Jennifer Drew - One Bride Too Many - One Bride Too Many / One Groom To Go

“There has to be a way out,” she said.

“Not if Marsh’s damn anti-spy gadgetry works. I wish his James Bond DVD collection would self-destruct!”

“Do industrial spies really steal plans for baby stuff?” She sounded more curious than panicked.

“How would I know? I haven’t had anything to do with the business since Zack and I gave each other haircuts to get out of posing for the catalog.”

“What do we do now?”

“Wait for the baby police, I guess.”

She laughed. He glowered at her.

“I don’t suppose you have a cell phone in your purse?” he asked.

She shook her head. “No, but isn’t that a phone over there?”

He walked over, annoyed because he’d been too rattled to notice it. It was dead.

“The phone service must cut off when the doors lock,” he said.

“Why?”

If this were a spy thriller on the big screen, the heroine would be clinging to him like spandex. He could imagine Tess in a role like that, unlikely as it seemed.

“Probably so anyone trying to steal the butt warmer can’t call a cohort to pass on the secret design,” he said in a husky whisper. He had an odd notion he wanted to hear her laugh again.

“What do we do now?” she asked.

“Good question. Let me see if I can short out the system.” Nuts to Marsh. If he ruined something, it wasn’t his fault.

This was a lab. There had to be tools. He opened one of the cupboards under every workstation and found a screwdriver and a pair of pliers.

“Isn’t there a night watchman or something?” she asked, hovering behind him as he removed the casing from the control panel on the wall.

“There’s a whole crew of security people, but I’d rather get out of here before anyone comes.”

“You said we weren’t sneaking in.”

“We weren’t.” He didn’t want to look like a dope for getting the code sequence wrong, but the jumble of bunched wires was a puzzle with no solution.

“Look at all the colored wires. Just like a movie where the right one will deactivate a bomb and the wrong one will—”

“It’s not a bomb,” he grumbled.

“Can I pick the color?”

“Why not?”

“Yellow, pull out a yellow.”

“Yellow as in no parking, no passing and crime-scene tape.”

“Good point. So do you want to try the green as in go?”

He caught a green wire snaking through a bunch of other colors and yanked with the tip of the pliers. A shrill alarm sounded on the other side of the door.

“Wrong wire.”

She shrugged with a nonchalance he didn’t feel. He didn’t relish being known as the idiot grandson.

“Try the blue,” she suggested. “We’re locked in with all that racket in the hall. What else can happen?”

“The walls could move in and crush us.”

“Like Poe’s ‘Pit and the Pendulum.’ You remember that story,” she said enthusiastically.

He’d never read it, but then, he hadn’t had Tess as a tutor that year. She’d read Macbeth aloud, scene by endless scene, then made him admit some of it was exciting.

He ripped out the blue wire. Nothing happened as far as he could tell. The door was still bolted shut.

“Cole, does it seem a little chilly in here?”

She hugged her arms across her chest.

“Yeah, it does.”

She wasn’t exaggerating. He looked around but couldn’t find a thermostat to regulate the air-conditioning.

“Maybe when you pulled the blue wire…” she said, her lips turning blue.

The whole lab was one bizarre booby trap, he realized. Marsh had gone from designing clever toys in his early days to this diabolical trap. Cole tossed the pliers on the counter. No way was he pulling another wire. The red one would probably turn the floor into a giant griddle.

“Wonder if the wiper thing works as a hand warmer,” he mused.

Tess was shivering too much to answer. The vents were sending out Arctic blasts, making a mockery of energy conservation.

“The SWAT team should be on their way. Until then, we’d better share body heat,” he said.

He stepped behind her and wrapped his arms around her. The heat generated between her back and his chest was nothing compared to the inferno where her bottom snuggled against his lap.

“I’m warm now.” She tried to squirm away.

“I’m not.”

“Well, too bad! You got us into this.”

“You wanted to preview the new line.”

“Not if it meant being freeze-dried!”

“My grandfather likes to tinker.”

“Your grandfather should be committed!”

Her teeth chattered like a pair of windup joke teeth, and he could feel a shiver ripple down her spine.

The door flew open with a bang, and they both whirled around, arms half raised in anticipation of some really tough cops.

“That’s a pretty harsh judgment, young lady.”

“Grandfather.” Cole forgot about calling him Marsh.

“I’m glad you’re taking an interest in the business, Cole.”

Marsh Bailey radiated intimidation from his razor-sharp features and cold blue eyes to the immaculate press of his silvery gray Italian suit. He was the only person Cole knew who’d never owned a pair of jeans. The man didn’t even loosen his tie on the rare occasions when he watched a public affairs program on TV. Cole instinctively put his arm around Tess’s shoulders, surprised at how square and rigid they felt.

“This isn’t a very nice way to treat one of your best customers, Mr. Bailey. The Baby Mart, which I own and operate, sold thirty-two of your inflatable play tents for Christmas last year.”

“Thirty-two. I’m impressed. That’s more than the Toy Warehouse in any of their north side stores. But that doesn’t explain why you and my grandson set off the security system. If I hadn’t been checking the surveillance screen for reception problems, you’d be looking down the barrels of some high-power firearms.”

“The timing to enter the code the second time is off.” His grandfather always made Cole feel belligerent.

“I can vouch for that,” Tess said. “I saw Cole set his watch.”

“Then it seems I owe you an apology, Miss…”

“Tess Morgan.”

Marsh never apologized. He believed the rich didn’t have to be sorry for anything. Cole had braced himself for a verbal flogging, and the old man was making nice with Tess.

“Now that you’ve seen the new line, Miss Morgan, what do you think of it?”

“The lime-green high chair won’t sell. The design is wonderful, but the color will clash with almost everyone’s kitchen. The portable potty is a stroke of genius, though.”

Marsh ran his finger over the pencil-thin mustache he’d worn for as long as Cole could remember. His iron-gray hair was clipped to within a quarter inch of his skull. It was more than coincidence that both Cole and Zack wore their thick hair semilong and their faces clean-shaven when beards would have been more convenient.

“The potty is one of my designs.” The old man actually puffed up. “The high chair also comes in sandy white for the American market.”

Cole took Tess’s hand. He’d had more than enough baby business for one night.

“About the yellow wire,” she said as he pulled her to the corridor.

“Activates the sprinkler system.” Marsh followed them through the doorway. “This has been a very satisfactory test of my new system.”

TESS SPENT the rest of the week thinking about the new Bailey line—the one Cole had handed her, not the baby stuff.

Why ask her to become involved in his love life? Either he’d had too much champagne at the reception or a Bailey built brick wall had bounced on his head. She wished he’d remained nothing but a glossy memory in the yearbook.

Or did she?