GROOM UNDER FIRE

by Lisa Childs

  Her lover.

  Disappointment tugged at the smile she’d pasted on when she’d stepped inside the reception hall.

  “Now it’s time to cut the cake,” Mrs. Payne announced. “Cooper, get over here.”

  He’d had his head bent close to his brothers’, as they huddled together in one corner of the room. They were all such beautiful men with that black hair and those eyes so bright a blue they glittered, like all those twinkling lights, even from across the room. Cooper’s gaze met hers as he lifted his head.

  And her heart clutched inside her chest, stealing her breath for a moment.

  “No,” she protested her unreciprocated feelings and Mrs. Payne’s suggestion. “You can cut the cake. It’s not like this is a real reception.”

  “Maybe it’s more real than you’re willing to admit,” Mrs. Payne said with a little smile and a twinkle in her brown eyes.

  Had Parker told her what he’d overheard?

  Or had Tanya given herself away with how she couldn’t stop looking at Cooper? But she didn’t see him as he was now, dressed in his sweater and jeans; she saw him as he’d been in bed with her, gloriously naked and aroused. Wanting her…

  Or after his last deployment, would any woman have done?

  Mrs. Payne squeezed her shoulder. “It will all work out, honey.”

  How could she believe that—after how tragically she had lost her husband? She had to know that not all endings were happy.

  Sometimes things just ended. Like her marriage to Cooper was destined to end—in divorce now since they would not be able to get an annulment after what they’d done that afternoon.

  “What will all work out?” Cooper asked as he joined them, his blue eyes narrowed with suspicion.

  Did he suspect, as she had come to suspect, that his mother was playing matchmaker for the two of them?

  Mrs. Payne smiled and patted his cheek. “Don’t worry so much, sweetheart.”

  “Easier said than done with a shooter on the loose…” He glanced in her sister’s direction, too.

  Tanya had never seen Rochelle with a gun. She doubted she would be able to fire one at all, let alone with any accuracy. And the night of the rehearsal, she’d been so drunk that Nikki had driven her home and stayed to make sure she was all right. She wouldn’t have been able to try to run down Tanya with the car or to shoot out the window of her apartment. So, if she was behind the attempts, she was working with someone else.

  Stephen?

  The pain of betrayal struck her with a jolt. She didn’t want to believe he would hurt her or anyone else. But who else could it be?

  Someone from her job wouldn’t have known about her inheritance. She had been very careful that no one had learned she was Benedict Bradford’s granddaughter. So they would have had no reason to try to stop her wedding.

  “You and your brothers will find out who’s done all these horrible things,” Mrs. Payne said to Cooper. “It’s such a shame that the wedding was ruined. You should be in your tux and gown right now.”

  “But we’re not, Mom,” he pointed out. “So there’s no reason to cut the cake or whatever other nonsense you have planned.”

  She gasped and pressed a hand to her heart as if her son had driven the knife she held into it. “Weddings are not nonsense. They are tradition. They are the foundation that needs to be laid for a long and happy marriage.”

  “Mom, you know I’m not the man Tanya was supposed to marry.” And just as she’d said, he added, “This isn’t real.”

  His mother, probably wisely, didn’t share her cryptic comment with her son. Instead, she handed him the knife. “But it needs to look real.” She glanced toward Rochelle, too, who had been joined by the lawyer. “People need to believe this is real…”

  Would that bring Stephen back safely? Or was he the threat?

  Once Cooper’s hand closed around the handle of the knife, Mrs. Payne lifted Tanya’s hand and placed it over his. And she squeezed, as if offering her blessing.

  Her blessing wasn’t what Tanya needed. It was Cooper’s love. But his hand tensed beneath hers, as if he couldn’t bear her touch.

  Now.

  He hadn’t protested when she’d touched him back at the hotel. Or actually, he had protested—because he hadn’t wanted her to rush their lovemaking. He had taken his time with her—kissing and caressing every inch of her.

  Her skin flushed and tingled as she remembered how thoroughly he’d made love to her. He gazed down at her, and that glint in his eyes ignited to a hot spark, as if he was sharing those memories with her.

  Her lips parted, and her breath escaped in a soft gasp. She wanted him to lean down and press his mouth to hers. She wanted his kiss.

  She wanted him.

  His hand tensed beneath hers, as if he felt the heat of her desire. Then he pushed the knife through the bottom layer of cake.

  Desire heated her skin and blood, sending it racing fast and heavy through her veins. Would she ever not want him? Even here, in front of his family and what was left of hers, she couldn’t control her passion for him.

  He turned the blade of the knife to lift the cake. It was red velvet with cream-cheese frosting. She couldn’t wait for a taste. With his fingers he broke off a smaller piece of the slice they’d cut together and held it to her lips. She opened her mouth and took a bite—carefully—so that her tongue managed to flick across his fingers. She preferred his taste to the cake’s.

  His pupils dilated and his nostrils flared as he dragged in a deep breath. “Tanya…”

  She licked her lips slowly, sensually.

  And Cooper groaned.

  But then she realized what she tasted wasn’t his fingers. Or red velvet cake and cream-cheese frosting. It was peanuts. Or peanut oil.

  Didn’t matter which one. Either one was dangerous enough to kill her. She didn’t carry just an inhaler. She carried an EpiPen, too. But it hadn’t been in her purse when Nikki brought it to her.

  Now she knew why. Whoever was after her had not wanted her to have access to it after she was poisoned with peanuts. Her tongue felt thick and dry. And her throat was beginning to swell. She lifted her hands to her neck and gasped for breath.

  Cooper had brought her back to life once. But she couldn’t count on him doing it again. She couldn’t count on anything. That was why she was glad they’d made love. Now she wished she’d told him that she loved him.

  But she couldn’t form the words with her thick tongue and she didn’t have the breath to utter them anyway. Her vision darkened as unconsciousness—or maybe it was death—threatened.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Cooper’s skin tingled from the swipe of Tanya’s hot tongue. His heart pounded in his chest and his body was tense with desire. Then he heard her gasp—faint, as it was. A few moments ago her face had been flushed, her eyes twinkling as she’d teased him.

  Now her face was deathly pale and her eyes were rolling back in her head. He reached out, catching her just as she crumpled, her legs giving way beneath her slight weight. Cursing, he swung her up in his arms.

  “Mom! Did you put peanuts in the cake?” He remembered other kids hating Tanya because they hadn’t been able to have peanut snacks or PB and J sandwiches in school—because of her allergy.

  She had been resented and ostracized for her childhood allergy. Just like the asthma, she must not have outgrown it.

  “Of course I wouldn’t use peanuts,” she replied as she rushed over to them. “I know she’s allergic.”

  Her sister and Stephen would know that, too. He peered around the room, searching for Rochelle. She stood next to Nikki, who had been assigned to keep an eye on her. Of course, Logan had backup for their baby sister. He wouldn’t have trusted her alone.

  “She got peanuts somehow.”

  His mother swiped a finger over the knife and tasted. “Someone must have put peanut oil in the frosting.”

  “Do you have an EpiPen?” he asked hopefully. “Did she give you a spare one of th
ose?”

  She shook her head. “No, I didn’t think she’d need it. I made sure that nothing had peanuts or peanut oil in it.”

  Someone else had made sure that something had peanut oil in it. Tanya’s throat was probably completely closed. He felt the breath leaving her body as it had just a couple of days ago. “Call 911.”

  “Use this,” a female voice said, and Rochelle held out a pen.

  Cooper stared at it, trying to determine if this was another trick of hers. A way to finish off her sister right in front of all of them.

  “Why do you have it?” he asked, wondering if she’d taken it from Tanya’s purse along with the inhaler.

  “I have the same allergy,” she explained. “I can’t have peanuts.”

  Mrs. Payne grasped her shoulders. “I’m so glad you haven’t had a piece of cake.”

  Yeah, that was convenient. And so was Rochelle offering a pen for the sister she despised. He didn’t trust anyone easily, but Rochelle’s attitude and actions had given him plenty of reasons to mistrust her.

  “Take it!” she yelled at him. “She can’t breathe.”

  “Isn’t that what you want?” he asked. “Your sister out of your way?”

  She gasped. “I don’t want her dead!” She pushed the pen into his hand. “Do you?”

  That was the last thing he wanted. If they’d waited for the ambulance for the asthma attack, Tanya would have died. He couldn’t wait now either. So he laid her on the floor. And he injected the pen, right through her jeans, into the outside of her thigh. Years ago she had told him how to do it—in case she needed help. And he had never forgotten.

  Just as he’d never forgotten anything concerning Tanya Chesterfield.

  She gasped again but then she dragged in a deep breath. Her eyes opened and she stared up at all of them. “I’m okay,” she assured them.

  Sirens blared as first responders pulled up outside the church.

  “I don’t need to go to the hospital.”

  “You’re going,” he insisted as he lifted her again to carry her upstairs to the ambulance. He wasn’t entirely convinced that the medication Rochelle offered wouldn’t have some horrible side effect. He had to make sure that Tanya would really be okay.

  Because he didn’t know what he would do if he lost his wife…

  *

  “YOU’RE LUCKY YOU’RE not really married to me,” Tanya told Cooper, whose long, muscular body was awkwardly sprawled in a chair beside her bed. “You’ve already spent enough time in the hospital with me.”

  “Too much,” he readily agreed.

  She blinked against the sting of tears. “I’m sorry. Usually my allergy and my asthma aren’t issues…”

  “But someone’s using your illnesses to try to kill you,” he said. “Someone who knows you well.”

  “It can’t be someone from one of my cases, then,” she said. She’d really wished it was—some bad person holding a grudge against her would be so much easier to accept.

  Cooper sighed. “It actually could be. Or at least that’s what Nikki is trying to convince me.”

  Because Nikki and Rochelle were friends. It was probably harder for Nikki to doubt her friend than it was for Tanya to doubt her sister. Tanya had found it harder to doubt Stephen.

  “Nikki informs me that stalkers are very thorough.” He leaned back in his chair and reached out an arm to open the door.

  “Nik,” he called to the auburn-haired woman who then came into the room. She must have been waiting in the hall. And she hadn’t been alone. Rochelle walked inside with her. But she hesitated near the door, as if uncertain of her welcome.

  Since Cooper was glaring at her, she had reason to feel unwelcome. But at least this time she had come to check on Tanya.

  Last time, she hadn’t seemed to care that her sister had nearly died. That was why Tanya had found it so easy to doubt her…because she had never understood her.

  “You’re really all right?” Nikki anxiously asked.

  Tanya nodded. “I’m more embarrassed that this keeps happening.” It made her feel like a child again—that demons she hadn’t fought since childhood had come back to haunt her and had nearly made her a ghost, as well.

  “It’s not your fault,” Nikki said. “Someone’s after you. I told Cooper that it could be the stalker.”

  “That’s why I called you in here,” he said. “To explain your theory to Tanya.” He stood up. “I need to check in with Parker and Logan.” He stared at his sister. “You got this?”

  Nikki apparently knew he was talking about more than the theory. He was talking about keeping Tanya safe from Rochelle. She nodded her assurance.

  He stepped into the hall without even a glance back at Tanya. Was he sick of her? Sick of all the drama she’d brought to his life?

  “I don’t understand how someone could know so much about me,” she said. Unless that person had been close to her, had grown up with her.

  “Stalkers are relentless,” Nikki said. “I’ve studied them in my psych and criminology classes. A stalker will usually go through their obsession’s trash. Some savvy ones hack into their obsession’s email.”

  She shuddered at the thought of someone invading her privacy—reading her private correspondence, seeing what she ate, drank and used and then discarded.

  “You’d rather think it’s me than a stalker?” Rochelle finally spoke—with her usual hostility.

  “Of course not,” Tanya said, but she felt a twinge of guilt. “Giving Cooper that EpiPen, you saved me.”

  “I had to force that pen on Cooper,” Rochelle said. “He thinks I want you dead.”

  Tanya was sick of not knowing who wanted her dead. So she asked, “Don’t you?”

  Rochelle cursed and shook her head. “You really hate me.”

  “No,” Tanya said. “You’re the one who hates me. And I don’t know why. What did I do?”

  “It’s more like what you didn’t do,” Rochelle replied.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “No. And you never bothered to try. You were just like Mom,” Rochelle accused her.

  “What do you mean?”

  “She was obsessed with Dad no matter how big a louse he was. And you were obsessed with a boy.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Cooper Payne. You were obsessed with him then. You’re obsessed with him now. I saw how you were looking at him back at the party. You wanted to eat him instead of the cake.”

  She couldn’t deny that, and heat rushed to her face with embarrassment.

  “She would have been safer if she had,” Nikki remarked. “Jeez, Rochelle, someone’s trying to kill her. Someone’s trying to kill your sister. Can’t you get over her not paying enough attention to you when you were young?”

  “You were so much younger,” Tanya reminded her.

  Rochelle crossed her arms over her chest and stubbornly held on to her resentment. “Not that much.”

  “Six years.”

  “It is a lot,” Nikki said. “My brothers still treat me like a little kid.”

  “I’m sorry,” Tanya said. “I should have made more time for you.” She should have made her sister feel important since their mother never had; Andrea Chesterfield was nothing like Penny Payne, who had always put her children first, even over her own grief.

  Rochelle shook her head and blinked hard as if fighting back tears. “It’s just not fair, you know…”

  “What’s not?”

  “You’re so beautiful.” Rochelle said it with such bitterness it sounded more like a condemnation than a compliment. “You get all the guys.”

  She only wanted one. “That’s not true.”

  “You had Stephen.” Her breath caught as if she was about the cry. “And now you have Cooper. He’s the one you really want. What did you do to Stephen to get him out of your way?”

  Tanya gasped in shock now. “You think I would hurt Stephen?”

  “Absolutely,” Rochelle said, “because
you’ve never felt about him like you do about Cooper Payne. You probably agreed to marry him to get the money because your birthday was coming up and Cooper wasn’t back. But then when he got back, Stephen conveniently—for you—went missing.”

  Her sister was in love with Stephen. It was so obvious to her now—because of how she loved Cooper.

  “Are you drunk?” Nikki asked her friend.

  “No!” Rochelle snapped at her.

  “Were you drunk when you sent Stephen that email?” Tanya asked.

  Embarrassment flooded Rochelle’s face, turning her skin a bright pink. “Which email?”

  She had obviously sent him more than one.

  Nikki grimaced. She must not have told her friend that her brothers or probably she, since she was the computer expert, had found those emails. And Tanya probably wasn’t supposed to share that information. But she didn’t care. She wanted answers.

  “I’m talking about the email where you beg him to dump me and marry you and you’ll give him all your inheritance,” she replied.

  Tears shimmered in Rochelle’s eyes. “It didn’t work. You took Stephen for granted all these years, but he stayed loyal to you. He stayed true to you.” She blinked back the tears, and anger hardened her gaze. “Too bad you can’t stay the same.”

  “Wh-what do you mean?” Tanya stammered as embarrassment rushed over her now, her face heating with it.

  “It’s obvious you’re sleeping with Cooper,” Rochelle replied.

  And Nikki gasped. She knew the marriage was only supposed to be one of convenience.

  But Tanya’s feelings for her reluctant standin groom were anything but convenient.

  “So I can’t give Stephen all the money anymore,” Rochelle continued. “You’ve consummated your marriage before your birthday, so you’ll be able to claim your half of Grandfather’s money now. Hell, you’ll probably wind up with all of it.”

  Because Stephen was the man Rochelle had wanted to marry, and he was gone.

  “You really don’t know where he is?” she asked.

  “Cooper just stepped into the hall,” Rochelle replied. “Can’t you stand being away from him for more than a couple of minutes?”