Stealing the Groom (3 page)

He grinned, slow and sexy, and Amelia’s breath caught. She was over that silly crush. What was
wrong
with her?

“Impulsiveness is part of your charm. But really, Ame, there are worse things in life than marrying Claire.”

“Much worse,” Amelia agreed, “you could marry her and end up
exactly
like your father.”

Chapter Two

Unwilling to be baited, Chad shot back, “Or worse than ending up like my father, I could end up married to you.”

Amelia gasped. “In your mind, marrying me is worse?” She scowled. “You should be so damn lucky as to marry me.”

Marriage to Amelia?

Hell, no
. Just like his parents, he and Amelia were opposites. His thoughts jumbled as he watched people in a nearby car get out and stretch. His mind distantly registered a couple walking pets in the dog-walking area.

Amelia as his wife.
No way.

A hundred reasons why marrying her would spell disaster flashed rapid-fire through Chad’s mind. They’d both end up in a marriage neither wanted—Amelia because she needed to be free to run away, and him because he wasn’t going to let love destroy him the way it had destroyed his father.

No two people were as opposite as him and Amelia. They practically defined the word “opposite.” Maybe even more than his mom and dad had.

He was a suit and tie kind of guy. Elegant dining at upscale restaurants.

She lived in blue jeans and her favorite T-shirts. She preferred hot dogs and barbecue chips on a picnic blanket.

She was a
just-because
woman. She’d once flown all the way to Michigan in December with her sisters just because she wanted to build a snowman. Had flown to California alone just because she wanted to see the sunset on the West Coast.

As a freelance photographer, she never stayed in one place long. She was always flitting off to various parts of the world to take photographs of locations—the kind that people looked at in coffee table books and dreamed of visiting.

He’d take routine over dreams any day. Dreams would let a man down, but routine never did.

The thought of marrying her, of being involved physically with Amelia, his childhood pal, his teenage confidant, caused his heart to react in a new way.

He shoved it aside.

Claire, no matter how shallow, was the better—
safer
—bet. A business arrangement and nothing more.

So why the hell was he running from his wedding?

He looked at Amelia. “Lucky to marry you? How do you figure? What about love, as you pointed out?” he reminded, trying desperately to gain some sense of normal in the conversation.

Amelia gave him a suspicious look. “We are talking hypothetically, correct?”

At his nod, she continued, “By lucky I meant that starting out as friends, at least we would have more going for us than you and Claire.”

“And the ramifications of a marriage between the two of us?”

“In our hypothetical world, we could stay married long enough for you to get your full shares and take over the company. When the dust settles we go our separate ways.” She shrugged. “I’m surprised you didn’t come to me first instead of agreeing to this sham with Mean Girl Number One. You know I would have helped you.”

He heard the reproof in her tone. “You’re too much of a free spirit, you’ve said so yourself. You couldn’t even stay put for six weeks, let alone six months.”

Not that he would have asked her to marry him even if she weren’t such a free spirit. There were too many variables. Too many things that could go wrong.

What if he fell in love with her? Then she’d leave. Run off the same way she always did. Break his heart. He couldn’t. Too much to risk.

When the silence stretched to the point of becoming uncomfortable, Amelia cleared her throat and said, “We should laugh this off, chalk the groomnapping up to another Amelia-moment-gone-wrong.”

She unbuckled the seat belt and moved to get out of the car.

He closed his fingers gently around her arm to prevent her from leaving. “Hold on a second,” he said as much to himself as to her, fighting a battle with bitterness she couldn’t see.

An image of his father, the man love had broken and driven to find solace in the depths of a bottle, flashed in Chad’s mind.

The drunken rants, the pleading, the crying on the phone, begging for his wife to return.

He’d loved Chad’s mother so desperately that it had destroyed him when she’d left him for another man. He’d spent exorbitant amounts of money trying to win her back. Instead of focusing on Walker Industries, he was consumed with his ex. Made bad business decisions, one right after the other.

And as a result, his father had almost destroyed the company.

After his father drank himself to death, Chad began putting Walker Industries back together slowly, piece by piece, but hadn’t been out of business school very long and running the company had been an adjustment. He felt the burden of trying to protect the jobs of the people who worked for him on his shoulders every day.

Protecting his family’s business was challenging enough. Having to protect his heart, too, might just break him.

Chad had sworn to himself he’d never be like his father. Love would never destroy his life. He wouldn’t allow it.

If he became romantically involved with Amelia and then something went wrong to cause the loss of her friendship, the one thing he couldn’t buy, the one thing he treasured most…

No, he couldn’t risk that happening. She’d always been his safe place to turn when the world knocked him down. With her, he wasn’t Chad Walker, millionaire businessman. He was simply the boy she’d grown up with. If he fell in love with her and she broke his heart, he might never find all the pieces.

Amelia pulled away, rubbing the skin where his hand had been. Her eyes held a touch of anger. “Forget it, Chad. We won’t get married. It was just a foolish what-if moment. I wasn’t serious.”

With those words, Amelia slammed from the car.

Chad shoved the door open and followed her.

Halfway to the wood shelter housing the rest stop concessions, Chad reached Amelia’s side. “Let me finish what I started to say.”

He matched his stride to hers and stopped in front of the soda machine. He took the change she offered and automatically selected a root beer, passing it to her when it dropped from the machine.

He slid more coins in and retrieved a Pepsi for himself.

She wagged the brown can back and forth. “See? This proves my hypothetical point about you not marrying Claire.”

“A can of root beer proves your logic?” She stayed silent.

Chad didn’t know what had gotten into Amelia lately. Usually, whenever she visited their hometown, they’d play a few rounds of basketball, catch a few sports games, laugh, talk, and enjoy each other’s company. They were buds.

Since her arrival this time and learning about his plan to marry Claire, she’d acted nervous and edgy. Bit snappish too. Downright grouchy, come to think of it.

And this whole kidnapping plot was outlandish, even for Amelia.

Maybe she’d been working too hard. Or was exhausted. Other than her sporadic visits home, this was Amelia’s first extended vacation in three years. As her friend, he should see to it she took the time to relax. Maybe a little one-on-one time together would get her back to her old self.

Maybe he could feel like his old self again, too, before he had to return to his wedding arrangement with Claire.

He smiled and nudged Amelia’s arm. “Come on. I agreed to tag along on this adventure and here we are stuck at a rest stop. Let’s go ahead to your destination. We’ll stay up all night talking like old times. What do you say? Does that sound like a plan?”

Chad put air quotations around the word “plan” and Amelia gave a reluctant smile.

Then her smile slowly dissipated. “What about Claire?”

“I need to call her. No matter how much you dislike her, I can’t just ditch the ceremony without any kind of explanation. Hopefully she’ll understand the mix-up and we can try again tomorrow. After all, it’s not like she’s marrying me for love.”

For a long few seconds she didn’t answer, then finally said, “Okay. We’re going to the cabin in the mountains my grandfather just bought. According to Google Maps, it’s a few hours away. If you’re so determined to call Claire, you should go ahead and do it. You can from the limo. I promise I won’t disconnect the call this time.”

She turned away from him, finished off the soda, and tossed the empty can into the trash and walked purposefully away. He caught up with her and slung an arm around her shoulder, drawing her closer to his side. He looked down at her and her lips parted, curving into the beautiful smile she’d always had.

Chad forced himself not to dwell on Amelia’s lips—lips he knew were glazed with a berry-scented gloss. Her sister Abby put some in her Christmas stocking every year.

Berry-scented, kissable lips. Kissable?
What the hell?

Pull it together.

He put some space between them and crumpled his can with one hand, tossing it toward the trash can. It sailed smoothly in. “Nothing but net. So what do you say, Amelia? Shall we continue on? We’ve got nothing but open road and time right now.”

“Now
that
sounds like a plan.”

…

Almost five hours later, Amelia saw Chad rub his eyes and squint through the rain-splattered windshield. The weather had been sunny and hot in Sweet Creek, but in the mountains, they’d faced a torrential rainstorm, slowing their progress. The headlights barely cut a path through the thick darkness. Everywhere they looked, they saw nothing but trees and gravel road with muddy ruts.

It was almost like driving through a waterfall.

Speaking of which, Amelia was sure Chad had dealt with a waterfall of screeching from Claire when he’d called her earlier.

She hadn’t heard the conversation—she’d waited outside at the rest stop while he placed the call—but according to Chad, he’d told Claire there was an emergency, and missing the wedding was unavoidable. Although Amelia knew more had been said given the occasional boom of his voice, she didn’t ask for more detail.

He was with Amelia, after all. Which meant he was not getting married to the Mean Queen. At least for the time being.

The car dropped into a deep rut and Chad cursed under his breath. The limo wasn’t made for this kind of terrain.

Outside, the storm continued to rage and fat raindrops pounded on the roof with a roaring fury. “You call this a little way up the road? We’re now well over the time you said it’d take to get here.” He had raised his voice slightly to be heard above the fierceness of the storm. He grimaced while Amelia eased the car cautiously forward around another line of ruts and parked the limousine at the top of the steep, winding dirt road.

With the engine off, the storm’s roar was even louder.

Chad reached for the tuxedo jacket and thrust his arms into it, then shoved open the car door, stepping out into the dark. His only shelter was the large oak tree she’d parked by.

“I can’t help it if I got lost and went the wrong direction. All the roads became identical once we left the interstate, and that deer jumping out at me didn’t help either. Not to mention the thunderstorm.”

Her hand on the small of her back, Amelia grabbed her purse and climbed from the car with a barely suppressed groan at the stiffness, and quickly assessed the cabin through the pouring rain.

“Romantic Tennessee Hideaway,” Grandpa had called it when he’d told her about it. “Shack” would be closer to the truth. Obviously the seller had exaggerated the cabin, but her grandfather had still fallen in love with its rustic charm.

And it didn’t have a phone. Which was one of the main reasons she’d chosen it.

No phone meant no phone calls. Chad was all hers for the whole night.

She was determined to make him see how bad marrying Claire would be for him.

“I hope there’s food,” Chad said over his shoulder as he dashed up the steps, taking them two at a time. On the small wooden porch, he stomped his feet, kicking the mud off his expensive dress shoes. “I didn’t get a chance to eat this morning and I’m starving.”

Amelia rushed around the front bumper of the car to join him. She wiped the muck from her tennis shoes onto the faded sunflowers on the welcome mat.

Unable to stop her teeth from chattering, she stammered, “Mrs. Foster, the caretaker, said she’d g-g-get here by this morning and stock the pantry for me.” She wiped wet strands of hair away from her eyes and fished the key from her purse.

Chad removed his tuxedo jacket and draped it over Amelia’s shoulders. “Here. This is drier than your shirt.”

“I didn’t realize the temperature at night dropped so much here in the mountains this time of year.”

“It’s May, Ame. The temperature can drop fifteen to twenty degrees depending how far you go into the region.” He tucked the jacket around her and rubbed his hands up and down the sides of her arms briskly. “You said stock the pantry. Just how long did you plan to keep me here?” he asked, impatient as he grabbed the key from her shaking fingers.

He inserted the key into the lock and pushed hard. The sun-faded wood door swung open with a loud, squeaking protest.

Stale air whooshed free to greet them and dust particles swirled in the air.

Amelia sneezed.

“Well, it’s not the Hilton, but at least we’ll be warm and dry.” Chad fumbled along the wall for the light switch.

One bulb from a low-hanging light dimly illuminated the center of the room, keeping the rest of it in shadow.

Amelia forced a cheerful expression to hide her dismay at the small space offered by the one-room cabin and headed straight toward the fireplace. “At least there’s plenty of wood stacked out by the door. Look on the bright side, you loved camping, remember?”

“I haven’t gone camping since I was a kid. I’m not a Boy Scout anymore, Amelia. In case you haven’t noticed,” he muttered.

“It’s just for one night,” she said more to reassure herself than him as she hurried to kneel on the gray stone hearth.

She laid a small pile of kindling in the fireplace and felt along the mantel for matches. As soon as the fire roared to life, she sent Chad a triumphant grin. “I haven’t forgotten my camping skills.”

Brushing her hands together, she stood and looked around at the furnishings. Definitely not up to the opulence Chad enjoyed in his life, but it was nice in a rustic sort of way.