Metsy Hingle - The Kidnapped Bride

“Aghhh,” Lorelei attempted to scream, and managed to swallow a mouthful of cotton sheet. Then she felt herself being lifted from the floor and flung over a shoulder—a hard, muscular shoulder.

And then suddenly they were moving.

Just as the first notes of the wedding march sounded, Lorelei felt the blast of July heat hit her and realized they had exited the church. This can’t be happening, she thought. It can’t be. Shock turned to anger, and she renewed her attempts to get free.

“Be still,” Jack commanded, smacking her on her rear.

Lorelei gasped and got another mouthful of sheet. Furious, she started to kick her legs, only to have her stomach, which had been churning all day, turn over at the bumpy trip down what was obviously the church steps.

It would serve him right if she got sick all over him. And she’d ruin her wedding dress. Her wedding! She’d just been kidnapped from her wedding. The strains of the church music grew more distant, and Lorelei kicked out again, only to earn another swat to her bottom. Outraged, she was just about to kick again when she felt herself being dumped into the seat of some type of vehicle and strapped in with what had to be a safety harness.

She heard the door slam next to her and another one open on the other side. When the engine started, she renewed her fight through the tangle of sheet and wedding veil. Finally she managed to get her head free. A thick section of fawn-colored hair fell across her right cheekbone and eye—a casualty of her upswept hairdo. Her carefully and expensively styled hairdo. Pushing it away from her face, she glared at Jack. “How dare you!”

He shifted the truck into reverse and executed a swift turn that sent her body sideways and did nothing to ease her stomach.

“What do you think you’re doing?” she demanded, still fighting to get the rest of her body free from the imprisoning sheet.

“I told you,” he said, giving her a wink and that devilish smile again. “I’m stopping you from marrying the wrong man.” Then he shifted and sent the vehicle speeding past the church.

“You’re crazy!”

“Probably.”

Lorelei twisted in her seat, and another curl tumbled into her eyes. She shoved it away in time to see her sister Desiree standing on the church steps, a guilty expression written all over her face.

Jack made a sharp turn, and Lorelei’s wedding veil plopped into her lap. She stared at the crushed tulle trimmed with tiny seed pearls and looked back at the church that was rapidly shrinking from view. What would her parents think? What would Herbert think?

Herbert! Oh, mercy, he and his mother were waiting for her at the church. She swallowed a groan as she thought of the formidable Mrs. Van Owen II and what she would say. The woman would never forgive her if she ruined Herbert’s wedding. “Stop! I demand you stop this instant!”

Jack ignored her.

Lorelei yanked away the rest of the sheet and threw it on the floor. “Jack Storm, either you turn this thing around right now or I’ll...I’ll jump out.”

“I wouldn’t recommend doing that,” he said calmly, pushing his foot down on the accelerator. “You’d end up splattering that pretty face of yours on the road, and I’d just come back and get you anyway.”

Lorelei swallowed past the lump in her throat as she watched the speedometer climb to near eighty. She looked at the smug expression on his face. Refusing to let him intimidate her, she unhooked her seat belt and grabbed the handle of the door. “I mean it, Jack. Stop or I’ll jump out.”

He continued to ignore her. He didn’t think she’d do it, she realized. He thought she didn’t have the guts. Hadn’t he accused her of as much two weeks ago when she’d refused to meet with him? She’d show him. How hard could it be? Stunt people did this all the time for a living. She’d seen them do it countless times on movie sets when she’d been growing up and shuffling from one location to another with her parents. One of the extras whose makeup her mother had done had even shown her how it was done. Tuck and roll. That’s all she had to do. Tuck and roll. Taking a deep breath, Lorelei pushed down on the handle and shoved against the door.

Nothing happened.

She caught Jack’s smirk. More determined than ever, she punched the unlock button and heard another click just as she jerked down on the door handle.

Jack moved his hand from the driver’s-door panel back to the wheel. Flashing her another smile, he said, “These new automatic-lock features are pretty amazing. I’ll have to remember to write the manufacturer and thank them for making it standard equipment.”

Anger escalated to fury, and Lorelei clenched her hands into fists. She wanted to hit him. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. She wasn’t the same reckless girl she’d been ten years ago. She was older, wiser and not given to emotional outbursts. “Jack, I demand you take me back right now.”

“Sorry, beautiful. Can’t do that. If I took you back, you’d marry that stuffed shirt, Herbert.”

“I want to marry Herbert. And he is not a stuffed shirt!”

Jack snorted and continued to cruise down the highway. “Sure. he is. Why else would the guy have been wearing a suit and tie in the middle of the week in this heat?” he asked, reminding her of their encounter two weeks ago.

“At least he owns a suit and tie,” Lorelei countered.

Jack shrugged, obviously unfazed by the barb. “And the fellow’s got sissy hands. I swear when he shook hands with me they were as soft as a baby’s bottom. I bet he even has them manicured.”

“I happen to like the way Herbert dresses and I like his hands.”

“Hey, if it turns you on, I’ll get a suit and tie,” he said. “But that’s where I draw the line. No way am I going to let anybody slap sweet-smelling creams on my hands.”

Lorelei looked at Jack’s hands gripping the steering wheel. Large and strong, with a long white scar that sliced through the bronzed skin on his right hand. There was nothing soft or nice about Jack Storm’s hands. There never had been. His were a man’s hands—roughened and callused by hard work and physical labor. Yet she knew just how gentle those hands could be. How carefully they could unearth a delicate seashell buried in wet sand. How tenderly those fingers could be when caressing a woman’s body.

Flushing at the unbidden memory, Lorelei dragged her thoughts back to the present “Oh, this is a ridiculous discussion. I don’t give a hoot what you wear or what you do to your hands. Turn this thing around immediately and take me back to my wedding.”

“Sorry, beautiful. That’s something I’m not willing to do.”

“Why not?” she demanded.

He looked at her then, and for once there was no laughter in those deep blue eyes. He was deadly serious—a rarity for Jack Storm. “Because, sweetheart, you promised a long time ago to marry me, and I’ve decided to hold you to that promise.”

He’d shocked her. Jack knew it from the expression on her face, from the way she opened her mouth to say something, only to clamp it shut again without murmuring a word.

“You can’t be serious,” she finally managed to say.

“I assure you, I am.” Despite the conviction in his voice, he hadn’t been at all sure he could pull this off. Hell, he still wasn’t sure he could pull it off. But his instinct—that same gut feeling that had saved his skin on treasure hunts more times than he cared to count—had told him he had to try. Because the moment he’d seen her again, he’d realized she was what had been missing in his life. Of all the treasures he’d discovered and lost through the years, she was the only one he’d regretted losing.

“That was ages ago. We were just kids.”