by Lisa Childs
No, Nikki wasn’t worried about having to say “I do.” She was worried about not making it out of the chapel alive. If that happened, at least she wouldn’t have to listen to Logan tell her I told you so.
Her oldest brother had never believed she had what it took to be a bodyguard. So maybe she had concocted this plan to subconsciously prove him wrong. Even if she didn’t make it out alive herself, she could still prove him wrong—if Megan and Penny had made it to safety.
They had to have gotten out of the chapel unharmed. Then even if Nikki lost her life, it would have been worth it. She would have done her job.
* * *
“Gage!” Penny exclaimed as she pressed a hand over her heart. “You scared me. I thought you were one of the gunmen returning.”
Gage had nearly run right into the armed waiter after he had quickly descended the stairs and rushed down the basement hallway. Luckily, he’d been able to duck into the shadows of Penny’s office before the guy had noticed him. As soon as the guy was gone, Gage had retraced his steps, his heart beating fast, his hand not quite steady on his weapon. He’d dreaded what he might find: injured women or, worse yet, dead bodies.
He didn’t know how he would have handled finding Megan like he’d found so many other people over the years: lifeless, staring helplessly up at him as if berating him for not making it in time, for not being able to save her...
His breath shuddered out with relief that instead he had found them untying each other and getting ready to escape. And he’d thought about just letting them go. He probably would have just let them go if Penny hadn’t noticed him.
“He might be back soon,” Gage warned. “So you need to leave now.”
But instead of moving the boxes away from what must have been the doorway to the underground tunnel, she paused and turned to him. Her face so pale it looked almost ghostly in the dim light, Penny asked him, “What are you doing down here? You’re supposed to be in the church. You’re supposed to be the best man.”
“We all know that’s not true,” he said. Richard hadn’t chosen him. But more importantly, neither had Megan. “I noticed the guy with the gun was missing,” he said. “The one you stopped me from pummeling earlier.” Penny had been right to stop him, though. He hadn’t even noticed the other guys in the church. They could have been there earlier. And he could have started a shoot-out then.
“D,” Penny replied. “He calls himself D. He was down here, too, with the waiter impostor. Megan tricked him into going up to check on the woman.”
“Andrea,” Megan supplied.
“She’s fine,” Gage said.
“Exactly,” Penny said. “As soon as he unties her, all hell is going to break loose.”
He didn’t doubt it. The woman was furious that Megan had overpowered her and that they had tied her up. Releasing her would like releasing a wild animal from confinement.
Penny moved to walk around him, but he caught her arm and stopped her. “You need to leave with Megan,” he insisted, “just like we planned.”
She smacked his hand like he was a boy trying to sneak a cookie from the jar before dinner. “We also planned that you would be right at the altar with my daughter, that you would protect her.”
“Woodrow is up there. And the minister is armed,” Gage reminded her even though he felt a twinge of guilt that he had abandoned his assigned post. “And Nikki is armed. She can protect herself.”
Penny shook her head. “No, she can’t. She only thinks she can.”
Gage resisted the urge to laugh. Penny Payne was legendary for her almost telepathic powers, for always knowing everything about everybody but most especially about her kids. How could she not know her own daughter? How could she have no idea how strong and resourceful Nikki was?
“I’ll go back up there and make sure nothing happens to her,” he promised. “You leave with Megan.”
But he could see that it was too late. Penny didn’t trust him anymore to protect her child. Before he could stop the wedding planner, she pulled away from him and hurried down the hall.
Megan tried to pass him to follow her. But he wasn’t taking any chances with her getting away from him like Penny had. He wrapped his arms around her and held her tightly. He wasn’t about to let her put her life in danger again.
* * *
Megan gasped at the sensation of being pressed against the hard length of Gage’s muscular body. Even through her heavy dress, she could feel his heat. And his tension...
“We need to hurry up,” she said. “We need to help.”
“You need to get the hell out of here,” he told her. “That was the plan. To get you to safety. That’s why I came down here—to make sure the man hadn’t caught you and Penny before you escaped.”
“He did, but we got away—”
“Only to try to rush right back into his clutches,” Gage said.
“I might be safer in his,” she murmured. She hadn’t meant to say the words aloud, but they’d slipped out. And now they hung in the air between them.
Gage flinched like she’d slapped him. “I don’t want to hurt you,” he said.
“And you told me you would never lie to me.” At least that was what he’d tried to tell her when she’d broken up with him. He’d tried to convince her that he hadn’t been using her to get ahead at the Bureau like she’d been warned. But she hadn’t listened to him. Maybe she’d been right not to. “I know you wanted to hurt me when you first showed up in the dressing room today.”
“I did,” he admitted. “But that was before I knew you were in danger.”
She had been in danger then—in danger of making a horrible mistake. Then again, she hadn’t known that Gage was alive. It had taken her long moments of thinking she was seeing an apparition before she’d even believed that he was real and not a figment of her wishful imagination. But if she’d conjured him up, he wouldn’t have looked at her like he had, like he’d hated her.
“You want to hurt me,” she said because she didn’t believe that he’d changed his mind. She didn’t believe that he would ever forgive her. “But you don’t want anyone else to hurt me?”
He groaned as if overcome with frustration. Then he kissed her. His mouth slid over hers, his lips tugging gently on her bottom one before he deepened the kiss. The tip of his tongue touched hers before retreating.
Her heart pounded, and her blood heated as passion overwhelmed her. But he pulled back, just slightly, just enough for her gasp for breath.
She had tried to communicate her feelings with a kiss. Now so had he. But she didn’t understand what he was trying to say any more than she suspected he had understood her. She lifted her hands and slid them between their bodies, over his chest. Her palms tingled. She wanted to touch him, but instead she pushed him back. “We need to go upstairs to help them.”
“You going up into the chapel will not help anyone,” he said. “It will only put you in danger, too.”
“I don’t care,” she said. And she didn’t. “Not when the person who matters most to me is in danger!”
Gage flinched. Did he think she was talking about Richard? After their kisses, could he still think she cared about another man?
“My dad,” she clarified.
And Gage’s head bobbed in understanding.
Her dad had been always been everything to her, both father and mother. Nurturer. Protector. He was the one whose shoulder she’d cried on when Gage had broken her heart and when she’d thought he’d died.
Gage might have been the one who mattered most to her if she thought he could ever love her again—if he ever had.
“I can’t leave if my dad’s in danger,” Megan said. “And you know he is. The gunmen might be here because of him, because they want revenge against him.”
“They might,” Gage admitted. “Or they might have a whole other agenda...”
Him? Did he think they were there because of him? But why? Why would anyone think she mattered to him? She didn’t even think t
hat, even after that confusing kiss.
“It doesn’t matter why they’re here,” she said. “It just matters that people I care about are in danger.”
“People,” he murmured.
“Nikki, Mrs. Payne...” There were other guests in the church, extended family. “And Richard.” Richard had never done anything to her but be her friend.
He flinched again. He obviously thought she had agreed to marry Richard for love. But all she’d wanted was family. She’d hoped having one of her own might fill the hole in her heart that losing Gage had left in it.
“And how do you think you’re going to help them?” he asked as he caught her hands in his. “You don’t even have your gun anymore.”
“The man—D—took it,” she explained, her face heating with embarrassment that he’d snapped it from her grasp so easily.
He groaned again. “By now Andrea has it back, and you’re the first person she’d use it on given the chance. You need to get out of here.”
She shook her head. The curly hair she always fought so hard to tame tangled around her face. “I can’t.” Her voice cracked. “If I lose my dad...”
She didn’t know what she would do. She couldn’t imagine a world without him in it when for so much of her life, he had been her and her sister’s whole world. No. She couldn’t lose him.
Strong arms closed around her, and Gage pressed her against his body again. His hand stroked over her back, offering comfort. “He’ll be fine,” he assured her. “Woodrow Lynch wouldn’t be bureau chief if he hadn’t been a badass agent first.”
But it had been years since he’d been in the field, years since he’d fired his weapon at anything other than targets. She knew her father missed it. But he’d given it up and accepted all his promotions and desk jobs because of her and Ellen, because he had wanted to be there for them and now for his granddaughters.
“I can’t not do anything,” she murmured into Gage’s chest as tears sprang to her eyes.
“You can do something,” he said. “You can go through that passageway and get help.”
She pulled herself, albeit reluctantly, from his arms. “Of course.”
But when she turned back toward the boxes Penny had begun to move, Gage caught her arm. “No, I’m wrong. That’s a bad idea. You can’t go out there alone. We don’t know what might be waiting for you outside.”
“Help.”
“Or more people with guns,” he said. “If not, there would be more guests upstairs. Somebody is keeping them out.”
“I’ll be careful,” she promised. “You need to go back upstairs. You need to help my father and Nikki.”
He sighed. “And stop Penny from taking them all on alone.” But he didn’t release her; his hand held her wrist yet—his fingers overlapping it. He stroked his thumb across her leaping pulse.
He looked like he was thinking about kissing her again. And she wanted his kiss even now, even when she knew they were all in danger. Maybe more now because she didn’t know if she would be able to kiss him ever again.
But she pushed aside her selfishness and told him, “You better go.” The music had stopped some time ago. The gunmen already knew that she wasn’t the bride in the church. “We have no idea what’s happening up there.”
But then a shot rang out, echoing from above. And they knew nothing good was happening.
Chapter 13
Crazy bitch! Derek had been incarcerated long enough that he’d forgotten how mercurial Andrea could be. He tightened his grasp on her wrist, making sure the gun stayed pointed at the domed ceiling of the church in case she tried to fire again. She struggled against him, but fortunately she wasn’t that strong, thanks to the stab wound in her shoulder.
“Calm down!” he yelled at her.
Eventually her anger subsided. But the moment he relaxed his grip, she tried to point the barrel down again.
“No!” she screamed. “That bitch deserves to die!”
“It’s not her,” he said.
She leaned closer to the bride she’d just tried to shoot and studied her. Her brow furrowed with confusion. “It’s the other one, the bridesmaid.”
The young woman shook her head, tumbling her curls around her face. “No, no, I’m the bride,” she insisted. Stubbornly. Stupidly.
“Where’s the real bride?” Andrea demanded to know. “She’s the bitch who stabbed me!”
Derek replied, “Ralph has her and the wedding planner tied up downstairs.”
“Get her!” she ordered.
And his temper flared. His grasp on her wrists tightened until she flinched. “You are not in charge,” he reminded her. Maybe he’d given her too much to do, because she obviously thought she was. Unfortunately, so did most of the men she’d hired to help them. They answered more to her than they did to him. And that just wasn’t going to do. Maybe he should have left her tied up.
Then again, it might not be a bad thing if she were the one to pull the trigger. Then she would be the one going down for murder. He’d only be returned to jail for escaping and to serve out the last of his sentence for armed robbery. He could claim he had no idea she’d intended to take the wedding party hostage. But even if he faced new charges of kidnapping, the sentence wouldn’t be as long as for murder.
During the five years he’d already spent in prison, he had been smug, thinking that he’d gotten away with murder...until he’d seen that picture. Then the joke had been on him when he’d realized that the son of a bitch had survived.
But Derek had been careful not to betray any recognition when he’d looked at him. He didn’t want the bastard to know—until it was over—that Derek had gotten his revenge. Better he have no idea what the hell was really going on.
Unfortunately, with the way Andrea was acting, Derek wasn’t certain he was entirely aware of everything going on himself. He’d been attracted to the woman because she was smart. If not for her, he wouldn’t have pulled off the robberies he had all those years ago. She’d helped him then. And she’d helped him escape.
But he wasn’t sure she was helping him now.
She smiled at him, though it didn’t quite reach her cold eyes. She was manipulating him with that smile and with her body, which she rubbed against his. “Please, D, tell Ralph to get her. I want her up here.”
And neither of them could leave the chapel now in order to retrieve her. They had just taken everyone inside hostage. He hated sending Ralph downstairs. They needed all the guns they had because as he glanced around the chapel, he realized some guys were missing.
The rough-looking blond best man was gone, as was the gray-haired father of the bride. Where the hell were they?
He wouldn’t have expected either of them to leave without a fight. They didn’t look like the kind of guys who ran from danger but rather into it. They had to be planning something—something that was going to raise hell with their plan.
He shook his head. “This isn’t right...”
“Please get her, D,” Andrea implored him. Then she lowered her voice and reminded him in a whisper, “We need her—for the plan.”
He wasn’t sure if they’d be able to pull off the plan anymore. But he wasn’t willing to give it up yet. So he nodded at the guy dressed like a waiter. Ralph started down the aisle toward the back of the chapel.
“Thank you,” she said with a smile. She’d gotten what she wanted—or she soon would.
He released her wrist. And she swung the gun right back toward the substitute bride.
“You were there, too,” she said, “when that bitch attacked me.”
“Andrea!” He reached for her again. But this time he wasn’t sure he would be able to stop her.
Her voice shaking with fury, she yelled, “You’re going to die, too!”
* * *
Gage caught Megan again before she could slip past him and race down the hall to danger. She was struggling too hard for him to hold her tightly.
“Someone’s been shot!” she said. “We need to
go. Now. We need to help them.”
“We don’t know that anyone’s been shot,” he pointed out. “It could just be a trick.” A ruse to draw them out. He knew the tricks dangerous men played to get people to do or say what they wanted.
“Or someone could be hurt and needs our help,” she argued.
“Then we’ll help them,” he said. “But we can’t do that if we get ourselves killed first.”
Megan’s safety was his top priority. She was the one in the most danger, for some reason. But the reasons didn’t matter at the moment. All that mattered was keeping her safe. “You can’t go up there with me,” he said. “You need to—”
“I’m not leaving!” she said. “I can’t—not until I know...”
If she’d lost someone she loved.
But was her fear for her father or for her fiancé?
That didn’t matter, either. Sure, Gage had kissed her, but he would never make the mistake of trusting her with his heart again. He wasn’t sure if he should trust her at all. Maybe he needed to drag her out through that tunnel himself to make sure she escaped.
But that shot reverberated inside his head. What if it had been Nikki or Woodrow or Mrs. Payne who’d taken a bullet?
He couldn’t just leave them. He wasn’t even sure what awaited them in the courtyard. If there were more gunmen outside, he wouldn’t be able to get help.
No, he had no backup. Just like during those six months he’d spent in captivity, he could count on no one but himself. “I’ll go upstairs,” he said. “But I won’t be able to help anyone if I’m worried about you.”
Her face paled, and she drew in a shaky breath. “Of course.”
“So you’ll hide,” he told her. “You’ll hide so well that no one will be able to find you.”
She nodded as if he’d asked her a question. But there was no question about it. He wasn’t leaving her if he thought she would be in any danger.
“I’ll hide,” she promised. “Don’t worry about me.” Her brow furrowed slightly, as if she didn’t understand why he was worried.
Did she believe, even after his kiss, that he wanted to hurt her? Even when he’d been furious with her, he hadn’t wanted her hurt. He still wanted her...
