Kiss the Bride

by Lori Wilde

  “Too bad you don’t have a Leo to come rescue you from the altar the way Lucia did.”

  “Yeah,” Delaney echoed. She could wish all she wanted, but she knew Nick wouldn’t come save her. He had too much integrity to steal another man’s wife. “Too bad.”

  “You could hire someone to kidnap you.”

  Delaney looked up. Possibilities raced through her. If she hired someone to kidnap her from the wedding, then her family would have to listen to her. It was dramatic. It was bold. And Delaney saw it as her only way out.

  “Remember my nephew Louie?” Trudie said. “You met him when you staged my house.”

  Louie had been a little rough-looking, with lots of piercings and tattoos, but he’d seemed like a nice enough guy. “Yes.”

  “For the right price, he’ll kidnap you.”

  Chapter 16

  Someone was beating on his front door.

  Nick pulled himself from slumber, squinted at the clock on his bedside table, and groaned. Who in the hell had the audacity to show up on his doorstep at three o’clock in the morning? One of his brothers? A cousin?

  Growling his displeasure, Nick threw off the covers.

  “Coming, coming,” he called out, searching in his closet for the bathrobe he hardly ever had the need to wear. Even though his knee was almost completely healed now, he didn’t want to push it and move too quickly too soon. “Hold your horses.”

  He ambled to the living room, turned on the front porch light, and looked through the peephole to find Trudie Klausman, dressed like a twenty-year-old party girl in a belly-baring tank top and a short skirt that showed off her wrinkled knees and with sparkle glitter on her face, swaying in the night air. At first, he thought something must have happened to his nana.

  Terrified, Nick yanked open the door. He stared Trudie in the eyes and realized she’d been drinking.

  Horror squeezed his heart as another thought occurred to him. Holy shit, what if Trudie was here for some kind of perverted, middle-of-the-night, Mrs. Robinson booty call?

  Nick gulped. “Um, hello, Mrs. Klausman.”

  “Nicky, we’ve got an emergency situation on our hands.” She rushed into his apartment.

  Dear God in heaven, she was here for a booty call.

  “Emergency?” The word came out high and squeaky, the way it did when he was thirteen and his voice was changing.

  She wrapped her hand around his wrist and Nick stopped breathing. “I’ve got a very dire problem, and you’re the only one who can solve it for me.”

  Nick had had a few booty calls in his life, but none he’d ever had to turn down before. He didn’t know how to go about deflecting his grandmother’s best friend without hurting her feelings.

  “Mrs. Klausman… I…,” he stuttered. “I’m very flattered, but.. but…”

  Trudie gave him an odd look and quickly let go of his hand. “Oh, my God, you thought I came here for a booty call.”

  “No, no.”

  “Don’t lie.” She shook her finger under his nose. “And just because you are one handsome devil doesn’t give you the right to assume that just because I’m an ex–Vegas showgirl and that I had a little too much to drink and I’m wearing something sexy, that I would want to have sex with you. You’re far too young for me, and besides, your grandmother is my best friend. What do you take me for? A complete hussy?”

  Mortified, he ducked his head. “Trudie, I’m truly sorry.”

  “If Delaney didn’t need your help, I’d turn around and walk right out of here.”

  Nick’s head shot up. “Delaney needs help?”

  “I’ve done something kinda illegal and I’m having second thoughts, but Delaney was so desperate to get out of this wedding tomorrow, she asked me to hire my nephew, Louie, to kidnap her from the chapel.”

  Delaney wanted out of her marriage to Evan Van Zandt? Hope was like a gift, sprung in his chest, resurrecting the feelings he’d tried so hard to bury. “You’re kidding.”

  “Do I look like I’m kidding?” Trudie glared and sank her hands on her hips.

  No, she did not.

  “Delaney’s planning on standing Evan up at the altar?”

  “In the most dramatic way possible. Poor girl, she’s such a people-pleaser. Can’t bear to hurt her fiancé’s feelings, can’t sum up the courage to face her overbearing mother. She feels backed into a corner with no way out. That’s why I offered to contact Louie for her. She’s such a good-hearted person, but she’s never learned to stand up for herself.”

  “She’s stood up to me a few times,” Nick said, recalling the arguments they’d had. The time she flipped him the bird.

  “Which is why you’re so good for her. You inspire her to be more. You let her speak her mind and don’t squelch her. You don’t put her in a box or up on a pedestal. You actually like it when she’s not perfect. You give her the freedom to be herself. You’re exactly what she needs.”

  “Did you contact Louie already?”

  “Yes.”

  “Has money exchanged hands?” Had a crime already occurred?

  “I don’t know. Delaney was on her way to meet him when I left her.”

  Nick blew out a breath and shoved a hand through his hair.

  If what Trudie said was true and Delaney wanted out of the marriage so badly that she’d hired Trudie’s nephew to kidnap her from the wedding, it meant she didn’t have the courage to tell Evan the truth.

  It must also mean she finally recognized platonic love was not enough to sustain a marriage.

  While he admired Delaney for not going through with the wedding when she knew it was wrong, he was disappointed that she was taking the easy way out. And he wasn’t going to let her get away with it. He was going to make her face up to her feelings.

  “Call up your nephew,” Nick told Trudie. “Tell him his services are no longer required.”

  “But if Louie doesn’t kidnap Delaney from the chapel, she’ll end up married to Evan. And you of all people should know how miserable it is to be married to the wrong one.”

  “I’ll handle it. Just call off the kidnapping.”

  “Oh,” Trudie exclaimed, her eyes flashing with excitement. “Are you going to do for Delaney what your grampa Leo did for Lucia? Are you going to whisk her away and save her from marrying the wrong man?”

  “No,” Nick growled. “She’s spent most of her life looking for a magical solution to her problems. Rescuing is not what she needs. What I’m going to do is be there to make sure that Delaney saves herself.”

  The members of the wedding party and their families gathered outside the River Oaks Methodist Church for the wedding rehearsal. Delaney had driven over with her parents, and she regretted the decision. Her mother’s constant nitpicking of every little detail had given her a headache.

  “Don’t worry, it’ll be over soon.” Evan smiled and squeezed her hand. “Your mother means well.”

  “I’ve got to get something for this headache,” she said. “I think there’s some ibuprofen in the glove compartment of the Caddy. Go on in, I’ll be right behind you.”

  Head throbbing, Delaney headed back out to the parking lot, angling for her mother’s Cadillac. It wasn’t just her mother’s nitpicking that had given her the headache, and she knew it. Guilt was the thing pounding through her veins. She didn’t want to go through with this wedding, but she didn’t have the courage to tell Evan to his face. She had written him a long note, explaining how she felt and begging his forgiveness. She still hadn’t figured out how to handle her mother.

  Delaney thought about all the people she was going to hurt and felt physically ill.

  She plunked down in the front passenger seat of the Caddy. The humidity plastered her panty hose to her legs. She wouldn’t have worn them, but her mother insisted. Apparently in Honey’s book it was gauche to go barelegged to a wedding rehearsal.

  After resting a moment to let the nausea subside, she popped open the glove compartment and rummaged around until she fo
und the ibuprofen. She pulled the bottle out, and a crumpled-up note fell out with it.

  What was this?

  Delaney unfolded the note, read what was written there in stark black block letters.

  She let out a gasp and plastered her hand over her mouth. Her mother had been lying. At last, she knew the reason her mother had gone to meet the patch-eyed woman at the amusement park on Galveston Island.

  Honey Montgomery Cartwright was being blackmailed.

  What she didn’t know was why.

  “Invitation, sir.” The security guard posted outside the River Oaks Methodist Church held out his palm and waited expectantly for Nick to paper it with a wedding invitation.

  But he didn’t have one.

  “No invite?” The guard arched an eyebrow.

  “No.”

  “Sorry.” The guard moved to block the door. “Without an invitation you don’t get in.”

  A few people were still trickling in from the parking lot, but they were rushing as if late, flashing their invitations to the security guard, then slipping inside through the heavy wooden door. The sun beat down hot, pooling sweat under the collar of the only suit Nick owned. The suit he’d bought for his grandfather’s funeral.

  “You don’t understand,” Nick said. “It’s imperative I get in. The bride is about to make a huge mistake.”

  “If you ask me, anyone who gets married is making a huge mistake.” The guard shook his head. “Can’t go in.”

  The sounds of the wedding march began. He had to get in there before it was too late. Louie wouldn’t be showing up to kidnap Delaney as she expected, and if Nick wasn’t there to intervene, he feared she’d just go ahead with the ceremony.

  “I have to get in there.”

  “You want me to call the cops?”

  “I am the cops.”

  “Prove it.”

  Grinding his teeth in frustration, Nick fumbled in his pocket for his badge and shoved it in the guy’s face. “Now get the hell out of my way.”

  “Jeez, fella, why didn’t you just say you were a cop in the first place?” the guard grumbled and stepped aside.

  Nick tore into the building.

  The contrast from the bright sunlight to the darkened interior of the church had him blinking. Disoriented, he stood in the entryway while his eyes adjusted.

  Flowers invaded the foyer, filling his nose with their fresh summer scent. He heard the rustling of clothes, the muted coughs of the spectators, and the wedding march. The song was already half over.

  The doors leading into the chapel were thrown wide. He hurried toward them and saw Delaney on the arm of a man he presumed was her father, moving toward the altar.

  Instinct had him wanting to shout her name, but he would wait for the right moment. When the minister asked if there were any objections, that’s when he would say his piece.

  He looked around for a place to sit, but he was out of luck. The chapel was crammed to the rafters. This shindig was costing her father a boatload of money. Boy, was he going to be upset when everything blew up in his face.

  But probably not as upset as Evan Van Zandt was going to be. Nick actually felt sorry for him. He knew what it was like, getting dumped by the woman you loved.

  Heart clogging his throat, Nick went to stand against the back wall, watching the proceedings with a surreal feeling of detached anxiety. It was as if he were in a dream, knowing he was dreaming but unable to wake up. What if, when the time came, he shouted out his objection but no one heard him?

  Goose bumps broke out on his arms. He was too far away. He needed to move closer. Nick started creeping around the back of the church, picking his way past the other attendees who’d been too late to find a seat, all the while craning his neck to follow what was going on up at the altar.

  Delaney looked absolutely, totally stunning in that white dress and wedding veil.

  Nick stared at the veil. When she walked, it looked as if a hundred white butterflies were fluttering up around her. She looked like magic, pure and perfect. And he wanted her with the same seven-year-old fervency he had wanted his mother not to die. If he didn’t stop her from marrying Van Zandt, he feared his heart would never, ever recover.

  Delaney’s father put her hand in Van Zandt’s and stepped back to take a seat in the front row.

  Nick stopped making his way around the side of the packed pews, every muscle in his body tensed as he heard the portly minister say, “Dearly beloved…”

  But that was as far as the man got.

  A loud noise, like someone tripping over tin cans stacked high behind the exit door to the left of the altar, drew everyone’s attention in that direction.

  The minister paused.

  The exit door flew open and a man dressed in black jeans, a long-sleeved black button-down shirt, black boots, and a black ski mask came tumbling out. He looked as out of place as a chunk of charcoal in a basket of marshmallows.

  The guests heaved a collective gasp.

  Anger shook him. Dammit. Trudie must have forgotten to cancel her nephew, Louie. Either that or she hadn’t trusted Nick to get Delaney out of this mess of her own making. That was a fine state of affairs. Now what was he going to do?

  Before Nick had time to formulate a plan, Louie was at the altar waving a gun around. He hoped like hell it was a prop gun, because if it wasn’t, whenever he got his hands on Louie he was going to make him sorry he ever agreed to this fake kidnapping.

  Poor Van Zandt looked scared out of his wits. He was trembling and blinking and just standing there impotently letting it all play out. If Nick had been up there, he would have charged the guy.

  So charge him anyway. Put a stop to this nonsense.

  Nick ran.

  But some woman had her purse in the aisle and he tripped over it. His knee crumbled. He cursed but immediately got back up.

  Louie was already dragging Delaney out the exit. The crowd was on their feet, everyone following after them.

  The mob bottlenecked at the exit door, and Nick knew it was time for another plan. Ignoring the pain shooting through his knee, he did an about-face and headed back in the direction he’d come, dodging the guests surging forward.

  Somehow, he made it out to his pickup just in time to spy a white delivery van careering out of the parking lot with Louie at the wheel.

  Nick started his engine, popped the clutch into gear, and sped off after them.

  The nondescript white delivery van roared from the church parking lot. Jim Bob Cartwright stared after it, his mind numb. “Someone call 911. My daughter’s been kidnapped!” he intended to shout to the clump of tuxedoed crowd gawking at him, but his throat squeezed so tight he could not speak.

  Honey wrapped her hand around his wrist. “We’ve got to get out of here, James Robert. Right now.”

  “No, no,” he gasped and clung to her arm. “Must call police. FBI. Delaney’s been kidnapped.”

  Honey lowered her voice. “Listen to me. We can’t call in the authorities.”

  Jim Bob stared at her, uncomprehending. “What?”

  “We can’t call the police.”

  Was his wife afraid of public embarrassment? The vein at his forehead throbbed suddenly, violently. He let go of her, stepped back, and fisted his hands. Was Honey actually worried about how this was going to reflect on her? Was she more concerned about appearances than her daughter’s safety?

  Disgust sickened his stomach. “Why in the hell not?”

  “Please, James Robert.” Her eyes beseeched him. It had been a very long time since he’d seen her this vulnerable, and it scared him. “Just take me home.”

  “No, no. We have to call the authorities. Someone just kidnapped our daughter.”

  “We can’t.” Fear drew her mouth tight, creased the fine wrinkles around her eyes. She looked haunted, hunted.

  “What is it, Honey? What’s wrong?”

  “I know who took Delaney.”

  He watched her—confused, nervous, heart pounding. Ben
eath his tuxedo, sweat plastered his shirt to his back.

  Honey hitched in a fragile breath that sounded strangely like the frantic beat of hummingbird wings. “And I know why she took her. She took her because of me. ”

  “She? It was a man who kidnapped Delaney.”

  “Hired thug.”

  “What?”

  Honey swayed and Jim Bob was afraid she would collapse. Instinctively, he circled his arm around her waist. “Are you all right?”

  “This heat. Get me out of here.”

  “We have to call the cops,” he said. “I’m going to call the cops.”

  “No.” Her voice was soft, yet shrill.

  He ignored her protest, turned to the crowd around them. The longer they waited, the farther Delaney got from them. “Does anyone have a cell phone I can use?”

  A half dozen people thrust cell phones at him, but before Jim Bob could grab one, Honey tugged him in the direction of their car, her fingernails digging into his skin.

  He balked, digging his heels into the pavement.

  “James Robert,” she said through gritted teeth, “don’t buck me on this.”

  He studied her face, regal, proud, well preserved yet suddenly looking every bit of her fifty-three years. This was the first time in years he’d seen her looking so unguarded, so full of pain and hunger and desperation. She was a mystery to him. Always had been and he feared she always would be.

  “I’m tired of tiptoeing around you, Honey,” he growled. “Tired of pretending we don’t have a big problem with our marriage. Tired of kowtowing and trying to please you. It’s impossible. Nothing pleases you.”

  “Stop,” she hissed, shifting her gaze to the gawking crowd gathered behind them.

  “Why? Afraid of a little public embarrassment? Is that it? You’d rather save face than save your daughter?”

  Honey’s cheeks blanched so pale Jim Bob thought she might faint. He felt like an utter shit and rushed to slide his arm around her once more.