Kidnapping His Bride. Hayley Gardner
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