License to Thrill

by Tori Carrington

  Her mother nodded. “Not that anyone knew. I was very careful about keeping it a secret. In those days when a young woman was single and pregnant in a small town, it was more than scandalous, it was…” She laughed weakly. “Talk about taking the long way around the bush. I’m just going on, aren’t I?”

  Melanie peered at her closely. She had always thought her mother rambled on because she wanted, required command of the conversation. She’d never thought for a minute that she chattered because she was nervous.

  “Anyway,” Wilhemenia said, “I think you ought to know I always considered you my miracle disguised as an accident.”

  Melanie’s throat thickened. So much was shifting into focus.

  “And I did love your father. I did. But I was miserable. I let that love get in the way of a happy marriage. Nothing was ever enough. He didn’t do things the right way. He must not have loved me as much as I loved him. The list was endless. And when he died, I was so angry at him because I thought he had failed me in the ultimate way. He hadn’t loved me enough to fight to stay with me.”

  Melanie shifted, unsure what to do, what to say. She’d never shared confidences with her mother.

  Wilhemenia gave a quiet, humorless laugh. “There I go again.” She cleared her throat and gazed directly into Melanie’s eyes. “What I’m trying to say here is that I saw you heading down that same path with Marc. And I had to…I had to intervene.”

  Melanie let the words sink in. “Are you telling me what I think you are? That you…” What? Chased big Marc Mc-Coy away? Sent him packing? “You orchestrated our breakup?”

  Wilhemenia patted her hand. “I didn’t have to orchestrate anything, Melanie. It was happening all by itself. I merely stepped up the beat a little.”

  Melanie got up from the chair. “I can’t believe you did that.” She paced across the room. The references Marc had made about her mother not passing on messages, turning him away when she was recovering… She hadn’t believed him. She’d thought her mother had no reason to want them apart. True, Wilhemenia had never liked Marc, but she had never meddled in Melanie’s life to that extent before. Now she saw her mother had the most potent reason there was—she’d wanted to protect her daughter from suffering the same heartache she had suffered.

  The reason, combined with Wilhemenia’s tenacity, explained a lot but changed little. Not now. The sad truth was that what her mother said made a lot of sense. She stopped pacing and stared at the papers in her hands. They were all notes from Marc.

  But she had been willing to settle for a loveless marriage with Craig. Well, not completely loveless. They had the bond created from lifelong friendship.

  But marriage to Marc would be torture. Her love for him—without his love in return—would be the destructive, passionate, demanding type. That was the threat and always had been.

  “I think I’d better go join everyone in the back of the chapel before Marc comes and pulls me out,” her mother said quietly. “I’m sorry, Melanie. I…I just wanted to let you know that.”

  Melanie nodded, worrying her bottom lip between her teeth.

  She sank into the chair in front of the mirror, not really seeing her reflection, her thoughts jumbled. She stared at the papers in her hands, then shoved them into her purse. It didn’t matter anymore, did it? It didn’t matter that her mother had played a role in securing her and Marc’s breakup. That there were reasons behind Marc’s absence at the hospital. None of it mattered because she and Marc just weren’t meant to be.

  There was another knock at the door. Melanie blinked back stinging tears. When Craig walked in, she blurted, “I love him, Craig.”

  MARC SAT in the back of the nondescript van, oblivious to the heat as he stared at the chapel across the street. Bedford. The small town was neat and manicured and seemed to demand, “Do not enter unless you, too, are equally orderly.” Not for the first time, he found it odd that a product of a place like this—much less a woman—had run off and joined the secret service. He grimaced and absently rubbed the back of his neck. Then again, Mel didn’t live to satisfy anyone’s expectations.

  Just when he thought he had it all figured out, she changed all the rules. She wasn’t marrying Craig. A part of him was relieved. A greater part ached because she wasn’t marrying him, either.

  He recognized a late-arriving guest as the uncle he’d encountered outside the men’s room at the rehearsal dinner. He spoke into the two-way radio and asked the plainclothes officer just inside the chapel door to escort him to where all the other guests were, to the pastor’s quarters in the back. Considering the time element and the need for everything to look normal, he and Mel had decided the ceremony should appear to go ahead as planned. Even the guests didn’t know why they had to wait in the back rather than take a seat in one of the pews. It hadn’t been easy, but he and his brothers had called in favors from every law enforcement official they knew to fill those same pews with fake guests. Every guest in that chapel was armed to the teeth and ready to take out the shooter within the blink of an eye.

  “You’re nuts, you know?”

  Marc was so engrossed in trying to catch a glimpse of Mel, he had forgotten Mitch was in the van with him, along with two surveillance experts. “To keep you out of trouble,” Mitch had said after he and Mel had questioned a barely conscious Tom Hooker, then put together what looked like the last of their plans.

  Hooker had been hauled off by the state police. A hearing was already scheduled for first thing Monday morning. Mel had taken off with Craig and her mother, and Marc had sat at the kitchen table making phone calls, his four brothers and his father staring at him and shaking their heads while Brando meowed piteously at his feet.

  “What?” he’d said after the stare fest had gone on a minute too long.

  “You picked a hell of a time to lose the good sense God gave you, Marc,” his father had said. “That girl is family.”

  “What would you have me do? Trade places with her last groom?”

  Their silence told him all he needed to know. And he’d answered them with a series of choice curse words that raised even his father’s eyebrows.

  Marc grumbled, earning a chuckle from Mitch. “You know, there’s something bothering me about this whole thing,” Marc said under his breath.

  Mitch took a long swig of coffee and glanced at his watch. “Yeah, I’d say having your woman the target of an assassin is cause for bother.”

  Marc glowered at him. “Not that. Well, yeah, that, too, but there’s something else.”

  Mitch stretched over one of the bucket seats and turned the ignition key. The van roared to life. He turned the air conditioner on full blast. One of the other men thanked him. “What is it?”

  “I don’t know. I keep thinking I should have known.” He remembered going into the other room to find Hooker as good as hog-tied. Pride had filled him to know Mel had done that. Sorrow had also pierced him. She could take care of herself. Pregnant, single or any other way.

  Marc caught sight of a girl of around six in a pink frilly dress hurrying up the chapel steps, her skirt blowing around thin legs. His throat grew tight as he watched her and her father being ushered inside by the undercover officer. In so many years he might find himself with a little girl like that. Or a boy. What would it be like to be a father? Not just a part-time dad, but a real, honest-to-goodness dad? Despite the cool air circulating through the van, he broke out in a sweat.

  “You know, all along Hooker maintained his innocence.”

  “You can’t blame yourself, Marc. You know what Pops always says.”

  “All guilty men plead innocent because they have nothing to lose.” Marc rubbed his chin. “That’s all well and good, but Pops was never in the academy with the one in question.” He shook his head.

  “And Bundy might be a senator by now, if not president, if he hadn’t been caught. Come on, Marc, we both know appearances have nothing to do with it.”

  “Still, I should have known.” Marc went s
ilent. He thought about the tests that had been run on Hooker’s service revolver. They had come up negative. He had dismissed it by saying Hooker had another gun and had disposed of it before he was caught. Only it wasn’t Hooker’s gun they should have been looking at, but Roger Westfield’s.

  If he had been wrong about Hooker, what else had he been wrong about?

  “Damn.” Marc jerked open the van door, causing the men inside to scramble for cover.

  Mitch caught his sleeve. “Where are you going?”

  “He’s already in there.”

  14

  MELANIE NODDED to the plainclothes officer keeping watch over the balcony entrance, then hurried up the stairs to watch the impostor bride walk down the aisle in a thick, gauzy veil. Clutching her revolver, she crouched a little lower behind the balcony railing in the back of the chapel, the sound of the organ at her elbow nearly deafening her. Her heart thudded dully in her chest as she methodically scanned the full pews below.

  She didn’t know how Marc had pulled all this off. Not able to pull in recognizable secret service agents, he’d relied instead on the vast network of law enforcement personnel available through his brothers and Sean. All the real guests—it had been too late to cancel the wedding, and besides, if they had, the setup might not have worked—had been safely and discreetly escorted to the pastor’s private quarters at the back of the church, where, she was sure, they were all trying to figure out what was going on.

  The bride finished the walk and stood next to a guy who looked an awful lot like Craig, but wasn’t. Despite everything, Melanie fought back a smile. As far as brides went, this one—well, this one really took the cake.

  The organist finally stopped playing and left the balcony, as instructed. Melanie backed up, hiding behind the large instrument, wishing she had had time to change out of the uncomfortable wedding dress she wore. But Joanie had been too intent on getting the stand-in’s dress on, and her mother had been busily helping explain things to the real guests. In the chaos, Melanie couldn’t even find her jeans.

  It was probably for the best, because Marc hadn’t wanted to let her out of his sight, and she wasn’t about to tempt herself unnecessarily by undressing in front of him. No one knew as well as she did that nudity, specifically her own, and Marc were a lethal combination. She had a lot to work out, and she didn’t need sex messing things up.

  The fact remained that Marc had offered to marry her only for their child’s sake, nothing more. Besides, he’d rescinded the offer that morning when he’d told her she should marry Craig.

  She considered peering through the fan-shaped windows to look at the dark brown surveillance van parked on the street, but doing so would give her presence away. After a heated debate, it was decided that Marc shouldn’t be seen anywhere near the chapel, in case Roger Westfield spotted him and figured out he was being set up. Melanie briefly closed her eyes. She only hoped they could get Westfield before he got them.

  A rustling sounded behind her. Frowning, Melanie peered around the organ. Instead of the silver head of the organist, she saw a familiar dark one.

  Roger.

  Moving so he wouldn’t spot her, Melanie slowly slid into the shadows, her palms growing instantly damp. Not good.

  MARC RUSHED into the chapel, his breath coming in ragged gasps as he stuck to the shadows. He scanned the backs of the phony guests, making sure Roger hadn’t somehow sneaked by, then turned to the door. The stand-in pastor’s voice droned on, pretending to marry the couple down the aisle. Marc clutched his revolver close to his chest and wiped his forehead against his shoulder.

  His instincts told him Roger was already here. So far nothing had been said about Hooker’s recapture, so the scumbag would think it was safe to continue his campaign to eliminate Mel and any possibility that she might remember what really happened three months ago. The idiot didn’t know Mel had no idea Roger was the true shooter until two hours ago. Hell, neither had he, for that matter.

  The best he could figure the situation after talking to Tom Hooker, the night of the assassination attempt it had been Roger, not Hooker, who had moved against the senator. Marc silently cursed, remembering his new partner’s top-of-the-line sports cars and his many expensive outings.

  He moved to the other side of the chapel.

  Roger must have knocked Hooker out, and when Mel showed up, he shot her. Hooker had been already out of commission, coming to when gunshots were fired.

  Marc wondered what it must have been like for Hooker to be fine one minute, then wake up on the ground the next with two agents on him—one of them his own partner—accused of attempting to assassinate the senator.

  Running true to form in most assailant cases, when Hooker had tried to contact Mel to persuade her to listen to his pleas of innocence, she had refused to talk to him.

  Then Roger’s luck had run out. Four days ago Hooker had used his training to escape en route to his pretrial hearing and had managed to elude recapture. Marc grimaced. The guy had been good enough to get past him and his brothers, which was saying a whole hell of a lot. Only problem was, everyone knew he was heading for Mel. Which made Roger’s plan pitifully simple: do away with Mel, and Hooker would take the fall for the crime forever.

  Marc’s chest tightened painfully. He only hoped Roger wasn’t as good as Hooker.

  His attention was pulled to the altar. From this distance, not even he could tell that the groom wasn’t Craig and the bride wasn’t Mel.

  The stand-in pastor—who was a desk jockey ex-priest from his father’s D.C. precinct—looked up and addressed the audience. “Speak now, or forever hold your peace.”

  Marc watched the groom hesitantly lift the bride’s veil.

  “Kiss me and you’re dead meat,” Jake said to the Craig look-alike.

  His brother’s threatening words made Marc wince. Not yet, you yo-yo. Westfield had to believe Jake in drag was Mel if they were to have a chance in hell of making this work.

  He anxiously stepped forward, searching the guests again. He froze when he spotted Roger crouched behind the balcony railing, his rifle aimed straight at Jake.

  Dear Lord, where’s Mel?

  “Yoo-hoo!” a familiar voice called a second before Mel’s mother came in from the back. “I just thought you should know the natives are getting—”

  “Hit the deck!” Marc shouted.

  Jake tackled Mrs. Weber, covering her in wedding dress white, his cowboy boots peeking out from underneath as Marc aimed. The guests scrambled for cover, pulling out firearms, so the chapel was filled with the echoes of chambers loading, all of them looking for the unseen threat. Before Roger could squeeze off a shot, Mel appeared to his left. She whacked him in the arm with her revolver as he fired. The bullet harmlessly penetrated a plaster column.

  Blood roaring in his ears, Marc thought about everything that had happened in the past three months. Mel being shot…finding out about her pregnancy…the recent attempts on her life. The revolver in his hands felt remarkably light, his focus on his target notably clear. He pulled off a shot, only at the last second lowering his aim.

  Everything seemed to happen in slow motion. The bullet slammed against Roger’s right shoulder. He dropped his rifle. It fell from the balcony to the marble tile near Marc’s feet. Roger swayed, leaning precariously against the railing. Mel clutched him to prevent his fall, and Roger grabbed for her.

  The railing creaked.

  Marc’s heart hiccuped in his chest.

  Mel, no!

  Then, suddenly, Roger was no longer against the railing, and Mel was carefully leaning over.

  “Got him.”

  THERE WAS a certain surreal quality to the day, Marc thought, standing next to Mel on the chapel steps. For some odd reason, colors seemed brighter, the birds louder, and the air definitely smelled sweeter. And the decision he’d come to the instant he saw Mel was all right seemed all the more clear.

  He moved out of the way as a paramedic hurried out and a federal crimina
list headed in. Roger Westfield had been carted off on a stretcher, two marshals under the command of Connor and a pair of handcuffs guaranteeing he didn’t have a chance to pass Go or collect $200.

  When they’d wheeled him past, Roger had asked how he’d known he was the real shooter. Marc told him he’d be better off asking Tom Hooker that.

  “Nice ceremony,” Marc said to Mel as they waited, with the real and stand-in guests, for everything to be sorted out. Mel’s relatives and neighbors buzzed with excitement, some of them still not completely grasping that there wasn’t going to be a wedding, after all.

  “I’d say it was memorable,” Mel said quietly, giving him a broad smile.

  Marc felt as if he’d been socked in the gut. “It’ll be the talk of the town for, oh, I’d say well into the next generation.”

  Her expression told him she hadn’t missed his reference to their baby. Their eyes met. No matter how hard he tried, Marc couldn’t rip his gaze away from her. Lord help him, but he wanted to throw her over his shoulder and kidnap her all over again. And this time he’d do it right. Not because there was some madman out there who wanted to take her life. Not because she would be the mother of his child—children, he amended, suddenly deciding he wanted a horde of them. No, he wanted to handcuff her to him in more ways than one because he loved her more than anything else in this godforsaken world.

  He loved her.

  The realization surprised him in that it didn’t surprise him.

  His grin widened, and his heart skipped a few beats. Mel had always told him he was the last to catch on when it came to matters of the heart.

  Jake walked by, Mrs. Weber lecturing him about a tear in the dress. Marc chuckled, then cleared his throat. “Do you think your guests are disappointed you and Craig aren’t getting hitched?”

  Mel eyed him closely. Her sexy green eyes shimmered in the midday sunlight. “Not too much, I don’t think.” She glanced at Craig, who stood with Joanie and his parents. “If there are a few, they’ll forget all about it after the free food and drinks.” She flashed him a smile. “Anyway, they got some great gossip.”