Groom Of Fortune

But the relief was short-lived as her gaze strayed to the candelabra and the candles that flickered there. She caught her lower lip between her teeth, reminded of her parents’ delight in her marriage to Brad. Would they understand? she wondered, doubt niggling at her confidence. Or would they…

She jumped at a sound that came from behind her, and spun to see the entry door swinging open. Not wanting to be seen, she looked wildly around for a place to hide. Grabbing fistfuls of satin, she gathered up the skirt of her wedding gown and ran, ducking quickly behind the partially open door of the coat closet. Holding her breath, she listened to the echo of footsteps on the vestibule’s marble floor.

“Are we late?” came a man’s low voice.

“I don’t think so” was the reply, “though the music’s already started.”

“Lucky son of a bitch,” she heard the first man mutter. “Marrying into all that money.”

Her mouth gaping, Isabelle leaned closer to the partially open door, straining to hear. The voice sounded vaguely familiar, but she couldn’t put a face to it.

There was a wry laugh from the other man. “As if he didn’t already have a direct pipeline into the Fortune’s bank account.”

The first man laughed, too. “The greedy son of a bitch.”

“Greedy, hell. He’s a genius, and we’re damn lucky to be in on the take.”

“Yeah,” the first agreed. “Though I have to admit I was worried there for a bit when Mike started demanding a bigger slice of the pie.”

Mike? Isabelle repeated silently in confusion. Mike Dodd? Though she hadn’t personally known the construction foreman who had been killed earlier that year in an elevator crash at the site of the Children’s Hospital her family was building, she had been affected by his death, as had all the Fortune family. But what pie were the men talking about? She pressed her ear closer to the door, hoping to hear more.

“Brad handled it,” the second man was saying. “That guy’s cool as a cucumber when under pressure. Cold-blooded, he is, and that’s a fact.”

Isabelle pressed a hand against her mouth to stifle the startled cry that rose. Her fiancé was involved in Mike Dodd’s death? But how? Why?

“Easy enough when there’s nothing but ice running in your veins.”

Numbed by what she’d overheard, Isabelle listened as the sanctuary door squeaked open on its hinges. Organ music spilled out into the church’s vestibule as the latecomers slipped inside the nave. Then, only silence.

Isabelle sagged weakly against the coat closet’s door, her eyes wide, her hand still clamped over her mouth.

Oh, God. If what she’d overheard was true, then her fiancé was responsible for Mike Dodd’s death.

And within minutes, she would become the wife of a murderer.

Link Templeton glanced at the clock on his dash, then back at the street ahead, and pressed the accelerator a little closer to the floor. He had to get to the church before it was too late. He had to get there before the wedding took place.

He downshifted to third, made the turn onto Feather Road on two wheels, then stomped down on the accelerator again, fishtailing for a moment before he was able to bring the city-issue, four-wheel-drive Blazer under control. Perspiration beaded his forehead and ran in an irritating trickle between his shoulder blades.

He knew in his gut that Brad Rowan was guilty of murder. Though he had no sound evidence to back up his theory, other than the papers found by Mike Dodd’s sister, Angelica, and given to Link by Angelica’s lawyer, Cynthia Fortune, which pointed to a deliberate cover-up. And he’d learned over the years to trust his gut instincts on a case. They were rarely wrong.

The papers had provided him with the information he needed to clear Riley Fortune as a suspect in the murder case though, and they had substantiated Link’s theory that Brad was the man responsible for Dodd’s murder. But Link still lacked the solid evidence he needed to put Rowan behind bars and win a conviction in a trial.

Evidence or not, he told himself, he had to stop the wedding before it was too late.

But how would Isabelle take the news when he told her that the man she loved was a murderer?

She’d hate him. He’d had enough experience handing out bad news in his job as a criminal investigator for the city of Pueblo to know that the messenger rarely received any praise from the family and friends of the accused. Hadn’t he already felt the sting of the Fortunes’ outrage when he’d been forced to arrest Riley Fortune, Isabelle’s brother, as a suspect in the death of Mike Dodd?

He growled low in his throat, glaring at the road ahead. It didn’t matter what Isabelle Fortune or her family thought of him. It was the case that was important. It was slapping iron on a guilty man’s wrists and jerking another criminal off the streets that brought him satisfaction. It was his job.

But stopping a society wedding wasn’t.

He slapped an angry palm against the steering wheel. But he couldn’t just stand by and permit Isabelle to marry Brad Rowan. Not when he knew the man was capable of murder. What if, after their marriage, Isabelle happened upon some bit of information that pointed to Brad’s guilt? Would Brad kill her, too, as he had Mike Dodd, to silence her? The very thought had Link curling his fingers tighter around the steering wheel. He wouldn’t let Brad harm her. He couldn’t. He—

He shoved the unwanted thoughts away, but try as he might, he couldn’t erase the image of Isabelle the thoughts had drawn. He remembered the day when he’d dropped by Cynthia Fortune’s and had stumbled, unknowingly, into a wedding shower held in Isabelle’s honor. When his gaze had met Isabelle’s across the room, it was as if lightning had struck. He’d stood immobile, paralyzed by the violet eyes that met his, his pulse pounding in his ears, every nerve in his body burning with awareness.

And he was sure that she’d been similarly affected. A laugh from a guest was what had finally shocked him into movement. He’d torn his gaze from hers and turned away…but he’d never forgotten the look in her eyes. The awareness. The desire. He’d recognized them, because he’d lived with both ever since that day.

He snorted in disgust. She’s in love with another man, he reminded himself. And even if she wasn’t, he was too old and too jaded to make a play for a woman like her.

He caught a flash of red in the church parking lot ahead, then a convertible sports car shot out of the lot and directly into his path. “Damn!” He stomped on the brake, whipping the steering wheel to the right to avoid broadsiding the small foreign car.

His heart pumping like a jackhammer, he stared after the car, watching as the woman behind the wheel ripped a wedding veil from her head and held it up, letting the wind have it. The delicate lace panels sailed behind her for a moment, then floated slowly to the street, like a kite with a broken string.

Isabelle? he asked himself, recognizing the pricey foreign car and its driver. Where was she going? She was supposed to be getting married. What the hell had happened?

He glanced toward the church for an answer, but the thick entry doors were closed. And though the parking lot was full, there wasn’t a soul in sight. He glanced again in the direction of the red sports car, then back to the church where the wedding was to have taken place. It’s none of your business, he told himself. You’ve got no jurisdiction when it comes to Isabelle Fortune’s personal affairs.

“Like hell, I don’t,” he muttered. Setting his jaw, he turned his face to the street ahead, stomped on the clutch and shifted into first. Peeling out and leaving a trail of black rubber in his wake, he took off in the direction the red sports car had taken.

Isabelle fairly flew along the stretch of two-lane highway that led into the desert, intent on nothing but putting miles between her and the church. She drove for nearly an hour, her mind frozen, her fingers cinched tightly around the wheel. The wind whipped tendrils loose from her upswept hair and stung her eyes, but she was oblivious to everything but the white line that stretched in front of her.

A raindrop splattered against the windshield. Another struck her cheek, a needle-sharp pain, jolting her from her trancelike state. Glancing up, she saw that the sky had turned an ominous yellowish-green. She slowed, guiding her car to the shoulder. With fingers that shook uncontrollably, she pressed the electronic switch to raise the convertible’s top, locked it into place, then accelerated back onto the highway.

She didn’t know where she was going. But her destination wasn’t important. The only thing that mattered was getting away.

Tears filled her eyes. What would her parents say when they discovered her missing? Would they be angry? Worried? What would all the guests say when they realized the bride had run away and left the groom at the altar?

Brad.

What would he say? Do? Would he follow her?

Murderer.

A shiver chased down her spine at the reminder.

It was so hard to believe, yet something deep inside her told her it was true. Although she’d known Brad most of her life, she’d never completely trusted him. Granted, he’d never been anything but polite and attentive to her, especially since their engagement three months ago, but she’d always felt as if a different personality lurked beneath his carefully groomed facade.

She shivered again as the rain fell harder, hammering her car and obstructing her view of the road ahead. She switched on the windshield wipers and tightened her hands on the wheel. Storms came up quickly in the desert and could be treacherous, she knew.

And Isabelle had never liked storms, a fact her brothers had often teased her about.

She bit back a scream when a clap of thunder, so loud it nearly deafened her, shook her low-slung car. It was followed by a flash of lightning that ripped like a knife across the almost black sky, seemingly splitting it in two.

Wishing that she’d chosen another direction in which to run, Isabelle glanced frantically around, looking for somewhere safe to wait out the storm…but there was nothing but miles of desert surrounding her and the shadowed hump of dark mountains ahead.

She drove on, the rain continuing to batter her car, her emotions, shattering her already frayed nerves. Lightning flashed dangerously close to the earth time and time again in front of her. Thunder crashed violently around her, until the sound echoed continuously in her head, winding her nerves tighter and tighter.