# Kidnapping His Bride

Hayley Gardner

GRIFF LEDOUX HAD ALWAYS SWEPT HER OFF HER FEETAnd he did it again, just as Tessa Blake was getting ready to walk down the aisle. He threw her over his shoulder, wedding gown and all, and carried her right out of the church–and demanded to know why she was marrying someone she couldn't possibly love….The moment he touched her, she felt like a young girl again–the lovesick woman he'd once walked away from without a backward glance. But what could they have between them, after all these years? And what would he do if he knew she was marrying for the sake of a child–a child he'd never known was his…?

## For a few long seconds, as Griff kissed her and she kissed him back, Tessa forgot everything.

She felt what she’d always felt around Griff, right down through her body—delightful, sensual desire. And she basked in the feeling of being close to a man she had once loved more than anyone else in the whole world.

Loved. Past tense.

The thought brought her back to reality, and she jerked away from him, stiffening.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” she said, staring at him.

“Why?” he asked quietly. “Because you liked it so much it’s giving you second thoughts about what you’re getting into? Because you’re worried that the yearning you just felt is the way you’re supposed to feel about the man you’re marrying—plus a whole lot more?”

Dear Reader,

Summer’s finally here! Whether you’ll be lounging poolside, at the beach, or simply in your home this season, we have great reads packed with everything you enjoy from Silhouette Romance—tenderness, emotion, fun and, of course, heart-pounding romance—plus some very special surprises.

First, don’t miss the exciting conclusion to the thrilling ROYALLY WED: THE MISSING HEIR miniseries with Cathie Linz’s A Prince at Last! Then be swept off your feet—just like the heroine herself!—in Hayley Gardner’s Kidnapping His Bride.

Romance favorite Raye Morgan is back with A Little Moonlighting, about a tycoon set way off track by his beguiling associate who wants a family to call her own. And in Debrah Morris’s That Maddening Man, can a traffic-stopping smile convince a career woman—and single mom—to slow down…?

Then laugh, cry and fall in love all over again with two incredibly tender love stories. Vivienne Wallington’s Kindergarten Cupids is a very different, highly emotional story about scandal, survival and second chances. Then dive right into Jackie Braun’s True Love, Inc., about a professional matchmaker who’s challenged to find her very sexy, very cynical client his perfect woman. Can she convince him that she already has?

Here’s to a wonderful, relaxing summer filled with happiness and romance. See you next month with more fun-in-the-sun selections.

Happy reading!


Mary-Theresa Hussey

Senior Editor

## Kidnapping His Bride. Hayley Gardner


www.millsandboon.co.uk

And to Tina, Mary-Theresa, Miss Jeri Buckner and Sheriff Kenneth Volentine: my heartfelt thanks for your help and/or expertise.

To all the people in Claiborne Parish who have gone out of their way to accept us, help us and make us feel like family: because of you, living in Athens is like living in Paradise. Thank you.

## Books by Hayley Gardner

Silhouette Romance

A Baby in His Stocking #1341

Kidnapping His Bride #1598

Silhouette Yours Truly

Holiday Husband

The One-Week Wife

The One-Week Baby

## HAYLEY GARDNER

used to sit in high school history class while the teachers lectured and write romances in her notebook instead of notes. That turned out just fine, because she could always study the textbooks, and the teachers always thought she was their most conscientious student who took down every word they said!

Now, years later, she is thrilled to be following her dream of full-time writing—when she isn’t homeschooling her son, that is. Any free time Hayley has is spent with her husband or researching methods of teaching children with autism or collecting dolls or knitting or taking long, deep breaths…and hoping her readers enjoy her efforts to make them smile and feel good about love.


## Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Epilogue

## Chapter One

She was doing the right thing, Tessa Blake reassured herself as she paced in the foyer of one of Claiborne Landing’s only two churches. In her white satin, pearl-studded, wedding dress, she was the bride-to-be she’d dreamed of being for almost all of her twenty-seven years—so what if she was marrying the wrong groom? There was nothing wrong with Clay Ledoux. Nothing at all. Had she been anyone but who she was, with any other past than the one she had, and had he been anyone else but who he was, she might have fallen hard for Clay. Even though she hadn’t, this marriage was what she wanted, and nothing was going to stand in her way.

Through the closed door to the sanctuary, she could hear her grandmother, Sadie, who had taken her in when she’d been more or less orphaned at age twelve, playing the opening notes of the next to the last song before the “Wedding March.” Focus. She needed to focus. So she concentrated on the music, and how happy she would be—

“Was leaving me off the invitation list my brother’s idea—or yours?”

Not having heard the front door to the church brush open over the carpet behind her, Tessa jumped at the voice. Realizing whom it belonged to, she whirled around with a little gasp, her petticoats and satin skirt rustling back into place as she met the gaze of the man who had once played the leading role in all her dreams of being a bride. Griff. Clay’s brother. Her former fiancé. She’d ended their engagement years before when she’d finally figured out that he’d be happier flying planes in the Air Force than stuck here in Claiborne Landing with her. To see him here, now, was totally unexpected, as was the physical attraction that slammed right into her stomach and edged down to her knees, making them weak. Exasperated that she could still feel anything for him, even physically, after having gone on with her life, she mustered up some gumption.

“For years on end you don’t come home, and you expected an invitation?” she asked, purposely keeping her voice low so no one would come see whom she was talking to. “We figured you’d send your regrets. That you’d already be busy climbing in some pyramid. Or maybe flying off to see an ancient Greek ruin or some French art museum. Don’t tell me you’re calling a halt to your traveling before seeing all the Seven Wonders of the World?”

“Maybe,” he drawled out, “I figured seeing Tessa Blake getting married without love, and to my brother, might qualify as the Eighth. At least, you got me wondering.”

“How did you know that?” As soon as the sentence was out of her mouth, she realized she’d just about verified the “marrying without love” part. It figured. She could never hide anything from Griff. That’s why she tried to avoid him whenever he was in town for a visit. Mostly it had worked, except for that one time two years ago when she’d run into him, and spoken up when she shouldn’t have. But she didn’t want to dwell on the past.

“Someone told you about the wedding and that I wasn’t in love?” she asked.

“And more, via e-mail.”

More? She gulped. Already panicked, she was now feeling almost light-headed. “What more?”

He shrugged his broad shoulders. “Not important.”

Not important to him maybe. Tessa took a slow, deep breath and tried to relax. If Griff knew the worst, he would not be that nonchalant.

“Who was this e-mail from?”

“I honestly don’t know. The address was Please-Come@freebies.com.” The muscle in his jaw throbbed. “You didn’t send it, did you?”

“No!”

He believed her; she could tell by his solemn look.

“None of that is important right now,” he said. “What is, is that you don’t make the mistake of your life by walking down that aisle.” He took a step closer to her, and Tessa backed up until she was almost at the still-closed door to the sanctuary. The last thing she wanted on the day she was getting married was to be this close to Griff. Even though her brain had written him a goodbye letter after he’d made her heart freeze up, it was like she’d forgotten to send a copy to the rest of her body. They hadn’t been this close for years.

So many years.

“You have to leave,” she said with as much authority as she could muster, not about to get into what kind of mistake she was about to make—or not. “I’m going to be getting married in about two minutes.”

“So you say.” Griff stared solemnly around the foyer, at the small, antique bookcase to one side and at the steep stairwell leading up to the classroom where they’d had Sunday School classes as children. “There’s no one here to walk you down the aisle and give you away. Want me to?”

“No, Griff. You’re the past. My future is on the other side of this door, and that’s where I’m going. Alone.”

He lifted his fingertips, brushed back a ringlet at her temple and then slid them slowly down the curve of her cheek, sending a shiver through her. “You swore to me a couple of years back you were going to have your dream, Tessa,” he reminded her, his voice getting under her skin and reaching into her heart. “I’m here to make sure you don’t give up on it.”

Her dream? Then she remembered. The last time they’d really talked, during one of his rare visits “home,” Griff had asked her why she’d never gotten married. She’d told him she wouldn’t, not unless she fell in love, and that hadn’t happened yet. That just as Griff had given up everything, including her, to pursue his dream, she was determined to have hers of a loving husband and children. The perfect family she’d never had, in the perfect home and hometown she hadn’t had until her father had abandoned her, her mother had died, and the authorities had finally found Sadie. Griff was here to make sure she didn’t give up on that dream. But how could he do that? They were through.

“You walked away years ago, remember?” she asked. Her heart, already beating swiftly, pounded at his nearness. The woodsy scent he was wearing began to penetrate her defenses and cloud her thoughts. “You shouldn’t care at this point.”

“I shouldn’t care,” he agreed, his eyes never leaving her, “but I know how much pain a loveless marriage can cause—for both sides. I don’t want you, or my brother, to have to go through that. And then there’s—” Suddenly he shook his head. “No, there isn’t time to get into that. Just postpone the wedding, and let’s go talk.”

“I can’t,” she said, shaking her head, wanting to ask him what there was no time to get into, but doing so would be pointless. “I’m marrying your brother, now. We can talk later.”

“We need to talk now.”

Of all the nerve… Behind her, “The Wedding March” started. Ready to enter the sanctuary and walk down the aisle, Tessa purposefully slid to Griff’s side and began to turn toward the door. But before she could so much as put her hand on the golden knob, Griff swept her off her feet and hoisted her onto his shoulder. Pivoting, he headed through the still-open front door and down the brick steps of the church.

“Are you crazy?” Tessa asked breathlessly, batting his chest. He didn’t respond. She swung her head from side to side, looking for help, but then she remembered the entire population of Claiborne Landing, all one hundred fifty-five of them, were stuffed into the church, courtesy of her grandmother. There wasn’t so much as one old man idling his time away on the bench in front of the car repair shop across the road. Through the closed windows, with the noisy wall unit air conditioners humming and “The Wedding March” being played loudly, Tessa doubted anyone could hear her if she yelled for help. At least, she thought wryly, she didn’t have to worry about the embarrassment of it all.

In the seconds it took to reach his shiny, silver-blue truck parked on the edge of the road, she was beyond the shock she’d experienced in the church, past the physical attraction, and all the way up to irritated. Very. He plopped her onto the driver’s side seat, and she caught the breath that being thrown over his shoulder and bouncing the dozen yards had knocked loose from her. “What in the world do you think you are doing?”

“We’re fixing to have a talk.”

“You always did insist on having everything your way, didn’t you?”

“If I had, darlin’, you’d have married me when I graduated the Academy and come with me all over the world, and I’d have been toting you off to celebrate our wedding anniversary this month. But that’s water under the bridge, isn’t it?”

“Definitely.” She gave her head an emphatic nod. “In fact, as far as I’m concerned, that bridge just crosses a dusty, dried out, old creek bottom now.”

Griff’s mouth twisted, and his ink-blue eyes scolded her. “All I’m trying to do is keep you—and my brother—from making a mistake.”

“Like you and I made?”

“A mistake? Yeah, sure.” He gave her another long look. “I’m good at making those.” Then, to her embarrassment, he put one hand on her bottom and started to push her toward the passenger side. He didn’t have to expend a lot of effort; the second his hand touched her, Tessa bolted right as though she’d been zapped with electricity.

Griff slid in beside her and shut the door.

“The sheriff is probably investigating right now why I’m not walking down the aisle. Kidnapping me is not a good idea, Griff. I could have you arrested.”

The grin that was uniquely Griff’s appeared as the truck roared to life, and they pulled out onto the narrow country road. She hadn’t seen that grin for years, not since before the two of them had broken up. It was half-curved and kind of devilishly appealing, and it still had the power to melt her heart.

“Yeah,” he agreed, “you could. But you won’t. Getting me arrested would keep me in town a long time, wouldn’t it? I’d be around to interfere in your plans.”

He had a point. Griff, in town, was something she definitely did not desire.

“Besides, you don’t want your wedding day to be a scandal the whole town talks about for years, do you?”

No, she didn’t. It was already half-ruined, of course, and if Griff got his way, it would be totally shot, but it wasn’t a scandal—not yet. She could still keep her personal business from becoming a tasty morsel for the town to munch on.

He rounded a corner carefully, heading away from the church down Highway 518 toward Athens, away from Claiborne Landing. Leaving town was something he was really good at, she thought bitterly, and then she wondered why she was giving him that much energy. She was over him.

“You’re making a mistake, Tessa.”

“The mistake being marrying your brother?” Tessa asked, her chin matching his for stubbornness. With great care, she kept herself from examining every inch of him with hungry eyes. She was marrying Clay as soon as she could get loose from Griff, and it wouldn’t be right looking at another man.

He shook his head. “The mistake being not marrying for love. Did you really think for one minute that I wouldn’t try to stop you from doing that?”

“Did you really think for one second that you’d have anything at all to say about it?”

“No,” he admitted quietly. “But I’d like to. I’m an expert on why you shouldn’t marry without love.”

She remained silent, which was not what Griff had expected, because before, she’d always had a comment or opinion about everything. And so, being careful to check the roller coaster hills for oncoming traffic first, he ventured another look at her to see if he could tell what she was thinking.

When he’d thrown her over his shoulder and carried her out of the church, apparently he’d caused her veil to tilt. Her topknot was tipped, and curls from her long, ash-blond hair were now tumbling down around her temples. Even a little bedraggled, she was still the prettiest thing he’d ever laid eyes on, and still the most desirable woman he’d ever met. The years of being without her hadn’t changed that.

Tessa took a deep breath, which got his attention. “So tell me about this e-mail.”

“It came three days ago and mentioned all the particulars of the wedding—when, where, and whom—and then asked me to come stop it so you didn’t end up marrying someone you didn’t love.” The other thing it had said, he didn’t want to get into with her yet. Maybe not even ever.

“And you came, even though it’s been over between us a long time?” Tessa didn’t want to think about what that might mean.

“Like I said, I know what it is to marry someone you don’t love, and go through the agony of a divorce. I’m sure you heard Janie and I—”

“Yes, I heard.” She didn’t want to discuss his former marriage with him. Talk about pain.

“I wasn’t only thinking of you, you know, when I pulled you out of there. My brother’s mixed up in this mess.”

“With how little you’ve been back to see your family since you left home, I’m surprised you’re that worried about Clay. You needn’t be. His heart is safe with me.”

“Mine wasn’t.”

“The broken heart worked both ways, Griff.” She worked her teeth over her bottom lip, her slim shoulders stiffening with the memories under satin sleeves. “But Clay and I won’t divorce. I’m positive of that.”

“You were positive we would get married when I got my commission, too, and look at what happened.”

The situations were totally different, but Tessa wasn’t about to get into that. There was nothing else she could say without telling him a whole lot more than she was willing to.

“This is getting us nowhere.” Removing her lacy gloves, she reached up and started to pull out the hairpins that were now, thanks to him, tangling up her carefully done hair. “We need to get whatever your problem is settled and me back to the wedding. So tell me what you want.”

There was a long silence in the truck, and the air was heavy between them. “I want you to reconsider marrying Clay. I want you to find a man who will make you happy.”

“I had one of those once, and he left town,” she pointed out.

He winced. She didn’t want him hurt, Tessa thought, but really, why was he here? She couldn’t believe he had come home merely to “rescue” her—what was the point? He didn’t want her. And how had he been able to get off on short notice anyway? Then she remembered. Six years he’d promised the Air Force for sending him to college. And those six years were up this month. June.

Her breath caught. “Are you home to stay, or planning to reenlist?” She was afraid to hear the answer; afraid to hear he’d changed his mind about the excitement he could experience “out there.” If he stayed in Claiborne Landing, what on earth was she going to do, because she was still marrying Clay.

She had to.

“At this point, reenlist. I had vacation days coming, so I took them.”

Relieved, Tessa kept her eyes averted and didn’t answer, too afraid that if she looked at him or spoke, he would sense the fear she felt that he would stay…and the worry she felt 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 leaned back in his chair and met her stare for stare. “Since you aren’t in love with him, why exactly are you marrying Clay?”

“That’s none of your business.” Tessa’s heart picked up its rhythm, and she took a deep breath to try to keep calm. “We aren’t that close that I would tell you my secrets.” They could never be that close again, she thought sadly. “I never cross-examined you about your marriage to Janie, did I?”

“My life’s an open book,” Griff said. Tessa couldn’t believe he was as nonchalant as he sounded. “What do you want to know?”

“Nothing!” That was true. She didn’t want to know the personal, intimate details of any facet of Griff’s life, or risk an emotional involvement with him ever again. She’d learned her lesson the first time. Besides, it would ruin everything. She had to remain determined to do what was right.

“I caused my ex a great deal of heartache by marrying her for the wrong reasons, and that’s why I’m trying so hard to get you to walk away today. I don’t want the same thing to happen to you and my brother.”

“You keep saying that. How do you know I would bring Clay heartache? You’ve been living elsewhere almost ten years, Griff. The Air Force Academy, then all that military service. None of us are the same people as when you left. Maybe marrying me would make your brother happy. Did you ever consider that?”

“Is that why you’re marrying him? He’s fallen in love with you, and you think one of you being in love is enough to hold you together? Because it isn’t. I know this from experience. It won’t give you your dream of a loving husband and a family forever after, Tessa.”

“I’m not discussing this with you.”

“Fine. Call Clay. He’ll tell me what I want to know.”

No, Tessa thought, Clay wouldn’t tell him. Clay, like she, would do anything to keep their secret, as would the only other person who knew—Sadie, her grandmother. Which made her wonder how this mysterious e-mailer could have possibly found out what he had, and what else whoever it was might know that he could tell Griff.

She couldn’t chance Griff finding out anything else about her marriage to his brother. She had to get him to leave town.

But how? Sitting back in her chair, Tessa lifted her gaze to meet Griff’s. If she pushed him too much to leave, would he begin to suspect there was something else behind her not wanting him there? Something that could change his life—and others’—forever?

## Chapter Two

Before Tessa could decide what to tell Griff, the small cowbells on the front door jingled again and seconds later, two elderly men in overalls came into the section where she and Griff were, greeted the third man already there and sat down with him at a long table near the front of the room, all facing her. Tessa frowned. Doc Casey came in with her and Griff’s ice teas, then stopped at the other table to take orders, wearing a totally unfamiliar grin on his face. As Doc Casey turned to head back into the kitchen, the bells clanged again, and another elderly patron moseyed in to join the other three.

“Just my luck,” she muttered. “The bakery’s mid-morning coffee club showing up in the afternoon to see the town’s favorite deputy sheriff’s intended bride meeting with his brother. By the time they’re done building this story up, everyone’s going to think I’ll make Clay a terrible wife.”

“They’d be right, but for the wrong reasons.”

Her irritability level rose another notch, like mercury in a thermometer. She leaned in close to him and whispered, “You’re wrong. Unlike you, who had to prove the only way you could be content is to be totally free, your brother liked being married.” He’d loved his deceased wife Lindy tremendously. The whole town knew that. “Clay and I both want the same thing—to stay in Claiborne Landing among family and friends—which is why we will be compatible. That compatibility will bring us happiness.”

Griff didn’t say a word. He didn’t have to. His eyes did his talking for him, and suddenly, Tessa realized how close the two of them were, almost face-to-face, mouth to mouth. She could feel his warm breath against her cheek. Without knowing how it happened, she found herself wanting, desperately, to kiss him.

Her emotions were doing her thinking again, that’s how it had happened. She backed up abruptly. “Just how long are you going to be in town, anyway?”

“Long enough to figure out who made the effort to get me here.”

“Why would that matter?”

“Somebody besides me thought you two getting married was not a great idea. I’m kind of thinking it might be good to stick around long enough to find out who and the why behind it. Stock up ammunition.”

“It’s a wedding, Griff, not a war.”

“Divorce is a war, and I figure that’s where you two will eventually wind up if you don’t think this through all the way.”

Tessa groaned. She was going to have to get Griff out of town, and the sooner, the better. To not do so could only lead to disaster.

“I’m going to call Clay.” She rose and turned as Doc Casey rounded the corner again, this time carrying catsup and mustard bottles to the other table. Then she remembered Sadie had her purse, and she would need a quarter for the pay phone. Rather than ask Griff for anything, she walked up to Doc Casey to ask him to let her use the phone in the back, just in time to catch his last words, “Don’t worry, boys. Things’ll pick up right soon now.”

“Looks like you’re having a sudden surge of business, Doc.” She frowned with disapproval. “Could it be the entertainment?”

Doc Casey’s eyes twinkled. “Naw. There hasn’t really been any.”

“That’s good to hear.”

“But there’s fixin’ to be,” he added gleefully. “Clay just arrived.”

“You called him?”

“Have to stir up the pot for the audience,” he said, without one lick of guilt whatsoever coming from him.

Sure enough, the now grating jangle of the bells announced Clay’s entrance through the front door. He saw Tessa and came to the doorway between the dining rooms, where he stopped and stared from her to his brother with a look that asked them both, What now?

Her heart went out to him. Clay had had enough to deal with being a deputy sheriff and a single father to a six-year-old for the past year after his wife Lindy’s death from cancer; he didn’t need to be in the middle of an argument between his only brother and his soon-to-be second wife, and definitely not in front of the biggest gossips in town.

“Doc, sometimes you go too far,” Tessa said, indicating the elderly men with a nod of her head.

“C’mon, Miss Tessa, don’t spit bullets over this. Deputy sheriff’s fiancée gets carried off from the wedding by his own brother and ends up here? Biggest thing to happen around Claiborne Landing in ages. Usually Athens sees all the action. If this had been happening at your grandma’s doughnut shop, she would have called in her favorite customers, too. Have to be loco not to.” Doc Casey lumbered over to the other table and left her to deal with Clay.

“Tessa, what is going on?” he asked quietly, his face now unreadable.

“Your brother kidnapped her, deputy!” the old man next to Tessa said. “Picked her up, plopped her over his shoulder and carried her right out of the church.” He slapped his knee with his Casey’s Kitchen cap. “Wish I’d a been there.”

Tessa glanced at Griff, who was frowning at both of them. She frowned right back. If he’d only been ten minutes later, she’d be married to Clay and wouldn’t be in this predicament. Speaking of happiness, well, to say the least, she’d been happier. A lot happier.

Like when she’d been in Griff’s arms. She hushed that thought away and turned her attention back to Clay, the one she couldn’t let get away, the same second as Doc Casey reappeared with a tray, headed for Griff. With this anonymous e-mailer loose, she didn’t want to let anyone alone with Griff for long, so she grabbed Clay’s sleeve and led him well away from the table with the elderly customers, to an empty area where she could talk softly to him without being overheard and still keep her eyes on Griff. Even across the room she could feel his eyes on her. Warmth drifted up through her body like the smoke before a fire.

“We’ve got to get Griff out of here. Someone sent him an e-mail telling him we aren’t in love.”

“So he came and kidnapped you from the wedding.” Clay ran his splayed fingers through his wavy black hair, looking, Tessa thought, as disconcerted as he had after his wife’s death over a year before, only without the pain this time. “Who would send him news like that?”

“I don’t know,” Tessa said grimly. Noting with relief that Casey didn’t say a word to Griff as he delivered their food, she gestured for Clay to lean down. “What I’m worried about is,” she whispered, “what if this person somehow has found out the truth behind our engagement, gets Griff aside while he’s here and tells him. We can’t let that happen.”

Clay agreed. “I’ll stick to him like glue for the rest of the day, but after that, since I’m not getting married today, I’ll probably need to go back to work.”

“After that,” Tessa said, “it’s my turn anyway. What we need is a way to make him leave. If he does, maybe the e-mailer will think Griff doesn’t care about our getting married and leave him alone.”

Clay gazed down at her for a long minute. “I think I might have an idea, but let me think about it. I’ll let you know. You sure his leaving is what you want?”

“I swear,” Tessa said. “Where Griff is concerned, I’m ice.” She’d have to be. Everyone in town knew that she’d been in love with Griff Ledoux when she’d been younger, even while he was in the Academy. It hadn’t been easy to convince them all that she’d fallen for Clay. But the people in the town were family, and she cared what they thought of her, so she had. She wasn’t about to gamble with her future now by showing that she had any feelings at all left for Griff.

Even though she did. Just physical, she assured herself, but even that was more than she wanted to deal with.

“What about the wedding?” she asked.

“It’s off for now. The pastor had another one in Ruston to get to. I told everyone we’d be in touch. I think they headed over to your grandma’s for the free food.”

“Let’s hope that’s where they went,” Tessa said, staring grimly at the small crowd in the diner watching them. “We sure don’t need any more help here.”

Across the room, Griff worked on the burger Doc Casey had brought right before Tessa started whispering in Clay’s ear, which had made Griff tense up inside something awful for some reason. His brother said a few words, then Tessa looked at Clay with those jewel-blue eyes of hers, and her hand briefly brushed Clay’s sleeve. Griff felt a sudden flush of heat as though it were he whom she was touching. He quickly pushed down the surge of jealousy that followed, fully aware he had no right to that feeling.

The two of them began to walk over, and he quickly reminded himself that his intentions were very honorable. He was only there for one reason—to make sure they weren’t fixing to do something they would regret, leading to a bad marriage. As soon as he was sure, then he’d be gone, since he had no right in Tessa’s life. He knew full well he wasn’t the settling kind. No use fooling himself about that. It was just too bad that seeing Tessa again had been an uncomfortable reminder of what he had missed out on.

“Kidnapping, Griff?” Clay asked, making no attempt to keep his voice down. “If this is a joke, it’s not very funny.”

Griff could say the same thing about his brother marrying Tessa, knowing how close Griff and she had been at one time, but he didn’t. It wasn’t the place. Besides, he was here to convince Clay to call off the wedding, not to end up in a brawling heap with his own brother.

Turned out he didn’t have to say anything in reply. One of the old men from the other side of the room slapped his thigh and called out, “Not funny? It’s pretty darn amusing to us, Deputy!”

“Better than the Two Worlds Collide soap opera,” the grizzled man next to him, Jasper Tremaine, agreed, grinning. “Where’s your sense of humor, Clay?”

“Must have left it behind at the altar,” Clay said.

Jasper chortled. “Yeah, marriage has a way of turning a man grim, that it does. But that usually don’t happen until after the nuptials and the honeymoon.”

“Yeah, well, most people don’t have a brother like Griff, either,” Clay said amiably enough, but Griff could feel the tension behind his words.

The strain wasn’t evident to the other side of the room, though—they were all laughing. Bemused, Clay shook his head as he sat down next to Griff, taking the seat Tessa had formerly vacated. “Now I remember why we didn’t invite that bunch to the wedding.”

Tessa shook her head as she slipped into a chair opposite them, her back to the elderly onlookers. “We didn’t invite anyone but your parents and Sadie. She was the one with the stamps.”

“I take it Tessa told you about my e-mailed invitation?” Griff asked Clay. When his brother nodded, Griff suggested, “Maybe Sadie sent it.”

Tessa’s gaze flew to him. “I don’t think so. Anonymous isn’t really my grandmother’s style.”

An uncomfortable silence fell over the table and, at last, Clay asked the question Griff had been expecting. “So why did you steal Tessa away?”

“I haven’t done that yet,” Griff replied, his eyes penetratingly intense. “Have I, Tessa?”

“Of course not,” she protested, bracing both hands on the table and taking a long breath. “And neither are you going to. Clay and I are still going to be married.”

“So why aren’t you two already driving back to the church?” Griff said, picking up his burger.

“The wedding has been temporarily postponed,” Tessa told him. “The pastor had another engagement.”

“Good.” Griff barely kept himself from grinning.

Clay’s already grim expression deepened even more. “Yeah, well, since you’re so pleased about it, and it’s all your fault anyway, we’ll let you be the one to explain everything to Sadie. She’s already madder than a wet hen. Make sure, little brother, that you take all the blame.”

“Guilty,” Griff agreed. “I’m surprised she isn’t here with you.”

Clay began to loosen his tie as he spoke. “I took off right after I told everyone the news to avoid Sadie’s questioning me. I doubt she’ll look for us here.” He indicated the second plate that was in front of him. “You want that?” he asked Tessa.

She shook her head. “You can eat Griff’s food after what he’s done to our wedding?”

“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 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, reaching for her gloves and holding them tightly in her hands.

“You look a lot like her.” Sadie shot a smile in her direction as she turned onto the highway that would take Tessa and her to where they had split a two-story home into their own apartments. “But you’re a lot more levelheaded. You didn’t go following Griff around the world like she did your father. That’s no kind of life for a married couple. Let alone kids.”

“She did want to come back home toward the end,” Tessa admitted. “But Dad always promised her there was more fun around the corner, if she would just stay with him. That he needed her, couldn’t survive without her. So she kept staying, even though she hated the life we had. The bill collectors calling, the skipping out at night on the rent. She spent a lot of time crying.” Just like Tessa had, when Griff had left and she’d known it had to be over between them.

Sadie sniffed. “Men always think there’s something better around the next corner. What is it with them, anyway?”

It was a rhetorical question, one that both Sadie and she had asked themselves many times while she was getting over Griff.

“You never told me all that about your parents before,” Sadie added.

“I didn’t want you to feel badly, I guess.” It had been worse than she’d ever admitted to Sadie. Her father had left her with her mother, who’d had pneumonia, Tessa had been told later, not wanting the responsibility of either of them, she supposed. She’d only been eleven, but she’d nursed her mother until she’d gotten really bad, and then Tessa had called the police for help, not wanting to, knowing that when they took her mother away, she would die and Tessa would never see her again. She’d been right. Her mother’s heart had simply stopped beating. The doctor had said it was a defect in a valve, but Tessa had always figured her mother had died of a broken heart.

Afterward, she’d ended up without a real family in foster homes for almost a year, before she’d remembered where her grandmother, whom her mother had hardly ever talked about, lived. Sadie had come for her as soon as she was called, and Tessa had made every effort to put her former life out of her mind.

“I really thought I’d forgotten all of it, but the memories seem to pop up when I’m upset.”

“Or when Griff comes to town, you mean.”

“I suppose so.” Tessa willed away the sad heart she always got when she thought about the distant past. “Anyway, he knows I want to be married and have children. As soon as he figures out the e-mailer was wrong and Clay and I will be perfectly happy together, he’s going to leave.”

“You think so, huh?” Sadie pulled into their driveway.

“Why wouldn’t he?” Tessa asked.

“Maybe the boy has figured out what your father never did,” Sadie said as she proceeded slowly up the two hundred slightly rutted feet to their home. “That the grass doesn’t get any greener than right here in Claiborne Landing.”

“He can’t stay here, Grandma,” Tessa said, her stomach doing funny flip-flops at the very thought. “It would ruin everything.”

“Then you’ll do what you’ll have to to make sure he has no reason to stay, won’t you? Hard as that might be.”

And it would be. As long as Tessa could remember, she’d dreamed of having a husband who doted on her and her children. When she’d met Griff, she’d thought he would be that man—right up to the point where his dream had become more important than hers and she’d broken it off with him, because she didn’t want to ruin his life the way her father had ruined her mother’s by his extreme need.

Sadie had been wonderful, of course, but Tessa had this dream of being part of the perfect family, and once she’d realized that the dream would never come true for her as a child, she’d changed to wanting to create it as a mother. With all her heart. If she married Clay, she would have Jeb—and, after all that had happened, that would be her dream come true.

The trouble was, while Griff was in another state, she could easily tell herself she didn’t love him anymore until she was blue in the face. But now that he would be so close to her that she could reach out and touch him anytime she wanted, well, she was a little afraid that the electricity that still sparked in the air between them might become a higher voltage than she could handle.

She would just have to, that was all. Jeb needed her as his mother, and that was that. No one at all could be allowed to stop the wedding, not even Griff.

Not for any reason.

She wondered, worriedly, just how clear Clay was making all of this to his long lost brother, whom she definitely didn’t love.

Or at least that’s what she tried to tell herself.

## Chapter Three

Jeb came running out of his bedroom to where Griff was sitting on Clay’s couch, with tousled hair and a grin a mile wide, fully changed from ring bearer back to normal kid.

“Dad said I could stay with you or with Grandma, since he’s going to work,” Jeb told him. The three of them had come to Clay’s house, a couple of miles from Casey’s Kitchen, in the too quiet village of Athens. Too quiet at least from Griff’s viewpoint. He never understood why Clay seemed to like it just fine—in his eyes, they’d locked up excitement a long time ago and thrown away the key.

“He did? So which one did you choose?”

“Here, with you. We can talk about going fishing tomorrow!”

“Yeah, just don’t wear him out,” Clay said, joining them after having changed into his deputy’s uniform of a tan pullover and slacks. “He’s going to be driving back to North Carolina soon.”

“That was subtle,” Griff said, with a friendly grin to keep Jeb from sensing the underlying tension that had been between them ever since Clay had entered Casey’s Kitchen, whether Tessa had noticed it or not.

Clay didn’t respond, but since Jeb was staring back and forth between them with a puzzled look on his face, Griff decided to lighten up.

“Thanks for letting me stay here,” he added.

Clay shrugged. “Yeah, well, when I saw you and the folks together at Casey’s, I figured it might be easier on all concerned if you didn’t have to stay at the farm. You were kind of stiff with each other.”

“I should have come home more often.”

“Yeah, you shoulda,” Jeb broke in, gazing up at him with something close to hero worship. “I missed you.”

“I’m surprised you remember me at all.” Griff ruffled the child’s black hair and smiled back. “I brought you something.” Lifting the suitcase by his feet onto the couch cushions, he unzipped it, took out a model of a C-130 Transport he’d bought at the base, and handed it to Jeb.

“Thanks, Uncle Griff!” If Jeb had sensed the tension in the room, the plane did the trick. He started making engine noises as he “flew” it around the living room. Clay left them for the kitchen and returned in seconds holding a beer and a soda. Standing in the doorway between the rooms, he regarded them both without any expression on his face, still angry, Griff figured, at what he’d pulled earlier.

“Look, Dad! I’m a pilot!”

Griff held back a smile, but a grimace flashed across Clay’s face. “Better fly crop dusters in-state, then, son. If you travel all over the world like your uncle Griff, you’ll break Tessa’s heart. She’s still going to become your stepmama, you know.”

“I’ll bring her with me!” Jeb said, filled with enthusiasm for his new career.

Griff and Clay shared a look. “Some women aren’t movable, Jeb,” Griff said, ignoring the jab to his heart Jeb’s words had innocently caused. “Take it from me.”

Clay finally moved forward and handed Griff the beer, and opened the cola for himself. “Why don’t you go show your jet to the twins?” he suggested to Jeb.

“Okay.” Jeb hurried over to Griff. “I’m just going across the street. Will you be here when I get back?”

“I’m going to stay with you while your dad works tonight, remember? So I’ll be here at least overnight,” Griff promised. Out of the corner of his gaze, he saw Clay’s face darken. Good thing Jeb’s attention was totally on him.

“Oh, yeah. When I get back, I’ll show you all my favorite trucks, and my rock collection, and—” Jeb leaned close to whisper in Griff’s ear “—the frog I have in my room that Dad doesn’t know about.”

“That’s a plan,” he said solemnly. Maybe he’d put the frog in Clay’s bed tonight, remind his brother what fun was. Watching Jeb hurrying through the front door and letting the screen door bang shut behind him, Griff finally let himself grin again. The kid was irresistible. He did regret not coming more often to visit him, but visits with Clay, his wife and Jeb had always reminded him of what he could have had with Tessa—a family of his own by now, if she’d been the movable kind.

“What’s with you, Griff?” Clay asked, a steely edge to his voice Griff hadn’t ever heard before. “First you try to steal my bride, now my kid? He’s taken to you like burrs to socks.”

“Can Tessa be stolen that easily?” Griff remembered Clay’s words in the restaurant about “stealing” Tessa away, right before he’d decided not to argue there. Looked like they were finally going to get into it. “If she can, maybe you two ought not to be getting married.”

Clay gave him a dark look, then turned away to pace to the window and back again. “She’s going to marry me as soon as you leave,” he said, his voice gruff, “so you’d probably be better off just visiting for a bit, then going, and saving her—” Abruptly he stopped himself from saying more by taking a swig from his can.

“Saving her what?” Griff asked.

“Nothing. It’s just,” Clay continued, “that Tessa is over you. She wants to get on with her life. I’d hate to see her upset because you’re back here. Any more upset than you’ve already made her, anyway.”

“But you two shouldn’t be getting married. You don’t love each other—”

“Did I say that?” Clay interrupted, his face tightening just like it used to when they were kids before he would sock Griff in the gut over something. “Did she?”

“Neither of you will say you do,” Griff pointed out, tensing up, “which makes me suspicious.”

“Neither of us has to say it, because our getting married is none of your business, Griff.”

“Someone must think it is, or they wouldn’t have sent me the e-mail.”

Clay finally sank down in the chair across from the sofa, having said a lot more than Griff remembered him ever saying at one time. He figured it must finally be his turn to talk.

“You two will make each other miserable if you aren’t in love. Hell, Janie was in love with me, and I still made her miserable because I wasn’t in love—”

“I told you,” Clay said, rising, “I’m not discussing this with you.”

“I’m only thinking of Tessa’s best interests—”

“Too damned late for that, don’t you think?”

“It won’t be too late until you have a ring on her finger.” Griff rose, too, glaring back.

“I told you, this is none of your damned—”

“You two stop that, and right now!”

Griff’s eyes flew to the screen door, through which Tessa was entering, and, not wanting to have her see how much physical energy he was putting into fighting to keep her single, he willed himself to calm down. She had changed into jeans and a delicate pink T-shirt with those thin, spaghetti straps for sleeves, and brushed her hair out so that it fell in loose, crinkly waves over her shoulders. She was a slightly older version of the teenage Tessa he’d left behind, and Griff had never wanted her more.

He quickly shoved his desire back down, knowing full well that he still couldn’t give her the happiness she wanted. But an aching emptiness remained in his chest, the same feeling he got every time he came back to Claiborne Landing and saw Tessa. Or maybe he lived with it, and kept himself so busy he never had time to think about it. He wasn’t sure anymore.

She stood there, frowning at them both. “Tell me you aren’t fighting with Jeb in the house.”

“He’s across the street with his friends,” Clay said.

“Good.” She put her hands on her hips, and Griff forced himself to pay attention to what she was saying instead of how great she looked. “I came over to tell you two your mom and dad called me. Since we’re not getting married, Clay, they’re changing the wedding celebration they were going to have for us next Saturday to a community get-together in Griff’s honor.”