Wedding Captives

Spence was so near to her that she could feel his heat

Thea tried another tactic. “Let’s just agree on two things. We won’t squabble. And there will be no unnecessary touching. No kissing. Nothing.”

“Well, that’s hardly fair, Thea, after you spent the gondola ride groping me.”

“I was not groping! I—”

The corner of his mouth lifted in a half smile. “Okay.” He relented. “Call it holding on. I just think I ought to have the chance to return that favor.”

“Don’t…” His blue eyes warmed as he gazed confidently into her face, and she felt herself responding, wanting to smile back at him. “Don’t even think about it, Spence.”

“I’ve got a few conditions of my own,” he said. “Number one—we stay in the present and not dwell on the past. Number two—we both keep our minds open. Number three…” He obliterated the distance between them in a single step. She should have pushed him away, but her arms went around him and she wanted the taste of his lips against hers.

Dear Harlequin Intrigue Reader,

Cupid’s bow is loaded at Harlequin Intrigue with four fabulous stories of breathtaking romantic suspense—starting with the continuation of Cassie Miles’s COLORADO SEARCH AND RESCUE miniseries. In Wedding Captives, lovers reunite on a mountaintop…unfortunately they’re also snowbound with a madman!

And there’s no better month to launch our new modern gothic continuity series MORIAH’S LANDING. Amanda Stevens emerges from the New England fog with Secret Sanctuary, the first of four titles coming out over the next several months. You can expect all of the classic themes you love in these stories, plus more of the contemporary edge you’ve come to expect from our brand of romantic suspense.

You know what can happen In the Blink of an Eye…? Julie Miller does! And you can find out, too, in the next installment of her TAYLOR CLAN series.

Finally, Jean Barrett takes you to New Orleans for some Private Investigations with battling P.I.’s. It’s a regular showdown in the French Quarter—where absolutely anything goes.

So celebrate Valentine’s Day with the most confounding mystery of all…that of the heart.

Deep, rich chocolate wishes,

Denise O’Sullivan

Associate Senior Editor

Harlequin Intrigue

Wedding Captives

Cassie Miles

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Cassie Miles lives in Denver, one of the fastest growing cities in the country, with the traffic jams to prove it. She belongs to the film society and enjoys artsy subtitled cinema almost as much as movies where stuff blows up. Her favorite entertainment is urban, ranging from sports to museum exhibits to coffeehouse espresso. Yet she never loses sight of the Rocky Mountains through the kitchen window.

Books by Cassie Miles

HARLEQUIN INTRIGUE

122—HIDE AND SEEK

150—HANDLE WITH CARE

237—HEARTBREAK HOTEL

269—ARE YOU LONESOME TONIGHT?

285—DON’T BE CRUEL

320—MYSTERIOUS VOWS

332—THE SUSPECT GROOM

363—THE IMPOSTER

381—RULE BREAKER

391—GUARDED MOMENTS

402—A NEW YEAR’S CONVICTION

443—A REAL ANGEL

449—FORGET ME NOT

521—FATHER, LOVER, BODYGUARD

529—THE SAFE HOSTAGE

584—UNDERCOVER PROTECTOR

645—STATE OF EMERGENCY†

649—WEDDING CAPTIVES†

HARLEQUIN AMERICAN ROMANCE

567—BUFFALO MCCLOUD

574—BORROWED TIME

CAST OF CHARACTERS

Thea Sarazin—She comes to the castle as a bridesmaid, never expecting to face her former fiancé, never dreaming she’ll be threatened by the revenge scheme of a madman.

Spence Cannon—His search-and-rescue training might be the difference between life and death for the wedding party and the woman he loves.

Jenny Trevain—The bride’s wedding weekend turns into three days of terror.

Dr. Mona Nance—The psychiatrist knows too many secrets and reveals none of them.

Reverend Joshua Handy—Before he became a man of God, he lived a mysterious life.

Lawrence—The butler carries a handgun and seems to know little about his housekeeping duties.

Travis Trevain—The bride’s younger brother, an Olympic-class freestyle skier, believes he’s the best at everything.

Gregory Rosemont—The reclusive Internet billionaire has never been photographed and has spent his life and fortune preparing the perfect revenge.

For Cheryl McGonigle.

Couldn’t have done it without you.

Contents

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Epilogue

Prologue

Beyond the carved stone entryway to Castle in the Clouds, the shadows of a winter night bled and puddled along the edges of the snow-packed pathway. Rolling clouds churned across the face of the full moon and obscured the glimmer of starlight. The cloaking darkness suited the purposes of Gregory Rosemont, the owner of this stately manor situated on a high crest surrounded by glacial Colorado peaks. He was not ready to reveal himself. His flashlight beam hardly penetrated the tapestry of icy haze, yet he strode with confidence. He knew every inch of this rugged mountaintop, every stone, every tree. He had memorized the cliffs and precipices that isolated the castle, making it accessible only by a ten-person ski gondola hung from a tensile steel cable.

His light shone against the walls of the gondola house, constructed from locally quarried granite to match the crenellated ramparts. Tomorrow, the gondola car would make its last ascent. Tomorrow, he would mount his final revenge.

For years, he had arranged this event with compulsive attention to detail. He had amassed a fortune to finance his goal. And now, his plan was perfect, an exacting test for the remorseless specimens of humanity who were to be his guests.

Inside the gondola house, he slipped the backpack from his shoulders, took out his tools and went to work. Ignoring the huge metal cogs and wheels necessary to haul the weight of the car, he concentrated on a precision piece of machinery that would slice through the cable at exactly the right moment to send the gaily painted gondola car plummeting hundreds of feet into the chasm below.

In his vivid imagination, he heard the shattering of the fiberglass car, torn by jagged teeth of stone. Tomorrow, the screams of terror would echo endlessly against the cold, unforgiving mountains. It would be a spectacular crash.

As he adjusted the coils, the spring-loaded severing mechanism squealed, metal against metal. The gloves he wore to ward off the sub-zero chill impeded his efforts, but he was glad for the cold, the promise of snowfall. A January blizzard would hamper any rescue attempt.

His task completed, he allowed himself a smug grin. He’d thought of everything, left nothing to chance.

As he hiked back along the path, moonlight spilled through a break in the clouds, illuminating the turrets and sculpted ramparts of the fanciful medieval-style castle. The only light shone from the high window of the bridal suite above.

Chapter One

In the fading mid-afternoon sunlight, Thea Sarazin trudged uphill toward the small stone house where a ski gondola would transport her across an impossibly wide chasm to the Castle in the Clouds.

In addition to her small suitcase, she carried a garment bag containing a floor-length gown. After this weekend, she’d add this brocaded creation in sunrise orange—a color particularly unsuited to Thea’s olive complexion, hazel eyes and dark brown hair—to the other three godawful bridesmaid dresses that hung, swathed in dry cleaner’s plastic, in the back of her closet.

Though she’d sworn never again to be part of a wedding party, she couldn’t refuse when asked by Jenny Trevain, her co-worker at Lloyd Middle School in Denver. Not only was Jenny a good friend but the wedding meant spending a weekend at this fabled mansion where she would finally meet Jenny’s reclusive fiancé, Gregory Rosemont.

The whole event was simply too fanciful and romantic for Thea to resist, especially since Jenny was also thirty-four, and had likewise resigned herself to the odds against ever finding true love. And then, seemingly out of nowhere, Jenny had been swept into every woman’s fantasy romance, a whirlwind courtship by a rich and mysterious captain of industry.

Rosemont was…okay, an eccentric multi-millionaire who had earned his fortune with one of the first online shopping Web sites. Just for this weekend of fancy, Thea preferred to think of it all as exciting and exotic. Jenny’s love affair rekindled the hopes and dreams of every almost-a-spinster like Thea. She sighed.

A dream come true. Thea knew better. She was sure she knew better. But an engagement ring from Tiffany’s! Marriage to the modern-day equivalent of a prince. The guy owned a castle, for goodness’ sake!

On the other hand, Gregory Rosemont also had the reputation of a genuine twenty-four-carat recluse. There were no existing photographs of him. Not even Jenny had one. He never gave interviews. He ruled his business from afar, keeping in touch through the highest of high-tech computer innovations. Privacy was a big deal to this man who chose to live on a mountaintop which could only be reached by a mile-long ride on a ski gondola. No doubt his communications with the outer world required satellites…or something. Computer technology wasn’t her forte.

The extreme cold bit at Thea’s nose. Around her, in the below-freezing chill of the clean, crisp mountain air, rose mountains as old as time. If she hadn’t just driven the wickedly iced-over access road several miles from an interstate highway, she could believe she’d crossed over into some frozen other-world, never to be seen or heard from again.

Where was Jenny’s car? Where was anyone?

Thea’s feet were freezing, her fingers already numb. She told herself to get a grip and keep going. Maybe the stone house for the gondola was heated. Thea was beginning to worry about the cold, the isolation and—most especially—about dear, sweet, naive Jenny who planned to change her fiancé into a marginally sociable human being after the wedding. Thea couldn’t believe it. Jekyll and Hyde belonged in fiction. Hoping for a metamorphosis on that scale was like hoping to transform Colorado’s rugged fourteen-thousand-foot granite peaks into foothills fit for an afternoon hike.

Pretty darned unrealistic.

She’d talked to Jenny, warning her about trying to transform her husband-to-be. Thea had been engaged herself once before and had hoped that her nurturing love would ease an arrogant, ambitious M.D. into a more sensitive human being. Talk about an impossible dream!

But Jenny was in love, and women in love fooled themselves every day. Twice on Sunday.

Why was the parking so dratted far from the only possible destination up here?

As she neared the rough-hewn stone gondola house, Thea noticed the coat of arms, depicting a single blooming rose—probably to represent the rose in Rosemont—two interlocking crowns and four daggers. She thought about what conceit it took for a computer whiz to invent himself a brand-spanking-new coat of arms, then scolded herself. She might get conceited too, if she ever even saw a million dollars.

She should really cut Gregory Rosemont some slack. After all, Jenny loved him. She unlatched the heavy wooden door and pushed it open. No one else was here. And if possible, the stone house was even colder than the outdoors.

Pushing up her parka sleeve, she glanced at her wristwatch. She’d made good time from Denver, considering that she’d driven under ten miles an hour on the scary stretch of snow-packed, winding road without even a guardrail. She’d arrived half an hour early. Still, she’d expected to find someone here to greet her. A butler, perhaps.

She deposited her suitcase and garment bag on the stone benches that lined the dreary granite walls. In one corner was a wood-burning stove, unlit. On the opposite wall were metal lockers and an ornately decorated, old-fashioned combination safe.

The fiberglass gondola car seemed modern enough in spite of giant cog-wheel machinery that, to Thea, smacked of a medieval torture device. She eyed the steel cable from which the gondola car was suspended. Was it strong enough to hold the weight of several people? She was not only not fond of heights, she was a card-carrying acrophobe.

Evil boy cousins had stranded her in the rafters in her Uncle Harry’s barn when Thea was only five, while her brothers had laughed till they hurled—and she’d never, ever gotten over it. She was good at pretending she had—so far as she knew, no one had ever guessed what a chicken she was—but she couldn’t fool herself.

She absolutely expected the gondola ride to be the worst part of her weekend. For Jenny, she would do it.

She left her luggage and went outdoors again, barely making tracks across the crusted, deep-packed snow, angling for the best view of the castle to distract herself from the only possible approach. She hadn’t dared try to get a glimpse of the castle from the road. The driving had consumed her white-knuckled attention.

Above the snowplowed parking area carved out of the surrounding forest, she peered across the deep, wide chasm. Through gathering storm clouds, she saw thick stone towers rising on either end of a large main structure. Gothic battlements strangely complemented the Moorishstyle arched windows and gables from yet another era. The delightfully eclectic, bizarre architecture bespoke a fascinating history. Jenny inevitably went into raptures describing the castle.

Another vehicle finally pulled into the parking lot below the gondola house. From her vantage point, Thea stared curiously at the four-wheel-drive van. The wedding party was supposed to be small, but Jenny had been dropping gleeful hints about some of the other invited guests. Thea even suspected an attempt at matchmaking. She wasn’t really looking for a boyfriend, but a weekend in a castle might be the perfect time and place for a wonderful romantic assignation.

A tryst.

Thea shook her head at herself, careening from pillar to post, dread and certain panic over the gondola to flights of romantic fantasy.

Strangers to her, an attractive couple of about her own age emerged from the van. Then, the rear door slid open, and a third passenger climbed out. A man. A tall, broad-shouldered man.

Spence Cannon.

A shiver gripped her…was it an acute, terrible loneliness? Recognition? Or only the cold?

She hadn’t laid eyes on the man who’d once asked her to marry him in over five years. She clapped her chattering teeth tightly together. He looked good. Fine, really…fine. Annoyingly so, she snapped at herself. His sun-streaked hair fell rakishly across his forehead. From this distance, she couldn’t see his deep-set blue eyes at all, but she knew that his expression would be cool and outrageously condescending. She’d thought, all those eons ago when she still believed she was going to conquer the world herself, that the combination of cool and condescending was sexy, an invitation, a dare.

She’d fooled herself every day she and Spence were together. Twice on Sunday. And that was a conservative estimate.

She turned back toward the Castle and glared. Damn you, Jenny. How could Jenny think Thea ever wanted to see Spence again? Whatever they’d shared, even if she’d called it love, had been cold, dead ashes for a long time, swept under a carpet and ground to infinitesimal dust. Her pride would never allow their relationship to be rekindled, even if her sanity went on holiday.

She tried to tell herself that the memory of their breakup didn’t hurt anymore, but it obviously did. Pain like a bolt of lightning stabbed somewhere near the center of her forehead. Almost blinded, she recoiled, retreating into the shadow of the trees, hiding herself like a scared rabbit.

A momentary urge seized her to leave this desolate mountaintop. To gather up her grotesque bridesmaid dress and run, not walk, back to the safety of her Denver town-house and her two cats.

Coward! She’d been looking forward to this long weekend, and she wouldn’t let Spence ruin it. She could handle him.

She could be strong. She’d done it once. Five years ago, she’d been the one to call off their engagement and return his diamond ring. Very tough, very brave, utterly lonely. She’d sat home alone, night after night, staring at the telephone like one of her boy-smitten middle-schoolers, praying for the boy to call. Futilely waiting on the reconciliation call that never came.

She could be strong.

She peeked out from behind a tree trunk. Damn you, Spence. Why did he have to look so good?

TODAY WOULD BE either the best or the worst day of Spence Cannon’s life. He hated the uncertainty.

“Come on!” his friend Emily called out. “Let’s take a good look at this place.”

Spence really couldn’t have cared less about the so-called castle. His decision to accept Jenny’s wedding invitation was based entirely on the fact that he knew Thea Sarazin would be there. He wanted another chance with her.

“Look at the gondola house! With a coat of arms, no less. That’s fairly pretentious!” Emily charged up the path with the agility of a mountain goat, then she whirled and embraced her new husband, Jordan Shane. “Doesn’t it make you think of knights in shining armor and princesses and jousts?”

“Looks cold,” Jordan said.

“That’s the fun part.” Her voice lowered to a purr. “We’ll share bodily warmth to keep warm.”

Spence joined them. “Give it a rest, Emily. All this newlywed joy is making me hyperglycemic.”

“What’s wrong with you?”

Thea’s car, he thought, glancing back at the only other vehicle in the snowplowed lot. That had to be Thea’s car. He was distracted, all right. He couldn’t explain the combination of excitement and dread he felt about seeing her again. Being with her.

It had been over five years since he’d heard her calm, clear voice. Or reduced calm-and-clear to a throaty cry of pleasure. Or seen her heart-shaped face, or traced its shape with his lips. But he remembered, vividly, the startling depths in her hazel eyes and the silky texture of her chestnut hair falling through his fingers.

So many nights since, he’d wakened with the scent of her musky perfume lingering in the dark around him. In dreams, he knew the indescribable softness of her inner thigh, the sweet fullness of her breasts, the taste of her lush ripe lips. And then, those lips would speak, and she’d tell him she never wanted to see him again. Never.

No compromise.

Not ever.

His friend, Emily, joined him on the path. “You look sad, Spence. Want to talk about it?”

“Thea is the one who broke up with me,” he muttered. “I’m the one who should expect an apology. Right?”

“It depends. Why did she end the relationship?”

He shrugged. “She thought I betrayed her.”

“With another woman?”

“Hell, no. I’d never do anything like that.”

“What was it?” Emily asked. “What did you do?”

“It’s complicated.” He didn’t like talking about relationships, facing the fact that he’d made a mistake and put his career ahead of Thea’s needs. Had he been in the wrong? Possibly. Was he sorry? Definitely. “I want her back.”

He shoved open the door to the gondola house. Would she be inside, waiting for him? Would she forgive him? The interior of the stone house was about as cold and empty as her heart the last time they were together, but there on the stone bench he saw her luggage.

He dropped his overnight bag on the flagstone floor. Nothing about the place boded well, save Thea’s luggage.

Emily and Jordan spilled inside behind him. “Too bad we’re not invited to the wedding. I wonder if we can hitch a ride up to the top, just for a treat,” she said. “I’d love to see the castle.”

“Doubtful.” Her husband Jordan studied the cogs of the gondola machinery. “Gregory Rosemont makes the late Howard Hughes look like a party animal. Even that’s a stretch. Everyone’s heard of Howard Hughes. Rosemont has come out of nowhere.”

“But Jordan, you have something in common,” Emily protested. “He’s a computer guy, like you.”

“All the more reason for him to be secretive,” Jordan said. “Rosemont might think I was here to steal his ideas.”

“Not you, Jordan.”

As she melted into her husband’s arms again, Spence exited the stone house. Of course, he felt glad that Emily and Jordan had found each other and fallen in love. After what they’d been through with Jordan being unjustly accused of murder and on the run, they deserved some happiness. But their bliss underlined his own solitary existence as a general practitioner in the small mountain town of Cascadia, a far less fashionable outpost than nearby Aspen.

After four years, the locals had pretty much given up on finding him a mate. He’d taken on the role of the kindly, bachelor doc who worked weekends with the Cascadia Search-and-Rescue unit. Searching for Thea, only now seeing small footprints in the crusted snow, he looked up toward the top of a snowy ridge. And there he saw her framed in an icy landscape with dark storm clouds rising behind her.

She’d cut her long hair into a straight, chin-length bob. Her burgundy parka matched her boots and gloves. As always, she looked organized and controlled. Only after he’d gotten to know her had Spence discovered the wild woman who lived inside, an impetuous creature who loved laughter and excitement. His body, having a memory of its own, was already responding to the vision of Thea.

Energized, his inhibitions leaking out with each breath he took, he hiked toward her, fully intending to grab hold of her and kiss the frown off her mouth. He was near enough to see a glimmer of vulnerability in her beautiful hazel eyes. She wanted him as much as he wanted her.

And then she spoke. “You look older, Spence.”

His instincts urged him on. Go ahead. Embrace her. Kiss her. “You cut your hair.”

“It’s not the only thing different about me.”

He tried to ignore the warning note in her voice. He wanted to touch her, to trace the line of her chin, to brush his thumb across the surface of her lips. “You’re still beautiful.”

“But older, now. Wiser.”

“Wise enough to forgive?” His hand raised, reaching toward her, needing the contact.

“No.” She clasped his bare hand in her gloved fingers and gave a firm, business-like shake. Quickly, she released and stepped back. “Spence, why did you come here?”