The Bride Who Was Stolen In The Night

The Bride Who Was Stolen In The Night
Diana Palmer

Return to big sky country with this fan-favorite contemporary romance from New York Times bestselling author Diana Palmer

Young, innocent Abby Turner is determined to marry Mr. Absolutely Wrong. And no one can seem to stop her—until her childhood crush rides back into town, and into her life. Chayce Derringer has deliberately kept his distance from sweet Abby. But how can he bear to watch her walk down the aisle with another man? It’ll take a true Montana man to show Abby who her real groom should be…

Originally published in 1998.

Praise for New York Times and USA TODAY Bestselling Author

Diana Palmer

“Diana Palmer is a mesmerizing storyteller

who captures the essence of

what a romance should be.”

—Affaire de Coeur

“Nobody tops Diana Palmer when it comes to

delivering pure, undiluted romance.

I love her stories.”

—New York Times bestselling author

Jayne Ann Krentz

“Nobody does it better!”

—New York Times bestselling author Linda Howard

The Bride Who was Stolen in the Night

Diana Palmer

www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)

CONTENTS

Cover (#u0d1f6845-30aa-531b-bde4-3adc8c601f88)

Back Cover Text (#u86538659-5eb6-5120-8ed4-505d53ce846e)

Praise (#u686d37b3-f1cb-5d6b-9820-32853c491e01)

Title Page (#uf8b85aa3-a5ed-5716-8834-eda62e6f5be3)

Dedication (#uf64b2f3c-1859-5440-aac5-42a7b4018dff)

About the Author (#u0ee9ca07-0338-585e-8a7b-8fae886f2723)

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

Extract (#litres_trial_promo)

Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)

For Amanda Belle

DIANA PALMER

is the prolific author of more than a hundred books. Diana got her start as a newspaper reporter. A multi–New York Times bestselling author and one of the top ten romance writers in America, she has a gift for telling the most sensual tales with charm and humor. Diana lives with her family in Cornelia, Georgia.

Visit her website at www.DianaPalmer.com (http://www.DianaPalmer.com).

CHAPTER ONE (#u6b91281c-3182-5baf-8782-0d240c97cd74)

Abby Turner of Whitehorn, Montana, was getting married. There never was a more reluctant bride. She stared at the small diamond solitaire on her left hand with sad gray eyes in a pretty face framed by wavy dark hair and wished with all her heart that she’d said no instead of yes when Troy Jackson had proposed. He was a kind and sweet man, but she knew for certain that within a month of the wedding, she’d be walking all over him. She was a fiery, impulsive woman with an outrageous sense of humor, and she embarrassed him. She’d tried to deny that part of her nature, but it kept slipping out. Inevitably people noticed.

Whitehorn was a small town where people lived as they had for generations. A ranching community sprawled outside the city limits and Troy, along with his father, ran several hundred head of Hereford cattle on their third-generation ranch. It wasn’t as large as Chayce Derringer’s spread, but then, Chayce had more money than most local people. He was involved in mining as well as ranching. He’d been Abby’s guardian since the death of her father, his foreman. Abby had been ten at the time. Her mother, Sarah Turner, had been crippled in the same wreck. Chayce had taken mother and daughter right into the big house with his housekeeper, Becky, and assumed total responsibility for them.

Whit Turner, a former rodeo cowboy, had been not only his foreman, but his idol and surrogate father as well. Chayce had loved him. He was fond of Abby, too, and he’d spoiled her rotten. At least, until she was sixteen. That had been when the arguments began, each one hotter than the one before.

Abby had given Chayce fits, not because she was rebellious, but because she was feeling the first stirrings of love for him. He was fifteen years her senior and completely impervious to her, and it hurt. Consequently, Abby’s temper grew steadily worse until she was eighteen. She’d pushed him too hard only once, and something had happened that had kept him completely out of her life ever since. It had been almost four years since Abby had seen him at all. He made sure of it.

He’d arranged for her to go away to college as soon as she graduated from high school, just two weeks after their disastrous encounter. It had been traumatic. Her mother had died that same year, and Chayce had been determined that she needed the change of scene—and to get away from him. What had happened, he told her grimly, couldn’t be allowed to happen again.

So Abby had gone to college at California State University, taking her degree in business, and Troy Jackson had come to her campus to do some work on his teacher certification. They’d started dating and very soon Troy had proposed. They lived in the same town, he pointed out, and he’d inherit his father’s ranch one day. What could be more natural than to marry Abby and have kids to inherit it when he himself passed on?

It had seemed logical. Abby’s encounter with Chayce had put a wall between them that hadn’t ever come down. He was a fiery and independent man who’d had a devastating love affair when he was little older than Abby was now at twenty-one. He’d never gotten over the loss of his fiancée, and he’d never let another woman close enough to wound him. He’d made it crystal clear that Abby didn’t have a chance, despite his headlong ardor that night so long ago.

Abby had just graduated the first week of June, with only Troy and her college roommate, Felicity Evans, to watch her accept her diploma. Chayce hadn’t come near the campus, although he’d sent a telegram of congratulations.

He wasn’t home, now, either, of course. He found reasons to go on long business trips the minute Abby announced any plans to stay at the ranch. She’d written him about her engagement to Troy and asked him to give her away at their August wedding in Whitehorn. He hadn’t replied. She wondered if he would.

She tried not to talk about Chayce, but he was so much a part of her life that it was inevitable that she did. Troy made his distaste for her guardian quite clear, although he promised to tolerate Chayce once he and Abby were married. He only hoped, he told her firmly, that Chayce would be a little more discreet in future about his love affairs. Chayce was handsome and rich and eligible and he was dating a well-known Hollywood starlet. Therefore, it was inevitable that he was photographed with her and the pictures ended up in the tabloids. The publicity nauseated Troy, who was even more old-fashioned than Becky, Chayce’s housekeeper.