The Stolen Bride Read online

  “Marriage is a big step, but I thought you really liked him,” Bea said. “He made a great impression on my husband and me.” Chet had taken them all out for a French dinner.

  “I do like him,” Erin said. “I just don’t love him.” And if I don’t love him by now, I never will.

  She realized she’d been hoping all along that she was falling in love. Life would be so simple if she could marry Chet.

  Her mother would approve, and they might grow close again. And Erin liked Chet’s goal of stimulating the economy by shrinking government and encouraging private investment. She’d always wanted to make a difference in the world and with him, she could.

  Why had she believed that was enough reason to get married? By now, she ought to know her own mind and have her own purpose in life. Although she’d made a start by working for Conrad Promotions, it wasn’t enough.

  “You’re the only one who can make that decision,” Bea told her. “I’m sure you’ve given it a lot of thought.”

  “Not nearly enough, or I’d have realized this sooner,” Erin answered. “Maybe I should call and save him the drive.” Sundown Valley was fifty miles away.

  “This is the kind of news he deserves to hear in person,” cautioned her boss.

  Erin sighed. “You’re right. Well, you’d better go make sure Kiki’s okay.”

  Bea gathered her possessions. “See you Monday. And thanks again!”

  “Sure thing.”

  Erin headed for her car. She hoped tomorrow’s confrontation wasn’t going to be awkward. She knew Chet better than to believe he would accept her refusal without trying to change her mind.

  As she ducked beneath the ropes that separated the fair from the parking area, she noticed how quickly twilight was settling in. And how empty the parking lot loomed, isolated in the midst of a huge office park.

  To one side, Erin heard a motor spring to life. In her preoccupation with Chet, she’d forgotten the van.

  She was disturbed to see it pull away from the building and move slowly toward her. There was nothing between them save a few planters filled with ficus trees and aromatic, flowering bushes.

  Erin clutched the cash box tighter. She wondered if she should make a run for it or if she was just being paranoid.

  She was quite a ways from her car, which sat forlornly near the rim of the lot. Her legs, weary from a day of standing, protested when she lengthened her stride and the heavy cash box weighed her down.

  Surely she was imagining the threat. Yet although there were people not far away—the workmen taking down the rides, a few vendors disassembling their booths—no one paid attention to Erin.

  The van speeded up.

  Erin reversed course back toward the fair. The van swung toward her.

  She hadn’t imagined the threat.

  “Hey!” she shouted toward the workmen, trying to make herself heard over the racket of their equipment. No one looked up.

  A few thousand dollars wasn’t worth getting killed for. At least, she hoped the driver was a thief and not some crazed stalker. Although it infuriated her, Erin set the cash box on the pavement and forced her stiff legs into a trot.

  The van veered to follow her.

  The driver either hadn’t noticed that the receipts were sitting on the blacktop or he didn’t want them. Disbelief mingled with panic. This couldn’t be happening. It was too bizarre. And terrifying.

  Erin ducked past the ropes into the carnival area and broke into a run. But with the booths gone, the blacktop here was also nearly bare.

  The van tore through the ropes.

  Erin put on a burst of speed despite aching lungs. This felt like a nightmare, the kind where she was doomed to fall off a cliff no matter how hard she tried to flee.

  She wasn’t going to give in easily. If the driver grabbed her, she’d fight and scream for all she was worth. But she prayed it wouldn’t come to that.

  The ficus sprouting from a nearby planter was too slim to offer protection. There was no time to make a cell phone call, no time to do anything but try to cross a span of pavement that seemed to stretch into infinity.

  Even now, none of the workmen had noticed her. The whole incident, which loomed so large in her mind, had to have transpired in a minute or two.

  Winded, she turned to face the van. Maybe this was some kind of sick game. Maybe the driver just wanted to scare her.

  Glare on the windshield obscured his face. Erin stumbled backward and, at a different angle, the glass cleared.

  She saw who it was. And couldn’t believe it.

  This was no random assault. It was no robbery, either.

  The van shot forward. In a burst of desperation, Erin leaped aside, too late. The bumper caught her hip with an agonizing whack.

  She flew into the air and through a planter, helpless to stop her flight. Time slowed as branches tore at her arms. The perfume of crushed jasmine blossoms filled her senses.

  As if from very far away, she heard one of the workmen shout. Finally, they’d spotted her.

  She had to survive. She had to tell someone what she’d seen. The danger was enormous, not only for her but also for her mother.

  Erin’s shoulder hit the ground and a thousand stars exploded. Then there was only darkness.

  Chapter Two

  “You’re the most beautiful bride I ever saw!” Tina Norris, Erin’s maid of honor, gushed as they studied themselves in the full-length mirror.

  “Thanks. And you look gorgeous in that shade of green,” Erin responded.

  “I guess we’re just a pair of femmes fatales.” Her friend grinned.

  Erin had to admit that her mother’s ivory heirloom wedding gown fit her five-foot-five-inch figure to perfection. Above the scooped neck glittered a diamond choker, and a matching tiara sparkled in her chestnut hair, which was folded into a French twist. Except for the pallor of her skin, the image was smashingly bridelike and yet it seemed to her that it belonged to a stranger.

  A buzzing filled her head and the bridal dressing room at the Sundown Valley Country Club began to spin. With the ceremony less than an hour away, Erin didn’t want to get sick.

  In the six weeks since the accident, her memory had been a complete blank about that day. She’d also been plagued by confusion, anxieties and nightmares, which the doctor attributed to post-traumatic stress.

  Erin pressed her temple. The dizziness ebbed.

  “Do you want to sit down?” Tina asked. “You don’t look well.”

  “It’s not bad,” she said. “Just nerves.”

  She wished the wedding could have waited until she was stronger, but by next month Chet would be caught up in the full swing of his congressional campaign. Even now, he only had time for a short honeymoon in Lake Tahoe. Erin knew she ought to be excited at the prospect of being alone with her groom, since she’d saved her virginity for her wedding night, but in the past few weeks it had become difficult to summon any emotions at all.

  According to Chet, she’d been bubbling with enthusiasm when she called him to accept his proposal. Since her head injury later that day, however, she’d experienced what the doctor called emotional flattening. With her inner compass out of whack, she’d relied on family and friends to guide her.

  Thank goodness Chet had proved a rock-steady source of support. No wonder she’d been so eager to marry him, Erin thought. She didn’t doubt that the happy emotions would come flooding back in time and, meanwhile, it would be a relief to move forward with their lives.

  She was grateful, too, for Tina, her best friend from high school. Tina, now a junior high school life-skills teacher, had come to see Erin after she was transferred to the local hospital. She’d continued to visit during the past month while Erin recuperated at her mother’s home.

  No one from Tustin had visited or accepted the wedding invitation. Erin had been particularly disappointed when Alice reported that Bea had declined.

  Tina broke into her reverie. “How’s your leg? Think you can make it
down the aisle without limping?”

  Between her badly bruised hip and the head injury, Erin had been mostly housebound until now. “Probably. If Chet doesn’t step on my feet.”

  “I’m sure he’ll be careful. If he isn’t, I’ll pound him into dust.”

  “Spoken like a true friend!”

  A loud knock startled both women. “Not the photographer again!” Erin didn’t think she could summon one more artificial smile.

  “It’s probably Chet.” He planned to walk Erin down the aisle, since her mother was recovering from yet another bout of bronchitis.

  She’d declined to let her stepfather fulfill that function. Although Lance had been pleasant this past month, Erin couldn’t bring herself to like him. She hadn’t entirely lost touch with her emotions after all, she supposed.

  Tina peeked outside. Before Erin could see who was there, her friend stepped into the hall and shut the door behind her.

  It had to be Tina’s boyfriend, Rick, a detective sergeant who braved her father’s disapproval to date her. One might expect more sympathy from a chief of police who’d risen through the ranks, but Edgar Norris had always been a bit of a snob. Now that he’d joined the country club, he preferred that his children move in elite social circles.

  Fortunately, Tina didn’t share her father’s preoccupation with social status. Erin hoped he would come around eventually, because she liked Rick.

  Her friend hurried back. “There’s a detective here to see you. Can you talk to him?”

  “You mean Rick?” she asked.

  “No. Someone with a few questions about your accident.”

  “Now?” Erin could hardly believe the timing, less than an hour before the ceremony. Besides, she’d told the Tustin Police Department everything she remembered—which was a big fat zero. “They drove all this way on a Saturday to talk to me?”

  “It’s someone local.” Tina cleared her throat. “Erin, it’s Joseph.”

  Joseph. It couldn’t be him. She knew he’d joined the police force and that he was friends with Rick, but she hadn’t expected to meet him. Not unprepared like this. Not in her wedding dress.

  Once, she’d been closer to him than to anyone in the world. Then he’d broken her heart, or maybe she’d broken his. Most likely both.

  “My accident was in Tustin,” she heard herself say. “That’s a different jurisdiction.”

  “I know.” Tina picked up her bouquet and fingered the ivory, blue and green flowers. “Joseph investigated your mom’s accident. He thinks there might be a connection with what happened to you.”

  “How could they be connected?” Alice’s near drowning and Erin’s hit-and-run had occurred four months and fifty miles apart.

  “I’d better let him explain it. He promised it won’t take long.” Tina sounded torn.

  “I can’t see him.”

  “He said he tried to talk to you before, but Lance objected and my father ordered him to back off. He seems to think it’s important.”

  The boy she’d adored when she was fifteen was standing right outside in the hallway. Joseph might not belong at her wedding to Chet, but he was already here. How could she send him away? But how could she see him when she already felt so shaky?

  The woman Erin had been until six weeks ago could have handled the situation with quiet self-possession. Now, she didn’t trust her own reactions. During the past month, she’d found herself doubting everyone around her and getting upset for no reason. How could she maintain her poise with Joseph?

  She remembered something that had slipped her mind. At the hospital, she’d learned that, when admitted, she’d been wearing the broken-heart pendant he’d given her in high school.

  She wished she knew why she’d put that on, apparently right after calling Chet to accept his proposal. It didn’t make sense.

  A lot of things didn’t make sense, she acknowledged with a start. She didn’t know why her friends in Tustin had abandoned her. Also, at her mother’s house, she’d imagined that conversations stopped abruptly when she entered a room. That the phone rang and was answered in hushed tones so that she couldn’t understand.

  In high school, Joseph had been the one she’d turned to with her thoughts. Maybe he could help her sort things out now. In any case, she refused to send him away without saying hello.

  “All right,” Erin said. “For a minute.”

  “I’ll warn him not to overtire you.” Tina went to the door.

  Not overtire her? That was going to be hard. She just hoped that, after the interview, she could recover her composure in time to walk down the aisle at Chet’s side with an appropriate smile on her face.

  Tina ushered in a man. When his eyes met Erin’s, emotions pricked and stung like blood flooding through a sleeping limb.

  The gray vagueness she’d known since the accident lifted. This was Joseph, her Joseph. She’d missed him terribly, even if she’d refused to acknowledge it.

  The years had broadened his shoulders and given him an air of authority, but if she buried her nose in his chest, she knew how he would smell. If she smiled up at him, she knew how his face would glow with warmth. Or perhaps she was imagining it.

  His dark blue eyes riveted Erin with their intensity. He hadn’t forgotten anything that had passed between them, she was sure of it, yet she saw no sign of tenderness or welcome. This muscular man wearing a navy sports jacket and tan pants had changed in ways she couldn’t even imagine.

  Joseph glanced toward Tina. “This will only take a few minutes.” It was a polite dismissal.

  With an apologetic shrug, the bridesmaid left the two of them alone.

  “Thank you for seeing me.” Remaining where he stood halfway across the room from her, he took out a notepad. “I need to run over a few details with you.”

  “Your timing leaves something to be desired.” She hoped for a wry smile.

  “I’m afraid I had no choice. I wasn’t allowed to see you sooner.” No smile. No eye contact, either.

  “This is awkward. I’m getting married, you know.” Realizing what she’d blurted, Erin felt spectacularly foolish. As if the fact that she was standing here in her wedding dress didn’t give him a hint! “Is it that urgent?”

  “You nearly got killed recently and so did your mother.” Although Joseph kept his voice level, she noted his tightly coiled tension. “I’d say that’s one heck of a coincidence.” The look he slanted her suited his tone: edgy and challenging.

  “They were accidents,” Erin responded. “I don’t know what else I can tell you.”

  “Were they?”

  “Were they what?”

  “Accidents.” He tapped his pen against the pad and waited.

  “I don’t know.” She gripped the arm of the nearest chair, expecting to get light-headed again. It was the way she’d reacted all month when Chet and Lance and her mother told her things that didn’t match her distorted perceptions.

  They’d said Alice was fine, even though to Erin she seemed gaunt and nervous. They’d said it made sense to go ahead with the wedding even in her befuddled state.

  But her mind stayed clear. This hard-faced policeman wasn’t arguing with her perceptions. Instead, he’d implied that someone had deliberately attacked her and her mother.

  It was the first thing Erin had heard in the past six weeks that made sense. And it scared the wits out of her.

  JOSEPH HAD BEEN prepared to confront a wealthy young woman subtly dismissive of the man she’d once been foolish enough to date. He hadn’t expected to care whether she re spected him, let alone liked him. No one knew better than he did the uselessness of holding on to the past.

  After spending five years among police officers who worked high-stress jobs on rotating shifts, Joseph had seen relationships crumble right and left. People who’d once believed their hearts irretrievably shattered simply picked up the pieces and got over it, and so had he.

  Or so he’d believed. Right now, he wasn’t sure.

  Seeing E
rin took him back to the innocent, hope-filled days of high school before his world fell apart. He wanted to cup her heart-shaped face and to smooth those quizzical eyebrows. He wanted her to melt into his arms and help him find the trusting young man he used to be.

  Yeah, sure, she’d been pining for him all these years. That was why she was marrying Chet Dever, big-shot candidate for Congress and a superslick operator, judging by the way he came across in television interviews. That was why she sported a diamond necklace and crown that probably cost more than a policeman earned in a year. Or ten.

  Still, it bothered Joseph to see her hanging on to a chair for support. What was the darn hurry to get married so soon after a major accident? If he were Chet—well, he’d be in just as big a hurry, he supposed.

  “I apologize for the inconvenience, Miss Marshall,” he said. “Please bear with me and I’ll make this as brief as possible.”

  “My name’s still Erin. And please tell me why you think that van hit me.” Despite the pallor of her complexion, she released her grip on the chair and held herself straight. Her late father would have approved.

  Joseph forced his attention to the task at hand. He’d better make the best of these few minutes because, after Erin became Mrs. Chet Dever, he’d never get a chance to talk to her again unless this whole case blew wide open. By then, it might be too late.

  “I don’t know the motive,” he said. “I don’t even know for sure that a crime’s been committed. Call me naturally suspicious.”

  “The Tustin police called it an accident,” she said.

  “The witnesses said they thought it might have been accidental. The police aren’t so sure.” He’d spoken at length with the investigating officer.

  Her brown eyes widened. “Chet told me he read the report himself.”

  “He probably read the cover sheet.” Joseph knew better than to call a man a liar without hard evidence. “Basically, no one saw the van hit you, only the aftermath, and there are several unexplained issues.”

  “What…” Erin broke off, swaying a little.

  Joseph caught her arm. “You okay?”