Groom Under Fire
Lisa Childs
I NOW PRONOUNCE YOU…BODYGUARD AND WIFE?When her real groom is kidnapped, Tanya Chesterfield convinces bodyguard and all-time crush Cooper Payne to marry her in order to fulfill the terms of her inheritance and secure a possible ransom. But when there are no demands for money, only attempts made on Tanya's life, Cooper's protective instincts go into overdrive. Nearly losing her makes Cooper realize he never stopped loving her, and their pretense as husband and wife resurrects the passion between them. Cooper has vowed to honor and cherish her, and he is determined to find the truth–even if it means in the end he must let Tanya go.
“Tanya, are you okay?” he asked again.
Her breath shuddered out in a ragged sigh. She must have been holding it, and she murmured, “I think so …”
But he heard the doubt in her voice and eased up so she could roll over and face him. “Were you hit?” he asked. He ran his hands down her sides, checking for wounds. Just for wounds …
But he found soft curves and lean muscles instead. Heat tingled in his hands and in other parts of his body. A few minutes ago he’d thought she was going to kiss him. Their mouths had been only a breath apart, but maybe that was because he’d leaned down—because he’d wanted to kiss her so badly his gut had twisted.
The woman got to him as no one else ever had. And that made her dangerous—almost as dangerous as the shooter.
Groom Under Fire
Lisa Childs
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Bestselling, award-winning author LISA CHILDS writes paranormal and contemporary romance for Mills & Boon. She lives on thirty acres in Michigan with her two daughters, a talkative Siamese and a long-haired Chihuahua who thinks she’s a rottweiler. Lisa loves hearing from readers, who can contact her through her website, www.lisachilds.com (http://www.lisachilds.com), or snail-mail address, PO Box 139, Marne, MI 49435, USA.
To my wonderful groom—Philip Tyson—thanks for an amazing first year of marriage. And to the woman who raised him to be the wonderful man he is, Shirley Tyson—thank you for being such a loving and supportive mother. You are a phenomenal woman, and I am so lucky to have you as a mother-in-law.
Contents
Prologue (#u8b2916ae-3e8e-53e7-a4cb-957110c13660)
Chapter One (#u13c0d8f1-540a-59e3-a73f-acf20bc07d76)
Chapter Two (#u6f8736b1-0885-56c4-91b5-a76272396515)
Chapter Three (#u03597623-e207-5097-b4f7-9b2af4a38a86)
Chapter Four (#u76e08a6b-dd9c-5ed4-b1f2-395df8e62ad9)
Chapter Five (#u47d58dc0-5711-5e8a-a669-c5916f0e8dd2)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eighteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nineteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
Prologue
Their petals dried and brittle and as black as tar, the roses arrived the day after the announcement was printed in the paper. There were a dozen of them in the box, the thorny stems twisted around each other like barbed wire.
Tanya Chesterfield’s finger bled from the one she had been foolish enough to touch. Crimson droplets fell onto the white envelope of the card that had come with the gift.
Her hand trembled as she fumbled to open the envelope. Maybe she should have just tossed it and the flowers into the trash. But she had to see if it was as threatening as the other notes she’d received anytime she had seriously dated anyone the past ten years.
She wasn’t just dating now, though. She was engaged. And it was that engagement announcement that she pulled from the envelope.
The picture of her and her intended groom had been desecrated with a big black X. But that wasn’t all the marker had scratched out on the announcement. The date of the wedding had been changed to date of: DEATH.
Chapter One
“You’re messing with me,” Cooper Payne accused his older brother. He hadn’t been gone so long that he’d forgotten how they all handled any emotional and uncomfortable situation—with humor and teasing.
“I’m giving you an assignment,” Logan said, but he was focused on the papers on his desk as if unwilling to meet Cooper’s stare. “Isn’t that what you wanted?”
After his honorable discharge from the Marines, he had come home to River City, Michigan, in order to join the family business. The business his brother had started: private security protection. Not his mother’s business: weddings.
“I want a real assignment,” Cooper clarified as he paced the small confines of Logan’s dark-paneled office. “Not some trick our mother put you up to.”
“Trick?” Logan asked, his usually deep voice rising with fake innocence. “Why would you think it’s a trick?”
Frustration clutched at his stomach, knotting his guts. “Because Mom’s been trying to get me to go to this damn wedding before I even got on a plane to head back...”
“Home,” Logan finished for him. “You’re home. And Tanya Chesterfield and Stephen Wochholz are your friends. Why wouldn’t you want to attend their wedding?”
Because the thought of Tanya marrying any man—let alone Stephen—made him physically sick. He shook his head. “We were friends in high school,” Cooper reminded his brother and himself. “That was a dozen years ago.”
And as beautiful as Tanya was, it was a miracle that she wasn’t already married with a couple of kids. It wasn’t as if she would have been pining over him. They hadn’t shared more than a couple of kisses in high school before agreeing that they were better as friends just as she and Stephen were. But now she was marrying Stephen...
They made sense, though. More sense than he and Tanya ever would have. She was a damned heiress to billions and he was an ex-marine working for his big brother.
Maybe...
Logan was focused on him now, studying him through narrowed blue eyes. Cooper looked so much like Logan and his twin, with the same blue eyes and black hair, that people had often questioned if they were actually triplets. But Cooper was eighteen months younger than Parker and Logan. And they never let him forget it.
Finally Logan spoke, “Stephen still considers you a friend. He requested you be his best man.”
“How do you know that?” he asked. Before his brother could reply, he answered his own question, “Mom...” As much as he loved her, the woman was infuriating. “She’s obsessed with this damn wedding!”
“Weddings are her business,” Logan replied with pride.
For years their mother had put all her energy and love into her family—taking on the roles of both mother and father after her police-officer husband had been killed in the line of duty fifteen years ago. But when her youngest—and only girl—had gone off to college, she had found a new vocation—saving the church where she and Cooper’s father had been married from demolition and turning it into a wedding venue with her as planner.
“And security is our business,” Cooper said. His brother had promised him a job with Payne Protection the minute his enlistment ended. He had even brought him directly to the office from the airport, but that had been a couple of days ago and he had yet to give him a job. Until tonight...
“That’s why you need to get over to the church,” Logan told him.
“For security? At a wedding?” He snorted his derision.
“Tanya is the granddaughter of a billionaire,” Logan needlessly reminded him.
As if Cooper hadn’t been brutally aware of the differences between her lifestyle and his, her grandfather had pointed out that a fatherless kid like him with no prospects for the future had nothing to offer an heiress like Tanya. Benedict Bradford had wanted a doctor or lawyer for his eldest granddaughter—a man worthy of her. He hadn’t considered a soldier who might not make it through his deployments worthy of Tanya. Neither had Cooper. The old man had been dead for years now, but Benedict Bradford would have approved of Stephen, who had become a corporate attorney.
“Being a billionaire’s granddaughter never put her in danger before,” Cooper said. Or his mother definitely would have told him about it. And if that had been the case, he wouldn’t have waited until his enlistment ended before coming home.
Logan lifted up his cell phone and turned it toward Cooper. “This might say otherwise...”
Coop peered at a dark, indiscernible image on the small screen. “What the hell is that?”
“Black roses,” Logan replied with a shudder of revulsion. “They were delivered to the church today.”
“That doesn’t say danger,” Cooper insisted. “That says mix-up at the florist’s.”
Logan shook his head. “The wedding’s tomorrow, so the real flowers aren’t being delivered until morning.”
Cooper arched an eyebrow now, questioning how his brother was so knowledgeable of wedding policy and procedure.
“It’s Mom,” Logan said. “Of course we help her out from time to time. Like now. You need to get to the church.”
“You just said the wedding’s tomorrow.”
“So that means the rehearsal’s tonight,” Logan said with a snort of disgust at Cooper’s ignorance.
But he’d already been gone—first to boot camp and then a base in Okinawa—when their mother had bought the old church. He had no knowledge of weddings and absolutely no desire to learn about them.
“So if someone wants to stop the wedding from happening,” Logan continued, “they’ll make their move tonight.”
Someone wanted to stop the wedding. But Cooper had no intention of making a move. Nothing had changed since high school. There had been nothing between Tanya and him then but friendship. And there was less than nothing between them now. He hadn’t talked to her in years.
But if she was in danger...
* * *
HER HAND SHOOK as Tanya lifted the zippered garment bag containing her wedding gown toward the hook hanging on the wall of the bride’s dressing room. It wasn’t the weight of the yards of satin and lace that strained her muscles but the weight of the guilt bearing down on her shoulders. I can’t do this! It’s not right...
But neither was her grandfather’s manipulation. Even a decade after his death, the old man hadn’t given up trying to control his family. A couple of decades ago, he had bought off Tanya’s father, so that he had left her mother and her and her sister, forcing them to move in with her grandfather.
That place had been the exact opposite of the bright room in which Tanya stood now. The bride’s dressing room was all white wainscoting and soft pink paint. That house had been cold and dark. She shuddered at just the thought of the mausoleum. But then she smiled as she remembered who had called the drafty mansion that first. Cooper Payne.
He had kissed her there—after he’d pushed her up against one of the pillars of the front porch. That kiss had happened more than a dozen years ago, but her heart beat erratically at the memory. It had never pounded that hard over any other kiss. Her very first kiss...
Maybe that was why it had meant so much. Maybe that was why, even though it had been years since she’d seen him, she thought so often of Cooper Payne. It was probably good that he’d turned down Stephen’s request to be his best man. Good that he wasn’t going to be standing there when she followed through with this charade.
She wouldn’t be able to utter her vows—to lie—with him looking at her. Not that he’d ever been able to tell when she was lying...
He had believed her when she’d agreed with him that the kiss—and the few that had followed it—had been a mistake, that they were only meant to be friends. She had nodded and smiled even while her teenage heart had been breaking.
Maybe it was the memory of that pain that had kept her from ever falling in love again. But then there had also been those threats. Stephen was convinced they were empty. But what if they weren’t?
Should she risk it, as Stephen had advised? Or should she forfeit her inheritance?
She glanced into the antique mirror that stood next to where the garment bag hung, but she quickly turned away from the image of blond hair and haunted green eyes. She couldn’t even look at herself right now. If she followed through with this farce, she would never be able to look at herself again.
She breathed a ragged sigh. She wouldn’t miss the money; it had never been hers anyway. But she’d had plans for it—good plans, charitable plans...
Her grandfather had never practiced any charity—not even at home. Benedict Bradford had really been a mean old miser. So giving away his money would have been the perfect revenge for how he’d treated her mother and her and her sister.
But a wedding shouldn’t be about revenge. Or money. Or even charity. It should be about love. And while Tanya loved her groom, she wasn’t in love with him.
“I—I can’t do this...”
Not the wedding. Not even the damn rehearsal. She crossed the room and jerked open the door to the vestibule and nearly ran into Cooper Payne’s mother. Petite and slender with coppery-red hair and warm brown eyes, Mrs. Payne was exactly the opposite of her tall, dark, muscular sons. Only the youngest—her daughter—looked like her.
“What’s the matter, honey?” the older woman asked as she gripped Tanya’s trembling arms. “Are you all right?”
Tanya shook her head. “No, nothing’s right...”
“I know the rest of the wedding party hasn’t shown up yet, but there’s no rush,” Mrs. Payne assured her, her voice as full of warmth and comfort as her eyes. “Reverend James and I—”
She didn’t care about the rest of the wedding party. “Stephen—is Stephen here?”
Mrs. Payne nodded. “I showed him to the groom’s quarters a while ago, so that he could stow his tux there for tomorrow, like you’ve stowed your dress. Then you’ll have less to worry about for the ceremony.”
There was not going to be a ceremony. But Tanya couldn’t tell anyone that until she’d told Stephen. He’d concocted this crazy scheme in the first place because he was her friend, because he’d always been there for her. But she couldn’t take advantage of that friendship, of him.
“Where are the groom’s quarters?” she asked.
“You need to wait until the others show,” Mrs. Payne said. “So that the rehearsal can proceed just as the ceremony will tomorrow.”
“No, I—I need to talk to Stephen,” she insisted. “Now.” Before the farce went any further.
Mrs. Payne’s brown eyes widened. But after having worked with so many happy couples over the years, she must have realized something was off with them—that Tanya was hardly an ecstatic bride. “The groom’s quarters are behind the altar.”
Tanya crossed the vestibule and opened the heavy oak doors to the church. Since night had already fallen, the stained-glass windows were dark. The only light came from the sconces on the walls, casting shadows from the pews into the aisle. So she didn’t notice that the red velvet runner was tangled. She tripped over it, catching herself before she dropped to her knees. That was weird—usually Mrs. Payne never missed a thing. No detail escaped her attention.
The wedding planner had worked so hard that guilt tugged at Tanya. She hated to disappoint the woman. But she couldn’t go through with a lie.
Stephen would understand that. It wasn’t as if he thought of her as anything other than a friend either, so he wouldn’t be hurt.
The door to the room behind the altar stood ajar. She pushed it open to darkness. “Stephen?”
Had he changed his mind, too? She didn’t blame him, but she doubted that he would have just left without talking to her first. She fumbled along the wall, feeling for the switch, when her fingers smeared across something wet. That wasn’t something Mrs. Payne would have missed either. The chapel was spotless.
Tanya flipped on the switch, bathing the room in light—and discovered it had already been bathed in blood. It was spattered across the floor, the couch and the wall. Panic and fear rose up at the horror, choking her, so that she could barely utter the scream burning her throat.
* * *
COOPER HEARD IT. Even though the scream wasn’t loud, the sheer terror of it pierced his heart. He ran past his mother, who was already halfway down the aisle of the church—and toward the danger. Years had passed since he’d heard it, but he had instinctively recognized Tanya’s voice.
“Stay here,” he ordered his mother as he reached beneath his leather jacket and pulled his weapon from the arm holster.
She pointed behind the altar, to the room from which light spilled. And Tanya. She backed out of the doorway, her hand pressed across her mouth as if to hold in another scream. As he rushed up behind her, she collided with Cooper. Then she pulled her hand away and screamed again.
He spun her around to face him. “It’s okay,” he assured her. “It’s me.”
Her green eyes, damp with tears, widened, and then she clutched at him, pressing against his chest. “Cooper! Thank God it’s you!”
Her slight body trembled in his arms that automatically closed around her, pulling her even closer. She fit perfectly against him. But he was just comforting her, just making sure she was all right.
“What’s wrong?” he asked. “Are you hurt?”
She shook her head, and her silky blond hair brushed against his throat. “No, no...”
He peered over her head into the room, and then he saw it. All the blood...
So much blood.
Despite his order to stay put, his mother joined them. “What’s wrong—” she started to ask but gasped when she saw it, too.
“Call 911,” Cooper said, thrusting his phone at her.
Then he stepped inside the room to look for the body. With that much blood, there had to be a body...
A dead one.
Chapter Two
“There is no body...”
Cooper’s words drifted to Tanya through a thick haze of shock. He wasn’t speaking to her, though; he hadn’t since he’d asked if she was hurt. Of course he had been busy—searching the church and the surrounding grounds as well as talking to his family and the police officers who had arrived to investigate the scene of the crime.
The police had spoken to her. A somber-faced male officer had asked countless questions and not one of them had been if she was okay. Mrs. Payne had shooed off the man a while ago when she’d brought Tanya the cup of tea that was cooling in her hands. What the older woman had told the officer was right—Tanya had no idea what had happened. She’d only turned on the light to find the blood. All that blood...
The smear she’d found on the wall stained her hands. That was why she hadn’t lifted the cup. It was why the heat of the tea would never warm her. She had blood on her hands...
“So we don’t know,” Cooper continued, his dark head bent close to his brother’s, “if we’re looking at a homicide or abduction.”
Was it Logan or Parker to whom he spoke? They were identical twins. Whichever one it was asked, “Why would it be either?”
Cooper shrugged shoulders so broad that they tested the seams of his black leather jacket. Despite the blood and the fear, during that moment she’d clung to him, she’d felt safe—with his arms around her. Just as he hadn’t talked to her, he hadn’t touched her since then either. Maybe that was why she felt so cold that she trembled.
“This is Stephen we’re talking about,” Cooper’s brother persisted. “He was everyone’s friend in high school. Did he change that much?”
“No,” Tanya replied. “He’s still everyone’s friend.” Her best friend. Where was he? And what had happened to him?
“Then maybe this isn’t what it looks like,” the twin replied.
“It looks like a crime scene,” Cooper said. Yellow tape cordoned off the groom’s quarters that police techs had photographed and processed for prints and whatever other evidence they’d found. “There’s a lot of blood. The signs of a struggle. It’s obvious somebody was dragged down the aisle.”
That was why the runner had been bunched. Like the walls of the groom’s quarters, it had also been stained with blood. While she’d been in the bride’s room, someone had attacked her groom and dragged him from the church. How hadn’t she or Mrs. Payne heard any of the struggle?
Tanya had been in the bride’s room, deciding that she did not want to be a bride. Mrs. Payne had been downstairs in her office talking with the reverend. Unable to have a rehearsal without a groom, the minister had left after talking to the police.
“What the hell did you do?” the maid of honor, Tanya’s sister, shouted. She ran down the aisle toward the front of the church where Tanya sat in the pew near where the Payne brothers stood. But Rochelle didn’t make it very far before she tripped over the rumpled runner.
Tanya’s only other bridesmaid, who was also Cooper’s sister, rushed up behind her and helped her to her unsteady feet. “Rochelle, let me get you some more coffee...”
“I don’t need coffee!” Tanya’s little sister shouted, her words only slightly slurred. “I need to know what she did with Stephen!”
“What I did with him?” Tanya asked. She set the teacup on the pew and rose up to meet her sister as Rochelle finally made it down the aisle.
“You don’t care about him at all,” Rochelle accused. “You’ve just been using him to get Grandfather’s money. That’s all you care about!” She vaulted herself at Tanya, knocking her to the ground.
The shock finally wore off—leaving Tanya able to register the pain. She felt the hardness of the floor beneath her back and the weight of her sister, who, despite the fact she was younger, was quite a bit taller and heavier. She could barely breathe with her on top of her. And she felt the sharp sting of her sister’s slap. She had no right to fight back—not when everything Rochelle said was probably true.
But this was not the time or the place for Rochelle to throw one of her temper tantrums. Tanya had been trying to hold herself together for so long that she finally snapped under the emotional and physical pressure. “Grow up, you brat,” she yelled. Using probably more strength than necessary, she shoved her sister back.
Rochelle didn’t stay off. As Tanya stood up, her sister launched herself at her again. But this time strong hands caught Tanya before she hit the ground. With an arm wrapped around her waist, Cooper lifted her nearly off her feet.
The other bridesmaid, Nikki Payne, caught Rochelle, and tried to control her swinging hands and flailing feet. For her efforts, she took a hit to her face.
“Whatever happened to Stephen is your fault,” Rochelle accused. “It’s all your fault!”
Another stinging blow connected, bringing tears to Tanya’s eyes. But the tears weren’t from physical pain. Rochelle’s verbal assault had hit her harder than her slap. Because she was right.
Whatever had happened to Stephen was all Tanya’s fault. She literally had his blood on her hands.
“Aren’t you glad you had brothers?” Cooper asked his sister as she rubbed her fingertips along the scratch on her cheek and winced. Nikki had somehow subdued her friend while Cooper had carried Tanya out of her reach. When Rochelle had been swinging, Tanya had barely defended herself from her younger sister’s attack. Maybe she was in shock over having found Stephen’s blood in the groom’s quarters.
“Yeah,” Nikki agreed. “You guys just punched each other. It was more civilized.”
“We never punched you,” he said.
“No,” she agreed with a heavy sigh, almost as if she was disappointed that they hadn’t. As the youngest and the only girl with three older brothers, she had often been left out of their roughhousing because they hadn’t wanted to hurt her.
Tanya and her sister didn’t have that relationship. Rochelle had definitely wanted to hurt her. How badly, though?
He could understand Rochelle being resentful of her sister. Tanya was far more beautiful—with more delicate features and blonder hair and a thinner figure than her sister. But how deep was that resentment?
“Why’d you bring her here?” Cooper asked. At least he hoped Nikki had been the driver.
“She’s Tanya’s maid of honor,” she replied. “I’ve been looking for her all night to make sure she got to the rehearsal.”
“Mom put you to work, too?”
She sighed. “Enlisted me as part of the wedding party. I think she suspected there’d be a problem with Rochelle, and she and I have known each other since high school.”
“You did subdue her.” So much so that the woman sat quietly in a pew now, tears streaming down her flushed face. She seemed more distraught over the groom’s disappearance than the bride was.
“Please point that out to Logan,” Nikki beseeched him. Their eldest brother was on the other side of the heavy oak doors, talking on his cell phone in the vestibule. She shot him a glare through the windows at the back of the chapel. “He keeps me tied to a desk. He refuses to let me do an actual physical protection assignment.”
Cooper bit his tongue before he verbally agreed with Logan. Nikki was so petite and fragile looking—just like their mother with her copper-colored hair and big brown eyes. But she had handled herself remarkably well with the taller and heavier Chesterfield sister. He touched her scratched cheek, making her wince again.
“Hey, I didn’t want to hurt her,” Nikki explained. “Or I would have taken her down faster. She’s a friend, though...” Then she reached out and squeezed his arm. “I’m sorry about Stephen. Do you have any idea what happened?”
“We don’t know anything for certain. There’s a hell of a lot of blood in the groom’s quarters. But until the crime lab does a DNA test, we don’t even know for certain that it’s his.” Except if it wasn’t, where the hell was he, then? If there wasn’t all that blood, Cooper might have believed his friend had just gotten a case of cold feet. He might have believed that if Stephen was marrying any woman but Tanya.
“Mom confirmed he was the only one in the room,” Nikki said.
“Where was his best man?” Cooper asked.
Nikki lifted a reddish brow. “Where was he?” she asked, obviously referring to him.
“I told him I couldn’t do it,” Cooper reminded his little sister.
“Why not?”
“Why?” Cooper asked. “Why did he even ask me? We haven’t seen each other in years.”
“He showed up at the house to see you every time you were home on leave,” Nikki said. “He stayed in touch.”
But they’d both been busy. The letters few and far between and Cooper’s visits home even more infrequent. He shrugged. “I just thought it was weird that he didn’t have a closer friend he wanted to stand up there with him.”
And weirder that he wanted Cooper. They had been good friends in high school—so good that Stephen must have realized how Cooper had really felt about Tanya. Had he wanted to rub his face in the fact he’d gotten the girl Cooper had wanted? And if so, then they hadn’t really been that good of friends.
But Cooper still cared about him—still wanted him safe—which he probably would have been had Cooper actually been his best man. Then Stephen wouldn’t have been alone in the groom’s quarters.
“There are a couple of guys who were planning on standing up there with him,” Nikki said. “A friend from his office and a cousin, but I recruited them to help me find Rochelle. We’d been searching all the bars in River City.”
“How’d you know that’s where she was?” Maybe Logan was underestimating their sister’s potential as a security expert.
“She left me a drunk voice mail.”
Cooper glanced over at the crying woman and sighed. “So interrogating her would probably be a waste of time until Mom gets more coffee in her.”
“You don’t need to interrogate her,” Tanya said as she rejoined them with an ice pack pressed against the cheek her sister had viciously slapped.
Apparently his mother was prepared for every wedding emergency—even catfights between the bride and maid of honor. What was her plan to handle a missing groom?
“I can tell you whatever Rochelle can,” Tanya said.
But would she be truthful with him? “You’ll tell me why she thinks you’re just using Stephen to get your inheritance?”
Nikki nudged his arm. “Easy. She’s not a suspect.”
Maybe she should have been. As he’d already noted, she wasn’t nearly as upset as a madly in love bride should have been when her groom mysteriously and apparently violently disappeared. When Cooper had quietly, so she wouldn’t overhear him, questioned her reaction earlier, his mother and brother had insisted she was in shock.
But her green eyes were clear now and direct as she replied, “I’m not using Stephen.”
“What about the inheritance? Your grandfather died a decade ago—don’t you already have your money?” But if she did, why pick his mom’s place for her wedding? The chapel was small and the reception hall in the basement was hardly elegant enough for a billionaire bride.
She shook her head.
“Not yet,” another voice chimed in to answer for her. A burly gray-haired man joined them inside the church. With his muscular build and military haircut, he looked more like a cop, but Cooper recognized the lawyer, Arthur Gregory, who’d made countless house calls to the mausoleum. “Neither she nor Rochelle will inherit until they marry.”
If Rochelle was right and her sister was just after her inheritance, wouldn’t she have gotten married ten years ago? Wouldn’t Rochelle have?
“He’s trying to control us even after his death,” Rochelle murmured. “Mean son of a—”
“Miss Chesterfield,” the lawyer admonished her. “Your grandfather had only your best interests at heart.”
“He had no heart,” Rochelle retorted. “The only reason he wanted us married was because he didn’t think a female had enough brains to handle the kind of money he was leaving to us.” She uttered a derisive snort. “Like our father did such a great job. He blew through all that money Grandfather gave him to divorce Mom and take off.”
Cooper had never known what had happened to Tanya’s father. She had always avoided talking about him. He’d been sensitive to that since he’d never wanted to talk about how he had lost his dad either.
“Mr. Gregory, is there a way around the will?” Tanya asked the lawyer.
Her sister gasped. “We don’t even know what’s happened to Stephen and all you care about is the money?”
“I care about him,” Tanya said. “That’s why I need the money. In case this is a kidnapping, I’ll need it to pay the ransom to get him back.”
Arthur Gregory sighed. “There is no way to inherit that money unless you’re married, Miss Chesterfield. And as you know, you only have a few more days...”
Tanya flinched as if the lawyer had slapped her, too.
“Why only a few more days?” Cooper asked.
“If she doesn’t marry before she turns thirty, she forfeits her half of the inheritance,” Rochelle replied. “Then I’ll get it all when I marry.”
The young woman must have been too drunk yet to realize that she’d just announced her motive for getting rid of her sister’s groom. But if she was behind Stephen’s disappearance, why was she so distraught over it?
“I need that money,” Tanya repeated, “in case there’s a ransom demand...”
If Stephen was alive...
But if he wasn’t, why wouldn’t his body have been left in the room? Someone had taken him for a reason. And what better reason than money?
“The only way you can access your funds is to marry,” the lawyer insisted.
“Then she’ll have to marry,” Cooper’s mother said as she joined them inside the church. She carried a tray with cups on it—probably filled with coffee, judging by the rich aroma wafting from the tray.
Rochelle seemed to have already sobered up. But Cooper was tempted to reach for a cup. He suspected it was going to be a long night.
“But if Stephen’s been kidnapped, we won’t get him back until I’ve paid for his return,” Tanya pointed out.
“So you’ll marry someone else,” the wedding planner matter-of-factly replied as if it were easy to exchange one groom for another.
“Who?” Cooper asked.
His mother turned to him, her eyes wide with surprise that he hadn’t already figured it out. “You, of course.”
Cooper had had no intention of attending this wedding, let alone participating in it. He hadn’t wanted to be the best man...and he sure as hell wasn’t going to be the groom.
Chapter Three
Tanya’s heart stung with rejection. She hadn’t had to hear his words to know that Cooper had no intention of becoming her husband—for any reason. When his mother had suggested it, he had looked more horrified than he had when he’d seen the blood in the groom’s quarters.
But she could hear his words now. He didn’t know that, though. His family had gone into the bride’s room for a private discussion. Tanya hadn’t intended to invade their privacy, but she’d left her purse in that room along with her dress. And she really wanted to leave.
She couldn’t stay here any longer—not with that crime scene tape draped across the entrance to the groom’s quarters. Not with Stephen’s blood on her hands...
And not with Cooper’s words ringing in her ears.
“There is no way in hell that I am marrying Tanya Chesterfield!”
“Cooper!” his mother admonished him as if he were a little boy who’d cussed in church.
“Mom!” he retorted. “You’ve been pushing me to attend this wedding since you first talked to Tanya about planning it—either as a guest or the best man. You are not pushing me to the altar as her groom.”
She could have opened the door; it was the bride’s room, after all. But she was no longer going to be a bride. Her groom was missing and the only other man she would want to take his place had flat-out refused. Not that she really wanted Cooper as her groom or anything else...
She turned away from the door. Instead of revealing that she’d been eavesdropping, she would leave her purse and just walk home. Her apartment was on the third floor of a home in the same area of town as Mrs. Payne’s Little White Wedding Chapel, so it wasn’t far. And her landlord on the ground floor had a spare key to her place.
But as soon as she stepped outside the heavy oak doors, the night air chilled her blood and she shivered. Stephen was out here somewhere. With whoever had hurt him.
Why hurt Stephen? Why not just hurt her as the threats she’d been receiving for the past ten years had promised?
As she descended the steep stairs to the sidewalk, she shivered again and wished she would have agreed to ride along with Nikki and Rochelle. But she hadn’t wanted to be in the same room—let alone the same car—with her sister. Since Rochelle was six years younger than she was, they had never been particularly close, but they had gotten along well enough. Until Tanya had become officially engaged...
She should have asked someone else to be her maid of honor. But she’d thought that maybe including Rochelle would bring her around, would bring them closer.
Instead, they were more at odds than they had ever been. At least the cold air felt good on Tanya’s still-stinging cheek. She lifted her face to the breeze and let it caress her skin. Maybe walking home wouldn’t be so bad after all.
It was dark. But streetlamps, the ones not covered with overhanging branches, illuminated the sidewalk. Despite the light, she tripped over a crack and remembered the velvet runner. Stephen had been dragged down the aisle so that he couldn’t become her groom.
Cooper Payne would have to be dragged down the aisle in order to become her groom. It wasn’t going to happen. She was going to lose her inheritance, but far worse, she was going to lose her friend.
A car drove slowly past her, its windows tinted so she couldn’t see inside it. Whoever the driver was, he or she was traveling well below the speed limit—nearly at the speed with which Tanya was walking. She shivered again—this time with a sense of foreboding instead of from the cold.
And she remembered those threats—all those promises that she would lose her life before she would ever inherit her money. Had Stephen’s disappearance just been a diversion, a way to distract her from protecting herself?
Not only had she left her keys in her purse, but she’d left her cell phone, rape whistle, inhaler, EpiPen and pepper spray, too.
* * *
“COME ON,” COOPER urged his brother. “Tell her it’s a crazy idea.”
But Logan didn’t even glance at their mother. He just continued to stare at him, as if considering.
“It’s crazy,” Coop insisted.
His mother glared at him. “I thought the Marines would teach you some respect.”
“I didn’t call you crazy,” he pointed out. “Just your idea...” It was ridiculous. Tanya had obviously thought it so ridiculous that she hadn’t said a thing, as if she’d gone back into shock. So they’d just left her sitting there in the church—alone—as Stephen had been in that now-blood-spattered room. A frisson of unease trickled down his spine like a drop of ice water.
Tanya had been alone in this room earlier, but she’d been left unharmed. Probably so she could pay the ransom to recover her groom. She would be safe out there—especially as there had been an officer or two hanging around yet to finish processing the crime scene.
“But it’s not crazy,” Logan said. “It’s brilliant.”
“Br-brilliant?” Cooper choked on the word and coughed.
And his mother slapped his shoulder. “Of course it is.” But she seemed surprised, too, that her oldest would agree with her. She had always said that although Logan was a twin, he definitely had a mind of his own.
“Can’t you see that?” Logan asked with concern, as if Cooper was more dim-witted than he’d remembered.
So Cooper mentally stepped back, as he often had had to during his deployments, and he assessed the situation. “Stephen’s missing. Maybe he just got cold feet.” Even as he said it, he doubted his words. The Stephen he’d known had been an honorable guy; he wouldn’t have just run away—especially not from Tanya.
Cooper had been the only man he knew of who had run from her—back when they’d been kids and his new feelings for his friend had overwhelmed him and also because her grandfather had made him see that it would never work out between them. It didn’t matter that the old man was dead now; Benedict Bradford was still right.
“Then why all the blood?” Logan persisted.
Cooper visualized the crime scene that may not have been a crime scene at all. There was a small hammered-copper sink in the room with a mirror above it. He could have been shaving his neck and slipped with the blade, nicking his artery. “Maybe he accidentally hurt himself.”
But there had been no razor or anything else sharp left at the scene...
“If that was the case, he would have gotten help,” Logan pointed out. “Mom and Tanya and even Reverend James were all in the building, too.”
“But we didn’t hear anything,” his mother reminded him.
Desperate to believe that Stephen would return, Cooper persisted in his argument, “Maybe, when you guys didn’t hear him calling, he left and got help somewhere else.”
“His car is still in the lot,” his mother pointed out.
“He could have called a damn cab,” Cooper remarked.
“But then he would have showed up at an E.R. by now,” Logan argued. “Parker and a team of Payne employees are checking every emergency room and med station, and Stephen hasn’t shown up anywhere yet.”
Cooper begrudgingly admitted, “Maybe he has been abducted.”
“Why?” Logan fired the question at him even though the answer was obvious.
Conceding his loss of this argument, he groaned before replying, “For Tanya’s money.”
“Which she can’t access until she’s married,” his mother chimed in again. “She won’t be able to pay the ransom when the demands are made.”
His mother was right. Unfortunately.
But there was another possibility, one he hated to even voice, but he forced out the words, “He could be dead.”
Cooper’s guts tightened with guilt at the horrific thought. If only he’d agreed to be the damn best man, he would have been in that room with him, he could have protected him. Hell, if he hadn’t dragged his feet getting to the church...
As if he’d read his mind, Logan reassuringly gripped his shoulder. “You don’t know that...”
No, he didn’t know if Stephen was dead, but he knew that he could have helped—had he been at the church in time.
“Neither do you,” Cooper said, which probably infuriated Logan since his eldest brother thought he knew everything.
“Then where’s his body?” Logan asked. “Why would his killer take it with him? Why wouldn’t he have just left it in the room?”
Cooper wasn’t the one with the law enforcement background. “You were the cop.” A detective actually and a greatly decorated one, just as their father had been a police officer. “You know it’s harder to press murder charges, let alone convict, without a body.”
“The crime scene techs said that it looked like a lot of blood because of the spray, but there wasn’t enough for someone to have bled to death,” Logan reminded him.
“Yet.” But if he was injured and didn’t get help... “We should be out there looking for him, not wasting our time with this crazy discussion.”
“Parker and his team aren’t just checking hospitals and med centers. They’re looking for him everywhere,” Logan reminded him. “They’ve checked his place, his work—all of his usual hangouts.”
“And they haven’t found him,” Cooper said. “We need to search harder and even then we may not find him alive.” Or at all.
How many people had gone missing to never be seen again? He’d personally known a few—in Afghanistan.
“There’s still time to help him,” his mother insisted. Despite all she’d lost when her husband had died, she still remained an optimist. “But in case there is a ransom demand, Tanya will need her inheritance to pay it.”
“So someone needs to marry her,” Logan said.
His mother patted Cooper’s arm again but more gently this time. “It’s all right,” she said as if he were a child she was reassuring about going to the dentist. “If you don’t want to do it, Parker can.”
Parker, the playboy, marrying Tanya? His gut churned at the thought—it was even crazier than him marrying her. In fact, him marrying her actually made the most sense since they knew each other, since he had actually kissed the bride before. Besides, it was his fault that Stephen had disappeared. If only he’d been in the groom’s quarters before Stephen had been taken...
Rejecting his mother’s suggestion, he shook his head. “I’ll do it.”
His mother clapped her hands together. “Great. I will call a certain judge I know to rush a new marriage certificate, and we’ll proceed with the wedding tomorrow, just as we’d planned.”
He was getting married tomorrow? Panic gripped him, squeezing his chest so tightly that he couldn’t draw a deep breath.
“Maybe someone should tell the bride that,” Logan suggested with a slight grin.
His mother gestured toward a leather purse sitting on the floor beneath a hanging garment bag. “She wouldn’t have left without that, so she must still be here.”
But she wasn’t. As they had for Stephen, they searched the entire church. But they didn’t find her.
Only the blood...
It was dried. It was old. It wasn’t hers.
There was no fresh blood. No signs of a new struggle. No Tanya.
“Where could she have gone?” Cooper asked, and now he was panicking for another reason than getting married tomorrow. He was panicking that he might not be able to get married because the bride had disappeared like the original groom.
“Maybe she decided to walk home,” his mother suggested.
The police officer who had been watching the parking lot in case Stephen returned for his car had mentioned seeing her leave the church.
“You actually think she could walk to the estate?” Cooper asked, shaking his head. “No way.”
The mausoleum was on the other side of the very sprawling city. The distance between the church and the estate was more of a marathon than an evening stroll. But the officer hadn’t seen a cab.
“She lives just a couple of blocks over,” his mother said. “She rents a third-floor apartment.”
“An apartment?” he asked, even more confused. She was a billionaire’s granddaughter and she rented?
“She hasn’t inherited yet,” his mother reminded him, “and on her salary as a social worker, she can’t afford to buy her own house.”
So why hadn’t she married sooner? Why wait until within days of forfeiting her inheritance? Despite having known Tanya for years, he really had no idea who she was. Of course, he had been gone for most of those years.
Now he had no idea where she was...
He grabbed her purse from his mom and opened it up. Her cell phone was inside—along with an inhaler, an EpiPen, a can of pepper spray and a shiny whistle. Given some of the danger social workers confronted, she should have carried a gun, too. He flipped open her wallet to read the address on her driver’s license. The picture distracted him for a minute. Even on the tiny snapshot, she was beautiful—her blond hair shining like gold and her green eyes sparkling as she smiled brightly.
That was what had been so different about her tonight. The fear. The anxiety. She wasn’t the Tanya he remembered because she was a woman now, not a carefree teenager.
“Look at that,” Logan said with a slight grin. “Not even married yet and already carrying her purse.” That was the way their family had always handled strife and loss—with wisecracking.
But Cooper didn’t have time for it now, not with Tanya missing. He was going to follow her route from the church to her apartment and find her—hopefully alive.
“Shut up,” he said. “And keep an eye on Mom.”
She shouldn’t be alone in a building where someone had already been abducted, just as Tanya should have never been left alone. Once he was her husband, Cooper would make damn sure that she stayed safe. But now he wondered if she would even make it to the altar.
* * *
THE CAR WITH the darkly tinted windows circled the block again like a cat stalking a bird. Was the driver waiting for Tanya to step off the sidewalk? She needed to cross the street if she intended to head home.
But if she headed home, wouldn’t she be leading the driver right to her door? But given the threats she’d received through the mail, her stalker already knew where she lived. So if the driver was her stalker, he already knew where she was going.
She needed to turn back to the church. But if the others had left...
Mrs. Payne would have locked up, locking Tanya’s purse and phone inside the bride’s room. But she hadn’t been gone that long, surely someone might have stayed behind.
Cooper?
She wasn’t certain she wanted to see him, knowing how he felt about the thought of becoming her husband for just a few days—until she inherited. Once the money was hers, she could divorce him. Maybe he didn’t know that; maybe she should have explained. But she hadn’t wanted to force him to do something he clearly did not want to do.
They had once been friends. Good friends. Along with Stephen, they had been like the Three Musketeers—studying and hanging out together. But now Cooper acted like a stranger. Had his deployments overseas changed him that much?
Or was she the one who had changed? She used to want to have nothing to do with her grandfather’s money, but then she had nearly married to inherit it. Had gone so far as to plan a wedding to a man she loved but wasn’t in love with...
Tanya shivered at the cold wind and the eerie sensation that someone was hiding in the darkness, watching her. Coming for her. But then it wasn’t just a sensation. It was a certainty.
She blew out a ragged breath as the car circled again, driving even more slowly along the street. As long as she stayed on the sidewalk, maybe she would stay safe. But then the car tires squealed as the driver jerked the steering wheel. Sparks flew from beneath the front bumper as it scraped over concrete as the car jumped the curb and headed right for her.
She screamed, her legs burning as she ran.
But it didn’t matter how fast she ran or how loud she yelled, she couldn’t outrun a motor vehicle. She hadn’t been able to save Stephen, and now she wouldn’t be able to save herself.
Chapter Four
For the second time that night, Tanya’s scream pierced the air and Cooper’s heart. The car’s lights illuminated her. Her eyes were wide and her face pale with terror. He hurried to catch up but she was ahead of him, the car between them.
“Run!” he yelled, urging her to move as the car barreled down on her where she ran across the front yards of a row of houses. As a kid she hadn’t been able to run very far or very fast because her asthma would act up. Hopefully, she’d outgrown that.
Cooper had already drawn his weapon. But if he shot at the driver, the bullet might pass through the windshield and hit Tanya before the front bumper of the car could. So he aimed at the tires and quickly squeezed the trigger.
One back tire popped, deflating fast so that it shredded and slapped against the rim. But despite the flat, the car continued forward—straight toward Tanya.
Still running, Tanya veered between two houses. But the houses weren’t so far apart that the car couldn’t follow her.
Cooper shot out the other back tire and the car swerved, careening across a lawn. It scraped against a tree and proceeded to the street, cutting off another vehicle that blared its horn. Sparks flew from the rims riding the asphalt, but the car didn’t stop. Yet. Eventually it would have to, though, so Cooper figured he might be able to catch up to it on foot.
But he had a greater concern. “Tanya!”
He ran across the yards, stumbling over the deep ruts that the car had torn in the muddy spring lawn. Then he veered between the two houses as she had. Lights flickered on inside those houses, brightening a couple of the dark windows. They must have heard either the car or his yelling. His throat burned from the force of his shouts. “Tanya!”
He nearly stumbled over her where she lay sprawled across the ground. The light from the houses cast only a faint glow into the backyards, so he could barely see her. He holstered his gun and then dropped to his knees beside her. His hands shook as he reached for her.
Despite his efforts to stop it, had the car struck her anyway? Had it run over her once it had knocked her down? He couldn’t tell if she was conscious or not, if she was alive or dead. Her hair had fallen across her face, the strands tangled. He brushed it back as he slid his hand down her throat, checking for a pulse. Thankfully, she started breathing, but laboriously, the breaths rattling in her chest.
Obviously she hadn’t outgrown her asthma and all the running had brought on an attack. She opened her eyes, the light glinting in them.
“Are you okay?” he asked. “Do you need your inhaler?” He’d left it in her purse back at the church, though.
She sucked in a shuddery breath and then choked and gasped.
Cooper wanted to pick her up and cradle her in his arms, but he didn’t dare move her if she was hurt. “Did the car hit you?”
Bracing her palms on the ground, she began pushing herself up. But Cooper caught her shoulders, steadying her. “Don’t move. If you’re hurt—”
“I’m not hurt,” she said as she tried to control her breathing. “I just fell.”
Maybe she’d only been out of breath from running as fast as she’d had to so the car wouldn’t have run her over. “Are you sure?”
“I’m not hurt,” she repeated. “Because of you...” Then she threw her arms around his neck and clung to him as she had when he’d first arrived at the church. “Thank you!”
But Cooper couldn’t accept her gratitude—not with the guilt plaguing him. It wasn’t just guilt that had his heart racing, though. It was fear. And probably her closeness. With every breath he took, he breathed her in; she smelled like flowers and grass. And the grass reminded him that she could have been killed. He grabbed her shoulders and pulled her away from him. “What were you thinking to leave the church on your own?”
She tensed. “I was thinking I wanted to get the hell out of there.”
Was that his fault for not immediately agreeing to his mother’s suggestion that he marry her? Had he hurt her pride?
“Then why didn’t you leave with Nikki when she took your sister home?” he asked.
She uttered a mirthless chuckle. “Do you really think I would have been any safer with my sister?”
“She wouldn’t have tried to run you over with a car,” he pointed out as he helped her to her feet.
She stumbled as if her legs were still shaky. But instead of leaning on him again, she steadied herself. “No,” she agreed, “but she might have tried to shove me out of one.”
He couldn’t argue that, not after the way Rochelle had attacked her in the church.
“Cooper!” Logan called out to him as he ran between the houses and joined them in the backyard. “I couldn’t catch the car.”
He had forgotten that his brother had been right behind him when he’d left the church. His order for Logan to stay with their mom had been overruled—by their mother. She’d reminded them that the police officer was still in the parking lot and even if he wasn’t, she could take care of herself. She was armed, and their father had taught her how to shoot very well.
Logan was huffing and puffing for breath. “I could barely keep up with you.”
When Cooper had heard Tanya scream, he had taken off running. He reached for his cell phone now. “Did you call the police?”
“Called ʼem,” Logan said, which was confirmed with sirens whining in the distance. “Did you get a better look at the car than I did?”
“Long and dark,” Cooper replied. “With the windows too darkly tinted to see inside.”
“What about the plate?”
“There wasn’t one.”
This hadn’t been some drunk driver whose car jumped the curb and veered into a yard. This near-miss hit-and-run had been planned.
Just to scare her or to kill her?
* * *
TANYA HELD HER breath, pressing down the fear that threatened to choke her. She stared up at the dark windows of her apartment, wishing she could see inside, but she stood on the sidewalk three floors below. Light flashed behind the arched window in the peak of the attic where she lived.
Was it the beam of a flashlight or the flash of gunfire? She gasped, and the breath she’d held escaped in a rush of fear.
“You shouldn’t have let him go inside alone,” she admonished his brother. “The driver of that car could be in there, waiting...” For her. And Cooper would step into the trap her stalker might have laid for her.
She should have had one of the police officers who’d taken the report for the near hit-and-run bring her home. They had offered a ride and protection. But the Payne brothers had assured the officers that they would make sure she stayed safe.
How? By putting themselves at risk?
Logan chuckled. “Cooper can handle himself and whoever he might encounter.” His slight grin slipped into a frown that furrowed his brow. “He wouldn’t have survived three deployments in Afghanistan if he couldn’t.”
But how many soldiers had survived war only to come home and die in an auto accident? Or some other freak crime—like a shooting? She kept her gaze trained on those third-floor windows and saw another flash of light.
Reaching out, she clutched Logan’s arm. “I see something! Something’s happening up there!”
Logan’s gaze rose toward the third floor, too. “I don’t see anything...”
But he must have been concerned, too, because he pulled out his cell phone. He pressed a button for what must have been a two-way feature and then he called out, “Cooper?”
Not even a crackle of static emanated from his phone, it remained dead.
She shuddered as the horrible thought occurred to her that Cooper might have been dead, too. She hadn’t heard any shots, but some guns had silencers. She knew that from watching TV. The person who might have been waiting in her apartment could have had one.
She tugged on the sleeve of Logan’s wool overcoat. “You need to go upstairs and check on him!”
“He needs to stay with you,” a deep voice coming out of the darkness corrected her. “Like someone should have stayed with you at the church so you didn’t go running off on your own.”
She hadn’t started running until the car had jumped the curb to chase her down. But she didn’t bother pointing that out since the sharpness of his voice showed he was already angry with her.
And Logan was already asking, “Did you clear the apartment, Cooper?”
“No.”
Logan snorted derisively. “Why not? It doesn’t look that big.”
The studio apartment had formerly been a ballroom, so it was bigger than it looked—with a bathroom tucked into a wide dormer. If the attic space didn’t have issues with being too hot in the summer and too cold in the winter, the rent wouldn’t have been affordable enough for her.
“I cleared it for intruders, but there were other threats,” Cooper explained.
Logan tensed and held up his phone, his fingers ready to press buttons. “What do we need? Bomb squad?”
“If it was a bomb, I would have taken care of it,” he assured his brother. “No, it was literally other threats.” He passed his brother the desecrated engagement announcement.
While Tanya sucked in a breath of indignation that Cooper had gone through her things, his brother released a ragged breath of relief.
But Cooper wasn’t relaxed. His jaw was clenched so tightly that a muscle twitched in his cheek. He was obviously mad as hell, his dark gaze intense as he stared at Tanya.
She glared back at him. He was only supposed to make sure her place was safe. The thought of him going through her boxes and drawers and closets reminded her of all the things he might have found, like her weakness for silk and lace underwear.
“There are more of those,” he told his brother. “Did you know about the threats?”
“No,” Logan replied.
“Now you know,” Cooper said. “Get on it. Check out her ex-boyfriends, her cases at work—”
Logan grinned. “Are you forgetting which one of us is the boss, little brother? I’ve been doing this for a while. I need to talk to the client first to get the names of those ex-boyfriends and difficult cases.”
Cooper shook his head. “I’ll do that.”
If she were actually a client, she would rather talk to Logan. She could be more honest with him because she suspected he would be less judgmental. But she wasn’t actually a client and needed to remind the protective Payne brothers of that. “I haven’t hired—”
Cooper interrupted her as he spoke to his brother. “Tanya and I need to talk.”
As if Logan, too, had forgotten he was the boss, he nodded his agreement. “I need to touch base with Parker...”
Probably to see if he had found Stephen. But if he had, he would have called. Even if he’d found him dead, he would have called. She shuddered now, so forcefully that she couldn’t stop trembling.
“If you completely cleared her place, get her inside,” Logan, as the boss again, ordered. “She’s freezing. Or in shock...”
“Or getting pissed off that she’s being ignored,” Tanya suggested. “Yes,” she continued, ignoring them as they had been ignoring her, “she’s definitely pissed off.”
Logan patted his brother’s shoulder before heading toward his car parked at the curb. “Good luck. You may be the one needing protection now.”
As if Tanya could take out a Marine, no matter how angry she was. And she actually wasn’t as angry as she was scared. For Stephen. For herself. For Cooper...
“I won’t hurt you,” she assured him.
He uttered one of his brother’s derisive snorts as if he didn’t believe her. “Did you tell Stephen that, too?”
Her palm itched to slap him as her sister had slapped her. Her cheek throbbed at just the memory of that blow—or maybe because she’d hit it again when she’d done the nosedive running away from the car. Bristling with anger and with guilt over Stephen’s disappearance, she said nothing as they climbed the stairs to her apartment.
Since he had the keys he’d gotten from her landlord, he unlocked the door and stepped inside first, as if checking again for an intruder. Then he flipped on the lights.
A banker’s box had been knocked over, the contents spilled across the library table that also served as her dining table and desk. She gasped. “Someone was in here?”
He shook his head. “Not that I could tell.”
“You did this?” He must have gone through her things in a hurry. Maybe he hadn’t had time to look through her closet and drawers. She glanced around, but it appeared nothing else had been disturbed. So she focused again on the contents of the box. All those threats...
She had packed them away—hoping to forget them but not foolish enough to throw them all out.
“You haven’t exactly been forthcoming with information,” he bitterly reminded her. “If we’re going to find Stephen, we need to know everything.”
If...
She wasn’t naive. She knew it was very likely that they would never find Stephen...either alive or dead. But she wasn’t ready to face that possibility. She would have preferred Cooper offer assurances and promises. But she knew him better than that. He would never give her what she wanted from him—at least he hadn’t when they were teenagers.
“There isn’t much to tell you,” she said, especially when it came to exes. “I haven’t really dated much.” Because of the threats. And maybe because of him, but she didn’t want him to suspect that she’d hung on to an old crush. “I’ve been too busy with work.”
“How long have you been a social worker?” he asked. “Since you graduated college? You must have handled a lot of cases.”
She sighed as faces jumbled in her mind. “A lot,” she agreed, “but none recently. At least not personally. I became a supervisor four years ago. I delegate now.” Which meant giving too much work to too few employees.
“Now,” he said. “But four years ago there must have been cases you handled that hadn’t gone well.”
She flinched, remembering the losses. The people she hadn’t been able to help. If she had Grandfather’s money, she could do so much more than she was able to do now. “Of course there were cases that went badly. Children I had to remove from neglectful or abusive parents.” She shuddered at the painful memories. “But that was years ago...”
“Some people have a hard time forgiving the person they perceive tore their family apart,” he said with a glance out toward the street. “Mom says Logan has never missed a parole hearing for the man who shot my father. He’s determined to make sure that the guy never gets out of prison—at least not alive.”
“What about you?” she asked. He had never talked about his father’s death before, but back then it had been too recent and probably too painful for a teenage boy to process let alone express.
“What about me?” he asked as if his feelings didn’t matter. “I haven’t been here for any of the parole hearings.” And maybe that was why he thought his feelings didn’t matter—because he had been gone so long. He had left his family.
And her. But they’d only just been friends, high school friends who often drifted apart after graduation. She hadn’t really meant anything to him. But she knew that his family had meant everything to him.
“If you had been here, would you have gone to those hearings?”
He shrugged. “I think it’s best to leave the past in the past.”
She and Stephen were his past.
“But most people don’t feel that way,” he continued. He passed her a legal pad and a pen. “Write down the names of the guys you’ve dated. And write down any cases you remember where someone might be holding a grudge against you.”
“I really can’t,” she protested. “There are privacy laws I have to obey.”
“What about Stephen?”
He was her best friend. And he was missing. If there was any chance of getting him back, her pride and her job could be damned. So she wrote down some names.
“He knew,” she said, finally defending herself from his earlier comment. “Stephen knew about the threats.”
Cooper sucked in a breath. “And he wanted to marry you anyway? He must love you a lot.”
As a friend. But if she told Cooper that, he would think the same thing her sister did—that she was just using Stephen to get her inheritance.
“I love him a lot, too,” she said. But only as a friend.
Cooper’s jaw went rigid again, as if he was clenching it. He nodded. “Stephen’s a good man. And a lawyer. Your grandfather would have approved.”
Probably, but only until she’d given away all his ruthlessly earned money.
“We have to find him,” she said. And she couldn’t rely on an overworked police department. “I really can’t afford Payne Protection—not until I get my inheritance. But I want to hire your family.” They specialized in security, working mainly as bodyguards, but Logan and Parker were both former police officers. And Cooper was...Cooper. The kind of man who stopped a speeding car from barreling over a woman.
Had she even thanked him? She couldn’t remember now; it had all been such a blur of terror and disbelief and then relief.
His brow furrowed with confusion. “We’re already on the job. Why do you think I showed up at the church in the first place?”
She had been so upset over finding the blood in the empty groom’s quarters that she hadn’t given it much thought then. “I don’t know...maybe you had changed your mind about being Stephen’s best man.”
But that wasn’t the case. She already knew that from when she’d eavesdropped outside the bride’s room. He had been pretty clear that he’d wanted no part of his mother’s manipulations. Why had the wedding planner been so intent on getting Cooper to attend the ceremony? It wasn’t as if he would have stood up and protested their union—at least not to claim her as his bride. Definitely not to claim her as his bride...
“I wish I had agreed to be his best man,” Cooper admitted. “Then I would have been there...”
Her heart lurched. “And you could have been hurt, too.” Or worse...
Just as his brother had said while they’d waited for him to make sure her apartment was safe, he reminded her, “I can take care of myself.”
Cooper wouldn’t have gone anywhere willingly. Not that Stephen had. Poor Stephen...
“And I can take care of you, too,” he said. “I’ll keep you safe.”
He had already proven that—when he’d stopped a speeding car.
“That’s why I showed up at the church,” he said. He scooped up some of the shriveled petals that had fallen from the black roses. “Mom took the delivery of these and knew something was wrong.”
“I’m sorry I brought your mother into this,” she said, suspecting that could have been the reason for some of his anger earlier. “I thought those threats were empty. I didn’t believe anyone would actually act on them.” Or she would have never agreed to marry her best friend. “I’ve been getting them for years...”
“How many years?” he asked.
She sighed and replied, “Ten years.”
“Around the time your grandfather died?”
Cooper remembered when Grandfather had died? He had been deployed at the time; he must have had greater concerns on his mind than her loss—such as it had been. Benedict Bradford had never been a very warm or loving man.
“Yes,” she replied. “I didn’t get them all that often—only when I started seriously seeing someone.”
“Someone sure didn’t want you collecting your inheritance,” he mused, staring down at the box of threats.
She sighed again. “They got what they wanted.” And they’d gotten Stephen, too. Would they give him back...without the money?
Her stomach churned with dread and worry that they wouldn’t, that she might never see her dear friend again. And the tears she’d been fighting back for so long rushed up with such force that they burst out. She couldn’t hold back the sobs while tears streamed from her eyes.
Strong arms wrapped around her, pulling her close. And a big hand gently patted her hair. “No, they haven’t gotten what they wanted.”
She shook her head, and his fingers slipped through her hair and skimmed down her neck. A rush of heat stemmed her tears. “There’re only a few days before my thirtieth birthday. I hope we find Stephen before then.” She doubted that they would, though. “But even if we do, I can’t put him at risk again. I can’t marry Stephen.”
“You’re not going to marry Stephen,” he agreed.
Because her groom was missing...
What if he was already dead? Her heart beat heavily with anguish. And more tears trickled out, sliding down her cheeks.
Cooper wiped them away with his thumbs. “You’re going to marry me.”
Her heart rate quickened to a frantic pace. She gazed up at him in disbelief. “What? You didn’t agree to that.”
“I changed my mind,” he said. “I’m going to be your groom. You’re still getting married tomorrow.”
Maybe Rochelle’s slaps had hit her hard enough to addle her brain. She couldn’t understand what he was saying. What he meant...
Maybe it was because he was too close, his arms around her—his heart pounding hard against hers. And he was leaning down, his head so close that she could see tiny black flecks in the bright blue of his eyes. She could see the shadow of his lashes on his cheeks and the stubble that was already darkening his jaw.
She wanted to reach up and run her fingers over that stubble, up his chin to his lips. All these years later she still remembered how they felt—silky but firm. But she didn’t want to just touch his lips; she wanted to kiss them. The urge was so great that she rose on tiptoe.
But before she could close the slight distance between their mouths, she jerked out of his arms. She couldn’t be having these thoughts—these desires for Cooper. She needed air to clear her head, so she moved toward the big arched window that looked out onto the street below. But before she could lift the bottom pane, the glass shattered.
Gunshots echoed.
And she was falling to the ground, pushed down as more gunshots rang out. Pain radiated throughout her body and she wondered if it was already too late.
Would she live to see her wedding day?
Chapter Five
Glass showered down over them, nicking Cooper’s face and the back of his neck. Too bad he still had his military brush cut. Blood trickled from his nape over his throat.
He needed to jump up and return gunfire. But that would mean leaving Tanya unprotected. And he couldn’t do that. Again. He covered her body with his, pressing her into the hardwood floor.
Since the shooter on the street wouldn’t be able to hear them, he leaned his face close to her ear and whispered, “Are you okay?”
She shivered, trembling beneath him. But she didn’t speak. Maybe she was worried that the shooter could hear them.
But the gunfire had stopped. Maybe the assailant was just reloading. Or maybe he had gone.
“Tanya, are you okay?” he asked again.
Her breath shuddered out in a ragged sigh. She must have been holding it, and she murmured, “I think so...”
But he heard the doubt in her voice and eased up so she could roll over and face him. “Were you hit?” he asked. He ran his hands down her sides, checking for wounds. Just for wounds...
But he found soft curves and lean muscles instead. Heat tingled in his hands and in other parts of his body. A few minutes ago, he’d thought she was going to kiss him. Their mouths had been only a breath apart, but maybe that was because he’d leaned down—because he’d wanted to kiss her so badly his gut had clenched.
The woman got to him as no one else ever had. And that made her dangerous—almost as dangerous as the shooter.
She squirmed beneath him. Apparently she was still as ticklish as when they’d been kids. He used to tickle her then—just as an excuse to touch her.
But he’d had a reason to touch her this time. “Are you hurt?” he asked again.
When his hand skimmed over her rib cage, she sucked in a breath. “Just sore,” she murmured, “from my fall.”
She’d fallen twice. Once in the church when her sister had attacked her and again when the car had nearly run her down. Actually, three times since he’d shoved her to the floor—which was unyielding hardwood.
He wasn’t doing the greatest job protecting her. Maybe Logan had been right and he wasn’t ready yet for a field job. But he couldn’t imagine anyone else protecting her. Or marrying her.
She lifted her hand and skimmed her fingers over his throat, making his pulse leap even more wildly. And her eyes widened with shock and horror. “You’re bleeding! You’ve been hit! We need to call an ambulance!”
He brushed away the trickle of blood. “It’s just a scratch from the flying glass.”
He brushed some of those glass fragments from her silky blond hair and his fingertips tingled. He didn’t even notice the bite of the glass. All he noticed was the fresh flowery scent of her and the soft feel of her. She was so close. He only needed to lean down a few inches to close the distance between them and press his lips to hers.
“I’m fine,” he assured her. But he wasn’t. He was tempted to kiss his best friend’s bride while the man was missing. But hell, Cooper was the one who was going to marry her. Tomorrow. He drew in a deep breath to steady his racing pulse. “We should call the police.”
“He’s gone?” she asked hopefully.
He wasn’t certain about that...even though he had heard the squeal of tires as a car sped away.
“We still need to call to report the shooting.” There could be shell casings recovered. Witnesses questioned that might be able to identify the shooter. He reached for his cell phone.
And then he heard the footsteps, the stairs creaking beneath the weight of the person stealthily climbing up to Tanya’s apartment. Maybe the shooter hadn’t sped off in the car with the squealing tires. Maybe he had come upstairs to make sure he’d killed his intended victim.
Cooper drew his weapon from the holster on his belt. He pointed the barrel at the door as he scrambled to his feet and helped up Tanya. He shoved her toward the only other room in the studio apartment. The bathroom.
“Get in the tub,” he ordered her in an urgent whisper. Where he’d been, grenades were routinely tossed in houses. Or machine-gun fire that cut through walls like scissors through paper. “And stay down.”
He didn’t know if she did as he told her because she closed that door. And another opened, slowly, the old hinges creaking in protest. His finger twitched on the trigger as he prepared to pull it, especially as the first thing that entered the apartment was the barrel of a gun.
He waited to get a target before he took his shot. But just as he was about to squeeze the trigger, the intruder stepped from the shadows and revealed himself.
“Damn it, Logan!” he cursed his brother. “I almost shot you!”
Logan holstered his gun and gestured toward the broken window. “Looks like you got a little trigger-happy already.”
Cooper begrudgingly admitted, “I didn’t fire my weapon.” Then he pointed toward the holes in the drywall ceiling. “The shooter was down on the street.”
Which had probably saved Tanya’s life and his, because the trajectory of the bullets had sent them tunneling into the ceiling instead of into their bodies.
Sirens blared and blue and red lights flashed, refracting off all the broken glass. “And now the police are down there,” Logan pointed out with a slight sigh of relief.
Either the landlord or a neighbor must have called them. Cooper hadn’t had the chance to dial yet. He’d been too distracted. Tanya had distracted him.
“Why are you here?” he asked his older brother, who was also now his boss. “You checking up on me?” He couldn’t blame him if he was. His first assignment with Payne Protection and he was already blowing it. First, he’d lost Stephen, and he’d nearly lost Tanya more than once.
“You said you were going to get some information for me,” Logan reminded him. “Tanya’s list of difficult cases and exes.”
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