The Bride Who Was Stolen In The Night

“I don’t guess so, after what happened.” She grimaced. “Chayce told him that you needed to grow up before you thought about getting married. He wasn’t pleased at the news. Not at all. I expect when he gets this letter of yours about the wedding, he’ll go right through the ceiling, Abby.”

Her breath seemed strained. “That’s surprising. I thought it would delight him to know that I’d finally be out of his hair.”

“He’s taken care of you for a long time, Abby,” Becky said. “Despite the fact that he’s kept his distance all these years, he’s kept a careful eye on you. It isn’t going to be easy for him to hand you over to another man.”

“He doesn’t want me around,” Abby said with helpless bitterness.

“That isn’t true!”

“Yes, it is.” Her gray eyes met Becky’s blue ones. “He couldn’t even be bothered to come to my college graduation. But Troy did. And so did my friend Felicity.”

“That isn’t why you’re marrying him, is it?”

Abby stiffened. “Of course not. I’m marrying him because we have a lot in common and we get along well together.”

“Do you love him?”

Abby wouldn’t look at her. “I’m very fond of him.”

Becky started to speak and then thought better of it. She grimaced as she poured milk into her dough mixture and began to form it into a ball.

Abby drank the last of her iced tea. “I’m going to finish clearing out the attic,” she announced. “If Troy comes looking for me, I went to town.”

“He’ll see the car in the garage.”

“I was arrested and they took me in a police car,” Abby improvised.

Becky tried to suppress a grin and failed. “You’re incorrigible, dear.”

“Not yet. But I’m working on it.”

* * *

Up in the attic, she unearthed the photo album that she hadn’t wanted to share with Becky. It was one that Chayce’s mother had kept, and it was full of pictures of Chayce when he was in school. Even then, she thought, tracing the beloved face in adolescence, he was incredibly handsome. Chayce had olive skin and beautiful black eyes under thick eyelashes and elegant eyebrows. His nose was straight and he had a perfect, chiseled mouth over a square chin. His hands were beautiful, too, long and graceful and dark. She ached just remembering how those hands felt on her bare skin, there in the exciting, secretive darkness of his study, late that long-ago night…

She closed the photo album with a snap, raising dust. It wouldn’t do to dwell on that night, especially with her upcoming marriage. She was going to marry Troy and have his children and forget this nonsense. If only she could learn how to forget Chayce and the aching hunger that just the thought of him engendered.

Her eyes closed and she shivered a little as she tried to imagine doing the things with Troy that she’d done with Chayce. Love was such a necessary part of lovemaking, she thought miserably. She’d responded to Chayce so passionately only because her heart belonged to him. Troy had her respect, even her admiration, and she was fond of him. But something inside her curled up and died when he touched her.

There was a saying, a myth, that she remembered from high school, about a man being taken to paradise for punishment and then going mad when he was sent back to earth. She felt a little like that. The most exquisite joy she’d ever known was in Chayce’s hard arms. Now, for the rest of her life, the memory of it was going to destroy any hope of feeling it with someone else.

She wondered if it was fair to marry Troy, when she still loved Chayce. If there had been a chance, even a slim one, that Chayce might one day return her feelings for him, she would never have agreed to marry Troy. But there was no chance. There was no hope. The alternative was to live her life alone, without children or companionship. By comparison, even life with Troy had a certain appeal.

She smoothed her hand over the cover of the old photo album and wished that she could have known Chayce’s mother, who had died when he was only nine years old. She had a pretty face and Becky said that Chayce’s father had loved her beyond bearing, that her death had turned him into a bitter alcoholic who took out his grief on his only child. Poor Chayce. His life had been no bed of roses, either. In his way, he was afraid of love. It had been cruel to him.

“Abby!” Becky called from the top of the staircase. “Troy’s here!”

“I’ll be right down!” she called back, not wanting Troy up here, where memories of Chayce were almost alive for her.

She scrambled to her feet, rushing to put the albums away and close the box that concealed them from view. In a sense she was putting her own memories away with them. She’d have to make sure that she didn’t take them out again. She was getting married. And not to Chayce.

* * *

She and Troy ate a leisurely lunch and then went riding in his new red pickup truck.

He patted the dash as he drove. “Isn’t she a beaut?” he asked with a grin that made his dark brown eyes light up. He was redheaded and had freckles, and when he smiled, they seemed to stand out like measles.

“Why isn’t a truck a ‘he’?” she asked.

He just shook his head. “You can’t call something this pretty a boy truck,” he explained.

She didn’t share his enthusiasm for pickup trucks, but at least he wasn’t still irritated at her, so she settled back and adjusted her seat belt without a protest.

“Heard from Chayce?” he asked abruptly.

Her heart jumped, but she didn’t let him know how the sound of Chayce’s name excited her.

“Not yet,” she replied in what she hoped was a careless tone. “Becky said that he might not have received my letter. He was in the Bahamas with Delina when I sent it, but Becky said he’d gone on to Hollywood with her when she finished shooting her film.”

Troy glanced at her suspiciously. “You don’t like her.”

“I don’t even know her!” she said with a hollow laugh. “She’s Chayce’s business, not mine.”

“Suppose he marries her?” he persisted.

She clenched her hands together over her blue jeans. “He’s got to marry someone eventually,” she said stiffly.

“Why? He has women coming out the doors and windows.”

“Not for the past year,” she returned. “There’s just been Delina.”

He was still giving her a narrow look. “How would you know that? I thought you hadn’t seen him in almost four years. Hard to believe that. You live in the same house.”

“Chayce hasn’t been at home when I’ve been there,” she said through her teeth.

“Why?”

She let out an irritated breath and turned to glare at him. “What is your problem, Troy?”

“Chayce doesn’t want you to marry me, that’s my problem!”

She took a steadying breath. “Chayce can’t tell me who to marry. I’m surprised that he said anything to you. I haven’t even had a postcard from him.”

“I’m not surprised,” he murmured, watching the road ahead of them. “He still thinks he owns you, but I’m going to prove to him that he doesn’t. I think we should set the marriage date forward. To next month.”

She felt her stomach clench. It was too soon, too soon, too soon…!

“If you love me,” he persisted angrily, “you’ll agree.”