Loe raamatut: «The Kidnapped Bride»

One

“You don’t have to go through with it, you know. It’s not too late to back out.”

Lorelei Mason dragged her attention from the sight of her future mother-in-law being escorted down the aisle of the church and stared at her younger sister. Dressed in rosecolored silk that set off her creamy skin and the reddish gold of her hair, her sister Desiree looked at her out of troubled eyes. “It’s not too late to back out of what?”

“The wedding,” Desiree informed her, darting a quick glance at the church doors. “If you’re having second thoughts about marrying Herbert, then you shouldn’t do it. It’s not too late to say you’ve changed your mind.”

“What makes you think I’m having second thoughts?” Lorelei asked even as she felt the knot of apprehension tighten in her stomach again. She wasn’t having second thoughts about marrying Herbert Van Owen III. She was having third, fourth and fifth thoughts about marrying him and had been for the past two weeks—ever since Jack Storm had showed up in Mesa. The blasted man, Lorelei thought, frowning. She hadn’t expected to ever see him again, nor had she wanted to. So what was a sea-loving pirate like him doing here in the Arizona desert? And why now, just when she was about to get married?

“Because you don’t look the way a bride should look on her wedding day.”

At her sister’s remark, Lorelei shoved thoughts of Jack from her mind. She looked down at her white lace-and-satin wedding gown—the one she’d ordered months ago from the bridal store in Phoenix and had paid an outrageous two weeks’ salary for. She made a point of checking her matching white shoes and the bouquet of ivory roses and lilies in her hand. Arching her brow, she leveled her younger sibling with the look of superiority and wisdom that her almost two years’ advantage in age gave her. “That’s funny. I think I look like a bride. And I know I’m certainly dressed for the part.”

Desiree let out a dramatic sigh that bespoke her stage training. “You’re always so literal, Lorelei,” she said, making a face. “I wasn’t talking about your dress. I was talking about you. You don’t look the way a bride should look on her wedding day.”

“And how is it I’m supposed to look?” Lorelei asked imperiously. She would not let her baby sister cause her to start second-guessing herself. Her decision to marry Herbert had been a sound one, made after carefully considering the pros and cons. Her stomach did another somersault, and Lorelei fought against the uneasy feeling. It’s nerves, she told herself. She just needed to get this wedding over and done with. She cut a glance toward the vestibule. What in the world was keeping her father and older sister? How long did it take to adjust a cummerbund anyway?

“You should look...happy.”

She shifted her attention back to her sister. “I am happy,” Lorelei informed her.

“But you don’t...glow. A bride should glow on her wedding day,” Desiree said dreamily.

Lorelei blinked. Glow? She was expected to glow when she was having a hard time not losing the coffee and toast she’d managed to force down sometime before noon that day? “I’m not a light bulb, for pity’s sake. And I don’t know any women who walk around glowing on their wedding day or any other day.” Except maybe her mother. There had always been a glow about her mother whenever she looked at Lorelei’s father. “That’s just another one of those foolish ideas the media uses to help sell a poor, prospective bride a lot of unnecessary products.”

“No, it’s not,” Desiree insisted as she fidgeted with the sprig of pink and white roses in her bouquet.

Lorelei narrowed her eyes at the movement. What was wrong with her sister? Desiree never fidgeted. Or at least not since they’d been children. And then only when she’d done something she felt guilty about.

“The media has nothing to do with it. On her wedding day a bride should glow with happiness. And you don’t.”

All right. So she didn’t glow, Lorelei conceded silently. There was no surprise in that since she didn’t feel like a glowing bride, either. But then, she was almost twenty-nine now, not some starry-eyed teenager who believed in such romantic nonsense. She was a responsible and levelheaded woman. And she refused to let her sister’s remark get to her. “Desiree, sweetie, you’ve obviously played one too many romantic leads.”

“This has nothing to do with my acting.”

“Then what is this all about? And for heaven sakes, stop that fidgeting. Why are you so nervous anyway? You’re not the one getting married. I am.”

“Oh, Lorelei.” Desiree caught her hand and squeezed it.

Uneasiness climbed up Lorelei’s spine again at her sister’s solemn expression. “What? What’s wrong?”

Desiree blinked back tears. “You’re my sister and I love you. I just don’t want to see you make a mistake that you’ll regret for the rest of your life.”

Taken aback, Lorelei asked, “What makes you think I’ll regret marrying Herbert?”

“Because I don’t think you really love him. And if you don’t love him, you shouldn’t marry him.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Lorelei told her, pulling her hand free. The knot tightened in her stomach again.

“No, it’s not. I think you want to love Herbert. I really believe you do. But you can’t because you’re really still in love with Jack and—”

“Don’t you dare mention that...that scoundrel’s name to me,” Lorelei ordered, unable to keep the heat out of her voice. Of all days, her wedding day was not when she wanted to be reminded of Jack Storm and what a fool she had been where he was concerned.

“But—”

“All set?” her father asked as he and her sister Clea joined them.

“Yes,” Lorelei said, pulling herself together. She pinned Desiree with a look that said the discussion was closed.

“Then let’s get this show on the road,” Henry Mason told her.

“You okay?” Clea asked. “You look...upset.”

“I’m fine. I just want to get this over with,” she said, her voice clipped. At the slight lifting of Clea’s dark brow, Lorelei softened her tone and said, “Sorry. Bridal jitters, I guess.”

Clea smiled. “Which is another reason I’m glad it’s you getting married and not me.”

Lorelei forced a smile, then gave a nod to the organist to begin the processional. Music filled the church, and Lorelei’s stomach took another nosedive as Clea moved to the center of the entranceway and prepared to walk down the aisle.

“My boutonniere,” Henry Mason exclaimed. “I left it in the room.”

“Daddy, don’t worry about it. You don’t need it.”

“Nonsense. I can’t walk my little girl down the aisle and not be properly dressed. Besides, your mother would never let me hear the end of it.” Smiling, he patted her cheek. “I’ll be right back.”

Lorelei’s palms grew damp as her older sister started down the aisle. The flowers in her hands started to shake, and Lorelei tightened her grip, strangling the stem of the bouquet. She felt hot. She felt cold. Her head started to buzz. She pressed her hand to her stomach, feeling as though a war had been launched inside it. Stop it, Lorelei commanded and attempted to regain control of herself.

It was bridal jitters, just as she had told Clea. All brides went through this. Of course she wanted to marry Herbert. She’d known him for four years, had been engaged to him for the past two.

I don’t think you really love Herbert.

Desiree’s words played over in her mind, but Lorelei shut them out. All right. So maybe there weren’t any fireworks when Herbert kissed her, but that didn’t mean she didn’t love him. Of course she loved him. And she was going to marry him.

Clea reached the midway point, and Desiree stepped to the center of the doorway, preparing to precede Lorelei down the aisle to the altar, where Herbert waited.

Lorelei swallowed past a fresh bout of nerves as the music played on and the organist gave the cue for Desiree to begin going down the aisle.

Desiree hesitated in the doorway and turned to face her. There it was again, the guilt in her baby sister’s eyes. “Lorelei, I’m sorry. I just want you to be happy. I hope you’ll forgive me.”

Confused, Lorelei stared at her sister. “Forgive you for what?”

“For stopping you from marrying the wrong man.”

Lorelei whipped around at the sound of Jack’s voice. She froze. For a moment she couldn’t move. She couldn’t speak. She simply stared at him. He stood there in the back of the church looking bigger than life in his faded jeans and denim shirt, his dark hair curling at his neck, his sinful blue eyes gleaming mischievously. She looked down at his hands, big and bronzed from the sun, and holding what appeared to be a sheet.

“Hello, beautiful,” he said, flashing her a smile.

The familiar endearment snapped her from the spell. “What are you—?”

Jack tossed the sheet over her head, and Lorelei dropped her bouquet as everything went dark. She grabbed at the sheet, tried to push it away from her face.

“Aghhh,” Lorelei attempted to scream, and managed to swallow a mouthful of cotton sheet. Then she felt herself being lifted from the floor and flung over a shoulder—a hard, muscular shoulder.

And then suddenly they were moving.

Just as the first notes of the wedding march sounded, Lorelei felt the blast of July heat hit her and realized they had exited the church. This can’t be happening, she thought. It can’t be. Shock turned to anger, and she renewed her attempts to get free.

“Be still,” Jack commanded, smacking her on her rear.

Lorelei gasped and got another mouthful of sheet. Furious, she started to kick her legs, only to have her stomach, which had been churning all day, turn over at the bumpy trip down what was obviously the church steps.

It would serve him right if she got sick all over him. And she’d ruin her wedding dress. Her wedding! She’d just been kidnapped from her wedding. The strains of the church music grew more distant, and Lorelei kicked out again, only to earn another swat to her bottom. Outraged, she was just about to kick again when she felt herself being dumped into the seat of some type of vehicle and strapped in with what had to be a safety harness.

She heard the door slam next to her and another one open on the other side. When the engine started, she renewed her fight through the tangle of sheet and wedding veil. Finally she managed to get her head free. A thick section of fawn-colored hair fell across her right cheekbone and eye—a casualty of her upswept hairdo. Her carefully and expensively styled hairdo. Pushing it away from her face, she glared at Jack. “How dare you!”

He shifted the truck into reverse and executed a swift turn that sent her body sideways and did nothing to ease her stomach.

“What do you think you’re doing?” she demanded, still fighting to get the rest of her body free from the imprisoning sheet.

“I told you,” he said, giving her a wink and that devilish smile again. “I’m stopping you from marrying the wrong man.” Then he shifted and sent the vehicle speeding past the church.

“You’re crazy!”

“Probably.”

Lorelei twisted in her seat, and another curl tumbled into her eyes. She shoved it away in time to see her sister Desiree standing on the church steps, a guilty expression written all over her face.

Jack made a sharp turn, and Lorelei’s wedding veil plopped into her lap. She stared at the crushed tulle trimmed with tiny seed pearls and looked back at the church that was rapidly shrinking from view. What would her parents think? What would Herbert think?

Herbert! Oh, mercy, he and his mother were waiting for her at the church. She swallowed a groan as she thought of the formidable Mrs. Van Owen II and what she would say. The woman would never forgive her if she ruined Herbert’s wedding. “Stop! I demand you stop this instant!”

Jack ignored her.

Lorelei yanked away the rest of the sheet and threw it on the floor. “Jack Storm, either you turn this thing around right now or I’ll...I’ll jump out.”

“I wouldn’t recommend doing that,” he said calmly, pushing his foot down on the accelerator. “You’d end up splattering that pretty face of yours on the road, and I’d just come back and get you anyway.”

Lorelei swallowed past the lump in her throat as she watched the speedometer climb to near eighty. She looked at the smug expression on his face. Refusing to let him intimidate her, she unhooked her seat belt and grabbed the handle of the door. “I mean it, Jack. Stop or I’ll jump out.”

He continued to ignore her. He didn’t think she’d do it, she realized. He thought she didn’t have the guts. Hadn’t he accused her of as much two weeks ago when she’d refused to meet with him? She’d show him. How hard could it be? Stunt people did this all the time for a living. She’d seen them do it countless times on movie sets when she’d been growing up and shuffling from one location to another with her parents. One of the extras whose makeup her mother had done had even shown her how it was done. Tuck and roll. That’s all she had to do. Tuck and roll. Taking a deep breath, Lorelei pushed down on the handle and shoved against the door.

Nothing happened.

She caught Jack’s smirk. More determined than ever, she punched the unlock button and heard another click just as she jerked down on the door handle.

Jack moved his hand from the driver’s-door panel back to the wheel. Flashing her another smile, he said, “These new automatic-lock features are pretty amazing. I’ll have to remember to write the manufacturer and thank them for making it standard equipment.”

Anger escalated to fury, and Lorelei clenched her hands into fists. She wanted to hit him. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. She wasn’t the same reckless girl she’d been ten years ago. She was older, wiser and not given to emotional outbursts. “Jack, I demand you take me back right now.”

“Sorry, beautiful. Can’t do that. If I took you back, you’d marry that stuffed shirt, Herbert.”

“I want to marry Herbert. And he is not a stuffed shirt!”

Jack snorted and continued to cruise down the highway. “Sure. he is. Why else would the guy have been wearing a suit and tie in the middle of the week in this heat?” he asked, reminding her of their encounter two weeks ago.

“At least he owns a suit and tie,” Lorelei countered.

Jack shrugged, obviously unfazed by the barb. “And the fellow’s got sissy hands. I swear when he shook hands with me they were as soft as a baby’s bottom. I bet he even has them manicured.”

“I happen to like the way Herbert dresses and I like his hands.”

“Hey, if it turns you on, I’ll get a suit and tie,” he said. “But that’s where I draw the line. No way am I going to let anybody slap sweet-smelling creams on my hands.”

Lorelei looked at Jack’s hands gripping the steering wheel. Large and strong, with a long white scar that sliced through the bronzed skin on his right hand. There was nothing soft or nice about Jack Storm’s hands. There never had been. His were a man’s hands—roughened and callused by hard work and physical labor. Yet she knew just how gentle those hands could be. How carefully they could unearth a delicate seashell buried in wet sand. How tenderly those fingers could be when caressing a woman’s body.

Flushing at the unbidden memory, Lorelei dragged her thoughts back to the present “Oh, this is a ridiculous discussion. I don’t give a hoot what you wear or what you do to your hands. Turn this thing around immediately and take me back to my wedding.”

“Sorry, beautiful. That’s something I’m not willing to do.”

“Why not?” she demanded.

He looked at her then, and for once there was no laughter in those deep blue eyes. He was deadly serious—a rarity for Jack Storm. “Because, sweetheart, you promised a long time ago to marry me, and I’ve decided to hold you to that promise.”

He’d shocked her. Jack knew it from the expression on her face, from the way she opened her mouth to say something, only to clamp it shut again without murmuring a word.

“You can’t be serious,” she finally managed to say.

“I assure you, I am.” Despite the conviction in his voice, he hadn’t been at all sure he could pull this off. Hell, he still wasn’t sure he could pull it off. But his instinct—that same gut feeling that had saved his skin on treasure hunts more times than he cared to count—had told him he had to try. Because the moment he’d seen her again, he’d realized she was what had been missing in his life. Of all the treasures he’d discovered and lost through the years, she was the only one he’d regretted losing.

“That was ages ago. We were just kids.”

“It was ten years ago, and there was nothing childlike about our relationship or the way we felt about each other. You gave yourself to me,” Jack reminded her. “You said you loved me and promised to be my wife.”

“I wasn’t the one who forgot to show up for the wedding!”

Jack flushed, shame and regret reddening his face, his neck. “I was late. I—”

“You stood me up!”

“Lorelei, I—”

“I waited for you at that justice of the peace’s house,” she told him, her voice breaking. “I sat in a battered old chair in a dreary little room with the man’s wife looking at me with pity in her eyes and I waited for you. I waited all that day and all that night When the sun came up the next morning, I knew you weren’t coming.”

The pain in her voice felt like a one-two punch to his gut. Jack jerked the wheel of the truck to the right and pulled off onto the side of the road. He turned to her.

She looked away.

He felt the slam to his ribs again and knew he deserved it. “Lorelei, listen to me. I did come.” Gently he turned her head so he could see her face—the face that had haunted him while he’d trekked through the jungles of Colombia, when he’d crossed the mountains of Peru, as he’d searched the floor of the Atlantic. A part of her had always stayed with him...kept him on course. He’d known that someday after he’d made his big strike, he would find her again and make things right. Only the years had somehow managed to slip by without him ever making that big strike. Then he’d walked into that bookstore and seen her again. He realized at once that she was not only still the love of his life, but she was his lady luck. With Lorelei beside him, he would find the treasure. Fate had brought her to him again, and he had never been one to question fate.

He looked into those whiskey-colored eyes, the siren’s eyes he’d remembered filled with laughter, filled with love. But there was no laughter in those eyes now. There was no love. There was anger. And hurt. And he was the cause. Guilt washed over him, and for a moment he contemplated doing as she asked—taking her back to the church. No. He dismissed the notion. He couldn’t let her marry another man.

He’d make it up to her, Jack promised himself. All he needed was a chance—the chance he’d stolen for himself today. “I came, Lorelei.”

He saw the doubt, the questions as she narrowed her eyes and searched his face. “It’s true,” he insisted. “I came the next afternoon. I was late. I’d been offered a chance to go out on a dive. There was this ship, part of a fleet of Spanish—”

She yanked away from his touch. “You jerk! You stupid, insensitive jerk! I lied to my parents and my sisters for you. I hurt them, telling them I didn’t want to spend my spring vacation with them because I wanted to be with my friends. I hurt them deliberately so we could elope the way we’d planned. And now you tell me the reason I hurt them, the reason you left me waiting in that godforsaken little justice of the peace’s office, was so that you could play treasure hunter?”

“I wasn’t playing, Lorelei. I was on a diving boat. There was no way to get to a phone and call you.”

“You didn’t need a phone. You were supposed to be there!”

“I’m telling you I was there. But I was late. Sweetheart, I knew you were worried about the future, about how we would live.”

“Do you blame me? Treasure hunting isn’t exactly the most reliable profession.”

He managed not to wince at the verbal cuff. “I wanted to surprise you with a stake,” he said tightly, his own temper beginning to shred—partly out of anger, partly because he knew she was right. He’d had nothing to offer her ten years ago. He had little more now—except for the map and his gut feeling that he could find the mine. And that the mine would be the key to their future. “I earned nearly a thousand bucks on that dive. And I—”

“You nearly destroyed my life. I loved you, Jack. I loved you and trusted you. But all you cared about was finding some blasted treasure.”

Her words carried the sting of a slap and took the edge off his temper. “Lorelei, that’s not true. I—”

“I’ve had enough of this trip down memory lane with you. I’m not interested in discussing it further,” she said, her voice cool, her eyes even cooler. “I want you to take me back to the church so I can marry Herbert.”

Jack recalled the sight of her standing in the back of the church, a vision dressed in white and looking so damn beautiful she’d stolen his breath away.

And she’d been about to marry another man.

He gritted his teeth. Shoving the truck into gear, he pulled out onto the road and stole a glimpse in his rearview mirror. The sprawl of the city dissolved behind them as he veered the Explorer east to the Highway 60 Loop and headed toward the Apache Trail and the Superstition Mountains.

“Jack, I said to turn around. Now. I want you to take me back to the church. I’m going to marry Herbert.”

“Not if I can help it, you’re not.”