Single Mom's Bodyguard

by Lisa Childs

  Lars gripped his shoulder and drew his attention back to him. “It’s possible. That’s why I wish Emilia wasn’t working today.”

  Dane froze. “Emilia?”

  “Yeah, she works for Penny Payne,” Lars said, pulling his hand away to gesture at the church Penny had converted into her full-service wedding planning venue. “Didn’t I tell you that?”

  Dane had been trying to avoid any mention of Emilia. She had been the focus of his world for too many weeks when she’d been missing. That was why he’d been so fascinated with the photo Lars had given him to help find her. That was the only reason....

  But why was his pulse quickening? Why could he feel his heart pounding faster and harder now?

  “No...” Dane murmured but his reply wasn’t just for Lars. It was for himself. No.

  He couldn’t see Emilia. He already saw her too much—every time he closed his damn eyes.

  “She insisted on coming today,” Lars said, his voice gruff with frustration and concern. “She said it was the most important day for her boss and she wouldn’t miss it even though I tried to tell her it might not be safe.”

  And Emilia had already been through so much. Dane understood his friend’s fear. Hell, he even shared it.

  “Nikki was one of those hostages last time,” Lars said, his fear making his deep voice even gruffer. “She was nearly killed. So I’m going to need to keep an eye on her.”

  “She’s going to hate that,” Dane reminded him. Nikki Payne was fiercely independent. There was no way she was saying yes to Lars’s proposal.

  But before he could offer his friend any more advice, Lars continued, “So I’m going to need you to keep an eye on Emilia. You need to make sure nothing happens to her.” Lars’s brow was furrowed, his concern for his sister apparent.

  Dane couldn’t refuse his request any more than he’d been able to ignore Cooper’s order to attend the wedding. Yeah, friendship had already caused him enough problems. He wanted nothing to do with family, romance or love.

  “I also need you to talk to Emilia,” Lars said, “and make sure that, after everything she went through, she’s really okay.”

  “Why wouldn’t she be?” Dane asked. “Myron Webber is dead. He can’t hurt her anymore.”

  “Just because he’s dead doesn’t mean he’s not still hurting her,” Lars said. “She woke up with nightmares for weeks after we rescued her.”

  “PTSD?” he asked.

  Lars nodded. “I think so. But I never really experienced that myself. That’s why I need you to talk to her.”

  “Why me?” Dane asked.

  “I bunked next to you for months at a time,” Lars reminded him. “You have as many nightmares as she does.”

  Dane tensed. “I don’t talk about that stuff...” Not with his friends. He certainly wasn’t going to talk to some young woman who already had enough nightmares of her own. “I can’t help her.”

  Lars studied his face for a while before uttering a sigh of resignation. “Fine. Just watch out for her, make sure she doesn’t get any more nightmares from whatever the hell might happen here today.”

  Just what kind of weddings did Penny Payne plan that people risked developing PTSD after them?

  * * *

  A lot of weddings had taken place in Penny Payne’s Little White Wedding Chapel. Some real. Some staged to flush out serial killers. Some hadn’t taken place at all. Brides had changed their minds. Or gunmen had taken the church hostage before the wedding was able to take place.

  Penny wasn’t worried about this bride changing her mind. She stared at her reflection in the oval mirror in the bride’s dressing room.

  Was it ridiculous that she wore a gown?

  It wasn’t white. At fifty...something...and with four grown kids, that would have been ridiculous. But the tea-length, lacy bronze dress looked like a wedding gown. For the second time in her life, Penny was a bride.

  Her first groom had been a boy. Together they’d grown up. And he had become a man—one who’d made mistakes. One mistake had brought a child into the world with another woman. One had gotten him killed.

  She had survived both of his mistakes. But then she’d spent the next nearly two decades afraid of making a mistake of her own. So she’d focused on her kids and her business and she’d protected her heart—until that day she’d nearly lost her chapel to those gunmen.

  Her kids—the ones she’d given birth to and the ones she’d claimed as hers—had saved everyone that day. But Penny had still lost something she had never intended to risk again.

  Her heart.

  But this groom she could trust. He wasn’t a boy. He was a man. Woodrow Lynch wouldn’t make mistakes that would hurt her. He loved her as much as she loved him.

  No. She wasn’t going to back out and neither would Woodrow. Penny wasn’t worried about that. She wasn’t even worried about all the minute details of a ceremony that she usually insisted on overseeing herself.

  She didn’t need to do that anymore, not since she’d hired Emilia Ecklund. The beautiful blonde appeared next to her in the reflection in the mirror. She carefully pinned the tiny bronze lace veil onto Penny’s coif of auburn curls.

  “You look so beautiful,” Emilia told her with such awe that Penny couldn’t doubt her sincerity. She was such a sweet, sincere young woman. “Everything’s ready.”

  Penny’s heart lurched. Not with nerves over the marriage. She knew that would be good. But now a few doubts flickered in about the wedding details. Emilia had seemed kind of distracted the past few weeks. Penny opened her mouth to ask a couple of questions, just to confirm.

  But Emilia shushed her with a smile. “Everything’s ready,” she repeated with calm assurance. There was not even a trace of nerves in her soft voice or on her beautiful face.

  Penny believed her. Emilia had been about to graduate with her bachelor’s degree in hospitality and event planning when her world had been turned upside down. After her rescue, she had been working hard to right her world again.

  Maybe too hard.

  Dark circles rimmed her pale blue eyes. Of course, she had an infant at home, too. New mothers rarely got enough sleep. That was probably why she’d seemed distracted lately.

  Penny reached up and patted her cheek. “Thank you, Emilia, for making not just this day so special for me but for making my workload so much lighter since you started working for me.”

  Emilia’s beautiful eyes glistened with unshed tears, but she blinked her long black lashes and cleared away the moisture. She smiled again, but it was as if she had to force up the corners of her mouth.

  “Is everything all right?” Penny asked her.

  “Yes, I told you it was,” Emilia replied. “We’re ready to start the ceremony. Are you ready?”

  Penny sucked in a sharp breath. She was getting married again. She was pledging to share the rest of her life with another. She couldn’t wait. “Yes, please send my kids in here. I am raring to walk down the aisle to my groom.”

  But as Emilia turned away to open the door, Penny caught her arm. The odd sensation raced over her—one of those god-awful premonitions she had that something was about to go very wrong.

  Not today.

  Of all days, not today...

  “What is it?” Emilia asked. Alarm drained the color from her face. “Are you having second thoughts?”

  “Definitely not,” Penny said. “I can’t wait to marry my soul mate. But...”

  “I told you, everything’s fine.”

  “I’m sure you did everything right,” Penny said. “But I have that feeling...”

  Emilia sucked in a sharp breath now. Penny had told her about the feelings that came over her, about her instincts that warned her when something horrible was going to happen.

  “I’ll doubl
e-check everything,” her assistant assured her. “Don’t worry.”

  She hurried away before Penny could stop her.

  Penny couldn’t shake the feeling that something bad was going to happen to Emilia. She hoped she was wrong. The young woman had already been through too much.

  Chapter 2

  Emilia’s heart pounded as she gave in to the nerves fluttering inside her. This was it, her chance to finally prove herself to her benevolent boss. Penny had been so sweet to take a chance on her, to give her not just a job but the responsibility of overseeing the woman’s wedding.

  Nothing could go wrong.

  But Penny’s premonitions were legendary. When she had one of her feelings that something bad was about to happen, it always did.

  So Emilia didn’t waste time checking on the flowers. She already knew they were perfect. The minister had arrived, as had all the guests. The photographer had already begun taking pictures and setting up the camera to record the ceremony. The caterers were ready to serve for the reception in the banquet room in the chapel basement.

  Emilia hadn’t lied when she’d assured Penny that everything was ready. For the ceremony...

  But Emilia had that sense of disquiet, too, the same way that Penny did. Something bad was about to happen. That feeling compelled her to quickly cross the foyer to the steps leading down to the nearly walk-out-level basement. This was where the offices were and the banquet hall and kitchen.

  And the nursery...

  Along with all the Payne babies, Blue was there, too. Two nursery workers—teenage girls—watched all the children. But they were only teenagers. If someone tried to take one of the babies...

  They wouldn’t be able to stop them.

  But Emilia would.

  She hastened her pace, her heels clicking against the stairs as she nearly ran down them. In her haste, she slipped. Her grasp on the railing kept her from tumbling to the concrete floor below. She steadied herself, finished descending the stairs and hurried down the hall.

  Waiters and cooks milled around inside the banquet hall and the kitchen as she rushed past. Excitement hummed in the air. This was the wedding. The one everyone wanted to be absolutely perfect—because this was Penny’s wedding.

  They all loved Penny Payne.

  Emilia hadn’t known her as long as everyone else had, but she loved her, too. Loved her like the mother she’d never really had, because Mom had gotten sick when Emilia had been so young.

  Penny was youthful and vivacious and affectionate. She was everything Emilia wished her mother had been and everything she wanted to be as a mother. Emilia didn’t want to let down the woman she admired so much.

  But at the moment the wedding was the least of her concerns. She had to make certain Blue was safe. He was what mattered most to her now.

  “Emilia...”

  A deep voice murmured her name. She ignored it. She had no time now for questions about the colors of the napkins or when to serve the cake. She would answer all those again after she held her baby, after she made certain that Penny’s ominous premonition hadn’t been about Blue.

  She was in such a rush that she nearly passed the door to the nursery. But she drew up short and reached out, grasping the knob. Her hand trembling, she turned it and pushed open the door. Little kids chattered and laughed. A soft voice sang. Small hands clapped.

  Like the kitchen and the banquet hall, this room was abuzz with excitement, too—the excitement of little kids and babies.

  One of the teenagers glanced up from where she played patty-cake with a black-haired, blue-eyed toddler. So many of the kids looked like that, with the blue eyes and black hair of the Payne males.

  “Miss Ecklund, is everything all right?” the babysitter asked. With black hair and blue eyes, she might have been a Payne herself. Some of the kids were getting older now.

  “That’s what I came to ask you,” she said. “Is everything all right?”

  The girl’s brow furrowed. “With your son?”

  “Yes.”

  Looking at her as if she were being overly anxious, which she probably was, the girl nodded. “He’s fine.” She gestured toward one of the cribs against the wall. “He’s napping.”

  Emilia stepped around children so she could get to her son. Like a few nights ago when she’d heard the crying, she approached the crib with fear and dread. And expelled a breath of relief when she found him sleeping peacefully.

  She had overreacted to Penny’s premonition. It probably had nothing to do with Emilia. With a family that comprised of all bodyguards, Penny’s children were all exposed to danger.

  Now Lars was a bodyguard, too. And she suspected he would soon be an official member of the Payne family if he was smart enough to ask the amazing Nikki to marry him. Her brother was smart.

  She wished she was as smart as he was, as strong. She felt like she was losing her mind. But she’d rather lose that than her son.

  He was here, though. He was safe just like he had been that night she’d been so worried she’d wound up bruising her shoulder crashing into doorframes. She glanced down at the bruise now. Maybe she shouldn’t have worn a sleeveless dress. Or at least she should have remembered to put on the sweater she’d left hanging over the back of her chair in her office.

  She hadn’t needed to worry that night. Or now.

  But yet she couldn’t step back. She had a million and one things to double-check. And she didn’t want to miss the ceremony, either.

  She wanted to see Penny marry her soul mate even as she felt a pang of envy that she might never find hers. Her judgment was as poor as her mother’s had been. Just like her father, Blue’s father hadn’t been a man she could count on. He’d wanted only one thing from her. And it hadn’t been her heart.

  Now her heart belonged to another male. To her son. She continued to stare down at her beautiful baby...until a shadow fell across him.

  Then she glanced up at the window. Since this was the daylight section of the basement, the window was halfway up the wall. So she didn’t see a face. She saw only legs standing in front of that window. Then she saw the black-gloved hands reaching down to try to lift the sash.

  To try to get inside that nursery full of children.

  And a scream slipped from her throat.

  * * *

  Her scream tore at Dane’s heart, making it race with the fear he heard in her voice. Other cries echoed hers, startled cries of kids. He pushed open the door he’d seen her enter moments ago—as he’d followed her mad dash down the stairs and hall toward this room.

  Toward her son...

  He saw her hurriedly step back from the window with the baby clasped in her arms, nearly falling over the children sitting on the floor behind her.

  This was Dane’s worst nightmare. A room full of crying kids. But the fear he’d heard in Emilia’s voice drew him to her side. “Emilia,” he said.

  After he’d seen her nearly tumble down the stairs, he’d called out to her in the hall. But she’d ignored him. She ignored him again.

  So he reached for her. And yet when his hand closed around her shoulder, she flinched and jerked away from him. Now anger churned in his guts. What had happened to her those long weeks she’d been missing?

  How badly had she been abused?

  She had a bruise on her shoulder, which was bare. Her pale blue dress had thin spaghetti straps. If she’d gotten that injury in captivity, the bruise should have faded by now. Why did it look so fresh and painful?

  She blinked and stared up at him, the dread still in her pale blue eyes.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked her.

  Clutching her son tightly against her with one arm—maybe too tightly, if Dane could guess from how hard he was crying—she gestured with her other hand at the window. “Someone was t
here, trying to get in.”

  He glanced at the window. Sunlight glinted off the glass. “Nobody’s there.”

  “There was,” she insisted, her voice tremulous. With fear or doubt?

  He glanced around the room, at the teenage girls who struggled to comfort crying babies and toddlers. One of the girls shook her head. “I didn’t see anyone.”

  “There was a shadow,” the other babysitter, the one with the black hair, said. “I’m not sure...”

  If it was human, or just a shadow...

  Emilia reached out now and clasped Dane’s arm. His skin tingled beneath her fingers. “There was someone there trying to open the window.”

  He nodded. “I’ll check it out.” But she held tightly to his arm, so he couldn’t pull away and escape her and all those crying children.

  If he didn’t leave soon, he might do something stupid...like reach for her again, like try to hold her like he had tried the night she’d awoken in the hospital, screaming. That had been a mistake on his part. He wasn’t made for comforting—women or kids. He couldn’t give what he’d never received.

  He glanced down at her hand on his arm, and she jerked it away as if embarrassed that she’d been holding on to him. As he passed her, she murmured, “Thank you.”

  He wasn’t certain if there was really anything to check out. But when he headed outside, he found other bodyguards walking the grounds. His invitation really had been an assignment. Security was high at this wedding.

  High enough?

  Why would someone have been trying to get inside the nursery? Or had they just been looking for an open window to get inside the church undetected?

  He walked around the white brick building to the back and found the window to the nursery. The woodchips beneath it had been disturbed, some brushed aside enough that he could make out a footprint.

  He leaned down and peered into the window, and his gaze met Emilia’s pale blue one through the glass. He nodded. And it was as if her shoulders slumped with relief when she should have been tensing with fear.