Kiss the Bride (34 page)

Resolutely, Nick goosed the ailing pickup and ignored the rattling and groaning noises coming from the rear end. Lalule shook on the dashboard, urging him onward.

He sped over the rise in the road, eyes desperately scanning the area in search of the white van.

Then he saw something that stopped his heart. The van, maybe eight blocks ahead of him, spinning around a corner with the back door flapping open.

In horror, Nick watched as the woman he loved fell out onto the pavement.

Ouch. That was going to leave a bruise. Delaney lay on the ground, breathing hard as she watched the van disappear in a blinding blur around the corner.

She heard the squeal of brakes and the sound of tires sliding in gravel. She felt pebbles pelt her skin. Delaney pushed herself up, winced against abrasions on her palms.

A car door slammed.

She shook her head and the veil fell to one side. She saw someone running toward her.

Nick! He was all right!

Delaney had never seen a more welcome sight. She grinned in spite of cuts and scrapes.

He was at her side, picking her up, dusting her off, his face knitted with concern. “Are you all right? Are you okay?” He sounded breathless and scared.

“Fine, fine. How about you?”

“I’m okay.”

“You sure?” She touched his face, needing proof.

“Are you sure?” His brow furrowed with concern.

“What in the hell is going on with Trudie’s nephew? Why did he run from me? When I get my hands on that punk…”

“That wasn’t Louie,” she said.

“Then who the hell was it?”

Delaney shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine.”

Nick stared her in the eyes and felt such a surge of gratitude, he couldn’t even speak. Ignoring his weak knee, he scooped her into his arms and carried her to the pickup, even though she protested the entire way.

She looked okay, kept demanding he put her down so she could walk, but he wasn’t taking any chances. He held her tightly against his chest and maneuvered toward the
passenger side of his truck. Her hair was pressed against his nose. She smelled like sunflowers, and she was trembling like a fawn abandoned by its mother.

His heart jerked hard. If that kidnapper had hurt her in any way, shape, or form, he would strangle him with his bare hands in a crime of passion. He put her in the truck, snapped the seat belt around her, and realized he was trembling too. She could have been killed. He could have lost her.

Taking a deep breath, Nick walked around to the driver’s side and got in beside Delaney. He sat there a moment staring out across the hood of the pickup. He couldn’t look at her. If he looked at her and thought about what could have happened, he would lose it completely.

Nick Vinetti didn’t cry. Not when his wife left him. Not when he hurt his knee. Not when his grandfather died. The events of the past fifteen months were all knotted up inside him. One little chink in his armor and the dam would burst and he would bawl like an infant.

And that little chink was sitting next to him, looking as vulnerable as Bambi and twice as cute.

They were both breathing raggedly, sliding down off the adrenaline high. She was staring straight ahead too, as if trying to reconcile her own emotions. Cars were chugging slowly past, curious rubberneckers staring through their tinted windows at them, trying to guess at their story. They must have made a sight. A handcuffed bride and a limping man in a black suit more fit for funerals than weddings.

No one could guess this.

Once he’d collected himself, he got on his cell phone, called the Houston PD, alerted them to the kidnapping, and had them put out an all-points bulletin on the white delivery van.

“Where to?” he asked and started the engine.

“Away from here.”

“Back to the chapel?”

“No!”

“To your parents’ home.”

“Definitely not.”

“To your fiancé?” He said this last part with difficulty and dread.

“Evan is no longer my fiancé.”

“No?”

Instead of answering his question, she held up her cuffed wrists. “Can you help me out of these?”

“I believe I can help you with that.” Nick leaned over her lap to dig in the glove compartment for the spare handcuff key he kept stowed there. He was acutely aware of her, and from the way her body tensed, he knew she was just as aware of him. He unlocked the cuffs and straightened in the seat as she rubbed her wrists.

Delaney dumped the handcuffs on the dashboard beside Lalule and slipped off her veil. She carefully folded it up and settled in on the seat. Amazingly, the veil appeared no worse for the wear, although her dress was stained with dirt, tar, and grass.

“Does Evan know he’s no longer your fiancé?” he asked, determined to know the answer.

Delaney nodded. “I left him a note where he would find it after the ceremony. I explained why I took the easy way out and had Louie kidnap me. Except, of course, it wasn’t Louie.”

“That’s because I told Trudie to cancel Louie.”

She jerked her head around sharply to pin him with those sea green eyes. “Why did you do that?”

“For one thing, you were involving Trudie’s nephew in a crime.”

“What’s the crime? I was having myself kidnapped.”

“Filing a false police report. Wasting government agency funds to search for you. Remember the brouhaha over Jennifer Wilbanks, the runaway bride?”

It fully hit her then, what she’d done. How she’d been unable to deal with her problems head-on. She’d cheated, taken the easy way out. Delaney uttered a bleak laugh, but nothing was funny. “I’m just like her, aren’t I?”

Nick reached across the table to touch her hand. “Don’t feel ashamed. Your family sort of cornered you into it.”

“That’s no excuse. I was a coward.”

“Don’t be so hard on yourself. You’re not a coward so much as someone who hates to hurt other people’s feelings. You let their needs come before your own, and then you feel trapped by their expectations and don’t know how to get out of it.”

He knew her so well. Better even than Evan, who’d known her all her life. It was as if he could see past the glossy surface her mother had polished and honed to the real Delaney beneath.

“Still, it was such a dumb thing to do.” She dropped her face into her palms. “What must you think of me?”

“Everyone makes mistakes, and I’m sure from the time you realized your kidnapper wasn’t Louie that you were feeling pretty punished by yours.”

This didn’t sound like a cop talking. He was making excuses for her, acting like someone who cared. Delaney held her breath. She didn’t dare hope he cared as much for her as she did for him. A pall of tension hung in the air as they gazed at each other.

“But if you canceled Louie, then who kidnapped me?” Delaney asked. “Maybe more important, why?”

“That’s the big question.”

Puzzled, they looked at each other.

“It could have been a real kidnapping,” Nick said. “You are an oil heiress.”

“But that’s awfully coincidental,” she said. “Unless…”

“Unless what?”

“Unless the kidnapper is involved with the same person who’s been blackmailing my mother. He did work as a barker at the Whack-a-Mole booth at the Galveston amusement park.”

“You figured out that she’s being blackmailed?” Nick didn’t look surprised.

Delaney stared at him. “You knew?”

“I didn’t know for sure, but I can guess why.”

All the blood seemed to drain from her body. Her skin felt at once icy cold and blistering hot. “Why’s that?”

“Because your mother isn’t Honey Montgomery Cartwright.”

Jim Bob Cartwright sat on a stool in a dark, dank-smelling bar not far from the oil refinery his family had owned and operated for three generations until economics had forced them to join forces with corporate America. He was a figurehead these days. No real power. His seat on the board of directors was little more than a commitment to the contract he and his brothers had signed. Jim Bob still made lots of money, but he had no real duties, no real influence in the company his grandfather had built. Without the Cartwright name, he was nothing.

Not even a good husband.

The place was almost empty. A couple of barflies hung off the other end of the bar, engrossed in a golf tournament on television. The jukebox was playing a Dwight Yoakam song.

Jim Bob stared at the double shot of Crown Royal he’d ordered. Stared and licked his lips and thought of Honey.

Correction.
Fayrene.

He gritted his teeth as fresh rage swept over him. He closed his fist around the shot glass. How could she have deceived him so thoroughly? Everything they’d built together had been based on a lie.

His stomach roiled.

He loved her so damn much, but how could he love her? He didn’t even know who in the hell she was. Fuck, but he felt like crying. His wife was a stranger, and his daughter had arranged her own kidnapping simply because she hadn’t been able to tell him she didn’t want to go through with her wedding.

Both his wife and his daughter had hidden their secrets from him. He’d failed them both. Failed them spectacularly. Jim Bob hadn’t felt so alone since he’d given up drinking.

He eyed the beautiful amber liquid, and then lifted the whiskey to his lips. The smell of it was like an old, familiar friend. How easy it would be to swallow it back, allow it to take him under.

It’s not the answer. Remember your vow of sobriety. Remember the night you swore it?

Until he took his dying breath, Jim Bob would remember the day he’d hit rock bottom.

It was the first anniversary of Skylar’s death, and the Dallas Cowboys had been scrimmaging the Buffalo Bills in the Super Bowl. Honey had planned a memorial service for eight p.m., and the Wildcatters bar was hosting a Super Bowl party with two-for-one whiskey shots.

He hadn’t purposely chosen the Super Bowl over his daughter’s memorial service, but the thought of putting
himself through more emotional pain had overwhelmed him. He’d stopped by Wildcatters after leaving the office, intent on one shot of liquid courage before heading home to change into the black suit and tie Honey had laid out for him that morning.

A handful of his drinking buddies had been at the bar, rowdy and well on their way to getting drunk. He’d been jealous of how happy and pain-free they looked, and he wanted to join them in that blessed state of oblivion.

One shot of Wild Turkey had turned into two and two into three.

The next thing he knew it was almost eight o’clock, and the Super Bowl was starting and he was too drunk to drive. Guilt and grief had burned inside him. To kill the feelings he’d had another shot and then another.

But it couldn’t drown out the image of Honey standing at the front of River Oaks Methodist Church waiting and waiting and waiting for him to appear. In a whiskey-soaked stupor, he’d called a taxi.

He arrived at the memorial service ten minutes before nine and stumbled into the church in his khaki Dockers, plaid western shirt, and scuffed cowboy boots.

The altar was still set up with candles burning, pristine white lilies, and a big color poster from Kinkos with Skylar’s picture on it. But the pews were empty. He dropped to his knees at the altar. The smell of the cloying lilies, reminding him too much of the day he’d buried his precious baby, turned Jim Bob’s stomach.

Where was everyone?

You’re too late; they’ve already gone home.

But he knew Honey wouldn’t leave Skylar’s portrait behind. She had to still be here.

Then he heard the sound of muted voices somewhere
in the distance, and he remembered about the reception Honey had put together.

Staggering to his feet, he swayed a moment, fighting off the nausea, and then lumbered to the rectory.

He pushed open the door and stepped inside.

Everyone was dressed in black. They stopped talking the minute they spied him, his family and friends sizing him up with barely disguised disdain.

“Jim Bob.” His brother Lance had come toward him, but Jim Bob shoved him aside and barreled straight for his wife.

He would never forget the look of horror that crossed Honey’s face. It was as if someone had doused everything she owned in gasoline and set a blowtorch to it. Grief and disgust and embarrassment and fury flashed across the face she normally kept pleasant and controlled.

“My precious baby’s dead,” he wailed and fell against her, hoping she’d gather him up in her arms and hold him close. But she had not. “I’ll never love anyone the way I loved her.”

He sank to his knees, clutching the hem of her skirt in his hands. He’d cried, pathetic and maudlin, clinging to Honey as she tried her best to retain her dignity. She was the most stoic woman he’d ever known, and he was jealous of her ability to detach herself from her pain.

Jim Bob had looked up to see chubby little Delaney standing in the corner staring at him, her thumb in her mouth at age eight, her eyes wide as quarters. Shame engulfed him.