by Mindy Neff
“Two invitations in as many minutes. My lucky day.”
He eased her forward, his fingers warm at her waist, and drew the curtain behind them. Within the confines of the cubicle, she felt his knees bump against the backs of her thighs.
Glancing at his reflection in the mirror, she tried to steady her breathing. If she didn’t concentrate, she’d sound like Bleu after a flat-out run...all breathless and panting.
“Just do it.”
He tsked. “Your groom might be into quickies, but I’m a man who likes to take my time.”
“Oh, for pete’s sake! We’re not having sex. You’re just helping me out of my dress.”
“Better quit while you’re ahead, party girl. Just about everything that comes out of that sassy mouth is making me hot.”
Jordan closed her eyes and grabbed the walls for balance. She couldn’t remember ever being this flustered.
Or excited.
What kind of woman was she to feel this way on her wedding day? With a virtual stranger, a man she hadn’t laid eyes on in over ten years?
She heard the intake of his breath when he reached her mid-back, felt his fingers hesitate. Her gaze whipped to his, clinging to it in the mirror’s reflection.
“No bra,” he commented.
Defiance reared. It was her only defense against desire. An inappropriate desire.
“It is my wedding day,” she reminded.
“Was.” Expertly, he continued unthreading the pearls from their loops, his fingertips lingering.
Jordan had always thought she had an abundance of willpower. She was finding out right quick that she’d been misleading herself.
“Do you have to put your hands in my dress?”
“You want these buttons undone?”
“The buttons are on the outside.”
“I’m no lady’s maid, party girl. My fingers aren’t designed for these dinky fastenings. Why the hell did you have so many put on?”
“The designer said it was subtly tantalizing.”
“If it was my wedding night, I wouldn’t be feeling subtle.”
She didn’t know what made her want to challenge him. “I thought you said you liked to go slow.”
His eyes narrowed, and his lips formed into a ghost of a smile. “Curious about my technique, are you?”
“In your dreams, ace.”
He’d reached the final buttons at her hip. Deliberately, with his eyes holding hers in the cloudy reflection of the mirror, he traced the lower curve of her back.
Jordan jolted as though she’d been goosed with a branding iron. “I think I can handle it from here.”
“Sure about that?”
“Positive.”
“So prim,” he murmured, stepping back, the curtain giving way as he did. “Last night’s appearances to the contrary, breeding will tell.”
“Don’t start, Tanner.”
“Too late. The line was drawn years ago. I’ll say one thing for you, party girl. You’ve found your tongue.”
“I told you to stop calling me that. And what do you mean by that remark?”
“Which one?”
“The tongue thing.” Oh, that didn’t sound at all right...or proper.
His hint of a smile reminded her of a dangerous predator about to pounce. “In school you were nervous as hell around me. You couldn’t say two words without tripping all over yourself.”
“That’s because you were always so...” So what? she wondered, searching for the right word. Sexy? “So tough with a chip on your shoulder. Every time I tried to talk to you, you got that ‘Touch-me-if-you-dare’ look on your face and scared the daylights out of me.”
She saw his handsome features go tight, saw the emotion in his eyes retreat behind a mask. If she went in for fanciful thinking, she might imagine she’d seen hurt there, longing; a longing she herself had felt many times, yet had been unable to act upon.
Because according to the dictates of her bigoted social circle, Tanner Caldwell hadn’t been good enough.
And her family had been instrumental in fostering that belief, had practically hand-placed that boulder-size chip on his shoulder.
She turned and reached out for him, not understanding why, but somehow knowing that right then, he needed to be touched.
But he stepped back, reverting to his enigmatic, bad-boy persona—the one that both dared and warned. The one that hid a multitude of emotions.
“Better hang on to that dress before I forget my manners...and my place.”
His taunting smile was back now—the one, she realized, he used as a shield.
Jordan’s breath actually hissed as she made a grab for the slipping shoulder seams of the gown. “I’m not trying to be provocative, which is more than I can say for you.”
“That’s right, baby. I’m bad. And don’t you forget it.”
He disappeared behind the curtain, leaving her trembling and off-balance.
Leaving her to wonder if she wouldn’t have been better off taking her chances with the bungling kidnappers.
At the moment, she wasn’t so sure Tanner was the lesser of two evils.
Chapter Three
Dressed in the jeans and sleeveless shirt, Jordan carefully gathered her wedding dress and went in search of the clerk. Since the pawnshop didn’t have any shoes in her size, she wore her satin-trimmed pumps.
Tanner was standing guard by the front door, watching the streets. Good. She needed a few minutes to regroup before she went any more rounds of sexual innuendo with him.
Guns and jewelry took center stage in the glass display case above the counter. Trying to keep her dress from touching any contaminated surfaces, she kept it folded over her arm.
“I’d like to...um...pawn my dress for a while.”
The clerk smiled, reminding her of a kindly grandfather—which seemed an odd association to make with a place like this. Jordan felt a twinge of guilt over her attitude toward the shop. It wasn’t like her to judge outright. But she’d never been in an establishment such as this, wasn’t sure how to act or what to expect.
“‘For a while’?” the clerk questioned.
“Yes. Don’t you have a policy to hold items for thirty days in case the seller changes her mind?”
“That’s the policy. You and your intended having a lovers’ spat?”
“He’s not my intended.” Not that she didn’t wish he was. Stunned by the zinging thought that had sailed right out of nowhere, she clenched her fist round a wad of cool satin. For crying out loud, she had to stop thinking this way. “It’s a long story. So tell me, how does this work?”
“You show me the merchandise, and I decide on a fair price.”
She held up the gown.
“Not much call for wedding dresses around here. Not with the specialty boutique just down the road.”
“I really don’t want to sell it. But we’re traveling by motorcycle and it’s not feasible to wear the dress—”
“Jordan,” Tanner interrupted softly. He came up behind her and gently placed his hand at her waist. She was so astonished by the change in him, she couldn’t help but stare. One minute he acted like a tough guy, and the next he was sweet as all get-out. “I doubt that anyone’s interested in our mode of travel.”
“Oh.” Stupid, she thought. They were on the run. And she’d been about to spill the details. She wasn’t cut out for this cloak-and-dagger stuff. Longing, fierce and swift, welled in her. She wanted normality, wanted her horse beneath her, wanted to be riding into the wind through fields of wildflowers where she could blend in with the landscape, just be herself, not what everybody expected her to be.
“I’ll give you fifty bucks for the dress.”
That brought her head around and her temper boiling. “Fifty bucks! This is a ten-thousand-dollar dress!”
The man shrugged. “Not to me it isn’t.”
“But—”
“Fifty will be fine,” Tanner said.
“No, it won’t,” she countere
d, drawing a breath to defend the yards of beautiful satin. “There’re specially imported beads on this gown, intricate embroidery that took hours of labor to stitch.” She’d tried to talk her mother out of buying the extravagant gown, knowing they couldn’t afford it, but Daddy had insisted. Determined to save face, to avoid any hint that his financial empire was crumbling, he’d gone back to the bridal shop and purchased it himself. The sale was final, nonrefundable.
“I offered the duffel,” Tanner reminded.
“It’ll get ruined in your duffel. The thing’s not even big enough to hold the train, let alone the whole dress.”
“Then take the offer. It’s not as though you’re really selling it. You’ll be back to get it.”
Would she? At this point she felt bereft—without a safety zone to go back to or to head for. She had no idea who her enemy was. Reluctantly, she turned back to the clerk.
“Do you have a padded hanger and some plastic?”
“Let me check.”
As the man disappeared into the back room, Tanner glanced out the front window. “We need to get moving.”
Jordan followed his gaze, nerves jumping again.
“Do you think they’re on our trail?” There was a phone at one end of the counter. A phone she desperately wanted to use. But whom would she call? And where? Would her family still be at the church? Organizing a search party, perhaps?
“Hard to say.” He leaned an elbow on the counter, blocking her view of the phone. “I don’t like taking chances, though.”
“I assume you’ve got a plan?”
He nodded. “I’ve got a plan.”
When he didn’t say any more, she prodded. “Care to share it?”
“Not in here.”
The clerk reappeared, holding a wire hanger, some tissue paper and a plastic zippered bag big enough to hold a body. She didn’t even want to know what it had been used for. All she cared about at the moment was that it was roomy enough not to crush her dress.
Arranging the tissue herself over the wire hanger, she fussed with the dress, smoothing its folds into the bag just so. Satisfied, she handed it over and waited for payment.
The clerk passed her a five-dollar bill.
“I thought you said fifty.”
“That’s right. Minus thirty for the jeans and fifteen for the blouse.”
Par for this increasingly horrendous day.
Jordan didn’t bother with outrage this time. She simply took her five dollars and allowed Tanner to usher her outdoors where the fresh air was more than welcome after the stuffy interior of the pawnshop.
“What do you bet he charges me double to get the dress back.” She stuffed the claim-check receipt into her pocket.
“Probably more than double,” Tanner said, swinging his leg over the Harley, then giving her a helping hand as she climbed on the back.
“We really should have held out for more money. My bargaining instincts are smarting.”
“It’s all relative, Blackie. If he gave you more money, it’d just cost you that much more to get it back.”
“Yeah, well, my pride would feel a whole lot better.”
She wrapped her arms around his waist, feeling the muscles of his stomach tighten.
“Now what’s the matter?” she asked. His body language fairly shouted that she had cooties. She had a pressing, unladylike urge to hit something.
He shook his head and shoved on his sunglasses. “It’s gonna be a long ride.”
His tone said so much more than his words. That was when she realized that her unbound breasts were mashed solidly against him. She eased her hold.
“I’ll make a deal with you.”
He booted the gearshift, but kept the clutch pulled in. “I’m listening,” he said tightly.
“As long as you’re not going hell-bent for leather, I’ll give you plenty of breathing room. You start scraping my toes on the pavement again and you’re on your own. Braless or not, I’ll stick to you like flypaper.”
“Definitely found your tongue,” he muttered and erased the clutch out, the powerful motorcycle sounding a lot meaner than it acted.
Tanner wasn’t sure if he would make it. Although she was holding up her end of the bargain—giving him breathing room—each bump in the road shifted those enticing breasts against his back. Even with the wind whipping past, he could smell her scent. Something expensive, delicate. He resisted the urge to lift his fingers to his nose—the fingers that had touched her—to inhale the feminine smell he knew still lingered.
Her hands rested lightly at his waist and the warmth of her thighs cupped his hips. It was all he could do to keep the bike on the road and remember which turn to make.
He felt the soft slap of her hair tangling with his as she turned her head, watching the scenery. When they passed within spitting distance of Grazer’s Corners, he felt her thighs tighten. Other than that slight flex, she didn’t bug him about their destination.
Tanner appreciated that in a woman—quiet acceptance.
God knew he hadn’t garnered much of it in his life.
“Poor white trash” was a label that didn’t lend itself to respect.
He felt the familiar roil of emotions twist in his gut. Coming back to Grazer’s Corners brought it all back to him—the shame, the desperation to get out, to be someone. He’d sworn he wouldn’t come back.
Yet here he was, with his emotions tied in knots and his neck on the line for Jordan Grazer.
When he’d laid eyes on her in that wedding dress, he’d thought he’d died and gone to heaven, been granted every one of his secret dreams. How many times had he pictured her just like that, dressed in flowing white, looking at him as though he were her savior and her heart’s desire all rolled into one rough package.
His jaw clenched as he reminded himself of one very important detail.
She’d been wearing that dress for another man.
An acceptable man. A fancy banker. A guy born into the right family who golfed at the country club and drank martinis with the upper crust.
A far cry from somebody like him who’d clawed his way out of poverty with a mix of street smarts and fists.
His fingers clenched around the throttle grip. The bike poured on speed.
And Jordan pressed her chest firmly against his back.
Ah, hell. He eased off; so did she.
But reprieve wasn’t in the cards. He felt her fingers in his hair and jolted, nearly sending them into the ditch.
“Don’t wreck us,” she said in his ear.
“Then get your hands out of my hair.”
“It’s flying in my face.”
He fished in his pocket, careful not to lose the ransom note, and pulled out a thin strip of leather.
Jordan snagged the leather band. “Keep your hands on the controls. I’ll fix your hair.” She felt his spine go rigid, saw a muscle tighten in his square jaw. She didn’t know what he was so uptight about. Oh, it was obvious he was responding to the press of their bodies, but doggone it, so was she.
With the vibration of the motorcycle between her legs and six-foot-plus of hot male pressed against her, she was having a full range of erotic fantasies.
Dear God, both her brain and her hormones were on overload.
It was the day, she told herself. Wedding days meant wedding nights, which added up to sex.
And like a record stuck in a groove, each bump, look or caress sang out “Sex.” Over and over.
But the groom in the starring role wasn’t wearing a tux, nor did he have wheat-blond, perfectly styled hair.
No, the man creating such carnal, uncharacteristic thoughts wore jeans and boots and a look of hot sin.
Her fingers trembling, her knees tightening against his hips for balance, she tied his long hair into a ponytail, struck by the extreme intimacy of the act. She really needed to take herself in hand. All this fluttering and heart jumping was ridiculous. Jordan decided she was simply overwrought by the bizarre circumstances of the day.
That was the only excuse she could come up with for the way her mind and body insisted on turning everything into some sort of sexual act.
Because she desperately wanted to linger over the feel of his hair in her hands, she curled her fingers into her palms and placed them on her knees, divorcing herself from turbulent fantasies of Tanner Caldwell.
The land was drenched in sunshine. Goldenbrown pastures gradually gave way to a rolling landscape as the Harley ate up the miles. To the east, the Sierra Nevada created a magnificent backdrop to the cobalt sky, their distant peaks iced with lingering snow.
The road became curvy now, shaded by grand California oaks that had stood watch over the countryside for hundreds of years. Jordan eased her hands to Tanner’s waist for balance as the motorcycle slowed, cutting off onto an unmarked road camouflaged by towering pines.
They’d spent nearly two hours traveling in a wide circle and had ended up only about half an hour from Grazer’s Corners.
Yet the sight before her was like something from another world. A house of stucco and glass stood in isolated splendor on the shore of a freshwater lake. Stubborn wildflowers, confused by the lateness of the season, pushed their happy faces through blades of patchy grass that gave way to a meadow-like landscape.
When Tanner shut off the deep rumble of the Harley’s engine, the land was hushed, save for the breeze whispering through the treetops and birds twittering to their mates. As though it had lost its way from the ocean, a gull winged over the mirrorstill surface of the water, its white breast a stark contrast to the deep blue lake, its cries echoing off the majestic crags on the opposite bank.
Only lingering exhaust fumes from the motorcycle marred the sweet, clean scent of vegetation and cool water.
“It’s beautiful,” Jordan said, hiking a leg over the seat of the Harley before Tanner could assist her. The heels of her satin pumps sank into the loamy soil and if Tanner’s hand hadn’t shot out to steady her, she would have landed on her face when she tried to take a step.
“You’re going to break your neck in those spikes.”
She smiled. “In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m a little short on footwear selections.”
