfect.”

“No, but some things come close.” Jordan kept counting trees. “You never said. Why did you and Thea break up in the first place?”

“It was my fault,” Spence said. He’d been an ass, putting his career ahead of Thea, ignoring her needs. He’d been a fool. “I never claimed to be a sensitive guy. I’m a doctor.”

“Like the two are mutually exclusive?” Jordan shook his head, apparently dismissing Spence’s self-recriminations. “So, are you saying you’ve changed?”

“Since Thea knew me? Oh, yeah.” If Thea gave him half a chance, he believed she’d like the man he’d become—a small-town doc who knew his patients by their first names.

“Well, all I can say is—”

“Shouldn’t we at least pretend we’re doing something about the van?” Spence interrupted.

“—don’t give up.” Jordan turned and opened the sliding door on the van, then climbed in. “Let’s move this seat.”

“Easy for you to say,” Spence snarled, about not giving up. He grabbed his end of the bench seat. “If she kicks snow in my face one more time—” He broke off. His rear molars ground together. “I don’t need this kind of rejection. There are plenty of willing females in the world.”