The Kidnapped Bride

“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.