B. J. Daniels

by Secret Weapon Spouse

  Cautiously, he slipped through the opening in the plastic and saw that the bedroom door stood open. He’d made a point of closing it the last time he and Samantha had been here. He gripped the board and flashlight and stepped toward the bedroom.

  At first glance, everything looked the same as he remembered it. But then he’d been so upset about his discovery that his sister was pregnant, he wouldn’t swear to anything. Just the thought of her celebrating it in this room…

  His gaze went to the nightstand beside the bed. The champagne bottle and glasses were gone. His heart began to beat a little faster. He glanced toward the bathroom, expecting to see his reflection in the large mirror just as he had earlier.

  Instead, he saw only fragments of himself—and what was left of the mirror.

  “What the hell?” He reached for the bathroom light. He’d lived in Miami long enough to recognize a bullet in a wall. There were two in this one, most of the mirror shards on the floor.

  He looked around for blood, thankful he didn’t see any. What had happened here last night? And why hadn’t the guard seen—or heard something?

  Because the guard patrolled the entire complex. No doubt whoever had been here had known about the guard and made a point of avoiding him.

  Samantha knew about the guard, Alex reminded himself. So did Preston Wellington III.

  Alex swore and snapped open his cell phone, but as he started to punch in 911, he stopped. The caller had said the wedding planner had been here.

  Someone sure as hell had.

  If he called the police he’d have to tell them what little he knew—which was next to nothing. The police were already investigating the abduction of that other woman—and Caroline’s hit-and-run.

  If he told the police about the call he’d received, they’d question Samantha and probably get nothing. Either way, they wouldn’t tell him what they’d learned—just as they hadn’t about Caroline’s hit-and-run.

  No, he thought, putting his cell phone away and thinking about the interlude in the back of the limo tonight. He wanted a shot at Samantha Peters first. If she was involved in this, he would damn well find out.

  WHEN SAMANTHA REACHED the office, she wasn’t surprised to find Clare working late again, along with several other agents.

  “I was just going to call you,” Clare said. She didn’t look happy. More bad news.

  Well, that was the way the night seemed to be going.

  “I just got the fingerprint analysis results from the champagne bottle and one of the glasses you sent in last night tagged Urgent,” Clare said.

  Samantha held her breath. The fact that Clare had gotten results this quickly meant that Preston Wellington III’s fingerprints were on file. It was looking more and more as if Alex was right—and she was dead wrong about the man. What a surprise.

  “The prints belong to a man named Presley Wells,” Clare said with a lift of one eyebrow. “Preston Wellington III. Presley Wells. You think?”

  Samantha groaned. She felt sick. Alex had been right. The names were too similar for there to be any mistake.

  Still she held out hope, telling herself he could have changed his name for all kinds of reasons. And his prints could be on file because of a job—not because he had a police record. “He have a record?”

  “More than a few problems as a juvenile, but only one arrest as an adult,” Clare said. “A burglary. Served some time in Tennessee.”

  “Tennessee?” Samantha echoed, growing sicker at this news. Alex had been right to worry.

  “Tennessee. That’s where he was born,” Clare said. “I thought you might want an address for his next of kin. His mother is still alive and living outside the town where he was born.”

  Samantha took down the information. She couldn’t keep this from Alex. She was tempted to call him, interrupt whatever he had going on tonight, with the bad news.

  But she feared she would hear a woman’s voice in the background and it would make her feel even worse than she did right now.

  She thanked Clare and went back to her office.

  She’d been wrong about another man. She was batting a thousand.

  Chapter Eleven

  The next morning in her office Samantha tried to keep her thoughts on her work, namely the Holcom-Anders wedding.

  She went through her list of to-dos and even double-checked the weather channel to make sure there would be no surprises.

  The Holcom-Anders wedding was being held on the beach today—one of those huge unpredictable outdoor weddings that drove wedding planners crazy.

  With indoor weddings at least you could control the environment. But beach destination weddings were the big thing this year so most of the Holcom clan had flown in several days before and been up in Orlando doing the Disney thing before the wedding. The Anders part of the family had Miami connections so many of the guests would be driving down to Key Largo today.

  The weatherman promised sunny skies. Satisfied there was nothing more she could do, Samantha gathered her things and went down to the parking garage to meet the rest of the team for the van ride to Key Largo.

  She hadn’t seen or heard from Alex since last night. She’d been disappointed when she’d returned home after working as long as she could only to find no message on her machine. She’d promised herself she wouldn’t let what almost happened in the back of the limo happen again.

  Instead, she would tell Alex what she knew about Preston Wellington III. She regretted not telling him last night before the limo ride. But he’d asked for one night without any bad news. And she had to admit, she’d enjoyed herself immensely.

  Meanwhile she had a wedding to take care of, then she would be flying to Tennessee to find out what she could about Presley Wells.

  She was her usual quiet self as she loaded into the van with the rest of the Miami Confidential team.

  The talk among the group was of everything but weddings—and undercover work. Samantha leaned against a side window and listened, enjoying the fact that today they were all women and could chat about the craziest things.

  Fortunately, the road to Key Largo was open, the traffic not too bad. Samantha breathed a sigh of relief when they arrived and saw that all of the details she’d so meticulously been working on with the rest of the team seemed to be in place.

  This was a part of her job that she loved. Often it rivaled the other part of her job. But surprisingly, she had become a pretty good wedding planner.

  The beach and leased hall for the reception were beehives of activity. Samantha checked in with Nicole O’Shea, Weddings Your Way’s photographer; Jeff Walsh, the shop’s music coordinator; and finally Ethan Whitehawk, the team’s all-around handyman. The three had ridden down together earlier. Ethan had been involved in building an arch on the beach where the actual wedding would take place.

  “The arch is beautiful,” she told him. “I’ve heard nothing but raves.”

  As was his nature, Ethan only smiled as he made some minor changes to the outdoor bandstand.

  Samantha left him and saw that Isabelle, the shop’s spokeswoman, was talking to the mother of the bride as if trying to reassure her. Samantha started over but Isabelle motioned that everything was fine.

  Normally, this many agents didn’t attend the weddings. Most of them worked behind the scenes before the big day and weren’t needed.

  But this was the first wedding since Sonya Botero had been abducted. Rachel had worried that what had happened wasn’t an isolated incident. That instead, another bride-to-be from Weddings Your Way might be in danger, so the whole team had come.

  Samantha opened her notebook and began to check off items to be attended to. Alex Graham was hardly in her thoughts as she did what she did so well: tended to details.

  The team disappeared during the wedding, all breathing a collective sigh of relief that there had been no problems. The weather had held, all the guests had arrived and the ring bearer hadn’t lost the rings. All small miracles.

  And
maybe a larger miracle. The bride-to-be had made it through her vows without any problems—including another abduction or hit-and-run.

  Samantha had already made sure the reception hall was ready, fully decorated, the wedding cake in its place with the small plastic bride and groom snugly on top.

  She started to retreat as the guests filed in. Behind them she caught a glimpse of the turquoise water and sunlight. She had only a moment to appreciate it before someone stepped into her line of vision.

  “I wondered if you would be here,” the man said.

  He’d taken her by surprise. “Mr. Graham.”

  “Brian,” he said, seeing her moment’s hesitation. “Obviously I didn’t make as big an impression on you as my brother.”

  There was an edge to his tone.

  “I didn’t realize we were on a first-name basis,” she said.

  “Even after I lent you my limo last night? I was surprised to see the two of you on what certainly appeared to be a date.”

  She ignored the last part. “Thank you for the use of your car. That was very generous of you,” she said, hoping to get away from him as quickly as possible. Clearly he was curious about her relationship with Alex.

  Brian resembled his brother only slightly. Unlike Alex, Brian didn’t look particularly fit. He was pale skinned as if the only light he spent much time under was fluorescent. His hair was a darker blond, his eyes brown but without any of the gold flecks that warmed Alex’s.

  The little time that she’d spent around Alex’s brother and father had been sufficient to convince her Alex’s problems with them weren’t all his fault.

  “You really are a wedding planner,” Brian said, seeming to find amusement in that.

  “Did you doubt it?” she asked.

  He didn’t answer, just studied her openly. She felt his gaze light on her bruised cheek but he said nothing about that. “I heard you do all the big weddings,” he said instead.

  So he’d been checking up on her.

  “There must be money in it.” He made it sound as if that would be the only reason someone would resort to her kind of work.

  She wondered what he’d have to say if he knew about her other job. She smiled as patronizingly as she could, not about to answer such a crass question.

  “So did you find my sister’s fiancé?”

  “Not yet.”

  “I’m sure my brother won’t stop until he does,” Brian Graham said. “I guess he doesn’t have anything better to do.”

  Odd the way he didn’t refer to his siblings by their names, not to mention his condescending tone.

  “I’m sure when Alex finds Preston, he’ll be glad your brother went to the trouble. After all, we’re talking about Preston’s future wife,” she said, not at all sure of that anymore, given the man’s name wasn’t even Preston.

  “Has it dawned on you yet that maybe Pres doesn’t want to be found?” Brian asked.

  As a matter of fact… Out of the corner of her eye she spotted one of the caterers looking around frantically.

  “If you’ll excuse me, I need to attend to a few more details,” she said.

  “The perils of being a wedding planner,” he said glibly as she left him.

  But she felt his gaze on her, and later, when she finished calming down the caterer, she was surprised to see that Brian Graham was still standing where she’d left him, apparently watching her.

  She turned away, hoping to avoid any more conversation with him, and almost collided with the black sheep of the Graham family.

  “Alex,” she cried, hating how breathless she sounded.

  It surprised—and upset—her how pleased she was to see him.

  That was until she caught his expression.

  “Miss Peters,” he said.

  So they were back to that?

  “I didn’t know you were going to be here,” she said.

  He raised a brow. “Actually, I didn’t, either.”

  There was something very different about him today. She saw it in his eyes. He seemed wary of her. Yesterday, she’d caught him watching her closely as if trying to see beneath her skin, today his gaze probed even deeper, definitely looking for something.

  She felt a sliver of worry burrow under her skin. What had changed? Something more than even the phone call in the limo last night.

  “How is Caroline?” she asked, afraid that was the cause.

  He scrubbed a hand over his face. “They took her into surgery for her broken leg this morning but she is improving all the time.” His gaze came back to hers and she saw the suspicion in his eyes.

  It gave her a strange sense of loss that affected her more than she wanted to admit. He didn’t trust her anymore and she felt sick at the thought.

  Without his trust she couldn’t do her job.

  But she knew that wasn’t what made her sick to her stomach. She liked Alex Graham. Was attracted to him. More than that, she had to admit. He was the first man in a long time with whom she’d actually let her guard down. She could have fallen in love with him. Had already started.

  The thought shocked her and at the same time, admitting it made her feel a little more steady on her feet. It was one of the reasons he unnerved her.

  “Anything wrong?” he asked.

  She blinked at him. “Why would you ask that?”

  “Because you’re frowning at me,” he said, his eyes intent on her face. He reached over before she could draw back and brushed his fingers over the bruise on her cheek. “How did you say you did that again?”

  He seemed to be waiting for her to explain the bruise and anything else she had to hide. She gulped, not sure what he wanted from her. Worse, what she might confess. “Like I said, I can’t even remember. I bumped into something obviously.”

  He seemed disappointed in her. “Obviously.”

  A strained silence fell between them. He raked a hand through his hair, his gaze on her. “Can we get out of here?”

  She hated to think what would happen if she went off some place alone with him the way she was feeling right now. Fortunately, she didn’t get a chance to answer.

  Brian came up behind his brother. “So where is Preston?” he demanded, clearly enjoying that he’d interrupted their conversation. Samantha smelled booze on his breath. “You have found him, haven’t you?”

  Alex didn’t look the least bit happy to see his brother. “What do you care?”

  “She’s my sister, too. But for some reason you seem to need to play the hero. So where is he?” Brian’s eyebrows shot up. He smiled obnoxiously. “What? The great Alex Graham, brave fireman and all-around good-guy blue-collar worker, couldn’t find him, either?”

  Alex visibly tensed. “Back off, Brian. Today is not the day to cross me.”

  “Oh? Having a bad day?” Brian glanced at Samantha. “Things not going quite like you’d hoped?” He laughed. “Stick to what you know, Alex. Let me handle cleaning up the mess Caroline made.”

  “So you and Dad did invest with him,” Alex said. “I hope you and the old man lose your shirts. I’d love to see this guy take you for everything.”

  Brian’s face turned a mottled dark red. “Don’t you think I know you’re just waiting for me to fail? But don’t hold your breath, little brother. I will come out on top. No matter what.”

  “I’m sure you will,” Alex said. “But I’m not worried about you. Or Dad. Caroline is in love with this guy. If he really did hook up with her just to get to you and the old man, it’s going to break her heart.”

  Brian scoffed. “Caroline will get over him. With her money, she can always find another man. Dad, however, stands to lose considerably. If I were you, I’d worry about your inheritance.”

  Samantha could see that Alex was doing everything in his power to restrain himself. “It’s always about the money with you, isn’t it? Have you ever been in love? Or lost someone who meant something to you?”

  Brian’s eyes sparked with fury. “Oh, none of us could have loved and lost w
ith such feeling as you, Alex.”

  “I don’t want to argue with you.”

  Brian hadn’t seemed to hear him. “You have no idea what it takes to run an empire, the responsibility, the pressure. I don’t have the luxury of whiling away my time falling in and out of love.”

  “No, your idea of love is the twenty minutes you pay for a woman’s company.”

  Brian looked as if he might take a swing at his brother. When he spoke, his words seemed to vibrate with his fury. “You know nothing about my life or how hard it is to be the one in the family who everyone depends on. You turned down the job. You couldn’t handle it even if you hadn’t. So stay the hell out of it.” With that, he stormed away.

  “What an arrogant ass,” Alex said through gritted teeth.

  Samantha touched his arm. He was trembling.

  He looked over at her. “Please, let’s get out of here.” He didn’t wait for an answer, just took her hand and drew her out the door.

  “Alex, I—”

  “I need to talk to you.” There was a command in his tone. But also a plea.

  She couldn’t have denied him anything right then. “All right. Just let me tell someone I’m leaving.”

  He seemed to relax a little. “I know a place we can go. It’s cool and dark. I don’t know about you, but I could use a drink.” He steered her toward his pickup.

  The last thing she wanted was a cool, dark, intimate place to go with him, let alone a drink. Isn’t that the way it had started last night?

  He didn’t drive far before he pulled into a small beach bar overlooking the water. As he shut off the engine, she heard music drifting on the warm afternoon breeze. The air smelled of sand and surf with the faint scent of burgers and fries and beer.

  Once inside, he headed straight for the crowded bar. She hesitated by the door, half-afraid of what he wanted to talk to her about. Maybe it was just her guilty conscience, but she felt an icy chill skitter up her spine.