by Lisa Childs
Given the amount of the reward, getting out of the city wouldn’t be enough. “The state. Maybe even the country.”
Garek nodded his approval and added, “But be careful which country you choose. It could be more dangerous than staying here.”
Was there any place safe for them? Any place they could go where there wouldn’t be people willing to kill them for money?
He had to catch the person who had put out the hit so that everyone learned that they wouldn’t be able to collect any longer. Brenda was the key; she had done or said something that had put him and Sharon in danger.
But what?
Sharon knew her best, so she would be able to help him figure it out faster than if he tried on his own. But he would rather try on his own than continue to put her at risk like he had tonight. Marrying her hadn’t been the answer. It had only let the would-be assassins know where to find them.
But how had they heard about the wedding? Only family and closely trusted friends had been invited. Who had let the word out?
“We’ll figure out later where you’ll take her and Ethan—” And for their safety, only Logan would know....
“And Mom,” Cooper added. “She’s not about to let her first grandchild out of her sight.”
Parker was glad that his mother had the baby right now. If Ethan had been in that car, too...
He shuddered to think about what might have happened to the baby during the crash and after, with all those gunshots. It was a miracle that he and Sharon hadn’t been hurt worse.
Sharon...
He turned back to the ambulance. But it was driving away, lights flashing. What’s going on?
Had she been hurt worse than he’d thought?
Or was it worse than that?
That paramedic had acted strangely when Logan had told him who she was. He had obviously recognized her name. Had he heard about the hit? Was he going to try to collect?
Parker sprinted after the ambulance as it sped away. His legs burned as he ran, and thanks to the traffic and other first-response vehicles blocking the street, the ambulance slowed. He managed to catch up. He reached for the handle of the back door and his fingertips brushed over the metal seconds before the ambulance driver hit the gas and sped off again. Maybe the driver hadn’t seen him.
Or maybe he had....
He stopped, gasping for breath. Cooper and Logan caught up with him. “Damn you!” he cursed his younger brother. “You were supposed to stay with her.”
“Nikki’s with her,” Cooper defended himself.
That didn’t make him feel any better.
“We can’t trust anyone right now,” Parker reminded them.
“You can’t trust your own sister?” Cooper asked.
“He can’t trust the paramedic,” Logan said. “That’s why I wanted you to watch her and Nikki.” He cursed, too.
And Cooper added his own string of curses as he got angry with himself.
Garek Kozminski just shook his head as his brother, Milek, drove up next to them. That was where he must have been; he’d gone back to get a vehicle since they had all run from the church. “And people think our family is dysfunctional,” Garek told his brother.
“Milek!” Parker greeted the other Kozminski as he hurried around to the passenger’s side of the vehicle. “You need to take me to the hospital right now.”
“You’re hurt?” Milek asked, his gray eyes wide with concern.
Parker shrugged. He didn’t know and didn’t care. “No. I have to make sure that ambulance really takes my...wife to the hospital.”
“And if it doesn’t?” Milek asked.
Parker reached a hand out the open window. “Hand me a weapon,” he ordered his brothers.
Logan shook his head. “You can’t leave. The police want to take your statement.”
“Pretend to be me,” Parker said. It wouldn’t have been the first time they had taken each other’s places. It wouldn’t have been the first time someone had mistaken Logan for being him; that mistake had recently nearly cost Logan his life, though. Parker didn’t want to put him in danger again. “Forget that—just tell them I had to go to the hospital. They can take my statement there.”
Unless that wasn’t where the ambulance was taking Sharon and Nikki. If it wasn’t, then Parker would be too busy tracking down the paramedic to give anyone his statement. He couldn’t lose his bride now....
Chapter Fourteen
Fear had Sharon’s heart pounding fast and hard. She couldn’t move her arms. She couldn’t move her legs. She was trapped with no way to move, no way to escape. The walls were so close and the space so confining that she could barely breathe.
Hysteria rose with the fear, choking her as sobs threatened. But she couldn’t cry because she couldn’t lift her hands to wipe away her tears. And she couldn’t betray her weakness again.
She had to be strong.
“Not much longer,” a disembodied voice murmured reassuringly, “Mrs. Payne.”
She tensed at the unfamiliar name. But it was hers now; it was what she had signed on the marriage license next to Parker’s name. Sharon Wells Payne.
She was married now to a man everyone, most especially him, had always said would never marry. She was married to a notorious playboy. While she had dated over the years, it hadn’t been all that often and never seriously. What had she been thinking to agree to this marriage?
What if he wanted to consummate it?
“Mrs. Payne,” the voice said again, “please try to relax. We need you to hold still so we can get accurate images.”
She sucked in a breath, but it was shallow despite the oxygen being pumped into the MRI machine. And she held that breath until, finally, the machine released her, sliding her back out into the bright lights and warmth of the radiology room.
“Are you all right?” a woman asked.
But it wasn’t the voice she had heard through the speakers inside the machine; it was her new sister-in-law. She hadn’t left her side since joining her in the back of the ambulance. She even walked beside Sharon now as a medical tech pushed her, on the stretcher, back to a curtained-off area in the Emergency Unit.
“That must have been so hard for you,” Nikki commiserated, “being in that small space.”
Sharon swallowed to clear her throat; she was more choked up over the woman’s sincere sympathy than her own fear. “I’m fine.”
“The MRI will tell us that,” Nikki said. “That’s why the doctor insisted on it.”
“That was because the paramedic overreacted,” Sharon said. He hadn’t needed to rush off to the hospital with the sirens blaring and lights flashing.
“He’s not the only one,” a man remarked, as he walked around the curtain with Parker. It was one of the two blond men. They looked as alike as Parker and his twin, but she didn’t think it was the one who had broken into the condo. This man didn’t exude the cockiness the other one had. “Your husband has been tearing apart this hospital looking for you. And that was after he tore apart the paramedic.”
“You did what?” Sharon asked. But Parker only stared at her as if he had never seen her before or as if he had thought he might never see her again.
Nikki smacked her brother’s arm. “You didn’t hurt that cute paramedic, did you?”
“I—I...” He paused and cleared his throat as if he’d been choking on emotion. “I thought he might have been trying to collect the reward.”
“You thought he was going to kill me?” Now she understood his stunned look.
Parker nodded. “He got rid of Cooper and then took off with you and Nikki. He didn’t even stop when I was chasing the ambulance.”
His sister laughed. “You hate ambulance chasers, and now you’ve become one.”
Parker hated l
awyers? Sharon felt a twinge of regret before she reminded herself that she was not a lawyer yet. If she didn’t pass the bar, she would never be a lawyer. But at the moment, the bar was the least of her concerns.
“He tried,” the Kozminski brother answered for him. “But the police were chasing him. They caught us before we could leave the crime scene.”
She had been at the hospital awhile—long enough for a doctor to examine her and long enough that she’d gotten on the schedule for the MRI.
“Did they arrest you?” she asked.
He shook his head.
“They want your statement, too,” the other man replied. He extended his hand to her. “I don’t believe we’ve officially met yet. I’m Milek Kozminski. I am the nice Kozminski—unlike my brother, Garek.”
She shook his hand. “It’s nice to meet you. And it was nice to meet your brother, too.” She had appreciated his brother’s warning, not that anything could have prepared her for the ambush after her wedding.
The wedding...
She glanced around for the bag of her personal belongings. “Nikki, your mother’s dress—what happened to it?”
“It’s here,” Nikki assured her as she lifted the plastic bag from the end of the stretcher. “And it’s fine. Stop worrying about the dress.”
“But I know I bled on it, and I probably tore it, too. I tried not to—”
“She nearly got shot trying to save that damn dress,” Parker remarked.
She gasped at his callous disregard for his mother’s memories. “But it’s your mom’s dress. It’s part of her history with your father.”
A history that had been cut tragically short. They hadn’t even made it to their twenty-fifth anniversary. But they should have had a golden wedding anniversary—and a seventy-five-year celebration after that. Sharon knew not to wish for an anniversary for herself—not with Parker.
“Technically, it’s most likely my dress now,” Nikki said. “Since all the other Paynes are married, that leaves only me to wear this thing. And since I’m not getting married—ever—Mom will have plenty of time to fix it.”
“Never say never,” Milek advised as he patted Parker’s shoulder.
He had said never, and yet his hand had been steady when he had signed the marriage license.
“Thanks for the ride to the hospital,” Parker told the other man.
“Is that my cue to leave?” Milek asked. He had obviously realized Parker was dismissing him.
“I really do appreciate all you and Garek are doing for us,” Parker said. “Can you check in with him and see what he’s found out from your friend Amber—”
“Amber is not my friend,” Milek interrupted him, his mild-mannered personality chilling to ice. Whoever Amber was, she was definitely not his friend.
Parker sighed. “I’m sorry. Your ex—the assistant district attorney. Garek is going to ask her about those men.”
“Did any of them survive?” Sharon asked. Now that they were no longer shooting at her, she didn’t wish them dead.
But Parker shook his head.
Was he upset that he had killed? Had he ever done it before? He had been a police officer and a bodyguard, so he probably had.
“Dead men can’t talk,” Nikki remarked with a sigh of disappointment.
“Those kind of men don’t talk when they’re alive, either,” Milek said with another pat on Parker’s shoulder. He really was the nice Kozminski. “I’ll check in with Garek and see if he’s found out anything from—” he swallowed hard as if he struggled to even say her name “—Amber and I’ll let you know....”
“He has my new cell number,” Parker said.
The other man left with a nod.
“Are you going to get rid of me, too?” Nikki asked.
“Sharon is going to need a change of clothes,” Parker said. “She won’t want to wear that wedding gown again.”
She had nearly been killed in it, but she had also married a handsome groom in it. She had looked beautiful—for probably the first time in her life. The good memories would outweigh the bad.
“They’ll probably keep her overnight,” Nikki said. “The doctor’s worried about her MRI results.”
Sharon wasn’t worried. And moments later the doctor pulled aside the curtain to confirm that she was fine. She could leave. But where would she go?
Her honeymoon was already over....
* * *
PARKER CARRIED HER across the threshold. Finally. And he didn’t have to step over crime-scene tape. This place damn well better not become a crime scene, either. He had been beyond careful when he’d driven back toward the lakefront. He had changed vehicles twice and taken a circuitous route. The threshold over which he carried Sharon wasn’t to the penthouse condo but to a small cabin.
A honeymoon cabin.
But he didn’t anticipate a wedding night. His bride was so exhausted that he had unbuckled and carried her into the cabin without her waking up. The cabin was all open and therefore easy to secure. The only room inside it was the tiny bathroom; through the open door, he could see that it was empty—no killers hiding in the glass shower.
He turned back toward the living area. The big four-poster bed dominated the space. He carried her over to it and laid her onto the quilted comforter. But her arms remained locked around his neck.
“Don’t let me go,” she murmured sleepily.
“I’m right here,” he assured her.
But she tightened her grasp around his neck and pulled him down with her onto the bed. “I only feel safe when I’m in your arms.”
He could understand why she would say that, but she was wrong. She wasn’t safe with him—not with how much he wanted her, desire rushing through his veins. His heart pounded, and his skin heated. He needed her.
But he would only hurt her. So he gently tugged her arms loose and forced himself to step away from the bed, to step away from his bride.
She sat up, and her hair tumbled down around her shoulders. Those thick tresses tempted him to tangle his fingers up in that silk—to tip up her mouth for his hungry kisses.
His body tensed with need. But he ignored his needs and focused on her. “Go back to sleep. You must be exhausted.”
She touched her fingers to the bandage on her forehead. Nikki had told him that Sharon had needed ten stitches to close the wound that she’d been so upset had bled on his mother’s wedding gown.
She shook her head. “Not anymore. How long did I sleep?” She gazed around the cabin as if trying to figure out where he had brought her. Since she had slept most of the trip, she had no way of knowing.
“You didn’t sleep long enough,” he said. Because awake and tousled from her slumber, she was too damn sexy—even in the hospital-gift-shop T-shirt and pajama bottoms Nikki had bought her. She also looked too young and innocent for him.
He took another step away from the bed. But that damn cabin that he’d thought such a safe place to hide was too small for him to escape temptation. Her scent filled the space; she smelled like sunshine and rain. She was a paradox—like sexy innocence.
“Are you mad at me?” she asked, her voice shaking a bit as if she was afraid of him now.
He shook his head. “Absolutely not.” He couldn’t imagine being angry with her. “You’re the one who should be angry with me.”
“Why?” she asked with confusion.
“I promised I would protect you,” he said. He closed his eyes and saw again that SUV crash into her side of the car—saw all the glass explode around her as the car rolled over and over across the asphalt. “And I failed you....”
Soft hands touched his face, drawing him out of that nightmare. She stood before him now, on tiptoe, so that her beautiful face was nearly level with his. “You didn’t fail me,” she said. “You saved my
life.” She leaned forward and brushed her lips over his. “You saved my life....”
He had tried to resist her. He had tried to control his desire. But she had come to him. So he kissed her back. He kissed her with all the passion and desire burning in his heart for her.
She wrapped her arms around his neck and clung to him, her feet off the floor. So he walked with her backward—toward the bed. Then he laid her down, and when she pulled him down with her, he didn’t resist. He covered her body with his. And he never stopped kissing her.
She teased him with her tongue, sliding it over his lips. He sucked it into his mouth, and then he kissed her back that aggressively—driving his tongue inside her mouth.
She moaned and tugged at his shirt. He had lost his torn tuxedo jacket sometime ago. Now he pulled off his holster and dropped it and the gun next to the bed within reach. She was already working his buttons loose when he just pulled the pleated shirt over his head and dropped it onto the floor, too. Then he lifted her T-shirt and peeled it off.
Her hair tangled around her face and shoulders, and he smoothed the thick tresses with his hands. Beneath the plain T-shirt, she wore a strapless white lace bra through which he could see her nipples.
“You are so beautiful,” he said in awe.
She shook her head. “You don’t have to do that....”
“Do what?”
“Lie to me.”
His pride was hurt. “You think I’m lying to you?”
She nodded.
“I have never been anything but honest with you,” he insisted, “so when I tell you you’re beautiful, I mean it.”
Color flushed her face. He couldn’t tell if she was pleased or embarrassed—until she kissed him again. She kept kissing him, even when he undid her bra and cupped her breasts in his hands.
Then she squirmed beneath him and moaned. She wanted him as badly as he wanted her. Her passion fueled his. He pulled away despite her clinging to him and unclasped and dropped his pants. Then he tugged off her pajama bottoms. A lace garter encircled one of her slim thighs. He’d been supposed to take that off earlier, so he did now. With his teeth. And he made sure his mouth skimmed over her silky skin as he pulled it down her leg.
