GROOM UNDER FIRE

by Lisa Childs

  He hadn’t been missing a whole day yet. There was time. Time to bring him back safely from wherever he’d been taken.

  “If you can’t ask him, I will,” Mr. Gregory offered as he turned for the door.

  Tanya grabbed his briefcase to stop him. “No!”

  The last thing she needed was her grandfather’s lawyer insulting Cooper as her grandfather must have all those years ago. Was that why he’d said they should just be friends? What would he have done if she’d disagreed with him?

  Too many years had passed. The past was the past. She had to accept that she would never know now.

  “You don’t trust him either,” the lawyer remarked. “You think he’s only marrying you for the money. Tanya, it’s not too late. You need to stop this wedding.”

  She shook her head.

  “Take a little time,” he urged her. “Think about it. You’ll realize you can’t marry a man that you can’t trust.”

  It wasn’t Cooper that she wasn’t trusting at the moment. She opened the door for the lawyer to show him out. “I’d prefer to have Logan Payne walk me down the aisle,” she said, dismissing him.

  “I wouldn’t walk you down the aisle to Cooper Payne anyway,” he told her. “Your grandfather would haunt me for certain.”

  Maybe that was who was causing Tanya all her grief—her grandfather’s ghost. She wouldn’t put it past the old man to haunt her, especially if he had any idea what she’d intended to do with her inheritance.

  But first she had to marry to inherit. She drew in a deep breath to brace herself before reaching for the zipper on the garment bag. As she pulled down the tab, bits of lace and satin fell onto the floor like those black petals from the dead roses.

  Someone had hacked the heavy material into small pieces. How much hate did it take for someone to be so vindictive? So malicious?

  Tears stung her eyes and she shuddered in dread.

  The doorknob rattled. Maybe whoever had cut up her dress had returned to do the same to her.

  Chapter Eight

  His exit blocked, Cooper was trapped inside the blood-spattered groom’s quarters. The police had only just released the crime scene that morning. Cooper hoped they’d found something when they’d processed the room that would lead to whoever had taken Stephen. He wanted his friend safe and unharmed. But Stephen wasn’t his only concern…

  “Get the hell out of my way,” he threatened, “or I’ll show you what I learned in the Marines—all the ways I learned how to hurt someone.”

  “You wouldn’t hurt me,” Parker said, but a tiny flicker of doubt passed through his bright blue eyes. “I kept you safe last night.”

  “I saved your life,” Cooper reminded him.

  Parker shook his head. “I was talking about later.” A furrow formed in his brow. “Or was it earlier this morning? I stood watch so you could get some sleep.”

  “You stood watch? On your back?” Cooper chuckled. “You kept me awake with your snoring.”

  “It wasn’t my snoring that kept you awake,” Parker said.

  And he was right. It hadn’t been concern for Tanya’s safety either—he’d trusted that Logan wouldn’t leave her again, that he would definitely make sure she arrived safely at the church. It had been concern for his own sanity—after that kiss—that had kept Cooper from getting any sleep.

  “Wedding jitters kept you awake,” Parker said. He tugged at his bow tie as his neck reddened. “I don’t blame you. This damn thing feels like a noose.”

  “It’s going to feel more like one if you don’t let me pass you,” Cooper threatened.

  Parker chuckled. “I understand wanting to make a break for it, but I promised Mom that I wouldn’t just get you to the church but I’d get you to the altar, too.”

  “I have to go to the bride’s room,” Cooper said.

  Parker shook his head. “You’re not backing out now.”

  “Don’t worry,” Cooper said. “It’s too late for Mom to get your name on the marriage license instead of mine.”

  “It’s too late for you to back out, too,” Parker said, “because if this is about the ransom and she doesn’t get the money…”

  Stephen would be killed. “Has anyone called with a ransom demand?” The last he’d heard nobody had yet, but that had been hours ago…in Tanya’s hotel room right before they’d kissed.

  “According to Logan,” his twin relayed, “no.”

  “This isn’t about ransom,” Cooper said, “but it is about the money.”

  “You think you’ve figured it out,” Parker realized.

  He shrugged since he had no proof. His biggest concern was that his suspicions were correct. And that the bride was alone with the person who wanted her dead.

  Instead of reasoning with Parker, he just shoved him aside and hurried out into the empty church. No guests had arrived yet. Hell, it was his wedding, and he wasn’t even sure who had been invited. Only the wedding party had arrived. Him as the groom and Parker as his best man.

  According to Logan, the bride had arrived safely, too. But had she stayed that way?

  He rushed down the aisle to the vestibule and knocked on the door next to the restrooms. No one responded, so he pounded harder. “Open up!”

  The lock clicked and the door creaked open only a couple of inches. A chocolate-brown eye narrowed and glared at him. “What are you doing here?”

  He lifted a brow and then made a show of glancing down at his tux. “I don’t know. What am I doing here—in a monkey suit?”

  “You’re a monkey?” his sister teased.

  His heart lurched at her laughter. God, he’d missed his family. He’d missed his siblings’ relentless teasing and his mother’s relentless bossing. He had missed someone else, too.

  Her voice called out to his sister. “Nikki, is that Cooper? Has he changed his mind?”

  “He has if he’s as smart as you’ve always said he was,” a bitter voice chimed in. Despite her hysterical outburst the night before, Rochelle had showed up to support her sister. Or sabotage her?

  “You can’t see her,” Nikki told him. “Mom would have a fit over the bad luck you’d have if the groom saw the bride before the wedding.”

  Mom and her damn superstitions…

  He assured her, “I don’t want to see the bride.” Again. He’d already seen her on the morning of their wedding day; he had already kissed the bride.

  “Well, if you’re here about that other thing—” she lowered her voice so only he could hear her “—Stephen’s computer…”

  “Have you made any progress?”

  “I might have if it hadn’t gotten smashed up…”

  He flinched with regret. He needed to know what was on that computer. “Is it beyond repair?”

  “No,” she assured him. “It’s just going to take me a little while longer. And we’re kind of busy at the moment.” She lowered her voice again. “Someone cut up Tanya’s wedding dress.”

  His heart clenched. “Is she all right?”

  “Yeah, Mom fixed it.”

  “The dress?”

  “No, there was no fixing that dress,” she said with a shudder. “It was completely destroyed.”

  And his suspicions increased. Cutting up a dress was an act of incredible jealousy and pettiness.

  “Mom found her another dress.” Nikki uttered a wistful sigh. “Wait until you see her…”

  He stepped forward, but his sister shoved on his chest and pushed him back. “You’re going to have to wait,” she told him. “Mom’s gone above and beyond for this wedding and you’re not going to ruin it. You are not seeing the bride.”

  “I actually want to see the maid of honor.”

  Nikki opened the door a little farther. She wore a dress in some bronze color that complemented her reddish hair. She narrowed her brown eyes and glared at him. “I know what you’re thinking, and you’re wrong.”

  He nodded and acknowledged, “I might be. Let me talk to her.”

  Rochelle pus
hed past her friend and stepped into the vestibule with Cooper. She wore the same bronze dress as his sister but it wasn’t nearly as flattering. Maybe that was because of the resentful look on her face. She hadn’t bothered doing anything with her hair either; it hung in lank strings around her bare shoulders. “Have you come to your senses yet?” she asked.

  “Maybe…” he murmured as he studied her face. Her eyes, a grayer shade of green than Tanya’s, were red-rimmed and swollen as if she’d cried all night. That could just be what she did every time she got drunk. He had met his share of sloppy drunks over the years. Or maybe she had been that upset over Stephen’s disappearance.

  How upset had she been over his engagement to her sister?

  She expelled a shaky breath of relief. “That’s good. You shouldn’t marry my sister.”

  “Why not?” he asked. “Do you want your grandfather’s inheritance all to yourself?”

  She sucked in a breath. “I—I don’t care about his money.”

  “What do you care about?” he asked. “Stephen?”

  Tears shimmered in her eyes and she nodded again. “She didn’t care about him at all.”

  “Then why would she marry him?”

  “For the money, that’s all she cares about,” Rochelle said. “No, that’s not true.”

  “No,” he agreed. Tanya had become a social worker, she wouldn’t have done that if she didn’t care about other people. And she wouldn’t have been promoted to supervisor if she didn’t care enough about her job to be good at it.

  “You,” Rochelle said, her resentment now turning on him. “She always had a crush on you.”

  He would have told her how wrong she was, that Tanya had only wanted to be his friend, but he didn’t want to interrupt Rochelle. The more upset she got, the more she might reveal.

  “So your marrying her is exactly what she wants,” she said, bitterness making her voice sharp and her face ugly. “And Tanya always gets what she wants.”

  And Cooper suspected that Rochelle always wanted what Tanya had.

  “Have you talked to Stephen?” he asked.

  She gasped. “Of course not.”

  “Why ‘of course not’?”

  “He’s missing.”

  “Yes,” he said. “Do you know where he is?”

  She gasped again. “You think I have something to do with his disappearance?”

  “I think you’re jealous that he was going to marry your sister,” he said, and he had no doubt that he was right about that. He just wasn’t sure about the rest of his suspicions. “And jealous women can be quite dangerous…”

  She stepped closer to him, her eyes bright and her nostrils flaring. “You have no idea how dangerous I can be.”

  He was afraid that he might have a pretty accurate idea.

  She stepped back and shook her head. “You know, marry my sister with my blessing. I think the two of you deserve each other.” She stepped back inside the bride’s room and slammed the door behind her.

  “You don’t have Parker’s way with the ladies,” Logan remarked as he joined Cooper in the vestibule.

  “Neither do you.” Which was more ironic since they looked almost exactly alike. Logan wore his hair shorter than Parker’s but not as short as Cooper’s military cut.

  “That’s fine with me,” Logan remarked. “I would rather stay single than do what you’re about to do.” He pointed toward the church. “Parker and the reverend are waiting for you.”

  “Did Mom send you to get me?”

  He shook his head. “No, to get Tanya.”

  “Déjà vu.”

  “I’m walking her down the aisle.”

  She had no one else to do it. Her father had abandoned his family. Her original groom had disappeared. That left only Cooper and his family. He hoped they would be enough to keep her safe.

  His mom stepped out of the church and crooked her finger, beckoning him inside. Unlike his siblings, he didn’t always blindly obey his mother. She hadn’t wanted him to enlist but he had. He had even fought her plan the night before…until he had realized that she was right.

  The best way to keep Tanya safe was to marry her. But who was going to keep him safe? Because the minute he saw her looking both ethereal and sexy in white lace, he realized that he was in the most danger in which he had ever been. He was in danger of falling irrevocably in love with the woman about to become his wife.

  *

  IN HIS BLACK TUXEDO and white pleated shirt, Cooper Payne looked so handsome that he completely stole Tanya’s breath. He wouldn’t have fit in Stephen’s tuxedo. Mrs. Payne must have extra suits available the way she had dresses.

  Actually, she’d had only one extra dress on hand. A very special dress…

  Cooper’s gaze met hers and his eyes widened. Was that because he recognized his mother’s dress?

  Tanya had the moment Mrs. Payne had brought it to her to replace the destroyed dress. She had seen that dress in the wedding portrait that hung over the mantel in the Payne living room. And she had refused to wear it. The woman that Cooper was going to marry for real—for a happily-ever-after not just until we get an annulment—deserved to wear that dress.

  Not Tanya.

  But Mrs. Payne had insisted in that gracious, indomitable manner of hers that tolerated no refusal or argument. And as she’d also pointed out, Tanya had no other options. Unless she wanted to get married in jeans and a sweater, she had to wear Mrs. Payne’s wedding dress.

  Maybe she should have gone with the jeans—then she wouldn’t feel like such a fraud. Actually, she felt like a bride. A real one. Especially with how intently her groom was staring at her.

  The strapless gown was all vintage lace and sparkling beads with a formfitting silhouette. Much more formfitting on Tanya than it had been on the petite bride who’d originally worn it. Mrs. Payne must have worn high heels so that the hem hadn’t dragged on the floor. Tanya had forgone shoes. She felt the runner under her bare feet, the red velvet soft against her skin. Each step brought her closer to the altar.

  To her groom.

  As it had the night before, her heart pounded so loudly that she heard it as well as her blood rushing in her ears. The organ was drowned out. She never heard what Logan said to her as he leaned down and kissed her cheek. Even the first words the minister spoke were lost to her.

  Then Cooper took her hands in both of his and her heart stopped beating entirely for a moment. She felt like that teenage girl she’d once been—the one who’d dreamed every night of Cooper Payne declaring his love for her. But then she reminded herself that all that Cooper had ever declared for her was friendship.

  She would like to believe that he’d only done that because her grandfather had warned him off. But if Cooper really wanted something, like joining the Marines, he hadn’t let anyone scare him off or talk him out of it. Just as he hadn’t let getting shot at—twice—the night before scare him away from marrying her. But he wasn’t marrying her for her.

  He hadn’t really wanted her. Then. Or now.

  He was marrying her for Stephen—for his safe return. If Stephen was safe…

  Was it already too late to save him?

  Tears burned her eyes, blurring her vision even more than the veil that Mrs. Payne had also loaned her. It was a thin, delicate lace through which Tanya had had no problem seeing earlier.

  “Do you take this man to be your husband, Tanya?” the minister prodded her as if he’d asked the question before.

  A couple coughs disrupted the eerie silence of the church. But there weren’t many guests. Even when she was going to marry Stephen, she had insisted on keeping the guest list to a minimum. And now Stephen’s family and friends weren’t present—thanks to the calls Mrs. Payne had made.

  It would have been more than just awkward to marry another man in front of them. They wouldn’t have understood that she was doing this for him—for Stephen.

  Cooper squeezed her hands and nodded as if in encouragement.

  A
nd Tanya found herself opening her mouth and whispering the words, “I do.”

  But was she doing this for Stephen or for herself? Because she was fulfilling that childhood fantasy she’d had of one day marrying Cooper Payne. But in her fantasy, Cooper loved her and wanted to become her husband.

  And as he’d had to with her, the minister had to repeat his question to Cooper, “Do you take this woman to be your wife?”

  She stared up into Cooper’s vivid blue eyes. Like the minister and those few guests, most of which were his family, she waited for his reply. She wouldn’t blame him if he changed his mind—if he refused to marry her.

  She held her breath. And the church grew eerily quiet again.

  Cooper cleared his throat and finally spoke, “I do.”

  For a moment Tanya let herself believe it was real—that Cooper Payne was so in love with her that he wanted to become her husband. That he wanted a happily-ever-after with her—and not just until the annulment.

  Tears of happiness burned her eyes and she furiously blinked as she tried to clear her vision. But the tears kept burning her eyes and the back of her throat.

  She coughed and choked, struggling to breathe. Finally she realized that it wasn’t tears of emotion but smoke that was blurring her vision.

  The church was on fire.

  Tanya knew it couldn’t be an accident, not after everything that had happened last night. It was arson. Someone had purposely set the church on fire. The only question was, had the exits been blocked or would they be able to escape the building before flames engulfed the guests and the groom?

  She would be dead long before the flames claimed her. Tanya’s lungs burned and her airway swelled as she struggled for breath. The asthma that had haunted her childhood flared again, choking her. Usually her asthma only acted up in the spring with seasonal allergies or in the winter if she was unfortunate enough to catch a cold.

  But smoke had always been her biggest trigger. Cigarette smoke and bonfires had brought on embarrassing and life-threatening attacks during her teenage years. Back then, her inhaler had saved her. But she didn’t have it with her now. It was in her purse, which she had left in the bride’s dressing room.